The Danger of Destiny Read Online Free PDF Page B

height. Shorn brown hair. Wide face. Nothing overly distinctive about any of that; he could be easily missed in a crowd.
    Qae dismounted. He led his horse to water, then walked along the edge of the bank. The man was light on his feet, and he walked with calculation as if he was as much aware of his own tracks as the ones he was following. It was his tell, and I knew if ever our paths crossed I’d recognize him by his gait.
    You’re dead, I told him silently. If I meet you in a blind alley, Qae, my magic will be cinched around your throat before you can let out a surprised squawk.
    The tracker toed the ground briefly and then turned to say something to the other Fae. In response, horse-guy stood up on his stirrups and twisted to look back behind himself.
    â€œWhat’s he looking for?” I whispered.
    â€œProbably the rest of the company.”
    The horseman resumed his seat. And for an uncomfortable stretch that probably amounted to less than ten seconds but felt like ten hours, nothing much happened. A small brown ant followed the spine of a piece of grass, reaching the tip, then turning and going back down again. Trowbridge breathed loudly through his nose and held me too tightly. My right boob registered a squish protest. My wolf created gaseous hell in my lower gut.
    I was afraid.
    Of Trowbridge’s reaction to the tracker, of not knowing what was going to happen.
    Meanwhile, Qae and company appeared to be waiting. The cavalryman pulled out a linen-wrapped packet and proceeded to eat from the contents. Que squatted to inspect his horse’s fetlock. Just as my heart was starting to reregulate itself, the scout wheeled around sharply in our general direction, his buttock resting on his heel.
    Crap.
    â€œDon’t. Move,” Trowbridge breathed into my ear.
    Really, really hard not to. My body was telling me it was flight or fight time, and there was no doubt which option my feet preferred.
    The tracker’s gaze slowly swept the woods on either side of the river, before he rose to his feet to gather his horse’s reins. His focus turned to the long ridge of the gorge that Trowbridge and I had followed all afternoon.
    A methodical man, Qae started to scan from left to right. A bonus for us, as we were slightly to the right of the long, curved overlook. With acute care, Trowbridge slowly closed the peephole he’d made in the grasses, allowing them to feather back together.
    My man’s gaze flicked to mine. His eyes were flat and cold, not a flicker of Alpha light in them. “If I tell you to run, you do that, got it? You don’t look back. You head up the mountain.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, don’t look back?”
    An answer that will forever remain a mystery, for that’s when the cavalryman wearing the bottle blue jacket called out to Qae. The tracker turned around. His companion gestured to the northwest sky.
    I inhaled sharply.
    Skimming along the wood’s ragged tree line was a milky haze. It was similar to the fistful of sparkles we’d seen earlier but far larger. And unlike the earlier specter, this thing knew where it was going—it poured over the top of the woods, a low, thin, undulating blanket of fog, heading straight toward the horseman and the river.
    A cloud of ill will.
    Don’t ask me why my instincts attributed that to the rolling mist. It was actually a strangely beautiful thing. Almost alive, the color of bleached bone, rippling with movement and depth. The afternoon sun was strong and bright, and its rays caught the shimmering particles suspended inside its wavering shape, turning them pink, and purple, and plum.
    Qae observed its progress with no visible emotion—a marked contrast to his companion, who followed the glimmering miasma’s approach with the anticipation of a guy sitting in the third-base stands watching a strike turn into a fly ball.
    Gonna-get-it, gonna-get-it was written all over the cavalryman.
    My Fae was a