Dark Hunter's Touch: (A Paranormal Fantasy Romance of Magic and Mood, Wishes and Words, Dreams and Desire) (Court of the Steel-Born Fae Book 1) by Elsa Jade

Author:Elsa Jade [Jade, Elsa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Paranormal Fantasy Romance
Publisher: Red Circle Ink
Published: 2022-02-09T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Vaile hadn’t caught even the briefest glimpse of Olette in…forever. In the sunlit world, only a couple of weeks had passed. But in the faedrealii court, the separation stretched like an eternity. That one night of fierce sensation had obviously skewed his perceptions.

The Lord Hunter—one of the hunters who had been away when the old lord had come Undone—had kept him busy since his return. His brethren’s eyes were on him, watchful and wondering why he had taken a full cycle of the moon to find one missing sylfana. Since he couldn’t admit he had found her on the very first day and then proceeded to run after her every day thereafter, on foot, without actually catching her, he bit his tongue and took the hounds’ dung tasks the Lord Hunter slung at him. He had to be the unflinching hunter; if they thought he was losing his edge, they would turn on him quicker than the hounds. And then they would turn their vicious attention to Olette.

But a dozen more fae repatriations—most of them straightforward, though three had been lethal—couldn’t keep his mind off one sweet sylfana. In fact, the captures had only made him think harder.

Just as his brethren were watching him, he was listening to them. The hunters were being called on more and more often to find wandering fae. The mood of the faedrealii, always mercurial and secretive, was changing, and the power of the queen’s illusions—though holding for the moment—seemed to be thinning. He might not have even noticed the pattern except that Olette had forced him to open his eyes. What if the faedrealii deserters had wanted only what she wanted—a chance to feel, to live?

Ever since the old Lord Hunter had tried to unwing him as a whelp, he had believed in the queen’s edict against the Undoing. More than believe in it, he had fought and killed to defend it.

What if he had been wrong?

Certainly the three delinquent fae he had confronted had been abroad with nefarious purposes. The crazed kobalt had been hacking down a ring of birch trees that marked the queen’s permanent private gate into the sunlit world. When Vaile had tried to talk to him, the kobalt had cackled, “We must close the circles before we all run out.”

Then he turned the ax on himself. Not a pleasant end, and frustrating too since it left many questions in Vaile’s uneasy mind.

The very next night, he had found two missing undines at a human watering hole where they had been killing men in their cups—literally. They were crouched over an unconscious man, pouring the frothy contents of a beer can right up his nostrils.

“He was already drowning his sorrows,” one of the willowy sprites told Vaile.

“We are granting their wishes when we drown them quicker,” said the other.

The undines reminded him of Olette. They were too skinny and sinuous for his taste, lacking the sylfana’s sleek flight muscles, but something about their winsome sideways smiles weakened him. So he followed them to their stream to see why they had left.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.