Saving the Fae (Daughter of Light #3) - Leia Stone Page 0,54

my sword and looked left and right, expecting a monster to jump from the trees at any moment.

“Oh, shit,” Jasper muttered as he waved his hands in front of him. Wisps of green and purple magical light flared from his palms, lighting up the woods.

“Jasper,” I growled.

He turned to face me, terrified. “Lily, fly away. Give me the crystals—”

“Jasper, fucking tell me!” I roared.

He looked around the forest as our group crowded into a tight circle and then swallowed hard. “You know the humans’ story of Satan in the bible?”

Okay… this could not be good. Whatever was going to come out of his mouth next was going to be very bad.

I nodded.

“We’re being hunted. By the creature whom Satan was inspired by.”

Okay, that was worse than I thought.

“Hunted? The HUNT!” I screamed; everything he said now made sense. In the dark times there was a hunt with a creature so dark and scary that all he could survive on were souls.

Souls. He ate fucking souls.

“Elle, take her away! I can lay the crystals at the tree,” Liam barked, still rubbing at his chest in pain. Why was he doing that? Why did his chest hurt?

My bestie and Trissa moved in to grab me, and I threw my hands out. “Touch me, and I’ll never speak to you again!”

They froze.

“We are a team, Liam. All of us.” Then, I looked at Jasper. “I’m just not that kind of Queen, okay?”

Jasper nodded reluctantly. “Then prepare to fight. He’s almost here.”

Chills broke out onto my arms at his words, and I moved closer to Liam, looking at his chest. “Why does it hurt?”

He shook his head. “I think… he is seeking me.”

Shit.

Trissa pulled out two swords and jerked her head at Liam’s men while Elle pulled her gun. “Form a circle around Lily,” Trissa said. “Get her through the portal with the crystals so she can save Faerie. That’s the goal.”

Without question, they started to form a circle around me, and I shook my head. “We all go through the portal together. That’s the goal.”

But no one listened, they tightened a circle around me as the temperature dropped in the air. A chill plunged us suddenly into freezing temps.

“What are we looking for? A man? An animal?” I asked Jasper.

He looked over his shoulder at me like I was an idiot. “You think I’ve lived to see him and speak about it?”

I sent out my seeker feelings and felt something sickeningly dark just in front of us. With a burst of power, I shot sunlight from my hands to light up the space, and my eyes fell on the most terrifying creature I’d ever seen.

Holy mother of nightmares.

He was… a ghost. Or at least he appeared that way right now. His black semitransparent form rode a pale horse, and he wore a thin cloak. But his hands… there were just bones, and his eyes were sunken pits. When I looked closer, he appeared to be crawling with… bugs.

His horse charged full steam ahead, but my light had done something to slow him. The horse reared up, and that’s when he transformed. The bugs flew from his skin, surrounding us as they grew bigger and bigger. It was like something straight out of a horror movie. When they were the size of a small dog, I realized they were scorpions.

Fucking scorpions.

Ghostly scorpions.

How did you stab a ghost?

You didn’t.

We were screwed. Only Jasper and I would be able to fight these things I feared. Bursting through the circle of protection, I screamed. “Get behind me!”

The light still emanated from my palms and was creating some kind of shield because the horse and rider were holding back so that they didn’t walk into it. Same with the ghost scorpions.

Everyone seemed to notice and started to funnel behind me as I held my palms out and created a light barrier to encase us in.

Liam reached up and shot an ice shard at the rider, but it went right through him.

“Shit,” he cursed.

Next, Elle emptied her clip right into his chest, causing him to tip his bone skull back and laugh, a deep and haunting sound.

Oh gods.

A small army of the scorpions charged the light dome I’d made, and I panicked. What if it didn’t hold? What did their sting do? I didn’t want to know.

“Jasper!” I screeched, and the warlock sidled next to me.

With a burst of green magic from his palm, the scorpions reared backward toward the rider. There was movement on the horse, and I