Page 117 of Hunted By Fae

I pin my breath to my chest—and feel my heart slowly sink down to my wormy gut.

Thud

thud,

thud.

The floorboards outside groan under his weight.

That’s all I hear. No cries or whimpers or screams.

The human he’s thrown at the brewery is either knocked out, or dead already.

My mind flashes with images of Tesni’s face, mouth agape, blood pooling out of her.

Who knew it took so little tocrusha human body…

I see that as I shut my wet eyes.

Tesni, pulverised.

“Don’t fret,” his whisper comes with enough of a growl that it snakes and crawls and scratches through the gaps in the walls. “I still have the head. That, at least, is intact.”

A grimace twists my face.

Huddled up on the floor, I wrap my arms so tightly around my knees that the bones of my shins ache.

Instinct is an unreliable thing, because right now, it has my eyes clenched shut as though it will somehow turn me invisible if this dark fae decides to kick in the door and enter the abandoned bar.

But he does no such thing—yet.

For now, he’s toying with me, tormenting me.

Thud,

thud,

thud.

Those bootsteps follow the length of the porch, all the way around to the grimy window overlooking the bar—and if he pauses to look, he will see the toes of my boots.

Each step is punched with purpose.

He wants me to hear them.

Each one of them, every thud, every groan of a wooden slat under his weight, even the song of the dagger he scrapes over the wood—

It’s a game to him.

“I have enjoyed this chase more than I expected,” his softly spoken words come in his barbed accent. “You left me little presents along the way.”

Tess.

Nausea spurs through me.

No, no, no, not Tesni.

Please, not her.