Page 20 of The Wild Hunt (Sold to the Fae Duet #1)

“Uh, yes?” I don’t know why I answer it as a question. Maybe it’s her quizzical little face. Or maybe it’s because I’m talking to a fucking pixie !

She squeaks and flits away quickly. Come back, little fan !

“Delta? What’s going on? Who… What are you talking to?” Akari calls nervously.

I send her a quick look before turning back to the pixies.

I clear my throat. Maybe I should introduce myself?

“My name is Delta,” I say. “What are your names?”

The female returns to flit at eye level, her minuscule features wide and shocked.

“I’m Pixel,” she says, hesitantly. Pixel indicates the other female and then the male. “This is Flotsy and Perriwinkle. We have never spoken with a human before. No pixie ever has.”

“Well, Pixel, Flotsy, and Perriwinkle, I am honored to be your first.” I give them a big, encouraging grin, then indicate the untouched fruit. “May I…? My friend, Akari, and I are very hungry.” My stomach rumbles as if to iterate the point, which has Pixel giggling like a drunken underage girl.

“Oh my! Never has my stomach ever growled so!” she exclaims. “Yes, please. Help yourselves to the beneni fruit. ”

I reach for one and jerk my wrist sharply to break it off at the stem. I drop it down to Akari, who catches it with ease and promptly begins to unpeel it. I snap off another for myself and dig in quickly.

“Well,” I say, my mouth full of beneni, “my stomach is much larger than yours. And it’s an angry beast when it hasn’t been fed.” I swallow my mouthful, then add as an afterthought, “Why have you never spoken to a human before? It’s not illegal or anything, is it?”

Pixel settles herself onto the branch before shaking her head. “No, of course not. It’s just that, well, we’ve always been told how basic and limited humans are. I don’t think it ever occurred to any of us that you would know how to speak, let alone be smart enough to climb a tree for food.”

Pixel looks behind her, and both Perriwinkle and Flotsy nod in agreement.

“We may be able to speak, but we are certainly very basic compared to all the creatures here in Faezgard.”

“And not scary in the slightest,” Perriwinkle adds in his squeaky voice.

Hmmph. I suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to lunge at him, grab him in my fist, and squeeze the marrow from his bones, to show him just how scary I could be. But I decide against it. The pixies could prove useful.

I rip another couple of beneni from the bunch, dropping one for Akari, then digging into the second.

“So, do you live here?”

The pixies break into fits of high-pitched laughter.

“Here?” Flotsy gasps in hysterics .

“In the Wylden Forest?” Adds Perriwinkle, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“How stupid could it be?” Flotsy giggles.

The ‘stupid it’, aka me , slouches in grumpy silence.

“Oh, hush, you two! How could Delta know? She is not from this realm, after all,” Pixel says sternly, though I don’t miss how she quickly reigns in her own humor.

I roll my eyes at her apparent innocence.

“The Wylden Forest is no place for a pixie to live. It’s dangerous.

More so than it is for a human.” She raises a brow, nodding at me.

“Then what the fuck are you doing here?” my gaze darts around as I look for any possible threat to the wee little brats. No idea why I should bother, seeing as how rude the other two pixies had been to me. But Pixel was growing on me.

“Because of the Wild Hunt, of course!” she exclaims excitedly. “No one wants to miss the Hunt. We may not be able to participate, but it sure is entertaining to watch.”

Of course, she would be just as sadistic as the fae.

“Right. The Wild Hunt. How… amusing,” I say sarcastically. I try to swallow my sarcasm, honestly, but fuck do I fail.

Pixel shuffles anxiously, and her cheeks begin to glow. Huh. So she could feel shame.

“I suppose it isn’t so fun when you are human…” she ventures.

I drop the beneni peel to the ground without looking.

Hopefully, Akari ducks out of the way before receiving a moist beneni peel to the forehead.

I seethe for a moment longer as Pixels’ glow spreads to her chest and upper arms. Fuck, I’d better say something before she combusts.

Then it would be open season on me, and while I don’t think the pixies would be too capable of harming me, I didn’t want to test the theory.

I decided to take advantage of her embarrassment.

“Wouldn’t it be super fun if a human managed to escape this year? The first ever .”

“Ooh, yes! How exciting!” Pixel claps excitedly. “But… surely you don’t think you could do it?”

I choose to ignore her lack of faith in me. “Precisely. Me and Akari.”

All three pixies peek down at Akari, who is squinting up at me as if I’ve lost my damn mind. I’m not entirely sure that I haven’t.

I toss her another fruit.

“You could even help,” I suggest casually.

Pixel instantly pales and shakes her head. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I could never. The trouble I would be in!”

“It’s ok,” I soothe. “I promise I won’t tell anyone. Besides, it’s only a teeny tiny favor I would ask of you.”

Perriwinkle flits to stand behind Pixel, arms folded across his chest.

“Hell no,” he squeaks. “The fae would kill us!”

Pixel stays silent as she watches me closely. I keep my face open and honest under her scrutiny.

Eventually, she tips up her chin and asks, “What exactly would this small favor be?”

“Pixel!” Flotsy squeals.

