Masters of the Hunt: Fated and Forbidden

by Sarra Cannon

  I crawled toward her, clawing at her gown.

  A wisp of black smoke rushed up from behind me and coiled itself around my mother's body. Rend emerged from the shadowy smoke, his fangs sinking into my mother's throat. She screamed and dropped her dagger. She convulsed against him as he drained every last drop of her blood. Her face went slack and pale, her body limp.

  Rend tossed her to the ground and turned his blazing red eyes on the Devil, who was inching toward Solomon's sword.

  Rend placed his boot on the sword's blade and the Devil's head snapped up in terror.

  “The Brotherhood will punish you for this,” the Devil said. “Your life will be over and for what? A human witch? You're a disgrace to everything Solomon and I built in this world.”

  “I would give my life a thousand times for love,” Rend said, his voice strong and deep. “There is no greater sacrifice than that.”

  He grabbed the Devil up by his robes, lifting him high into the air.

  My heart swelled and I found the strength to stand. Rend kicked the silver sword toward me and I bent down, wrapping my hand tightly around the hilt.

  I nodded to Rend and he opened his fist, letting the Devil fall to the ground like a ragdoll.

  He stepped aside as I approached the evil vampire.

  “This is for every innocent life taken by you and by my father,” I said.

  I plunged the blade deep into the vampire's chest. His eyes grew wide as he clutched the blade with both hands. The red fire in his eyes faded to a deep black as his life faded.

  I pulled the blade back and Rend stepped forward. He placed his hands inside the Devil's mouth and with a terrible cry, he tore him apart, the Devil's body splitting down the middle and erupting into ashes that crumbled to dust in Rend's hands.

  I fell to my knees, the wound in my back throbbing.

  Rend dropped to my side and gathered me into his arms. My eyelids fluttered as I struggled against the darkness.

  He pulled me tight against his chest, rocking back and forth as tears cascaded down his cheeks.

  He shouted, but his voice was distant.

  He kissed my cheeks and stroked my hair, his body shaking with sobs. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, but I couldn't find my voice.

  Flashes of light and shadow moved around us as the battle continued, and someone knelt beside us. I recognized Jackson as he placed his hands on my back.

  I closed my eyes, feeling death brush against my soul. Knowing there was no other place I'd rather die than in the arms of the man I loved.

  A cold chill spread through me.

  When you are about to die, they say your life flashes before your eyes. Life's last gift. A single moment of clarity so you can see all the things you did wrong.

  Every bad decision.

  Every mistake.

  Every horrible word you said to someone when you really just wanted them to love you as much as you loved them.

  It’s easy to get lost in the regrets of our past, thinking that if we’d only chosen something different, we might have been able to save ourselves a hell of a lot of heartbreak. If we'd only been born to difference circumstances or been given a second chance, we might have become someone different. Someone better.

  Only, the thing is, we should really be giving ourselves credit for just surviving the best way we know how.

  At any given moment, we’re all just doing the best we can to survive and make a place for ourselves in this shit-storm we call life.

  Looking back, it’s easy to forget just how broken we were when we made those bad decisions. And most importantly, it’s easy to overlook the fact that if we really were able to go back in time and change things, sure, we might avoid some of the worst heartaches of our lives, but at the same time, we also might not be here, right now, with the one person we love most in all the world.

  What if my mother had never met Solomon?

  What if the Mother Crow had never sent me away?

  What if the Devil had never known I existed?

  These questions flash through my mind in these last moments, but then all I can think is that one small change—one “better” decision—and I might have missed him altogether.

  So you know what? If I had the chance to go back and do it all over again, I wouldn’t change one painful, gut-wrenching, dangerous, terrifying moment of what I’ve been through the past two weeks.

  Even knowing it meant the death of me, I’d go through it all over again, just for him.

  Chapter 17

  Someday Soon

  Warm sunshine fell across my cheek.

  I opened my eyes, expecting heaven. Or hell.

  But what I found was life. A second chance.

  Rend slept in a chair at my bedside, his body twisted uncomfortably and his face pressed against the back cushion.

  Love and gratitude washed through me as tears sprang to my eyes. My body ached and my head pounded, but I was alive. Somehow, I had survived.

  I struggled to sit up, wincing as pain shot through the wound in my back.

  Rend jerked awake. His eyes met mine and he slid from the chair, falling to his knees at the side of the bed. He grabbed my hand and brought it to his lips like a prayer.

  I squeezed his hand.

  “Please tell me I'm not dreaming,” I whispered.

  He shook his head and smiled. “I was about to say the same thing.”

  He moved to my side on the bed and ran the back of his hand across my cheek.

  “I was so afraid you'd never wake up,” he said.

  “How long have I been sleeping?” I asked.

  “Weeks,” he said. “Sixteen days to be exact.”

  I forced myself to sit up, my head swimming. “Katie, she—”

  “Katie's fine,” he said. He moved to place a few extra pillows behind me to help prop me up. “I sent Marco to check on her and give her some excuse as to why you weren't home. Of course, she raised hell and demanded to know the truth. I distinctly remember telling you not to give Katie the details of what was going on at the club.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I've never really been a rule follower.”

