Page 89 of Faerie Hunted

When I first went to see Barbara, to bargain for my potions my first year at the Fae Academy for Halflings, I’d walked through the magic barrier around her property. No fucking clue how. Or what it even was.

I just remembered a sensation like a thick wall of water cascading over my head and then it broke apart and I had bigger things to worry about. Like the witch herself, who turned out to be nuts at the time but not so bad in the long run.

I’d even…sensed the witch magic.

Looking back on it, I’d assumed it was normal. My fae side blessed me with certain gifts. But what if it wasn’t normal? What if fae couldn’t actually sense magic like I could?

I’d never asked any of the fae I knew. It had never come up.

Melia would have been the best person to answer those questions but how do you even begin when you’re not sure what questions to ask?

Out of breath and muscles screaming, I stopped at a break in the stone wall separating the road from the beach. Maybe I should have been more aware of those things. There were apparently a lot of missed opportunities in my past.

Did any of them really matter now?

I’d found my not-so-dead mother and she was absolutely loony, talking to me like I was some kind of “chosen one.” She’d even used those words!

Chosen One.

I tested them in my head and bile rose, burning the back of my throat. My lips twisted into a disgusted pout. Nope. I wasn’t the chosen one. I was Tavi Alderidge.

“Hey!”

I glanced up sharply at the shout. And found a man looking right at me.

My nostrils flared. A half-shifter, obvious from the energy around him and the slightly pointed canines poking out above his lip.

They’d found me.

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I’m a fool to think I’d be able to outrun another half-shifter.

If my fae side gave me increased magical awareness, then my shifter side gave me speed. Which meant the dude who’d found me was also pretty damn fast.

I took off at a run with Noren right behind me and we wound into the crowd. Even the mass of bodies around us wouldn’t be enough to keep the shifters from catching up.

They’d follow our trail as surely as they’d followed it here.

My lungs bellowed and my legs ached by the time I raced back to the Black Dog.

Even the dude with half his head shaved jumped back in his seat as I ran by him toward the stairs. Up again, hauling myself along the risers, and into the apartment.

“We’re in trouble! They’re here!” I somehow managed to screech the words and once they were out, my throat closed and my lungs collapsed.

I’d have fallen to my knees if Noren hadn’t been there to catch me, moving faster than a speeding train. Dizziness swarmed me and my vision narrowed slightly with a black outline. When I swallowed, my mouth had gone dry.

The rest of the team jolted into movement.

“We’re out of here, then,” Mike said. His voice reverberated back to me with a tinny undertone. “Tavi, are you able to move?” he asked. “Let me help you.”

I gulped and closed my eyes against the dizziness. I was too weak to push him away or insist on doing it myself. Mike hauled me to my feet and kept a hand on my lower back for support.

“I’m coming with you,” Livvy insisted.

She moved to the kitchen, withdrawing a small tote from beneath the sink and looping it around her shoulders. A go bag.

I’d never met anyone with an actual go bag for emergencies.

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