Page 157 of Hunted By Fae

I’m dragged up with him. My boots scuff over the ice as I stagger upright, but my glare burns into Samick.

He stands by the hood of the car, too close to Tesni, and I feel no ease at their bargain keeping her alive under his guard.

“Don’t hurt her.” My command comes out in a wisp. “Don’t hurt her…”

His head tilts at my words.

His long lashes lower over the sharpness of his glare, and he tosses the inhaler onto Tesni’s chest. Then, stares locked, he reaches for the hilt of the knife protruding from her shoulder.

Her breath cuts sharp before he grabs it, then yanks it out roughly.

The tear of flesh comes before the scream that arches her spine off the car bonnet.

“You fuck—”

My shriek is cut off as Dare’s arm loops tight around my middle.

“Tess—the CB, the CB!” I’m shouting in shorthand, hoping, needing her to hear at least one part, to understand what she needs to do. “One, two! One, two!”

Dare hisses an annoyed sound at my ear. His arm tightens around my middle, solid, and he hoists my back into his chest.

The pressure shoves a grunt through me.

“A bargain! There’s a bargain—”

A rag smacks against my mouth.

I clamp my lips shut, tight, and arch my chin away from it.

It follows me. Dare shifts the rag around my face, searching for a gap between my lips, as he hisses curses in my ear.

The light is too faint, the dark too thick, and I am being dragged closer to the blackness—so when I arch my neck and look over the muscle of Dare’s arm, and I see Tesni on the ground, I don’t know how she got there.

Slumped on her knees now, Samick has his grip firm on the nape of her neck, and he pins her down.

All I hear from her is a string of harrowed sounds, sobs and whines threaded together as one.

It stills me—and in that fleeting, distracted moment, the force of the rag presses into my aching teeth.

I cringe against it, lips clamping shut, and I arch my chin. “Don’t run! Trust me!”

I am dragged away down the splintering street, the darkness engulfing me.

Dare drags me away from Tesni, leaving her behind in the wisps of light I can hardly make out anymore.

Her sobs follow me into the dark.

“Just wait for me,” I shout, muffled against the rag forcing its way into my mouth. “The CB!Argh—”

end of book one