Hunted (Book One of the Forever Faire Series): A Fae Fantasy Romance Novel

“
T
here are worse places
,” Kayla Rowe said, as she stepped over a fallen tree trunk. Her foot sank into another fresh snowdrift. “I could be in the Sahara.”

She slogged through to a more sheltered patch of ground and stopped, her heavy breaths billowing in the frosty air. With a grunt, she stomped off the clumps of icy powder that clung to her jeans.

“Not that I’d really mind the desert,” she said. Talking to herself helped her ignore the fact that she couldn’t feel her face or her hands anymore. “Camels aren’t so bad, and my tan needs work. Mirages could be fun.”

Kayla rubbed her ears and nose with her stiff gloves, hoping to restore some circulation, but didn’t feel that either. Growing up in hot, sunny Florida left her ignorant of exactly what frostbite felt like. No doubt she’d find out soon enough. What she could feel was every gulp she took of the thin, sharp air. It burned her lungs before clawing its way out to form white clouds. Right now a bunch were drifting in front of her nose, like so much ghost tripe. The thought made her stomach sink.

“Add nausea to the frostbite,” she muttered, and swatted at her floating breaths.

At sunset she’d abandoned her rental car to walk the rest of the way to town. She must have covered at least five miles by now, but the darkness made it hard to tell. Leaving the winding road to take a shortcut through the woods had seemed brilliant—until she found herself dodging trees, brush, and knee-high drifts. If not for the light filtering down from the full moon she’d probably be walking or falling face-first into them. Who knew Tennessee would have snow?

How Kayla missed Florida, and the little cottage she’d shared there with her sister. More than anything her heart still ached over giving up her job at the riding academy. The students and other trainers she’d worked with had been great, but leaving behind the horses she’d trained and cared for every day for the last three years had been like running out on family.

Cantankerous old Stan, who considered himself in charge of everything at the stables, had been particularly upset about her leaving.

You can’t go,
he pleaded
. We need you here. You’re not like the others. You’re one of us.

I know. I’m sorry,
she thought.
She couldn’t avoid the hurt in his big brown eyes.
But if I stay, and they found out where I work…what if they came here and hurt one of the kids, or you?

Leaving her beloved job behind had been a smart if emotionally difficult choice. Hiking alone through the woods in winter, on the other hand, had been an exceptionally dumb idea. So had forgetting to charge her mobile. Kayla still couldn’t believe she hadn’t once glanced at the car’s dashboard since leaving North Carolina. She’d never in her life run out of gas.

Until tonight.

The rental had begun sputtering as soon as she had gotten off the highway, and coasted to a long, slow stop just as she’d passed a sign that read ASHDALE 7 MILES.

Kayla couldn’t blame her idiocy on the car, or anyone but herself. Though she’d been relieved to lose the thugs stalking her and her sister, Tara, the relief had made her careless. She’d been so busy congratulating herself on the success of her clever plan that she’d forgotten how often the universe liked to mess with that kind of thing. Now it seemed to be gloating.

You’re not out of the woods yet, Rowe, and guess what? Now you might freeze to death in them.

Through the trees she could see the lights of the town as dozens of tiny jewels spangled the dark horizon. They promised warmth and shelter and her sister. But their distance meant she had at least another two or three miles to hike. If she got to Ashdale, she’d then have to find her way to the cheap motel where Tara was waiting.

“
When
I get there.” Kayla pulled the edge of her wool scarf up over her mouth and nose. “No ifs.
When
.”

She trudged on, every step leeching more strength from her tired, overworked leg muscles. Once winter’s teeth finished gnawing her limbs, she suspected it would start in on her chest and belly. If the cold got to her core, she might never make it out of the woods. Her younger sister would be left helpless and alone, with no one else in the world to look after her. Tara already coped with horrible bouts of depression, which had been especially frequent since their father had passed away. Losing her only living relative might finally push her to–

“Knock it off,” Kayla yelled, though her lips were numbing.

She breathed in through her nose and out her mouth until the shriveling knot in her chest loosened. She wasn’t giving up, not this close to making it. She would get to town, and her sister, and then they would figure out where they could stay for the winter.

