Now that he’d found her, the Medusa would die by his hand.
Andi couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. She’d worked into the night after the vacuum salesman’s appearance, until she couldn’t see straight to continue with her beading. Then she’d sunk into the bubble bath long enough to be nearly asleep. Today, she’d repeated everything but the bubble bath. Plus she’d driven into town to ship the big order she’d finished early.
Now she sat in the dark beside the front window, watching the forest. Waiting. Trying to convince herself nothing was coming. No one.
When the phone rang, she jumped about two feet in the air, barely keeping in a shriek. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, forcing herself to laugh weakly as she picked up the receiver. “Hello, Aunt Lydia.” She didn’t need caller I.D. to know when one of her cousins or aunts was on the phone.
“I didn’t mean to startle you, my dear,” came the quavering voice. “I just wanted to touch base with you. It’s been ages since I’ve seen you.”
Her slightly psychic great-aunt must have spoken to Andi’s mother. “I know. I’ve been busy working.” She thought of the small stack of boxed beaded bracelets sitting on her desk upstairs for another customer whose order wasn’t even due for a month and a half.
“You’re aware you could do that here, too, right?”
Andi smiled in the darkness. “I know. I’m not feeling much like company right now.”
“You don’t have to visit your parents, you know.”
Her laugh escaped before she could stop it. “That isn’t very nice of you, Aunt Lydia.”
“Maybe I’m getting selfish in my old age.” Her great-aunt chuckled. “But I’d like to see you.”
“Maybe in a few months.”
The older woman sighed. “All right. But I wanted you to know I was thinking of you. I love you.”
Andi felt her eyes sting a little. “I love you too.”
“Your mother knows she wasn’t there for you eight years ago, Andrea. Perhaps it’s time to let her be there for you now.”
Andi’s eyes dried. “I need to go, Aunt Lydia.”
“Of course, dear. I hope you’ll come soon.”
She looked back at the window and murmured, “Maybe. I’ve got to go, Aunt Lydia.”
Something had moved outside.
Something too tall to be one of the does that frequented the clearing each evening, though not tall enough for the bull moose who came occasionally. Just the right size for a sneaky Harvester posing as a vacuum salesman.
She thumbed off the phone and sat up straighter, her other hand coming to rest on the dagger across her knees. For a long moment, she didn’t see anything. Then a dark shape slid between the trees, a few yards nearer to the house.
Her heart hammered against her ribs and she curled her fingers around the dagger hilt. That was no animal. At least not of the wild variety. No, this was a two-legged animal, and she had the terrible feeling this one really was a Harvester, no matter what her mother had said yesterday.
Let him try, she thought, setting the phone back on its base. He’d find this Medusa wasn’t going down quietly. She only wished she were PMSing so she could take him out without too much effort. Or mess. If only he’d waited just a few more days to make his move…
She stifled a hysterical giggle at that last thought, glad she’d listened to her instincts this evening.
The shape disappeared again in the dark trees, and she held her breath. Then he reappeared for a few seconds, much closer to the house this time. Her pulse pounded in her ears. He was determined. And now out of her line of vision.
A loud, sharp beep indicated her alarm system had shut down, and was accompanied by the sound of every appliance in the house also turning off. He’d killed her power at the junction box outside.
Bastard.
Andi got to her feet, then tried to decide which door he’d come in. She heard the soft sound of a footfall on the back porch. She crossed into the kitchen, not needing to feel her way around the furniture, and positioned herself beside the refrigerator. He wouldn’t make it far into the house, and then he was hers.
Kallan wiped his sweaty hand down his jeans, hoping the shriek of the Medusa’s alarm shutting off hadn’t wakened her. He didn’t want her prepared for an attack. He’d prefer to kill her quickly and get the hell out. He could be back in Baltimore by supper tomorrow with the amulet in hand for Uncle Ari to destroy, ending the protective spell for the rest of the Medusa’s descendants.
