Tithed to the Fae: Fae Mates - Book 1 Page 2

  It’s a wireless speaker, she realized. It’s streaming a recording from a phone.

  Which meant…someone else was up here with her.

  Hands shoved her back, hard. The speaker flew from her hand as she pitched forward. Somewhere at the bottom of the hill, Angus was barking, high-pitched and furious. Much closer, a man shouted something in a strange, harsh language, voice raising in triumph—

  And then she fell through the stone circle, and everything went away.

  Chapter 2

  Cuan spun, kicking out with his hind legs. He caught one green-furred fae hound a solid blow, sending it yelping through the air.

  But others darted in, snapping and snarling. Sharp teeth tore at his flank, seeking to snatch his burden from his back.

  Cuan reared high to keep his precious cargo out of reach of the fae hounds’ jaws. He lashed out with his front hooves, driving the giant dogs back.

  A flash of white made him shy—but it was only Motley. The lesser fae swooped around his head, cawing wildly. One of the fae hounds leaped to snap at him. Cuan only just managed to knock the dog aside so it only got a mouthful of feathers rather than raven.

  “I told you to get to safety, Motley!” Cuan’s magic allowed him to talk as easily in horse form as he could as a man. “Flee, and carry word to Lady Maeve!”

  Motley fluttered higher, out of danger. His own voice was a raven’s harsh caw, his beak limiting his ability to form words. “Beware! Beware! War, war, war band!”

  Cuan cocked an ear. Faintly, under the growls of the pack, he could hear the distant horns of the seelie hunters. The elven knights were hot on the trail of their hounds, seeking to reclaim their stolen prize.

  Two or three, Cuan could have handled. But not an entire war band, baying for his blood. They would show no mercy to an unseelie like himself. The divide between the two fae factions, seelie and unseelie, was too wide and deep to allow even the possibility of negotiation.

  He swore under his breath, and kicked another fae hound. This would be risky, but he had no choice.

  “Hold fast!” he called out to the young boy clinging to his back. “On your life, hold fast to me!”

  Cuan gathered himself and leaped clear over the fae hounds’ heads. He stretched himself into a gallop, unleashing his full speed—the speed of the phouka, who could race from sea to sea before the moon could cross the sky. It was the only legacy of his father that was a blessing rather than a curse.

  Cuan’s heart was in his mouth, because if the boy started to slip there would be nothing he could do to catch him—but the child clung to his mane like a burr. A brave one, this changeling child. Cuan could understand why the seelie had gone to such lengths to steal him away.

  All human children were precious, but one with a true heart was the greatest of prizes. Had Cuan not recovered the boy, no doubt in ten years’ time the changeling would have been wearing the golden armor of a Summer Knight, his lance bedecked with trophies made from unseelie hides and horns.

  Cuan’s breath came a little easier as they passed under the shadow of the mighty oak that marked the start of the Wildwood. Seelie knights trespassed across the boundary all the time, but to ride in broad moonlight into unseelie lands risked provoking the Winter King’s wrath. There was a difference between the time-honored custom of raiding and a declaration of open war.

  Nonetheless, Cuan didn’t slow to a trot until they were well into unseelie-held territory again. Motley, of course, had been left far behind, but Cuan trusted that the raven shifter would find them in due course, by his own strange means. He cast around, getting his bearings.

  “Lady Maeve’s territory lies close by,” he told the changeling child. “I will soon have you back where you belong.”

  The boy sat up on his back. His face was streaked with tears, though whether from distress or the windswept wild ride, Cuan couldn’t tell. “But you said you would take me home.”

  “I am.” Cuan kept trotting onward, following the winding path through the forest. “To the court of Lady Maeve.”

  The boy scrubbed a hand across his face, dashing away the tears. His head dropped, hiding his expression.

  “I thought you meant home home.” The boy’s voice was very quiet. “My real home.”

  A pang of guilt made Cuan’s skin twitch. But that was ludicrous. The human world was a filthy place, poisoned and rotten.