All she had to do was walk two more miles, and not die trying. Kayla thought about her sister, but the image of Tara’s thin face soon faded. Instead she remembered the other reason she had to keep going—the reason they’d ended up in Tennessee—the stalkers.

K
ayla had first seen
them over a month ago. Without warning the bikers had surrounded her and Tara on their way to the market. Kayla had gunned the engine and the pack of roaring machines had chased them through town. Though she had managed to lose them, she went straight to the police station to report the incident. But without license numbers the desk sergeant told her there wasn’t anything they could do.

The next day Kayla came out of the market to find the bikers waiting in the parking lot, and called the police on her mobile. As soon as they heard the sirens the bikers took off. By the time the patrol car arrived they were gone. Over the next week the gang came after her and Tara three more times, yet as soon as Kayla called 911 they disappeared. There were never any witnesses or evidence to back up what she told the police. After the fifth call the cops stopped taking Kayla seriously, and the last time they even threatened to charge her with misuse of emergency services.

“Look, I don’t care about me,” Kayla told the cop. “I can take care of myself. But these guys are huge and scary, and my sister is just a kid. If they grab her, she won’t have a chance.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve interviewed everyone and checked around town, lady,” a ticked-off patrolman told her. “Nobody but you two has ever seen these bikers. So maybe you should talk about your problems with someone else. You know, like a therapist.”

Kayla had stopped calling, but the bikers never stayed away for long. When one of the bastards had followed Tara into the fabric shop where she worked after school, she’d run out and disappeared. Kayla hadn’t known about it until her sister’s boss called several hours later, when a dazed and injured Tara had come back to the store and tried to start working again.

“I’m taking you to the ER,” Kayla told her as she helped her to the car. “We’ll get–”

“No,” Tara said. She hunched her shoulders. “I’m okay.”

“Okay?” Kayla caught Tara’s hand and showed her the rapidly-darkening bruises on her knuckles. “This is not okay. And this?” She tugged on the torn, blood-stained sleeve of Tara’s blouse. “How is this even remotely okay?”

“It’s not my blood,” her sister said, staring sullenly at the ground. “Would you just take me home, please?”

Tara had refused to offer any more details about the attack, but she was never the same after that day. When Kayla decided they should relocate, she didn’t even argue. They’d quit their jobs, packed up and left town the next day, telling no one where they were going.

A week later the gang found them, just settling into their new apartment, and the nightmare started all over again. For nearly a month now they’d been on the run, never staying in any place for more than a few days. Yet no matter where they went, or how careful they were, the gang always caught up with them.

Kayla had no idea who the bikers were, but there was something very wrong with all of them. She’d assumed they were just another bunch of idiot thugs trying to look like badasses. But then she noticed the creepy similarities they shared. Gangs were big fans of uniformity, so it was no surprise they all wore sunglasses, black leather jackets, and trousers. Only theirs were identical. Each biker also had the same pale skin, quasi-military haircut, and bulging, bodybuilder frames. If not for the variations in the weird tribal tattoos they’d inked on their brows, the gang could have been twenty clones of the same jerk.

What was truly bizarre was how no one else seemed to see them. Everyone behaved as if they were invisible. Since none of the assholes wore helmets, or had license plates on their bikes, they should have at least caught the eye of the authorities. Yet Kayla had seen them go roaring past a state trooper at twenty miles over the posted speed limit, and the cop hadn’t even blinked.

The last time the gang had attacked them had been during rush hour on a busy Georgia highway. One minute Kayla was looking for an exit sign. The next the passenger window exploded inward as a huge, dirty fist punched through it and clamped around Tara’s neck. As Kayla screamed her sister broke free and grabbed the wheel, first swerving their car into the biker, and then across three lanes to an exit ramp.

“Are you out of your mind?” Kayla had shrieked at her sister as she wrenched her hand off the wheel. “What if you killed him?”

“I didn’t.”

Tara nodded at the rearview mirror.

