The Huntress (The Bride Hunt #2)

Chapter 1

Zyla

The secret of a good hunt is patience. But even better? Camouflage. Pretending one is prey instead of a predator, disguised in soft silks with braided hair and a poisoned kiss.”

— ZYLA BASHKIRIA, AUTHOR OF A brIDE’S GUIDE TO HUNTING THE HUNTER

Awareness comes slowly, like the drip, drip, drip of water down the walls surrounding me. I’m not entirely certain when I slip over the boundary of consciousness, but between one blink and the next, I find myself staring at a dark ceiling.

Where am I?

This is a world of darkness and silence—except for the throbbing in my head.

Every inch of my bones feels like lead. The taste of something foul lingers in my mouth like an unwelcome guest. I’ve suffered mornings like this before—most often following a heavy night in the village tavern—but I can’t say that I enjoyed last night half as much, though I don’t truly recall.

But I can’t keep lying here.

Rolling over with a groan, I nearly fall off the bed as I blink groggy eyes open. My hand slaps down, finding smooth, polished stone. No. Not a bed. I’m lying on a stone bier, the edges of the marble cut sharp and square.

And not a hangover.

Memory comes streaming back like punches of light—the knights in their white robes opening the doors to the harem and standing there in shock as they beheld the empty chambers and the bare windows, bereft of their protective iron-bars.

The anger on the Knight Protector’s face when he came to see the truth for himself and found only me.

“I am ready to be sacrificed,” I told him boldly, hands raw from the mix of powders I’d used to set off small reactions at the base of the iron bars, so the other women could pry them free and escape.

Words streamed into one another as the knights began to shout, but the Knight Protector was the loudest.

I would pay for my insolence. He would punish me himself, his fists curling into enormous slabs shivering with the urge to drive them into my soft flesh.

He would—

What do you mean he could not touch me?

“The ceremony,” one acolyte whispered. “We have not the time. The sacrifice must be made. And she is all that remains to sacrifice to the Labyrinth.”

My heartbeat starts to pound behind my ribs as everything comes rushing back.

The beating of drums.

The wine they’d given me.

The ceremony.

The way the Knight Protector had stared at me as if committing my face to memory, as if promising himself that one day he would see me broken and bloodied for my defiance.

And the way I’d blown him one last mocking kiss before the darkness swallowed me whole.

I have no intention of ever returning to that world.

As if to taunt me, a crack of lightning shatters the night, whipping through the air and lighting the room I sit within. The shock of after-image leaves me half blind. It draws me back into the moment, my victorious moment.

I made it.

I’m in the Labyrinth.

Nine years waiting for this moment. Nine years of sacrifice and tears, of cunning and patience, all my focus fixed on a single goal—get inside this cursed game.

The first leg of my path to vengeance is complete.

Now I just have to find the Beast, and kill him.

But I’m not the only one here.

There are over a dozen stone biers in a circle around the vast circular chamber. High above me, a hole in the ceiling reveals a scattering of stars and a full, foreboding moon tinged red. Around the room open arches lead to… safety? Escape?

Unlikely.

“Come on,” I whisper to myself, shaking my hands and arms to bring the blood back into them. There’d been an analgesic in the wine. I’d expected that.

None of the women I’ve spoken to knew how they arrived in this world, only that the knights had given them drugged wine before they awoke here.

“Shake it off.”

I glance around, meeting the gaze of a heavily tattooed woman across the chamber floor. Her hair is blue and her eyes are wide as our gazes meet—a shared look of resignation.

She knows.

Beside me, a curvaceous redhead blinks and moans, turning her head sleepily.

She’s gowned in silvery white, little gold stars hanging from her earrings.

Freckles dust the top of her rounded shoulders and kiss her plump cheeks.

Clearly from a world of abundance, and possibly from a wealthy family too, judging by the softness of her skin and her ink-stained fingertips.

A golden tattoo gleams on her upper arm, an owl with its wings spread.

“Are you awake?” I whisper, as other women stir all around the chamber.

The redhead pushes up, sudden panic highlighting her features.

I press a finger to my lips in a shushing motion. From what I’ve been able to glean from the stories of those who’ve escaped this place, the danger is real.

And danger is coming.

“Where am I?” the girl gasps in fright.

Laughter rings through the chamber in response, an eerie sound that reminds me of a jackal. I spin, heart ratcheting into gear but I find nothing that might have made the noise. Only a soft silvery light that seems to come from the stones themselves.

Pushing to my feet, I settle into a defensive position.

“My lovely brides,” calls a voice so soft with menace it feels like a fingernail trails down my spine. “All gathered for the choosing.”

A creature spins into being, seemingly from nowhere.

A mocking laugh is etched into the mask that he wears, one side a smooth, unblemished ivory, the other forged from melted, dripping gold.

As he turns I see the hideous rictus of pained laughter on the mask.

