by Erica Woods
A shape took form in the shadow, a gigantic monster of a man with a wide chest, powerful, long legs, and arms strong enough to ward off most the evil in this world.
But not the Hunters, I reminded myself, watching Ruarc shooting from the woods at a breakneck speed. His chest had been left bare, black sweatpants covered his lower half. This far away I couldn’t see his face, but I would have known him anywhere with his glowing silver eyes and wild, black mane.
An inhuman roar rattled the trees, and somewhere on the ground Tim whined.
Lucien’s arms tightened around me. He was marble at my back, flesh and blood marble. And when Ruarc reached us, the marble turned to ice.
With excruciating care, Ruarc gently scooped me into his own embrace and turned his back on Lucien, shielding me with his body.
“A chuisle,” he whispered against my neck as he breathed me in. His voice was surprisingly hoarse, the low tones thrumming with emotion.
He was strong enough—and big enough—to hold me pressed against him with one arm under my knees, his palm cradling my hip. The other shook as it ran over every inch of my body with a desperate, searching touch. When he encountered the forearm blocking my chest, he used a gentle but firm touch to lift it away and peer at what he probably thought was an injury.
“N-no . . .” More a gasp than a word, and too late at that. My breasts were once again bared to the cold night air, and my eyes stung with unshed tears at the thought that this, too, was tarnished.
The first time Ruarc saw me, any part of me, shouldn’t be during trauma, at a time when the cold clutch of shock still held me in a tight grip and my whispered denial couldn’t tear past my numb lips fast enough to stop another humiliation from taking place.
But Ruarc was Ruarc and as soon as he saw my torn shirt and what lay beneath, he averted his gaze and released my hand so fast it smacked against my chest.
His whole body was rigid, vibrating with contained violence. He hissed a breath through clenched teeth. “Who?”
One word. So much rage.
I looked at him, and the look on his face yanked at my heart. The narrow slits of his eyes glowed with fury, his jaw was so tense it looked about to shatter, his lips were compressed into two, tight lines, broken by the descent of deadly fangs.
He looked magnificent. And not human.
Not human. Ruarc’s not human.
My gaze remained locked on those sharp, inhuman fangs. If I drew breath, I wasn’t aware of it.
He’s not human.
“Who?”
Too quiet. His voice had gone too quiet.
I pushed the revelation to the back of my mind—later, he’ll tell me later—and focused on his question. “I—”
A withering snarl shook his chest, eyes locked on Lucien who’d taken a step closer. “Don’t you fucking come near her!”
“It wasn’t him.” I was surprised at how brittle my voice sounded. “Lucien saved me.”
Both men stilled, and something flickered across Lucien’s inscrutable expression, something that made my heart squirm and my face grow hot.
Ruarc growled. “Then who the fu—”
A moan from behind, Ruarc keeping his body between me and the sound, twisting his neck with enough force that the bones creaked.
A beat of silence.
Another.
Time crawled by, one deafening second at a time. Then, with such deliberate slowness that the locked muscles of his big frame barely twitched beneath the skin, he slowly, so very slowly, turned and faced Tim.
“What,” he said, with a voice that could have cut through the earth itself, “are you doing here?”
The injured man took one look at Ruarc’s face and promptly scooted backward. The blood from his wound had slowed to a consistent trickle, but like a predator, Ruarc’s gaze immediately zeroed in on the source of the slippery, wet substance Tim had left behind.
He stared. He stared at what Tim no longer had. He shook. And then Ruarc opened his mouth and roared.
Holy—
I shrunk back and clapped both my hands over my ears, watching the man on the ground doing the same while curling into a ball and weeping.
It went on and on. Louder and louder. Deep and hard and so very furious.
The harrowing sound reverberated through the air, through me, through the very ground itself. And when it was over I sagged against the male responsible for the ringing in my ears.
Ruarc glanced down at me, and whatever he saw on my face had the harsh lines of his face tighten further. He glared at Tim, wouldn’t look at me. “Go with Lucien.”
