The Hunt: Complete Edition

by Anne Marsh

  “Not a thief,” I repeat through gritted teeth. I have no proof of that, even if I have my suspicions and Miu’s own admissions to damn her. “Look around you,” I invite. My brothers scan the shelves of the small alcove, thick with canopic jars and the small ceramic figurines that the Valley dwellers love to bury alongside their dead. “She took nothing,” I continue. Hebon’s eyes narrow.

  “From here,” Hebon counters.

  “From anywhere I’ve been with her. Those jars are worth a fortune. One jewel from them and she’d be a wealthy woman.” If she makes it out of the Valley and if she can find a gem man foolish enough to take the stones off her hands.

  “So she’s selective.” Hebon shrugs like he doesn’t particularly care. “Or stupid. Someone set off a warding spell down below and you know as well as I do that it’s likely to be her. Who else is down here besides us?”

  More creatures than I care to consider, that’s for certain. The Amun Ra needs to assess the security risks of our Hunts. Too many outsiders have used the Hunt to sneak into the temple this time. Tersely, I sketch the list for my brothers. “Not the only one. You found the daemon”—crushed and therefore unlikely to be the thief below, but I have a point to make here—“and he was not alone. Who do you think caused that cave-in? Banshee,” I say grimly. “And she was traveling with a dark faerie as well.” I saw three intruders, but that doesn’t mean more don’t lurk unseen in the shadows. I didn’t check and now I curse myself for my carelessness.

  “Right.” Sanur backs toward the entrance. “We have a breach. Did they come from above—or below?”

  I consider what I’ve seen. None of the intruders is dark enough—or powerful enough—to have come from the underground realms. “Above. Definitely above.”

  “Any idea how they got in—or how they got this far?”

  I hold up the square of papyrus I removed from Miu’s person. “Someone is making maps.”

  Sanur swears. “Are they crazy?”

  Probably just shortsighted—and greedy. Still, it is a leak that needs to be plugged and I know that if Sanur and Badru don’t take care of it, Hebon will. The Cat’s face is sterner than I’ve ever seen it.

  The screeching grows louder.

  Unable to wait any longer, I shift, letting the change shimmer over me. In the beat of a heart, my cells reshape with a wrenching pleasure pain. I reform, having called the werespirit from its resting place in the hard stone statue of the Cat.

  The need to hunt, to feed, to fuck, pour through me, drowning logic. My werespirit has a very simple code—and very lethal talents. It protects. It runs. It hunts. Usually, the partnership between Guardian and Cat is a smooth one, a matter of deliberately blending the edges between my soul and the werespirit until there is just the one entity pulsing through the male body. But now my werespirit wants the female, despite the man’s reservations. The werespirit is ravenous with hunger for her. Has succumbed to the mating heat.

  Before the other Guardians can move, I complete the shift, driving several hundred pounds of panther force at the stone wall where my Miu vanished. The stone cracks and gives, allowing me to batter my way through the narrow opening until I hover on the brink of the chasm.

  Off balance.

  Rapidly, I shift back, closing the opening behind me with a few well-placed boulders. Curses and the sounds of rock shifting follow me. The makeshift barrier won’t hold my brothers for long.

  Pulling my blades, I dive down the air shaft, letting my body plunge hundreds of yards, banging against the stone walls as I plummet.

  The warding screams grow louder as the stone flashes before me.

  Now.

  At the last moment, I dig into the soft stone with my blades. With a wrenching sensation, my arms are almost ripped from their sockets, my entire weight hanging from the blades. I’ve fallen several yards below the opening to the burial chamber.

  Someone—Hebon—bellows angrily far above me. I’ll deal with the pride later. Right now, I need to collect my female.

  I’ve put my life on the line for her. Worse, I’ve put my honor on the line.

  And she is the thief.

  Hand over hand, I begin the upward climb.

  MIU

  The sword slices through the neck bones of the dead woman, scattering vertebrae like pearls. No time for prayers or apologies—the alarm no longer sounds, but I’m sure it has done its job. My fingers close over the amulet, wrapping the silver in soft cloth and stowing it securely in my bag. I finger the contents for the map. Damn and double-damn. No map after all. I’ve left it with the merck and I can hardly go back up there and ask him for it. Besides, he’s probably ready to throttle me by this point. I spare him half a thought—and I don’t want to know why the idea of him falling into the Guardians’ hands makes my stomach sink—and then dart for the door.

