Page 91 of Hunters and Prey

Legacy of Oath and Blood

KN Lee

Chapter 1

Blood dripped from his fingers.

Her blood.

At least, Cailyn thought it was her blood. She couldn’t be sure because this was a dream.

Still, sheer primal instinct drove Cailyn to clutch her wounded ribs and scramble away. Her mind raced with spells and incantations that could save her life. But, as in all dreams, letters were jumbled, and words flitted away before they could be understood.

Even if the words had come, she couldn’t speak. It was as if her mouth had been sewn closed.

Some part of her mind knew that Asher was in bed with her. She screamed inside her head, praying he would wake her up. She knew her attempts to communicate were useless. It had never worked before.

As a result, her body remained paralyzed as she endured the agony of a premonition.

Cailyn gasped for breath as she crawled backward across the ground of her dreamscape.

The man who stood before her was tall and beautiful. A dragon tattoo stretched across his chiseled chest.

She’d had this same dream every night since her father died. She just couldn’t tell if he was there to help or harm her.

He didn’t have a knife in his hands, but she knew intrinsically that he didn’t need a knife to be dangerous.

And, he was most definitely dangerous.

He simply stood before her, with bloodied hands and his face wrapped in shadows. She caught a glimpse of green eyes, but nothing else. Those eyes were full of beautiful menace, though, and riveted to her face.

She tensed when he knelt down before her, thick, acrid smoke filling the dark basement around them.

Premonitions were a hundred times worse than just dreams. In dreams, things like pleasure were fuzzy. Pain was fuzzy, too. In a premonition like this, pain was real. Cailyn felt the burning throb of the stab wound in her side.

The premonitions had started the day after her father died. Night after night, dream after dream.

Like father, like daughter. Once a prophet, always a prophet. She just hoped she wasn’t seeing her own future death.

Who are you?

Cailyn mouthed the question when her voice still wouldn’t come.

Instead of words, strange, musical cries came from his mouth, and he transformed into a creature she’d never seen in real life before, a creature from myths and legends.

A dragon.

Cailyn breathed a sigh of relief when she woke up to the real world. She inhaled deeply once more, just to enjoy the sensation of breathing without a stabbing pain. Her dream world was getting more real and more frightening with each dream. She welcomed the day, even if it meant she needed to get up and get ready for class.

Cailyn peeked through her lashes and couldn’t help grinning when she saw Asher looking back at her from his side of the bed.

All was right with the world when he smiled at her like that. Blood, tears, and agony melted into the back of her mind when she was near him.

She covered her mouth and giggled. Who would have ever guessed that Cailyn Alexander had one of the most desired men in town in her bed, madly in love with her?

Perhaps her luck was changing.

She could see it in his eyes. Asher Fox loved her…and she didn’t even have to use any magic.

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