Night Fae (Dark Fae Kings #3) - Meg Xuemei X. Page 0,58

new hunters would be way more dangerous than the untrained human mob. Real huntsmen were coming for me.

A ray of sunlight filtered through the thick leaves. It could be high noon now.

My team arrived after me, all panting except for Megan, though she was breathing slightly hard. Charlie lagged behind, pausing and putting his palms on his knees to catch his breath before he struggled toward us.

“I’m so out of shape,” Jill and Richie said nearly at the same time through their labored breaths.

“Are all Fae like you, with so much stamina?” Megan eyed me enviously. “Is it in your DNA? No wonder even my former jailors, the low Fae, had such a superior attitude toward us.”

“Fae are mostly arrogant asses,” I said. “But they’re born stronger than humans. I’m still learning to get along with them, as I was raised by my mage parents. So, whenever I can, I put the Fae in their place.”

“You should have told me your legacy,” Richie said, regret brewing in his eyes. “I’d have understood.”

“Hey, douche, you cheated on her, even though she’s obviously way better than you,” Megan said harshly. “Now you dare to blame her? You’re lucky she has a big heart and is letting you tag along.”

“I blame myself for being fucking blind,” Richie said. “If I’d known—”

“It’s all in the past, Richie,” I cut in. “Let’s not get sidetracked. We have more important things to worry about—like survival.”

Charlie looked up and studied the canopy. “Are we hiding here?”

“No,” I said, laying my backpack on the forest floor. “This may look like an ideal place to camp, but nothing in faerie or this realm is what it seems. In the Wild Hunt, no one can hide. But we do need to find the best shelter we can and come up with a defensive strategy before we can go on the offensive. We don’t know what type of hunters we’ll face next.”

At the mention of the huntsmen, a war drum beat in my blood.

“How do you know all this stuff?” Jill asked. “You said that you were raised in the human world. You even dated a human guy.”

“I dated a lot of human guys,” I said, catching a glimpse of a sour look in Richie’s blue eyes. Seriously, this guy cheated on me and he was jealous of my dating history? I shook my head but let it go. He wasn’t important to me. He never had been. He was just a distraction for me in college. I wasn’t pleased by his cheating, but it didn’t hurt me.

Unlike the Winter King’s betrayal, which had gutted me.

That pain still throbbed in me, and I doubted any amount of time would ever heal it. Time might erase some painful memories, but for an ache so deep in my soul, I doubted the hurt would ever truly go away. I hated to acknowledge it, but I hadn’t been able to sever the mystic bond between Rowan and me, although it was now buried under layers of ember and ash.

At the thought of the mating bond, I reached deeply through my link to my mates and called for them, but it was like shouting into the void.

I could no longer feel them.

Panic and dismay rushed through me, but I shoved them down, ignoring the agony and grief pressing on my heart. If I wanted to guarantee my team’s and my survival, I had to think with a cool head. I had to remain emotionally detached, and I had to acknowledge that I could only rely on myself in the Wild Hunt. I needed to move on and keep my wits together.

I’d allow only cold clarity to flow through me and sharpen my senses.

“To answer your question, Jill,” I said, “I’ve been well trained since I was a child. My dad once left me in the jungle when I was seven. It took eight days for me to find a way out.”

“That was cruel,” Richie said. “That was child abuse. Your father—”

“My father is a great dad who had incredible foresight,” I said. “If he hadn’t prepared me, I would never have made it so far. I’d have died long ago.”

The only skill my parents hadn’t prepared me for was magic. Instead of training me in that dangerous department, they’d put extremely potent spells on me to repress my magic and disguise me as a human, so my enemies wouldn’t get to me before my Turning. But when I was close to twenty-two, a few months