Bonus - A Hunt So Wild - Chapter One #3
Her fingers caught a root—thick and gnarled, jutting from the hillside. The jolt nearly tore her arms from their sockets, but she held on, gasping, her body dangling. Below her feet, she could feel nothing but space. A ravine, she realized with cold terror, hidden by the slope's curve.
The root creaked under her weight. She tried to pull herself up, but her ribs screamed in protest, and her grip was already slipping on the damp bark. She could see the earth around the root beginning to crumble, feel it starting to give.
"Please," she whispered to no one, to anyone, her fingers white-knuckled on the wood. "Please—"
The root tore free from the earth with a sound like breaking bones.
She fell, branches tearing at her arms as she plummeted. Something hard caught her midway down driving the air from her lungs before she continued falling. She hit the bottom with an impact that turned the world white, then black, then white again.
Briar groaned, coughing and managed to turn her head, though the movement made the world spin dangerously. Through the dim light filtering down from above, she saw him.
He was beautiful in the way a snake was beautiful, all dangerous grace even in stillness.
Patches of iridescent scales caught what little light reached them, shifting from black to green to gold as he breathed.
They scattered across his skin like someone had painted him with pieces of a midnight rainbow.
His eyes, when they found hers, were distinctly inhuman—vertical pupils in irises that held too many colors to name.
Heavy chains wrapped around his torso and arms, each link as thick as her thumb. Where they pressed against his skin, particularly against those scales, the flesh beneath looked wrong, darkened and seeping something that might have been blood but seemed too dark.
"Staring is rude," he said, his voice conversational despite his position.
"Though I suppose you're trying to figure out what I am.
I'm a Drak, obviously." A what? When she continued staring blankly, he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.
"Dragon-kin? Fire spirit? Household pest, according to some very rude fae lords?
" Briar could only offer him another blank look.
"Gods, humans really know nothing useful, do you?
All that education and you can't even identify the thing dying in front of you. "
Dying? So it was blood.
"Those chains—" she started, trying to push herself up. She made it to her hands and knees before her ribs convinced her that was far enough.
"Oh, these?" He shifted slightly, metal scraping against stone.
"Lord Selathian thought I'd make an amusing pet.
I disagreed. Violently and with fire, lots of fire.
" He sounded almost wistful, as though the memory were a pleasant one.
"Did you know fae hair burns remarkably fast?
Anyway, he put these on me to 'prove a point' and I was being transported to his summer estate when I had a philosophical disagreement with my entourage. "
She blinked at him, trying to process the casual way he discussed what had to be a traumatic experience. He continued even though she'd given no indication that she cared or wanted him to.
"The disagreement was about whether I should kill them slowly or quickly," he clarified helpfully.
"I opted for quickly, I'm not a sadist, but then I had to run while still wearing these lovely accessories.
Fell into this hole two days ago? Three?
Time moves strangely when iron's eating through your scales.
" His forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air.
"You're bleeding rather badly, by the way.
All over, actually. It's quite dramatic. "
She looked down at her leg and saw the blood seeping through the silk, dripping steadily onto the leaves. When she looked back up, he was still watching her, and still talking.
"The hunters up there will smell it soon.
They're not particularly clever, but blood scent?
Even idiots can follow that. I'd give you maybe ten minutes before they start circling the ravine edge.
" He paused, considering. "Actually, I should thank you.
It might have taken me days to die from these chains.
The hunters will be much quicker. Messier, probably, but definitely quicker. "
"I'm sorry," she found herself saying, the words escaping before she could stop them. "I didn't mean to lead them to you."
"Oh, don't apologize. It's actually quite considerate of you." He shifted, chains scraping. "Lord Selathian wanted me to suffer for weeks. Very vindictive, that one. But a bunch of hunt-crazed fae tearing us both apart? That'll be done in minutes. Much more efficient."
A hunting horn echoed above them, closer than before. Too close.
Her hand went to her hair, fingers finding one of the remaining pins.
The metal felt cold against her fingertips.
She would be stupid to free another fae-bound creature, not after what happened with Malus.
But leaving him here to be torn apart by the hunters when she had even the smallest way to help seemed wrong.
"They're getting closer," he observed, seemingly unbothered by their impending arrival. "They'll find this ravine within, oh, five minutes? Maybe less if your blood trail is as obvious up there as it is down here."
The pin was in her hand now. Such a small thing. She wasn't freeing him, she told herself. She was just... giving him the same chance she had. To try. To possibly escape. Or not. It wouldn't be her fault either way.
"The lock's quite clever, actually," he continued, seemingly talking to himself now. "Multiple tumblers, false mechanisms. Even if someone had the right tools, it would take considerable skill to—"
Another horn, from a different direction. They were converging.
"Ah, there's the eastern group," he said with something almost like satisfaction. "They'll meet right above us. Should be quite the gathering. I hope you—"
Briar tossed the pin. It landed near his bound hands with a soft plink against stone. He went still, all except his eyes which were tracking from the pin to her face, that sharp attention returning.
She didn't wait for whatever he might say. Using the stone wall for support, she pulled herself upright and limped deeper into the ravine as fast as her damaged body would allow. Behind her, she heard the soft scrape of chains against stone as he began to move.