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

by Hazel Hunter

  Slowly Ryan took his lips from her skin and set her at arm’s length before he released her.

  Still entangled in delight, Kayla staggered back a step and touched her lips. They were hot and almost painfully tender. One kiss, and it had been a thousand times better than all-night sex.

  “Why did you do that?” she gasped.

  “I could not resist you.” He turned his face away. “I forgot myself. Forgive me.”

  Kayla barely heard him as heat spread out from her mouth and pulsed through her, burning past her fear. It reached deep inside, twisting with a frantic need, even as her mind raced. She couldn’t leave him, not ever. It was all clear now. She was meant to be with this beautiful, breathtaking man. He’d care for her, and protect her, and she wouldn’t have to deal with the bikers, or Tara, or the god-awful loneliness of her life anymore. With him, she’d never be alone again.

  “Can you forget like that again?”

  “Kayla,” Ryan said and reached for her. But he turned his head as if he heard something and let his arm fall to his side. “Listen to me. A mortal– A man is coming who can help you. Go to the edge of the trees, wait there, and he will soon arrive. When he does, you will forget this. Forget everything that has happened here. Forget me.”

  “Sure,” Kayla said, but then saw that he was serious. She shook her head and reached for him. “Please. Don’t make me go.”

  Now he was the one stepping away. “You must leave me now.”

  She couldn’t believe what he was saying. Didn’t he feel it, too?

  “I can’t. I just found you. Since Dad died I’ve been so alone, so scared, and dealing with Tara and her…” Why was she telling him all this stuff? Despite knowing how crazy she sounded, she couldn’t stop herself. “Ryan, I know you. I feel you, in here.” She thumped her fist against her heart. “God, I think I’ve been waiting my whole life for you.”

  He looked down at her for a long time. “Kayla love, these feelings, they aren’t real. As soon as we part, they will fade, and you will remember none of me. Now go.” When she didn’t move, he stepped back again. “You must obey, child.”

  Obey? Child?

  The words echoed in her ears as her desperation faded. Part of her still wanted to throw herself at his feet, but now the rest of her wanted a good, sturdy branch to club him over the head.

  Obey, my ass.

  What had Ryan done to her? How could she have said those things? Bile crawled up Kayla’s throat as she realized how close she had been to abandoning her sister. But since Ryan didn’t seem to be aware of his effect on her, or that she had shaken most of it off–thank you, God–she could get away.

  “Right,” she said, keeping her expression bland. “Thanks again for, uh, sharing the warmth.”

  Kayla’s stomach twisted itself into origami as she turned away and began to walk toward town. Although the wanting still burned inside her, she busied herself by putting her gloves back on and buttoning the flap of her hood. Behind her she heard the crackling hiss of water dousing the fire. The low purr of Ryan’s motorcycle engine started and moved away. Eventually she slowed and finally stopped in her tracks.

  It couldn’t be coincidence. Ryan had a motorcycle, like the biker gang, but she could have sworn it’d been a horse. He’d been ordinary when she first saw him near the fire, and then he’d been gorgeous. She glanced over her shoulder. Because he did something to make me see him as ordinary. Maybe the same way the bikers made themselves invisible to everyone but us.

  Kayla turned and ran back. Ryan and the motorcycle were gone, as expected, but undisturbed snow covered the ground where the fire had been. The only sign that anyone had been there were Kayla’s own footprints, sunken into the drifts.

  “No,” she breathed. She spun around in a circle. “You can’t be…damn it, where are you?”

  In a falling shaft of moonlight, the faintest streak of tiny stars glimmered, like the lights she had seen in his hair. She hurried toward them, and found a barely-perceptible stream of sparkling light hanging in the cold air. It led out of the woods. Kayla ran as fast as she could, stumbling through brush and swatting branches out of her way as she followed Ryan’s trail. She reached the edge of the woods and lurched onto the shoulder of the road. She searched in both direction. On her left the red taillight of a motorcycle shone about a quarter-mile away. But just before Ryan drove out of sight he turned right. Inexplicably he drove across the road, onto the shoulder, and headed directly for a barb-wire fence. Kayla put a hand to her chest and gasped. But at the last second Ryan pulled back on the handlebars and lifted the front wheel high in the air.