“No!” The denial rang hollow. I cleared my throat, swallowed another batch of tears, and touched Ruarc scarred cheek. “I need you, Ruarc,” I mumbled, and when he looked down at me, I let him see the devastation I felt, the guilt and the shame, the horror and the pain. I lay it all bare, ignoring the feeling of weakness accompanying my shaking hands, my trembling lips, the tears that filled my eyes when I looked up at the face of the one man I knew on some deep level that I could trust.
Alone, he’ll kill Tim.
I couldn’t let him live with murder on his conscience. Not when I know what it did to one’s soul.
“Stay with me.”
The cheek under my palm twitched. Ruarc shook; the arm holding me shook and the thumb finding its way to stroke my face shook. His eyes reflected a fury so deep I couldn’t help but shake with him, but in the end he crushed me to his chest, buried his face in my hair, and jerked his head in the smallest, most reluctant nod to ever have existed.
“You hurt?” His voice was hoarse. Thick, almost. And something told me if the answer was ‘yes’ it wouldn’t matter what I said next.
He’d rip Tim to pieces.
I clamped my lips together to stop them from wobbling. The concern and anger he felt on my behalf . . . I wasn’t sure why, but it made my throat tighten and my eyes prickle. “N-no.”
“You’ve bled.” Accusing eyes scanned every piece of my exposed skin.
“Merely a scrape,” Lucien interjected, earning himself a glare. “She will heal.”
I stopped listening as Ruarc growled a reply. Chills shot up and down my back. I was so cold. And the loud moans Tim kept making was turning my stomach. Despite what he’d done to me, I didn’t feel the need to witness any more of his suffering. The violence he’d been subjected to had been severe. Traumatic. And even if it hadn’t been, I had no desire to spend any more time sharing the same air as him.
I want to be far away, I thought, willing Ruarc to walk me inside.
But where would Tim go? He would need a hospital, wouldn’t he?
“W-what now?” I asked in a shaky voice, interrupting their harsh whispers.
Lucien shot me a grim look. “Now we wait.”
“Shouldn’t he go to a . . . a hospital?”
“No,” Lucien replied. “Ash will be here soon.”
I twisted my neck to look up at Ruarc and asked in a small voice, “Can we go inside now?”
A rattling breath, then his lips brushing my temple. “Soon.”
“What will Ash do?”
A hint of a smile lurked in Lucien’s cold eyes. It was the same kind of cruel, terrifying smile that had found its way to his lips when he’d dismembered Tim. And while the rest of his face remained a blank mask, that chilling smile prowled beneath the surface, just waiting for an excuse to be unleashed. “The right thing.”
The air froze in my lungs.
“He better,” Ruarc snarled.
“W-what does that mean?”
Ruarc cupped my head and pressed the side of my face back into his chest. “Nothing.”
“Ruarc . . .”
“Listen to your keeper,” Lucien said, tone too soft for me to take offense at the words themselves. He turned his gaze to Ruarc. “How far out were you?”
“Half a mile. Other’s had to take care of the—of things.”
“Did he say who was pulling the strings?”
“Shame.”
After a few minutes of waiting—which I spent curled up in Ruarc’s strong arms, trying to forget the last few minutes had ever happened and blocking out Tim’s continuous moans—there was movement at the edge of the forest. A tree rustled. Leaves parted. And Ash emerged from the shadows, Blake following a few steps behind.
I squinted, trying to spot Jason and the other guy—what was his name again—Z-something—but they were nowhere to be seen.
Ash’s expression was unreadable, devoid of any clue as to his emotions. He stopped before he reached us and looked down at the blood and the lone piece of flesh discarded in the grass. Blake joined him, stared at Tim with hard eyes. “What did you do, Tim?”
Tim moaned, his fingers raking across the ground and leaving deep claw marks.
Not human.
Blake’s upper lip curled. He dismissed the other man with a shake of his head and looked at Lucien.
Ash did the same, but when he spoke his words were as flat as his eyes. “What happened?”
