The Bassilix Hunt
Somewhere in the depths of the forest, the basilisk is already hunting us.
Or rather, hunting me.
On his own, Talan would have no problem escaping this creature, but I
keep getting winded, my lungs wheezing. I can fight and throw daggers and
control people’s minds. What I cannot do is run like a Fey. I stopped
sprinting after about ten minutes.
I’m behind Talan. I walk quickly through the dark woods, twigs
snapping under my feet, and try to keep up with the Dream Stalker.
Armed with a bow, Talan prowls with a tiger’s grace. He’s all silence
and shadows, a quiet breeze between the trunks. When he catches my eye,
he doesn’t give the slightest hint of concern about the primordial monster
hunting us.
The fuck have I gotten myself into?
The snow crunches beneath my boots, and the chill seeps through to my
toes. Every breath of frozen air sears my lungs, and my heartbeat pounds in
my ears.
Barren and gnarled tree branches arch toward each other, a twisted, icy
cathedral above our heads. Apart from the sounds of our footfalls, quiet
blankets the forest. The silence is more menacing than noise, and fear
crawls under my skin.
Am I a spy or a prisoner who’s completely lost control of my mission?
As an undercover agent, I should be a manipulator, a puppeteer, influencing
those around me to work for my agenda. Instead, I’m fleeing from a fucking
basilisk so I can marry a man I’ve kissed once, a man I’m also trying to kill.
Worst game of Kiss, Marry, Kill ever.
The cold air pierces my lungs and stings my cheeks.
Part of me wonders if Talan already knows the truth about me. Maybe
this is all a slow torture plan—a punishment to take me apart one piece at a
time until I’m left defenseless before him and confess everything.
My lungs burn, the airways tightening. Of course, I don’t have
The Sultan then required the departing crusaders to witness the spectacle of his hunt conducted by 7,000 falconers and 6,000 huntsmen with hounds in satin blankets and leopards in diamond collars.
This is more than a mission
I didn’t bring any fresh clothes into the bathroom with me, so I’m
forced to step into the room in my towel. As I walk to the dresser, I can feel
his eyes upon me, though I assume an air of nonchalance. My wet hair drips
down my back and shoulders, dampening the towel, and I yank open a
drawer and grab the first pair of underwear and nightgown I can find. As I
head back to the bathroom, I see Talan pour himself some wine. He’s
making himself at home.
Closing the bathroom door behind me, I discover that I’ve grabbed a
sheer nightgown and a pair of skimpy underwear with black lace around the
waist. The nightgown is also black and utterly transparent, revealing my
nipples through the sheer fabric.
Scanty or not, when I walk out of here, I have to look totally relaxed
and at ease with everything on display. I take a deep breath and imagine that
I’m fully dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.
Opening the bathroom door, I find Talan sitting on my bed, shirtless.
I focus on keeping my shoulders relaxed, my expression serene. But it’s
not what I feel.
Here’s what they don’t teach you in Fey culture lessons when we
practice being at ease with our bodies. They don’t teach you how it will feel
to walk out half-naked in front of possibly the most powerful Fey in the
kingdom, a prince who strikes absolute terror into the hearts of everyone
around him. Or how hard it is to think straight when he’s half-naked, too,
with a body that is perfection itself. Because my brain knows that he’s a
monster, but my pulse is still reacting to the sinuous tattoos of willow
branches that stretch across his finely-cut muscles. I’ve never practiced how
it would feel to walk out like this before a heart-stoppingly beautiful man
whose eyes darken at the sight of me.
His jaw tightens, and that eerie Fey
I drew the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas.
She attacked
“Auren, wake up,” I tell her.
Dusk is clutching the sky as securely as I’m clutching her. I’m trying
my best to keep her tucked securely against my chest, taking the brunt of
the wind and the snow as I carry her. A new line of gilded perspiration
smears her brows, and panic crawls up my throat. “Listen to my voice. You
have to listen to me and wake up.”
Perhaps it’s the howling wind, but I swear, I hear a moan.
“Auren?”
This time, I know I’m not hearing things, because I feel the moan
vibrate from her chest. It sounds pained and exhausted, and her brow
puckers in the tiniest of grimaces.
My heart leaps into my throat and grips my airway, making it hard to
breathe. Not once has she made a sound or an expression since she
collapsed.
I sprint up the incline of the mountain, bypassing the timberwing’s
roost. I pass a cluster of craggy trees where the stone path stops, and with it,
the shoveled maintenance. With labored steps, my legs slog through three
feet of snow as I head along the incline of the mountain’s base.
“Keep trying to wake up, Auren.”
Every foot of distance I put between us and the village could be a
matter of life and death. I have no idea what will happen if her gold fully
awakens, but I have a feeling that this steady drip is just the beginning.
My chest heaves with the effort of trying to run through deep-set
snow, and several times, it almost tips me over. It’s by sheer determination
that I keep hold of her as I climb. Every second that passes, the blankets
grow more weighed down, and I feel the syrupy heft of more and more gold
soaking through the fabric, and it’s heavy.
The whistling wind freezes my ears, and the punishing snow makes it
nearly impossible to see, but I finally get to the bend of the path just as her
gold starts to drip onto the ground,
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