Free Huntsman's Prey by Marie Hall

men of your realm? Or perhaps the crazy beggar who lines the befouled streets of your village? Because we all know we can trust an insane man.” Actually, she’d never admit this to him, but she was beginning to have a little bit of fun. It was just too easy to get under his skin.
    He hissed.
    If looks could kill she’d be six feet under.
    “See, my point has been made. You are maddening. I ask a question, I get no answers, only more nonsense.”
    “The stone belongs to me. I bartered it in exchange for the beans I’d found by the Riverside two nights ago to the little old lady who lives in the shoe down the lane.”
    “And what would make you do that? That sounds awfully circumspect.”
    “You’re just cranky and I really don’t want to talk to you when you’re like this.” She sniffed, twisting back around so that she could laugh without him seeing it. Honestly, she was having way too much fun.
    “Woman,” he groused, and muttered beneath his breath.
    Covering her mouth with the back of her hand, she giggled. Thankfully she was pretty sure he didn’t notice. She heard him inhale deeply and then a moment later he asked, “Are healing stones in high demand around here?”
    She pinned him with her frostiest glare, wishing they weren’t currently walking upside down through an enormous redwood tree trunk, as she was sure the glare wasn’t nearly so frightening when it resembled more of a smile. “Well, considering that you needed one today, I’d say yes it was a very good trade.”
    “Which brings me to another question, did you know this was going to happen? That I was going to need a healing stone? Can you read the future? Do you know where Chrysalis is right now?”
    Aeric’s lips were nice. The bottom lip slightly fuller than the top, she couldn’t stop thinking about them ever since he’d begged for a kiss. He’d been so pliant and yielding and what she wanted to do was ask him for another. But she doubted that request would go over well. Too bad. She grinned. “You give me entirely too much credit here. I only know what the woods tell me.”
    “What exactly is a guardian?”
    That was such a loaded question, how to answer something when she had no idea what the answer even was. “One day I woke up and I knew to listen to the words in the wind. Anything I know is because of it.”
    “So you’re saying that Cheshire is one of these… Guardians too?”
    She laughed. “No, you said that.”
    A terrible growl vibrated through his chest.
    She held up her hands in a placating fashion. “The truth is I’m not sure how many guardians there are in these woods. There could be twenty, or there could just be me.”
    “How could you not know how many guardians there are?”
    “Do you know how many huntsmen there are in the world?”
    When he didn’t answer she felt the irrational urge to crow about it. But she didn’t, because his flared nostrils and tightly clenched, unbelievably chiseled jaw was good enough for her. But she did clear her throat. Loudly.
    She dropped gracefully from the center of the tree they’d been walking on, landing on all fours like any proper cat should. However, there was nothing graceful about the huntsmen. She thought it best not to turn when she heard a loud oomph behind her. Pulling her lips into her mouth she bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep him from hearing her, but she must not of been very successful at it, because he was back to growling again.
    She thought it best to put him out of his misery. “Man, we are here.” She drew her arm out encompassing the whole of the healing waters. “The spring. As promised.”
    “You mean this trickle of water cutting through the land?” His nose wrinkled with obvious disgust.
    She was tempted to toss a bucket at his head. There were only two problems wrong with that idea. One, she had no bucket. Two, she had no bucket.
    “Dip your foot in it. And before you ask, the one with the cast on it.”
    “Bloody