Page 345 of Hunters and Prey

The chain pinched me again.

“Anya? What hurts?”

My heart. “I think I might be developing an allergy to my anklet.”

Dad’s face pinched. “Let’s hope not.”

Yeah. That would suck, particularly because there was no way to remove the damned thing. We’d tried everything. But the chain was impervious to damage. It had been there for as long as I remembered—a part of me that grew with me, a constant in the many lonely nights as I’d traveled from settlement to settlement begging for scraps. Had my birth parents put it there? Why had they abandoned me? Why had they forced me to have blood on my hands? There was no memory of them, and when I pushed, there was only darkness and sorrow, and so I’d stopped pushing and focused merely on survival. But I hadn’t been alone. There’d been someone with me. A friend, a confidant, a figment of my imagination. He’d kept me alive until Illyrian found me.

Now Illyrian was Dad, and the children we’d taken in were my siblings. This was my family. The past no longer mattered. All that mattered was the future.

Dad rolled up his sleeves, exposing the faded scar on his arm that looked like a crescent moon. “Let me see your ankle, Anya.”

My eyes pricked. If we parted, then he’d never be able to tend to me again, to call me sweet child or just tell me he loved me. The fear of being alone, of being lost was still there under my skin like a sickness waiting to be activated so it could eat away at everything good I’d built so far.

“Anya?”

“Um, yeah.” I pulled off my boot and rolled up my trouser leg. The chain winked at me, snug against my skin, innocuous and innocent-looking, Except, where it had been silver yesterday, it now sported a definite golden tinge.

Dad sucked in a breath.

“What? What is it? What does it mean?”

His eyes were hooded, and he sat back. “I don’t know, but maybe we will find answers in the Furtherlands. There are rumors of powerful shamans, truthseers, and many magic wielders. The technology of Draco has little sway in the Furtherlands. If there is help to be found, then we will find it there.” He stood and placed a hand on my head. “If you decide to come, that is. I love you, Anya. I promise you, if you come with me, the journey will be worth it.”

I nodded. How could I disregard the possibility now?

He smiled, but then his expression hardened. “What do you do if you come home and find me unexpectedly gone? If I don’t return?”

He’d been asking me this ever since he’d brought me home, and I answered instinctively. “I go to your room and find the floorboard.”

He nodded. “Yes. If I’m gone, then you’ll find what you need beneath the floorboard under my bed.”

“I remember.”

He smiled, but it was a sad smile. “Good. And, Anya, whether you come with me or not, promise me no more jobs. There are rumors of Draco activity in the Outlands. Just ... Promise me you’ll keep a low profile.”

“Yes, Dad. I promise.”

And in that moment, I’d meant it. But even the best intentions can be diverted off track with the right incentive.

Upstairs, the creak of floorboards drew me past my room to the other one down the hall. The door was slightly ajar, and a lamp burned low.

“Hey, are you guys still awake?”

Silence greeted me, and the tops of two tousled dark heads peeked up out of the single bed the six-year-old twins, Gemma and Neddie, shared. Soft snores came from the double bed where June, the eldest, was asleep, red hair spilling over her cream pillow. But the single bed against the wall was empty.

My heart sank, and closing the door softly behind me, I headed back to my room. Stefan was curled up asleep in my bed. A nightmare, no doubt. At ten years old, he was the middle child out of the four we’d rescued and the most recent addition to our ragtag family. He was small for his age, dark-eyed, dark-haired, and reflective. He’d barely spoken a word when Illyrian had brought him home two months ago, and now he spoke, but only to me. There was a strange bond between us, more mother and child than sister and brother. Stronger than with the rest of the little ones, because when I looked into his eyes I saw my pain reflected back at me. His story was a closed book, opened only in his nightmares, and on those nights he’d crawl in beside me, shivering and sobbing until my steady heartbeat soothed his, until he drifted back to sleep. I usually carried him back to his own bed, but I was much too tired tonight. Crawling in beside him, I closed my eyes and fell deep into the land of dreaming.

I was back in my first home. A child, weak and helpless, with the wind howling outside my tiny box room and whistling through the many gaps in the shutters. My arm hurt, the pain a dull throb that traveled up my neck and into my gums. Tears had long been shed and my eyes were now dry and swollen. Alone. Always alone. And then the voice filled the room. I’d heard him before in my dreams. He was a memory of shadows and comfort and safety. He came when I was sad or hurting. He would hum to me about far-off places, cocooning me in warmth and safety for a little while. But tonight was different. Tonight, he was a portent of death.

Not this. This you will not stand for. Get up. Get up, it’s time to set yourself free.

His voice was older than mine, but young enough to forge a bond. My heart sped up, partly in fear, and partly in anticipation. Free? Where could a child alone go?

You will not be alone. I will be with you. I will not abandon you to false promises. We will survive this together.

I slipped, trembling from the dirty mattress on the floor, my bony body encased in boy’s britches too small and a shirt too large. I was ungainly, all limbs and elbows and covered in bruises all shades of black, blue, and yellow. Because there was nothing I could do to please my father. Nothing I could do to bring a smile to my mother’s face. A burden, an ox, a servant in this house. That was my place. But tonight, they had gone too far.

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