Judith (Queen's Birds of Prey Book 3)

by Kathi S. Barton

  ~*~

  Hanna was light-headed, and she was ill. The stitches they’d put into her leg had long since come loose. She knew too that she was bleeding badly. The furnace tape that Harland had put on her was too tight, and Hanna thought she might not make it if she had to go up another flight of stairs.

  She’d been able to get free of the hospital by going down a lot of stairwells. Twice she’d had to have a seat and wait a minute or two, but Harland had been right there with her with each step. Having to kill him had broken her heart, but she didn’t have time to mess with him right now.

  He had wanted a grilled cheese sandwich because it was Thursday, and that was the day she made them for him. It had been her fault her brothers had to have certain things made for them through the week. Having a schedule like that was the only way at times she knew what day it was. Things had been running together for some time now.

  What she’d not realized, and more than likely should have, was that they would have the worst kind of fit if they didn’t get what she normally would have made for them. What the hell was she supposed to do, shit him out a grilled cheese sandwich with chips? Morons. Both of them were.

  Hanna had no idea where George might have been right at this time. He was in the hospital when she was taken in, but there hadn’t been time to ask where she might find him. Not that it mattered. Hanna would have had to kill him too if he started in on not having anything to clean up with. She hoped wherever he had ended up, they had stock in hand cleaners. He was going to make them go broke with having to buy it all the time.

  “Moron.”

  The stairs loomed over her. Hanna made her way to what she thought would be the kitchen instead of tackling them for the moment. There wasn’t a fucking person in this place. She was sure she’d shot one of them through the window, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around dead. That was all she was living for right now, to kill off that damned woman and her husband. As an added bonus, if she found the kids, she’d pop them a good one too.

  Getting weaker by the moment, she sat down at the dining room table. It was a beautiful piece. The dozen chairs that lined the sides was something she would have picked out for her own home had she had one. Laying her head down on the table, she cried a little. Hanna knew she wasn’t going to make it. She’d have to die without killing any of the people who had made her have to go to jail.

  “I suppose I should be thrilled that you’ve come here to kill me. It will save me time in having to hunt your ass down. What the fuck did you think was going to happen when you got here? That we’d welcome you with open arms?” The woman sat down across from her. The rifle Hanna had gotten from another house was just gone. “You’re not getting this back, no matter how sweetly you ask me. Which, I’m quite sure you weren’t going to do.”

  “What the hell makes you so special?” The woman, she thought her name was Jude or something like that, asked her what she meant. “This place. This is a fucking castle. Not to mention the Fort Knox amount of money you must have spent in decorating it. Why you? Why not me?”

  “Okay, let me clear some things up for you. The furniture? It was made long before you were ever even thought of. I’d say about the turn of the century. Maybe before, I don’t remember. The castle, it’s been here longer than I have. And I’m very ancient.” Hanna asked her if she thought thirty something was old. “No. But I’m much older than that. Like centuries older. Millennium older than you.”

  “There isn’t any way you’ve been around that long.” Jude told her it didn’t matter anyway. “It does, damn it. You know I’m going to fucking die here. Why would you lie to me?”

  “Yes, sorry. I’m not lying. Just like I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that a queen with a great deal of magic turned myself and five other birds of prey into larger than life birds she used to fight for and win the safety of her castle inhabitants.” Hanna didn’t believe her. “Which part? The birds or the age part.”

  “Both.” Nodding once, Hanna screamed when Jude simply disappeared, and a large eagle was standing on the table between her and the chair. “I don’t believe you.”

  The bird came to her and pecked her on the hand hard enough to break the skin and make it bleed. As soon as the eagle went back to the chair and shifted, Jude took her hand into hers and licked the wound closed. Hanna just stared at her.

  “As you can see, I can and will be a bird when I need to. As for your hand, I healed it because you’re right, you’re going to die here. I didn’t want you to go all dark on me and not get the answers you seem to need.” Five women came into the room with them. “These are the sisters of my heart. They’re birds too.”

  Poof. That was what it looked like when the other five shifted into birds as well. Hanna couldn’t take her eyes off the phoenix. She’d always thought it was a mythical bird of prey, nothing she could have counted on ever seeing in her lifetime. When they changed back, they took a seat too so that Hanna felt boxed in by them.

  “The police aren’t on their way to get you. They’d never make it in time anyway. I figured you’d have some questions, and we’d answer them for you.” Hanna asked her why they were being nice to her. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. We’re not being at all nice to you. It is well within our power to make it so you don’t die in my home. But we’re not going to do that. We all want you out of our lives and in the dirt. This way, I won’t have to explain why you were found on the property here come spring. Also, if I had wanted you dead now, you would have been before you came into the house. I’m still pissed off at you for shooting up the front of my home. And my daughter.”

  “You really did claim those brats?” Jude told her they were calling her mom too. “You’re appalling. Why would you want those pieces of shit in your family?”

  “Watch it, old woman. I’m not as happy with you being in this house, either.” She stared at the other woman. “I’m the falcon. Mercy. Which I’ve been told I don’t have enough of. You fucking talk about my niece like that again, and even the spring thaw won’t show your body.”

