Read Online Huntsman's Prey by Marie Hall - Free Book Online

this tree attacked you, it’s been dead a long time.” With a gentle shudder, she turned away from the stump and headed back toward the tree line, away from the brook.
    “How did you know which tree attacked me?” he asked slowly, something wasn’t adding up here. “Were you following me?”
    She shrugged. “I heard the scuffle. We all did. I came just at the tail end of it and saw her very nearly defeat you.”
    He scoffed. “She did no such thing.”
    “As you say.” Her lips twitched and it bothered him for some reason, but he was determined to ignore it. Because he did not know her and he had a job to do. Period.
    “The sun will set soon,” Aeric said. She was one bat short of a belfry, he had no choice but to follow her, but he was positive this arrangement would not last.
    “If you’re implying that we need to make camp. I couldn’t agree more. But we have to get as far away from the water as possible. The dingletoads come out at night and that is their preferred hunting spot.”
    “Dingletoads don’t sound particularly frightsome.”
    Her eyes grew wide in her head. “It is obvious to me that you will not last a night, let alone a day in Wonderland without my help.”
    “Creature, you exaggerate.”
    Her head swiveled like an owl’s on her neck. “I’m beginning to think your friends sent you here to die.”
    He scoffed. “I’m the Queen’s Huntsman, there is nothing I cannot find and kill.”
    “Are you here to kill?” She stepped around a pile of scattered leaves.
    Or at least he thought them a pile of dead, brown leaves, until he got closer and the leaves rattled back at him. Picking up a long walking stick, he stabbed the center of the pile.
    It hissed and screeched, writhing and curling in on itself as it went through its death throes. Taking pity on the beast, he stabbed it once more through its head. The eight foot long snake fell silent after that.
    “What did that leaf adder ever do to you?” She shuddered.
    “They’re dangerous.”
    “Only if you’re a fox tailed rat or not paying attention to where you’re going.”
    “Oh, for the gods sakes, if you’re going to sit here and lecture me on what I should think and do—”
    She frowned. “I wasn’t doing that.”
    “You were.”
    They didn’t speak again for several long, tense minutes. And once his temper died out, he realized he was making an ass of himself. He wasn’t normally so argumentative, but something about her just brought the ire out in him.
    Though she did not deserve it. She had set his leg after all; the least he could do was show a little more gratitude for it.
    Gods he hated a pricking conscience. In truth, it wasn’t that he had a problem with her, more so that his mission was already failing so spectacularly and it’d only just begun. But every time the words “I’m sorry” landed on his tongue, he couldn’t seem to get them past his lips.
    Bearing most of his weight on the stick, he followed her around so many twists and turns he knew if she left him now he’d be thoroughly lost. They walked up trees, down into the earth through hidden stairwells tucked behind fat, mossy boulders. At one point they even walked through the trunk of a tree.
    For the first time he noticed the animals were out. Earlier they’d been silent, but he heard their chattering squeaks now. Chrysalis had spooked the creatures into hiding. That generally only tended to happen in the wild when they sensed a bigger, stronger predator around.
    “You say you saw the vine get me.” He finally looked at Lissa.
    Lissa walked in a way that suggested she knew Wonderland like the back of her pale skinned hand. She never once looked left or right, or paused as if seeking the correct trail. Her head was held high and her eyes distant, as if deep in thought.
    “Hmm?” She turned toward him. The all black eyes no longer seeming quite so foreign.
    “Were you watching me earlier?”
    Jaw stiff, she clipped a tight nod.
    “Were you