What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(50)

“If I had any intention of mistreating you, it would. I have no need to violate you like that, Little One. You’ll come to me willingly soon enough,” he said, the arrogance in his voice only driving my aggravation higher. He dropped his hand between us, my body immediately feeling the absence of his touch as he strolled past me and continued down the path.

“We should hurry if we want to reach the mountains by nightfall,” he said casually, as if the tension of the last few moments between us had never happened. I gaped after him for a few seconds, unwillingly staring at the way his muscles seemed to ripple with every movement. He’d be the death of me.

If I didn’t kill him first.





17





The Hollow Mountains were larger than I’d ever dreamed they could be, the rolling peaks towering over us as we traveled along the base. All the texts I’d read in Lord Byron’s library talked of how small they were compared to the Mountains at Rochpar, and even smaller compared to the legendary mountains of Faerie that existed on the other side of the boundary.

Caelum followed my gaze as it tracked up the face for the hundredth time. True to his word, we’d reached the range before dark, but now the sun retreated behind the peaks, bathing the forest at their feet in an eerie golden glow. This far from the boundary with Faerie, the leaves had already turned yellow and orange with the frost and begun falling to the ground. The magic of Faerie was too far to sustain the signs of life through the cold autumn nights.

He’d only spoken to me in passing since the claim that I would come to him, that I’d give him my body willingly one day soon. He couldn’t possibly understand that, while I had no notion of a happily ever after with a man who would be my husband one day, I needed something more than the promise of one night of pleasure.

No matter how I might want to keep my heart my own, I suspected a man like Caelum would slither his way inside and take it for himself, if I let him. With no promise of a tomorrow, or a future at all, such an attachment could only end in heartbreak for me, whether we lived or died. I wasn’t naive enough to think that a man like him would stay interested for long after his initial conquest, if we ever found others like us, anyway.

Such was the way of his intensity—of his power—as it rolled over my skin when he turned his gaze on me. It wasn’t the same as the power I’d felt from the Wild Hunt or the magic of Faerie when the Veil had shattered, but still a force that came from within him.

It wasn’t magical in nature at all, I suspected, but something he’d possessed long before the Mark. It was just Caelum, and that made him all the more dangerous.

“We should find a place to camp for the night,” I murmured finally, hating the way my voice shook with the slightest tremor at the thought of another night exposed to the darkness of the woods.

“I have a better idea. Come with me,” he said, reaching across the space between us to take my hand in his. My hand throbbed with the contact, tiny sparks passing between where we touched and careening up my arm until it glowed with soft white light. It was the first time my Mark had reacted to him so vividly, sending a jolt of shock through me. The dark in his mirrored mine, the faintest hint of purple illuminating the black as his Mark recognized the call from mine.

Something had changed in us; something had shifted, and I was terrified to admit that it might have been my acknowledging the fact that I wanted him in spite of the consequences. Now, my Mark fed on that reaction to his touch.

He led me into the tree line beside us, pausing at the line of thick branches. Peeling back one of them with a mystified smile on his face, he revealed a narrow pathway while I stared in stunned silence.

“I can’t believe this is still here. It’s been years since I last traveled through the Hollows,” he said. The path curved up the side of one of the foothills, disappearing into the darkness of the shaded trees. He pulled me into the pathway, releasing the branch that hid the entrance so that it snapped back into place and disguised it once more.

“What is this place?” I asked, wonder lighting up my eyes as he led me to the very base of the hill, which, standing apart from the other foothills, was more like a butte. Where the path started up the side, curving around to create an easier to manage incline, someone had carved steps into the stone in the areas where it became too steep. More stone lined the path as we rounded the bend to the back of the hill, the surfaces stained with age and cracked from what appeared to be years of neglect.

Trees lined the path on the outside, where Caelum walked beside me, shielding us from view if anyone happened to look up at the butte. On my right, I lifted a hand to trail over the stone of the face. As if the earth itself had melted away to make the walkway, the same stone that lined the steps went as high as I could see when I tipped my head back.

Faces were carved into the surface, ethereal beings with slightly pointed ears and harsh planes in their bone structures. I’d heard that their features were sharper, their characteristics more defined. I couldn’t be sure how much of that was emphasized by the stone work and how much was true to their appearance.

The only Fae I’d seen had been transparent, but the members of the Wild Hunt were a breed all of their own within Alfheimr. My fingers ran over the thin lips of a man whose features seemed particularly jagged, his hair surrounded by snowflakes. “According to the legends, these are the faces of the Old Gods,” Caelum said, stepping up behind me. I hadn’t even realized that I had turned to the rock face, my hands shifting from the man’s mouth to the woman at his side. Her hair somehow seemed lighter than the others at her side, as if her presence had been imbued into the rock. “Twyla, The Goddess of the Moon,” Caelum said, his hands shifting up to my waist. He dragged my hand with his along the fabric of my dress and then behind me, to the small of my back. The awkward angle of my arm gave me pause, the tips of his fingers pressing into my spine and the swell of my backside as he leaned in until his breath tickled my cheek. “It’s said she is the Queen of the Winter Court.”