  Hanna knew she was getting too weak to argue with any of them. Laying her head back on the table, she knew she’d never get it back up again. Time and her blood were running out much too quickly.

  Duncan came into the room with them. However, he didn’t sit. He did ask them if they wanted anything to eat or drink. Food and drinks appeared on the table before he kissed Jude on the mouth and left. Hanna didn’t bother trying to touch any of it. The thought of moving her hand to reach for something was too taxing.

  “You don’t have long now, Hanna. I’m not sure what else we can tell you that you’d take to the grave with you, but you’re running out of time.” Hanna closed her eyes. “If that’s all, I’m calling the cops to come and get you.”

  “Why don’t you bury me out back?” She thought one of them said it would spoil the earth to have her in it. “What a terrible thing to say to a dying woman. My brother, Harland, is dead. He was annoying me, so I shot him. He’s in the barn out by the road. I don’t remember which barn or what road. But if you sniff him out, you’ll find him. George is around, I guess.”

  “He’s in a nursing home that deals with his type of illness.” Hanna wanted to ask her what the hell she thought was wrong with him other than being stupid. But she must have understood. “He’s mentally challenged. Obsessive compulsion disorder too. Did you know he’s terrified of you? Or did you encourage him to be afraid of you?”

  Unable to answer, she did smile. Or she thought she did. There wasn’t anything left in her to open her eyes. While she could hear what was going on, there wasn’t any way for her to work up the strength to answer. Hanna supposed she should have stayed in the hospital at least a couple more days. She’d have been able to do something if she had.

  When she could no longer feel her legs or anything below her neck, Hanna figured she was only going to have a few seconds le
ft to make any kind of statement. The strength it took for her to open her eye was almost too much. She looked at Jude.

  “I don’t…regret.” Jude told her she didn’t think she would. “I did…family. For us. I don’t regret.”

  “No. Not that it matters now, but you’ll pay for your deeds. I think you have a place all reserved for you in hell.” Hanna thought about her being a good Christian. “I don’t believe you were, Hanna. You’re nothing but a nasty woman that told herself what she was doing was all in the name of family. No. You enjoyed it entirely too much for anyone to believe you now.”

  Hanna didn’t know why she believed Jude and what she was saying, but if it were true, she thought she might well have felt differently about it while she was doing it. Surely she had some points in her favor about her chosen way of doing things.

  She had a thought. If this were a movie and someone was dying like she was, Hanna would have fast forwarded it to the end. It was boring to watch. However, she did like that she wasn’t alone right now. For some reason, it gave her a little comfort knowing she wasn’t lying here dying all by herself.

  “Hanna, just let go. You’ve done enough. Just let go.”

  But she didn’t want to. Didn’t want to die all of a sudden. But the little bit of anxiety she had thinking of not wanting to do just as Jude had told her took her over the edge.

  Chapter 9

  Jude had so much to do today, she didn’t want to get out of bed. It had been a long day yesterday, and she was ready to just throw in the towel and be lazy for about a month. Rolling to her side, she saw Duncan reading something on his phone. Taking it away from him and tossing it to the floor, she got up over his lap. His very naked lap. Jude could feel his cock stretching beneath her.

  “This is a nice way to start out the day.” She grinned at him. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, or for that matter even care about it, but I’ve been thinking about flying you to the top of the mountains and taking you hard there.”

  “You can do me both here and there, can’t you?” Duncan said he would die trying. “Thank you, but dying isn’t going to be all right with me. But I think I needed this more than I needed anything today.”

  “You keep riding me like this, and I’m going to be finished well before you will.” Before she could make a comment about his lack of trying to bring her with him, he rolled her to her back and slid deep inside of her at the same time. “This is more like it. I love watching your face when you enjoy yourself.”

  “I enjoy myself whenever I’m near you.” It was the truth. She only had to see him, and she felt better about everything. “Make me come, Duncan. I need to feel something today.”

  “Gladly.”

  He touched her everywhere as he kissed her throat and neck, and nibbled on her ear lobes. His fingers burned paths from her neck to her breast, then her hard nipples. The heat he was generating along her skin was making her shiver in anticipation. Never had a man made her feel this good about sex, nor about herself.

  They didn’t need words when making love. It was like their bodies spoke to each other—they told where to touch, where it needed to be pinched a little. Jude loved this man; his heart and soul were of the same cloth. A wonderful person that gave much more than he ever got. From anyone.

  “You’re thinking too hard.” She nodded, her mouth sealed up with trying her best to hold back on the screams she wanted to release, the climaxes that seemed to be right there on the edge of some kind of pinnacle. “Let it go, Judith, my love. Let me be a witness to you coming apart just for me.”

  She could no more have held back if she’d been falling over the cliff. Her body didn’t just come apart, but seemed to pause, just for a few seconds, so that she was positive she’d never be the same again.

  Coming back into herself, Jude felt every nerve ending come alive. She felt as if she’d been set in warm water and then a live wire set in it with her. Screaming didn’t just spill from her mouth and throat—she could feel the sound of it coming from her toes. Beyond them, if there had been such a place.

