Chapter 31
Huntyr
Iwake suddenly to the sound of my door hinges creaking open.
Before I even open my eyes, my first thought is of Derian, wondering if he’s come back.
But as I blink awake, I realize Derian wouldn’t do that.
He’s not some lovestruck boy desperate to sleep beside me just because we shared a moment of passion.
This is someone else.
Still half asleep, instinct takes over. My fingers wrap around the dagger under my pillow, and I sit up straight as a board, calculating the distance between me and the shadowed figure entering my room before I fling the dagger.
The blade stops mid-air, hovering, before clattering uselessly to the floor.
Metal-wielder.
That has to be…
The intruder steps further into the room. The starlight from outside the window catches against her skin, her hair, the leather of her armor.
Mara.
Three more Fae warriors file in after her, each scanning over the room quickly.
“Where’s her Eshari?” one hisses, scanning over my room.
“Not here, grab her before it comes back.”
My muscles tense. Not fucking happening.
I launch, diving for the weapons chest, just at the same time that Mara assesses what I’m doing.
“Kaia!” I scream in my head.
“Do not let them harm you!”
Mara’s elbow slams into my face and snaps my head back. Stars explode behind my eyes as I stagger, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth. My head was already spinning from the earlier head wound, and now it’s practically impossible to focus through the pain.
“Yeah, doing my best. I could use some help.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” she snarls, her voice thick with tension. “Just hold them off for now.”
I lash out, aiming a jab at Mara’s throat, but she’s faster, more alert, and the other warriors are already making their way towards me. I’m ridiculously outnumbered.
These are not good odds.
“Hurry!”
“Grab her!” Mara hisses over her shoulder, raising her arms defensively.
Like hell am I letting them take me anywhere.
Mara dodges my strike, but I’m already moving again, slamming my bare foot into her knee. One of the warriors lunges behind me, but I feint back, driving my elbow towards him.
I manage a crack to his cheek before the third warrior slams a fist into my side, hitting my already-injured ribs.
Agony streaks through me, blinding and all-consuming.
I gasp, doubling over, clutching onto my side.
My attackers take advantage of that momentary lapse and an arm wraps around my throat and squeezes.
My stomach rolls in dread, and distantly I wonder how far away Kaia is. I almost don’t want her to come. There’s too many of them here, I don’t want to risk her getting hurt either.
“You will not stop fighting! Surrender is beneath you.”
Her voice snaps me back into the fight. Grunting, I push off the ground, twisting to flip my attacker, a move I’ve done a thousand times before, but Mara’s hand snakes out, catching hold of my ankle.
“See,” she says pointedly to the men. “I told you she knows what she’s doing.”
She shoves my legs toward the other male who hooks an arm around them, pinning me completely. I thrash wildly, desperate to shake myself out of his grasp, but he lifts my legs, and I’m suddenly suspended in the air between them.
“I’m going to kill you all,” I growl right before that arm on my throat tightens even more, cutting off any hope of air.
I claw at his flesh, nails scraping uselessly against leather armor.
Kristona’s most important rule in assassin school?
Never get yourself in a situation where you’re outnumbered and overpowered.
He would be so disappointed.
Fae bastards, all of them.
Mara walks towards the hall and glances through the door. “Let’s go before the cat comes back.”
“They’ll suffer a fate worse than the most brutal of deaths,” Kaia growls in my head.
A hand presses over my mouth, silencing any screaming, as the two Fae men carry me out of my room and through the dark hallways of the fortress.
Desperately, I glance to my left and right, searching for someone to intervene, but can’t spot a single soul. I’m in an entire fortress full of Fae warriors and there’s not a single one patrolling the halls at night? No one who heard the struggle and is coming to investigate?
“Where do we take her?” the one at my feet asks as we step outside.
The night air bites against my barely covered skin. The only illumination comes from the moon and the splattering of stars across the expanse of the sky.
Mara gestures towards the archway that leads to the stables, the dog yard, and the bird-houses with a vicious laugh.
“We’ll leave her body among the shit of the other animals,” she sneers.
White fury claws through me, infecting every part of me with a sudden burst of strength and defiance. I open my mouth and clench down hard on the hand silencing me.