  “Is he out of his mind?” she muttered.

  But rather than crashing into the fence Ryan’s motorcycle sailed over it, exploding in mid-air with a burst of gold and copper light. Kayla shrieked and ran toward him, but the light abruptly faded and Ryan landed on the other side of the fence. She stumbled to a stop and stared after him as he crossed the pasture. Instead of Ryan on a motorcycle, there was a giant, pale-haired warrior astride a huge white stallion with a wild golden mane. He galloped off into the pines and vanished from sight.

  Kayla blinked a few times before she remembered to breathe.

  “It was a horse. I knew it. But how did he–”

  The glare of oncoming headlights made Kayla squint. She realized she’d moved onto the road. As she backed up onto the shoulder, a white and blue patrol car slowly rolled to a stop beside her. The passenger window lowered.

  “Evening, Miss.”

  Kayla took a moment to compose herself. Not only had she just encountered the most gorgeous creature she’d ever seen, he’d vaulted over a barbwire fence on a motorcycle-turned-stallion. But if this police officer was like the others in Florida, he wouldn’t have seen a thing. She glanced back at the pasture before she put on her best innocent-citizen face. True to Ryan’s words, the promised help had arrived.

  “Hi, there, Officer.”

  “Bit cold to be out walking tonight.” He jerked his thumb toward the back of his cruiser. “That your rental car five miles down the road?”

  “Yes, yes, it is. I ran out of gas, and my phone is dead.”

  Kayla bent down so she could see his face and make sure he wasn’t a dark-haired brute or a golden-haired demon. The cop was double-chinned, tired-eyed and completely bald. She relaxed a little.

  “Could you possibly give me a lift to the nearest service station?” she said.

  “No need for that. I called our tow guy for your car, and he carries gas for run-outs.” He reached across to open the door. “Hop in and I’ll drive you back.”

  The interior of the patrol car was comfortably warm, and once she belted herself in, Kayla took off her gloves to hold her hands in front of the vents.

  “There’s some coffee there,” the cop said, nodding at the thermos cup in the console holder. “Black, but it’s still hot.”

  “Terrific, thanks.” Kayla removed the lid before taking a sip and sighing. “That’s really good.”

  “My wife sends a thermos with me when I’m on patrol,” he told her, “to keep me out of the donut shops.”

  Kayla cradled the cup between her palms and resisted the urge to glance back over her shoulder again.

  “Does that work?”

  “She thinks it does.” The cop chuckled.

  If she told him about her encounter with Ryan he’d take her to the nearest psych ward, so she’d have to be careful.

  “While I was walking I thought I saw someone riding out in that pasture back there. Is it part of a ranch?”

  “The fenced property across from the woods?” He shook his head. “That belongs to the old Moffett Ski Lodge. They shut down back in the eighties, but the Forever Faire uses it when they come to town.”

  “Forever Faire. Pretty name.”

  There was something about it that sounded familiar, too. Kayla tried to recall if her dad had mentioned it, but her memory came up empty. She took another sip of coffee.


  “What is Forever Faire,” she said, “like a county thing?”

  “It’s a traveling Renaissance fair,” he said. “They spend every winter here in Ashdale. They set up their camp around the lodge, you know, like an old medieval village. They do archery and sword fights and jousts and such.” He rolled his eyes. “I never got into all that Dark Ages stuff, but they’re a good bunch. While they’re here they always put on free shows for the townspeople.”

  “Must be fun.” Kayla turned toward him and almost asked if they also liked to shape-shift while kissing lost women. “I thought I heard a motorcycle out there, too.”

  “All the Forever Faire guys ride them,” he said. Kayla went still. “Saves them from having to haul those big caravans when they have to come to town for supplies, I expect. But up here at the lodge they use their horses. Looks more authentic. Easier to get around on horseback, too.”

