The Hunt

by Frost Kay

  Madrid’s face was grave, as were the rest of the men’s expressions. They all seemed genuinely perturbed by her findings, which suggested that they were not privy to any kind of insider attack on the villages. Tempest wondered if she could risk telling them the truth of what she had discovered—that the shifters were not responsible for the sickness killing hundreds of common folk. That someone else was to blame.

  But she couldn’t.

  It would be idiotic and suicidal. The men around her had been in power for a long time. They could all be very good actors.

  Tempest inhaled shallowly, and she could have sworn the scent of death and the sickly-sweet poison wafted through the air. The scent that had come from her uncle’s tent. She couldn’t trust anyone. There wasn’t any other choice but to stick to her lie she’d concocted with the Jester.

  Her gaze darted to the king’s seat, which was blessedly empty. Who knew what he had up his sleeve and how she could rebuff any more of his future advances? She needed to invent more excuses. It was also a relief that he wasn’t watching her every move at the meeting. Destin was just as ruthless and observant as his forefathers. The longer he stayed away, the safer she was.

  “What did you do, after seeing the village?” one of the men asked in a snide tone as if her presence offended his delicate sensibilities. Tempest did not, in all sincerity, know who he was. Nobody save Madrid seemed to appreciate her being at the war council meeting in the first place, which she expected, but it didn’t make the palpable animosity any easier.

  “I took out their leader, cut out his heart, and returned it to King Destin,” she said, enunciating each word of her lie as if it was a vicious truth she was rightfully proud of. “I made sure to find out as much information about future attacks before I did so, of course,” she added, as if in afterthought, in response to the shocked looks on the council’s faces at her bloodthirsty confession.

  All except Madrid.

  He was watching her with an unreadable expression that she’d come to know over the years. It still unsettled Tempest greatly, though Madrid was normally an impossible person to read in the first place. But the blankness of his face against the other men in the room made him look almost sad.

  No, not sad. It was almost as if he was disappointed in her, like she’d failed some sort of test. What did that mean? Was she reading him entirely wrong?

  But the non-expression was enough for Tempest to open her mouth and almost confess that she’d been lying; that in truth she hadn’t assassinated the Jester. That she was yet to kill a single human being in cold blood, and part of her clung to the wish that she would remain that way. Death was a part of life, but murder? That was something completely different.

  You’re an assassin. Death is your shadow.

  Tempest kept her mouth shut.

  When the meeting finished, she was fast to leave the room, her heart beating too quickly. Her lies felt thick and wrong in her mouth. She’d barely turned onto the narrow staircase a servant had shown her up earlier, when a hushed conversation in the stairwell stopped her in her tracks. She frowned and leaned against the wall, straining to make out whom the voices belonged to.

  The hair at the nape of her neck rose.

  King Destin.

  “…that she took out their leader means we’ll have to plan the next poisoning as if it was an emotionally charged retaliation,” he murmured.

  “Did you tell her to take the Jester out?” a second voice asked. Tempest thought it sounded like one of the men from the war council —but that wasn’t possible. She’d beaten everyone in leaving the room so it definitely wasn’t Madrid.

  “I asked for her to bring me his heart. The bastard has been trouble from the beginning, and I knew exactly what type to send his way.” He laughed, the sound sinister and sexy all at once. “I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist her appeal.”

  Tempest jerked, sickened. He’d sent her not because of her skills but because he thought to use her as a tart. Bastard.

  “This way the Talagans will have a far less organized front to defend against our attack once we strike.”

  The second voice chuckled. “I suppose that’s correct, Your Grace. We should aim for a village closer to Dotae if we’re going for a vengeful attack. Where was it that Lady Tempest was found as a child? We could orchestrate it to look like the shifters have gone after her personally. The people would rally behind her after such a thing. They already favor her.”

  All the blood drained from Tempest’s face. Wicked Hell. What kind of monsters were they? She sagged against the stone wall and strained to listen to the rest of their conversation.

  “That idea has merit. It will work for us twofold: she’ll stay on our side and be completely devoted to her duty. She’ll be so busy chasing ghosts, the poor little thing will be too exhausted to see the obvious,” Destin murmured. “She is a sharp one, after all, so we must stay vigilant. Speaking of, where did my Lady Hound go? I was rather hoping—”

  Tempest did not hang around to hear the rest of the king’s sentence. She crept back up the stairs and glanced both ways. Not a soul.

