Page 1 of Magic Hunted
Chapter One
Blood-and-gore-tipped iron spikes of Titan’s stronghold soared above me as I slunk beneath them. Every nerve in my body sparked with the need to about-face, bolt across the footbridge and disappear back into the safety of the jungle. If I said I’d be running to freedom, I’d be lying. There was no place on this earth that was free. The tyranny of The Six was everywhere. I know, because Titan made me spy on weakness so he could stamp it out.
Which he did.
Every single time.
I’ve seen those spikes driven through the heads of the people Titan doesn’t want in his stronghold. Black flies buzzed around the bits and pieces of brain matter stuck to the iron, left there as a deterrent. One slash from Harold, the stronghold gatekeeper, and the gates would drop on those below. Men, women or children. It didn’t matter.
Harold belched, farted, and scratched his balls as I slipped past, using the crowd passing through into the marketplace as cover. The man should never have been a guard. The trickle of magic Titan infused him with had turned him from a disgusting asshole to a callous sadist. He’d killed more people crossing the threshold than any other guard Titan employed. I’d noted the sick gleam in his piggy eyes and the bulge in his pants every time he brought the gate crashing down on innocent people.
That’s what Titan liked to do.
He personally selected those he deemed worthy of his magic. The more brutal, the higher position they had in his stronghold. The cadre was the most savage group of any humans Titan turned magical. I watched out for Peder, Kalos and Sinon as I dashed behind an apple cart and into the castle courtyard.
I couldn’t let anyone find out I’d been missing, least of all them. The cadre enjoyed being Titan’s personal bulldogs. Like Harold, they wielded the trickle of magic with which Titan imbued them, with relish. Especially on me, and it wasn’t as if I could fight back. I couldn’t compare to a drop of Titan’s power.
I should have been back here days ago. Instead, I stayed to rescue Anise from Drisella’s dungeon. I couldn’t leave her to die. I saw her Change on that mountain top where I was spying, praying that Drisella couldn’t break into the magical dome that had appeared over the wolves’ territory. I’d almost blown my cover when Drisella forced Anise’s Change; nearly wet my pants when I saw her Change into a dragon shifter. Not just any dragon shifter either. She was the dragon alpha’smate!
Anise was the only person on Earth I might call a friend, and that was sad because I’m sure she was glad to see the back of me after what I’d done to her brothers. Especially Jarom.
People like me didn’t have the luxury of friendship. It could be used against me.
It already had been.
Pushing people away was the best defense I had and the only way I survived in a world where everything could be used as a weapon. Friendship. Love. Vague politeness. They all had barbs, so I avoided them at all costs. Panther shifters were especially off my radar.
I had to because I held the biggest secret of all. No one could find out. Not even my potential mates, who I could never find. Ironic, since they were the only way I might become free, but one touch would seal my fate and theirs, so I made sure to keep to the shadows, honing my skills to be unseen. Forgotten.
Those very skills were the ones Titan used me for.
I was his greatest spy, and I cursed myself for it every day.
The slave studs tingled, a pain that could drive through my bones to the center of my being. I was surprised my body hadn’t erupted in blinding agony because I was two days late. An unforgivable offense. Titan wanted my report on the golden dome over wolf territory. Only I knew exactly what it meant, and that was one secret I’d never tell him.
I should make my way to his rooms right away as he would expect, but I needed to ensure the bricks I used to plug a person-sized hole in my room hadn’t been disturbed in my absence. Because many lives depended on that secret, too.
I darted along the wall of the castle courtyard behind various stall holders with the crowd helping to conceal me. I had to get through the marketplace, where I could lose myself in the network of tunnels below ground to reach my safe place. My sanctuary was a tiny, dark space hollowed out of the rock below the foundations of the castle.
I’d rid the space of rat shit and cockroaches and kept it as my own years ago when I was fourteen. It was too far away to be used as storage and too damp and dark for any living thing to want to be inside unless they were desperate and it suited me fine because I was that sort of desperate. It was also strategically placed above the sewers and the tunnel system that went to the edge of the cliff where no one ventured.
As the years passed, it was where I hid when Titan rampaged for no other reason than to cause me pain. He was especially bad when it was time for The Six to Conclave, and that was coming soon. It was the one time each year The Six were without their powers. They needed to Conclave to rejuvenate the magic they’d stolen from the Fae King millennia ago. For a few precious seconds, they were like any other human without stolen magic. Powerless and vulnerable.
I’d discovered this through many years of careful observation. Titan had trained me well, after all. I dreamed of killing each one of The Six, eviscerating them from head to toe. I had one chance and one chance only, and I needed those stronger than me for that. Much stronger. Luckily, there were many who also wanted the same thing. So I’d leaked the information to the wolves, knowing the wolf alphas were strong enough and had a big enough army to attempt the kill. The price hadn’t been light. The lives lost weighed heavy on my soul, but I’d kept the source of the information a secret. Myself.
Secrets, secrets, secrets. I had them all.
I ducked past a bored-looking guard picking his nose and dashed into an alley. I’d remained hidden inside my four walls for days sometimes, beaten and starving when the cadre had been looking to take me back to Titan for some offense or another until they lost interest or drank too much at the local tavern. I hoped today was one of those days and they were tits-up in their cups, too pissed to see straight because, for the first time, I had hope. Hope in the form of a magical golden dome covering the wolves’ territory.
I sprinted past the baker, stuffed a warm, fresh roll into my mouth and dove through the broken bricks in the castle’s side. Darkness swallowed me as I made my way to my room. It would only take a moment and then I would give into the burn of the slave studs and go to Titan. I swallowed the bile that rose in my stomach because I knew what that meant. I slipped around a corner and controlled my breathing.
And after Titan was done with me, I would find my way to the wolf’s territory. I would find the other who had released their section of the grimoire and discover a way to release mine without bonding. If my mates bonded me, they would want to protect me. They would give their lives and that was something I would not let happen. I would do as my mother asked me with her dying breath. I would bring the grimoire back together, but I would not sacrifice my mates’ lives for it.
When I was eight years old, my life had shattered. Titan had attacked our home, somehow finding us. My mother and fathers had sacrificed themselves to protect the grimoire. My mother told me to find my mates before impaling herself on a sword, imbuing magic into a spell that would seal my life, my fate and those of others who didn’t deserve my burden.
I’d run through the jungle until my feet bled, found a cave, and waited there until my stomach hollowed out and my lips cracked with dehydration. Somehow, I’d survived from that day; adapted, learned to hunt and live, used people for their generosity when they gave me scraps and stole from them when they hadn’t.
Those years were how I knew how to kill a man with a single stab through his ribs to his heart. They were how I could fight to protect myself when men pinned me down, wanting to take what I would not give. They were how I blended into the background—until eventually I’d caught Titan’s eye.
