Page 17 of The Wild Hunt (Sold to the Fae Duet #1)

“Jasmin!” I scream as I break into a sprint. “Jasmin! Where are you?”

I dodge thick umbrella-like leaves and yellow flowers with sharp stinging nettles jutting from their pretty cores.

My feet seem to find the wettest path possible, and it’s not long before black dirt and muddy droplets cling to me from the knees down.

The woodland, not long ago silent as midnight, is teaming with noise.

It’s as if the forest itself is excited.

I almost stop running as I swear I pass a collective of twinkling and glowing pixies.

Minuscule little Tinkerbells in a variety of colors that titter excitedly amongst themselves.

But another scream, this one pained and softer than the first, has me firmly ignoring the odd little beings as I push on.

Suddenly, I break out of the thick foliage and come to a skidding stop within a beautiful and sunny clearing. I almost moan at the feeling of sunshine kissing my clammy flesh. My eyes search frantically for Jasmin, and after a moment, I spot her.

My stomach sinks, and I throw a hand over my mouth, as if that could prevent the roiling sickness from rising up my throat. I turn to the side and vomit into the rich soil.

Jasmin is dead. Her petite form lies crumpled amongst a circle of basketball-sized moss-covered stones. Her head is twisted at an unnatural angle, with an even more unnatural and bloodied hole in her skull. Her wide eyes are vacant, and her mouth is forever frozen in a scream of desperation.

And standing above her is the unChosen woman who had murdered her.

“What-” I can’t even finish the question. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? No question seemed tangible enough to ask. This woman had just killed one of our own. No answer this woman could give me was ever going to be enough.

She’s big boned and wears an ugly sneer, made even more so by the pattern of blood, like a trail of rose petals, cooling across her cheeks. Jasmin’s blood.

She laughs, then, high and mad.

“They think they can take me away from my life, only to throw me to the fucking wolves because I’m not pretty enough for them?” she howls. “Think again, fae! I will not fucking die here! You’ll have to take me now!”

My heart is too wounded to correct her. She thinks by killing us, her unChosen status would be revoked?

That the fae who had bid on Jasmin would settle for her?

I didn’t care what she looked like, but her soul was rotten.

A sick part of me wanted her to survive this, only to be taken home by some male who will slowly work her to death.

She deserved to suffer. How could she justify killing someone?

Especially one as gentle and timid as Jasmin.

I take a step backward. Not out of fear, but of disgust and hopelessness. Is this what Faerie would do to all of us over time? Turn us against one another? Could I ever betray humanity like that? It certainly hadn’t taken this woman long .

“You shame humanity. You shame the Chosen.” I can’t help but voice my thoughts, my speech hoarse but unmistakably angry.

The woman laughs. “Humans were shamed long before I was ever Chosen, girl .”

I simmer at her mocking use of the world. Being a woman was not something to ever be ashamed of. Men used sexism so often to walk all over us, but when a woman used it, it was so much worse. It was a betrayal. It was dehumanizing.

Before I can voice my fury, a shrieking laugh, like nails on a chalkboard, echoes through the small clearing.

The unChosen and I both cover our ears with twin grimaces on our faces as we hastily search the tree line for the owner of the horrible laugh.

There is nothing but shadows amongst the thicket of trees surrounding us.

But a chilling certainty within me tells me we are not alone.

Then, from behind the traitorous bitch of a woman, the shadows move.

It dances. In a terrifying, reaching sway that tastes the air before solidifying into a cape of midnight.

I want to scream at what grins back at me from within the folds of that cape, but I’m frozen in place by my fear.

The unChosen woman whimpers, and from the corner of my eye, I spy urine creeping down her bare, goose-bumped flesh.

But I can’t look away from the real threat.

I don’t think I could even if I wanted to, frozen as I am.

The hand that flexes at us from beneath the shadows is sallow and gray.

Its skin hugs the skeletal frame beneath tightly, as if the bones are trying to break free of their prisons.

