Page 60 of Hunted in the Shadows
The words split me open. Word traveled like wildfire, igniting the two dozen hunters piling outside. The female creature had been on the offensive—set the siren free, obliterated the bouncer’s hand into a bloody stump.
Panic set into me like a knife in my chest. I shot a frantic look at Cliff, whose wide eyes mirrored my dread.
They were taking her to the Pit.
Gwen’s presence reeked of betrayal, but I would deal with her later. We burst back through the side door with the stragglers, and chaos hit us like a wall. The crowd flooded the rickety walkway around the Pit, passing money around, betting on which monster would best the other—the fairy or the alp.
Some of the onlookers were awestruck, jaws hanging open as one of the keepers unlocked the Pit, wielding a small cage and a cattle prod. Like us, they’d thought fairies were a drunkard’s myth. It would be safer for them to believe that. Now Sylvia was fighting for her life like a goddamn sideshow attraction.
“Twenty against the fairy?” A woman decked in denim and fighting leathers waved a sweaty bill toward me.
“Fuck yourself,” I answered reflexively, not slowing my path.
“Damn. Suit yourself, asshole.”
My vision tunneled on the portable cage that Pit keeper was boasting—obscured as more bodies circled the domed enclosure, eager for the best view.
Cliff grabbed the collar of a gangly hunter pressed against the fencing and yanked him out of the way. The man protested colorfully but cowed at the icy glare Cliff sent back at him. I shoved in beside Cliff. My height proved an advantage; the hunter to my right sized me up irately before settling for grumbling and setting his eyes back on the center of the Pit. Begrudgingly, I allowed space for Gwen to peer between us.
The crowd erupted as the keeper emptied the small cage—and Sylvia tumbled into view, landing on her hands and knees. Her iridescent wings twitched, flinging off drops of water, and her bare arms trembled as she pushed herself up. That carrier cage had iron bars. She hadn’t been burned, but I could see how the proximity alone had affected her.
“Sylvia said she hunted with you these past months,” Gwen said.
“And?” I asked tersely.
The keeper left Sylvia there on the bloodstained ground, striding over to the alp crouched defensively on the other side. It had reverted back to dog form—muzzle still red. The keeper jabbed the alp once with the cattle prod, riling it up. The dog’s growl morphed into a hiss as it transformed before our eyes into the form of a lynx.
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Gwen replied in a tense breath.
The keeper dodged the snapping jaws with experienced reflexes—beating the feline muzzle away with the prod. As the blow registered, the feline form flattened and coiled into that of a massive cobra.Its hood flared wide, forked tongue tasting the air rapidly. For the first time, the monster noted that the keeper was not the only thing inside the enclosure with it. The keeper retreated, casting a wary look at Sylvia as he passed. He exited, barring the door behind to join his clamoring colleagues on the other side.
“Settle your bets, boys!” he roared.
The air was thick with the smell of old blood and sweat and money changing hands. My entire world centered on Sylvia as she got to her feet. It was to my benefit that every other asshole here was gaping just as abjectly. I was frozen—my instinct to charge in and rescue her would out us all. We would have two dozen weapons on us the second I had Sylvia in my hands. I liked our odds against half of them, maybe—but these were trained killers.
“What the hell happened?” I snapped at Gwen, glancing down at her ice-ridden boots. “What did you do to her?”
Gwen’s face twisted with outrage—and a flicker of fear. “Nothing!”
“Right. Should I just take your word?”
“Fucking nothing happened, I swear! Either you bagged a girl as paranoid as you, or you taught her everything she knows, Nowak.”
“It’s just an alp,” Cliff cut in, nodding toward the furry mass inside the cage. “One thing in our favor. She has a chance.” He wove his fingers through the chain link fencing, tugging. Searching for a weakness.
I desperately tried to catch Sylvia’s gaze—if only to reassure her that I was there, that she wasn’t alone, that we were going to get her out of there somehow. She flicked more water off her wings as she got to her feet and looked all around at the enclosure—the barbed wire and chains and deafening, hateful jeers. The cobra hissed, slithering curiously toward her. Sylvia jumped five feet into the air, giving a strangled yelp. Hunters around us laughed.
She threw her hands up, and though her mouth moved with words I couldn’t make out, I realized she wasn’t casting magic. She was trying to quell the creature, to sweet-talk it into submission.
After a few upward snaps, the monster shivered into another form. Its forked tongue and bared fangs morphed into a razor-sharp beak. Feathers erupted around its body, sprouting wings and talons in the space of a breath. The sight of a hawk had never inspired terror in me until now—even with the excitement roaring around me, I heard Sylvia’s horrified scream clear as a bell.
My knees threatened to give in as she flew higher, dodging the chains that hung from the ceiling. As the hawk flapped toward her, she threw out a gale of icicles that snuffed out too quickly. The monster was deterred only long enough for Sylvia to dart to the other side of the enclosure.
Fuck. The proximity to the iron walls was fizzling her magic out. She’d have to put herself closer to the center to fight, exposing herself. I nearly opened my mouth to bark out the advice, only to see her catch onto the idea herself.
A few bodies away, Rhett’s voice carried over the roar of onlookers. “You fucking morons.Do you have any idea how much fairy blood is worth? That alp’s gonna rip her apart and leave nothing behind!”
“We couldn’t just leave her out,” someone protested. “Look what she did to Russell's hand!”
