Into the Fire (The Unseelie Court Book 4), Gwen Rivers [read full novel .TXT] 📗

“Not when you have the patience and relentless nature of an immortal. Loki, by the blood and entrails of your youngest son you were bound. By the blood and bone of your eldest, you shall be free.”

Sigyn’s gaze goes to the other figure. “Váli?” She breathes as though in disbelief.

Underhill closes in for the kill. “Great Loki. The world is ripe and the gods are weak. Science has replaced magic beyond the Veil and the ancients are gathering for the final battle.”

“Ragnarök,” Loki breathes the word like a benediction.

Underhill nods. “The dead are walking and the great winter is at hand. We offer this sacrifice to free you.”

Without warning, she grabs hold of the third figure. Fenrir moved behind the other and holds his hands captive. From the depth of her pocket, Underhill withdraws a silver knife.

“Any last words you wish me to relay to my daughter, Aiden?” she asks.

The figure shakes his head once, the hood falling back revealing shaggy dark locks and the same piercing green eyes as Loki.

“I think a rib will work,” Underhill puts her free hand on his chest as though marking her place. The knife flashes in the torchlight and then is buried in his heart.

I awake with a jolt, Aiden’s name on my lips. Had it been only a dream? Or had Underhill really captured my wolf?

My love. I never should have left him.

My body shakes with small tremors, making the chains tethering my wrists and ankles together rattle. A leg iron cuffs each ankle over my grubby and blood-stained jeans and bracelets connect my wrists. My shoulder throbs and so does my leg—both the sites where I’d been shot.

Shot by the FBI.

It’s what they do when fugitives run. Even teenage girls.

And I am so much more than your average teenager.

It helps, repeating my mantra. My name is Nic Rutherford. I live in the mountains of North Carolina. I am the Risen Queen of the Unseelie Court. I have died twice and been resurrected. I hunt murderers and rapists and kill them with my goodnight kiss. Aiden is my mate.

It helps my confidence to recite my little mantra. At least it distracts me from the unforgiving reality. That I am cold, in pain and utterly terrified.

I’ve been incarcerated. Captured. They know what I can do.

Trying not to panic, I take in my surroundings.

Four concrete walls with an oval doorway, like something on a submarine. No windows though, not even an arrow slit. All the light is manufactured and comes from the humming overhead fluorescents. The people who shot me have stuffed me in this cell, inside some FBI stronghold. Crusted blood cakes my clothing from where I’d taken a bullet to the shoulder, another on my thigh. The clothing has been cut away to expose the injuries, which are covered with thick swathes of gauze.

I have no memory of the treatment or being dumped in this cell.

At least the mask—that horrible thing they’d wrapped around my face—is gone. I take a full breath and try to slow my pounding heart. It was just a dream. Aiden is across the Veil, true. He has to stay there until he manages to break the evil spell of madness Pharaildis—aka Underhill—put on him.

But she doesn’t have him. I would know it. We are mates, bound by fate and by choice. I can feel when he is in danger or in pain, just as he can feel me. We share a connection that carried over from my last life when I’d been the queen of the Shadow Throne.

I’d been meant to rule again. But Pharaildis had tricked me into bringing Gretchen, Fenrir’s human host, to her. The Shadow Throne had accepted him and now Aiden’s half-brother, the wolf who is destined to swallow the world, rules in my stead.

And I have been banished to Midgard, the mortal realm where the FBI waited to spring their trap.

I picture Pharaildis in my mind and think, Mother, you are such a bitch.

Prison. I look down to see my hands are shaking. Terror courses through me at the thought of incarceration and all it might entail. What will the mortals do to me? Tests? Experiments?

I take a deep breath to steady my nerves.

As a serial killer in the hands of the FBI, I am in seriously deep shit. And I don’t see a way out. What’s more, since my banishment, I don’t have access to my magic anymore. My allies, the fey of the Wild Hunt might come for me. Then again, they might not be able to leave. The Hunt is bound to the Unseelie queens, and I am not one any longer.

Besides, it’s not in my nature to skulk around and wait for rescue.

Shoving aside my clawing panic at being trapped in a windowless prison, I push to my feet to take stock of myself. They’ve taken my boots but I still have on the thick gray socks. My pants are shredded, my shirt hanging open. The garments had been torn along the sites where I’d been bleeding. Though I am filthy and aching, my rapid healing is already kicking in. It’s a good thing the FBI wants me in working order. Otherwise, they might not have bothered to patch me up.

I’ve got enough explaining to do as it is.

A wave of nausea rolls through me, but I shove it aside as I take in my holding cell.

A bed with a lumpy mattress that looks like it was stolen off some dorm curb on trash day sits on a metal frame. A minuscule sink stands in the far corner. I trudge that way, ignoring the pain in my leg. The shackles that encircle my wrists and ankles give me enough wiggle room to take care of my personal needs over the single toilet. A camera is mounted in one corner, the red light indicates that it is on.

Perverts.

Otherwise, the place is bare. I’m a minimalist by nature but this is ridiculous.

Another lurch in my stomach and I