Shadowspell

“What about Keane?” he asked.

I blinked at him, startled by the change in subject. “What about him?” I asked. He gave me a knowing look, but I remained clueless.

Ethan shook his head, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “I guess you never once noticed his looks, huh?”

“What?” I cried, my jaw dropping.

Ethan looked exasperated. “Don’t act so shocked. He’s a nice Seelie boy who comes with an automatic seal of approval from your father. And I know girls go for that whole bad-boy thing he’s got going on. You mean to tell me there’s nothing going on between the two of you?”

I honestly couldn’t think what to say. It had never occurred to me that Ethan might be jealous. I was too focused on my own jealousy to consider the possibility. And let’s face it, before coming to Avalon, I’d been such a loner that I wasn’t really used to boys being interested in me. This was uncharted territory.

“He’s just teaching me self-defense,” I said, but it sounded lame even to me.

“Uh-huh. Now compare how many hours a week you spend with him and how many hours a week you spend with me.”

My cheeks were heating with a blush. It was true that I spent a lot more time with Keane, but that was hardly my fault. Unfortunately, it was also true that I’d noticed more than once that Keane was a hottie. Maybe I wasn’t in a position to throw stones after all. That didn’t mean I was going to admit it.

“I spend even more time with Finn,” I retorted. “Are you going to get jealous of him, too?” The spike of guilt his words had caused started to recede. “Are you trying to tell me you started flirting with that Tiffany girl because you were jealous of Keane? So what, you did it to try to make me jealous? Even though you didn’t think I’d be at the party?”

I didn’t get a chance to hear his answer, because all of a sudden, the air filled with the deafening roar of motorcycles.

Chapter ten

The Erlking must have been doing some kind of magic to muffle the roar of the bikes, because by the time I heard them, they were practically on top of us. Cries of alarm filled the air as the Wild Hunt effortlessly wove through the pedestrians and onto the patio as people scattered and scrambled out of the way. Ethan and I both knocked over our chairs leaping to our feet.

“Dana!” my dad shouted, and I saw both him and Finn sprinting across the short distance that separated us.

They were Fae, and therefore fast, but not as fast as the bikes. Before they could reach me, the Wild Hunt pulled its little circle trick again, the bikes barely an inch apart, surrounding my table, forming a wall between me and my bodyguards. Dad was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear it over the roar of the bikes.

Magic prickled over my skin, and I was pretty sure it came from Ethan. He was a magical prodigy, capable of spells no one his age should be able to cast, but I seriously doubted he was a match for the Wild Hunt.

A slight gap opened up between a pair of the circling bikes, and the Erlking strode through it. He was wearing the same frightening leathers he’d worn the last time I’d seen him, but he’d ditched the helmet. He smiled at me, but there was no hint of warmth in it.

My mouth had gone completely dry, and I think I was even shaking a bit. Without thinking about it, I reached for Ethan’s hand. His palm was sweaty, but I didn’t mind. The Erlking noticed the gesture and raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment.

I reminded myself that as scary as the Erlking was, he couldn’t hurt me. Somehow, that wasn’t very comforting when his Hunt had me trapped and he was looming over me. I clung to Ethan’s hand a little harder.

The Erlking bowed from the waist without ever taking his eyes off me. “We meet again, Faeriewalker,” he said.

“Am I supposed to curtsy when you do that?” I asked. The quaver in my voice undermined my attempt at sarcasm.

Ethan poked me in the ribs with his elbow, but the Erlking laughed like I’d said something absolutely hilarious. The laugh even reached his cold blue eyes, though his first smile had not.

“You may curtsy if you like,” he said, his lips still twitching in amusement. “However, it is not required.”

I looked longingly past the riders and caught the occasional glimpse of Finn and my dad, standing helplessly outside the circle. They couldn’t get to me without knocking the riders out of the way, and I suspected that would release the geis that kept them from attacking.

“What do you want?” I asked the Erlking.

“Don’t talk to him, Dana,” Ethan warned.

I didn’t exactly want to talk to him, but if it would make him go away faster, I was all for it.

“What do you want?” I repeated, ignoring Ethan’s dismayed groan.

The Erlking licked his lips like a dog about to chomp down on a bone. “I want the freedom to hunt like I did in the days of old,” he said. “The Fae are adequate game, but the Queens dole them out far too rarely. I am lucky if I am allowed a handful of hunts a year. And, too, I long for more variety.” The smile that stretched his lips now was pure evil. “Before Avalon seceded from Faerie, I could hunt the mortals here whenever I grew tired of hunting only the Fae the Queens allow me. I have not hunted a mortal for a century.”

Oh, crap. I did not like where he was going with this.

“So what you’re saying is you want me to use my Faeriewalker mojo to take you out into the mortal world so you can kill a bunch of people?”