  A rasping cough from the opening to the airshaft stops me.

  “Going somewhere, femi?”

  Balanced on the edge of the air shaft, Jafar regards me with glowing golden eyes.

  Heqet’s shades, but the man has more lives than a cat.

  I fight back the unexpected tide of relief. He’s a weakness I can’t afford.

  “How did you get out?” Of course, reminding him that I left him behind may be a mistake. “I was coming back,” I improvise, hoping he doesn’t possess anything remotely like a truth spell.

  He takes in the desecrated coffin, the drunken treasure daemon, and the ivory confetti of the dead woman’s bones. Eventually, his gaze stops on the bag at my waist, where I slipped the necklace I just pocketed.

  “We need to have a little chat, love. Talk about this propensity you have for darting off in unexplained directions. I thought we were working together.”

  “Hurt?” I can only hope.

  “Confused,” he replies coldly. “Put off my stride. Not sure what my employer wants from me here. The idea was to keep you safe, see, and letting you run around and pocket other daemons’ treasures seems like a piss-poor way to go about it.”

  “Go away,” I mutter. Can I make it to the door before he’s on me? My mapmaker showed me the pattern of the floor tiles in front of the exit, told me which ones I must avoid at all costs. I don’t think the merck knows the secret to crossing the floor, but he might believe he can handle whatever the chamber throws at him. He’s large enough that a few knives might not stop him. I force the breath to leave my mouth evenly. Panicking won’t help, so I remind myself of my rules. Show no weakness.

  “Can’t do that, love,” he replies, jumping to the floor. Hands on hips, he strolls confidently over to the coffin and examines the mess I made of the dead woman. “No respect for the dead? I’m fairly certain she didn’t look like that when you arrived.”

  “Prove it.” After all, we both know he can’t.

  He just shakes his head, stirring his finger through the mess I’ve made. “If that death spirit is still hanging around, she’ll have a bone to pick with you about this.”

  He’s probably right, but that’s the least of my problems. I continue my slow, careful shuffle toward the main doorway.

  “Stop,” he orders.

  I hate orders. Always have and always will.

  So of course I don’t stop. Instead, I keep sliding deliberately toward the door. My eyes never move from the god-awful pink squares.

  “Not wise,” groans the daemon, stirring slightly. His limbs flop loosely as he holds his head up, eyes glittering greedily.

  Jafar fixes the daemon with a lethal stare. “Your job, daemon, is to guard treasure.”

  “True enough,” the daemon admits cheerfully. His pupils dilate as he grinds a pinch of the grass between his webbed fingers and snorts it rapidly up his nose. “Ahhh. Good stuff, that. Fresh.”

  “He can be bribed,” I explain, stalling for time. Twelve tiles between me and the door. Would I remember the pattern correctly? If not, the mapmaker told me, a hundred knives will mazhykally fly through the air, making short work of any
would-be thief. My foot hovers in midair between two tiles of a particularly garish pink hue and then comes down firmly. I hold my breath, but no deadly projectiles fill the air.

  “Bribed,” the daemon chortles. “Bought. Had for a song. Although,” he frowns with all the inebriated seriousness of a drunk, “not a song. Don’t care much for music.”

  Jafar gives up on making sense of the daemon’s burbling. “You left me,” he accuses.

  I pause. Ten tiles left. So much for hoping he’d overlook the minor inconvenience of his incarceration.

  “For your own good,” I say breezily. “Didn’t think you could fit through that little opening.” I narrow my eyes at him. “How did you get out?”

  “Expecting me to be stuck a while longer, were you?”

  I shrug. “You’re here now, aren’t you?”

  “But I’m not supposed to be.”

  “Going to hold it against me?” I leap lightly across two more tiles.

  “No more games,” he snaps, crossing the room with rapid, ground-eating strides.

  I frantically drop my gaze to the tiles, but he doesn’t make a single misstep.