The nails on the tips of its fingers are long and pointed, except for one.

That nail is chipped and jagged, like a shattered bone.

I’m surprised at how thick they are, like bones themselves protruding from the flesh.

I blink and look away before I can find out if my musings are correct.

The creature’s hood hides its face in blessed darkness, but the stench it wreaks as its heavy breath rushes out is putrid and festering.

I gag, my hands moving from my ears to my mouth in tandem.

With my ears free, I can hear more clearly the deep breaths the creature is taking, the rapid clicking like a purr as it scents our terror in the air.

Mmm, my sweetings, you smell delicious. ClickClickClick.

It doesn’t so much as speak, more like it projects its thoughts into my head. I cringe at the feeling of talons scraping through my mind like dirt.

It steps fully into the clearing then. I still can’t see beneath its hood, but a quick glance down tells me the cloak is vastly too small, ending just shy of two knobby knees that bend the wrong way.

Its legs remind me of those of a stork. Same color, same dry, malnourished look as the flesh on its arms.

The legs end at a set of bird-like talons, the nails identical to those of the hands, yet shorter.

ClickClickClick. My, my, what treats. What special treats!

I don’t know why I do it. I guess it is my stubborn streak rearing free from its icy cage.

“What are you?”

My voice is clear and calm, nothing like the simpering mess I feel inside. The creature pauses in its musings and faces me. Try as I might, I can’t see the shine of its eyes within the shadows of its hood.

It giggles. Like a schoolgirl. Flirtatious, almost .

Oh, how special! This one can talk! ClickClickClick. I will enjoy sucking the sweet, sweet marrow from your bones, sweeting. It sighs. If only you were fae. Their taste is so exotic. But if I had to settle for anything other, a human would be my choice. So fresh and young!

My body quivers, repulsed, and it giggles again.

What am I? Oh, such a fun one, you are! Not like the weaklings I usually taste. The ones who can’t utter a single word. Not unlike your companion here. ClickClickClick.

“She is not my companion.”

Maybe I should have claimed her. But everything in me rebelled at it. She may have been a woman, and she may have been human, but she sacrificed her humanity the moment she attacked Jasmin.

ClickClickClick. Oh! So fun! I like you, spicy human! Such a shame I must eat you. ShameShameShame…

The creature turns and circles the unChosen, running its festered nails across her bare arms. Fuck, even now I feel as if I need to protect the sniveling bitch. Stupid Gods-damned need to protect!

I clear my throat. “You didn’t answer my question.”

The creature giggles again, but doesn’t take its claws off the other woman.

They call me the Skraeming DehvilKin, my sweeting. Now, be a dear and stay close while I devour your not-companion.

That’s all the warning I get before the hood falls back and its face is revealed.

I half expect to see a beak, in fact, that’s what I would have much preferred.

Instead, I am greeted by a skeletal gray mass, an eyeless brow, and a gaping maw of rows and rows of pin-like teeth.

The mouth widens impossibly, until it lowers suddenly and snaps at the neck of the other woman, ripping the flesh and half of her neck off in one squelching and crunching bite.

The unChosen’s mouth and eyes move lethargically, despite the fact that half of her neck is now missing.

Gravity snaps back into place, and her head falls to the side, bearing a splintered spine and reaching spiderwebs of arteries that spit blood as they try in vain to pump blood to her brain.

The Skraeming DehvilKin sucks in a harrowing breath, as if in complete euphoria over the taste of fresh meat and blood.

It chews quickly, in a frenzy, before it dives back and snaps at the second half of her neck.

Only a sliver of flesh remains, and the woman’s head swings like a pendulum beneath her breasts, her eyes and mouth wide and empty in a terrifying mock of a grandfather clock.

The faerie beast claws hold her meal upright and steady, ready for devouring.

I pull myself from my terror, giving myself a giant mental get yourself together and fucking run!

And I do.

I run.

The high-pitched giggles follow me as I race for my fucking life. Because I know it’s coming for me next.