A cold hand seemed to tightened around my throat. I didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to relieve it again so soon.
Or ever.
Shivers took me prisoner, and Ruarc reacted as though each was a personal affront to my safety. He stepped back, turned us sideways so most of his body blocked me from sight. Twisting his head to keep the others in his line of vision, he bared his teeth and rumbled. The shock of hearing that sound again, the deep, dangerous sound that always made something tighten deep in my belly, chased my shivers away.
“Ruarc?” Horror pulled Blake’s mouth down into a frown. “What are you doing?”
The booming sound tumbling from Ruarc’s chest lowered into a growl—no less menacing but not nearly as deafening.
“I believe what happened here is quite obvious,” Lucien said, ignoring Blake’s question in favor of Ash’s. “But I know our laws and it needs to be said. If Hope will allow it, I will recount the incident.”
“I—” Throat too tight to speak, I simply nodded. Better he tell it than I.
When Lucien began, I squeezed Ruarc’s arm, jerking my head at the house.
“Not yet,” he said gruffly.
I didn’t understand. Why did I have to be here for this?
Not wanting to listen, I closed my ears to Lucien’s detached re-telling. Occasionally his voice rose, a hint of something dangerous cutting through his words only to be swallowed by his cold composure. Blake’s droll tones interjected here and there, but I didn’t pay attention to what he said. Instead, I focused on Ruarc. On the harsh, angry breaths in my ear, the clenching of his hand on my hip, the way his teeth gnashed together.
At one point I thought he would attack Lucien. The steady rumble he’d first made that day in the kitchen returned tenfold, roaring like unfettered thunder in the sky until his chest vibrated with the force of the sound. But he never moved. He stood there like my personal harbor in a tremendous storm, keeping me safe and using his massive body to spare me the sight of Tim.
I wondered how much that cost him. The inaction.
“What did you say?” Fury tore Ruarc’s words apart and left them bleeding in the air.
“She wants him to live,” Lucien said. “Has some silly notion he may change and do some good one day.”
Silence. A vibration in the chest at my back, then, “Are you insane?”
The furious roar startled a gasp from my lungs and I shrank back, blinking back tears. His anger felt . . .
Cutting.
“Ruarc!” Lucien snapped.
Ruarc tensed, looked down at me, then jerked his gaze away and clenched his jaw. “Probably in shock,” he muttered. “Doesn’t know what she wants.”
“I do!” I was still shaky but at least I’d found my voice again. “I don’t want to be the reason he dies. And who knows”—I shrugged, wiped at the wetness on my cheeks—“maybe he will save someone else in the future.”
Ruarc glared but kept his voice low. “He has to die.”
“No.” I turned my head so he couldn’t intimidate me with that fiery silver gaze.
“Hope . . .”
“Ruarc is right,” Lucien said. “He should die.”
I looked from Lucien to Ruarc. From cold detachment to stubborn determination. Why wasn’t anyone putting a stop to this? Why didn’t Ash say something? He hadn’t spoken once. Not since Lucien started recapping the horrible incident.
Why won’t he look at me? I thought, trying to catch his eye while craning my neck to see around Ruarc. Look at me!
And then he did.
Ruarc moved and Ash’s still frame filled my line of vision. Long, long black hair gathered in a bun at the back of his neck. A lone feather bobbed above his head. The wide lips, the flat nose, the cheekbones that were almost too high. And those eyes . . .
Intense blue eyes flickered with a white-hot flame, and although his expression gave nothing away I could almost see the heat flaring beneath his skin.
Fire, I thought, unable to look away. An undying, ravenous fire.
If I’d glanced away I would have missed what came next, that’s how fast he moved. One second he was standing next to Blake, inscrutable gaze studying the hand I couldn’t seem to stop from shaking and the salty tracks of tears on my cheeks and the way my chest moved with each choppy breath, the next he was in front of me and Ruarc, an impenetrable wall blocking Tim from sight.
The way he’d moved, faster than my mind could comprehend . . .
Not human.