  “In fact, game over. Check and”—his arm shoots out and shackles me to him with snakelike rapidity—“mate. It was a mistake,” he growls, “to come to the temple with theft on your mind. The temple is too well guarded, my femi. Thieves are not tolerated. Put it back,” he orders, clearly not bothered by my anti-order stance. “Whatever it is that you took, return it. Now.”

  I stare at him, too surprised to pull my arm away. “Are you insane? After everything we’ve gone through, you want me to walk away empty-handed? No. I’ll say it again, in case you weren’t listening the first time. No. I’ve gotten what I came for and I’ll keep it.”

  “It’s not worth it.”

  “How do you know?” I snap. “You’re just along for the ride. The bodyguard. Sorry if this is turning out to be more than you bargained for. Oh, I know.” I smack a palm against my forehead. It’s dramatic, I know, but I’m out of patience. “Why don’t you go your way and I’ll go mine? Consider this ill-advised partnership dissolved. When whoever employed you asks the reasons why, I’ll be happy to provide him with a list.”

  “Femi,” he begins, but the soft whuff of feet interrupts us.

  “He’s not one of yours, thief,” says the large warrior who moves to block the exit. “He’s one of ours.”

  Heart pounding, I scan their faces. The dark marks of the Guardians are all too clear from where I stand. As is the violent aggression directed toward me.

  Well, hell—I choke back the hysterical laughter that threatens to bubble up—that certainly explains Jafar’s insistence that I return the necklace.

  Feeling hurt is silly. Surely, I’m used to betrayal by now and, if not, Jafar has just provided another valuable example. Of course, he isn’t really on my side. It was foolish to believe he could be.

  “One of yours,” I agree.

  In their male forms, the Guardians are beautiful. They possess the same eerie sort of beauty that attracted me to Jafar. Tall and muscular, they have the identical golden skin and dark, flashing eyes. All hard planes and sculpted muscles, they move with the same uncanny grace as if they prowl across the stone floor rather than walking. The difference lies in their eyes. Theirs are the eyes of predators, cold, flat, and assessing. These are not Jafar’s eyes.

  They stare first at me and then at Jafar. My alleged theft is clearly not the only issue here.

  “Jafar, stop,” hisses the first. “This time, she truly has stolen from the temple.”

  The necklace burns in my bag. I’m caught redhanded.

  Jafar meets his brothers’ gaze and I can almost feel his body readying for battle.

  “Turn her over for justice,” urges another. “We will see to her punishment if you cannot. Or, yes, we can take her to the Amun Ra. Let him decide what should be done.”

  “The mating urge makes him weak,” says another. “He sees only the bells and where he could place them; he does not see his duty clearly.”

  Is the possessive look on Jafar’s face just lust? It doesn’t matter. He’s the enemy, one way or the other.

  “I do see my duty,” Jafar states calmly. “Quite clearly.”

  “Good,” says the first. “It has been years since we had so pretty a captive. I will enjoy punishing her.”

  Jafar shakes his head before I can tell the other male off, because no one punishes me. “No, Hebon.”

  “No?” The Guardian called Hebon advances, flicking his blade lightly. “You have other plans for her?”

  “We’ll take her to the Amun Ra,” Jafar says at last, eyeing that naked blade. Somehow, I don’t think he’s scared.

  He turns to me. “Femi.” For a moment, it seems as if he intends to say something else. Something meaningful. Of course, he doesn’t. Instead, shooting me a swift glance from beneath those impossibly dark lashes of his, he issues yet another order. “Come with me.” He reaches out a hand to me.

  Does he really think I’m simply going to give him my hand and let him pull me along, like a recalcitrant child, to the Amun Ra? Because that would be a resounding hell, no in my book.

  He waggles his fingers impatiently. I try to forget where those fingers have been. Where they had stroked and just how much I had enjoyed each touch.

  Instead, I make my position on the whole dragging-the-naughty-thief-off-for-judgment thing clear. “No.”

  He sighs. “I don’t have time for this.”

  Hebon glares at me. “He guards the Doorways between Qaf and this realm, female. Who do you think slips through while you distract him?”

  None of this makes any sense. Furthermore, I don’t care. This is about me—not some Qaf.

