Rogue Breed (Rogue Huntress Chronicles Book 2)

by Thea Atkinson

  That part of me also knew I needed to find grounding, it knew that the tether I had to his soul was a tenuous one and if I lost hold of it, I would lose hold of him forever. Even as I imagined it, a purple string appeared in my grip and I looked down at it befuddled for a moment until I realized this roam was as good as a labyrinth to the Minotaur and that the treasure lay at the end if I could beat back the beast. Some metaphor. I wasn't sure where my mind had pulled that allegory from, but I wished it had grabbed another. A witch in a gingerbread house would have been far more fitting, or even a couple of Haystack houses.

  There was a tug on the string and a moaning somewhere in the distance. I knew I had to find the end of the tether in order to find Jeb. Connected though we might be, I felt I would lose myself in the delirium and then both of us would be lost from the physical realm that waited for us on the other side.

  I began coiling the string into my palm and realized as I did so that it was pulling from the other end. Jeb. He felt the connection, too. That had to mean he was still alive or at least aware enough that his spirit had some power left. I immediately stopped coiling the thread and instead begin looping it beneath my elbow and between the webbing of my thumb and forefinger. An arms breath at a time, I moved as quickly as I could. Then he was there. Both of us stood there for a moment, clenching our end of the string, staring ahead at the other as though we couldn't believe what we are seeing. He was still perfect. Not a hair was out of place just the way he would've liked it. He was still wearing his suit from the night I had met him but it bulged at the seams as though he were about to rip through it. However handsome he might be, there was a jut to his jaw that reminded me of the lupine profile.

  "You're naked," he said.

  I looked down at myself. Indeed I was.

  "I'm not sure why I can't do this with my clothes on," I said and I heard his deep throaty chuckle.

  "Whatever it is, I'm glad you can't." He pulled on the string and the last bit of it disappeared behind his fist, closing the distance between us. The way his chest felt against mine as we met made my knees go the way of the feather in the tornado. I thought I felt them come free of my legs and I sagged against him. He caught me, resting his chin on my head as my face buried itself at the stem of his throat.

  "How did you find me?"

  "You were calling out for help," I said and he looked down at me perplexed.

  "I didn't think I was." He shrugged. "If you're here, I must be royally fucked," he said into my hair. The warmth of his breath bolstered me.

  "Maybe not royally," I said. "At least not yet."

  "I didn't think I'd feel you this way again," he said. "It was my last thought, actually, that I would never see you –"

  "Don't say that," I said. I pushed against him hard enough that I nearly stumbled backwards. "It's why I'm here. I can help you. I just had to give Alma some of my..." I trailed off as I wondered exactly what it was I was giving her and then shrugged it off because whatever it took, it didn't matter. I was here. He was here. He wasn't merely lying unconscious and dying on the forest floor with me crouched over him impotent and frantic with worry. We were together. Thanks to Alma, we were together.

  With a start, I realized perhaps this was all she was offering. Perhaps she couldn't help him heal, and all she had within her was the ability to join us so that we might say goodbye. Both of us here in the states we saw ourselves in as the most like ourselves. He, totally put together, neat and assembled. Me with nothing but my skin to leave testament to my nature. This might be all she could do for me, to give me a moment with him before he died.

  I thought I heard him talking, but I couldn't make out any words he was saying because his hands had begun roaming my skin and I couldn't think of anything in the moment except to give myself to him right there. I started peeling off his suit jacket, pushing it back off his shoulders and spreading my hands across his chest to the buttons of his shirt. They popped easily. If all we had was a last few moments where bodies could come together, then I would waste not one second of it.

  "One last time," he murmured. "It's as though God himself has granted me my last wish."

  I didn't dare protest, didn't want to even think that he might be right but I opened my mouth anyway to argue because we should argue against such a submissive end, but his mouth claimed mine and I lost all but the primal drive to join with him. I devoured his mouth, pulling his tongue between my teeth as I dug into the waistband of his pants.

  He chuckled low in his throat. "So greedy," he said, but he was already tugging at the waist band and pushing his pants down past his knees. "So aggressive."

  "And so damn impatient," I said, realizing with the start, he could read my thoughts. No doubt he understood my worries as well. The strange thing was that I couldn't connect to his. "You're dying out there, and I don't know if we have time to savour it."

  "Oh," he said. "I'm going to savour it."

  He no sooner said it then he plunged inside, pistoning me down onto his shaft and tearing a cry of pleasure from my throat. I clung to the back of his neck as he lowered me onto the ground beneath him. A bit of Moss touched my back and a tangle of overturned roots appeared above me. I thought I could see the moon over his shoulder. I wrapped my heels up over his hips and twisted them together. I couldn't get enough of him and he couldn't spread beneath him enough to give him enough of myself. There was no satisfaction in the driving thrusts, only a craving for more, to open myself deeper and wider. We were still too separate. Two halves broken apart desperate to join. I wasn't sure what I strove for, only that it wasn't climax.

  He was shuddering against me as the heels of my hand found his jaw and my fingers tangled behind his neck. I brought his face up from my breasts to meet his gaze. Those crystal blue eyes bore into me, looking to find some end where it could rest.

  "What is it?" I said, uncertain, afraid that in the next second climax would come and we'd be two again and this moment would be gone and I'd have nothing left to hold him to me in this realm or the one that waited for us outside it.

  "I love you," he said. "I couldn't love you more if you were made of my own skin."