  Destin’s voice grew louder and in blind horror and fear, she sprinted for the other parallel staircase. Temp hurled herself down the stairs determined to escape without being seen and missed a step. She stifled a shriek and curled into a ball like Dima had taught her, tumbling down the final half dozen, curving steps. Cursing silently, she got to her feet and shook out her arms and legs to ensure they had not been broken in the fall.

  She thanked whatever deity that looked after her that no one spotted her fall.

  Then she ran.

  Tempest snuck out of the castle, filched a cloak that she swore to return, and fled the city of Dotae, not daring to stop by the barracks to pack a bag or say her goodbyes. She wound through the streets with eyes barely able to see and a brain barely able to comprehend the swirling, tumultuous thoughts inside it. When she reached the edge of the sprawling forest that marked the long journey toward the mountains she did not stop.

  Tempest ran as fast as she could through the trees, though, in truth, she knew nobody was currently after her. But they would be, once they realized she was missing, and that knowledge was enough to spur her on faster and harder until her lungs felt like iron and her stomach begged for her to stop, lest she be sick as she ran.

  But Tempest couldn’t stop. She couldn’t—not until she found the man she was looking for. The man who needed to know everything she’d heard as soon as physically possible.

  He’s the enemy. And yet, the enemy of her enemy was a friend. Her conscience would have to make peace with it.

  Her brain scrambled and question after question ran through her mind. How long would it take for the king to discover her disappearance? How could the king condone such senseless murder? The corpse of the child floated through her memory.

  Tempest’s body forced her to halt out of sheer exhaustion. She dropped to her knees, retching and gasping for air as beads of sweat dropped from her forehead to the cool forest floor beneath her. A thorn cut into the palm of Tempest’s left hand and tears tracked down her cheeks. Children. Bloody children.

  The telltale snapping of a twig beneath a boot cracked to her left, and she stilled. She lifted her head and scanned the flitting shadows between the trees.

  Her heart thumped loudly. She’d been found. How did the king already know? Tempest curled her abused palm around a sharp rock and stood, sinking into a defensive position. The monster wouldn’t take her alive and she’d slaughter as many of his minions as possible.

  She smiled grimly. They’d trained her to be an assassin. Death was in her blood.

  The shadows melted into humanoid shapes but not the ones she expected. A huge black wolf loped into view and growled deeply.

  She held her ground and bared her teeth at Brine. “I don’t know if you can understand me, but I need to see him. Now.”

  Brine lowered his head and the hackles rose along his spine. />
  “Don’t you snarl at me,” she growled. “I’ve had a bloody horrible day. I know you’re not here just for anyone.” Tempest’s smile sharpened. “Take me to see the Jester.”

  A hulking shape stepped around a massive tree trunk. She held her hands up in surrender and her expression softened when Briggs gave her an encouraging smile. Tempest threw one last glare at the wolf and focused on the healer. If he was here, things wouldn’t get bloody. Well, she wouldn’t draw first blood, but if the nasty beastie didn’t control himself, she’d let him get very acquainted with her rock.

  She took a deep breath. “The Jester,” she said again. “I have information he needs.”

  “Oh, is that so?” a playfully, sinful voice purred.

  Tempest thought her heart would jump out of her chest at the sound of the low, melodic voice that belonged to one man and one man only. She spun around and eyed the kitsune who stepped out from the shadows of a hazel tree, looking altogether like a mythical forest king in a moss-colored cloak that perfectly set off the russet of his skin. He looked at her with gold irises—true, pure gold, not the amber of King Destin’s—glimmering with mischief.

  Damn sneaky fox.

  He sighed. “Is the rock really necessary?”

  “You’d be surprised at what I can do with a rock.”

  “I don’t doubt that.” He chuckled and held out a hand. “Are you ready to stand at my side?”

  “Not your side,” she began, “but on the side of justice.”

  Pyre smiled a grin full of sharp, delighted canines.

  “Then it’s a good thing those two are one and the same.”

  Continue The Twisted Kingdoms with book two: The Rook

  If you’d like the next book faster, please leave a review. I prioritize a series by its number of reviews<3

  Thank you for reading THE HUNT. I hope you enjoyed it!

  If you’d like to know more about me, my books, or to connect with me online, you can visit my webpage https://www.frostkay.net/ or join my facebook group FROST FIENDS!

  From bookworm to bookworm: reviews are important. Reviews can help readers find books, and I am grateful for all honest reviews. Thank you for taking the time to let others know what you’ve read, and what you thought. Just remember, they don’t have to be long or epic, just honest❤

  Have you read the Tainted?

  It’s an ENEMIES TO LOVERS post-apocalyptic fantasy perfect for Sarah J. Maas and Holly Black fans.

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  Happy reading,

  Frost

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