He touched the doorknob, felt the locks disengage beneath his hand, then turned the handle and swung the door wide.
Silence greeted him, and he took that as a good sign. No creaking came from upstairs, as there would be if she’d wakened. Good. Nevertheless, he stepped inside cautiously, listening hard. He took another step after a few heartbeats, trying to remember just where the kitchen table and chairs stood from his limited view the day before.
He made it past the furniture and paused to listen again. Still nothing. He frowned. With the power off, the house was too quiet. Surely the sudden and complete silence would wake her, even if she hadn’t heard the brief noise of the alarm shutting down. He slid one foot forward on the smooth wooden floor, and suddenly she was there. Fiery pain shot up his left arm. He grunted, realized she’d stabbed him deeply. He swung his other hand up, managing to hit her on the side of the head.
She cried out but didn’t go down, swinging her blade again. He caught her wrist, but she managed to get another slice to his already-injured forearm before he yanked her arm behind her.
Her booted foot connected with his knee—hard—and he bit back a string of curses at the pain, but didn’t let her go. Why wasn’t she barefoot? If she’d been sleeping, she should be barefoot. His left arm was nearly useless, blood pumping steadily from his wounds, so he crowded her up against the nearest surface. The refrigerator. He shoved hard, hearing her moan when he twisted her arm a little more.
Her blade hit the floor between them. She kicked backward again, and her foot hit his knee from the other side this time.
“Dammit,” he muttered, flattening her between his body and the appliance’s cool metal surface. His arm burned, warm blood dripping from his fingers.
“Get off me, you murdering bastard,” she said, her words slurred slightly from her face being mashed into the refrigerator.
“Well now, that’s not very nice. Especially since I’ve never murdered anyone. Yet,” he added darkly, tightening his grip on her wrist. The bones in her arm were fragile and he was fully aware he could crush them, render her arm as useless as she had his. But he didn’t. He wasn’t Stavros.
“You’re not going to start with me, either, Harvester.”
Mouthy. He grinned at the back of her head. Even trapped and defenseless as she was now, she didn’t stop fighting, even verbally. He had to work to keep from laughing as she continued to threaten him. No one had warned him the Medusa would be talkative. Or soft, he realized when her bottom shifted back into his groin. He concentrated on breathing evenly when his nerve endings all came to life. He’d never imagined he might be aroused by the Medusa.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked suddenly.
Kallan realized he wasn’t moving—or most of him wasn’t. He shut his eyes for a second, clenching his jaw. Her ass now cushioned his throbbing erection.
“Hey!” She shrank closer to the fridge, making a soft sound when the move forced her arm higher behind her.
He shifted, easing her wrist a little lower. This wasn’t going at all as he’d imagined it. “Stop moving.” He forced himself to unclench his jaw.
“If you think I’m going to make it easy for you to kill me, Harvester, you have another thing coming.” She didn’t stop wriggling.
Growling, he flattened her completely between his body and the refrigerator again.
She froze, and he could feel her pulse beating crazily in the wrist he still held. Fear? He imagined that was one cause. Anger too, pr
obably.
He doubted she was having the same unexpected reaction to him that he was to her.
Not that it was a bad thing that she wasn’t suddenly aroused, too.
He just needed to stop thinking about it.
Concentrate on the task at hand.
Kill the Medusa.
Feel how soft her ass was against him. If he shifted his hips just a little—
No. He growled again, and she shifted, just as he’d imagined so her softness cradled him even more.
“Get off, Harvester,” she whispered.
“Stop calling me that.” He hated hearing it from her lips for some reason. Yes, it was what his name meant. It was what he was destined to do. But the contempt in her tone… He didn’t like it at all.
As though the Medusa had room to be contemptuous of him.
“It’s your name.” Her voice was stronger now, as if she’d somehow sensed his unexpected inner struggle. “Why shouldn’t I use it?”
