Page 93 of A Hunt So Wicked

“Mmm, who?” he asked, continuing to nibble on my skin.

“That man right there.” I batted his shoulders. “Put me down for a moment.”

He pulled back and looked at me in confusion, but did put me down. The second my feet hit the floor, I raced over to the painting, ignoring Torin’s groans of frustration.

“Who the bloody hell is more important at this moment?” He marched over to where I was standing. I pointed at the man positioned behind the king. A face that I’d seen a million times in a million different expressions.

I jumped when spit hit the man square in the face.

“What the hell?!”

“That,”Torin pointed at him, “is the man responsible for this entire situation. The royal sorcerer to King Sova. The one who cursed the royal bloodlines. Without him, nobody would’ve had to die in The Hunt.”

There was no stopping it this time. The very walls were closing in on me. The reality of my life was coming at me all at once. It was too much.

He knew. That’s why he was adamant that I not come. Why he hated the royals.

So many memories flooded my mind, and the truth became clear as I stumbled. Torin’s spit had trailed down far enough, and the last thing I saw before total darkness was my father’s face, painted into history.

A secret history that I was never supposed to know, and his words of warning filtered through my hazy thoughts just before I gave into oblivion.

“I’m not worried about animals. It’s the beasts I’m worried about…”