enraged face framed by an erupting sea of hellfire beneath me. Even someone as powerful as him couldn’t halt the Wild Hunt.
“Brigantia, you insulted me. You’re taking my heir before I finished my conversation with her,” Lucifer said softly, and his sleek, inhuman voice chilled me to my very soul. “You won’t be forgiven. I’ll make sure that my heir will take back her throne and sit on your ashes.”
Lucifer vanished from the meadow as the Furies hauled me into the lashing sandstorm.
Chapter 16
I swept my legs up and rammed my boots into the Furies as I flailed in the sandstorm. My kicks, once again, proved to have no effect on the freaks whatsoever.
How could you hurt something that wasn’t even flesh and blood? I summoned my shadow fire and thorny vines. I wanted to gouge out their flaming eyes with my spiky vines and burn them to a crisp with my fire.
“You can’t hurt us, princess,” one of them said, seemingly able to read my intentions. “If anyone briefed you on the rules of the Wild Hunt, you’d know that you’ve been magically bound by the terms, and you won’t be able to deploy magic in the arena. And right now, we’re in the air of the hunting field.”
Just as the Fury had stated, my magic sputtered and went out like a damp squib, but it didn’t stop me from kicking the Furies in the solar plexus. One of them shook its head at me as if chastising me for being childish.
“This game will be most beneficial to us.” A Fury grinned like a faceless clown. “We’ll feed on a portion of her power, as the queen promised.”
As soon as the flying sand ceased to slam into my face, I screamed obscenities at them, which was all I could do since I couldn’t damage their inhuman bodies. I also cursed their birthmothers, hoping that would disturb them.
Then, suddenly, they released me. Or more accurately, they dropped me.
A line of cedars stretched beneath my feet, their fern-colored, needle-like leaves rushing toward my face. I twisted in the air as best I could, Netherbane in my hand, ready to slice off the needles.
I steered clear of the spiky shoots of cedar but tumbled onto a pine tree. Rolling and falling from the top branch, I slid to the edge of the pine tree and hacked at the sharp needles before they could jab into my face and possibly blind me. My other arm wasn’t so lucky and hit a broken branch. Pain bloomed in me through my armor.
I landed in a crouch and suppressed a groan.
The air smelled spicy, earthy, and electric. The place screamed danger and menace, cannibalistic magic pulsing beneath the soil. Lucifer had sent a last message to my mind, warning me of the design of the Wild Hunt. The soil would absorb my power when I was slaughtered in the hunt. The Furies would harvest part of my magic, and the rest would go to Brigantia, according to the pact revealed carelessly by one of the Furies.
I stared up at the bright sunshine spilling from the sky. The Furies had vanished. The air vibrated with tension, promising imminent bloodshed and straining my nerves.
I wondered who my first hunters would be. Would the kings come to hunt me first, compelled by the ancient power?
My heart pounding, my ears prickling, I let my senses spread out to detect threats, but I got nothing. I was indeed in the null zone. But then, it also meant whoever was about to hunt me couldn’t use magic either.
I patted the Legend Heavy strapped to my back, comforted. I hadn’t lost it, even in the sandstorm. From what I’d been told, the hunt could last for days or even weeks. So, I’d always use a blade and save bullets unless the situation demanded heavy gunfire.
I scanned the surroundings, paused, and listened. The birds had stopped chirping in the woods. Smaller animals were shuffling around as if scurrying toward their dens. I held a handgun in one hand and Netherbane in the other as I inched forward between the trees, away from the clearing.
I had no idea about the geography here. The kings said that the landscape in this place shifted all the time. While the hunters and the hunted might not be allowed to use magic, the Wild Hunt was brutal magic in itself.
I must find shelter or a strategic spot where I could best defend myself. I also needed to secure sources