“You won’t be alive long enough to worry about it.” He ignored her behind against his groin for the moment and took a slow breath, trying to remember his plan.
Get in, find her, kill her, get the amulet, and get out.
Well, his plan was not going very well at all.
He didn’t want to be the first Harvester in so many generations to finally find the Medusa and then fail at his job.
“Really?” She didn’t sound as worried as she should. “I’d have thought a big, strong man like you would have already done the job.”
So would he.
But something in him resisted destroying her.
“Where is the amulet?”
“The what?”
Kallan frowned in the dark. “Don’t play stupid. It’s hardly befitting one of your stature.”
“I don’t know what amulet you’re looking for.”
She didn’t sound as if she was lying. But how would he know? He didn’t know her, and ten minutes on her front porch yesterday afternoon hardly qualified him to make such judgments. He hesitated. If he killed her now, he’d have to spend time tearing up her house to find the goblet, and who knew where she could have hidden it? Or if she’d secured it somewhere else?
“Seriously, Harvester.” Her tone was even more confident now. “No amulet here.”
“You lie. I know the current Medusa always has possession of the amulet.” He tightened his grip on her wrist, but didn’t wrench it higher.
She sighed. “I’m not lying. I think I’d know if someone had sent me an amulet when Cousin Annis died. Instead all I got was PMS from hell and—” She stopped suddenly.
“And?” His heart beat faster, and he realized blood still pulsed steadily from his wounds.
“And a new tattoo,” she whispered.
“A tattoo?” He kept his grip on her wrist. “Where?”
She hesitated.
He pulled her arm upward again and heard her quick gasp.
“My back.”
Kallan considered for a moment. Surely the tattoo was just a tattoo—his own tattoo of a scythe was just a tattoo. But if she’d gotten hers when she became the Medusa… He needed to see it. He released her wrist. “Don’t move or I’ll kill you here.” Without stepping away, he fumbled his left hand into one of the loaded pockets on the side of his pants, and found what he needed, surely leaving bloodstains as he did so. He snapped one end of the handcuff onto her wrist, then the other onto his own wrist.
“Hey!”
He shook her a little. “We need the lights back on, and I can’t trust you to stay where I put you.”
She inhaled shakily, but remained silent as he eased away from her.
He dragged her along with him, back to the door he’d left open. He could see better outside, with the stars and moon shining high above them. In the light from the crescent moon, the Medusa’s face was pale but set. Determined. He bit back a smile. She still thought she could get out of this. He admired her spirit, but he had a job to do. His urge to smile vanished.
He strode along to the side of the house where he’d shut off her power at the main box, then reversed the lever to allow electricity to flow into the house again. Even from here, he could hear the hum of appliances restarting inside. And the beeping of her alarm.
“You need to shut that off,” he said shortly, grabbing his backpack from where he’d dropped it earlier below the junction box before he dragged her back inside.
She did as he asked, then flipped on the overhead kitchen light, her bright eyes narrowed on his face. “You’re making a mess all over my kitchen.”
Kallan smiled faintly. “Whose fault is that?” He tilted his head to look at her. “Where is your tattoo?”
“I told you—on my back.”
He spun her around and used their cuffed hands to immobilize her against the wall while he yanked her shirt up.
All he could see was the tip of a red flower peeking above the waistband of her jeans.
He shut his eyes for a few seconds, steeling himself. “Unbutton your pants.”
“No.”
He glared at the back of her head. Then reached between her belly and the wall for the button on her jeans.
She bucked backward, trying to kick him, and he pressed her flat again between himself and the wall. “Get off,” she snarled.
He wrestled the button free and fumbled for the zipper as well, then wrenched the denim down.
She growled at him, making him smile as he eased away. His gaze slid down her bare spine, from where their joined hands held her shirt up, down over creamy skin to where her hips flared outward, to the highly stylized tattoo decorating the lower left side of her back. It started even below the elastic edge of her silky white panties, then reached upward, the snake almost hidden in the cluster of detailed flowers. And in the middle of the bouquet, the snake’s body coiled around the stem of the gold cup.
