by Jessica Gunn
Hunter Circles Series
Complete Series Boxset
Jessica Gunn
Contents
Copyright
World Key
The Hunted
The Traitor
The Changed
The Hero
The Power
Also by Jessica Gunn
About the Author
Copyright © 2020 Jessica Gunn
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
The Hunted
Book One
Chapter 1
KRYSTIN
I ran through South Boston as the sounds and grunts of a demon fight split the chilly night air. I couldn’t tell from here how many demons or Hunters were involved, only that, given the location in Jaffrin’s text, it was probably my future demon-hunting team. I rounded the corner of an alleyway, using the team’s loud shouts and grunts to guide me. They were exactly where Jaffrin, Leader of the Fire Circle and my boss, said they’d be. And if they kept this up, they’d alert the entire neighborhood to the monsters that thrive in the night. Damn newbies.
Heat flooded the air around me as a crackling whispered millimeters from my ear. I froze. A deafening snap rippled through me to the bone. I backpedaled, narrowly missing the strike of lightning cracking in front of me, straight out of the alleyway and onto the main road.
“Son of a bitch,” I hissed.
Any closer and I’d be dead. Any other time of night and dozens of people might have been walking by, knowing nothing about what dangers lay literally around the corner. Demons—humans with tainted, dark magik that had twisted their bodies and minds—were real, and most people didn’t know. And no one here would have had any idea—not until the very moment lightning struck. Demons from Darkness’s Empire. All those normal people thought that the world they lived in was free of preternatural creatures. Boy, would they be surprised.
What had I agreed to? Damn you, Jaffrin. He’d held off on giving me the freedom of being on a team for years in favor of living under his and my mother’s control. And when he’d finally let me off the hook, he’d given me new Hunters?
I hurried around the corner on sure feet, pushing off the old, cobbled streets of South Boston and into a cornered-off alleyway. There, between townhomes and apartment buildings, I found three Fire Circle Hunters fighting one demon. Just the one.
Are you freaking kidding me?
If I’d had the time, I would have rolled my eyes. But my feet had already moved—for once, faster than my mouth. Three giant strides and one leap had me flying through the air, wrapping my arm around the demon’s neck. I piggybacked him, grabbing on to his jacket, and tugged backward with all the strength I had.
“Hey, there,” I said as we tumbled to the ground, a mess of flailing limbs, my vice grip on his neck. I wouldn’t let go. Not now, not ever. The demon looked like a normal guy: human, with light hair, fair skin, and jacked-up muscles. But the similarities ended there. His deep burgundy eyes and a shadowy aura gave him away.
I knew better. The stronger the aura, the stronger the demon. And this guy’s aura surged like a storm cloud right before a tornado—dark, tinged green, and swirling with dark lightning crackling around his body in tendrils.
Okay. So maybe one teensy demon did pose somewhat of a threat to these newbies. They probably didn’t even know what they’d walked in on—not everyone could see auras. Even still, they’d enabled me to find them and the fight from blocks away.
My gaze flitted up to the second and third floors of the surrounding brick townhomes and small apartment buildings. Not a single light shone behind curtains but that didn’t assure me even in the slightest that we hadn’t been discovered.
Still, it appeared we’d gotten lucky. Maybe.
That was when my gaze found the body lying against the nearby dumpster, half-slumped with a mouth full of blood that dripped down her chin. A recent kill. A mutilated one. My heart froze as I followed tears in the flesh of her naked torso up across her neck to her mouth where… Oh, god. Had her tongue been ripped out? It was like she’d been flayed open, starting with her mouth. The demons I knew didn’t tend to get quite so ritualistic about their killings.
“Hey, watch out!” one of the Hunters shouted.
I glanced their way, barely having time to register the comment before the demon seized my moment of distraction to try wrestling free from my hold. I slammed him into the pavement with the force of my telekinesis until his knees ground down to the bone. He screamed and dug his dirt-encrusted fingernails into my arm. I yanked down on his neck, hoping for a quick break, but the demon was stronger than me.
“I didn’t do it,” the demon said as he writhed. “Th-That wasn’t me!” Still, he flailed, fighting me regardless of whatever that confession meant.
Despite the leg I tried to get around his middle, the demon managed to throw me over his shoulder. My lower back and ass hit the pavement first, hard enough to knock the wind out of me. I blinked, trying to clear the dancing black spots on the edges of my vision, and groaned. Pain thrummed up my spine as my gaze met the demon’s.
“Shit,” another Hunter hissed. The sound of water rushing filtered across the space.
A small wave roared through the air from the Hunter’s hand and doused the demon’s head, turning into a helmet of drowning. The demon’s shoulders shook in what I assumed was panic, but he lifted his fingers and moved them in small circles, removing the water from around his head. And laughed.
Oh, fantastic. A strong demon with water-elemental magik to boot. It was almost like cheating that all demons had some sort of magik. But then I remembered the hell they went through to become demons in the first place, and a part of me, an extremely miniscule part, almost felt bad for them.
