The Wild (Book Four The Hayle Coven Novels) Read online

  I find her with him, smiling and flirting and for a moment I am heart shattered. Until he looks up and sees me, rises and comes to me as if she does not exist. And in that moment, he is mine and I am his.

  On the day of our betrothal, Cydia congratulates me and kisses me.

  “Well met, dear sister.” She hands me a bouquet of flowers, the stems held by a lovely carved handle. A beautiful gift. “Blessings for your union.”

  As I walk down the path toward my love, all the court is gathered. Their joy at our union is as powerful as mine. My parents smile at me, the elements smile at me.

  Until I hear her scream my name. And turn. And see her stagger toward me with her hands covered in blood.

  “You see what she’s done?” Cydia holds up her hands, shows the court the crimson stain. “She attacked me with cursed magic, used blood power against me, all because of jealousy.”

  She grabs for me, pulls the bouquet away. The clever wooden handle slides free exposing a bloody knife. Her blood.

  Her finger points at me as the sky darkens and the court stares, their happiness turned to horror. “Death.”

  ***

  I shuddered and tried to pull away from the end of the dream, knowing what was coming, but unable to stop it. Pain writhed in the grip of Mom’s magic as we both sank deeper into the end.

  ***

  The sky opens above me as my love proclaims his outrage and hate. “Death.”

  The lightning comes and I rise, see the horror in his eyes as he understands the truth, the lies my sister told, the price we have paid. He turns to her in a rage and with one blow strikes her down.

  Howling in his anguish, he falls to his knees.

  “SHAYLEE!”

  ***

  I jerked myself out of Mom’s grip and doubled over, losing everything I had in my stomach as my whole body heaved in denial. Panting, I looked up at Pain and saw the guilt in her face still at war with the Sidhe spirit inside her.

  The moment I tried to reach for her, the power in my head slammed itself shut again. But I had access to a new source, one I didn’t know I had before tonight. I called on the Sidhe magic in my heart and it answered me.

  For an aching moment I embraced it, let it fill me up and used it to reach out to Pain. But before I could reach her I knew it would never work. The coiling energy inside my head would not be denied. It slammed itself against the soft Sidhe power and drove it back deep within, locking it away as it muffled me once more.

  One orphaned thread of mine, broken and alone, drifted across the distance, reaching Pain just as my mind went dark again. Her head snapped up and her eyes focused on me. But instead of freeing her from Cydia’s influence it drove her further into the influence than before.

  She raised her hand and pointed at me. “Death.”

  And then she lunged for me.

  ***

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Quaid surged forward before Pain could reach me, arms locking around her and holding her tight. She screamed and snarled her rage, thrashing against him as he grunted with the effort to control her.

  I spun back to my demon, even more desperate than before. “You have to come back,” I said. “We need to fix this.”

  Her flat amber eyes smoldered with quiet rage. “One more reason for me to stay put,” she said. “Take your damned Sidhe magic and leave me alone.”

  No, it wasn’t like that! But she was already turning away. And I had nothing to say.

  Lucky for me someone else did.

  “Why is this magic protecting you from yourself?” Sassy’s amber eyes met mine. As soon as he spoke up, my demon paused. “We know for some reason it’s repelling your demon. Could it also be the source of your discomfort with magic?”

  Of course. But why? And where had it come from?

  “Only one way to find out.” My demon surged forward and grabbed my hand. She linked with my mind in that instant and dragged me into battle.

  We struggled against the web as it fought us off, lost in the fight. Time stood still, the world went away in the long and aching moments we tore at the protective spell keeping me latent.

  I felt my demon slipping free and tightened my grip on her, felt her fear rise as the thick and horrid stuff making up the net tried to drown her. I gathered the green magic and fought back, driving a wedge between her and the magic wanting to consume her, pulling her free and surrounding her with my energy. She held tight and opened herself wider.

  Our own storm swirled around us, buffeting us from side to side, trying to keep us from the center of the net, from the truth. Together we dove straight for it though I could feel her fear matched my own.

  We broke through into darkness and memory.

  A beautiful woman bends over a cradle. She looks familiar. Like Mom, only older, with silver hair. She reaches out, touches the cheek of the infant lying there, whispers, “Keep it safe for me.” Blue and green power trace a thread through the child’s skin, warring with amber and red until the baby bursts into tears. The woman staggers and sighs. “Forgive me.”

  The memory shattered outward as the protective net collapsed. We didn’t need it anymore. We finally understood.

  I opened my eyes in the back yard with my family fighting to protect us all around me. My demon nodded and let me go do what I had to.

  I turned and approached the huddled old lady with the pale blue eyes and wispy white hair who looked up at me with innocent hope on her wrinkled face.

  “Do you have something for me?” How many times had I heard that question? One I finally had an answer to.

  I smiled and cried as I touched her cheek.

  “Yes, Gram,” I said. “I do.”

  ***

  Chapter Thirty Five

  My grandmother’s face lit up, a happy giggle escaping her. “I knew you did,” she whispered, gripping my face between her hands. “I knew.”