  “You need to trust me, femi.”

  I’d sooner trust an Ifrit. When I tell him so, the males lounging by the door laugh. “Take her to see an Ifrit, mate.” The speaker smiles cruelly. “Maybe she’ll sing a different song then. Good-looking males,” he explains casually, “get lots of females following them. Problem is, they’re a wee bit too brutal in their takings. And their leavings”—he shrugs—“well, personally I’m convinced that there’s more than a bit of truth to the rumors about their cannibalism.”

  I’m going to say something else—just as soon as I can think of a rebuttal to that gruesome mental image—but Jafar shoots me a dark look.

  “Now,” he says quietly, “would be a very good time to be silent. Shut up, love, and let me see what I can do here.”

  Another order. He just doesn’t learn.

  “No.” He’s a Cat. There’s no possible way I can trust him, so I draw my blades. It’s time to implement my backup plan.

  “If you insist.” With a sigh, Jafar steps forward.

  “Draw,” I say, but he shakes his head.

  “Don’t need to.”

  That’s his choice, his belief. He’ll have a longer, more powerful reach than I do, so my strikes need to count. His head and neck will be most vulnerable, so I should aim high.

  He shifts so quickly, I don’t even have time to scream. With a fierce roar, several hundred pounds of feline launch across the room at me, driving me to the floor. Hard. Black spots swim before my eyes as my head bounces against the tiles. The crushing weight on my ribs forces me down. Nothing broken, not yet, but I fight to drag a half breath into my burning lungs. Overwhelmed. Dwarfed. Familiar golden eyes glare down into mine. Then he shifts again, the fur receding and the teeth retracting. He jams a hand beneath my chin, resting with deadly menace against my windpipe. His fingers find the nerve endings on the sides of my throat and press. Pain lashes through me, followed by a dull lassitude that freezes my body. Dimly, I hear the soft chink of a blade falling onto the tiles.

  Someone dropped a weapon.

  Is that my arm flopping like a dying fish on the ground?

  Closing my eyes, I let the darkness take me away.

  JAFAR

  Bleached bone
s of thieves’ skeletons lined the corridor to the chamber as a reminder. Show no mercy. Spare none. Some thieves died quickly, their throats slashed so their blood pumped out onto the thirsty limestone floors. Others died more slowly, displayed in locked cages to terrify their companions. Either way, their pale, fleshless remains form a ghoulish display. I don’t need the reminder to know I will have just the one chance to make my case to the Amun Ra.

  And even then, I will not be making a case to the Amun Ra for mercy.

  Miu may consider death a more palatable choice than what I can offer. But I won’t be taking no for an answer.

  I’ve never wanted a mate. I don’t want that responsibility.

  And yet I also don’t want to see Miu die.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have led such a monkish existence after Oni’s death, but hell, it’s not as if I deserved pleasure after what happened. Not when Hebon was forced into a solitary existence.

  I’d been unprepared for the bright sizzle of attraction that flared between me and Miu. Unfortunately, I suspect that it will only get worse.

  Until I have her.

  So I’ll take her, and I’ll save her at the same time. She’ll get her second chance and I’ll get her. Punishment and pleasure, all bound together.

  First, however, I need to convince the Amun Ra to release her into my custody.

  The Amun Ra sprawls on the large divan when I enter the chamber. I sweep the shadowed corners of the room with my eyes, but none of my fellow Guardians are present.

  Acknowledging the Amun Ra with a terse “My lord,” I approach the male. My alpha. He’s giving me a chance. No Guardians means the Amun Ra has left us both negotiating room. Space to talk.

  “Heard you wanted to discuss something.” Lifting his female companion gently from his lap, Amun Ra sets her on her feet. “Run along now,” he says quietly, not taking his eyes from me.

  The female pouts, but runs from the room, the slap of her bare feet mingling with the musical chime of the bells that dangle from her ears. Not a mate, but my lord has marked her. Cats are territorial, although willing to share with their pride members. Memories threaten to drown me and I fight them off. I brought another female here once, her cool hand clasped in my larger, warmer one. I thought then that the coolness was due to nerves; I hadn’t realized… No. I am not revisiting those memories. Not now.