Betrayals
Page 74

“And that was the same Huntsman who was holding you captive?”
“He wasn’t holding—Not at first …” Ciro ran his hands through his hair. “I failed. God, I failed, and now I won’t get her back—”
“I never died,” I said.
“The Cn Annwn can’t resurrect the dead,” Ricky said.
“How do you know that?” Ciro said, meeting Ricky’s gaze with a look that was belligerence and fear and hope, because he still wanted to think it was possible, that he could somehow get Lucy back, but he also wanted to believe it wasn’t possible, that he hadn’t lost an honest chance.
“How do you know?” he repeated.
Ricky met his gaze and said, “I just do.”
“Whatever that Huntsman told you?” I said. “He’s full of shit.”
“I …” Ciro swallowed. “I suspected that. After the—” He closed his eyes again and rocked on his heels. “After what I did. After I stopped being so angry. After I had a long talk with Ani.”
“Aunika?” I said, trying to keep the worry out of my voice. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing. I mean, I said I thought the lamiae called Lucy out that night. We talked, and I started to think I’d made a mistake. So I told the Huntsman I thought he’d made a mistake. He said that was fine, I could stop. Next thing I know, the Cn Annwn were after me, and I needed to get to safety.”
“The Cn Annwn were after you? You saw them?”
“It’s mostly what I heard. Hooves. A hound baying. I caught a glimpse of it, but only a glimpse.”
“It,” I said. “You saw one hound. Heard what could have been one set of hoofbeats.”
“I guess so.”
That’s what I’d seen in my vision. Like Ciro, I’d presumed it’d been the whole pack of Cn Annwn. But it’d only been one hound and one rider. The rogue Huntsman and the wounded cn.
“Then the Huntsman offered you sanctuary here. To escape the Hunt.”
“Right. Then I overheard him on the phone after he thought I fell asleep. He was talking to some guy he’d sent after Aunika. Apparently, someone had been hurt. When I heard that, I freaked out, and he said Ani was fine, just fine, and I’d misunderstood and he’d been saying someone else went after her, and his friends were trying to stop it. But I knew then it was a lie, that Ani was right and the lamiae would never have hurt Lucy. I didn’t dare accuse him of lying, so I’ve been trying to sneak out, but the hound …” He looked around quickly. “Where’s the hound?”
“Close by,” Ricky said. “It’s mine now. Answer our questions and you’ll be fine. But you really don’t want to run.”
As if on cue, a hound bayed, loud enough that Ciro wasn’t the only one jumping. I spun, and then realized it wasn’t Ricky’s hound.
“The Cn Annwn,” Ricky said. “They must be stuck outside the forest. Like the ravens.”
“Wh-what?” Ciro said. “You said the real …?”
“Did that guy honestly seem like Cn Annwn to you?” I said. “I know you said your family doesn’t follow the old ways, but I think you’d at least know your fae lore. They hunt in packs, right?” I waved at the baying. “That is a pack. What you dealt with was a rogue Cn Annwn.”
“No, that thing is an abomination,” Ricky said. “He told this guy to murder fae—”
“That’s why they’re here, isn’t it?” Ciro said, still turned toward the sound. “The real Huntsmen. I killed fae. I’m theirs now.”
“We’ll handle this,” Ricky said. “You—”
“Handle it how?” Ciro said. “I murdered fae. Killed them horribly, and for what?” His voice rose. “Lucy’s not coming back. She’s never coming back.”
“We’ll speak to the Cn—” I began.
“You can’t reason with the Hunt. I have no excuse.”
“Just calm down and we’ll call them.” I took out my cell.
Ciro started to laugh, his voice rising hysterically. “Call them? On your cell phone. Of course. Because you have their number. The cell phone number of the Cn Annwn.”
“Calm down,” Ricky said. “They’re not going to—”
A growl cut him off. We turned to see the hound—the broken cn—on the edge of the clearing, its gaze fixed on Ciro. When I looked over, the forest tilted for a moment, and I was in a ruined building, watching Ciro crouched over the body of a lamia. Watching him dip his hands into her blood. Watching her, dead eyes wide with terror, her glow fading as her spirit passed. Seeing that, I felt the hound’s rage, one that echoed what Ciro had said—that there was no excuse, that he had murdered those fae girls and he should pay.
“No.”
The word came quietly, calmly, but it jolted me out of the vision, and I saw Ricky, his gaze on the hound as he said, “Not this one.”
The growl died in the hound’s throat as it raised its gaze to him, ears drooping, head bowing in submission.
Ricky walked over and rubbed behind the hound’s ruined ear, murmuring, “None of that,” and it slowly, carefully, straightened, its gaze on him, waiting for a raised hand or other sign that it had misinterpreted. Finally, it pulled itself up straight, submission evaporating, and it watched Ciro, its gaze saying he still deserved death, but it would wait. For now, it would wait.