  Still holding the crystal, I gently pushed toward the glowing core of power sitting so deep inside my mind I never knew it was there. It pulsed like a heartbeat, foreign to me, but yet so familiar after spending my entire life with it protecting me. It shaped me, guided me, but most importantly had done everything it could to keep me safe so I could one day do this.

  My demon’s hand found mine as I opened my mind and let my grandmother in.

  She sighed deeply, blue eyes full of gratitude and rimmed with tears as the core of magic recognized her and reached for her. I felt her explore inside my head, drawing it out, pulling the magic back where it belonged.

  There was a surge of power as my body flooded with Sidhe magic before I jerked back, the last line between me and the ball of protective power snapping.

  Gram glowed like a small star, tinted green and blue. Her whole body seemed to fill out and expand as she rose from her crouch and stood at her full height. I never knew she was taller than me or Mom, or that she was so very beautiful.

  Still glowing, she took hold of my face in her hands and kissed me softly before hugging me very hard. “Thank you.”

  I hugged her back, still clinging to my demon’s hand. “I just wish I’d figured it out years ago.”

  She laughed, a rich, warm sound reminding me of Mom. “Better late than never.”

  “Mother?” Mom’s eyes were huge, mouth hanging open, tears on her cheeks.

  Gram reached for Mom’s hand and squeezed it. “I have a lot of explaining to do.” She looked up at the wards and frowned as if seeing them for the first time. “And very little time to do so.” Green magic flowed out of her in a surge, flooding the yard with its light as it bonded to the wards. Her eyes dropped to mine, a new urgency on her face.

  “You must listen,” she said. “When the Puritys came to attack, I knew I would lose, but in doing so could save the family.”

  That choked me up even more. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to sacrifice myself for the coven.

  “My only chance to recover was to hide the part of me holding my true power.” She gl
anced at my demon with real regret. “And the only one of the family who had inherited my Sidhe blood was just a baby.”

  Mom gasped. “What are you talking about?”

  Gram shook her head. “I’ll deal with you later,” she said. “Syd, you now know you were that baby. But in giving you the core of my Sidhe power, by activating yours, I severed your connection to your demon.” She sighed softly, but despite her obvious distress there was a hardness to her that told me she still thought she did the right thing. “I intended to return to reclaim that power when the battle was over. But as you also know, the fight left me unable to remember and in a struggle with sanity.”

  “That’s why you kept asking me,” I said.

  She nodded. “I knew you had it but had no idea what ‘it’ was.”

  “Why didn’t it make me stronger?”

  “I wanted it back,” she smiled at me, “and wanted to be sure you’d willingly give it up. So I implanted a suggestion with it that if you tried to accept it fully, you would only want the reverse.”

  “That’s why I’ve resisted my magic.” It made total sense. “And why it felt so horrible when I did use my power.”

  She nodded. “What I didn’t count on was the way you and your demon interacted. Because there was a third power inside you, not just witch magic, but your own Sidhe and also demon, the part of me I wanted to protect fled deep into your mind where it took my orders literally. Protect the family, protect you, but keep you from integrating it so I could get it back. Your demon meanwhile was fighting not only your natural magic, but mine as well.”

  It made total sense. I flexed my mind and felt the family magic inside me for the first time really ever. It was lovely and blue and wrapped itself around me like an embrace. Threaded through it, under it and supporting me was the warmth and incredible power of the Sidhe.

  I turned to my demon. “Can we be one now?” Was it too late? Already the magic inside me was solidifying its hold, the two power sources reforming bonds broken by my grandmother’s magic.

  I felt my demon’s power inside me as she touched my mind. And my magic opened up to welcome her home.

  She smiled at me. A real smile. “Don’t forget me.” And opened her arms as she dissolved in a rush of amber light and slid inside me, settling perfectly like she was meant to be there.

  Because she was. And I was whole.

  ***

  Chapter Thirty Six

  I could feel the wards shake around me, crumbling as the family moaned with the effort to keep them active. The Sidhe magic hummed against me, bouncing sounds and emotions from the coven and back to me.

  I ignored it all, even when I heard Mom call my name, even while someone gripped my hand so hard I knew I’d be bruised.

  None of it mattered. Nothing beyond the power inside me had any meaning whatsoever.

  My demon feared being lost, forgotten. She couldn’t have been farther from the truth. She was as much me as I was now, perfectly blended inside me, so much I wept from the simplistic beauty of it. My power wasn’t just from her magic, but came from the strength of who she was, linked with who I had become. Together we were unstoppable.

  I finally lifted my head, unable to keep the smile of joy from my face even as the wind slammed into the wards one last time, sending them, and most of the coven, crashing to the earth. I stepped forward, looking up at the looming clouds descending toward us. I could see movement inside the blackness falling on us, felt the shudder of the impact as the clouds encountered the last resistance. Whoever held my hand let go with a sigh. I glanced to my right, saw Gram falling slowly to her knees.

  This wasn’t the way it should go. I knew that now. I reached out with my energy and opened the last shield of magic and let the Wild in.

