Tabitha palmed the hilt of her dagger, keeping her face downcast and under the safety of her hooded cloak—away from prying eyes—as she trailed her target through the crowded market square. She needn't keep her eyes on him as he weaved through the mass of people—she scented and traced him here from a mile off, and she could surely do it again if the need arose.
He was unaware of the shadow he picked up during his excursion into the town, that much was known for fact. If he had somehow become aware of her presence, he'd be running for his life by now.
She trailed him with a lethal quiet, not bothering with niceties and manners as she accidentally slammed into the civilians that surrounded them. She hit one drunken man particularly hard, and she knew immediately that he had fallen straight on his ass from the string of obscene curses he made to her retreating figure. On a normal day, she would have ripped his throat out with her teeth for the disrespect he dared to throw her way. But today was not normal.
She had been tracking her target for three months and had begun to give up hope when she scented him passing through the town. Picking up supplies, most likely, before he would retreat back to whatever cave he had been hiding in since he caught wind of Tabitha's hunt for his head. Retreat and not return again until he was sure that she had given up on her duty and returned to Demetria.
"Come into my tent," an old, womanly voice crooned as Tabitha made her way past. She felt a warm, arthritic hand come to rest on her forearm. Tabitha stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the hand that was now curled around her arm but not yet revealing her face to the woman. "I can predict your future for a price. A beautiful one, I can already tell. Come, and I will allow you the pleasure of knowing who you are to marry."
A witch, the woman claimed to be, with a gift for seeing into the future. One quick sniff of the air surrounding her confirmed what she had suspected—the old woman was nothing of the sort. A crazy old bat, maybe. But definitely not a witch.
Tabitha attempted to lightly yank her arm away, not trying to cause more of a disturbance further than she already had when she knocked the man to the ground. The last thing she needed was for her target to become spooked and attempt to flee when he was out of her sights.
To her dismay, the woman only tightened her grip on Tabitha's forearm. "Come. The price is such a small one for knowing such an important part of your future."
Tabitha's patience snapped at this. She raised her gaze slowly to meet to the woman's, allowing herself a slight smirk when she saw the reaction the woman had when taking in her features for the first time.
A shocked gasp fell from the woman's frail lips and she ripped her hand away from Tabitha's forearm as if she had been burned to the touch. The woman had long, wispy silver hair and dark brown eyes with deep wrinkles surrounding each socket. Curved around her temple was an intricate design—it looked quite believable to the naked eye but Tabitha knew the truth. Paint, perhaps.
The woman's countenance went from one of shock to utter terror in the blink of an eye. She took two small steps backwards, away from Tabitha's piercing gaze.
"Future teller, you say?" Tabitha mocked, unable to keep a smirk from upturning her lips when she saw the woman take another two steps back. The fear that rolled off the woman came in undulating waves—enough for Tabitha to get drunk off of, if she wanted. "Tell me, witch," the woman flinched at the emphasis Tabitha put on the word, "do you see yourself surviving this encounter?"
"F-forgive me," the woman stuttered, the fake design that graced her temple beginning to melt away with the sweat that started to perspire on her forehead. "I didn't—I couldn't—"
Tabitha could smell her target get further and further away from her as the time she spent with the fake witch went on. She didn't stay to hear what the woman finished stammering, she simply turned her head downward again and set off to continue her trail of the man. Tabitha began to reprimand herself mentally for the little stunt she'd just pulled. Word would get out soon that she was in town after she just revealed her face to that woman. Once her target caught wind of her arrival, any chance she had of getting him would disappear just as fast as he would. This meant only one thing: she had to capture him tonight.
She quickened her pace until she was only tens of feet behind him, and it was only then that she noticed that the crowd around them had thinned considerably. Another thirty feet of following behind him at a distance and she knew by the lack of commotion around them that they were the only two left on the road. Any chance of her blending into the background was gone.
She felt, rather than saw, his gaze fall over his shoulder and upon her cloaked figure behind him. She sniffed the air, looking for any hint in his pheromones that he knew who she was. A scent of confusion hit her senses and she knew that she'd been caught lurking by her target. She braved a glance up, hoping that he was no longer looking over his shoulder to see the face beneath her cloak.
But he was. Their eyes met and she watched his brow furrow first in confusion then in recognizance. There goes that hope, she thought as he turned away from her and sprinted into the opposite direction. Tabitha stood still and watched him race away from her, the gap growing larger between them as the seconds wore on. She'd really hoped to avoid a chase, but they were well past that point by then. She heaved a sigh, bending over and unsheathing the dagger she had strapped tightly to her thigh before taking off after him.
