“But between the three of us,” I continue, turning back around and facing them with renewed hope—albeit faked. “With tall, thick, and grisly over here, and with the two of us, we might be able to feast like we once had. Like during the glory days.”
Gleeful delight flashes behind Boris’ dark eyes, and he claps his hands together like a small child witnessing whatever it is that children have to be excited about anymore.
“Feasting like kings, we’d be. Now, doesn’t that sound like something we’d want to do, Gregor?”
The burly noctis doesn’t blink, his noxious eyes never once relieving me from their sharp hold. I’m just about to give up, to excuse myself and hope that they’ll let me leave in one piece, when he finally says, “You remember where you found them?”
“I do,” I say, anticipation a flutter in my belly. My plan might actually be working.
“And you believe they have reason to return.”
My shoulders bob. “I think they’re local to the area. Whether they’d return to that spot, I don’t know. But we could scope it out, see if they left any indication of where they might’ve gone, or where they’ll go next.”
Gregor thinks for a moment. “Fine. But we don’t feast. We need the humans for the Hunt.”
The wordsfair enoughalmost pass from my lips until I realize how foolish that would make me sound. I’m playing the part of a starving noctis who was just caught tearing into a pigeon. Being told I’m not allowed to eat should ruffle my feathers, at a bare minimum if I want to keep up the ruse.
Fortunately, Boris takes the lead on that.
“What? Are you out of your bloody mind? We’ve been at it for days. We need to eat!”
“And we will.” Gregor’s teeth grind together as he narrows his eyes at his partner. “When we return to Nigh.”
“And what about me?” I push, hoping to sound convincing. “What’s in it for me? I have no plans of going to Nigh with you.”
The corner of Gregor’s lip ticks up.
“Just one?” Boris begs. “The king would understand”—thinking better of it, he corrects himself— “The king doesn’t have to know that we fed on one human if we return with three? Five? Ten?”
Gregor casts a glare his way. “Facing ten would be too risky.”
“True enough. But if it’s a small party, we could take them. One a piece at least.”
“I could take two,” I chime in and hope the bullshit I’m speaking doesn’t reek.
Gregor considers the options a moment longer. He glances over his shoulder back down to where my trap and the dead ghoul still lays.
“Fine. If we find humans and there are more than six, we do nothing.”
A toothy grin splits Boris’ face, an orangish hue staining his teeth. “And we can eat one of them? Shared between the three of us?”
“Fine,” Gregor grumbles.
“Great,” I say, a wicked grin emerging that they mistakenly assume has to do with the prospect of drinking human blood. But I’m just excited that my plan is working. “Follow me then.”
These noctis should know as well as anyone that there are rules to follow in this world, and they’ve just broken the most sacred. Whether it be human or monster, trust no one.
4
VALOR
“We’ve gone more thana fewblocks.”
Ahead of me, Gregor marches with the intensity of a bull that’s just been castrated, all seething discomfort and grudging trust. He doesn’t want to keep moving. Part of him knows it’ll be the death of him. But without proof, and with the promise of greener pastures on the other side, he has no choice.
He hasn’t looked back at me once, not the way most distrusting people would. Then again, he’s not a person. He’s an apex predator. I am no threat to him. Even if I really was a noctis like he believes, his arms are triple mine in size. If I was leading him into an ambush—which I am, of course, and which he might be starting to suspect me of doing—it wouldn’t take much pressure for him to lock my neck into the crook of his arm and pop my head off my shoulders.
It’s a fate I’m not eager to accept, so I muster the charm I’m sometimes forced to use when bartering at the market.
