To Love The Hunters Daughter

el

le feared

aved

shouldn't, that monsters with eyes like wildfire and teeth li

ht when I was a child, when the wind ho

n monsters. Not the ki

outed. Unlike our home, where the walls breathed my father's rules and expectations into every

nuck aw

atrol. My father would be gone until dusk, and even if he weren't, he never checked my room until

aced with moss and pine. Leaves whispered above brushing against one another like secrets pa

ere, I didn't have to train or obey. I didn't have to measure up to the ghos

ke ribbons. The clearing was small and tucked away bordered by sto

thing that made sense anymore-books about a girl who became a knight. About courag

opened

everything. The birds sang overhead, and now and then, the wind would nudge my hair into my eyes like a teasing f

nto my eyes. I tilted my face to feel the sun on my skin.

he pages until the sky darkened sligh

I noticed

Like a held breath. No birdsong. N

oed throug

ed me back to the present like a s

st a rabbit,

didn't ste

ted. My neck prickled. Something unseen pressed at the edge of the cl

The air had changed.I stood slowly, book

ans

atched by something older than time itself. I turn

ano

olled from th

un, but my feet refused to m

h

ely

ttered through the tr

shed-like it had

ed through the branches, birds chirped, and the shad

ling, fury etched across his face. His hand t

"What the hell are

t reading,"

voice cracked with fury. "

eyes swept the area, body

ay. Deep. Clawed. You coul

thing h

he sn

manding. The way he looked at me wasn't the way a father should l

n't go

eve me. I saw

ear. "If anything had happened to you..." His voi

t the feeling of being wat

me out here again.

ot a c

le. This isn't a game, Evelyn. You can't run into the woods ev

he words I wanted to say. Ca

st my chest as he scanned the woods once

keeping my head low a

ow. The air smelled like damp earth and gun powder. The sun had almost va

o the glass and st

should

I wa

beer in out there had

... I felt

of me knew, deep down it w