“This bitch!” The duke threw the meat on the ground and hit the rock with full force as he stood up. His eyes had turned red with anger and hatred.
“Does she think she is high and mighty because she has caught a few dogs?” he was mocked with gritted teeth, others were sure that if we continued to use so much force, a few of them would surely come out of his mouth.
But they all were scared at the same time too. Everyone knew that the duke did not have the habit of backing down.
He was crazier for the position to the limit that he was going to accept the offer by giving his one son as the blood slave to Rafael and all the future generation of his.
He was a vicious woman and the blatant challenge of Hazel had hurt his ego.
“How many men are hiding here?” he asked with a tilt of his head towards the men who exchanged glances with fear.
“That.. it would be around six, my lord.” said the baron with fear in his voice. “But if the truth would come out..” he wanted to continue but one cold glance of the man was enough to gulp the rest of the words and keep his mouth shut.
“No one will find out. The only person who would see them would not stay alive to inform others that we are cheating!” he said with a cold and vicious laugh as if he could already see the cold and limp body of hazel lying on the ground.
He did not even think for once that the woman who had killed more than a dozen wolves alone and was dragging them now, would not easily accept defeat from a bunch of hunters.
Hunters! As the nobles have never taken part in physical work, they mostly have knights to protect them.
But these kinds of hunting grounds are full of vicious and bloodthirsty beasts, they were afraid that their life could be in danger.
So, they hire a bunch of local hunters that have wide knowledge of the woods.
They are the one hunting for these nobles in reality while they just enjoy the hunt by killing one or two small animals leisurely, while they make sure that their master would win or at least have a lot of hunting to show off.
But this time winning was necessary.
“My lord, I know that the woman is too brazen and does not know how to behave but we should not forget that the hunt is still running. We have to win to show that she did not deserve the position. That is our priority for now.” he said with a bit of force but Duke just raised a brow.
“But if she would die while hunting, she would lose all the chance of winning. Either it is the position of the emperor or the winner of the hunt.
And in her last moments, she would realize she had provoked the wrong person!” When he said that, he had already taken out his whistle and blew it with all his force.
The trees behind him stirred. The shrubs started to move and then a lot of men jumped in front of them out of nowhere.
They all have dark skin and dark eyes. They were hardly wearing any clothes but had leaves on their body and their half face painted black.
They looked like part of the woods and could not be seen easily. Their eyes were hollow as if they were not humans at all.
Just as they landed on the ground, it felt like the devils had fallen from the sky after being banished by the god.
They tilted their heads as they stared at the nobles. It looked like they were displeased with being called suddenly but they did not say a word.
They threw the next bunch of beasts they had caught on the ground and waited.
There were four wolves and another bison with one fox too.
The nobles stared at the beasts with wonder as they had just given them four bison a few hours ago.
If it continued this way, they were surely going to win from Hazel. But..
“I have called you before, I have a task for you.” said the duke without paying any attention to the hunt. “I want you to find a woman and kill her as part of the hunt.”
“…..” they all thought that it was just a moment of rage and he would come back to his senses soon, but it did not look like the case now.
“I want her to die miserably. Do not kill her instantly but cut her limps and tear her skin apart as if it was the work of a dangerous beast.“ He continued to tell how he wanted her to die with pain and regret her decision to provoke him.
The man tilted and contiend to listen to her till the end, but when he was done, the head of the hunters muttered in a cold voice, “killing humans was not part of the deal. We will only do the deal.”
“A part of the deal is already left. We are going to kill the beasts.” With that they all were about to leave when the duke smirked,
“I know but I can always make a new deal if I have enough money, right?” He had a smirk on his face as he took out a bag full of gold from his pocket and threw it on the ground and the bag fell on the ground near their feet.
The gold coin fell on the ground, “this is double the amount i have offered for the hunt but it is just the half, if you kill her the way i wanted to, i will pay you another bag that would be bigger than this one.”
The man stared at the gold and their eyes gleamed with the shine of it,
“Who was that woman, again??”