Kayla saw the cars dodging the fallen biker. But as he stood up, her eyes widened. He righted his bike with one hand and climbed back on.

“What the hell? No one could have survived that. What is he, Superman?”

“Whatever they are,” Tara muttered, calmly brushing broken glass off her lap, “you’d better drive faster.”

That day they hadn’t stopped again until they’d reached the Carolinas, and by that time Kayla had come up with a plan.

“I don’t know what they are or how they keep finding us,” she’d told Tara, “but they have to be looking for two women traveling together, right? So we split up. I’ll get rid of the car, rent something else and head south. You take the bus and go north.”

Her sister started to shake her head, but when Kayla gently touched the bruises on her throat she stopped and finally nodded.

“
Once I lose them I’ll double back and meet up with you.”

She picked up the complimentary travel map they’d taken from the lobby. A tiny motel symbol was stamped next to a dot in a sparsely-populated section of the Smoky Mountains. “Here, in Ashdale. There’s a motel in town called…” She squinted at the minuscule type. “The Silver Birch Inn. Get a room there and wait for me.”

Tara frowned. “Ashdale? Why does that sound familiar?”

“We used to live there when I was little,” Kayla said, finger still on the map. “You were born there.” Aware that they were both staring at it, Kayla quickly folded the map. “Dad said that if you or I ever got in trouble, we should go back to Ashdale.” She handed the map to Tara. “He told me that we would always be safe there.”

Her sister grimaced. “If it’s so safe, then why did we move?”

“Dad hated it,” Kayla said, moving to the window. She peered through the curtains at the nearly-empty parking lot. “He only took us to Florida because Mom left.”

A
few hundred
yards later Kayla stopped again, resting her back propped against a nubby tree trunk.

“I’m fine,” she gasped. “I could do this all night.”

The lies enveloped her in more breath clouds that were thicker and whiter, as if the temperature had stopped dropping and had started plummeting.

“Okay, maybe not.”

As her breath drifted off, a new light appeared, flickered and grew brighter.

Hello. Is that a cabin?

Kayla straightened and peered, and then grinned. The light was a lot closer than town, no more than a quarter mile ahead of her. She plodded forward as though it were a magnet.

The scent of wood smoke was in the air—and something else.

Cookies?

Her insides warmed as if she was already sitting beside a nice, hot fireplace.

Kayla hated asking strangers for help, but she had no choice. Once the people in the cabin saw how cold she was, surely they’d let her in to defrost by their fire for a few minutes. Or maybe they’d feel so sorry for her that they’d offer to drive her into town. She certainly wouldn’t have to fake looking pathetic. Only when she got closer did Kayla see that the light wasn’t coming from a cabin, but from a small campfire.

Who camps in the mountains in the middle of winter?

Kayla didn’t really care. In addition to feeling numb she was also getting drowsy. Her legs quivered with each new step. The two miles to town might as well be two hundred. If she didn’t stop and get warm she’d collapse.

Once Kayla got close enough to get a good look at the camp site, she stopped and hid behind a tree. Although she was a walking popsicle, the last month had taught her to spy first, listen second, and never trust the look of anyone—ever.

At first she could only see the flames, blazing but neatly contained by a ring of stacked stones. Smoke rose in an unsteady column to veil the moon. Firelight dimly illuminated two shapes near the hearth: a big one crouched beside it, head down and face hidden behind a long spill of dark hair; the other behind it even larger, with four powerful legs and a hide that gleamed like moonlight.

A man and his horse. Kayla already liked him.

All the guy wore was a denim jacket, white shirt and dark brown trousers, but what most reassured Kayla was his healthy tan and too-long, light brown mop. All of the hulking jackasses in the gang had had gray skin, tattooed foreheads, and short-cropped black hair.

He’s not one of them.

For a second Kayla closed her eyes to wallow in the relief, but then her knees decided to buckle. She reached for the nearest tree branch to keep from falling on her face, and an icy twig caught under her hand, breaking with a loud, glassy snap.

The rider’s brown hair fanned out as he spun toward the sound, revealing glittering dark eyes and the angle of a masculine jaw, but not much else. A silvery glint drew her gaze to the thin length of polished steel that appeared in his huge fist.

