Page 39 of A Trial of Fate

I laughed so that I wouldn’t start crying again. The three of them encircled me in a warm, loving embrace that calmed my shaking nerves. I lifted my head and gazed fondly at my friends, thankful for each of them and how they had impacted my life and helped shape who I was. The only problem was that we were missing someone.

“Where’s Gilen?” I asked, searching the meadow.

Talon pushed his lips into a firm, thin line. “He left,” he said with a disappointing frown. “As soon as you were marked, he turned and ran from the meadow. It was too much for him, Sky.”

I looked at Talon and asked the same question I asked Gilen. “Are Gilen and I mates?”

Talon bit his lip and kicked at the ground uncomfortably. “I don’t know.”

“But you know that Rhea is, right?” I asked, turning then to Rhea. “Is Talon your mate?”

“You know we won’t have a definite answer until morning.” Rhea scowled. “But, yes. I can feel the bond. It’s quiet, but I can only imagine what it will feel like come sunrise when it takes full effect.”

“Well, sunrise is not far off now,” I murmured as I looked at the morning sun’s glow along the eastern horizon. “I need to find him.”

They all nodded, and I hugged them each one last time.

I sprinted in the direction Talon last saw Gilen, passing countless shifters who all thanked me for volunteering. Even those who had once looked down on me for my half-breed status had given me a respectful nod and thanks. I didn’t want to ignore them, but I did have other pressing things on my mind. And time was not on my side. I needed to find Gilen before it was too late.

I took off at a run, thinking he would be down by the beach, where he often escaped when he was troubled. As the scenery began to shift from the thick wilderness to the exposed shoreline, my heart raced at the anticipation of finding him. But, to my dismay, he was nowhere to be found. I walked the shoreline alone, kicking rocks over and trying to think about where he could be. Honestly, though, he could be anywhere right now. Gilen could shift and fly off to only the gods knew where.

I sat down on a large boulder and sank my head into my hands.

Gilen, where are you?

Rocks tumbled from the cliffs nearby, and I turned my head upto look. “Gilen?” But there was no one there. My heart sank, and I lost myself in a swirling loophole of what-ifs and what-will-bes.

I was distracted.

I didn’t notice the soft clinking sounds of the chains while the roaring waves crashed along the rocks. I was oblivious to the smell as the winds blew upwind, concealing the scent that would have alerted me to danger. I was a naive fool.

Hands grabbed me.

Iron chains shackled me.

And, my world went dark as huntersabducted me.

Chapter Ten

Inever wanted to kill anyone more than I wanted to kill my kidnappers. Even though I knew it was pointless, I kicked and fought against the iron chains that bound my limbs. Any strength advantage I had was stripped away once the iron encased my skin. A solid thump landed on the back of my head, causing my vision to blur. I was gagged, draped with a black hood over my face, and thrown into the back of a wagon inside an iron barred cage. I fought against it, but eventually, I was struck in the back of the head again and passed out. Drowning any hope that my screams for help might be heard by a member of my pack.

Fuck. Hunters had kidnapped me.

I had no idea how long I was unconscious when I finally awoke, but my unrelenting hunger and dry throat begging for relief indicated more than a day had passed.

“Assholes! Fucking bastards!” My roars were muffled, but I couldn’t stop. “Let me go! Let me out!” After a while, my voice became ragged from the relentless screaming, but I still didn’t relent in crying for help. Even through the gag, I tried to yell for help. To scream for anyone to save me from a fate that was worse than death.

“Enough! Quiet down, you mangy half-breed bitch!” One of the drivers reached their arm through the bars and smacked me hard across the face.

Under my hood, I could taste the blood trickling into my mouth as I tried to adjust the gag. Choking on my blood was not how I wanted to leave this world. Nope, I had other plans, and dying here was certainly not one of them.

Hunters were a magically altered human species with heightened speed and strength compared to their humble beginnings. However, the most noticeable feature about them was their eyes—every hunter had their eyes magically shined-out. The luminous opal clouded orbs gave them the advantage of seeing in the dark like shifters, but unlike our kind, it made them sensitive to light.

The magic used and then gifted to create them by the human mages also made them nearly impossible to track. Wherever they went, their footsteps seemed to disappear. I could never make heads or tails of how they managed this, but time and time again, hunters vanished without a trace. Even from horseback, I knew they would somehow manage to hide their tracks.

Specks of daylight shone through seams in my hood, and I could just make out the silhouette of trees and surrounding landmarks. The mountains were strange to me. I had never ventured this far from our pack lands before. The forest was thinner here with little to no animals flourishing along the pathway. I couldn’t hear the sounds of songbirds or the typical hustle and bustle of teeming life. Bounded in the back of the iron-caged wagon pulled by horses, fear gripped my chest like the chains that shackled me to my cage. They were taking me to one of their hidden lairs that never stayed in the same place for long.

I had never experienced this depth of sheer terror before in my life, and it stole the breath out of my lungs. No one would be able to track me. The cage was undoubtedly spellbound to trap my scent so we would not be followed, and these fuckers always covered their tracks.

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