Our own.
But that didn't quite ring true to me. Despite my fae body, I still felt a sense of belonging in this human world.
“How many more, Gardien?” Fionn asked, as the most recent soul attached itself to our parade. She'd been beautiful in life, and a blue-blooded sidhe. How she died, she couldn't recall. Only that she'd been that way for a long time.
My eyelids drooped shut as I searched for more of those broken lights within me, and paused when I found something … different. Unlike my Wild Hunt, who glowed as bright as starlight, or the souls of dead fae, which were the shadowy memories of bulbs blown out, this was something else. I reached out to it to take a closer look, and a wave of pain and hatred crashed over me.
“That way,” I gasped, pointing in the physical direction of where this poison was radiating from. Without a doubt, this was what that voice had spoken of. A fae law breaker. Someone who deserved to be punished in the worst way.
“Stay with us, woman,” Arlo murmured, releasing one hand from his handlebars and gripping mine at his waist. “I feel you weaving back there. Hold on tighter.”
He was right. I was exhausted. Blindly following magic I didn't understand had me weak enough that I could pass out any second, but picking gravel out of my skin sounded anything but pleasant so I did as he said and gripped tighter.
“This the place?” Fionn asked, as our entourage pulled up outside a run-down shack in the middle of the swamp. From inside, the distinctive sound of a woman's screams cut through the early morning quiet and I nodded grimly.
“Who dat, dere? This 'ere be private property and y'all are trespassers!” a man demanded, flinging open the front screen door and stepping out onto the porch.
Arlo's broad back blocked my line of sight, so I slid from the back of his bike and approached the enraged man brandishing a shotgun. Once I got a good look at him, my stomach clenched and rolled, while bile threatened to rise in my throat.
His glamour was that of a normal human man, but with the magic riding my eyesight I could clearly see through it to the rotted, putrid creature beneath.
My gaze locked on his and in an instant, I saw his lifetime of crimes laid out before me.
Violence, abuse, theft, rape, and murder.
The fae lived very long lives and this vile creature had amassed an extensive laundry list of crimes to his name. Not the least of which included showing his faerie form to human women, in a bid to terrify them while he killed them slowly.
“Asgall Baltair.” My voice was low, thick and heavy with the Veil Keeper's magic. I was the Queen of the Wild Hunt, and this was our sacred duty. “You stand accused of crimes against both fae and humankind. You’ve broken our most sacred laws and threatened our future in this world. How do you plead?”
The revolting creature trembled before me, his fear palpable as he responded with a single word so tightly delivered it was barely audible.
“Guilty.” The strangled sound of his voice made it clear he would have lied, had he been able. But we were fae, and fae cannot lie. Truth rang in his damning admission, and sickness pooled in my belly.
“Guilty.” That ancient voice spoke through me, both repeating and confirming his plea. The man's glamoured face paled to an ashen grey, “The punishment for your crimes is death.”
The man began to babble, and Reece stepped forward to kneel at my feet. “Déesse, I humbly ask the honor.”
“In humility and grace,” I said as Reece rose to his feet, sliding a sword from his hip that I hadn't noticed until now. The blade was black as night, the hilt as red as blood. It sang when he pulled it free of its scabbard, like a demon rising from the depths of hell. I would not want to be on the receiving end of that blade. “I grant your request.”
Reece stepped forward and spun his blade in a circle, missing the glamoured fae by several inches. But he hadn't intended to hit him with that swing; he was showing off. After all, what chance did this one man have against the Wild Hunt?
The answer?
None.
My heart thundered in my chest as I stood there and watched the large Cajun man drop his glamour, gold skin glimmering, those dark lines tattooed on his skin shimmering like they were metallic. He didn't have wings, but unlike myself, I didn't imagine he ever had.
Our man, the dark and damned, a shadow within a shadow … he turned and ran toward the swamp, but he didn't go far. About three paces away from the water, he spun back and fired off a random shot.
I felt it hit me right in the gut, a smattering of buckshot that took my breath away.
Pain bloomed wretched and furious, taking over everything, murdering my self-control.
A scream ripped from my throat just seconds before Reece's sword severed the fae man's head, killing his glamour, revealing his true form underneath. I didn't know what he was, didn't care. In that moment, I knew I wanted and needed only one thing.
To feast.
The rest of the hunt stayed very still around me, watching, waiting. Nobody moved forward to comfort me or treat my wounds; nobody seemed concerned.
Me … I was broken in two halves, each one at war with the other. This is my life, all this pain. This is the only thing I've ever known. The second half of my consciousness whispered gently to the first, pressing soothing lips to my fear, quieting my anxiety.
I was a goddess and goddesses, they did not die.
Blood oozed down my stomach, coated my thighs. It was thick and viscous and red, so bright against the brown earth beneath my bare heels.
“Veil Keeper,” Reece said, dragging the corpse to rest at my feet. Just beyond it, connected with a similar silver thread—much like the one that called the Wild Hunt to me—was the angry, wild spirit of the dead man.
He raged at me, screamed obscenities in a language that I both knew and had never heard before in my life. Didn't matter. He had crimes that required remuneration.
Holding my hands out, I reached for his tattered, rotted form, ugly even in spirit.
As soon as my fingers touched his incorporeal form, the energy that was once him started to seep into me, a violent, awful exchange that sent the herons scattering into the skies, the gators diving beneath the water, even the rats scurrying from the clearing.
I was literally stealing the creature's spirit, sucking away the essence of his soul. Of course, a soul could never be completely annihilated, but I would drain him so dry that his eventual rebirth would be messy and painful, jagged and white-hot.