On the Prowl (Alpha & Omega 0.5)(52)

Part of her saw the man come striding down from the sky, his boots as sure on the air as if it were forest floor. Part of her saw him just suddenly here  -  only ten feet away, standing in the ordinary dirt beside a mesquite bush. Him and his hounds. They were black, and many, and varied  -  some greyhound-lean, some mastiff-strong, all of them tall. And silent. After that howling, they were silent now, and unmoving.

And she hardly noticed them, for she was staring at him.

She couldn't have said if he was young or old, tall or short, only that the shape of him was perfectly right. He wore a vest over a hairy chest and rough-sewn trousers tucked into hide boots, with a quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder and a sword at his hip. His skin was brown as a nut, his beard the color of maple leaves after they've faded from flame  -  still autumn, not winter, but no longer burning. That beard, like his hair, curled madly, with bits of dried grass caught in the tangles.

And his colors  -  ! Rich and warm and earthy, but with hints of leaf green, the violet of a twilight sky, and arctic white. The thoughts woven through those colors were smooth and somehow complete.

"Nadrellian." His voice was rich as freshly pressed cider, pure as a bell, and it caught on some strong emotion. "Ah, Nadrellian." And he held out his arms.

Nathan took one step, then another, and the Huntsman sprang forward to meet him, and the two men embraced  -  the Huntsman laughing, then seizing Nathan's face in his two hands and planting a smacking kiss on each cheek. The hounds crowded around them, tails wagging, wanting to greet and be greeted.

After a moment the Huntsman released Nathan, a grin splitting his beard. "Hoy, so this is odd, is it not? To grab you and be grabbed back! What, you won't lick my face now you have hands? Ah, but I've missed you, boy."

Kai heard him. In her mind, she heard and understood him. But her ears heard different sounds, not what her mind reported. She shook her head as if she could shake free of the disconnect that way.

Nathan's laugh rang clear. He rested one hand on the head of a hound who stood hip-high to him. Another hound butted him in the leg, wanting attention. He glanced down fondly. "Ardadamar, where are your manners? And you, sir, claiming you missed me. You've scarcely thought of me."

"No, but I did... well." He scratched his ear. "Several times, yes, I did. Is my grief less for being inconstant, eh? I missed you. But why did you call me? You don't need me to come home."

"I've a favor to ask." As the Huntsman's face darkened he added, "And stories for payment. Four hundred years' worth."

"Stories. Well." He fingered his beard, then his gaze shifted. He saw Kai and the beast at her side. He nodded. "Ah. So you called me for this, but it's no favor. How could you think so? Queens' law, boy, and you were wise not to take this hunt on yourself." He reached into thin air  -  and withdrew a bow.

"What? No," Nathan said. "I'm asking you to return the chameleon to her home."

"Oh, the chameleon. Poor girl. No, she can't be sundered again. The hounds can deal with her, or you can. Better you," he decided. "You'll make it easy on her. But I'll take the binder, don't worry."

"Binder?" Nathan said. His voice came out strangled. He glanced at Kai, emotions skittering across his face and spiking in his colors so fast she couldn't track them  -  but they ended in horror.

He leaped  -  made one great, impossible leap, and he landed in front of her. He spun to face the Huntsman, a noise rising from his throat he couldn't have made, deep and inhuman, a growl rising straight from nightmare.

The chameleon sprang to her feet, answering his growl with hers.

Kai thought she might wet her pants. "Nathan?"

The Huntsman stilled and said in a voice too much like Nathan's growl, "You defy me?"

"Mine." Nathan crouched lower, hands out  -  a fighting posture. "She's Kai, and she's mine."

The Huntsman tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. "Or you are hers. She's a binder, boy. She's caught you."

"She's not. Not a true binder, though I... she thinks she's a telepath. I don't know what she is, but she's Kai. I can't let you kill her."

"You can't stop me." All the humor  -  the fey, Robin Goodfellow pleasantry  -  fell away, and Kai was looking at death. Beautiful, implacable death was coming for Nathan and for her. The hounds  -  so friendly a moment ago  -  spread wide, hackles lifting, heads lowering.

Nathan called out a name.

Kai heard icicles and silence, and silently the air split open in front of them. A woman, all in white, stepped out of that slit in reality. It closed up neatly behind her. She took a single step forward  -  and Nathan abandoned Kai to reach for his queen, and he held her as she held him, both of them speaking in a liquid roll of syllables that made no echoes of meaning in Kai's head.

Kai stood, stricken and staring. This wasn't the Queen of Winter. She was winter.

Her skin was white. Not Caucasian, but truly white  -  like snow or alabaster or opals, for there was a sheen to it, as if colors played beneath the surface. Her hair was blacker than the hellhounds' midnight fur and spiraled in shiny curls to her waist. Her long, oval face angled in ways no human face would, and her tilted eyes were silver just kissed by blue. Tears spangled those eyes, glistening like melting snow in the lashes and on the white cheeks, as she and Nathan embraced.