The salty taste of blood floods my mouth.
The warrior howls, ripping his hand away.
“The bitch bit me!”
Gods, I hate that word.
I twist, thrashing free, before my shoulder slams into the ground. Pain slices down my spine but I roll into it, shifting my weight and pulling one foot free. Then the other.
His blood drips down my chest, sticky and staining the white of my nightgown as I drive a vicious kick into the warrior's gut, sending him stumbling.
Then I rise.
Mara. The two that were holding me. Two more reinforcements.
I should be flattered that she thinks she needs this many to kill me.
They draw their weapons, and I brace myself for what will inevitably be a fight to the death.
My death.
Even at my best, I wouldn’t be able to take on this many Fae, but I’m not at my best. I’m exhausted, injured, mentally drained. I don’t stand a chance, but that doesn’t mean I won’t put up a fight.
"These odds aren't in my favor," I tell Kaia in my mind. "But if it's any consolation, I'm going to at least make this hurt for them."
Just as I’m prepared to face down the Fae, a vicious snarl tears through the air, raising the hair on the back of my neck and destroying any semblance of silence in the courtyard
I’ve never heard anything like that roar. It coasts through the air and rattles my very bones. Based on the widened eyes of the Fae in front of me, they felt that too.
I whip around. She stands by that archway, ears flattened, haunches raised, lips curled over gleaming fangs.
And behind her—
Derian.
His hands are tucked into his pockets, stance casual and unbothered.
His eyes, though. His eyes promise death as he stares down my attackers.
Kaia pounces, rushing forward at impossible speed and launcher herself at the Fae nearest to me. Her jaw clamps down onto his hand with animalistic strength and more blood stains my dress as he screams.
The air shifts, suddenly freezing, before a brush of warmth floods over my arms like a gentle touch. Humidity falls over us, and the hair on the back of my neck lifts slightly with static electricity.
“There are so many better ways to spend your nights,” Derian tuts, walking towards us. My attackers all wide-eyed, not daring to look away from their prince.
With a final snarl, Kaia releases her grip on the Fae male, and returns to my side, licking her maw as her victim clutches what remains of his hand.
“I, for example, was sleeping after a very enjoyable evening," Derian continues.
My stomach flips.
“What a shame this is how you all chose to spend your last night alive.”
I sense the attack before it happens.
I feel the shift in pressure.
The static crackling in the air.
The sudden stillness that comes before—
The sky splits open, blinding light suddenly falling around me.
Four bolts of lightning strike down simultaneously, exploding against the Fae standing alongside Mara.
I lift my hand, blocking out the brightness of the shining lightning, and when I lower it, the smell of charred flesh and burnt hair hits me instantly. It’s so distracting that I barely notice Kaia brushing against my legs with her head.
Their bodies lie in heaps on the ground, covered in burns, small flames climbing up from what remains of their clothing.
The smell of it is pungent, practically suffocating.
One moment, they were standing there, and an instant later, they’ve been brutalized.
It’s… horrific. Unspeakable. Unimaginable.
I’ve seen all manner of death before, committed many atrocities myself, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this.
My mouth is suddenly dry, tasting overwhelmingly of copper.
“Your majesty,” Mara simpers, falling to her knees and averting her gaze.
She has the audacity to tremble.
Derian moves toward her slowly, never taking his gaze off her, even as I feel that brush of warmth against me again.
He taps her chin, a silent instruction to look up at him, which she obeys.
“Doing it quickly like that would be a kindness you do not deserve.”
He is death incarnate. The wildest of storms shoved inside a single body.
It's no wonder his family sent him away.
Magic rolls off of him, leaving the air charged, and I just know that he is barely holding back the hurricane of his power.
Darkness settles over the space, ever more oppressive, as clouds black out the moonlight.
Derian Silverthorn is not like the other Fae. He could destroy this entire fortress in a single breath.
But he's not going to do that. No—he's set his sights on one Fae in particular. He’s going to kill her. I know it in my bones, just as clearly as I know I can't let him.
If he killed her, he would be intervening in the Conclave.
Who knows what will happen to him if he breaks that rule?
“Don’t.”
I don’t even realize I’ve spoken until he looks at me.
