Page 59 of Gilded Curses

They’d trained the guards to protect their Elite, but they definitely weren’t trained in stealth. He moved silently while they stomped on every stick, cursed each branch that hit them in the face, and generally sounded like a herd of elephants tromping through the woods.

Disdaining the woods, Desmond, Sheree, and the rest of the Elites remained behind to eat the picnic the servants had started to unpack while Orin and Zeth prepared to hunt. At first, Orin was surprised they weren’t coming to watch the show, but then, the hunt wasn’t the main attraction for them; the loss of a hand and the ensuing reaction were what they sought.

Orin was determined to ensure he didn’t lose, even with the elephants trailing him. As much as he’d grown to like the demon, he preferred his appendages intact.

He didn’t have to be in Zeth’s head to know the demon felt the same way. They’d do what they could to ensure the other survived this, but they were also here to win.

So, they hunted, all the while knowing the first to succeed would doom their ally to a life of five fewer fingers.

Orin searched the woods for a sign of where his prey had gone. In the beginning, the brunet plunged heedlessly into the forest, leaving a clear trail of broken branches and disturbed ground in his wake.

He’d slowed, probably because he was malnourished and dehydrated from imprisonment. He’d also become more careful about the trail he left.

Thankfully, Orin had grown up hunting with his father and brothers. Of course, they hadn’t turned immortals loose in the woods and tracked them down, but they’d killed some of the fiercest beasts in the Gloaming and throughout the realms.

Sometimes, they’d spend weeks camping together, laughing around fires, sharing drinks, tales, and dangerous exploits. They only took a break to clean themselves before hunting a more elusive and attractive prey… women.

After a night of debauchery, they’d return to the hunt. Those were some of the best nights of Orin’s life, and he remembered them fondly, especially now that his father and half of his brothers were dead.

Though he never could have imagined those nights would help him with something like this, they had prepared him for it. He was sure Zeth was probably skilled at hunting too, but Orin would be better.

Plus, both their targets had been locked away, probably beaten, and judging by the loose fit of their clothes and the sharp angles of their collarbones, not well fed. Either of them could be too exhausted to carry on at some point.

If Zeth’s target collapsed first, it would put Orin at a disadvantage and vice versa. Orin hoped the brunet collapsed before the blond, even if it would make killing the poor bastard more difficult than it already was.

He was on the prowl for a man who most likely didn’t deserve his fate and was too weak to put up much of a fight. He didn’t have much of a conscience, but this nagged at it.

Holding up a hand, Orin turned to glare at the guards when they continued stomping forward for a few more feet before finally stopping. They were useless fucks who had no clue what they were doing.

On his shoulder, Loth shifted as he studied the swaying shadows of the forest. Overhead, the leaves rustled in the rising breeze. It was one more sound he didn’t need on top of the guards.

When they finally all stopped moving, Orin bent to study the earth. Slight indentations marred the damp soil, and something had disturbed the leaves covering the ground. One of those imprints was a heel.

Not a complete idiot, his prey had shed his boots a mile ago. Running through the forest had to be difficult with bare feet, but now that his target wasn’t so heedless in his charge through the woods, he didn’t leave as many damaged branches in his wake, and his footprints were less obvious.

But they were still there. Orin tilted his head in the direction the prints went before rising to follow them.

Relentlessly, he tracked the prints through the woods as they moved in a diagonal path toward the right before cutting back to the left. The man was trying to lose him… and failing.

Orin preferred not knowing anything about his victim, but it was clear the man was intelligent and didn’t want to die. He shoved those bits of knowledge into the dark recesses of his mind.

He was good at compartmentalizing. It was how he lived with the guilt of being the reason the Lord killed his father.

And while he resented that they forced him into this, his prey might not be completely innocent. Orin doubted he’d done anything to deserve this fate, or at least not anything he would have deemed worthy of this, but he wasn’t the judge or jury.

He was simply the executioner.

Though birds flew from the trees and small animals scattered to hide from them, he didn’t see any of the bigger animals who had also left their prints amongst the dirt and leaves. But then, they could probably hear this contingent of guards from half a mile away and fled them.

His prey could hear them too.

After another few hundred feet, Orin stopped and held up his hand again. Again, the stupid twats kept going when they should have stopped.

Orin studied the trees and shifting breeze as he scented the air. He didn’t have the nose of a lycan, but, like all immortals, he had a strong sense of smell, and the body odor of his prey was growing stronger as he closed in on the man.

He was close enough to finally ditch these assholes and do what was necessary. He’d be back in time to stop them from sending someone back for Sahira and the others.

“I’ll be back,” he told them. “All of you dumbasses, wait here.”