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

touch me. A unicorn can't smile, but he can smirk, somehow. His smell was even more enticing now that he was closer. And his eyes… those eyes.
    “ Eglurder ,” I managed to say, and I wasn’t able to look away from the mythical beast, but I knew a spelled crow feather was rising up from the pen jar next to my register and beginning to float through the air toward me. It was a reality spell, and once I held it, it would dampen the unicorn's plentiful and noxious charms.
    Though why would I want to be free of those charms, of this dream of freedom and riding that was so near to being my new reality? I could not remember.
    The unicorn stomped one foot, and flames erupted at the edge of my vision. I turned to see my spelled feather bursting into flames. The brightness of the fire distracted me, and I could breathe a little easier. I could think. I spoke quickly, before the unicorn could beguile me again with his voice, his scent, and every other part of his being. “Tell me, will you take your tracker out before you deliver me to Agnes Stonehouse? It seems a clever thing to just leave behind.”
    Tracker? the unicorn asked. He sounded confused.
    “Tracker,” I repeated with a dull sense of dread. I felt it move inside of me. I sighed as thoughts of fields of bluebells, a warm summer's breeze, and the feel of a silvery unicorn between my legs, galloping as I twisted my hands in his softer than silk mane filled me and began to swallow me up.
    The unicorn stepped closer. I smiled and reached for him.
    And that might have been the end, were it not for the fact that the door to my store burst open.

 
     
     
     
     
    11
    Old Friend
    The monster who stood on the other side of the door was a thing of legend and nightmares, with dozens of long and pointed legs jutting out at wrong angles from her oily carapace and abdomen. She scuttled in, squeezing her massive spider body through the doorway. With a flick of one leg, the door slammed shut behind her. I did not have to ask this one if she was the one who had sent the tracker, for I felt the thing lodged deep within me jump around and spin at her mother’s proximity. With it came a small hope. Yes, this monster must have been at the gathering of hunters in the palace. But what were her intentions right here and now?
    “Hello, Shin Harawa, great spider of Pindaya,” I said and bowed my head toward her.
    Her black eyes, bubbled, smooth, and entirely black, fixed themselves on me. She bowed her head back. “Fair Morgana of the Isle of Apples, friend to the under creatures near and far. Daughter of magic. It has been long since we've walked together, old friend.”
    “Old friend,” I repeated, and my small hope grew. The great spider would make a powerful ally.
    The unicorn made an uneasy nickering sound and took a step away from me and the spider. The insidious daydreams of riding him across the world had faded, I noticed. The spider’s own magic must be cutting right through it.
    “A strange day for a reunion,” the great spider said.
    “Strange indeed, Shin Harawa. Sister Arachnid,” I said. “Almost as strange as the day we met.
    I had met her on the day I saved her life, long ago and far away in the land now called Burma. The usual band of peasants with pitchforks and fire were after her, a more persistent lot than most and led by some kind of local hero. She had been smaller and younger back then, and for all her ferociousness, had possessed a tender heart and had sworn to me that she never ate humans, for what kind of monster would eat the sentient? She solely dined on sheep, fish, insects, and tea leaves. After we escaped the peasants, we had spent a few pleasant days traveling together through the countryside, with me casting an invisibility spell on the both of us, and her eating huge wasp nests and making soft beds out of us the silk she pulled out of her body with her spinnerets.
    I took a step closer to her. “And might I assume that when you found out today