He veered off of the worn path and into the heavily wooded area, obviously hoping to lose her trail in the thick cover of the trees. He was fast for a mortal, she admitted, but nowhere near as fast as she was. Even with the thirty-second head start she allowed him while she readied herself for the chase, she was on his heels within seconds and listening to his ragged breathing as he inhaled in short bursts. Truthfully, she could have taken him down before he even reached the first line of trees, but where was the fun in that? Tabitha hadn't had a true chase in ages. She supposed that she could toy with him for a bit.
He dared another glance over his shoulder and she saw the fear in his eyes as he realized just how close in proximity she was to him. His breathing hitched when she neared even closer—close enough to reach out and grab him. He pumped his arms harder and increased his speed, deftly jumped over fallen branches in his path, sidestepping tree stumps that appeared before him. Really, if he hadn't been such a pain in the ass to her for the past three months, she would have been impressed by his skill. She had yet to meet a mortal with that much athletic prowess before.
When she realized she'd had enough of toying with her prey, she quickly gained speed on him and stopped abruptly in his path. Tabitha knew what his plan was before even he did. He was to stop himself until the very last moment, and she was prepared for when he braced both of his arms in front of him in an attempt to simply plow right through her.
Tabitha grabbed him by both of his shoulders and slammed the man into the ground. He landed with a resounding thud and she heard the air escape his lungs the second he hit the forest floor. She cocked her head and watched him writhe on the floor for a moment, gasping for air that seemed to not come easily. She placed a leg on either side of his large frame and stared down, waiting for him to catch his breath.
"Nice to finally make your acquaintance, Dacre Rossford," Tabitha mused over his now-slacken form. She watched his entire body go rigid under him when she addressed him by name. His pale green eyes narrowed into something that she could have sworn was hatred. "My name is Tabitha, but I bet you already knew that." She moved to unstraddle his frame, but she was surprised to feel an iron-tight grip wrap itself around her ankle.
She saw the glint of the dagger just before he made his swipe at her. She jumped out of his reach just before the curved blade cut a path across her kneecaps, but his grip on her ankle allowed him to get a shallow cut in at her shins before she ripped her leg free from his grasp. He swung again wildly with the blade, ensuring she kept her distance from him as he struggled to rise to his feet.
She could have easily disarmed him the second she saw the knife, but something stopped her from doing so. Whether it was the thrill of actually having one of her targets fight back for once or the utter shock of it, she wasn't sure.
He gained his footing and began to try to circle around Tabitha, the blade of the knife angled toward her and his eyes never moving from her face. His knees were slightly bent and his feet were angled in the perfect fighting position—Tabitha knew that if he were up against another mortal, he'd be sure to win. But she was no mortal.
"I've no time for your feeble games." Tabitha faked a yawn and stretched her arms wide. The gleam in his eyes told her his next move before he knew it himself.
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He jumped forward, seizing the opportunity of Tabitha's fake show of boredom to catch her unawares. With a fast and desperate swipe at her throat, he put all of his weight behind his blade, praying to whoever was listening that her small distraction was enough and his blade would strike home.
He felt the blood drain from his features as he watched her quick hand come up and wrap around the sharpened edge of the blade when it was no more than an inch from her throat. He didn't even attempt to pull it back toward him as he watched her deep red blood drip down the side of it and begin to coat itself on his fingers, almost transfixed by the savagery of it all. Of the cold and unfazed look she got on her face while the knife only cut deeper into her small fingers. Of the fact that she didn't even seem to register the pain as she stared him dead in the eyes, waiting for his next move.
He dropped the hilt of the dagger and staggered away from the monster in front of him. An ink-red insignia ran from her temple down to her chin, disappearing into the depths past the collar of her cloak. The sight was enough to make his skin crawl. The pattern of intricate swirls and designs from the gods was the only distinguishing feature between the witches and the mere mortals. More of a warning to the mortals than anything else, Dacre thought.
He watched in horror as she only tightened her grip on the blade, sending the blood dripping down it rushing even faster. Her light blue eyes narrowed at him when he finally found his voice.
"Money," he croaked, searching for any sign in her countenance that he would get somewhere with a bribe. He found no indication that he would make any progress as her chilling gaze turned to an amused one, her eyebrow quirked high. He had to try anyway. "I can get you lots of money if you just let me go." Any empty promise, they both knew it. He had no more money than a beggar on the streets. Her head tilted infinitesimally, like a predator assessing prey. His heart hammered in his chest when she took a small step closer to him, her grip on the blade of his father's dagger never loosening while the royal insignia carved into it stared at him mockingly. "Just please...." He'd resorted to begging, he noticed with no small amount of shame. "Don't kill me."