  By the time they reached Kayla’s rental car, she’d made a plan. Although she needed desperately to get to Tara, she’d never felt closer to figuring out the bikers. The motorcycles couldn’t be a coincidence.

  After a few minutes the tow truck arrived. Kayla paid the driver for adding some gas to her tank, and smiled with relief when the engine promptly started. After he left to go on another call she thanked the officer for his help.

  “No problem,” he said. “There’s a couple of service stations in town where you can fill up.” He climbed back into his cruiser. “Have a good trip, now, and watch that fuel gauge.”

  Kayla waved goodbye before she got back in the car and drove to where she had seen Ryan jump the fence. But there was no way she could do the same in her car. She thumped the steering wheel with a gloved fist. But as she glared ahead at the patch of road illuminated by the headlights, she saw a break in the barbwire. As she nudged the car forward for a look, she wondered if she could climb over the fence. Except the last thing she wanted was to be in the cold again.

  “A gate,” she muttered, as she pulled off the road next to it.

  Beyond was a small access road. Although she left the engine running, she checked for traffic in the rearview mirror, then up ahead, and hopped out of the car. The gate was closed by a drop latch, but it wasn’t secured. She shoved it open and heard rusty hinges squeal, before she trotted back to the car.

  “I’ll just see where he went,” she said, bargaining with her conscience as she turned off the headlights. “Then I’ll drive to town, gas up, and find Tara. Then I’ll have a breakdown, and get my head examined.”

  Despite the words, though, she was on to something. If she and Tara were going to stand a chance of not looking over their shoulders all their lives, she had to get to the bottom of this.

  The gradual incline of the road led Kayla to the top of a rise where she slowed the car and then stopped. Moonlight sketched out a massive clearing encircled by towering pines and broad oaks. In the center stood a low, wide, stone-walled building that had to be the old ski lodge. Next to it was a barn with two wings of stables. Kayla shut off the engine and climbed out to get a better look. Scattered around the edges of the clearing were large trucks, horse trailers, campers and flatbeds.

  The show people probably occupied the lodge. Most of the windows were lit from within, and white wood smoke drifted from multiple chimneys on the roof. Someone had also built up a roaring blaze in a huge fire pit just in front of the lodge, around which several figures stood.

  What Kayla didn’t see was a single motorcycle–or snow–anywhere around the lodge.

  She walked down, taking care not to stumble or make a sound like last time. As she drew closer she noted the big, rolled hay bales stacked in double rows beside the barn, as if they’d just been delivered. Judging by the size of the stables, the amount of hay, and the number of transport trailers, Kayla estimated Ryan and his friends had at least two dozen horses. If nothing else that indicated how prosperous they were. Maintaining a large, healthy stable was beyond expensive these days.

  So he’s rich as well as magical. But then, why bother performing? Maybe a Renfaire is the only place he can use his mojo without drawing attention.

  Assuming Ryan hadn’t changed his ride back into a motorcycle, he would have gone to the stable first to unsaddle the horse and bunk him down for the night. To take a look Kayla would have to circle behind or cross the camp, which would likely attract attention from the group around the bonfire.

  “This better be worth it,” she said as she started down the slope.

  As she stepped out of the snow onto the lush, green grass, a strange shiver ran down her spine. She could feel the soil give slightly under her weight.

  “A nice lawn?” she muttered, frowning. “In the dead of winter?”

  She skirted the edge of the treeline and moved within earshot of those around the bonfire. All of them appeared to be large, normal men dressed in regular clothes. None had facial tats or short black hair. Every one of them looked as human as Ryan had, at least before he had changed on her.

  Speak of the shape-shifting devil.

  Kayla’s gaze went to a larger man walking from the stable to the bonfire.

  “You’re late,” a man said, his voice sharp.

  “For what?”

  That was Ryan, and he sounded just as annoyed.

  “Trouble,” the man told him. “Jannon caught two mortals stealing from us. He claims he disposed of them.”

  Chapter 6

  As he joined his men, Ryan Sheridan regarded his second-in-command. Like the rest of them, he still wore the glamor of his mortal guise. Fae nature made it impossible for Colm Longacre to utter an untruth among his own kind, and he wouldn’t jest unless he was entertaining the mob.

