Demon Day (10 page)

I shrugged. “He’s unique. I just knew.
He felt the same, y’know?” I glanced at Conall to let him know I
had not forgotten his question. “We met in the forest yesterday
when Breandan found me.”

The words pulled me up short. Had it
only been two days since I’d met Breandan and Conall? Had it been
so short a time in which my life had been turned upside down and
inside out? My mind shied away from it all. It would do me no good
to dwell on such things. It would drive me mad and I was batty
enough.

“
Did you pick up the
trail?” I asked Conall in a rush. “I want to keep moving. I’m
rested now and I even slept.”

Conall said nothing. He handed
Breandan and I a cracker each and unhooked a small skin flask from
his hip. Breandan ate the cracker dry in one bite and swigged from
the flask.

I stared at what I had been given in
my upturned palm. It did not look, smell, or feel appetizing. Not
that food ever did look interesting to me. I did not feel hungry,
but sort of hollow and like food would be okay in my stomach, but
not that it was an urgent need. Would it be rude to ask if he had a
can of fizzy stashed in one of his pockets? Glancing at Conall I
decided against it. Little human culture resided in the fairy way,
so I simply kept my eyes low, and glanced at Breandan through my
lashes.

He was already watching me.
“Everything okay?” he asked politely.

Pushing my hair off my face, I
plastered on a bright smile, and cupped my other hand under the one
forced to hold the cracker. “Uh huh. I’m not much of an eater
anyway, and I’m sure there is something else.…” As I spoke I
offered the cracker to him, but a glance at Conall showed more of
the same kind of dry, mealy food in his hand. “Y’know, I can go
days without eating anything.”

Breandan grinned then bent down to
bite half the cracker from my palm. In a few moments, his rough
tongue was licking crumbs and juices from my inner fingertips.
Juices? I looked down to see a clear golden fluid running down my
palm.

Breandan smacked his lips then
regarded me closely. “You don’t like honey-nectar? It’s
sweet.”

“
Well to be honest I don’t
think I’ve ever tried it. We used to get given lots of bread, milk,
and water … and meat,” I said thoughtfully. At the word ‘meat’, the
were-panther’s whiskers twitched and his pink tongue flicked out to
swipe over his maw. As I spoke, I grinned at him. “And drinks
filled with sugar to keep us going, y’know. Like fizzy
stuff.”

“
We have a much more varied
diet,” Conall said after a pause, eyeing Breandan and where he had
licked my hand with a dour expression. “But our meat is mostly fish
and small game. Red meat makes us sluggish, slow. We avoid
it.”

I nodded. “Makes sense. As a people we
climb and live in the trees.” My voice was reflective. “We’re quick
and light on our feet. It makes sense the food we should eat would
be light in substance, but rich in goodness. And it explains why I
never liked meat all that much.”

Breandan nodded in agreement. I still
held the oozing cracker in my hands and it was beginning to look
odd. I nibbled on it and made an appreciative murmur at the firm,
wheat biscuit, and its sweet sticky centre. I finished up and
Breandan held out the flask. I felt positively doted on and I
accepted it with a smile. I took a testing sip. Just water. I
glugged it deeply and eyed Conall. “The trail?”

He rubbed the heels of his palms in
his eyes and when he shook his head, his ponytail swished behind
him. “It is beyond me. Devlin has worked magics. Three different
trails can be seen here, each is cold, and each carries his and
Wasp’s scent. Less than an hour ago, we were half a day away and
gaining. Now, it seems we are days behind and losing more time. It
is a trick, a spell, and I cannot see past it.”

I took in a deep breath and handed him
back the hip flask, wiped my hand over my mouth. Some sleep,
something to eat and drink, and I did feel a little better.
Sharper. “Then we follow each trail. One each.”

“
No,” Breandan said with
forced evenness.

“
Apart from the fact it
would be most unwise to leave you alone, Rae,” Conall said
patiently, “what happens when one of us does find them? Or maybe we
will find more false trails that we cannot navigate
alone.”

The were-panther – still seated
comfortably on his hunches, and tail swinging from side to side –
leisurely turned his head each time one of us spoke. His emerald
eyes were bright and aware and I knew he was taking in every word.
His handsome feline face looked focused.

“
Then we follow each one,”
I grated through my teeth. “We pick the most likely, follow for a
while, and if we’re wrong we’ll backtrack and start again until we
get it right.”

“
And what of the time we
lose whilst doing this? What if we come across more trails that are
false? We could spend days going in the wrong
direction.”

I opened my mouth to tell him I was
ready to spend my lifetime hunting Devlin. Then I saw the stupidity
in such words and my shoulders slumped. I burrowed the toe of my
boot into the needle leaf strewn around me.

My voice was thick when I said, “There
must be another way. We cannot just give up, and not just for the
sake of my revenge. Lochlann needs the grimoire before he can start
setting things right, doesn’t he?”

Even if Conall would not give into a
selfish endeavour – such was the nature of revenge – he was the
most loyal warrior I knew. He would do anything to secure Lochlann
the fairy-lordship because he believed it was the right thing to
do.

I looked up and found Breandan glaring
at my brother, who sent him a short look of apology.

“
Perhaps, there is
something else we may consider. It is not without its
dangers.”

“
It is not a good idea,”
Breandan said firmly.

Straightening, I cocked my head and
tried to look attentive and brave, not desperate to crack some
skulls. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”

Conall pointed a thick finger to the
panther who had gotten bored sitting and was purring rubbing
himself into my legs. “The shifters.”

My nipped intake of breath was loud in
the sudden silence. I gripped the fur at the base of the panthers
and squeezed it. “Yes,” I hissed, new possibilities opening up like
a carnivorous black hole before me. “A Pack of were-cats could read
each trail and save us time.” I dropped to my knees in front of
him. “Could you or your kind help us?” My head snapped up to
Conall. “Which is the closest?”

