Page 53 of Teeth To Rip & Tear

I’d only seen the Huntsman a few moments before, in the dungeon, but I didn’t question how he’d gotten halfway across the castle in a matter of minutes. He wore a military jacket made up of brass buttons and tassels, which were ostentatious and no doubt uncomfortable to wear—the fastenings sat diagonally across his chest. I couldn’t tell his age. His face was young enough, but it was stitched together wrong like someone had made a mistake on the seams of his mouth. His eyes held a dark kind of deadness that I associated with sharks. His hair was pitch black, swallowing the light, and two pointed ears poked out, giving him an elven appearance.

“The night of Samhain is upon us.” The Huntsman tilted his chin, sending a challenging look at the crowd. “Shift and do your duties to the Gods and the Hunt.”

The moment he spoke, my bones began to writhe under the surface of my skin, twisting and rearranging themselves. At first, I remained on two legs before it hit me like a punch to the stomach. I curled over, feeling the unbearable pain of a thousand needles pushing up through my skin. I looked down at my hands, seeing the fur sprout between my knuckles as my fingers shortened to stubs.

My grandmother’s voice echoed through my skull.

Do not shift.

Do not succumb.

You are Sídhe.

I tried to scream, but my mouth changed shape, and my tongue grew longer. Any protests came as a whine and hacking cough. I fell to the floor and curled over as the waves of pain grew too much. Around me, the squelch of blood, skin, and bone echoed through the hall.

“Tonight, we hunt the white stag.” The Huntsman announced.

Through bleary eyes, I watched the Huntsman stride away from the platform, leaving a room of people in agony as their bodies changed shape.

When the pain stopped, the world changed. The colors didn’t look quite right. Surrounded by a wall of fur in every direction, I stood in the middle of a sea of wolves on four paws.

I hadn’t believed it until that moment.

The Wild Hunt.

I bristled, my lips peeling away from my teeth.

The Huntsman had done something to me. He had changed me. He had turned me intothis.

I was Sídhe.

My grandmother had told me that if I ignored the wolf. If I ignored the call of the wild, I didn’t have to lose myself.

I had failed.

The wall behind the Huntsman's platform began to melt away as I stood amongst the rest of the wolves. Swirling mist and shadows leaked out of the portal at the front of the room. The magic smelled like ozone, thick and cloying.

The first wolves leaped onto the platform, forgoing the steps, racing for the mists, and disappearing into roiling shadows. One by one, the sea of wolves, with their mismatched coats of grey, red, brown, and black, all disappeared into the portal.

A few stayed behind. I recognized the silver wolf as Kaleb with his white-tipped tail. A black wolf with marmalade eyes and a russet wolf with a goofy grin—Wyatt.

I didn’t recognize the other wolves, though they kept to my side, nudging me toward the swirling mists. My feetskidded on the stones, and my body began to shake. I let out an animalistic whine and began to pant, unable to control my reactions.

The other wolves sat down. Kaleb walked up to my face and lowered his orange eyes to meet mine. I couldn’t speak, but he held my gaze before glancing back at the portal.

Every hair on my body lifted, and I felt the Huntsman’s watchful eyes from the corner of the room. We were the last wolves left in the hall; the others had passed through the mists until only the five of us remained.

A wave of emotion washed over me, feelings that didn’t feel like mine, pressing against my will until my back legs buckled with strain as if a weight sat on my back. An unspoken command that my body couldn’t help but respond to.

Find the White Stag.

I didn’t know what the Huntsman had done to me, but my legs moved against my will as I crawled toward the mists with the other wolves surrounding me. I wasn’t trying to fight, but my body and mind didn’t like being commanded.

Focusing on the sensation cleared my head enough that I was able to think beyond the compulsion washing over me.

Find the White Stag.

I turned to the shadows. The Huntsman was there, watching me, without a single emotion on his face. His eyes blazed with magic.

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