The Hunter's Prey (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 5) by Katherine Sparrow Read Free Book Online Page A

yet it could also easily steal your whole life away.
    Merlin shook his head and sighed. “I have, perhaps, a third theory.” He sighed and looked… embarrassed? “I have had a past run in with Agnes Stonehouse myself. There are few enough of us in the world who are true wielders of magic and also happen to be long lived. Which means,” he cleared his throat a couple of times. “There are very few eligible women for me to um, date, especially as I sort have a… gods. It’s not like you expected me to stay monkish when you disappeared. I have a type. That is to say—” He coughed.
    “You like your ladies long lived and witchy?” I guessed. “So you had an affair with that vile witch who has ice in place of her heart? Who uses her craft for self-gain and malice? Who—”
    “After you left I had many dark days. I have told you that.”
    I had no reason to be angry. And yet. And yet. “So you slept with her once? Perhaps a couple of times?”
    He studied the forest around us. “We lived together for three years. And then had a nasty break up, which you’ll be glad to know was caused by the fact that she grew utterly and rightly disgusted with my inability to refrain from talking about you all the time. She came damn close to turning me into a toad.” He smiled. “She’s a feisty one, that Agnes.”
    “And she maims manticores, murders ogres, and hunts your dear friend Morgan,” I added.
    Merlin looked at me. “Do I detect a note of jealousy? Tis nice, though seeing as we are merely and always friends, I am not sure why you would feel that.”
    It was my turn to redden. I glanced away and down. My eyes rested on the seven-league boots sitting in the grass. They looked like any scuffed brown boots with my normal vision, but shone with a deep magic to my witch's eyes. “Speaking of. You can leave now, Merlin. You should. We aren't what we once were. The hunters after me will not fight fair. For every wrong I’ve done to you, you owe me less than nothing. Leave now, before they find me.”
    He rolled his eyes. “Shut up. I am going nowhere. If you can imagine for one moment that I could ever leave you then—”
    “Thank you,” I said, interrupting him as I noticed something high up and far away, something magical, come closer. “Quickly, wizard. Before anyone finds us. Will you look at a thing on my back? Some kind of tracker. I expect I will have no luck today unless it comes off.”
    He nodded. “I saw something fly at you before we left. It looked like a giant tarantula.”
    “Well then, that doesn’t seem so bad.” I turned away from him and pulled down the back of my dress so he could see it clearly.
    He sucked in a deep breath. “Gods and monsters.”
    “It looks easy to pull off, I expect?” I said lightly.
    “No bigger than a flea,” he said. “Not a thing of nightmares, not at all. This may sting a bit, love.” He spoke lightly, but when I looked back at him his face had turned chalk white. I looked away and widened my stance, bracing for what came next.
    His pointer finger drew a hot, magical circle around the wound, and then I felt him pull on a … leg? It felt like a leg as it scrambled and fought against his touch. The whole thing wriggled and bit inward, digging into soft parts I did not know could cause me such hot and hard pain. I moaned. I panted. I longed to run forward and away from the exquisite torture of Merlin yanking on the thing, but I used all my will to hold still.
    “ Kindness and love ,” Merlin growled. The words activated a spell that turned my back hot and made it feel oily. The scrambling thing on my back stopped moving. “That should hold it still for a moment.”
    I sucked in a shuddering breath and nodded.
    Merlin knelt and opened his black satchel, grumbling under his breath and pulling out one of his wizard wands. This one was made of elm and madrone, short and stout. Merlin waved it through the air for practice a couple of times. “ Keep evil in check