The last set of runes faded to be replaced by fine lines that etched themselves all over the sword and hilt. Those lines didn’t fade but joined in continuous, interlinked patterns, as though they bound the sword and hilt together.

Niall raised the blade, finding the balance perfect, the edge sharp. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear he held a sword of the best, strongest Damascus steel. He made a few sweeps, amazed at what he’d wrought.

No, what they’d wrought.

«We make a good sword, you and me,» he said. «Now, do you mind telling me what it’s for?»

Alanna hugged her chest. «Ceremonial purposes. For my brother.»

«Aye, and what kind of ceremonies will he be conducting?»

«I do not want to tell you that.»

Niall brought the sword around until the tip was an inch from her throat. Alanna didn’t flinch, didn’t move, though he saw her draw a breath. «You had better tell me, love.»

«If I do, you’ll try to kill Kieran, and he’ll destroy you. Probably very slowly so that you will beg for death. Please, do not make me watch that.»

The anguish in her eyes was real, but Niall shook his head. «Sweeting, he will kill me anyway. I’d rather go out trying to take him with me.»

«Niall.» Alanna took one step closer, letting the tip of the sword nick her skin. A drop of Fae blood, so dark red it was almost black, welled up from the cut and trickled across her throat. Niall quickly withdrew the sword and wiped the blood away with his thumb.

«I pledged myself as hostage to you,» Alanna said. «I made a promise that I would get your sons released. I will fulfil that promise. But to do it, I must again ask you to trust me. Let me take the sword to my brother, let me finish my part of the bargain. Your sons will come home to you today. Please.»

«You’re a daft woman, do you know that? You aren’t planning to take this blade and stick it into your brother, are you? Tell me you’re not going to try something so stupid.»

Alanna shook her head. «It’s tempting, but no. He would expect me to do something like that. I imagine his bowmen would shoot me dead the moment I raised the sword.»

«Good.» Niall set the weapon down and pulled her close. «I’ll not have you throwing yourself away on vengeance. ’Tis not worth it.»

«You were ready to kill me when I first came here.»

«That was instinct. You’re Fae, I’m Shifter.»

«And now?»

Niall smoothed her hair, loving the satin feel of it. Even sleep-tousled and sooty, Alanna was beautiful. «Now I’m thinking you’ve made me feel something I’ve not felt in a very long time. Can a Shifter love a Fae?»

«I don’t know. This Fae once loved a human. And she is falling in love with you.»

He smiled and cupped her cheek. «So what do we do about it?»

«Let me finish my task. Then if I am still alive, I will return to you.»

Niall saw it then, her certainty she wouldn’t live through whatever her brother had in mind. She knew she might have to sacrifice her life to save his children.

Niall drew her close. He vowed to himself, then and there, to protect her. He’d make himself trust her, whatever she was planning, because Alanna knew how to get his cubs free and he didn’t. But he wouldn’t let her pay with her life. Niall would protect her like a Shifter would his mate — damn it, she was his mate now.

If they survived this, he’d seek another clan leader and beg him to complete the bond, under the sun and the moon, in the eyes of the Goddess. His own clan leader was long dead, which meant that Niall was, in fact, a clan leader — of the very small clan of himself and his sons, he thought with a grin. But he couldn’t mate bond himself.

One thing at a time.

«I’m not letting you go, yet,» Niall said softly. He kissed her lips. «Not quite yet.»

Alanna pulled him into a deeper kiss. Niall took the sword with him as he led her to the cottage and made love to her again in the light of the rising sun.

When Niall awoke in the bed an hour later, Alanna was gone. Entirely gone — he didn’t catch her scent in the cottage at all. Her silken robes were no longer hanging on the peg next to his crude tunic, and the sword he’d laid next to the bed had vanished.

Niall rose, naked, and shifted into his Fae-cat form.

Several thousand years before, the Fae had taken the best of every wildcat in existence and bred the Fae-cat, larger and stronger than any natural beast. Fae-cats had the strength of lions, the ferocity of tigers, the speed of cheetahs, the stealth of panthers. Niall bounded down from the loft and out into the dense fog that had rolled in from the sea.

Alanna wasn’t in the forge. He picked up her scent on the path that led to the gently sloping mountain above the village, towards the circle of standing stones even the most sceptical of the villagers liked to avoid. Mists rolled between the stones when Niall reached them. The mists smelled all wrong; instead of salt and fish like the heavy fog over the village, these mists exuded an acrid smell overlaid with the sharp scent of mint.

