Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) (16 page)

‘Don’t you believe it. There’s guys in the dun would have you tomorrow.’

‘Away. Me with the fish-eyes.’

He folded his arms. ‘You’re gorgeous, you silly tart. You look like your mother.’

I blushed, which made me feel even stupider, but Seth turned abruptly away. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to get personal. Let me know if you get any hassle. Unwanted – hassle.’
He picked up a few swords, balancing each one on his fingers.

I took the light blade he passed me, unsheathing it. ‘That feels right, I suppose.’

‘I thought it would.’ He gave me that strange sideways look again.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

He was anxious about Rory, I decided. I wondered what the job was that Rory wasn’t going to like, and I wondered why, in that case, he had to be part of it. I couldn’t help
suspecting that their relationship had gone sharply downhill since I’d arrived, but maybe it hadn’t been great to begin with. Rory was fourteen years old; of course he was raging at the
bars of his beautiful prison.

‘I can’t help it,’ Seth muttered. ‘Risk: it’s just a word. When you’re that age you think it’s the most fun in the world. I know I did. And then
it’s your own child, and...’ He seized another blade, but I knew it wasn’t because he liked it better than the others. ‘And you’re old and scared and you know how
fragile life is. I used to tell myself that, when I went over to Kate. She had a point, didn’t she? A place beyond this world; unity against the full-mortals instead of war among ourselves.
Security on our own terms.’

‘She was lying, Seth.’ I risked touching his forearm with a finger, and felt a small shiver run across his skin. ‘It would have been death for us. It still would. You believe
that now.’

‘Yes.’ He rubbed his temples, then put the sword back and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

‘Oh, Seth. Kate spell-bound you.’

He raked his hands through his hair and fixed me with cold and bloodshot eyes. ‘That’s an excellent excuse, Finn. I’ll remember it.’

I examined the stone floor. ‘I didn’t say it was an excuse.’

‘I wasn’t spell-bound, Finn. Kate seduced me, and I let her. I was eaten up with bitterness and lust, that’s the truth. I was a pathetic lennanshee with no self-control, but it
was something a lot cruder than love.’ He linked his fingers with mine. ‘You were sixteen years old. I was four hundred and something and I should have known better.’

‘Stop making excuses for me. You’re only doing it to make yourself feel worse.’

‘And you have to give your consent, if she wants to take your soul. And we both did.’

‘She didn’t get our souls.’ I hated to remember how close we’d come, the pair of us. ‘Seth, you thought you were doing the right thing. That makes a
difference.’

‘Does it?’ His jaw was rigid again. ‘Made no difference to Conal.’

I turned away on the pretext of looking at the swords. Sometimes Seth was my best friend; sometimes, like now, it felt as if we lived at opposite ends of parallel universes. For sixteen years
we’d despised one another, before I discovered who I was and who he was. Maybe that was how we were meant to be. Maybe we’d screwed it up by understanding each other. How odd, I thought
with a stab of regret, and how sad.

Scrabbling for a neutral topic, I blurted, ‘How’s Orach, by the way?’

‘Grand. Fine. Better than she’s been for four hundred years, probably. She dumped me.’

‘She. Dumped. You?’
Not knowing which word to stress, I ended up stressing them all. I could hardly get my jaw shut. ‘Sorry.’

‘S’okay. It’s not like I was committing.’

‘Um.’ I still couldn’t contain my shock. ‘You’d think she’d have twigged that a couple of centuries ago, if it was a problem.’

‘Yeah. Well.’

Maybe that accounted for his volatile mood, but I didn’t feel inclined to press on with the subject. ‘Tell me about Hannah, then. Isn’t someone missing her?’

Seth scowled at a blunt blade, flicking it with a fingertip. ‘The mother’s gone to find herself: not expected back any time soon. The parentis-in-loco couldn’t give a
toss.’

‘For God’s sake, Seth. There’s a war on.’

‘Officially. Nothing’s happened in all this time, Finn. ’

‘And speaking of the time–’

‘Don’t,’ he snapped, and I raised an eyebrow in slight surprise. ‘It’s fine. The balance is
fine
. Gocaman’s on the other side, and he’s keeping
an eye on it for me. If there’s any sign of a slip he’ll let me know. Look, this stalemate could go on for centuries, and we deny Rory an awful lot in the meantime. I couldn’t
deny him a friend.’

‘Would you let him walk into someone else’s
w
ar
?’

