Page 24 of Hunted By Darkness

Without another word, Silas dragged his sword from Zephyr’s stomach to his throat. His insides became his outsides. Blood and guts poured onto the ground and anyone near the stage.Then with a whirl, the mercenary cut Zephyr’s head clean from his neck.

Chaos erupted. Dark Fae around us scrambled to flee. Only a few were attempting to fight back, mostly the guards stationed outside the mass. Silas moved like a demon, beheading every single Fae who tried to attack him. Lev was paralyzed by shock, watching the scene play out. It was the first time he’d seen Silas truly become the Shimmering Assassin.

Grabbing his arm, I dragged him away, and after a few blinks, my friend finally came to his senses.

“Wow,” he whispered, moving in sync with me. “I—well, now I can’t really blame him for bragging. It’s annoying how impressive that was. And gory.”

I dashed between doors, heading for the room where the book was kept. “I get it. I didn’t really expect him to be such a monster when we first met either, but right now, we need to get what we came for and then get the hell out. You need to focus.”

Lev shook his head as if to dispel his disbelief and led me into another corridor. “It’s faster through here. The upside to all of this chaos is that it’s unlikely they’d have many people guarding this area. And if they did, they’ll be rushing off to deal with…well, another blow to their plans.”

“Can’t say I was sad to see your cousin’s head and body part ways,” I joked.

Laughing, Lev activated a hidden door and motioned for me to go ahead. “You and me both, Niks. Just a little sad it wasn’t me who did it. That asshole deserved worse than he got, but I’m glad Silas didn’t hold back.”

Slipping into the room, I nodded. “If it’s one thing we can count on, it’s that Silas doesn’t hold back.”

12

Nika

Once we cleared the outside border, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. Grabbing the book after Silas’s little revenge show was easier than it should’ve been. I hadn’t risked looking at it. We left quickly after and decided to wait for the renegade mercenary within a safe distance of the Dark Fae Society lands.

It'd been nearly an hour, but Silas hadn’t returned. The night had grown impossibly cold over the last hour, and my gut was twisted up in knots. The longer I waited, the less I was confident he was coming.

I’d seen what he could do. I didn’t doubt his skills. But what if he was injured? What if they locked him up and he was inthe middle of planning his escape? What if he needed me and I didn’t come?

I panned our surroundings, hoping to catch a sensation I knew to be my mercenary, but it was only us out here. My chest was unbearably tight with the thought that he might be somewhere hurt.

He might be an infamous assassin, but even he couldn’t take on an entire society of Dark Fae. He wasn’t invincible. If anything, his unwavering confidence could be his inevitable downfall.

Would I feel it in my heart if something happened? Would our connection break to pieces and my heart with it? It had to, and that was what I held onto as I searched the trees for any sign of the man I loved, convinced I’d know if anything happened to him.

“We should go,” Lev finally murmured. “He knows where to return. We’re sitting ducks out here, Niks. I don’t want to risk losing that book, so we’ll head back and wait for him there.”

Sensation slithered down my spine. Voices broke out of the quiet, their inaudible whispers carrying on the wind and growing louder. I tried to listen, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Something was calling to me.

Silas?

“We’re going back,” I announced, securing my cloak and starting back on the path toward the Dark Fae Society.

Lev snatched my arm before I got far. “You can’t, Niks. You know you can’t.”

His cloak caught a stray breeze, and the icy wind hit my face hard enough that I was forced to blink several times. The whispers continued, but they weren’t calling me over to the Dark Fae Society. They were calling me somewhere else. I turned my head, and when their voices grew louder, I knew I needed to go that direction. I started to walk again, but Lev didn’t let go.

“Nika, what are you doing?”

“The voices,” I said slowly, staring at the direction they coaxed. “They want me to follow.”

“The voices want you to follow?” he asked slowly, his hold loosening. We both stared where I heard them calling, the soft chatter almost songlike in the wind. “But why?”

The strong pull was the same one I’d felt the night my father called me back to that decrepit house. Strong enough to leave me with only one option.

To walk wherever the voices led.

Moving again, I beckoned him. The hood of my cloak was blown off, and more of my purple hair was set loose. Our cloaks fluttered out behind us, and each step was an effort to take with the force of an oncoming storm hitting us. The wind howled loudly in my ears, but the whispers were louder now that I was going the right direction.

“I’m not sure, but I need to go wherever they lead. It’s important, I know it. I can’t explain it, so you’ll just have to trust me.”

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