Wicked Enchantment by Anya Bast Read Free Book Online Page A

give up, let go, and allow them to carry her soul over the twilight threshold of life and death to the Netherworld. To death. She hadn’t been able to resist them. She’d been so tired, so weak.
    She was going to die soon and Gabriel Cionaodh Marcus Mac Braire, somehow, someway, would be the catalyst.
     
     
    THE man stood flickering in the image his soul took to the living—gray and softly glowing. A shimmering silver cord rippled and pulsed from his back, reaching to the Netherworld, where his place already waited for him. All he needed was for the Wild Hunt to show him the way. The elderly fae’s expression was a mixture of sorrow and pain as he gazed down at his still-living wife, who lay sleeping in bed beside his motionless and silent body. The wife probably wouldn’t realize her husband had passed until morning.
    Gabriel regretted her discovery and her impending grief, but this was the natural pattern for all living things. No one was immune. He was only a ferryman, imbued by some unknown cosmic force with the ability to escort the departed to the afterlife.
    Only himself and his host could see fae spirits. He guessed there were probably a few others beyond his circle with the ability, but he’d never met any. Gabriel wasn’t sure if his skill extended to human souls. He’d been born outside Piefferburg, but he’d been a child and not yet Lord of the Wild Hunt during those few, short years of freedom. Since he’d probably die in Piefferburg, he’d probably never know.
    The torch of the Wild Hunt had passed to him nearly two hundred years ago. In those two hundred years Gabriel had seen every type of soul there was to see. Some left their life with a peace and acceptance that was beautiful to behold. Some were angry and fought to stay earthbound. Some did remain earthbound.
    But most of them were simply sad to leave those they loved and were reluctant to sever their attachments. Sometimes it was hard to get souls to take that final ride with him, a ride that would usher them forward to their next life—whatever that was. Gabriel wasn’t privy to the secrets of the world that lay beyond this one, despite his job servicing it.
    His host waiting outside, Gabriel reached out a hand to the soul. “It’s time to go now.”
    The man looked at him, then turned away and knelt at his wife’s side. Clearly he needed some time to say good-bye. Gabriel was always willing to give it. If the man’s wife woke while Gabriel was in the room, all she would see were shadows. All she would hear were murmurs and whispers. Magick protected the hunt’s true identity and had since the dawn of time.
    Though she would perceive the Wild Hunt, the woman would not be able to see her husband. She would probably presume that the Wild Hunt had killed him. The trooping fae, who lacked the gentle spirituality of the wilding fae and the knowledge of the nobles, believed that the hunt was evil.
    Gabriel gave the man until dawn began to edge slowly over the horizon. “Come. Your life is done here and another is waiting for you. Your wife will grieve you, but her journey on earth isn’t finished yet.”
    The man ignored him, gripping his wife’s hand like he would never let go.
    Most of the souls he collected seemed to understand that it was time to leave. Some did not. He kept track of every soul he couldn’t collect, returning periodically to see if he could entice them into passing. Fae souls didn’t have magick anymore, but they could still hurt others if they wanted to badly enough. A powerful enough necromancer could even make them into weapons and kill people with them. Luckily there were no necromancers in Piefferburg.
    The man finally moved away from his wife and toward Gabriel. Silently, they walked out of the small house in the ceantar láir and back to the waiting host. They had a full collection tonight. Five other souls were mounted on the horses.
    Once the man was secure on a jet-black mare, the hounds led them off once