  He laughed. “Really? I didn't know that about you.”

  I smiled. “So she's okay? She's not completely freaking out?”

  “Oh, she freaked out big time. She demanded to see proof that I hadn't gone all vampire on you and sucked your blood,” he said. “Her words, not mine.”

  I laughed and my ribs protested. I sucked a breath through my teeth and raised my hand to my side.

  Rend furrowed his brow. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't make you laugh right now. How are you feeling?”

  “Like I almost got murdered in a sacrificial ritual performed by the Devil and the woman formerly known as my mother.”

  Rend bit his lower lip to suppress a smile. “It's good to know they didn't destroy your sense of humor in the process.”

  I sighed. “I'm just glad to know they didn't destroy me, period.”

  “Me, too,” he said softly, trailing a fingertip down my arm.

  “What happened that night?” I asked. “How did you guys even get inside the castle?”

  “We brought a bad-ass army,” he said. “Harper and most of the Peachville crew came, some of the staff from the club, and ten members of the Brotherhood.”

  “Is everyone okay?” I asked, my heart tightening in my chest. I wasn't sure I was ready to hear bad news if someone else had died trying to save my life.

  “We all made it out alive,” he said. “A few nicks and bruises here and there, but nothing that won't heal.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. “Even Lyla and the others?”

  “Yes,” he said. “A lot of them have been by to see you, but I told them you needed your rest. When you're ready for visitors, I'm sure you'll have all the company you could ever want while you're recovering.”

  A child's face flashed into my memory.

  “There were others,” I said. “Witches locked in the
dungeons of the castle. Rend, some of them were only children. Babies.”

  He nodded and stroked my hair. “We got everyone out of there,” he said. “One girl in particular has been asking about you nonstop. Annabelle, I think her name is.”

  I held back tears of relief. “She was in the cell across from mine,” I said. “Her mother was killed while she was in there. I can't even imagine the horror some of those witches have been through.”

  “Most of them returned to their families, but Annabelle had no one left,” he said. “She's been staying at Harper's.”

  “I really owe her one for helping us. I owe all of them, really,” I said.

  Someone knocked on the door, and I looked up to see Jackson standing in the doorway. “We were just glad we could help,” he said. He stepped into the room. “I came to check on my patient, but I see you're doing better.”

  “Patient?” The memory of him kneeling at my side flashed into my mind. “You're a healer?”

  “It's one of my gifts,” he said. “I'm not as strong as some, like Harper's sister, but I can heal some basic wounds. You didn't get a chance to meet her, but she came here to Rend's as soon as he brought you back here. She's been busy with some things in the Shadow World, but it was really her power that healed the worst of the wounds from the dagger. How are you feeling?”

  “I wonder how many times I'm going to be asked that over the next few weeks,” I said with a laugh. “I'm sore and weak, but I'm glad to be alive. And please, if you speak to Harper's sister, tell her thank you.”

  “I will. You're one of the strongest witches I've ever seen,” he said, his lips curling into a half-smile. “I think you and Harper will be good friends. You two seem to have a lot in common.”

  I could tell just from the way he said her name that he loved her very much. From all I knew of her, I felt honored to even be mentioned in the same sentence as her.

  He did a quick check of my wounds, changing a bandage on my back and laying his hands on the spot where the dagger had cut deepest. A cold chill spread through the wound like ice, relieving some of the pain.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Wow.” I took a deep breath, feeling an immediate improvement. “Yes, thank you.”

  “Good,” he said. “I'll come back every day to check on you for the next few days. I'm going to let the others know you're awake. I'm sure Mary Anne is dying to come visit.”

  Over the weeks that followed, Rend's once-quiet and secluded house became a social hub. We had visitors from Venom and Peachville nearly every day. Azure even came to sit with me from time to time. I could tell something had changed between her and Rend. She still ribbed me and joked, but some of the mean-spiritedness I'd felt from her when we first met was gone now. As if she'd come to accept our relationship, even if she didn't like it.

  Some of Rend's friends from the Brotherhood stopped by to see how I was doing. Mostly, though, the vampires came to see Rend. They never spoke of their fear of the Brotherhood's punishment around me. I knew Rend didn't want me worrying about it, but it was always there between us.

  The Brotherhood consisted of hundreds, if not thousands, of vampires across the world. Some had been there at the Devil's side that night, ready to watch me die. Eventually, the main council of the Brotherhood of Darkness would hold the eleven vampires who had fought against the Devil accountable for their actions.

  They had killed many of their own kind, including one of the original founders.

  When I asked Rend about Solomon's stone, he told me Silas had taken it from my mother's body and disappeared. No one had heard from him since, but he'd been given orders to destroy it. They were all still waiting for Silas to return and confirm that the stone had been either hidden or destroyed.

  I was anxious for his return for an entirely different reason.