He chose not to answer that, leading me back into the sunlight where our horses stood waiting. ‘Anyway, Hannah’s mad keen to find her father.
Obsessed
. Don’t think
she’d have stayed otherwise, even for Rory.’ He tugged the bridle’s headstrap over the roan’s ears.

‘And what have you done about finding him?’ I asked darkly. ‘You just wanted a distraction for Rory.’

‘Probably.’ He blew out a sigh. ‘Ach, she’s a hellion, but I like her.’

‘Of course you do.’ I hoisted myself onto the black. ‘She’s very like you.’

Seth stopped with his fingers tangled in the roan’s mane. ‘She’s a feral wee slapper with an alcopop habit!’

‘And a father fixation.’ I bit my lip, too late.

He took a breath, ice forming in his eyes. ‘Piss off, Finn. You go too far.’

‘Fine.’ Urging the black forward, I didn’t look back at him; I was too angry to apologise. So Rory was under house arrest; but Hannah could be taken from whatever family she
had and dragged across the Veil? Besides, I couldn’t begin to explain it, but something felt wrong. A thin menace hung over the dun, tingling in my spine.

Or maybe I was just too used to being on my own, a solitary animal who was jealous of the pack and their strange historic bonds. I’d never understood the clann; Seth had as good as told me
so when he exiled me.

Eili, now: there was a woman I’d rather have avoided for the rest of my days, yet without Eili there would be no Sionnach. And Sionnach I’d miss like a piece of my heart. When he
trotted his horse alongside mine, the day was suddenly calmer and cooler – in a good way – and he didn’t even open his mouth. He just smiled and winked, and I grinned back, and I
knew for certain that at least one of the clann was glad to have me back.

His sister was waiting there on her grey horse with Jed and Iolaire. Eili’s direct smile at me, as she handed Seth a tangled bridle, was not like Sionnach’s.

‘Whose is that?’ I asked, genuinely curious.

‘My kelpie’s,’ said Rory, giving me a hateful look. He kicked his horse’s flanks and headed for the dun gate. ‘As I’ve failed to master it, my father will no
longer have it near his lands.’

‘It’s a killer,’ said Seth curtly. ‘Well, that’s their nature. But you don’t keep a masterless killer in your back yard.’

‘And naturally my father will have no problem getting it to do what
he
wants.’

Seth took an exasperated breath, but Jed interrupted. ‘It needs to go back to the sea and stay there, Rory. It’s only a question of… um…’

‘Leading a horse to water,’ suggested Iolaire with a grin.

‘And making it drink,’ said Jed, and laughed. ‘Well, we all like a challenge.’

‘Well. Pay attention, Cuilean, and watch your back.’ Seth rubbed the green-stained bridle between his fingers. ‘Forget about Laszlo for forty minutes.’

‘Don’t worry your pretty head, Murlainn. I could kill him in my sleep. I do it all the time.’

There were a lot of things I could have said to that, but none of them sounded right in my head. Of course in thirteen years he’d learned to kill. He’d be dead by now if he
hadn’t.

I licked my lips. ‘Be careful, Jed?’

Jed smiled at me. God, I thought with a wry smile back, he could still make my heart flip. ‘Like a kelpie, Finn. He needs dealing with.’

He scared me. Turning the black’s head, I rode out of the gate and let the horse pick his way down the rough stone steps onto the grassland. This was what I’d come for, second only
to the people I loved: the world where I belonged, and it was beautiful. Summer had brought a rash of colour to the green sweep of grazing between the dun and the sea, a multitude of wildflowers,
and the backdrop of the sky was a clear deep blue that made my eyes sting. I heard hoofbeats, felt Seth at my side, but just for a moment I didn’t want to look at him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he growled finally. ‘Okay?’

‘Okay!’ Damn it, but I liked and knew him too well not to forgive. ‘Me too. Sorry.’

I used to be just this soft with Conal, I thought wryly. They could both wrap me round their little faery fingers.

‘Yeah, you are soft.’ With a grin he reached to squeeze my hand. ‘Just find your ruthless streak, Dorsal. Before you really need it.’

My people skills, I’d realised, were better when I wasn’t in the vicinity of Aunt Sheena. I got along just fine with all the Sithe. Except for Sionnach, of course,
so surly and violent; and Finn, who I detested out of loyalty to Rory; oh, and I’d noticed that Seth didn’t smile at me so much any more. He watched me like you might watch a sleepy
snake: as if he was wondering when to risk stamping on me.

