Mistrals Kiss   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

I asked him, “Why help me?”

In his deep voice, like gravel, he said, “I swore a personal oath to protect you. I will not be forsworn.” He leaned over me, so that a drop of that magical blood fell upon my face. He whispered, “The Goddess and God still speak to me.”

I whispered back, “You heard my prayer.”

He gave a small nod. I touched his face, and my hand came away covered in blood, warm blood. I cuddled closer into the warmth of him. He raised his eyes again, and ran faster.



CHAPTER 20

THE SKY BOILED WITH STORM CLOUDS OVER THE SMALL WOODS that bordered the parking lot. The wild hunt wasn’t a tentacled nightmare anymore. It looked like a storm, if storms could hover against the tops of trees and drape like black silk dripping between the trunks.

Lightning flashed from the ground into the clouds — Mistral was still alive and fighting back. Who else? Green flame flickered through the trees, and something hard and tight in my chest eased — that flame was Doyle’s hand of power. He was alive as well. In that moment nothing else really mattered to me. Not crown, not kingdom, not faerie itself; nothing mattered except that Doyle was alive and not so hurt he could not fight.

Ash and Holly put on a burst of speed so that they were ahead of Jonty and me as we neared the open area closest the trees. There wasn’t enough cover to hide anything in the open field, until from thin shadows, goblins appeared. They didn’t materialize, but emerged like a sniper hidden in his gillie suit in the field — except that the only camouflage the goblins had was their own skin and clothes.

Ash had called Kurag, Goblin King, as we ran to this place. To do so, he had bared his sword and put a hand on my shoulder to come away with blood to smear upon the blade. Blood and blade: old magic that worked long before cell phones were a dream in a human’s mind. Personally I wouldn’t have wanted to run on the icy road with a bared blade. But Ash wasn’t human, and he made it all look easy.

Ash and his brother ran ahead of Jonty — whoever got to the rendezvous first would lead the goblins without argument. But I didn’t care — as long as we saved my men, I didn’t care who led. I would have followed anyone in that moment to save them.

One of the brothers fell to talking with the waiting force. It wasn’t until the other brother got close enough for his eyes to flash crimson that I knew it was Holly come back to Jonty and me. Holly was struggling to breathe normally.