The Hunt

by Frost Kay

  “You’re not blind, and stop squirming or I’ll drop you,” Pyre muttered.

  Tempest stiffened even more as she became hyperaware of the arms wrapped under her legs and around her shoulders. She blanched as she realized the shifters had tossed a sack over her face, and, to make matters worse, she’d been snuggling into a shifter’s embrace.

  “What are you doing?” she barked.

  “Taking you somewhere safe.”

  Safe. What a joke. Everyone knew if a knave took you to his lair, you were surely going to die.

  A door creaked, and frigid wind ruffled her blanket, cutting right to her bone. She shivered and began to wiggle even though it hurt. A lot.

  “Put me down,” she clipped out, her hot breath heating the sack and almost making her gag. When was the last time she brushed her teeth? Three days maybe?

  “No,” Pyre said.

  “Where are you taking me?” A twinge ran up her side, and she gasped at the pain.

  “Nowhere you could get away from, given your condition.”

  He had no clue what she was capable of.

  Pyre’s arms tightened. “You’re going to hurt yourself, and Briggs will blame me. Settle down or I’ll hog-tie you. See how that’ll feel with all your blasted wounds.”

  Tempest silently cursed her inability to see his expression. But if she went by his tone and past actions, she didn’t doubt he would follow through with his threat. She settled in his arms and glared at the dark, rough-hewn-like sack blocking her vision. Her fingers twitched as nerves jingled through her despite her exhaustion. Death would be easier than torture or prison.

  “You seem like a man who speaks his mind and appreciates candor. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather die sooner than later if that’s your plan,” Tempest said baldly.

  Silence met her statement, and then another person sniggered.

  Wicked Hell. There was another shifter walking with them? She closed her eyes and strained to hear his footsteps. Nothing but the wind and the kitsune’s soft breaths. Her lips thinned. The bloody shifters had every damn advantage.

  “If I wanted you dead I would have left your pitiful carcass in the pit to rot.” A pause. “Or to be torn apart by the beasts.”

  A tremor worked through Tempest. What kind of beast—man or shifter?

  She hissed as some of her hair was caught when the brute yanked the sack from her head. Lifting a heavy hand, she rubbed at her smarting scalp and scowled at the shifter. Pyre looked down at her, the smirk on his face making her distinctly wish to punch him.

  “Don’t look at me. It was Briggs.”

  Her attention darted over the kitsune’s shoulder to the hulking healer. How in the blazes did he move so quietly? Briggs—the healer—returned her regard, his brown eyes reflecting an animal glow in the darkness. Tempest kept her expression neutral no matter how much she wanted to cringe. It was unnerving how unnatural his gaze was.

  “My apologies,” he rumbled, his deep soft voice almost blending into the night. “Your breathing was uneven, and I worried for your health.”

  “Appreciated,” she replied. But you were the ones to put it on my head in the first place. Tempest kept those thoughts to herself. It was clear she didn’t have any friends here, but when she escaped, Briggs would likely be her out and she needed to be nice to him.

  She allowed herself to relax in Pyre’s arms and internally berated herself for being so weak. Even now, she was scarcely capable of staying conscious. And it wouldn’t do her any good to waste strength on fighting an uphill battle.

  Skeletal trees surrounded them creating an ominous feel, their outstretched branches looking like claws. Using her peripheral vision, Tempest searched for landmarks and anything unusual that would allow her to wind her way out of the trees and back to Dotae. But the forest was too dark to see much of anything, and the weak moonlight only revealed enough to ratchet up her nerves. The woods were unusually quiet. Not even a woodland creature dared to stir or call out.

  Unconsciously, Tempest’s fingers curled around the blanket swaddling her, and she pressed closer to the kitsune. She peered up at his shadowed face and then back to the trees, irked. His keen fox eyes could see through the blanket of night as easily as Tempest could see during the day. It was bloody unfair.

  The man tightened his grip on her and let out a low chuckle. “What’s wrong with you now?"

  “Nothing.” She wanted to kick herself at her surly tone. You won’t win over anyone acting like a shrew.

