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

true promise,” said the great spider of Pindaya. “And I must seek it. Or else all I have is extinction. You understand that, don’t you, Morgan?”
    “Are you so sure you lack courage? You hunt me. And you send one of your children into me. That speaks of a steel will.”
    “And yet I feel sorrow for that little one’s sacrifice within you, though it is for the good of us all.” Shin Harawa clicked her pincers and made a strange shrieking sound.
    The spiderling within me made a corresponding piercing shrill from inside my torso. The sound grew. I fell to the floor, clutching my chest as pain exploded from the deepest part of me. Then I felt a burst of heat. It was gone.
    “Good bye, small beloved,” the great spider whispered. She shook her head. “I should feel nothing but pride in this moment, but all this fear and sorrow, it eclipses me. Come now, Morgan, let me cocoon you in fine silk and take you to the witch who seeks you. Know that me and mine will always speak of the life you have given our species. Give yourself to me now.”
    “Do you remember me so unclearly, old friend? Do you imagine that I would give up without a fight?”
    “Very well then. I will take you.” Her pedipalps and fangs made a clicking and chittering sound. She crouched, readying to jump. A drop of venom fell from her mouth and hissed as it burned the floor she stood on.
    I took another step backward.
    I think I will take her instead. The unicorn lowered his head and pawed the ground. His horn glowed as he aimed it toward the spider. I found her first, you hideous insect. I will toast your extinction and drink your brackish blood. His lovely voice filled the room.
    “You may have found her, oh horned one, but to imagine that you might fight me, even in my impoverished state, and come away yet living? I knew your kind spread delusions, but I did not know you were prone to them as well.”
    The unicorn charged at the great spider.
    Shin Harawa reared back on her back legs and opened her rictus of a mouth, revealing layers upon layers of dripping fangs. She spat a glob of venom at the unicorn’s face.
    The unicorn’s horn blazed a brilliant white and the venom fell to the ground with a wet splat. He reared back on his hind legs, pawing his splendid hooves in the air and neighing.
    I plunged my hands into the softness of rough-spun wool until I found the small gold coin within, identical to the doubloon I’d used on Merlin. Its spell would work once and only once in teleporting me away.
    I touched it to my spelled ring, still active, but I did not ask for safety this time. There was no safety. There was only claiming my fate. “ Perygl, ” I uttered. Danger.
    The combined spells did my bidding, and took me away to the most dangerous place on this planet.

 
     
     
     
     
    12
    The Wish
    I stood in the white marbled hallway of Agnes Stonehouse’s great palace. It had taken great effort for both my spells to take me here, past all the protections surrounding this place. The gold coin lay cracked and blackened in my hand. Nothing was left of the ring besides a circle of ash on my finger.
    I stood there, breathing hard and turning around in a slow circle as I waited to be noticed. Within seconds, a spell grabbed hold of me and wrenched me up into the air. I floated above the ground, frozen, as magic wrapped around all of my muscles and bones and turned me still.
    I heard footsteps, and watched, helplessly, as Agnes walked down the hallway toward me. Her heels clicked upon the hard ground.
    “And where is the hunter who brought you in?” she asked flatly, looking me up and down.
    I stared at her. I waited. My mouth could not move, so I uttered nothing.
    She raised one hand and pointed at my face.
    My tongue loosened. “I am the hunter who brought myself in, and before the rest of it, I claim the boon of the hunt for myself.”
    The witch looked… neither annoyed nor surprised, nor anything really. Her face went slack. Her eyes