Page 146 of Hunted By Fae

A hiss escapes me. “Fuckkk.”

I startle, tucking my chin to my collarbone, and look down at the silver knife flickering in the torchlight.

My face furrows.

Blood falls down my arm, a fresh wound pierced by a strange silver blade. The hilt is etched with peculiar curls and harsh lines, like an ancient language—

Oh, fuck.

“Oh, fuck,” I echo, gaping at the knife that seems to have just appeared in my shoulder. “Fuck, fuck—Bee!”

Leaned over the hood, Bee twists around and her gaze lands on the knife protruding from me.

The blood drains out of her slack face.

Before she can move for me, a whizzing sound spears through the darkness. And a second blade strikes at us. This one sinks into the metal of the car’s hood, a mere hair’s width from Bee’s knee, like a warning.

Bee flings herself off the hood.

She lands with a thud between two cars, the screaming, thrashing net above her, and I just stand here, on the road…

My legs quiver beneath me.

I reach my hand for the blade. My fingertips touch blood, the threads of the gloves quick to wet with crimson.

The moment I see it, that glistening red staining the gloves, a sudden dizziness waves over me, and my legs give out.

I hit the road, hard, and the impact sears up my spine.

Legs splayed, knees bent, and my palm upwards, I’m a fallen doll too startled and too stupid to do anything. All I can do is lift my gaze from my bloody gloves to the darkness ahead.

The torchlight swaying from the net, it stretches over the road, all the way to where the knives came from—and where that noise is coming from.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

The slow, threatening sound of a steed drawing closer.

The jingle of metal comes with it, faint and soft, but not unlike chains rattling, or… armour and blades clinking together with movement.

A warrior, advancing.

My lashes flutter, wet.

I expect to the see the one I shot into the lake’s depths. But the warrior who emerges from the dark, the one who sways with the slow, casual steps of his steed, that is not him.

He is another warrior entirely.

And he’s advancing on me.

It starts with ice.

I am surrounded by the harsh winter of Canada, of frozen lakes, frosted fields, snowy winds—yet I only feel the ice fromhim.

His eyes are the faintest greens I have ever seen on a face, blades of wild grass, frosted over with winter.

The hairless, grey-skinned steed beneath the dark male should be the root of my horror. The sight of that creature, a horse without hair, thin greyish skin pulled tight over muscles, a tail that is a weapon in its own right, a fencing sword that no one can convince me isn’t poisonous, this creature should be the reason I am frozen on the icy road.

But it’shimthat has frozen me.