  “I’ve spent a great deal of time among women—”

  Tempest snorted.

  Pyre’s strange, inhuman ears twitched in amusement as he continued, “—so I know nothing is never really nothing with a woman.”

  "You're not afraid to show off your shifter abilities," Tempest eventually said, changing the subject.

  Pyre shrugged his shoulders as best he could without jostling Tempest. "Well, why should I be?"

  "Because it’s dangerous. Why mark yourself as a… as a—” She faltered, not wanting to offend him.

  "As a shapeshifter? As a slave? As a Talagan? What, city girl?”

  His tone was soft, but it still made the hair at the nape of her neck stand on end. It spoke of violence and rage.

  “I meant no offense,” she offered and then chose not to speak more.

  I’m in way over my head. She hadn’t even discovered the whereabouts of the Jester’s court, and she was already failing horribly.

  Pyre accepted Tempest's silence with a satisfied kind of smile she was coming to quickly associate with the arrogant man. It riled her, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t dealt with arrogant men her entire life. If he thought to bait her by being an arse, he’d have to try harder. Although, his prideful mien filled her with the desire to fire off a razor-sharp quip in response—the kind Maxim encouraged her to use growing up—to cut him down a size.

  She bit her tongue and counted each of Pyre’s footsteps to stay awake. Her lids drooped farther, and it seemed like a losing battle. Tempest lost track entirely of where she was, which wasn’t surprising given that she had no idea how long she’d been passed out or where the hell they actually were. Surely, they hadn’t traveled too far from where she’d been attacked.

  Hopefully.

  A few minutes later, the trees began to thin, and a few neglected cottages came into sight. They were constructed of rough stone walls and thatched roofs—Tempest could tell, even in the darkness, that they were made from stone that had to have been mined from a nearby river.

  Thank Dotae for Dima’s geology lessons. She’d never figured that the lessons would be useful for something as important as an escape from a band of shifters, but she was glad to be wrong. They must be near a river. There was only one large river near the Azul province. Once she had time to search for the river, it would only be a matter of following it south until it reached the coastline of Heimserya. It would be easy traveling from there on. Reaching the capital of Dotae would be simple.

  Feeling altogether better about her secret escape plan, Tempest managed to gulp down her nerves as they passed the abandoned homes and pressed into the trees once again. Her breaths puffed in the air in little white bursts of steam, and the air seemed to cool even more. It wouldn’t be long until winter raged war upon them.

  A lone cottage appeared in the gloom, and Briggs stepped ahead of them to unlock the door of the isolated cottage—which was hidden from sight of the other houses by a small ring of hazel trees. Briggs stepped inside the dark building. Pyre followed and crossed the creaky wooden floor, gently placing Tempest upon a bed. The frigid air seeped through the blanket, and her nose twitched at the dust. Briggs moved around the room silently and lit a lantern, then another.

  Tempest was glad for the light even if her eyes watered the tiniest bit. She hadn’t enjoyed the fact that Pyre could see everything when she could not. But now that she could see…

  “I’m a mess!” Tempest cried, looking down at herself to see
that much of her clothing had been torn and ripped by branches, blades, and sharp rocks, and that what remained was soaked through with dark, crimson blood. She swayed where she sat, struggling to keep upright. Blood had never bothered her, but that much of her blood… Her stomach rolled and she became incredibly light-headed.

  How am I alive? When a man lost that amount of blood in Aleks’s infirmary it almost always meant death.

  “Careful, city girl,” Pyre said wryly. “Or you’ll fall on your face.”

  The room wavered, and a hand settled on her shoulder to steady her and then tried to push her back onto the bed. Tempest shrugged the hand away, her lip curling. No one was putting her to bed.

  Pyre laughed and leaned into her face. “Something tells me you don’t have the strength to fight me right now, so let me help you. Had you only accepted my help earlier, you wouldn’t have ended up this way in the first place.” His gaze wandered over her face. “I don’t offer my help often, luv. So be grateful.”