The amulet was in her skin.
How in Hades was he supposed to retrieve that?
He exhaled slowly, his gaze riveted to the cup. No one had ever mentioned this. And if she’d gotten this when her cousin had died, then he couldn’t take the goblet after killing this one.
But he couldn’t take it while she lived.
That was too gruesome to envision. Instead, he focused on her creamy skin, soft against his fingers when he traced the tattoo. Goosebumps rose up beneath his touch.
“Stop it.”
He blinked, his gaze lifting from where his finger still burned against her back to her nape. He had no right to touch her this way. He shouldn’t even want to. But he did. He let his finger slide over the warm spot again, then frowned, realizing the cup heated further at his touch. He slipped his finger over the flowers at the top edge of the tattoo. Nothing. Her skin was cool. Lower, he grazed the cup again, and her skin flared hot there.
“Ow.” She jerked closer to the wall. “What are you doing?”
“Just deciding how I’m going to take the amulet,” he murmured, though he frowned. It was an impossible task.
She shuddered, and he heard her swallow.
Kallan resisted the unexpected urge to comfort her. If she’d realized the tattoo was the amulet, then she knew what he had to do to take it.
He sighed. He would have to think about this. Nothing he’d planned for had included carving the amulet from a still-living Medusa. The method shouldn’t matter. He knew what she was. He knew what he was. He’d been taught and trained all his life to do this job, as had all of his cousins. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Not right now.
He ignored the little voice in his head that pointed out Stavros wouldn’t have the same qualms, that his cousin would enjoy her screams as his blade sliced into her skin. Kallan was not his cousin. He would find another way.
He turned her around and refastened her jeans, ignoring her pale cheeks and the questions in her wide eyes. “Reset the alarm. We need to get some rest.”
She hesitated.
“Do it, Medusa
. I won’t kill you tonight.” He heard the resignation in his tone and hoped she did not.
She touched a few keys on the lighted pad, then settled her wide-eyed gaze on him again. “My name is not Medusa,” she said after a moment.
“I know what your name is.” He knew everything about her. Or he’d thought he had. Obviously, he’d missed a few things in his copious research.
“I don’t know yours.”
He lifted one brow, studying her ashen cheeks. “I am Kallan Tassos.”
Her mouth flattened. “Harvester.”
His own lips tightened. For some reason, hearing the translation of his name coming from her mouth bothered him. “As long as we each know who we are.” He tugged on their joined wrists. “Come.” He towed her along behind him, farther into the house.
Turning on lights as they went, Kallan dragged her up the stairs until they reached the bathroom. He searched for and finally found her First Aid supplies, then started to clean up his arm. The blood flow had slowed, but when he ran his arm under the hot water, rubbing his wounds gently with the soap, he hissed in a quick breath at the sting. “Vicious,” he whispered, shooting her a sidelong glance.
She glared at him, trying to keep her cuffed hand out of his way. Out of the water.
Deliberately, he tugged her wrist along with his under the full force of the water so she sputtered a protest. He hid his smile as he bent to clean his wounds. Neither cut was too deep anymore. Not deep enough to require stitches, anyway. His body was nearly the same as normal human males, but he did have a quick healing ability for most non-fatal wounds. He ignored the stinging in his arm as he shut off the faucet and reached for a towel—a move that dragged her arm across his body, forcing her nearer. “Here,” he said, putting a handful of bandages in her free hand. “Open these.”
Her glare would have turned him to stone another time.
“You made the mess—you can help clean it up.” He kept his tone light as he dabbed antiseptic cream onto his arm. Two straight gashes, one only two inches long and nearly as deep, the other about five inches long and shallow. Neat, no ragged edges. The Medusa kept a sharp blade.
Hunting Medusa Page 2