Feeling drunk, he stumbled on a root and fell to the mossy ground. “I fucking want you, too, Sed. For so fucking long,” he slurred. He got up, his mind still reeling. The world started to spin around him, blurring out of focus.
“Come to me. Comewithme, Cahir. I need you,” he thought he heard her say as she giggled. He didn’t know which way she was, but he kept walking toward her voice. Desire consumed him whole, and he felt himself throb.
He saw her from a distance and turned her way, but he kept losing sight of her in the thick fog.
“Where are you?” he lazily called out, his hand instinctively reaching over his hardened length and squeezing it through his pants. A low growl rumbled from his throat.
He craved more; heneededher.
Sharp teeth sank into his shoulder as a powerful force slammed into him.
The pain jolted him awake, snapping him out of his haze. The ugliest creature he had ever seen pinned him to the ground. He held the monster away from his face, preventing the elongated, sharpened teeth from sinking into him again. The smell of death surrounded him as a Hailec snapped in his face, its transparent body flickering in and out of view.
Its skin was wrinkled and rotting, its eyes sunken and hollowed out in darkness, and its limbs were long and skinny with swollen joints.
He threw the Hailec off of him, causing itto flip over on the ground, and stood up, quickly grabbing the sword strapped to his back.
It quickly straightened itself and lunged again, coming for his throat.
He raised his sword into the air, readying for the satisfying kill.
Roya flew down, shifted, and sliced through its too-thin neck with a single long, extending claw. Its head dropped to the floor with its snarled expression illuminated by the moonlight.
“I thought you were smarter than that!” She turned to him and seethed, flashing her teeth at him in an angry snarl.
“I had that thing!” he yelled back, setting his sword back down.
“No, you were too drunk in love, you fucking fool.” She glared at his tented pants and then at the blood trickling down his arm. “Look at your shoulder.” She nodded to his injury, and he looked down at it.
Fae blood trickled down and dripped from his fingertips.
“Shit. I have to hide this. Is there water around here somewhere?”
“Why don’t you just show her who you really are?” she questioned in an exasperated huff.
“She would never trust me again. I cannot do as you did and show her. She would ask me more questions than she did of you, and I can’t answer them. Not yet. Once this fucking deal is over with the Wisps, I can do that.”
Roya stared at him for a bit and then said, “As you wish. However, I know that it will happen eventually. It is best to be as honest as possiblenowbefore this whole thing gets any worse. Follow me.”
He followed her to a stream and then rinsed the blood from his shoulder and arm. The cuts were quickly closing up, thankfully.
The chilling sound of a man’s scream echoed through the night. Roya and Cahir turned sharply to the left, where the sound had come from.
“More Hailecs,” Roya whispered. She quickly shifted into a Corvid and flew off in the direction of the scream.
Cahir ran after her. He jumped over large roots and rocks, cut around tree trunks, and stepped through vast patches of ferns. Roya came into view, holding onto a bloody body, a dead Hailec by her side.
Ruel was injured and coughing up blood, with bite marks all over his neck and deep scratches running down his body. His clothing had torn across his chest, and his blood coated the front of his shirt, where only scraps of it remained.
“Let’s get him back to the Camp. There could be more out there hunting us right now.” Cahir picked up Ruel’s body, who groaned in pain, and quickly carried him back to the others.
When he entered the area, everyone was alert. Kalon had his sword out and was standing near Seda.
Thank the gods.
Seda saw Cahir and stepped forward from her spot. “What happened?” She looked down at Ruel, and her eyes widened.
“A Hailec attacked Ruel,” he answered.