  “As if I would trust you to actually help me,” Tempest bit out testily, wincing at the pain in her back. “I would however be more inclined to believe you if you’d give me back my weapons.”

  His gaze sharpened. “They are very fine weapons. Where did you come by them?”

  “My mother,” she answered immediately. It was partly true at least. “I would like them back, please. It’s all I have left of her.”

  “When we’re through, you may have them back.”

  When? How long would that be?

  Briggs bustled around the room and tossed bandages and other medical tools onto the bed. Tempest paused as she noticed a scalpel. Her hand itched to snatch it up off the mattress. Her gaze slid to the kitsune who watched her with an unreadable expression.

  “Try it,” he whispered softly. “You won’t even be able to touch it before we’re on you.”

  Tempest blinked slowly, hating that he’d read her so well and that he was right. She didn’t stand a chance in her condition. But a small part of her wanted to try anyway. It didn’t suit her to sit idly by and wait. Patience was not her virtue.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Pyre shook his head, grinning. “You’re a little liar.”

  So says the pot to the kettle. Her arm throbbed, and she rolled her left shoulder. Agony lanced up her back, shoulders, and neck. She hissed and cradled her injured arm against her chest. Tempest dropped her head and tried to work through the pain when she noticed fresh blood leaking from the bandage wrapped around her left thigh. They’d cut a section of her pants away but hadn’t stripped her. The knot in her chest loosened a tiny bit. The world was a dangerous place for a vulnerable woman. At least her innocence had not been stolen.

  Briggs tutted in disapproval as he nudged Pyre out of the way and frowned at Tempest’s leg. “You’re a bloody mess.”

  “Literally,” she joked.

  The healer snorted and fussed about Tempest, pulling away the shredded remains of her cloak. His full lips thinned as he eyed her leg. “Why did you go and do that?” he grumped. “You don’t want to put stress on your wounds.”

  She hadn’t done anything but sit on the mattress. Tempest swept her gaze over the room under the guise of curiosity, looking for anything that might be of use to escape. All in all, it was pretty bare. The cottage was an open plan style. Two small windows to her left graced either side of the door like beady eyes. The far wall hosted a fireplace and in the right back corner of the room sat a woodstove, accompanied by a dusty, ancient-looking table that butted up against the back wall. Shelves hovered precariously above the table with items scattered over them in disarray. A ladder rested two paces to her right, against the wall, and led to what Tempest assumed was a loft.

  She’d seen worse places. The place was old and sparse, a tad dirty, but none of it was human filth. Tempest would deal with dirt over piss any day. Briggs bustled over to the hutch in the corner and yanked open the doors, its contents rattling.

  “It’s colder than a witch’s tit in here. Start a fire, will you?” the healer grumbled.

  Her eyebrows practically flew to her hairline as the kitsune obeyed without comment. That was a first. Since she’d met him, he’d had something to say about everything.

  Briggs hummed as he discovered what he was hunting for and moved back to the bed. He gestured to Tempest’s leg wound. “I need to cut your pants away.”

  “And?”

  “Do you give me permission?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I don’t know why you need to ask. You’ve already helped me.”

  His serious, deep-brown eyes met hers. “I make it a habit to always ask. You weren’t conscious before, and I left what I could of your clothing.” Something bitter entered his expression. “Humans are fond of taking advantage of a shifter’s help and then crying foul.”

  Did he mean…? “Are you insinuating that women—”

  “I insinuate nothing. It is experience that has taught me to be cautious. Your kind enjoy the thrill of the exotic, but the consequences of such encounters usually yield imprisonment for males of my people.”

  She felt sick. “That’s not right. Everyone should be accountable for their actions, Heimseryan or Talagan,” Tempest said heatedly. “If both parties were willing, then there was no crime.”

  “You would think,” Briggs said, his hands gentle on her thigh as he unwound the gauze. “But that is not the way of the world, my lady. Talagans get the brunt of blame.”

  “I am sorry for it.” And she was. While she hated what the Jester and his minions stood for, and what had happened to her mother, Tempest had also experienced the love and friendship Juniper had offered over the years. “And I am no lady. Just a girl on her way to her grandmother’s.”

