Read Online NocC 021 - Jessa Slade - Dark Hunter's Touch - Harlequin 2012-08 by Nocturne - Free Book Online Page A

nothing.”
    He growled, making her heart race faster than when the hounds
were on her heels. “You. Aren’t. Nothing.”
    “But I will be, once I’m back there.”
    “At least you’ll be alive.”
    She had come alive, one night in his arms. “Never again.”
    His jaw worked, but he didn’t answer. He tightened his grip so
she had no chance to flee as he reached into his back pocket and withdrew a
narrow steel vial. The steel held just enough carbon to contain but not destroy
the phae magic inside.
    If only humans realized how much protection they had lost
against the phae , purifying all their iron into
steel. But then again, if they did know, she—silly little sylfana that she was—would never have been able to cross into their
world. The steel-born phae would no longer be kept
at bay with the old charms.
    But now Vaile was conjuring the way back. He uncorked the vial
and sprinkled the contents in a circle around their feet. The dust drifted into
the sand, and the spores sprouted with preternatural speed to mark the shifting
boundary between realms. Button-sized caps spread like little golden wings, and
Imogene couldn’t help but breathe the whiff of honey that floated through the
widening gateway.
    The fragrance was another lie; there was nothing sweet about
the phaedrealii . If a human stepped into the circle
before the gate magic dissipated, he would awaken to find himself trapped in a
realm that would probably destroy him, his mind and soul if not his body.
    And if a human ate the sprouted spores… The phrase “magic
mushroom” was more appropriate than mortals knew.
    She closed her eyes as the gate magic encircled her, and she
slipped into the dream.
    Or, considering the darkly menacing phae Hunter behind her, into her nightmare…
     

Chapter Six
    Vaile hadn’t caught even the briefest glimpse of
Imogene in…forever. In the sunlit world, only a couple of weeks had passed. But
in the phaedrealii court, the separation stretched
like an eternity. That one night of fierce sensation had obviously skewed his
perceptions.
    The Lord Hunter—one of the Hunters who had been away when the
old Lord had come Undone—had kept him busy since his return. His brethren’s eyes
were on him, watchful and wondering why he had taken a full cycle of the moon to
find a missing sylfana . Since he couldn’t admit he
had found her on the very first day and then proceeded to run after her every
day thereafter, on foot, without actually catching her, he bit his tongue and
took the hounds’ dung tasks the Lord Hunter slung at him. He had to be the
unflinching Hunter; if they thought he was losing his edge, they would turn on
him quicker than the hounds. And then they would turn their vicious attention to
Imogene.
    But a dozen more phae repatriations—most of them straightforward, though three had been
lethal—couldn’t keep his mind off one sweet sylfana .
In fact, the captures had only made him think harder.
    Just as his brethren were watching him, he was listening to
them. The Hunters were being called on more and more often to find wandering phae . The mood of the phaedrealii , always mercurial and secretive, was changing, and the
power of the Queen’s illusions—though holding for the moment—seemed to be
thinning. He might not have even noticed the pattern except that Imogene had
forced him to open his eyes. What if the phaedrealii deserters had wanted only what she wanted—a chance to feel, to live?
    Ever since the old Lord Hunter had tried to unwing him as a
whelp, he had believed in the Queen’s edict against the Undoing. More than
believe in it, he had fought and killed to defend it.
    What if he had been wrong?
    Certainly the three delinquent phae he had confronted had been abroad with nefarious purposes. The crazed
dwarf had been hacking down a ring of birch trees that marked the Queen’s
permanent private gate into the sunlit world. When Vaile had tried to talk to
him, the dwarf had cackled, “We must