Darkest Mercy (Wicked Lovely 5)

Gabriel gave a terse nod.

“Is he injured?”

At that, Gabriel paused. “Niall is not fatally injured.”

But someone is, Donia finished silently. “Is Ir—”

“Can’t,” he interrupted.

And the Winter Queen felt a burst of panic threaten her calm. She nodded and suggested, “Perhaps I should seek out your king to tell him I will stand with him against Bananach.”

The Hound cleared his throat and asked, “Soon?”

“At first light,” she promised.

Gabriel bowed, and Donia walked toward the door to the house. Behind her, she heard snarls and growls, but she resisted looking back until she reached the doorstep. Donia glanced past the Hawthorn Girls and said, “I am sorry for your loss. If a tussle would soothe you, my fey seem amenable to it.”

The Hound’s expression flickered from sorrow, to rage, to confusion, and then finally to hope. “Can’t bargain anything on my king’s behalf, but—”

“Gabriel?” Donia interrupted. “The Hunt is not only the concern of the Dark Court. You align yourself with his court, but it has not always been so. I would have you and yours not in sorrow.”

The massive Hound flashed her a grateful smile. Then he looked back at Lia, and the glaistig launched herself at him.

The Winter Queen lifted a hand to her fey and exhaled, setting a blizzard shrieking through the garden, darkening the sky, and sending hailstones to clatter all around the grinning faeries.

Then she closed the door against the screams and howls that rent the air.

Chapter 13

Evening had fallen as Keenan stood at the same door where he’d once been afraid to knock, where the last Winter Queen had lived. Beira was dead, by his hand, but the lingering fear of icicles ripping into his skin was well earned. For years, she’d shredded his skin—and his dignity.

The impotent Summer King.

Times had changed.

Because of Aislinn.

Now that he’d come back to Huntsdale, he should be with his queen, with his court, but he’d been gone long enough that a little longer wouldn’t matter. He wanted to be the king that the Summer Court deserved; he wanted to love his queen as she deserved; but the moment he’d returned to Huntsdale, he went to the Winter Queen. For decades, Donia had been his haven. She saw him for who he was, not what he was. Even when they stood in opposition time and again during his attempts to convince mortal girls to take the test, she was his first and last comfort.

Why couldn’t it have been her?

He’d pondered a lot the past several months, but he hadn’t arrived at many answers. Instead, he had to face the unpleasant possibility that he brought only pain to those in his life. His steadfast desire to strengthen his court had been necessary, but it had also led him to hurt those he cared for: the faeries he owed the most were also the ones he had failed the most.

And I don’t know how to change that.

“Are you going to knock or stand there?” Donia’s voice was as cold as he’d ever heard it, but the Winter Queen wasn’t much for warmth.

He turned away from the door to look at her. She stood in the snow-covered yard behind him. It took his breath away to see her. Her skin was icy perfection, and her eyes glittered with a crystalline sheen. Her long, pale blond hair was unbound, and her feet were bare on the snow. Touching that frozen surface would pain him. Merely being here made him ache. He shouldn’t be out this time of year, especially in her domain. She parted her hawthorn-berry-red lips, but didn’t speak. For a breath, he couldn’t speak either: his memories never did her justice.

Neither do I.

“Would the door open if I knocked?”

“Hard to say.” Donia flicked her wrist absently, and the snow swirled up to form a divan. Without looking, she sat and curled her legs up on the snowy sofa. She didn’t invite him to join her—which was wise. Despite efforts to keep himself in check, he’d melt the divan if he touched it.

He did take several steps toward her. “I’ve missed you.”