Page 134 of Hunted By Fae

“Alasdare Varos!” General Raske’s commanding voice drums through the air—and silences the whole camp. “Come state the purpose of your presence.”

All that can be heard is the faint cracklings of the fires strewn around the snowfield, and the subdued coughs of a kuri down the way.

But every fae is staring at him.

Dare’s mouth twists in an almost smirk, one that Samick does not return, before he saunters up to the head of the camp.

He takes a bow at the podium.

Knee digging into the ground, his head is dipped, and he explains his presence to the general in a murmur, and as he does, those green eyes are giving him a cold burn on the back of his head.

Dare doesn’t doubt that if he looks over his shoulder at the ice statue down by the metal barrier of the road, he will not find any kindness on Samick’s face, but a dark curiosity, and a pinch of irritation.

Dare keeps his tone low, a murmur he hides from the prying ears around the camp—and it takes the time of meals dished and handed out to the warriors, the length of the meal.

The kuris are collecting the dirty bowls to wash by the time Dare is strolling back.

Samick turns his back on the steel barrier and watches Dare approach. His weapons glint, a ripple of firelight bouncing off the edges of blades and daggers.

This close to the road is at least a pinch of privacy from the watchful eyes and listening ears around the camp.

Dare drops onto the railing with a breath.

Weariness fades his grin into something withered, and he stretches his arms out, one after the other, until the popping and crackling sounds ripple through him.

Samick turns his cheek to him and considers the darkness draped over the town. “The general said what to you?”

“Told me to behave—and warned me about the punishment I’ll receive when I return to my unit.”

“Punishment,” Samick starts, and turns his cold gaze down on Dare, “would suggest you left your unit of your own accord.”

Dare runs his hand through his hair. The darkness of his waves ripples like a black ocean against a striking white shore. A face once pretty, now scarred. “I had to.”

Samick’s face darkens.

“I chased Fate’s call,” Dare adds, before Samick can dive into his verbal assassination of him. “In fact, that call brought me here—to you.”

Dare lifts his gaze. Once a set of golden pots for eyes, one is ruined now. An eye whose gold was stolen by the cut of a black metal blade, a scar that cannot be undone.

He wears that now, in his pale eye, in the jagged mark of the scar running from his eyebrow to the arch of his sharp cheekbone.

It warps as he lets bitterness twist his face.

Samick traces a passing clattering noise to a kuri, a human man bustling by with a dozen or so bowls balanced in his arms.

Dare snaps at the kuri, “Bring meals.”

The man falters, eyes wide, like he sees his life flash in front of him at a mere command—then he dips his squared head before rushing off to the kuri end of camp.

Stares follow from all angles. Many of the fae haven’t lost interest yet, watching Dare, but never approaching.

And they won’t.

Not with Samick standing with him.

“That’s a lot of kuris,” Dare notes.

He doesn’t count them, but it looks to be about twenty. There is only half that number in his own unit.