THE FOREST LORD By Susan Krinard

He did not want that life. He could not make Eden want it, no matter how well he intrigued and seduced her. In her eyes he was either a man far beneath her rank, or he was not a man at all. They were moving inevitably toward a joining that could not last.

Hartley turned his hand and set the mouse down on the boulder. It remained, gazing up at him as if in concern. Even the smallest of nature’s creatures recognized his confusion.

So much for the august dignity of the Forest Lord. Hartley laughed and rested his head in his hands.

The cool nose of the fox nudged at his fingers. Absently he reached out to stroke the pointed muzzle, but his hand found skin instead.

Tod sneezed and sank into a crouch beside the boulder, nimble fingers dangling over his knees. “You are sad, my lord?”

Hartley rose to his full height and frowned at the hob. “You have been gone long enough.”

Tod ducked his head. “Tod had far to search.”

“And Tod no doubt found other diversions. Have you completed the task?”

“Aye, my lord.” He shook his head, tumbling unruly red hair into his eyes.

“Speak,” Hartley commanded. “What did you learn?”

Tod made himself very small and peered up at Hartley from under his brows. He began to speak in a rush, scuttling a little farther away from his lord with every sentence.

When Tod had finished, Hartley stood at the center of a storm, lashing rain and wind that matched the violence of his anger. All the other beasts had fled. Only Tod remained at a safe distance at the edge of the wood, huddled against the stinging drops.

This is what it is to be a Fane child among men. Hartley closed his eyes as if he could drive away the images that crowded his mind. Donal constantly mistreated. Donal starved and beaten. Donal mocked because he was different, and driven away at last because he was feared.

“Shall Tod go back?” Tod said in a small voice. “Shall Tod punish these wicked mortals?”

“No.” Hartley calmed his own racing heart, and with it the winds and rain. The downpour became a drizzle and then a mist, shrouding the felltop. “There is no changing the nature of man.”

Tod didn’t answer. Hartley thought of what he had heard, what he knew of Donal, how Eden feared for her son. She would never forgive herself if she knew how Donal had suffered because of her ignorance of his existence.

Donal would go on suffering if Eden bound him to the mortal world. She wished to protect him by any means necessary, unaware that the greatest danger came from her own kind. She must believe that the marquess would accept the boy. He could offer her honorable marriage, and her son a stepfather, in a way completely suitable to her society and station.

And utterly unsuitable for a Fane child.

But that situation would not arise. It was only a matter of time before Hartley got Eden with a child free of Fane gifts and took Donal away—and then let Eden do whatever she wished with her fine human lord.

No. Lightning cracked above Hartley’s head. No mortal should have her again. No man should possess what had been his. Rushborough was unworthy of the Forest Lord’s bride.

Unworthy of the woman Hartley had hated and sought to manipulate, whose son he intended to steal.

He shook his head wildly, shouting into the thunder. The Fane seldom went mad as men understood the word, but she drove him near to it. She and the emotions she aroused in him, however fiercely he fought to reject them.

The storm snarled and blustered until an hour before sunrise. The sun’s first rays poured over Hartley like balm, easing the untidy remnants of his anger. He could not have raised the smallest cloud even had he wished.

But his mind was clear. There was always the chance, however remote, that something might go wrong with his plans to take Donal to Tir-na-nog. Eden must be made to understand why Donal was meant for better things than man’s cruel world could offer.

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