  Cuan had even heard dark whispers that there were places where human children went hungry while their lords feasted. Though Cuan suspected that had to be a mere bogie-tale, something to frighten lesser fae into staying within their own realm rather than venturing into the humans’ world. Surely not even mankind could be so cruel and callous.

  No, if there was guilt to be felt, it was over the fact that not every human child could be rescued from that wretched realm and raised in light and love. The boy was one of the fortunate few. He had even been relieved of the burden of remembering his previous life, so that he might know nothing but joy with his new family.

  But if the boy was recalling his old human home, it could only mean that the glamours placed on him were wearing off. The seelie fae must have been tampering with them, trying to remove Lady Maeve’s magics so they could bind him to their own court instead.

  Cuan’s own talents at magic were laughable compared to the power of a pure-blood high sidhe. He quickened his pace, hoping that the fraying glamours would last long enough for him to get the child back to the sidhean.

  “The Lady Maeve would be dismayed that you do not consider her court to be your home,” he said, attempting to soothe the boy with words since he couldn’t do so with magic. “If there is any comfort there that you lack, you have but to ask her, and she will provide. She is very fond of you, you know. She was most distressed by your abduction.”

  Distressed was putting it mildly. There were four lesser fae bodyguards who would bear the scars of Maeve’s displeasure for the rest of their long lives. Even so, they had all been lucky Maeve had been in such a good mood when she found out about her changeling’s disappearance.

  The boy sniffed, wiping his wrist across his nose. “But she kidnapped me first.”

  “She recognized how special you are, and brought you to a place where your talents could grow and thrive,” Cuan corrected. “You do like it here in the fae realm, do you not? Has the Lady Maeve not been kind to you?”

  “She’s pretty awesome,” the boy admitted. To Cuan’s relief, he felt some tension go out of the child. “She’s teaching me magic. I can make fire already. She says when I’m older, she’ll teach me to burn down whole forests.”

  That was rather an alarming prospect, even if they were seelie forests. Cuan did his best to keep his voice bright and encouraging. “There you are, then. You would not receive such an education back in the human world, would you?”

  “No. School here is much more fun.” The boy’s tone turned a little wistful. “It’s just sometimes…sometimes I almost remember…there was someone…”

  With a surge of relief, Cuan saw the dark shape of the sidhean looming on the horizon. The faerie hill rose through the treetops like an island in the sea of the forest.

  “Here we are, back at your home as I promised.” Cuan halted, dropping to his knees. “You must dismount now.”

  The boy eyed the distant bulk of the sidhean, silhouetted against the dense stars. “Why? It’s still a long way off.”

  “I cannot approach the court in this form.” Cuan wasn’t about to go into the details of how the high sidhe regarded those tainted with lesser blood. Doubtless the changeling would pick up that attitude on his own soon enough. “It would not be…seemly.”

  The boy made an aggrieved sound. “Faeries have weird rules.”

  The child slid off his back. Cuan shifted, straightening up on two feet once more. Thanks to his phouka magic, he was fully clothed and armored, all of his gear having come with him when he’d transformed.

  Out of long habit, he kept his face av
erted for a moment, re-weaving the minor glamour that concealed his true features. When he was certain the magic was in place, he straightened, turning back to the changeling.

  The boy’s eyes widened as he took in Cuan’s faemarks—shimmering blue lines that ran over his brow and upper arms. The intricate, natural patterns proclaimed Cuan’s high sidhe heritage.

  “Oh.” The boy swallowed hard, retreating a step. “I didn’t realize you were an elf.”

  Cuan grimaced at the impolite term for his people. “Never call a high sidhe that word, lad. Not unless you have grown tired of breathing.”

  The boy paled. He swept a clumsy bow. “I’m very sorry, sir. I was just, um, surprised. I’ve never met a high sidhe who could shapeshift.”

  “And you are unlikely to meet another.” Cuan tested his weight on his left leg, and winced. The bites there had been much less troublesome in horse form. “I am only half high sidhe. My father was a phouka, which is why I can change my shape.”

  The boy’s face lit up, which made a nice change from the derision that usually followed the revelation of Cuan’s parentage. “That’s wicked.”