A moment later it’s gone, the mask blank, a rivulet of melted gold dripping from one eye in the semblance of a tear.

A black cloak sweeps around him, created from the very fabric of night itself and he vanishes as it sweeps over him, reappearing to my far left.

“He will come with laughter,” one of the escapees had told me, face and voice scarred by the thought of what had happened here in the Labyrinth. “He will promise many things. He lies. His tongue is honeyed poison.”

“Who?” I’d asked.

“Kasaros,” Mariam had said bitterly, finally lifting her gaze to meet mine. “The Laughing God. The Trickster. The Monster.”

“Please,” a female trader whispers. “I have a family who need me—”

“Had a family,” Kasaros corrects, his mask mocking her. “Had a life. Had a world.” He glides toward her, cloaked with menace. “Now you have only what you can win for yourselves in my Labyrinth.”

The silver light that infuses the stones grows brighter. Some unnatural force jerks my body straight, and the brides still on the ground are hauled jerkily to their feet as if they feel it too.

I can’t move. I can’t even reach for the dagger sheathed in my corset.

I can’t scream.

My body is not my own.

No! The words imprint themselves on my soul. I will not be held hostage. Not like this. But there’s a wall between my mind and body, a strange dark fog, my will no longer iron, but lost. Malleable.

All I have left is rage. Its touch is cold and it settles beneath my skin like an old friend, soothing the terror and chasing away the fear. He can’t hold me forever. And even if he is a God, he is not invulnerable to weakness.

Even Gods can die.

Kasaros circles the gathered brides, each movement precise like a predator roaming its domain. He lifts a bride’s chin with one elegant finger, searching her face.

“Welcome, my delightful brides-to-be.” Turning to face the rest of us, he spreads benevolent hands wide as he walks among us. “Today begins your dance with destiny. Before you lies my maze—a Labyrinth of choices and chances.”

Lightning flickers through the nearest stone arch, highlighting the creeping crawl of danger. A man lurks there, crouched on all fours as he eases up what appears to be the last flight of a row of stairs. His gaze rakes the chamber as he moves stealthily forward.

“Sweet Goddess,” the girl beside me gasps, sucking in a sharp, terrified breath.

“Quiet,” I hiss, tearing at the gauzy dress that the Knights gave me to find the silk bound corset I wear underneath. They’d missed that when they’d taken me to the sacrificial chambers, too intent upon leering at my breasts.

Which is precisely what I’d intended.

The handle of the thin stiletto sheathed between the whalebone pushing my breasts together finds my touch, and I ease it free, palming it so the length of the blade tucks neatly against my arm unseen.

There’s a needle hidden in my braid but beyond that I have no other weapons—far too difficult to smuggle more in—but then anything can become a weapon, can’t it?

“Shall you choose to run?” Kasaros cajoles, as the man slides into the shadows of the room. “Will you hide? Or…” His figure blurs and he reforms directly behind me, his fingertips brushing across the top of my clavicle. “Will you seek out your own match and claim your own hunter?”

I glance over my shoulder toward him, turning slightly so he can’t see the knife. He’s close enough to stab, but I’ve seen him move. One blur and he’ll be gone again, with the advantage of surprise lost.

“Are there no other options?” I ask sweetly.

His image warps for a second, amused eyes locking on me through the mask. They burn a bright blue, the same color as the hottest of flames.

“Ah,” he muses, and for some reason it feels as though we both step outside of time.

The room falls still, the world silent, and here we both stand, caught in some strange bubble of nothingness.

“A Huntress. Brave and beautiful, her cunning legendary. Perhaps,” he mocks, “there is another path for those bold enough to take it.”

Instantly, my arm sears with pain and I hiss a breath as I’m catapulted back into my body, the harsh intake of breath suddenly erupting all around me. There’s a golden image burned into my skin, an arrow seated within a drawn bow.

Huntress, whispers a little voice in my head.

“But know this—” He gestures toward the roof of the chamber, where the moon bleeds through the circular arch, casting a soft red glow across the floor.

“When the blood moon completes its cycle, my game must end. And those who have neither claimed a husband nor reached the maze’s end by the final moonset.

.. Well, let us say they shall provide a different sort of entertainment. ”

“The choice of how to play is yours alone. Will you be predator or prey?” He seems to see straight through me, a smile quirking at his lips as he presses a finger against his lips in a shushing motion.

Our little secret, his smile seems to say, as if he knows exactly what’s tucked against my arm.

Then he’s gone, running his fingers through another bride’s hair, before blurring and reappearing somewhere else. “Will you trust in chance or forge your own path? Each step you take writes your story in my grand game. May luck be your friend.” He bows to one and all. “Let the Hunt begin.”

Lightning strikes, obliterating the shadows, and then Kasaros is gone, the electric sensation of his presence vanishing.

But we’re no longer alone.