Into the Fire (The Unseelie Court Book 4) by Gwen Rivers (free ebooks romance novels .TXT) 📗

spirits looking for direction, for hope.

She’s ready.

I’m not.

How can I let her go?

It’s Freya who makes the decision for me. I’m in the middle of my sparring with Liam when she appears behind me. All the hairs rise on the back of my neck and I sense something is wrong even before Liam freezes mid lunge.

“It’s time,” the goddess says.

I whirl, blade high. I don’t know if I can do any harm to the goddess but I’m willing to find out.

Her gaze bores into me. “She will meet her destiny and you will meet yours, Nicneven.”

“My name is Nic. I want more time.” More time to get to know my daughter, to prepare her. Sixteen years isn’t enough. An immortal lifetime won’t be enough.

“Take her to the Tear. It will be her test. If she can heal it, you know she is ready.” The goddess vanishes.

I double over and only Liam’s quick reflexes keep me from falling flat on my face in the dirt.

“I’m not ready.” Not ready to kill Pharaildis and take her place in an immortal prison. Not ready to lose my daughter.

Not ready to see Aiden.

“You don’t have to take her.” The alpha’s tone is gentle.

I shake my head. “Freya was holding the timeline across the Veil to a crawl. If I don’t take Addison now….” I trail off.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

“I’ll drive you.” Liam sprints for the truck while I go to collect my daughter.

“What is this place?” Addison looks at the wreckage from the ranch house. After sixteen years, there isn’t much that the wild mountains haven’t reclaimed.

“It used to be an in-between. A direct line from Midgard to the heart of the Unseelie Court.”

Liam, now in wolf form, whines from the bed of my pickup but I hold up a hand, indicating that he should stay put.

I study her face, so like my own. But those emerald eyes are her father’s. “Are you getting any feelings?”

Addison’s intuition can put even mine to shame.

Her blond brows draw together. “It feels…. wrong.”

“This is where the Veil is torn. Do you remember how I showed you how to change your vision to the soul plane?”

She nods.

“Do it now.” I do as well. Together we look at the massive void that eats soul energy.

A gasp escapes her. “Oh.”

She’s so innocent, my sixteen-year-old daughter. She’s never killed, never done anything but heal. Sometimes I can’t believe she came from me.

“What happened?” She studies the jagged tear, assessing the damage.

“Life and death came together. The forces of creation and destruction tore the Veil that separates our realm from Underhill. When it gets to ground level, anything can cross through. Including the dead.”

“Draugar.” She’s a better student than I ever was.

“That’s right.” I hesitate. This next part is tricky. I think back to my aunts and Aiden, all of whom were there to help lead me to my destiny. “Addison, do you know how to fix this?”

She swings her gaze to meet mine. “Fix?”

“The way you repair animals?” She was a better vet even than her namesake. Part fairy queen who speaks with the beasts like a Spriggan, part goddess whose touch can heal any wound.

She frowns and then gets out of the truck. After a moment, I follow.

This is it, the test.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing.

She reaches out and closes her eyes. I stand next to her, ready to sweep her away from this place, to kill anything that threatens her. I sacrificed my heart to keep her safe. Have lived without it since before she was born. Only love, pure and true from a mother to a child, could turn the icy soul of a once selfish fey queen into the sort of mother who will always, always have her back.

Time moves differently on the other side of the Veil. If Addison can do this, if she can heal the tear I made before she was born, she’s ready for what comes next.

My heart pounds. I don’t know what to hope for.

At first, nothing changes. I see her raise her hands as though measuring. Then that familiar light begins to glow.

My vision shifts to the tear, the jagged edges that flap in an ethereal breeze that my skin can’t perceive but seems to suck at my black soul. All at once I know.

All of this was meant to be.

Addison is she—the One True Queen of the Unseelie Court.

Through the Man’s Eyes

The carriage rumbles past the sea of animated corpses. The landscape beyond their gnarled carcasses looks like the surface of the moon. No green anywhere. Nothing to sustain life. The dead outnumber the living fey a hundred to one.

Too late. Aiden feels it in his bones. They are too late to save the fey. He wonders if Freda and Taj got everyone out in time. He wonders if the gods allowed them to stay in Vanheim.

Will Nic sense it when he dies?

Underhill’s gaze is lost in the bleak landscape.

“Is this what you wanted?” Aiden keeps his tone soft. “You loved this realm once. Were one of the original dreamers. And now it’s in ruin.”

“It is indeed a high price.” Her tone is soft and utterly without remorse.

“My lady?” Rodrick clears his throat.

She holds up a hand before he can speak.

“Stop the carriage,” she barks.

With a frown on his weathered brow, Rodrick calls for the driver to stop.

She turns to the window that faces west. Closes her eyes and waits.

Aiden stares at her intently. With his hands and wrists bound by Gleipnir, he can’t move more than his facial muscles.

“She’s repairing it,” Underhill grates.

“Who? Repairing what?” The fey general looks around in confusion.

Pharaildis’s eyes flash open and she looks not at Rodrick but at Aiden. Her face is a mask of barely leashed fury.

Only Nic could have upset her so much. What is his mate doing?

It hits him like Thor’s hammer. Pharaildis said she’s repairing it. The prophecy. Somehow, Nic had found a way to mend the tear.

His shoulders sag as much as