  “He did what now?” Ryan asked.

  “Got rid of two vermin,” someone else answered.

  Jannon Ferguson elbowed his way to the front of the men as he took a drink from the oversize bottle of snowine he carried. In his true form, which was almost as large as Ryan’s, he resembled a shining god.

  “Caught our new groom and that needle-plying wench in the treasury, up to their elbows in our coin.” He spat in the fire, which reacted with the Fae drink he’d been guzzling by sending up a bright blue flare. “Bloody thieving humans.”

  Ryan inspected the drunken warrior’s garments for blood spatter, but saw only sparkling blue stains of drink on his tunic

  “You did not report this to Colm until now?”

  “All he does is coddle them. They needed learning, so I…” He raised one large, bulging arm and tried to snap his fingers, failed to connect them, and then batted the air with his huge hand. “I taught them.”

  In the past Ryan had seen Jannon use a single blow to cleave a boulder in two.

  “By what manner did you give this instruction?”

  “What the bloody hells do you care?” Jannon swayed and staggered a step sideways before he caught himself and drank again. “Weak, worthless scum, the both of them.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his fist. “Got what they deserved, they did.”

  “Now I see,” Colm said with an exaggerated nod. Then he sighed. “The fool wants you to think he did away with them, to goad you into thrashing him. I’ll wager he did naught to harm a hair on either.”

  Ryan saw that truth echoed in Jannon’s angry fists and guilty eyes, and considered thrashing him anyway.

  “You wish to deceive me, brother? Why?”

  “You know the reason. We all do.” Colm regarded the drunken warrior. “You can wound yourself a thousand times over, Jan, and bleed on every mortal female in these mountains so they’ll bed you and heal you. None of it will ever make you forget your clan.”

  “What would you know of women, Colm Longacre?” Jannon said, his upper lip curling as he fixed the other man with a sneer. “You’ve not pleasured one since you were gelded by that fucking witch.” As the other men muttered uneasily, Jannon wobbled around to face Ryan. “Beg pardon, my liege. I meant to say Her Majesty the Queen, that fucking witc
h.”

  Colm folded his arms. “And now I’d say the great hulking idiot wants the both of us to beat him bloody.”

  “What did you call me?” Jannon said, his voice growing louder. He drew a dagger, squinted, and pointed it at the empty space beside Colm. “Come over here and say that to my face, you sodding Érien ponce.”

  Wallace Magee, the troop’s blacksmith and spell tracker, silently moved up behind Jannon. At a nod from Ryan he seized Jannon’s arm and plucked the weapon from his hand, all in one smooth motion.

  Jannon spun around and smacked his face into Wallace’s massive chest before he scowled up at him.

  “What are you doing? Dint you hear? I’ve finally challenged that nosy cockless winge to battle. Give back me blade.”

  “Wouldn’t be a fair fight, brother,” Wallace said. The blacksmith tossed the knife through the fire to Colm, who caught it by the hilt. “Tomorrow you can gut him. I’ll even hold him down for you. But for tonight, come.” The blacksmith dropped his arm around the warrior’s sagging shoulders. “Come and drink with me.”

  Ryan watched the pair retreat into the lodge before he scanned the faces of the other men.

  “What set him off this time?”

  “The wench he caught thieving, the new seamstress,” one of the men told him. “Quite comely, that one.” He used his hands to make a voluptuous female shape in the air, and then grimaced. “She also had very white skin, and long gilded hair.”

  Colm swore in the old language. “I told Lawrence to hire only dark wenches, rot his soul. I will crack his head on the morrow.”

  “Not so fast, brother,” one of the men said. “If we’re to perform we’ll need replacements for them by week’s end.”

  Ryan nodded his agreement. “Have new notices posted in town.”

  “Aye.” Colm tucked Jannon’s blade into a sheath on his belt before he glared at the rest of the men. “As long as he’s drinking, Jannon stays here. Until he stops, bring no more women to camp. Seek your pleasures in the town. Do you hear me?”