Page 33 of Beautiful Prey

The candidates keep watching that black wall building to the north and calling it a storm. They don’t know what it becomes when it reaches them.

Sand.

This year’s highest bidder paid for a sandstorm, so a sandstorm is what they’ll get.

But that isn’t tonight’s problem.

Once darkness settles, the candidates start hunting one another.

They always do.

He picks a root tangle low on the slope, well off the ridgelines. Somebody was listening after all. It’s not the best shelter, but from down there it probably feels invisible. I watch him wedge himself in with the knife across his lap and the pack tucked beneath his knees. One hand stays close to the blade.

I choose a pine with a clean view and lean back against the trunk, watching him spend the next half hour pulling dead branches across the opening and working himself deeper into the roots.

What? I’m an honest man. I told him where not to sleep, which out here counts as a promise, and I intend to keep it whether he likes the arrangement or not.

Eventually, my prey will keep his end. After all, his tab is already running.

The first test comes early. Two candidates come hunting. I let them get close. Thirty feet. Twenty. Close enough for the edge of their lamp to catch the roots beneath his boots. Before they get any closer, I step out of the shadows, just far enough for the light to catch my visor.

The lamp snaps off, and they hurry back through the trees much faster than they came.

Good boys.

Settling back against the pine, I watch his breathing slowly even out, one hand still curled around the knife as he falls asleep.

And now my thoughts go exactly where they’ve been trying to go all evening.

What would it be like to taste that mouth? Would those lips tremble against mine the way they do when he talks to me, fighting it and furious about it? What sound would he make when he finally stopped fighting? What would he taste like?

A grunt slips out of me. Good thing nobody’s around to hear it.

A leash. Black leather, maybe. Emeralds to match those fucking eyes.

That brings Granddad’s hounds to mind.

He kept forty of them behind the east wing and never fed one himself. He taught me early what ownership costs a House, and what it’s worth. I’ve thought more than once that I’d like something of my own on the other end of a leash, kneeling because it chose to, watching my hands for what comes next.

The hounds gave themselves away too easily. I want something with teeth. Something that takes food from my hand because it decided I’m the one allowed to feed it. Something that could bite, probably wants to, and still comes when I call.

He’s asleep now, curled beneath the roots with his pack against his legs. At some point his fingers loosen and the knife slips into the dirt beside his hand.

Farther down the slope, someone screams. Another voice shouts for help before cutting off. Something crashes through the brush to the west, followed by two quick shots.

Onyx doesn’t stir.

Let’s find out if my pet comes when I call him. And what noise he makes when he does.

A wedding I didn’t choose, a man I’ve never met, and here I am spending the night against a pine tree losing sleep over a mud-caked liar who’s told me to fuck off twice.

I could blame the treaty, but nah. I’ve been a motherfucker since long before the treaty.

This one’s all me.

My slate buzzes against my wrist.

Ryven: caught three candidates around a campfire turns out they preferred the dark