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Turning, I scan the area behind us.

‘Good evening.’

Tara flinches, instinctively stepping closer to me as I catch sight of a figure who steps out from the tree line, walking toward us unhurriedly. He’s human. Broad-shouldered, with dark clothing and an unshaven face. He looks similar to the last bounty hunter the coven sent after us. They all look much the same, it seems.

‘Hey, Tara,’ he says, stopping a few feet away.

Her eyebrows lift in surprise, and something unreadable flickers through her expression. Recognition, but not familiarity. Her body stiffens beside mine and her brows dip together.

‘You know him?’ I ask.

‘Sort of,’ she murmurs, not taking her eyes off the man. ‘He used to come to the estate. He works for my family, but I never knew what he did.’

The man gives her a crooked smile. ‘Didn’t expect to find you out here, with him.’ His gaze slides to me with disdain. ‘You’ve made yourself hard to track, Theo.’

I don’t answer. My fingers twitch at my sides, itching to reach for the blade at my belt, but I wait. His tone is too casual. He’s not here to start a fight. He’s testing the waters. A different approach to the previous bounty hunter, who went straight to brute force.

‘What do you want?’ Tara asks. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I came for him.’ He jerks his chin toward me, then softens his tone a fraction. ‘But I wasn’t sure if you’d be with him. I didn’t expect it, actually.’

She doesn’t move closer, but she doesn’t move away either. Her silence stretches too long, heavy between us. She glances at me, as if unsure whether to believe him or not, and I’m finding it difficult myself. It’s hard to know what the witches do and don’t know, but I’m assuming they know everything.

‘Tara,’ I say, and she blinks, as if I’ve pulled her out of a fog. Her eyes meet mine, and they’re full of that same storm I’ve seen building for days now. Guilt mixed with doubt and confusion. The witches raised her to believe that I’m the monster in the woods. That my kind lie without blinking. I can sense the war within her through the bond. She’s torn between what she has been raised to believe and what she is witnessing in real time, with her own eyes.

Her voice is hesitant. ‘They trust him.’

‘So he’s trusted by the people who have spent your entire life lying to you and keeping you in the dark,’ I remind her. ‘The same people who sent him to kill me. He’s a bounty hunter, Tara. That’s why he is here.’

She looks away from me, jaw clenching as she thinks.

‘I’m not here to hurt you, Tara,’ the bounty hunter says, his tone much gentler than his appearance. ‘You could come back. You don’t have to stay with him. You don’t understand what he

is. What he’s done. He is a violent monster who has killed before, and there is no way of knowing when he is going to kill you too.’

I step forward. ‘You don’t know me.’

‘I know enough,’ he replies coolly. ‘And I know what she is.

She’s scared, vulnerable and isolated from the people who care about her.’

‘They made that choice, not me.’ Turning to face Tara, I keep a close eye on the hunter but focus on her for a moment. ‘You don’t owe them anything, Tara. You never did. They used you. They used me too.’

Her heartbeat is loud in my ears as her breath quickens.

‘Don’t listen to him,’ the hunter says, more forcefully now.

‘You’re not like him. You never will be. You’re on the wrong side, Tara, but it isn’t too late to come back with me. To come home.’

A slight panic builds in my chest at the thought of her agreeing with him. She can’t leave me. Not now, not with everything that’s happening between us. There’s a chance she will take up his offer. It would make sense. She has known her family for years, and me only days, but she doesn’t move. Her hands curl into fists at her sides, her jaw and shoulders rigid.

‘I’m with him,’ Tara says eventually, lifting her chin. ‘I am not going anywhere with you.’

Her words unwind a knot inside me. She chose me. After everything she’s heard … everything she was told to believe about my kind, she still chose to stand here, beside me, despite it all. The bounty hunter’s expression flickers. He wasn’t expecting that. He thought she’d hesitate longer, or that he would get through to her.

‘You’re making a mistake,’ he says, voice edged now, no longer careful and considerate. ‘You don’t know what he is capable of.’

‘I know what he’s done,’ she says, steady this time. ‘He’s protected me. He’s told me the truth. That’s more than I can say for the people who raised me.’