Okay, he’s not an idiot, either.

Kayla could do the prudent thing and avoid him by going around his little campsite, and probably drop dead of hypothermia just on the outskirts of town. Or she could chat up a large, armed man alone in the dark woods and get warm. And possibly get herself killed.

Time to find out how stupid I am.

“I’m over here,” she said. She stepped out and lifted an arm to wave. “Hi! Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” She took a couple more steps until she emerged from the shadows. “My car broke down and I’ve been walking for miles.” Keeping up the friendly, unconcerned tone was harder than she thought. “I’m, uh, really cold. Would you mind if I join you for a bit?”

The knife vanished, and the hair fell forward again as the rider ducked his head.

Kayla interpreted that as a nod. “Thank you so much.”

She went directly to the fire, stripping off the gloves from her numb hands. She crouched beside the stones. The heat was so delicious on her stiff palms that she nearly moaned out loud.

“I thought I was hallucinating when I spotted you.” She paused long enough for him to reply, and when he didn’t she pressed on. “My sister is waiting on me in town, and I’m sure by now she’s worried. Do you happen to have a phone with you that I can borrow to call her?”

“No,” the rider said. He stirred the fire with a charred stick. Tiny embers swirled upward. “Phones don’t work up here.”

The deep, gentle voice wrapped around her, warm and soft. It was like one of her sister’s handmade quilts. Even so, she was shivering.

“Okay, no problem,” she said, her voice quaking a little. “I’m Kayla Rowe, by the way.” She peered around him to get a better look at his ride. But somehow the big horse had shuffled back out of sight.

“Ryan,” the rider finally said. He extinguished the glowing end of the stick by planting it in the ground. “Why did you leave your car on such a night?”

“Oh, you know. I didn’t want to freeze to death in it.” She heard the faint accent in his deep voice, but she couldn’t place it. “You from around here, Ryan No-Last-Name?”

“No, but I stop by the place every winter.” He lifted his head and for the first time looked at her directly. “Why are you here?”

“Same. Passing through.”

Staring back was rude, but Kayla couldn’t help herself. No one would call Ryan’s blunt face handsome, not with that heavy jaw and broad-bridged nose. His mouth was more like a line than lips, and his thick eyebrows were a shade darker than his tan. But the rest of him was all man, and plenty of it. Beneath his denim jacket, heavy muscles padded his broad chest, wide shoulders and long arms. Because he was crouched in the shadows it was hard to tell how tall he was, but judging by the size of his hands, the long lines of his thighs and the gigantic boots he wore, he definitely wasn’t a mini like her. No wonder he rode such a big horse. He’d squash anything smaller.

Being five foot nothing and barely a hundred pounds had fated Kayla to be forever envious of substantial people, which was probably why she’d always been attracted to big men. Because she looked much younger and weaker than she was, the guys she liked never paid much attention to her. Ryan wasn’t showing any particular interest, either. But Kayla’s nerves remained on full alert, and she wasn’t sure why. It might have been the odd scent blending with the smoke, which smelled stronger and sharper now—less like cookies and more like an exotic cocktail.

V
anilla brandy?
Chocolate champagne?

Kayla rarely drank so she couldn’t pin it down, but it was wonderful.

As for Ryan, apart from being super-sized, he seemed relatively harmless. But she was picking up a very strange vibe from him. As if there was something he didn’t want her to see, or maybe that she’d missed altogether.

Or I’ve gotten so paranoid everyone looks to me like they’re hiding something.

“Are you traveling with someone, Ryan?”

“Old friends,” he said and tossed a handful of pine needles onto the fire. It billowed with a whoosh. “Do your parents know where you and your sister are?”

“Probably not. They’re dead.” The flaring flames erased the last of the shadows from his face, revealing long, narrow eyes that shouldn’t have been such an ordinary brown. “I’m not a kid, either. I’m twenty-five.”

“That’s almost ancient,” he said, sounding a little amused. “Now tell me the real reason you came here, Kayla Rowe.”