Page 26 of Huntress

“I’ve been called worse by creatures more frightening than you.” She shrugged.

He sat on his cot with his boots still on, his back against the wall, facing the door. Elsie recognized that stance. He didn’t trust his surroundings, and he had every reason not to. She wondered how long it would take him to relax.

Quiet stretched between them. Elsie would have left it alone, but his emotions continued assaulting her, and she was done putting up with it. His head tilted again as she sat up to glare at him. She felt his curiosity, and damn if that didn’t tip her over the edge.

“Stop doing that!” she demanded. He blinked at her, then looked away. Instead of curiosity, she caught the shadow of irritation. “I said stop!”

“I looked away, didn’t I? What else am I doing to bother you? Existing?”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” He looked at her again, and Elsie tapped her fingers against her knee.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why are you worked up again? I thought we had a silent agreement to sit in our separate corners and think about how miserable we are.”

“I’m angry because you are! Stop throwing your emotions at me!” she demanded. He leaned back against the wall and draped an arm over his knee, studying her in silence until her tapping fingers came to a stop.

“I’ve been wondering the same about you.” He frowned. “Why are you prying into my head? Afraid I’ll kill you in your sleep?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snorted at him, but she was hit by a sudden bout of anxiety. If he could feel her emotions, she’d definitely been giving too much away. Nobody should have that much insight into her thoughts and feelings. Her head was the only place she could be unapologetically herself, and now even that was occupied.

“I’m not doing anything. I have no gift of telegraphing emotion or thought. Not even my family were privy to what’s in my head.” He yawned, and Elsie caught herself staring. His fangs were in full view without being threatening for the first time.

“I don’t think you’re telling the truth.” The problem was that he wasn’t lying. He believed what he said to be true. “I’ve dealt with hundreds of demons, and never experienced anything like this with any of them.”

“You’re only about the tenth hunter I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet, and you’re the first to have done this to me. Don’t the Hunters teach you to keep your thoughts and emotions to yourself?” He rolled his eyes in her direction, and Elsie squirmed. He definitely wasn’t lying.

“They don’t teach us much about magic. Keeping our thoughts from projecting is something we have to figure out on our own.” Elsie stared at a healing scar on his forearm, wondering if it still hurt. “You aren’t hearing my thoughts, are you? I’m not hearing yours.”

“No, I’m not. It’s just your emotions that are obnoxiously impossible to ignore. You have a lot of magic, why are they letting you walk around without knowing how to use it? Aren’t untrained witches a little chaotic?” he snorted.

Chaos was putting it mildly. Hunters started training with mentors at twelve, about two years before their fae and witch-infused blood started heating and catapulting them through puberty. It was a tumultuous time. Their magic matured faster than they did, turning every surge of teenage emotion into a potential catastrophe they had to learn to choke down or risk someone getting hurt.

Elsie had the advantage of training with a demon prince and a goddess from a tender age, and she’d still had trouble keeping her magic contained. She’d been fortunate to have Albright there to help her through it.

“I know how to do basic healing, but any other magic we learn is self-taught.”

He’d touched on a subject she had a hard time with. She’d asked herself the same questions. The hunters claimed to value those of fae and witch lineage, but not teaching them how to harness their magic was a strange way to show it.

“That sounds like every other power-hungry regime throughout history. You plebeians can’t rise and fight against injustice if you’re powerless.”

Elsie frowned. He’d hit too close to her own thoughts on the matter.

“You sound like my mother. She doesn’t like the hunters either,” she said, as much to herself as to him. “You’re starting to make me think I’ve been here too long. That I’m forgetting who I’m supposed to be.”

“What is it about my face that makes you think I’m interested in listening to your problems? Is it my expression? Please tell me it is, because that’s something I can fix.”

“Sorry.” She rolled onto her side, her back to the demon. If she was going to convince him to trust her, she had to take the first step. “Let’s rest for a couple of hours, okay? I haven’t slept in a few days, and I’m sure that stall wasn’t comfortable.”

He didn’t answer, but once their talk died away, the only sound was his soft, even breathing. It was comforting, in a strange sort of way. He wouldn’t harm her, yet. He’d try it eventually, but for now, she was safe with him. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, the demon was closer to her people than the hunters would ever be.

The sharp sting of a slap on the back of her hand jolted her out of her daydreams. “Elspeth, you must pay attention,” Stolas demanded.

“Sorry, Stolas.” Elsie rubbed her knuckles.

“You aren’t sorry, you can’t lie to me, girl.” The raven prince tilted his head, peering at her with his too-keen eyes. “You’ll do lines after we’re finished. Write out the names of the fae kings and their queens along with their court affiliations a hundred times each in the ancient language. I’m not raising a simpleton.”

“A hundred times each?!” Elsie whined, then gasped and pressed her lips closed, eyes wide. Stolas raised a single brow at her, but he let it slide. Sometimes he added further punishment if she complained. She rubbed her hand again as he continued the lesson.

He could hurt her for real if he wanted, but he never did. She’d seen him pull the entrails out of a demon’s stomach and eat them whole. A slap on the hand was the worst Stolas ever did physically, though she’d rather endure another slap than deal with writing lines. Her fear of the demon was never about anything he’d done. It was the knowledge of who and what he was that kept her in line.