The demon grinned, toothy and evil, as saliva dripped from the corner of his dark mouth, and threw his head back in a cackle. “How many Hunters are needed to take down little old me?” His words sing-sung through the air on the wisps of a faintly European accent. It was as if soundtrack music was the only thing missing from this wannabe musical tragedy of a scene.
A thick rope made up of a glowing white substance whipped out and pulled around the demon’s neck and middle. A man stormed out of the darkness beyond the fight, a fistful of lightning in his hand, and he drove it into the demon. His skin sizzled and bubbled on contact, and the demon fell back, writhing—but not before grabbing a hidden knife and throwing it at the Hunter.
The man ducked out of the way, leaving me as the only target. I snatched the knife out of the air, flipped the blade, and drove it into the demon’s heart. The small portion of visible skin at the top of the demon’s shirt turned an ashen shade of grey and dried out before he fell to the ground. The three other Hunters backed up, giving me space for what came next.
I straightened, backing away from the demon’s body as I dug around my back pocket for my box of matches. Cedo. The magik in the cedo matches transmuted the residual magik from the demon and burned the body. It could also obviously be used on me, a witch and a Hunter, or any other being with magik. Darkness’s Empire just happened to enjoy… less savory methods of body disposal.
Aft
er striking the match against my jeans, I threw it onto the body and prayed for a quick burn. And that no eyes still watched us from any of the apartments on either side of the alleyway. Not like there was any other choice. Dragging a dead body out of here wouldn’t be any less conspicuous, and I wasn’t sure what we’d do about the victim of the demon’s attack.
Purple flames leapt up the demon’s body on contact, burning the body completely within thirty seconds. He’d been sweating, so the magik in his system poured from him in heaps. This demon had been strong, stronger than the normal breed around here, which meant I hadn’t exactly given a fair appraisal of my soon-to-be team.
I glanced them over. Each member of my new team was also around their mid-twenties. The woman looked a bit younger and had blonde hair, blue eyes, and the feel of powerful magik rippling off her. An elemental magik user. Her elemental magik crossed the distance between us and caressed my skin, seeking out its magikal other half to my ether-based powers. Two parts of the same original whole, they were. Eons ago. Before the Split, and before the Empire of Darkness had risen from it.
The tallest of the two men, another blond with the same facial features as the woman—maybe they were siblings—glared at me with such frostbite cold that my skin actually chilled over. Like something super-hot being chilled immediately, then crumbling.
No. Not hot. A lightning strike.
My gaze flitted down to the lightning gathering in his hand. “You might want to cool that before we give these residents even more of a show.”
The man’s jaw worked so hard, the grinding reached my ears.
“Who are you?” the third Hunter, another guy, asked. His long, black hair swept into his eyes with a gust of wind that passed down the alley. “How’d you take him down alone? And what’s up with that body?” He shuddered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Alone?” The first man spun fast on his teammate. “Are you serious? We were right here.” Who the hell does she think she is?
Whoa. I clamped down on my telepathy. It’d been quiet for years, but no one had ever been loud enough to break through my control like that. This guy was capital-P pissed.
Oops.
“Yeah,” said the woman. “And failing.” She mumbled something under her breath that sounded a whole lot like, “Again.”
They weren’t horrible at demon-fighting. Just very clearly new. Which, for their age, was a bit weird. Then again, everyone had started late compared to me. My mother had me training at age thirteen, eleven years ago. Eleven years of fighting demons and the size of the dent I’d made in their ranks was pathetic. But every autumn they added more. Every solstice. They didn’t call it the Empire of Darkness for giggles.
I turned to the body lying against the nearest dumpster. The body wouldn’t dispose of itself, and I had little idea what to do about it. So I threw a cedo match onto her body, too. Instead of burning up magik she didn’t have, the flames danced around and began to eat away at her flesh and remaining clothes.
Good enough. But then I paused for a moment, longer than I should have. Did she have a family? Would they miss her? Or was it better she stayed missing, so her family didn’t have to face the horrible manner of her death?
“You’re our fourth, aren’t you?” Guy Number Two said, interrupting my thoughts. “I’m Nate.” He stepped forward and extended a hand.
Huh. Awfully trusting. I could have been a demon wearing contacts to disguise my burgundy eyes. I might have stolen this Fire Circle knife I carried. I’d gone undercover enough as a demon to know how easy faking it was.
I shook his hand anyway, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Just this once. “I’m Krystin, and yes, I am. Jaffrin said I could find you around here. Sorry it took me a bit to arrive.”
“Not sure why you felt the need to dispose of the victim’s body.” The comment came from the lightning wielder.
“What was I supposed to do about it? Let the human police find her and find out about demons?”
The female Hunter stepped in front of him and introduced herself as Rachel. “Seems you got here just in time. Where are you from?”
“Outside the city,” I answered.
