House of Lies and Sorrow (Fae of Rewyth #1)(2)

My mind was racing. From the day I learned of the deal my father had made with the fae king, I knew I would die for his mistakes. I just always thought I would have more time.

Now, I had only a handful of hours left in my life.

But there wasn’t time to panic. Tessa needed food. My biggest fear wasn’t dying. It wasn’t marrying one of the most evil creatures on the planet, and it wasn’t traveling to the fae lands.

My biggest fear was Tessa dying because of me.

If I died–when I died, Tessa would have nothing. I had tried to prepare her for this, but there was only so much I could do. My father was nothing but a drunken burden. He was no provider. He was no father. Ever since I could carry a knife, I would wander into the forest and gather food for Tessa and me. Without it, we certainly would have starved to death. Not like that was rare in the human lands, but still.

I was all Tessa had. I wasn’t going to let her die, too.

I buried my emotions and focused on the land around me. We were lucky to live close enough to so much empty land, making it easier to hunt for food instead of paying for meat at the markets.

Saints, everyone knew we didn’t have the money for that.

I never caught anything too big. Mostly rabbits with snares that Tessa and I would make. But it kept us alive. It kept us fed, which was better than most people who lived in these lands. It wasn’t rare to see children so skinny that you could count every bone. It also wasn’t rare to be killed over a loaf of bread if a family was desperate enough.

Tessa would need as much as possible after I left if she was going to make it.

The ground turned from the plowed dirt path to the full, leafy jungle that surrounded our land. Walking my familiar path deep into the forest, I approached the snares I had set up yesterday.

Please have something, I silently pleaded. Anything.

My old, worn boots crunched on every dead leaf and broken branch beneath me. Those were the sounds that had grown to comfort me all these years later. This was the place I learned to find my peace.

Relief flooded my body once I saw the dead rabbit I had caught.

I wasn’t leaving empty handed. That was something.

There were many nights when I hadn’t been so lucky. I pushed away the memories of Tessa crying from hunger, my father screaming that I was no good to the family.

I began releasing the prey from the trap, pushing away any emotions that came with it.

I was nine when I killed my first. My father had forced me with him on one of his hunts. He used to love hunting. That was before my mother died, of course.

The only thing he loved now was drinking.

They don’t deserve to live more than you do, he said. They die or your sister will starve to death. Pick one.

I shot an arrow through its tiny body and cried for the rest of the day. How cruel life was, to create something so fragile and give it no chance at surviving.

A deep growl rumbled the air around me, piercing through the silence. The hair on the back of my neck stuck up. A few feet away stood the largest wolf I had ever seen, eyeing the rabbit that he had thought was his.

He was going to attack me.

Perhaps this was how I was going to die. I had to admit, it sounded better than marriage.

“Easy there,” I whispered under my breath. “Is this what you want?” I held the rabbit out between us, trying to draw the wolf’s attention from me to the meat.

The wolf bared his teeth and growled again.

I guess he was really pissed.

“Take it and go,” I whispered again, as if he could understand what I was saying anyway. Every inch of my body was telling me to run. But I was no fool.

And I knew that wolves never traveled alone.

Human footsteps on the forest floor approached behind me, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the creature. It wasn’t all that rare for other hunters to run into me out here. If I was lucky, whoever it was would scare the wolf away.

“What in the Saints are you doing?” a deep male voice behind me made me jump.

“Stop! Don’t move!” I hissed, whipping my gaze between the towering wolf and the strange, hooded man behind me. He stood with his hands in his pockets, clearly not a threat.

“Whatever you say,” he said in a casual tone that made me even angrier than I already was.

I focused back on the wolf. If I could get his attention onto the rabbit, I could throw it into the trees and get out of here.

But then I would be empty handed. Tessa would be hungry. All of this would be for nothing.

“It’s you or me,” I said to the hungry beast, “and I’m afraid I have a family to feed.” I tucked the rabbit into my satchel and backed away slowly.

Which only made the wolf let out a deep, blood-curdling howl toward the sky.

A low laughter filled the air behind me. “I think you’ve angered him,” the man said. I kept stepping backward away from the wolf and in the direction of the man.

I didn’t care. I had dealt with many men in my life. Men were nothing compared to a hungry pack of wolves.

Although they often liked to think otherwise.

“Shut up,” I mumbled in his direction. The wolf stepped forward, following my every move.

And then another wolf followed behind it.

Shit.

There had to be more hiding in the bushes, and they were no longer interested in the rabbit.

They were interested in me.