  “Syd, what are you doing?” Mom grabbed for me, but I just smiled at her, sent her a thread of trust. This was my job to do and she couldn’t help me. I didn’t want her to. And while all of the pieces hadn’t yet connected in my mind, I knew the part of me that Gram’s power kept asleep, the Sidhe part of me, was waking fully with the arrival of the riders and integrating with me just as my demon had.

  It was hard not to laugh from the sheer power of it. This was how it was supposed to be. A steady and profound calm settled around me, drawing me in, holding me close.

  I would have time to ponder what I’d become later. Right now, I had the Wild Hunt to defeat.

  A mind touched mine, tentative and soft, but I knew it. I met Quaid’s eyes as thunder broke over the house and the winds buffeted us. Pain still struggled in his arms, but now her face was full of fear as she watched the storm draw near. I reached for him, but he flinched from me as though afraid of what I had become. I didn’t have time to try again.

  The Wild Hunt was here.

  Everything fell still as the swirling cloud of power settled on the grass in my back yard, the eye of the storm muffling the whistling roar of the growing magic circling Wilding Springs.

  “Your destiny,” Gram whispered to me. “Human, demon, Sidhe. Not stolen like your mother’s power. Born to it. Only you can save us.”

  I knew it was true. Embraced it. My mind was so clear I could see and feel everything, knew everything. I heard crying, whispers of comfort as the coven struggled to support and protect each other, but I couldn’t be distracted by them. Not when he emerged to greet me.

  Clouds billowed around him, a giant black horse beneath him, its glowing red eyes full of fire. The mist thinned, showing the ranks of his riders, transparent yet as they waited to emerge into the world to wreak their destruction on it. Their destiny, the last ride, to destroy all that had been created, to lay waste so new life could begin.

  Giant black dogs, their coats shaggy and thick, growled and snarled beneath his horse’s belly, insubstantial too, all but one. I raised one hand to Galleytrot, saw his eyes widen, felt his power touch mine and, humbled, watched him dip his head to me.

  Where was my fear? I didn’t need it anymore. I felt the girl I’d been in a previous life, the Sidhe maiden I’d dreamed about, joining me, fearless as she faced the man she loved. Even clothed in his smoking black armor, his face twisted with hate and sorrow, she knew him still.

  “Gwynn ap Nudd, lord of the Underworld.” Mom bowed her head to him. “Welcome.”

  He struck without warning, lashing at her with his power, ferocious and boundless as nature itself. I felt Mom’s shield’s surge around the family, repel him.

  He snarled at her, struck again. I raised one arm, ready to add my power to hers when Gram grabbed me.

  “Not yet,” she hissed.

  Gwynn struck Mom again, and again her power held. But I could feel the cracks in it, the shaking of her control and knew she would not survive much longer.

  The third time he lashed at her, he sent all the power of the storm with it, driving Mom to her knees, Dad with her. Even Gram collapsed next to me.

  Her blue eyes caught mine, held them, not full of fear as I expected, but a fierce and overwhelming pride.

  “Now is your time,” she whispered.

  I looked up as Gwynn approached my mother, drawing a sword of pure lightning. It popped and snapped its deadly power over her as he raised it to strike her dead. I put myself between them, using a thin skin of Sidhe green magic to protect me from the charge.

  He glared at me, flaming eyes full of rage, scarred face twisted to a mask of hate. Those scars he’d inflicted himself, out of grief and despair, after he’d killed his one true love. But the Sidhe girl inside me remembered who he was, what he used to look like, feel like. And she put all of that love and memory into our eyes and showed it to him.

  The fire in his gaze dimmed as he stared. The Wild fell still, the storm suddenly quiet around us. Nature held her breath as Gwynn ap Nudd understood.

  His sword arm fell, the lightning sheathing it going dark. A dark hound howled in mourning as a single crystal tear filled Gwynn’s clear green eye and tracked down the scars on his flawed left cheek
.

  “Shaylee,” he whispered to her, to me. “My love.”

  We leaned forward, our hands clasping his beloved face, our lips pressing to his.

  “My lord,” we said. “Well met.”

  ***

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  “Betrayer!” We spun, saw Pain staring at us, her face filled with jealousy and madness. “My lord, have you forgotten what she has done?”

  Gwynn hesitated, a flicker of his rage returning. “Shaylee?”

  She left me for a moment, her grief so powerful she could barely act. I fumbled around inside my head for a way to keep him with me, anything that would stem the rising fury in his face, the return of the flames.

  “I remember,” he snarled at me, the lightning flickering back to life. “Your treachery, your blood curse. I remember.” He turned to Pain. “Cydia, my thanks.”

  Shaylee surged back, took control of me. “No, my lord.” Our voice shook with so much passion I wanted to cry and hug him. “She lies now as she did so long ago. Don’t you remember?”

  Pain’s laughter was horrible to hear. “Don’t listen to her, great lord,” she hissed in his ear, jerking free of the exhausted Quaid to sidle up to Gwynn, her hate jabbing at me like a weapon. “She told me herself how she could never love one such as you, that she was only marrying you for position. And when I protested, told her how wonderful you were and she did not deserve you, she attacked me with blood magic. She planned to strip your power and have our father banish you to the Unseelie Court, to banish you to the Underworld forever while she married someone better.”