To his surprise and utter horror, the next thing the witch did was let out a laugh so light and airy that it was easily one of the more disconcerting things about her.
He'd heard stories of Tabitha for years since he was young. She was a born killer, wicked straight out of the womb. The King had placed a price on her head when she was only 11 years old for the number she did on some of his guards one night outside of a tavern. The entire kingdom went into a dizzying spiral looking for the young witch, wanting nothing more than to get their hands on her head so they could claim the reward he'd offered.
A few unfortunate men did get their hands on her, the stories go. They found her and were dead before they hit the ground.
He'd heard of her icy-blue eyes and the red pattern that danced its way across her temple and jaw. He'd also heard from a drunken bar keep some years ago that every time she killed, the swirls would grow more and more to mark her forever with what she had done, although he didn't know if that one was borne from fact or fiction.
But what he hadn't heard about was how eerily normal she looked, save for the mark from the gods on her face. Her laugh could have come from any girl and he wouldn't have thought twice about it. Her frame, although taller than the average girl, still looked like nothing to be feared.
This fact was enough to send a cold shiver down his spine as he waited for her to talk. She finally released her grip on the blade of his dagger, flipping it skillfully in her hand and tucking it in between the waistline of her pants. Whether she was unaware of the massive amounts of blood that she lost or she was simply uncaring, he didn't know.
"You think I came here to kill you?" Tabitha asked, her voice firm and unyielding. She held his gaze with no sign of any emotion in her eyes.
He found that the fear in his chest was quickly being replaced by a burning rage at the thought of dying at the hands of this monster. "You did just chase me throughout the forest with a knife. You have been tracking me for months. What in the bloody hell else would you want with me?" He didn't try to keep the venom from lacing his tone; he knew his eyes would convey his emotions even if his voice didn't.
She raised one eyebrow and cocked her head to the side, a habit of hers that he'd noticed she had just from being with her for a few minutes. It was almost infuriating how normal she seemed.
"You're of no use to me dead," she waved her hand dismissively, exposing to him the raw and deep cuts from his dagger that marred the inside of her fingers. "We will rest tonight then be on our way."
"To where?" Dacred dared to ask quietly. He had no plans of being taken alive if only to be used for her sadistic needs—whatever those witches do with those that they capture.
"To see King Rossford, of course." Dacre could have sworn his heart stopped beating when she flashed him a wicked smile, her straight teeth peeking out through her parted lips. "He has something I want and I now have something he wants."
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The joyless, howling laugh that Dacre let out next was almost enough to startle her. Of all things she expected to come from this encounter, him laughing was not one of them.
"You think my father would bargain anything for my safekeeping?" He managed to spit out between breathless fits of laughter. "He may ask you to slit my throat yourself."
Tabitha sat there is silence, waiting for him to straighten himself after he doubled over in his fits of laughter. Once he finally quieted and arose, only a few inches taller but still face to face, she let out another terrifying smile. Any sign of laughter on his face immediately disappeared. "I've no plans of bartering for your life—I know he wants you dead. You're a threat to his crown, to his lineage. The plan is that I will trade you for what I want and whatever he so chooses to do with you after that is of no importance to me."
He frowned slightly at her, his sun-kissed skin stretching in a way that made it obvious that he frowns quite often. He had a shadow that ran across his chin and upper lip that told her he hadn't seen a razor blade in some days. His medium-length dark blonde hair fell just short of his eyebrows. It's too bad he was not my captive, Tabitha thought. He was truthfully quite handsome.
"You would willingly trade my life for some stupid bargain with my father?"
It was Tabitha's turn to let out a joyless laugh, throwing her head back in the fits of giggles and basking in his confusion and anger for a few seconds. She finally righted herself, her lips upturned in a full smile, before allowing herself to explain. "Do you truly believe that a mortal man's life is of any importance to me? Especially one that tried to slice through my kneecaps five minutes ago, nonetheless." His frowned deepened even further as he took in her features. She wanted to rip his eyes out and shove them down his throat for as often as he looked at her Mark on her temple.
"What are you bargaining for, then? Money? Power? The hit to come off of your head?" Tabitha straightened her spine at his forward question. Her throat began to tighten when she let her mind wander to what was at stake here. Not now, she urged herself, clearing her throat and refocusing her gaze on his green eyes.
"If I were you," she retorted, never once letting her icy-cold glare leave his eyes, "I would worry more about how you are going to survive once we make it to the castle."