The Hunt

Chapter 1

Thump! Thump! Thump! My feet hit the ground in a steady rhythm. My lungs used to burn when I would run, but I've been practicing. Running every chance, I get. Around me is the familiar. "Keep up Nora!" Tyler calls.

I scowl and push forward. Nobody, not even my brother can take this from me. Not today. It's my first hunt.

For decades my family has hunted fae. My father, his father before him, his father before him, and so on, all the way back to the early nineteen hundreds. Of course, we knew they existed long before that, but they had never done us any harm.

My great great great grandfather worked very close to a fae through his farming. The fae was tied to the land, and so they were forced to work together. They got along fine. More than fine in fact they were close.

In time the both got married and had children. My great great grandfather grew up on that farm thinking of the fae as family. When my great great grandfather got married, the fae who he thought to be like a cousin raped his wife, soon she was pregnant. My great great grandfather killed the family of fae tied to the farm.

My grandfather waited it out to see whose child it was. When the baby was born with silver hair and the brightest pair of green eyes, it was killed on the spot. I never did agree with that. After the baby was killed, our family began hunting fae.

I will be the second female to ever join the hunt. The first was my mother. She died giving birth to me. I never knew her, but sometimes I wonder just how much I am like her. Tyler has a different mother, one that he hasn't seen since he was eighteen.

I've heard rumors around base that my mother was a fae. Insulted, my father quickly squashed them. Nobody has spoken of it in front of him since. Still, I don't miss the eyes following me around base, like they are waiting for something to happen.

Up ahead I see the group coming to a stop, and slow my pace. Not much, as I'm running aside Tyler, but enough that I cam make out my surroundings. All around us is trees. We must have been running in the woods for a while, and I didn't catch it.

"This was the last sighting." I hear my father's second in command—Richard—says. A man pulls a device out of his cargo pants and holds it up in the air looking at it. "There is one in the area." My body tingles with excitement. Something must have shown on my face because Tyler leaned down.

"Just wait. This isn't even the best part." I should feel ashamed. A nineteen year old girl acting with the excitement of a child. I should, but I'm not.

A rustling of leaves catches my attention, behind me, and while everyone else walks forward for instructions, I find myself walking backward. Toward the sound.

When I'm sure that no one is going to turn around and follow me, I blend myself into the trees and begin a hunt of my own.

The forest was dark, aside from the faint glow of the moon, making it hard to see for the average person; My eyes adjusted to the darkness almost immediately.

A shadow runs past me in my prefrail vision. I jerk around to follow it, and faintly see it dash behind a tree. My legs carry me toward it, careful not to make a sound. I am the quietest in the group beside Tyler.

Around base we train daily and we are the only two that can sneak up on King—My father's bully kutta. He is a massive dog breed to fight, and has instincts that could frighten any man. It's a good thing for me that I'm not a man. The dog took a liking to me, as it had with my mother.

I take another step toward the tree and a man, steps out from behind the tree. He's taller than me, and I turn my head up no more that a quarter an inch to look at him. He stands in a patch of moonlight making it easier to see him. His hair is blond and his eyes are the bluest I have seen—aside from Kaylee's.