The third Hunter cleared his throat. Rachel rolled her eyes. “And that’s Ben, my cousin and our team leader.”
I nodded at Ben, who continued glaring. Okay. Come on. “You didn’t have that alone. He threw you all around like ragdolls.”
“Caught us off guard,” Ben gritted out.
Lifting my hands in surrender to his idiotic defensiveness, I said, “Okay, whatever. Jaffrin sent me to meet you. I met you and here we are. I only stepped in because I heard you three blocks over and thought you were dying.”
Wrong word choice. Ben’s face flushed bright red and I saw him physically swallow his anger as if it’d been a large glass marble slipping down his throat. The electricity zipping between his fingers brightened. Forget inexperienced, this dude was downright undisciplined. If his emotions had that much control over his powers, I wouldn’t want to see him at max.
I pointed to his hand. “Chill before you burn yourself. Or us.” To show I meant well—and prove to this guy he could at least tolerate if not trust me—I moved the knife in my left hand to the sheath on my back. There. Unarmed. “Can we talk?”
Nate shook his head. “Not here. We need to get out of here before people call the cops.”
“If they haven’t already, you mean,” said Rachel. She also sheathed her Fire Circle knife, the blade given to those who officially pass the testing to become Hunters. The redwood handle had been etched with the Fire Circle’s brand, a dancing golden flame that continued up onto the blade itself. I had the exact same knife. So did everyone on this team.
My team. My first one ever. Jaffrin and my mother hadn’t trusted me with the freedom—the chance to actually live—that a team would have given me until I was too old for it to matter. They’d much rather have watched me squirm in the face of their relentlessly close watch.
I stifled all the emotions that thought churned up and thumbed over my shoulder. “Is the house nearby?”
The Fire Circle provided housing for every one of their teams. Live together, train together, and hopefully not die together—that was the unofficial motto. Unfortunately, teams tended to do the latter.
“I need to talk to Jaffrin first,” Ben grunted. “I knew we were getting a fourth team member, but—”
“But what?” Rachel walked past her cousin and joined me near the mouth of the alley closer to the street. She crossed her arms, closing her unzipped jacket as cold October wind swept into the alley. “She’s a great fighter, which we need.”
“And a magik user,” I chimed in as I zipped up my own leather jacket. “Looks like you guys are too. Right?”
Rachel nodded. “Yeah.”
“Whatever,” Ben huffed, brushing past Rachel and me on his way to the road. “Let’s get out of here.” He disappeared around the corner before anyone moved.
I glanced at Rachel and Nate, then back to the street. “Is he always like this?”
Rachel rolled her eyes and went after her cousin. Nate chuckled. “Usually. Especially when people undermine him.”
“I didn’t do that.”
He held up his thumb and forefinger. “Just a little bit—by singlehandedly taking down a demon we couldn’t.”
Actually, if Ben hadn’t jumped in at the end, the situation would have gone south. Even still. “You were out of your league.” No sense in hiding the truth. “Did you see how fast he burnt up? Not saying you wouldn’t have eventually taken him down alone, but—”
Nate interrupted me with a wave of his hand. “I know, I know. And so does Ben. It’ll be fine; give him time to cool off. He’ll get over it.”
“Hope so. We’re a team now.” Hopefully, Ben wouldn’t go straight to Jaffrin and have me removed.
I needed this freedom more than any of them knew.
Chapter 2
BEN
> What the hell. Like—okay. I knew we were getting a fourth to fill out the team, that we might even be getting two more to make it the five-man “official” number. But her?
I worked a kink out of my neck as I walked, trying to work out my frustration. My therapist would call it “misdirected.” Yeah, misdirected because it should be Jaffrin I’m pissed at, not this Krystin woman. She had magik, more experience than my team combined, and possibly more ability to lead this team than me. Except Jaffrin would never reassign me, not now. Krystin had been assigned to my team and I was this team’s leader. I’d stay that way long enough to get Riley back.
My “armor”—as my therapist called it—cracked, shattered just by thinking his name.
No, not just by thinking his name, rather by the bombardment of guilt and shame and crippling fear for my son’s life that accompanied that name the way a roaring roll of thunder escorted blinding lightning.
The muscles in my legs, arms, and hands clenched tight, gripping and tugging until restlessness and the need for absolute control seized me. I needed to move, to exert this rage-filled energy before I lost it completely. My feet picked up against the road, faster and faster until I’d broken into a dead sprint in the direction of the team’s house.
I skidded to a stop on our front porch, a number of blocks over from the alley. My heart pounded in my chest, my lungs and chest expanding as much as possible to take in oxygen as if I hadn’t breathed the entire run here. I bent over, resting my arms against the railing, and prayed the neighbors didn’t ask any questions about me running late at night again. They shouldn’t care—most didn’t—but in a section of South Boston with townhomes and apartment buildings standing with a foot between them—if you were lucky—everybody knew everyone’s business.