Page 74 of The Hunter

Telok searched her gaze. As always, his masklike face gave little away, and there was too much fire in his eyes for her to truly guess at what he was thinking. Finally, he swept her into his upper arms and straightened, cradling her against his chest. He looked at Tas. “Lacey is mine. You touch her, I kill you.”

Tas buzzed uncertainly, flinching back with his head tilted. “Yours? I didn’t think…”

With a snap of his mandible fangs, Telok turned. He sank down briefly to pluck Lacey’s belongings off the ground as he strode back toward their camp.

“You and yours, come meet ours in our wild den. We will share words,” Okkor said behind them before his heavy steps signaled he was following.

A spot of color called Lacey’s attention up. Another vrix with a gray hide and tufts of black fur stood on a branch high overhead, spear in hand, watching silently with topaz eyes. She swung her gaze around, spotting three more of them up in the trees, all in plain sight, all staring silently as Telok carried her off.

CHAPTER 18

Telok hadn’t eased by the time everyone convened in camp. As he watched his companions exchange names with the strangers, anger and unease roiled inside him, and his fine hairs bristled beneath the gaze of Tas’s larkhet, which stared at him from atop one of the tall roots that served as a natural barrier for the camp.

Though the newcomers hadn’t shown even a sliver of ill intent, Telok couldn’t ignore the truth—these small vrix had watched and followed his group at least since last night, when Lacey had first noticed Swiftclaw. And they’d done so undetected. Telok’s companions were experienced hunters, hardened warriors, and not one of them had realized they were being observed.

Telok hadn’t realized.

And that lack of vigilance had allowed a stranger to come within striking distance of Lacey.

He tightened his grip on his spear and clutched her against his chest.

I could have lost her.

She could have been taken.

She could have been killed.

Telok had been distracted, his mind and instincts so consumed by his need to claim Lacey that he had endangered both her and all their companions. What if it had been a ravenous beast instead of Tas? What if it had been a vrix still loyal to Zurvashi, bent on avenging their fallen queen?

He’d failed in his duty as a hunter.

Failed as a…a mate.

How many signs had he overlooked, how many threats had he missed? How could he trust himself to keep her safe?

In his mind, he saw blood, smelled it, and heard the din of a slaughter echoing from the distant past. Something dark and cold constricted his chest, stifling his breath and making his hearts skip. The old scars on his face and neck throbbed.

By sheer chance, disaster had been avoided this time, but he knew all too well the consequences of failing to recognize danger. It had cost him everything…

And gods, that could have happened all over again today.

Lacey cupped the side of his face and turned it toward her, forcing his eyes away from the newcomers. “It’s okay, Telok.”

No, it is fucking not.

Her sincerity was clear in her soft voice, gentle touch, and compassionate gaze, but he could draw no comfort from her reassurance.

“I never expected to see thornskulls and shadowstalkers striding together,” Tas said, reclaiming Telok’s attention.

Garahk stepped closer to him. “For long and long, we did not. But the tangled threads of fate bound ours together. I did not think those threads would ever lead me to meet yours. I have known winddancers only from stories spun when my broodmother was fresh hatched.”

Winddancers. Now that it had been spoken, it seemed so obvious to Telok. He’d heard stories of their kind as well, but even when he’d lived in the Tangle as a broodling, he’d never seen one himself.

Though Telok knew they were full grown, the winddancers looked like young vrix compared to the thornskulls. The tallest of them, a female with black fur, a dark gray hide, and purple eyes who Tas had introduced as his mate, Nes’Kahn Shir, stood barely a finger’s length taller than Cole. The other female was eye to eye with the human, and the males were all around Lacey’s height.

While the thornskulls were powerfully built, with broad frames and hard spikes on their shoulders and headcrests, the winddancers were lithe, their fur giving them a much softer look.

The two groups studied each other with open curiosity, though that of the winddancers was dulled by a hint of wariness for all but Tas’s two male companions. The pair of males stared at Ayali as though sizing her up in a very different way, eyes glimmering with interest and intrigue.