His gaze drags over me, eyes scanning slowly from top to bottom.
There’s nothing but darkness in those eyes. Darkness, rage, and power. Pure, unmatched power.
This is not the man who had been in my bed hours ago.
Finally, I was seeing the prince whose brutality made him infamous.
This was the monster capable of killing hundreds—thousands with his storms.
This was the Fae bastard capable of destroying kingdoms.
“She was going to leave your body discarded in the stables, Huntress,” he intones, as if I needed the reminder, his eyes lingering on my still-bleeding nose. “You would stop me from punishing her?”
A shiver crawls up my spine.
I can’t help but wonder if he would have still responded with such anger if this had been done to anyone else… or if this type of reaction was reserved for me specifically.
“Why kill her when the Conclave will take care of that for you tomorrow?” I repeat his earlier words back to him, voice steady despite the disapproval that curls on his face.
“If she’s cowardly enough to think that she needs the help of others to murder me straight out of my bed, how much of a challenge could she really be? ”
Mara’s nostrils flare at the insult, but she doesn’t dare speak.
He considers me for a long, unbearable moment. He looks at me with such intensity that Kaia shifts between us, subtle but protective.
Then he moves.
He fists his hand in Mara’s hair, yanking her to her feet as she gasps in pain.
“Very well,” he agrees. “But you better hope you don’t win tomorrow, Mara, because if you do, and you end up my wife, then I will make sure every day is a fresh torture for you.”
He shoves her away, sending her sprawling. She scrambles, jogging back towards the barracks without another word, leaving me alone with a version of Derian that I don’t quite recognize.
The air shifts again, the icy chill suddenly leaving.
He glances towards me, but remains rooted to his spot, not moving a single muscle. “Are you hurt?”
The question feels strange. It’s a simple question that’s progressively getting harder to answer each day I spend in the Fae kingdom.
I lick the blood from my lip.
“I can take it.”
He simply stares. No smart remark. No laughter. Just that dark appraisal.
Until finally he comes to me, reaches forward, brushes aside the blood from under my nose with his thumb, and tucks my hair behind my ear. “You shouldn’t have to.”
I shiver. “You realize the odds of my living through tomorrow are minuscule?”
What will he do with all this anger then? He can't very well bring down the entire arena with lightning.
His jaw works as he avoids my gaze. “I will send a pain tonic in the morning for you. Then you will go to the arena, and you will use every bit of training you have. You will use their weaknesses against them. I know you’ve studied them closely enough to figure them out.”
Even as he looks anywhere but at me, I can’t tear my gaze away from him. There’s worry in his features. It’s abundantly obvious in the pinch of his brows and purse of his full lips.
Lips that had burned themselves onto me only hours ago.
“I know their weaknesses,” I whisper, trying to reassure him.
Seraphina is impulsive, too easily manipulated by her emotions. She relies on her powers too much, so she isn’t as good at fighting in close contact.
Mara doesn’t think things through. She acts without understanding the consequences of her actions. Tonight is a perfect example of that. Her control over weapons is formidable, but she has remarkably terrible aim when targets are moving.
“You are just as much a warrior as they are.” Derian reaches out to cup my cheek. “You are just as deadly as they are.”
“Why do you care?” I ask as I stare up at him.
Finally, he meets my gaze. He looks at me for an impossibly long time, an eternity measured in heartbeats, before he answers. “I don’t know.”
And I know that he’s not lying.
He steps back. “Get back to bed.”
With that, he turns on his heels, walking not towards the barracks, but instead towards the training courtyard. Another bolt of lightning streaks through the sky, and thunder cracks violently.
I’m still standing there, staring after him, when the rain starts to fall, soaking me almost instantly.
“Why did you bring him?” I ask Kaia.
“I was hunting, the prince was nearby. You needed help.”
I glare down at her before I start stomping back towards my room, shame flowing over me in waves. “He’s not our ally.”
Kaia is quiet, following after me almost silently, and I hold my door open for her once we’re back inside.
“Do not judge the prince for turning to violence in the name of protecting you. Not when that same potential for violence exists in you to defend those you care for.”
“Derian doesn’t care for me.”
She allows me to settle into my blankets before she settles herself in front of the door. “He cares as much as you do.”