An entrance to Faerie. Niall regarded it with foreboding before he realized that Alanna’s scent was quickly fading. His sons were in there, and now Alanna. Without further thought, Niall leaped into the mists between two of the stones and heard something snick closed behind him.

Six

Alanna found her brother hunting, but this wasn’t unusual. Kieran spent most of his time hunting, or rather, having his men chase animals towards him so that he could shoot them.

Kieran was every inch a Fae prince as he stood in the fog-soaked clearing wearing a white kid tunic, soft boots and fur-trimmed cloak, with his white-blond hair held back by a diamond diadem. Two men at arms flanked him: one carrying his bow, the other, his quiver of arrows.

As Alanna approached, Kieran took the bow and nocked an arrow, sighting into the woods opposite her. In a few seconds a wolf charged out of the fog, streaking for the heavy undergrowth on Alanna’s side of the clearing. The wolf was larger than most, its blue-white eyes intelligent.

The wolf saw Alanna and veered at the last minute. Kieran’s arrow, which had left the bow, bounced off a boulder where the wolf had been a second before.

Kieran shoved his bow back at his armsman and growled. «Damn you, Alanna. I’ve been tracking that wolf all night.»

«Have you?» More likely his trackers had found the wolf for him. «That wasn’t a natural wolf,» she said. «It was a Fae-wolf. A Shifter.»

«Bloody animal. Any Shifter in my realm is fair game.»

That was true. Any Shifter who ventured here had to be crazy, which meant the Lupine had probably been captured or lured in somehow. She didn’t know enough to tell whether it were male or female, and she wondered if Kieran had stolen its cubs too. She hoped it found its way back to the standing stones and out.

Kieran’s hungry gaze went to the sword, the Lupine forgotten, and he snapped his fingers. Alanna walked to him, handing over the sword with a little curtsy.

«Lovely.» Kieran hefted the blade, testing its balance. «This is perfect.»

«What are you going to use it for?» Alanna asked him.

«Simple, dear sister. To defeat Shifters.»

Niall had accused Alanna of knowing what Kieran’s spells were for, and she did, but she didn’t understand exactly what Kieran meant to do with them.

«Defeat them?» she asked. «It’s not a good weapon for killing, the Shifter said. Not sturdy enough, even with the spells.»

Kieran kept his gaze on the etched blade. «You know that I am named for our grandfather, who was killed by a horde of Lupine Shifters. Demons in animal skins. With this sword, I shall avenge him.»

«How?» Alanna asked. «The Shifters who killed him died long ago. Shifters are short-lived, you know; they last only three or four centuries at most.»

Kieran gave her a pitying look. «You are simplistic, my sister. I don’t need to find the descendants, I have the Shifters themselves. I have their bones.»

He waved his hand and mists lifted from the other side of the clearing. Low mounds, a dozen of them, lay side by side, overgrown with green.

Alanna’s eyes widened. «Where are those?»

«My loyal men tracked down the graves of each of the Lupines who slaughtered our grandfather. I had their remains brought here and reburied. I’ve been collecting them for a long time.»

«Why?»

«For this day.» Kieran raised the sword again. «Did you not understand the spells I gave you? You are a fine mage, my dear, and the only one who wasn’t afraid to go to the human world. Surely you will have worked it out.»

Alanna nodded. «You wanted to make a soul-stealer.»

«Ah, so you have not lost every bit of your intelligence after all. No, I cannot kill the Shifters who murdered our grandfather. But, if I capture their souls and make them do my bidding, they will be miserable for eternity.»

Alanna studied the mounds, which looked vulnerable and sad. «But the Shifters have been dead so long. Their souls will be gone — won’t they?»

«Not these Shifters. Our grandfather cursed them as he died.»

«Cursed them?»

Kieran gave her a disparaging look. «You are ignorant, Alanna. He cursed their souls to cleave to their dead bones. No going to the happy Summerland to chase rabbits for these Shifters.»

Alanna hid her revulsion. Even Fae had souls that dissolved when they reached the end of their long lives. The Fae then drifted, content, free of the constraints of the body, which also dissolved. To tie a soul to a cold, dark grave seemed to her the height of barbarity.