  Cuan assumed that was meant as a compliment. “Thank you. Are you able to walk, or shall I bear you on my shoulders?”

  “I’m not a baby!”

  “My apologies. I have no experience with human children.” Or fae ones, for that matter. Even among the lesser fae, offspring were rare. “I have not the slightest idea whether you are two or twenty.”

  “I’m twelve,” the boy said, grinning. Then his smile faded. “Or…I was twelve. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Sometimes it feels like a long time, but when I look in the mirror, I haven’t changed one bit.”

  “The days pass at the same rate here as in the human realm. Or so I have heard scholars say. Now come. We still have a walk ahead of us.”

  The boy tagged along at his heels as he led the way toward the sidhean. The changeling truly could not have been in the fae realm for too long, for he had no skill whatsoever at moving through the woods. Cuan winced as the boy crashed along behind him like a blind ox, leaving no twig unsnapped or leaf unscuffed. Even with the wound in Cuan’s leg slowing his pace, he had to keep pausing to allow the changeling to catch up.

  The moon was sailing high in the sky by the time they reached the sidhean. As they approached the vast hill, Cuan whistled, cocking his head to listen for a response.

  A moment later, an answering call drifted down from the treetops, acknowledging his right to pass. He couldn’t see the sidhean guards, glamoured as they were to blend into the forest canopy, but he could scent the leather of their armor and the oiled wood of their bows.

  Must speak to the Captain of the Guard about that, he noted to himself as they passed through the silver gates and into the faerie mound. If his own animal senses could penetrate the guards’ glamour, so could those of a fae hound or unicorn. Perhaps that was how the seelie had snatched the changeling out from under the guards’ noses.

  The Lady Maeve was waiting for them in the long entrance hall, her red gown a bright spot of color amidst the pale, polished marble. Her guards must have alerted her to their approach.

  The high sidhe lady was as beautiful and elegant as always, but the slightest hint of a crease in her pale, perfect brow betrayed how worried she had been for her beloved changeling. The instant her ruby eyes fell on the child, she sprang forward with a relieved cry.

  “My dearest boy!” She covered the child’s face in kisses, despite his squirming protests. “Oh, my sweetmeat, my darling! Are you well? Are you unharmed?”

  Cuan noted, with a certain wry resignation, that Maeve did not spare him so much as a glance, even though he was clearly wounded. She would probably have something to say if he started to bleed all over her pristine white tiles, of course.

  Maeve was still patting her changeling, as though searching for the slightest bruise. “I swear by the Winter King himself, if those vile seelie dared to touch one hair of your head, I shall raise my war band and ride out at once!”

  “They…they were nice.” The boy sounded uncertain, as though struggling to grasp a fading dream. “They gave me honey cakes.”

  Maeve kissed his forehead again. Cuan could sense her glamour wrapping around the boy, scouring away his memories of the kidnapping. “I shall give you much more than mere honey cakes. You shall feast on candies spun from starlight, and meat salted with the distilled tears of your foes, and soulwine rich and sweet. Whatever you desire shall be yours.”

  “Can I have a puppy?” the boy asked hopefully.

  “At once,” Maeve promised. “Roasted or stewed?”

  Cuan cleared his throat. “I believe he meant as a pet, my lady.”

  “Can you not recognize when I am making a jest?” Maeve snapped, in a way that convinced Cuan she hadn’t been. She clapped her hands together. “Steward! Have my hounds any litters at present?”

  Maeve’s house steward—an elderly, wizened hobgoblin with a face like a gnarled knot of wood—stepped forward from the shadows where he’d been politely lurking. “One of the hellhounds has whelped five fine puppies, my lady.”

  “Take my dearest boy to them at once, that he may have his pick of the litter,” Maeve instructed. She turned back to her changeling, her expression softening with fondness. “You shall have the fiercest and strongest to guard your dreams and foretell doom unto your enemies.”

  Cuan was fairly certain that this was not precisely what the boy desired in a canine companion.

