“I have no idea what you're talking about.” I squinted at him. “But I'm sure I'll be fine in bare feet. It's a warm night. What are we riding, anyway?”
Killian's lush lips pulled into a broad smile. “Seriously? Mon cher, the Veil Keeper has been gone for over one hundred and eighty years. Our fae mounts needed to evolve and adapt with the human world, manifest in a way that would be more readily accepted by the human eye. Eight foot tall horned stallions in fae armor probably wouldn't go unnoticed in the bayou.”
“Oh.” I nodded, as though I understood what he was talking about. Some part of me did understand, but chasing those memories was like trying to nail jelly to a wall.
“Get changed, cher, then meet us out the front. We must hurry. Once the magic has been summoned, we must obey it.” His ice-blue eyes were tight with tension and I could clearly see how taut his shoulders were set.
Nodding my understanding, I closed the door behind him and quickly changed into the clothes he had found for me in Caley's drawers. He'd been correct when he said the healing would help to fill out my frame, as Caley's jeans would've now fit me like a glove, if not for the length. It was nothing a couple of rolls couldn't fix though. The halter top was black, and left my back mercifully exposed.
Despite the glamour concealing the scars, I could feel them every time my t-shirt rubbed over the puckered flesh.
Letting myself out of Caley's room, I started down the hallway. A door slammed open just in front of me and I barely stopped myself from crashing headfirst into Arlo who glared at me with furious eyes.
His brown hair was tousled from sleep, and he still had his shirt and leather jacket draped over one shoulder while he buckled the heavy belt around his hips.
“You sure don't waste time, Veil Keeper,” he sneered, then turned and led the way outside while dressing himself. “You couldn't have waited until morning to summon The Wild Hunt? I barely got an hour's sleep, thanks to you.”
“I'm sorry,” I muttered, but not totally feeling like I should be apologizing to him. “I didn't do it intentionally. It just … happened.”
Arlo gave a derisive snort as he threw his leather jacket on and kicked the front door open. “Sure. Just happened. The Goddess of the Veil lets her magic control her now. This bodes well for tonight's hunt.”
My temper flared at his scornful words but I bit my tongue. If nothing else, it still ached to talk so it wasn't worth the strain to fight back.
“There she be!” Reece announced, as I followed Arlo out into the cool night where several men were gathered, all wearing leather jackets and vests sporting the same patch on the back. The skull over butterfly wings suddenly made more sense.
My step faltered as my feet reached the gravel of the driveway and I realized what Killian had meant about their mounts having adapted. An array of leather and gleaming chrome made up the orderly line of motorcycles waiting for their riders, just as fae mounts once would have waited.
“Ah, I see the way you lookin' at our noble steeds, bébé,” Reece smirked as I approached the group of dangerous looking leather clad men. My eyes remained glued to the bikes, like I was waiting to see them change form. Maybe I was? I couldn't remember.
“Don' you worry, Ciarah girl, Old Reece would be mad not t'let you ride his hog … again.” The sexy fae in shades of autumn winked at me and my breath caught. What had possessed me back in the kitchen? I barely knew myself, let alone these men, and yet there I was on my knees with his cock down my throat.
“She's not riding with you, Reece,” Arlo snapped in his dickish tone of voice. “Last thing we need is for you to fuck up the Wild Hunt by copping a feel and sending the magic screwy.”
Reece's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to reply, but Killian smacked him in the gut with the back of his hand.
“He's right, cher,” Killian murmured to Reece in his deep, husky voice. “We can't risk this Hunt going sour. It will be a hard one already, with how many souls must have gone uncollected since we became piégé.”
“She can ride with me,” Arlo announced, and my eyebrows shot up.
“No thanks.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Surely I can ride alone?”
Arlo snorted a laugh and shook his head. “Yeah sure. Get on the damn bike, woman.”
Folding my arms under my breasts, I prepared to stand my ground against this chauvinistic asshole but a nauseating wave of urgency washed through me.
“The Wild Hunt must ride. Punishments must be dealt to those who flout the faerie law.” The words spilled from my lips in that powerful voice, rich with sex and magic, and I gasped.
Those silvery strands of silk connecting me to my Wild Hunt glowed brightly, and around me the leather clad men moved soundlessly to their bikes, kicking them alive with low rumbles and waiting with eyes that glowed like fireflies in the swamp.
Arlo didn't wait for me to protest any further. Instead, he simply picked me up and deposited me onto his bike like I was a goddamn sack of rice. Wordlessly, he swung his leg over, and before I could utter a word we were peeling out of the long gravel driveway.
Faced with the appealing options of jumping off a moving motorcycle or holding on to Arlo's waist, I grudgingly gripped the leather of his jacket and held my body stiff to try and maintain a distance between us.
“What the fuck was that?” I yelled in his ear over the loud rumble of twenty other bikes around us. How I knew it was twenty, I wasn't totally sure. But I sensed the two missing were Fionn and Donal.
“Like you don't know,” Arlo snapped back, clearly still of the opinion that I was somehow faking my amnesia. Wanker.
As we flew past sugarcane fields, the wind whipped through my hair and streamed out behind me like a flag, the two missing bikers joining our parade from a side street. They took up a position at the front of the group, just ahead of Reece, Killian and Arlo—and me, clinging to Arlo's jacket.
“Gardien.” Fionn nodded to me in a respectful sort of way, and his voice sounded inside my head, making it possible to hear him without yelling. “Ye summoned the ancient magic. Send us where you want us to go.”
His words triggered one of those elusive memory bubbles to burst and knowledge washed through me of what I needed to do. Twenty-three bright lights were connected to me through strands of magic, interwoven into my very flesh.
The Wild Hunt.
My Wild Hunt.
But beyond those twenty-three lights, there were just as many dead ones, waiting to be collected. One of my hands raised from Arlo's jacket and I pointed in the direction of the closest one.
“And so we ride,” Fionn responded, and these same four words were repeated in unison by twenty-two other voices within my mind.
For hours, my Wild Hunt travelled through the Louisiana countryside at my direction, collecting the souls of all the fae who had died on this side of the Veil. With each soul collected, my heart ached for the pain they were feeling. They were so lost, so alone, trapped in this world that was not their own.