Hunters Fever
PROLOGUE
Do you know that moment?
When the world seems to stand still and everything seems dull and harsh at the same time as you stare into the eyes of the one creature you'd pray you'd never meet in your lifetime?
I've been having a lot of those moments lately.
I've never seen one before, but my mother taught me as her grandmother taught her.
"Tess, Never stare directly at them. Let your gaze slide past, should they know you can see them...just please don't stare."
I thought she had been speaking about the Fae. They were gorgeous - velvety skin, hair that slipped like water over broad and slender shoulders and iridescent eyes that reflected every color of the rainbow and the ones in between. They were immortal and powerful. They radiated a power and grace that was otherworldly. A fantasy come to life - a young girls fantasy, as it were for me.
But I learned it wasn't the Fae she was warning me about directly, but the creature they would send should they know.
The Royal Hunter.
A tall, almost bipedal like dragon creature with claws and fangs and wings and a thick leathery hide. A creature so terrifying it plagued dreams and saturated the air with fear. Scared Sidhe-seer for generations. It's very presence was powerful to make even the bravest of men quake.
Staring into its eyes; an intense animalistic, yet intelligent gaze, I understood what the O'Callaghan scriptures spoke of.
There was no escape. The O'Callaghan books had been very clear on that, after all my father had rewritten them. I swallowed thickly.
I shouldn't have given into the urge to stare at one of them. Well, it wasn't exactly my fault it was waltzing around my classroom naked. A girl only had so much willpower when something so fine and masculine was on display.
Not how I wanted to start my career as a teacher in Beacon Hills...