The only clue as to what happened was that quick flash of movement, a splash of something dark, and Ash himself.
A thump, the sound wet and somehow deeply sinister. I strained my neck, trying to see around them, to see Tim, but I failed.
Tim . . . Tim wasn’t moaning any longer.
I looked up at Ash’s empty expression, looked at the flecks of something glistening nearly black around the collar of his shirt, looked down at his hands—
Not human.
Deadly, black claws tipped his fingers, each digit dripping with a dark, sticky substance that had to be blood. The coppery smell strained around us like a cloud about to burst.
“It is done.” Ever neutral, his tone this time carried an edge. A splash of darkness, of the kind of heavy responsibility belonging to he who was solely judge, jury, and executioner.
Dazed, I looked between them, between all of them; their grim faces and flat eyes and set mouths. “W-what is done?”
Ruarc pressed me closer to his chest and strode toward the house. “Nothing, a chuisle.”
I twisted in his grip, grabbed his shoulders and heaved myself up, wildly searching the space behind him for Ash. “What did you do?” Dread was an insidious whisper in my ear, chanting; not human, not human, not human, over and over and over again, until finally Ash’s burning eyes locked on mine and everything went quiet. “What did you do?”
“I did what was necessary.”
My hands became icicles slipping down Ruarc’s shoulders and my body turned to stone.
Ruarc grunted, repositioned me when I would have fallen, and kept walking.
This . . . this was all my fault.
One more death. One more mark on your soul.
How many could I take? How many marks were needed to forever coat a soul in a layer of slimy black?
I tried to tell myself that Tim had it coming, that this was not another innocent life laid at my feet, but even remembering his evil smile as he prepared to violate me didn’t lessen the guilt. It didn’t stop the trembling of my body, the coldness seeping into my flesh.
Not human.
Tim had not been human. Ruarc was not human. Ash was not human. None of them were human.
And I couldn’t find it in me to care.
A nose dragged over my temple. A deep, hoarse voice muttered something that was drowned out by the numbing drone in my ears.
Who
was I kidding? If I reacted like this to the death of my would-be-rapist how could I trick myself into thinking I could be responsible for all of the Hunters’ deaths?
It’s different, my mind insisted. The Hunters will never stop. They’ll kill and torture and maim until there is no one left.
But if that was my reason for destroying the Hunters . . . What would have stopped Tim from attempting to rape the next girl who got in his way? Had I been about to let another, future woman suffer his violence just because I was too weak to take a life?
“—something to drink.” Ash. His words drifted through my mind.
“Kitchen.” Short and snarly, it vibrated out of the chest I was cradled against.
“Take care of your mess,” Lucien said in a deadly tone from somewhere behind me. An affronted noise followed. It sounded like Blake.
“And her? She’s seen too much, she knows too much. When the Council finds out . . .”
The words sounded vaguely ominous to my tired brain, more so when three chilling growls echoed through the living room. Ruarc stopped and, without turning around, pushed out, “And will you tell?”
“No.” Clipped and short. Offended? “But what is your end-game here, Ruarc? You know what will happen if—”
“My life!” Ruarc growled.
“You are throwing it away.” Lucien. Sounding pained.
“And her life?” Blake asked. “You don’t have time before the Assembly to do what is needed! Not to mention it may not take.”
Ruarc went utterly still. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I? Ruarc . . . you have no good options left. The Council—”
“Fuck the bloody Council and fuck their rules! She’s mine!”
“You can’t be serious?”
“Deadly serious.”
“But what—”
“I’ll protect her!”
An itch at the side of my face made me turn to find Lucien staring at me in a way that was almost hopeless. Then he closed his eyes, turned, and marched away.
“What is happening to your pack, Ash?” Blake asked, voice fading as Ruarc followed Lucien into the kitchen and used his foot to slam the door shut behind us.
Gait stiff, Lucien crossed the tiled floor and leaned his back against the opposite kitchen counter. “This may not be exactly what I warned you about,” he began in a voice dripping ice, “but it is headed in the same direction regardless of what you may claim.”