  My whole life, I never dreamed I might have a sibling. The idea of a half-brother—even a vampire one—excited me. I had so many questions I wanted to ask him about our father and about their life in the Shadow World before they came to live here in mine.

  I hoped he would come back before the Brotherhood made their decision about how to punish those who had stood with Rend.

  And I hoped the Brotherhood would see the truth of what happened. The justice in it. I couldn't bear it if they sentenced Rend to death for what he'd done to protect me. Strangely, Rend didn't seem worried about it. He said, after all we'd survived so far together, he didn't plan on going anywhere anytime soon.

  While Rend met with his fellow vampires, Mary Anne and I sat together for hours every day talking about what her life was like before she was sent to Shadowford. She told me stories about my real mother, Mary Kathryn. Mary Anne remembered her as a very sad, but beautiful woman who mostly kept to herself. She said Mary Kathryn had no children of her own, but that her eyes always lit up when a new baby was born and she'd offer to hold them for hours upon hours, rocking them in an old rocking chair in the Mother Crow's house.

  I prayed she was still alive and that the invitation she'd sent to me had not gotten her in trouble. Was she still living with the other crows? Or had she broken free of them when the coven split up?

  There were so many questions still left unanswered.

  In the evenings, Rend never left my side. He held me close, my head resting against his strong chest. We kissed and talked late into the night, until I fell asleep in his arms, always waking up still wrapped in his warmth.

  As my body healed, I yearned to make love to him again, but he refused, saying it was too dangerous. He'd tasted the power of blood again and until he'd learned to control the thirst again, he didn't want to put my life in danger.

  Sometimes, when the nightmares got to be too much and I couldn't get back to sleep, I would sneak away and climb up the stairs to the hall of doorways.

  I'd make my way down the long, narrow hallway until I found the door with the crow's wing etched deep into the wood. I would run my finger along its outline and wonder what secrets were hidden behind that door.

  What evils.

  Someday, I promised myself, when my strength had returned, I would go through that door. I would find my mother. I would find out more about who I really was and where I had come from.

  And someday, I would face the Mother Crow herself and make her pay for all she'd stolen from me.

  Someday soon.

  The End

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  Sarra Cannon writes contemporary and paranormal fiction with both teen and college aged characters. She has sold over 300,000 books since first publishing in 2010. Want to start at the beginning? Check out the first three books in her bestselling Peachville High Demons series for FREE.

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  Heir of the Dog

  By Hailey Edwards

  Heat rating: Sweet

  Urban Fantasy

  Thierry Thackeray is having the worst week ever. Her ex is back in town, death omens are camping out on her mother’s lawn and her estranged father has gone missing. Then there’s the small matter of the High Court requesting her presence in Faerie.

  Now the wrong fae has answered her summons, and she’s stuck with a not-so-charming prince who offers to fix all her problems…for a price. She can’t afford to tell him no, but with her luck, she might not survive saying yes.

  Chapter 1

  Flaming red hair. Check. Pasty white skin. Double check. Breath like a slaughterhouse in July… I inhaled deeply then wrinkled my nose. Yep. Houston, we have a troll sighting.

  Now would be a great time to have a partner. Too bad mine was an ex in every sense of the word.

  Buzzing at my ear preceded a manic giggle as
a drunken sprite landed on my shoulder and dry-humped my earlobe. Gross. I thumped him in the stomach and sent him tumbling through the air. Four of his buddies zipped past me, whooping with amusement.

  Yeah. Real funny. Pick on the marshal. Pests. Sprites were the fae equivalent of mosquitoes, and the town of Wink, Texas was infested.

  My flicker of inattention cost me. The troll had gained more ground.

  I tugged on the cuff of my glove from habit then tightened my grip on my satchel and followed my mark deeper into the crowded back streets heading toward the O’Leary Bazaar, a nightly street fair held by fae vendors, mostly Unseelie, where you could buy anything your heart desired as long as you were willing to sell your soul to afford it.

  No refunds or exchanges.

  “Love charm for the pretty lady?” A damp palm grasped my wrist. “Find a man—fall in love.”

  A trow, a bowlegged woman with a gangrene complexion, jerked me a step toward her booth. Leather bags hung from twisted cords around her neck. The one she jangled in my face boasted a red anatomical heart on its front. As its innards tinkled and its spell awakened, the bloody outline pulsed.

  Shrugging free of her, I wiped her slimy residue off my skin and started walking. “No thanks.”

  The last thing I needed was a man. My heart was still mending from my last breakup.

  “Two coppers for the charm,” the trow cried. “Pretty lady. Charming lady needs a charm.”

  I shouldered through the crowd until a head of flame-bright hair came back into view. Bodies parted to ease his brisk passage then clumped together to slow my pursuit. Unseelie solidarity. Nice.

  “Charm.” That same toad-skinned hand closed over my arm. “Lady needs a—”

  Gritting my teeth, I spun toward the trow and noticed the cloudy pink sweat dotting her forehead and dribbling into murky eyes frantically darting between my face and some point past my shoulder.