“What?” Pixel snaps back. “I haven’t said whether or not I would help, yet. I just want to know what exactly Delta would require. ”

“I don’t agree with this, Pixel,” Perriwinkle says in what I assume to be an angry voice, but all I hear are chirpy chimes. He flies back to Flotsy and watches us warily.

“I just need to know in what direction the camp lies,” I say as casually as I can. “You know, where they kept us when we came through the portal?”

All three pixies relax.

“Oh, that? Why didn’t you just say so?” Pixel flits into the air above my head. “It’s that way.” She points in the direction. “About three days’ walk from here.”

My shoulders slump. We were fucked. There was no way we could make it there. Not before the fae were released to Hunt. Not before we were found. Or dead.

“What’s wrong?” Pixel asks, picking up on my mood as she drops back down in front of me.

I shake my head, completely at a loss. “I was hoping the camp would be much nearer. It was our only hope…”

Pixel nods gloomily. “Well, on the plus side, at least you have time to find shelter before the storm hits.”

I glance up at the sunny sky. Was she mad?

Pixel giggles, then points into the distance. Sure enough, a bold and black storm looms in the distance.

“I don’t know, Pixel,” I sigh. “I’m not the kind of woman who sits and waits for some stupid fae male to come and find my scent before snatching me up like I belong to him now. I refuse to cower like a lost lamb.”

“So hide your scent, too,” Perriwinkle suggests casually .

I blink. “Hide my scent? How exactly would I do that?”

He sighs as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. “Go roll in the mud by the river, then find someplace to hide. That storm will cover the scents you have left here, anyway. You just need to get super smelly, and the fae will stroll right past without batting an eye.”

“Really?” I ask, hope blooming like a shining daffodil in my chest. “Do you really think that could work?”

Perriwinkle shrugs before stuffing his face with beneni.

Pixel, however, has also perked up. “That’s a great idea, Perriwinkle! I mean, you still have to sit and hide like a… what did you call it? Lem? But you actually have a chance, Delta! You could do it! Be the first human to escape the Wild Hunt! Oh, everyone would be so jealous that I know you!”

I ignore the fact that she is only wanting to help for her own gain and instead thank the pixies

profusely.

“Thank you. Really. Thank you so much. All of you. You may have just saved our lives.”

I share a smile with Pixel, then start hacking away at more fruit, calling down for Akari to catch. We needed to stockpile.

With all the excited energy bubbling through my veins, I manage to slide back down to the ground uneventfully.

The pixies dart around excitedly as I discuss everything I have learnt with Akari. She agrees this is our best shot now. We haul our meagre supply of beneni fruit to our hideout, all the while I brainstorm on how to make this work .

First, we needed shelter. Those clouds looked nasty, and if the rain was as cold as it promised, we would need to keep as dry as possible for as long as we could.

I say as much to Pixel, and she exclaims excitedly before darting off with the other two. They return a couple of minutes later with a ginormous version of the red umbrella petal I had seen the pixies sleeping on earlier. It won’t quite keep the rain away, but it is better than nothing.

“Come on, Delta, there’s more over here, and we are too small to carry more than one at a time.”

At that, Akari and I get to work. We gather around ten of the giant petals and set them inside the rock circle.

We prop nine of them up with sticks just high enough for us to be able to sit comfortably beneath, leaving the final one to stop the wind from coming through the opening and destroying all our hard efforts.

As Akari and I finish setting the roof, the pixies return with dozens of different fruits. After thanking them profusely, I notice they had omitted to include the berry I had spotted in the clearing earlier. Obviously, I was rightfully cautious with those.

The afternoon draws to a close, and the wind picks up speed as Akari and I lather ourselves in mud. I can’t say it’s an overly enjoyable task. The mud reeks. So bad. Akari dry retches a few times before she evidently gets used to the smell.

The pixies giggle and gag as they watch us.

As we finish the final touches to our impromptu mud baths, a dull, loud, and lingering horn sounds through the forest. Everything stills, from us and the pixies, to the river and the storm. Then the air is charged in anticipation, and the first strike of lightning splits the sky.

“The Hunt has begun,” Pixel says urgently, eyes wide. “Quickly, now. Get to the rock circle. Hurry!”

Akari and I break into a run. I don’t know why.

There was no way the fae could get to us so quickly, what with the camp being so far away.

I realize how stupid the thought is when I remember their incredible powers.

Some will undoubtedly portal into the forest. Others have incredible speed.

Some would fly. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if some could fucking teleport.

“Thank you!” I call back to the pixies, as I realize they haven’t followed us. “We owe you one!”

“Good luck!” Pixel calls, then they all zip off into the tree tops to watch.

I have no doubt they will stay close by.

More so for the entertainment factor, but I strongly believed that at least Pixel had started to sympathize with us.

I hoped I would see her again. With Akari and I outlasting the fae, preferably.

Akari crawls quickly through the opening in the rock circle while I make quick work at covering our tracks with a branch I had prepared earlier.

I sweep away our prints before ducking into the rock circle as well.

Akari pushes the petal into place as soon as I am inside, and I help her with stacking rocks and leaning a stick against the top of it to keep it firmly in place.

Once we are sure it is secured, we collapse on opposite sides of the circle, panting like we’ve just completed a marathon.

Akari looks at me. I look at her.

We blink. We nod.

We’ve got this.