  “Again.” It seemed to be his word for her. Every time he said it, even to start to say the word, her body would bow up nearly in half, and she’d be coming again. “That’s it, love. Show me all you have.”

  She had nothing left, she thought each time she released. There wasn’t a drop of energy in her at all. But when he told her to come, she did so with such vigor, such all-out everything she had, Jude knew she was going to hurt in the morning. If she lived that long.

  When Duncan started to take her harder, his body pounding hers like he was going to push her along with him, Jude held onto him. Not just with her hands dug deep into his shoulders, but by wrapping her legs around him to make sure she knew where to return when he let her off at the end of his ride.

  When he did come, his body pouring into hers, Jude watched his face. It looked as if he were carved from stone, his face was so set. When his fingers dug into her meaty flesh at her ass, she knew she was going to be bruised, sorer than she’d ever been before. However, it was his look of love that made her feel as if she were everything to him. His world, his light. Jude came, screaming again when he told her to. Then there wasn’t anything.

  When she woke, the room was dark. She’d slept all day? Getting up, heading to the bathroom to get cleaned up, her watch told her what her body was already saying. It was nearly midnight. She’d slept the clock around today.

  I wondered if you were going to rise anytime soon. Jude told Duncan he should have woke her. I tried, believe me. I really tried. But you were out like a stone had hit you, and there wasn’t any movement at all from you.

  I’ve never slept the entire day away. I must have really needed it. He told her it had been three days. I slept for three days? Not possible.

  Not only is it possible, but I think you were right. You must have needed it. I would check on you when I was home several times a day. But you weren’t even dreaming that I could find. I swear, a couple of times, I’m sure Abe and Tracy thought I’d killed you. It got to the point where they were checking on you as well. She told him that was sweet. Yes, it also kept me from having to explain to the police why you were out like you were. I think Tracy might already know. She’s been winking at me since she checked on you a couple of times.

  Oh my. Duncan only said yes. Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about whether or not she knows about sex. Let me take a shower, and I’ll be down. Is there anything I need to know while I’m getting three days of sleep off me?

  One thing, and it’s important. The president of the Bank of America will be here in the morning. I was going to have to let one of the other birds take the meeting with him, so I’m glad you finally got up. She said she didn’t want to miss it. Good. He’s been genuinely nice just so you know. Asking about the family. New Town. I think he’s going to try and butter you up to take their bank back. Are you?

  No. I mean, we’ve already figured out we don’t need to have a bank here. Paying their fees is how they make payments for their board members. Without the bank there to turn anyone down on things, we’ve had a surplus of remodels going on in houses. Two new builds, as well as three new businesses going in because we approved them rather than the bank turning them down. The only reason they had for not giving these loans was, they were thinking anyone that works for themselves isn’t going to be diligent at paying them back when the time comes. The other banker didn’t seem to take into account how long these people and their descendants have lived, worked, and died here. Duncan said he’d been turned down for a loan as well. What were you needing money for? If you don’t mind me asking.

  I was trying to stimulate things around here. You know, borrow money so the bank could have more to use for my fellow neighbors. I didn’t need anything. I was just trying to get things going. But, as you said, I don’t have a job where they can actually see m
e going to work every day, and I was turned down. As she was drying her hair, she had a sudden odd feeling. Like her body was being revved up. I can feel that. I think I know what it is too. Your body will be like that forever. I feel like that every day. I don’t sleep either.

  Would she enjoy that? Never having to sleep again? It would certainly help her get more things done during the day. And some of the things she didn’t need to work on, but would just enjoy doing. Like painting again. It had been her way to relieve stress since she’d been turned.

  Going down to the kitchen, she was glad to see it was just Duncan in the big room with her. There was a tray of sandwiches on the table, as well as several kinds of fruit in two smaller bowls. She picked up a piece of cantaloupe and ate it while he poured the two of them something to drink.

  “You’re going to need to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables now if this is what that power surge coming from you was. Also, you’re not going to like this, but you can’t just squeeze more into your day. You have to temper this being awake all the time with just as much rest as you were getting before. Otherwise, you’ll burn yourself out.” She told him she’d not seen him resting. “Ah, but I do. When you’re asleep, I take my downtime. I learned the hard way about burning myself out. I was going so much I never knew if I was coming or going. My days blended together, and I went a little nuts. Not a little nuts, but big time. I wasn’t finishing projects. I began to see things that weren’t there. Several times I thought I was being stalked when it was only my mind playing tricks on me because it was exhausted from trying to keep up with me. You’ll figure it out, or it will incapacitate you for a long time. But you’ll only do that the one time. It’s that hard on you.”

  She remembered then when they’d all been working on getting the village moved to New Town. Dante had been going and going until she simply collapsed one day. After that day, she was weak and out of sorts. It never occurred to her until now that Dante hadn’t been resting, but working throughout the night when the rest of them did take some downtime. Jude asked Duncan if he knew if his mother had slept.