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And when they dared to hunt in groups, they became a school of piranhas swarming their prey.
The key to surviving them was to pick off the leader of their group; the rest would typically retreat. The only problem was spotting their chosen alpha. By all appearances, the leader did not differ from the rest of them. It was more a matter of spotting the one bossing the others about—not the easiest thing to do in the middle of an attack.
“Do you have a guess on how many?” Yichen asked as he resumed walking.
“Fewer than a dozen, I should think.”
Yichen’s left eye twitched. After nearly a century of knowing Rei, Yichen had learned to translate that into “I don’t have a fucking clue, but I’m going to brazen my way through this because I’m the bloody crown prince of the fae.”
He kept his mouth shut. More than likely, Rei was tracking the spies who were following them.
The forest grew thicker and darker with every step as well as quieter. The croak of frogs and the chirp of the night insects couldn’t penetrate this region, or they’d all run off for safer ground. A sharp chill accompanied the low white mist winding its way between the black tree boles. Modern America was gone. They’d stepped through a crack in time and come out somewhere in a lost world that had existed before even humans.
“There!” Rei barked. The sound was still crashing through the suffocating silence as Rei snagged his bow and pulled an arrow from his hip. The tiniest flash of movement on a tree branch over the path ahead of them had Yichen launching his knife. Silver and wood sped through the air next to each other to bury in the thin chest of the brownie that hadn’t had a chance to dart away.
Yichen’s heart slammed into his chest as he pivoted on the balls of his feet, drawing another knife as he automatically placed his back to Rei’s. In a matter of seconds, three more knives left his fingers, cutting down a red cap and a brownie. Another red cap escaped with nothing more than a flesh wound.
“I’m pretty sure my arrow reached that initial target first,” Rei drawled.
“And I’ve always heard the first thing to go with old age is your vision,” Yichen mocked as he dodged a brownie that flung itself from a tree at his head. He skewered the miniature monster through the chest and flung it away. “There’s no way your arrow hit first. You’ve also lost the ability to count. I’ve killed four already and they’re still coming. You?”
“Are you including the first one?” Rei inquired over the twang of his bowstring.
“Yes,” Yichen said with a hiss.
“Five for me. Maybe I meant a baker’s dozen.”
Yichen wanted to roll his eyes, but he didn’t dare take his gaze from the scurrying movements between the trees. Nine dead. Possibly four left. The slight shifting of the leaves and the scuttling noises convinced him that there were more, but it was rare for Rei to be wrong about something like this. It wasn’t just about what the elf could see but also what he could feel. He could sense when others of his kind were close. Unless the king and queen had managed to cook up something to obscure his abilities.
Another brownie stuck its head out, and Yichen took it off with his final knife.
“I’m out,” he snarled, his hands open at his sides, ready to catch the next attack.
“Grab the blade from my waist. We’re nearly done.”
He didn’t argue. Spinning to face Rei’s back, he carefully reached around him to grab the hilt of the short sword he wore.
“Ready!” Rei barked before they turned as a unit. Rei swung about with arrow nocked and bowstring taut to take the exact place Yichen had been standing in. Yichen continued to turn a full three hundred and sixty degrees, drawing the sword free of Rei’s scabbard and stepping into his previous spot.
As expected, the brownies and red caps tried to take advantage of their movement to attack, but they only flung themselves into arrows and a blade. The last of the spies lay dead or had scurried off to report their findings.
“There. See. I count thirteen diminutive corpses,” Rei announced as he shouldered his bow again. “A baker’s dozen.”
It was on the tip of Yichen’s tongue to remind him that he’d said fewer than a dozen, but it wasn’t worth it. He shoved the borrowed sword into Rei’s open hand, and he wrinkled his nose at the blood-covered weapon. Yichen ignored him as he went to fetch his knives. He missed his own sword, but the throwing daggers he’d gained since leaving the fae were easier to hide on his body and less likely to draw the attention of anyone he passed on the street when they were in Hartford.
Yichen stepped on the head of a dead red cap, holding it as he jerked his last blade free with a sickening sucking sound. “Are your parents trying to stop us from reaching Olag?”
“I don’t think there’s any proof that they know who we’re seeking. This was more of a scouting party sent to locate me.”
Turning, Yichen frowned at his companion and wiped the blood off the blade on the leg of his jeans. “A scouting party of thirteen?”
Rei lifted a slender shoulder in a nonchalant shrug, sending golden hair spilling down to catch hints of pale moonlight. “Brownies and red caps are numerous, making them quite expendable. He’s likely sent hundreds out into the woods to find me.”
Even after a fight that had left them both sweaty and blood splattered, Rei still held an almost ethereal quality that made it hard for Yichen to tear his eyes away. No matter how he dressed or what he was doing, Rei always looked like the perfect prince. Yichen wanted to reach out and brush some of the silken hair that had fallen close to his emerald-green eyes. Instead, he balled his fingers into a fist to keep them from wandering.
The important thing was that Rei appeared to have regained his strength. All fae took their magic and life force from nature, but none more so than the elves. If what he’d seen of Rei’s sluggish movements and gray pallor recently was anything to go by, it was as necessary as oxygen for them.
But it wasn’t just the green of nature that fed them. There was also the magic that poured forth from the fae realm that sustained them. Once the door between the two realms closed, no fae would survive in the human realm. And that included cocky elves who couldn’t count.
