Page 13 of Hunted in the Shadows
The heavy look he gave me made me sucked the air from my lungs. “We both know hunters don’t get endings like that. I’ll just be lucky if I get a little peace before one of these bastards does me in someday.”
I blinked, his bluntness slicing through the lingering warmth of my daydream.
“You don't have to believe that,” I offered. “If memory serves, you’ve been wrong before.”
I lifted a brow, attempting to goad another laugh out of him. Instead, I watched walls go up behind his eyes. Jon looked back down at his healed forearm, rubbing it.
“I can’t just walk away. If I stop, people will die,” he said. “Innocent people. Families. How could I live with myself for that? There’s too much out there.”
I let the heaviness settle for a moment, refolding my wings at my back. “People will always need someone. Why does it have to beyou?”
“Sylv, you know why.”
I recoiled slightly because I knew those shadows in his eyes, how his grief so often curdled into anger. Iknew about the countless nights he had tossed through nightmares, trying to forget his father’s voice when he knew it wasn’t really his father anymore.
Staring at him, it hit me like a blow; nothing else would ever be enough. Jon would never be satisfied—no tally of victories enough to sate his conscience.
I was raised to believe that bad things happened sometimes to make room for something new, something better.But sitting here with him, both of us adrift without our families, I couldn’t bring myself to voice any sage optimism. It would feel hollow and insincere. We had each other, but I hesitate to assume he felt the same comfort in that fact. We were temporary. I was a lost cause.
“I just wish you could have a beautiful end,” I murmured. “You deserve that.”
“Yeah, me too,” Jon conceded.
As his gaze softened on me, growing pensive, I couldn’t help but feel a seed of hope despite it all. Maybe he could still defy his fate—with or without me by his side. The thought stirred something raw in me, an ache that made my chest tight.
Aching to hold ontohim.
The reality stung more than I liked to admit, knowing that my place in Jon’s future was as much of a fantasy as any far-fetched dream. If hedidbuild another life for himself someday, I would certainly not be a part of it. I never minded rotating partners with Damian, moving person to person between revels. But suddenly, the image of another woman at Jon’s side made me heat—stealingmydaydream.
“Would you remember me if youdidever make it out of hunting?” I asked.
“I’ll try to keep you straight out of the dozens of fairies that have saved my life,” Jon answered, deadpan.
He was trying to get a laugh out of me, but that possessive beast in my chest was restless, had me reaching for my sheathed dagger at my hip. I gave it a little flip, the way Cliff had taught me, and I was proud when my fingers caught the handle instead of the blade. “Would it help if I left something behind?”
Jon’s breath stilled, his brows pulled together as I slowly twirled the blade in my hand. “Like what?”
“A symbol,” I said, studying his bare torso to pick my place. “So anyone who comes next will know you weremineonce.” The idea possessed me. I’d never once considered it before, but now I could hardly breathe for my anticipation.
Jon’s answering smile was caught between surprise and heat. “You want to markme,” he breathed.
I hovered by his right shoulder, meeting his gaze as I set the tip of my blade to his sun-kissed skin. “Yes,” I all but growled.
I could feel his pulse quicken, but he didn’t pull away. He stayed still,waiting.
I held my breath, hesitating for a moment before plunging my dagger into his skin. There was more resistance than I expected, and I heard Jon suck in a sharp breath. I glanced at his face—his eyes shut like this was a delicious kind of pain, a kind to be savored. And it was mine to give.
His blood ran over my knuckles in thin streams. Jon didn’t breathe a word of protest as I carved the Fae rune over the strong slope of his shoulder—interlocking circles and delicate swirls, a brutal approximation of the one I had given him in the spectral plane. Teenagers playfully designated this marking for theirbeloved, but the sentiment seemed to take a more potent translation as it seeped blood.
It went against every instinct not to immediately conjure spellwork to heal Jon.No—not this time. When it did heal, slowly and painstakingly, the symbol would scar over, and my mark wouldjoin the story of scars on his body. With him always. My heart leapt to my throat. It was more beautiful than I’d imagined.
I heard a soft breath escape Jon, and I nearly flinched—pulled out of my reverie to gauge his expression.
“You know,” he said, gingerly brushing a finger over the fresh cuts. “You’re just as twisted as I am.”
The shadowed half-smile on his face nearly undid me.
I studied the dagger in my hand, a soft chuckle drawn out of me. “I don’t mind being a freak if it’s with you,” I said.