“
Byron’s Pack is close and
of the Alpha’s he is the most civilized. This panther must be of
his Pride.”

“
You both forget I have
already said no.”

Breandan sent me a pointed look that
told me he was serious. I returned it with some extra ‘I’m doing
this so back the hell off’. I won, of course. He would not dare
deny me this.

“
Alright,” he said
flatly.

His eyes were trained on the panther
that looked rather smug to be weaving between my legs. I stumbled
when he lay down. He rolled so he was pressed into my shins belly
up begging for a tummy stroke.

I shuffled my feet from under him and
accidentally stepped on his tail. He let out a strangled screech
and jumped up.

Breandan laughed – his deeper baritone
still managing to tinkle. It seemed the setting sun shone brighter
and his smile made me blink. His silver eyes were breathtaking and
for a moment, I was lost, falling into the gaze that swept over me
lovingly. The moment changed, became charged and I was acutely
aware of his warm hands at my waist, that his lips were a short
sway forward away from mine. I remembered the feel of his mouth,
the heady scent of him as he marked me as his own.

The shifter nipped at my leg then
buried his teeth in the material of my dress and tugged. The flimsy
material tore a bit and I took the hint and moved
forward.

“
Will you lead us to Byron,
hunter?” Conall asked politely.

The cat bobbed his head in agreement
and plodded forward, back into the plain. He turned his head back
and looked at me.

Breandan pushed me forward lightly.
“It is an invitation.”

I blinked, not understanding. “For
what?” I asked mystified, and joined the were-panther. I pulled at
the fur on his spine playfully. He was so soft to touch and I did
not care that in reality I was intimately touching a being that was
a man when in human form.

He bunched his front and hind legs
together and leapt forward, taking off at speed that made my mouth
drop.

“
To run,” Breandan said and
winked at me a moment before he and Conall took off too.

After a beat, I laughed and started
behind them. I passed them quickly, and found myself following just
behind the cat’s tail. I tried to catch him up, but always his tail
winked in and out of sight. My feet pounded the grass and I found
myself going faster. The earth was soft and springy. Unlike the
forest, where you often had to jump and doge, here the land was
flat and flowed up and down in gentle hills. My wings fluttered and
I extended them slightly and found my pace increasing. My tail
whiplashed out to steady my balance when I thought I would tumble
over, and then I was by the cat’s side, keeping up. I smiled and
with a last push took the lead, laughing as I did so.

Breandan shouted something; sounding
terrified and I glanced behind, frowning. He panicked too much and
too often.

Something brown and heavy crashed into
me from the side, and I went down, rolling over the spiky grass.
Something sharp dragged at my hip. I smelt blood, and the stabbing
pain across my side told me it was mine.

I scrambled up and back up a pace, and
hissed, the reaction instinctive.

A lynx stood fiercely before me, head
down between her shoulder blades. Her luminous amber eyes locked on
me, and her whiskers trembled violently. The tufts on the top of
her ears were jet black and the ruff under her neck bright white,
the fur stretching down onto her underbelly. She jumped on me and I
lurched out of the way, spinning round to meet her next attack.
Growling, she crouched, ready to pounce, but the panther skidded to
a stop between us and spun to face the lynx.

He roared at her, a series of
deafening and commanding bleats. Pacing forward, he bit her on the
neck, pushing her down onto the floor. She did not resist him and
the change in her posture was instant. She lowered her head and
whimpered. Her ears pressed against her skull in submission and her
tail pointed down.

The panther shook her roughly and his
jaw flexed around her neck. For a moment, I feared he would kill
her.

He let go and I breathed
out.

He plodded over to me and head butted
me in the leg, hard. I got a distinct feeling of anger radiating
from him.

Pressing a hand to my side, I brought
it away to see a small smear of blood, but my side heated painfully
and I knew I healed.

“
Sorry,” I said and knelt
down to look him in the face. “It wasn’t her fault, and I’m
sorry.”

“
Good,” Conall said. I had
not heard him arrive. It was then I noticed he had Breandan pinned
to the floor. He let my scowling life-mate up. “I know you wish to
protect her, but you were not needed.”

Anger flashed across Breandan’s face,
before he composed himself. “You were right. It would have gone
badly if I had interfered.”

My face was flushed, a rush of colour
that swept up my neck and spilled into my cheeks. What I had done
was plain stupid. Of course, the shifters would have many sentries
posted across their borders. Lost in the joy of running I had
forgotten we were drawing nearer to the heart of the Pride. The
lynx would have smelt me coming and instantly reacted to what could
be a hostile invader.

A bad thought came to me and had me
saying in alarm, “The Pack isn’t going to be happy about the dead
shifter are they?” I asked quietly. I gripped Breandan’s arm,
holding him to me like someone was trying to take him away. “Can’t
we hide the body? Like, throw it in a ditch somewhere and erase his
scent from this place somehow?”

Nobody said anything for a long while
and I knew my words had upset the fairy boy’s. The were-cats just
stared at me like I was the most fascinating thing they had ever
seen. Conall and Breandan honorable – to a fault – and though I
knew they saw my idea as a cowardly one, I still thought it was the
best one. We had to be honest, it didn’t matter who we were in the
fairy world the Pack we were visiting were not going to react well.
They probably would have had an issue with us just being there in
the first place but throw a dead one of their kind into the mix and
things might get complicated. I did not want to have to persuade
them we were not the enemy. The idea of going at it against
powerful demons made my head hurt. My throat ached, so shouting was
not an option for me. My body felt beaten up and I
scowled.

The whole healing thing would be much
more useful if I could turn it on and off. Conall himself had no
control over that area of magic. He could heal others but not
himself.