  “Come, young master,” the steward said, perhaps also reading the boy’s hesitation. “I shall help you pick a pup that will be a faithful and loyal friend.”

  The boy nodded, looking happier. He started to follow the elderly hob, then paused, looking back over his shoulder at Cuan. “Thank you for rescuing me. Can you come see me again?”

  Cuan sketched a bow. “I would be honored, but my duties mean that I am rarely at court.”

  “Nonsense, my dear beast.” Maeve slid her hand through his arm, her long crimson nails digging into his skin in a rather disconcerting way. She simpered up at him, eyes gleaming beneath her demurely lowered eyelashes. “It is you who find excuses to absent yourself. You know that my court is always delighted when you grace us with your presence. You are so very amusing, after all.”

  Cuan gritted his teeth, trying not to let the sting of the barb show in his expression. He knew all too well how ‘amusing’ the pure-blood high sidhe found him.

  The steward led the changeling child away. Cuan opened his mouth to take his own leave, but Maeve tightened her possessive grip on his arm, cutting him off.

  “Since my darling child requests your presence, you simply must stay.” Maeve turned, tugging him off balance. Maeve might look as slender as a reed, but like all high sidhe she had the strength of a full-grown water bull. “Perhaps I should have given you to him as his pet. You would look simply darling with a collar of roses and thorns. He could lead you about on a silken ribbon and have you leap through hoops for the entertainment of all.”

  “What a charming picture.” Cuan prayed to the Shining Ones that this time she was joking. “Yet I fear it would leave your eastern border undefended. The seelie raiders grow bolder with every moon. If you would excuse me, I must return to my duties protecting your land and loyal subjects.”

  Maeve patted his arm, much as she might pat the flank of her favorite steed. “Ah, my loyal beast. Always so serious. Yet I must insist that you put duty aside and join us in tonight’s revel. After all, I owe you a great boon for returning my dear child to me. And no true high sidhe would wish to miss this rare entertainment.”

  She strolled away, leaving Cuan with the choice of either coming with her or chopping off his sword arm. Since that would have been an awkward feat to achieve left-handed, he resigned himself to his role as unwilling escort.

  “And what entertainment would that be, my lady?” Cuan could only hope that it would be a hunt or tournament o
f arms rather than one of the more refined courtly past-times favored by the high sidhe.

  With my luck, he thought morosely, it will turn out to be poetry.

  Well, he had endured the mockery of the entire court before. And perhaps they had finally run out of unflattering rhymes for ‘beast.’

  Maeve’s crimson mouth curved in a hungry smile. “A tithe.”

  Cuan started, taken aback. “A tithe? From the human world?”

  “Who else would seek to bargain with us?” The swirling lines and dots of Maeve’s faemarks shimmered with a faint red light, betraying the genuine excitement underneath her elegant manner. “There are still some few humans who remember the old ways. Who know the correct way to appease us and beg our blessing.”

  Cuan had heard rumors of tithes made to other courts over the past years, but he had dismissed them as mere gossip. He had never thought to witness one at his own sidhean.

  “What blessing does this human seek from us?” he asked.

  Maeve waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “Oh, the usual. Riches, power, magic. That matters not. Of greater interest is what he gives us.”

  In the olden days, when the sidhe were still feared and respected by all sensible humans, every farm and hamlet would have paid an annual tithe to the nearest sidhean. Anything from a small token of appeasement—a bottle of mead, a dish of cream, a skein of wool—to more lavish sacrifices.

  Cuan had a sinking feeling that Maeve would not be this energized by a pouch of nutmegs or an unblemished white lamb.

  “This human has given us a child?” he said.

  “Better.” Maeve’s tongue ran over her lips. “A woman.”

  Cuan’s heart sank further. A human child was at least a treasure to be cooed over and cosseted. All children were blessings, and no fae—from the most refined seelie sidhe to the wildest water horse—would ever harm one.

  But an adult human, one not raised under the protection of a fae court…that was another matter.

  “And no mere wisp of a girl, either,” Mauve went on. “This one is plump and well-aged, rich with experience. Can you not already taste the intoxicating scent of her blood?”