Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely 4)

He waited.

“Fine… let’s talk.” She tensed, but other than that, her aggressive posture was unchanged.

“Come.” He turned and walked into the brightness of the street. He didn’t offer her his arm, didn’t wait to see if she followed.

He repressed all of those untidy things he felt, hid them away, and kept his expression stoic as he’d long since learned to do. It was foolishness, his urge to protect her, but he very much wanted a solution that didn’t involve Ani’s death.

Especially by my hand.

He walked through the streets, following the twists of the poorly laid-out city design until he reached the warehouse district. The few faeries who saw him would undoubtedly report his presence to Niall and Irial. Most faeries wouldn’t be foolish enough to carry the news to Gabriel, but would leave that to their king or former king. Hounds’ tempers were easily sparked and slowly quelled. Only a faery looking to be injured would deliver news of Devlin’s contact with Ani to Gabriel. As order keepers of opposing courts, Gabriel and Devlin didn’t mesh well.

Devlin paused at an intersection. Mortal cars raced by, and he marveled at the appeal of traveling in the tangled cages of metal. Much of the mortal world seemed unnatural.

Unlike Faerie.

He wondered, as he had for centuries, if he could adjust to living in the world of mortals. Bananach had. Many faeries had adjusted when the Dark King pulled them out of Faerie so long ago. Others sickened. Some died or went mad. Still others flourished. Devlin, for his part, felt too closed-in by the pace of it.

Too much information was always bombarding the senses: horns and engines, neon glows and blinding lights from signs, smoke and perfumes from mortals. It was jarring, and when it wasn’t, the peculiarity of visuals and weather left him off-kilter. It was a curious world where nothing but ice or water fell from clouds, where food tasted the same each time, where the climate was sorted by location and the spin of the planet. Faerie’s fluidity made more sense to him.

He paused. Across from them, a window was filled with brightly colored shoes. Cars were careening down the street. Voices clashed, and sirens shrilled.

“What are you looking at?” Ani was beside him then. She appeared tinier up close, or maybe she only seemed that way because she wasn’t radiating aggression. The top of her head was level with his shoulder; the edges of her garish pink- tipped hair brushed against his upper arm as she turned her head to look down the street.

A woman too thin to be healthy stood on the other side of the window looking at shoes; her face was illuminated by the harsh lights inside the store. She glanced outside, but her gaze flickered away before fully settling on him.

Devlin turned his attention to Ani. Like Rae, she was unafraid of him. Even his queen found him frightening: it was the order of things. Faeries should fear him. Death in Faerie—or by order of Faerie—was his function. Ani seemed foolishly nonplussed by this. Once she’d learned that there was no immediate fatal threat, she’d become bold. Is that why Rae wanted me to see Ani? Did she know? It couldn’t be. There was no way for Rae to know that Ani would be unafraid. Still, such fearlessness near him was rare, and he cherished it.

“Hell-o?” She nudged him. “What are you looking at?”

“We need to cross here.” He wasn’t sure how fast she could move, but he’d noticed that mortals were slower. She wasn’t a true mortal, and her sire was one of the fastest sorts of faeries. Thinking of her getting crushed by the metal racing past them was disconcerting.

She matters.

He gripped her arm just above her elbow and started walking, forcing her to scurry to keep pace with his longer stride.

She yanked her arm free. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you cross the street.” He narrowed his eyes at her tone. Boldness was only amusing so long. When it interfered with his objectives, it ceased being ent

ertaining. “The vehicles speed, and you are still somewhat mortal. I’m not sure how fast mortals—”

“I am a Hound.” She raced down the block.

From a distance, he could see her belligerent posture. It was foolhardy, but not unexpected. He should’ve kept a better grip on her.

She’s unrestrained. It’s— He froze. Thoughts, action, everything around him seemed to stop as he watched Bananach come up behind Ani and slide an arm around the Hound’s shoulder.

NO.

Before the objection was a completed thought, Devlin stood in front of them. “Step away, Sister.” “For what coin?” She curled her hand around Ani’s shoulder so that her talon-tipped fingers furrowed skin, not piercing but deep enough that the Hound would bruise.

He had chosen to be ruled by logic, and logic said there was an answer here that would get Ani safely out of War’s reach, but it wasn’t logic that rode in his words. “She’s mine. I have taken her into my keeping.”

“She’s alive.” Bananach rubbed her face against Ani’s hair in a feline gesture that seemed peculiar for the raven- faery. “This is good. I find that I need her not-dead. She has a mission now. Don’t you, puppy?”

Ani caught his gaze. She didn’t look afraid, despite her situation, and Devlin wondered fleetingly if she was impaired. He’d seen that in some of the mortal-faery mixes, a lack of instinctual fear. Has she no sense of self-preservation?

She widened her eyes, as if she was willing thoughts to him.