But mostly, I liked them. And the weather had warmed to a hot and cloudless summer, and Rory and I had two white-sand beaches and a crystal sea to ourselves. We had an irresponsible amount of
freedom, so there was little besides work to kick against. For me and Rory, it was half boot camp, half anarchy.

More than anything – except Rory, obviously – I liked the horses. The first one they’d given me, Jed’s semi-retired bay mare, had been sweet but staid. My new chestnut
gelding was a bit of an equine delinquent, so he suited me just fine. He needed a decent run, though, not this lazy meander they called a hunt.

I nudged Rory and he grinned; as he did so often, he was thinking the same as me. Jed and Iolaire had drifted to the left, quite a bit distant and engaged in some private project of their own,
and the white dog was staying close to Jed. Seth was ahead with his dog, Finn riding at his flank, and the twins were a good bit further back. They were all far too busy gossiping to notice us ride
quietly away from the group.

‘Gallop?’ I whispered hopefully.

‘Sh. Don’t draw their attention,’ hissed Rory as he veered subtly right. ‘I know a short cut here. I’m not letting him get to my horse first. And it
is
my
horse.’

‘Too right.’ Checking behind, I could tell none of the others were watching us, and they were out of sight among the trees surprisingly quickly. As soon as it seemed safe to give the
chestnut his head, he was only too willing to break into a smooth trot.

I glanced back as we slowed to a walk again. ‘I thought the dogs might follow, but we’re okay.’

‘I’ve told you, they’re not dogs.’

‘They are dogs,’ I said wearily. ‘They look a bit like wolves, but they’re dogs.’

‘How could they be dogs? They’re out of the same litter and they’re four hundred years old. Have you ever heard of a four hundred year old dog?’

I gave him a long sarcastic look. ‘Are you seeing the flaw in your logic at all?’

‘Ach, shut up.’

So bite my head off, Rory. If it
helps.

The trees thinned around us and very suddenly there weren’t any, apart from a few half-drowned stumps. The horses’ hooves sank and sucked in boggy ground, and the brilliant line of
the loch ahead of us was dazzling. It was all very pretty, but there was a smell in the air: a dank murky water-smell with a hint of dead things.

‘Not planning to swim the horses, are we?’

‘Hardly.’ He gave a short laugh. Much more slowly he let his horse pace forward, its flanks shivering with tremors. Again I glanced over my shoulder the way we’d come.

‘They’re way behind,’ he said dismissively.

‘Cool,’ I said, suddenly uneasy. ‘Maybe we should wait for them.’

‘Let’s not.’

Tiny waves lapped at the loch shore, flickering with sunlight. Further out nothing stirred, not a fish or a bird. A crescent of soft sand was better footing for the horses, so we rode along that
towards a lonely copse of pines. Not that I didn’t appreciate the summer sun, but the shade beneath them was a relief. I stripped off my sweatshirt and tied it round my waist, enjoying the
tiny goosebumps that rose on my arms.

Rory turned in his saddle, but whatever he was going to say died on his lips. He frowned, then paled, and lifted his wrist. The silver bracelet flashed a band of light across his eyes, but it
was the dangling stone he was staring at.

‘Ow,’ he said, and clutched his forehead. Then his eyes focused beyond me, and widened.

I rolled my own eyes. ‘You’re not gonnae make me look. I wasn’t born–’

‘Shut up!’ His voice was a scared rasp. ‘
Hannah
!’

The jeers dried on my tongue. If he was taking the piss he was doing it way too convincingly. I really, really didn’t want to turn to see what he was gaping at, but if I didn’t it
would be my back that was turned, and that was even more intolerable. Setting my teeth, giving him one savage look to warn him what would happen if he was winding me up, I turned.

The horse on the shore was a pretty colour: white-ish but mottled like a cold sky. Its feathered hooves straddled something on the ground that might once have been a deer or a calf, and its head
was lowered as if to protect its prey. But its eyes held me: black, blank and psychopathic. The green spark in them was ancient and evil like some phosphorescent fish: one of those prehistoric
creatures that never ought to see the light.

I stared at it, transfixed. It didn’t have the crazed look of Seth’s blue roan, but its upper lip was pulled back from grinning yellowed teeth. It had canines, abnormally big and
pointed ones, and it whickered invitingly.

So anyway, I thought. Why not?

The chestnut gelding trembled beneath me, rooted to the ground with terror, but I stared into the empty eyes of the cloudy-white horse and I suddenly wasn’t afraid. I wanted to touch that
horse. I wanted to stroke its powerful neck, gentle it, tame it. I wanted to
ride
it. I shifted my weight in the saddle and began to dismount.