  Briggs nodded, his white teeth flashing in a smile, a sharp contrast against his gorgeous midnight face. “As you wish.”

  Tempest glanced in the kitsune’s direction. He knelt and blew on the small fire, the flames beginning to grow. His shirt pulled taut against his back, revealing a tapered waist and muscled shoulders. Heat stirred in her belly, causing her to frown. Growing up, she’d seen many nude male bodies. It was a fact of being raised by a plethora of men. Never had she responded to any of them. The worst part of it was that Pyre was the enemy. She didn’t know how he was mixed up with the Jester, but, deep in her gut, she knew he’d lead her to him.

  Pyre stood and was smirking once more as he turned to her. His eyes glinted with a knowing smugness that Tempest couldn’t stand. Any attraction she felt disappeared like a puff of smoke. Cockiness wasn’t attractive. It made her want to stab something or gag.

  “You act as if you know everything, but you don’t,” Tempest commented, keeping sullenness from her tone. Just barely.

  Pyre regarded her from beneath the strands of his wine-red hair that fell across his eyes. “I suppose I don’t.”

  She hid her surprise but noticed that his lips curled into the smallest of smiles.

  “For instance, I don’t know your real name, for one. Since you know mine, I feel that it’s only fair that you tell me yours.”

  “Life isn’t fair,” she retorted. Dima had said that so many times it was practically engraved in her mind.

  “Very true. Tell me your name, anyway. I can’t keep calling you city girl, can I?” He brushed the dirt off his hands. “Well, I could, but you furrow your brow every time you hear it. Do you hate being reminded that you’re from our glorious capital that much?”

  “That’s because I wasn’t born in Dotae,” Tempest said. “I lived in the forest until I was five or so. I was taken to Dotae after my mother was—after she died.”

  Careful, Tempest. You almost told him she was murdered. Don’t show him your entire hand. You know better than that. Just give him enough to trust you.

  There was something about his easy-going mannerisms—about the way he was moving around her and helping Briggs clean her wounds without a word of complaint or judgment, a
ll the while engaging her in conversation—that made her think that it wouldn’t be so bad to trust him, which was saying something because logic told her otherwise.

  Her lips twitched in a ghost of a smile. Oh, he was good. The kitsune was one of the best actors she’d met. With his skills, one could almost think of him as a courtier. In fact… his speech was very gentle for a laborer. She leaned against the headboard and watched the flames dance as the men silently worked on her leg. If she was to get anything out of the kitsune, it was high time she gave a little more of herself to him.

  “Do you remember where exactly in the forest you lived, nameless girl?” Pyre asked, ignoring the fact that Tempest had clearly retreated into her own head for the past few moments.

  Tempest thought about his question with a frown on her face. “I don’t—I’ve never really thought about it, if I’m honest. Near the mountains. But the mountain range is pretty large, isn’t it? So, in truth, I don’t know. I was just a child.”

  “So, was your father not around, if you moved after your mother’s death?” Pyre prodded, just as he plucked a small tub of sweet-smelling paste from the bed and handed it to Briggs who began applying it to Tempest’s leg.

  She growled and flinched away, but Pyre held her leg in place. “Agh—you could have warned me before putting Mimkia on me!”

  Pyre chuckled roughly. “No amount of warning prepares one for the stinging. Unfortunately, we don’t have much Mimkia paste on hand, so I’ll have to use it sparingly. The open wound on your leg takes priority, so you’ll have to make do with a sling and good, old-fashioned time to heal your back and arm.”

  Briggs stood and gestured to her back. “May I check your back?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Tempest gingerly sat up and allowed the healer to lift her shirt. Goosebumps ran across her arms as her back was exposed to the air. The healer brushed her hair over her shoulder and sucked in a sharp breath. She winced when his fingers pressed against her skin; she knew it must be dark with bruises.

  “What in the blazes damaged you so?” the healer gasped. Her back twitched when Briggs ran a finger along one of her Trial wounds.