  The question in his eye pained me, making me ashamed that all I'd ever given him was my lust when I knew there was more, that the wolf in me hated to admit any vulnerability. I'd marked him as my mate, my bond, but I'd never voiced to him what it meant to me, and as a human, he wouldn't know that my very submission meant what the woman half of me could not say. Until now.

  "I love you too," I said. "With everything I have and everything I am. I would bleed for you if it meant you could take one more breath with me."

  And then something stirred inside me and my veins cried out, I cried out, and whatever tether had been there before left me swinging alone, reaching out to him in a way I never expected. I needed him. Would he reach for me or leave me to hang suspended, clutching for a grasp that would never come. There was a moment of hesitation, one where I thought I sobbed aloud. I waited, breathless, the coil of my insides tight and knotted. Then I felt it, a strong wash of warmth coating the knots, working them free and every part of my core flushed as it opened to him. Liberation made me feel as though I was floating. The air I needed to fill my lungs was everywhere around me, lifting me higher. There was no need to inhale as it found my pores and fed me from the very skin that coated my spirit.

  The magic fell away with the cold spray of frigid water, leaving my skin dripping with residue and yet I felt calm and complete.

  I opened my eyes to the forest. The man I loved gasped with the inhalation of a drowning man, and I knew he too had found his air.

  PRIDE AND PREJUDICE BE DAMNED

  Alma was gone. I wanted to think she had slipped out back through the barrier toward the manse and was now safely ensconced behind the veil and not hitching along somewhere in danger of attracting the hunters. It had been her power that had attracted them to Dara's, and with her outside the barrier, she might be in danger. She had ri
sked a lot to help us. To help Jeb. I found myself studying him as he lay there, almost afraid to touch him lest the dream disintegrate beneath my palm.

  "You're okay," I said.

  "Better than okay." He pushed himself onto his elbows and inspected his body with a tentative gaze. Then he gave me a hard, almost fierce look before his fingers went round the back of my neck and he pulled me down to him. His mouth met mine like a moth touching down.

  "I love you," he said against my lips. "I would kill for you, but I would never have you die for me."

  So he had known. The connection we shared, more than just physical, something down to the very core level of our spirits, had been able to communicate to him that I planned to give everything I had to him so that he would live. Everything down to my very life spark.

  "You would die for me?" I said even though I knew the answer.

  "Hell, yes."

  "Then don't question my right to do the same."

  It wasn't an order, just a reminder that we were equals. I thought he might argue but he grinned in acceptance and then pushed himself to his feet, already scouring the underbrush with his roaming gaze.

  "Is it safe?" he said.

  "Who knows," I said. "Safe enough obviously to have lain there while Alma did her magic." I got up and brushed the leaves and bits of Moss from my legs and ass cheeks and peered off into the underbrush. I cast a sidelong glance at him, watching as he bent to scoop up his backpack and put it over his shoulder.

  "You can't come back to the manse," I said.

  He raised a single brow at that.

  I pointed at the purple haze. "Check and Artemis threw that up to protect the property. Supernatural creatures can move within and without, but humans can't. It's what happened to you."

  "So that's what it was. Hurt like a bitch," he said. "I don't fancy going back through it again anyway."

  He planted his hands on his hips. "So I guess I have to do what I can from this side?" He let his backpack strap fall to the crook of his elbow and began unzipping it so that he could rummage through it with his free hand.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Getting ready to kick some ass," he said, distracted.

  I cocked my head, listening to the woods. I was antsy now, feeling exposed now that the threat to his life was over.

  "There may be a lot of them," I said. "I have no idea if they breached the gate of the community on the other side, or even if the other guards are still where I sent them."

  He mumbled something about the guards being capable and rooted ever deeper into the bag.

  "Artemis said the barrier isn't large. Just around the manse. That means those guards and all the shifters they are protecting won't even know the war has begun."

  He peered up at me and gave me a quick nod as he extracted one of his homemade grenades. "Got it," he said. "Warn the guards, kill the hunters."

  I chewed on my fingernail, thinking it over.

  "No," I said. "Send the old and young and infirm here. Then tell the guards to follow with the rest of the able bodied. Then kill the hunters. I want to know who is left standing after today and I want to know how many of hunters there are before we go to war."

  He smiled and for a moment my heart stopped. He was good, I knew that. He was stealthy and he was prepared. Who knew how much damage he could do from the outside. All while I worked from the inside.

  He patted zippered up his back, content it seemed that it was full of the things he needed.

  "But you'll be herding them all into one space," he said. "That can't be safe."

  "And leaving them out there before we know what we're facing is? No," I said. "Something isn't right about all this, and I need to know who is still alive and well and who isn't. Get them here and unaccounted for. Then we'll go out in planned swaths to kill those fuckers."

  He shook his head. "I don't like it."

  "We can travel back and forth through the barrier. They can't."

  "So it's your intent to corral your pack like fish in a barrel."

  "We're not fish. We'll be fine for a day and a night. And you and Franco will be out there watching our backs."

  He grunted at that. "Franco?"

  "You need soldiers," I said, knowing already he would decline.

  "I move faster alone," he said and pushed the cartridge into the butt end of his pistol. It made a snapping sound that raised the hairs on my arms.

  "Then you need a soldier," I said. "That's Franco."

  "I hate compromising," he said, but he was already backing away into the underbrush, melting into the shadows.

  THE RICHNESS OF SIMPLICITY

  Getting the rest of my pack within the barrier instead of in their guarded homes just outside the haze was only been a stopgap measure and I knew it. One hundred shifters strong, I knew we had a chance at neutralizing the threat. Spread out over a community in ragtag clusters we didn't. I had to remind myself that we could move back and forth through the barrier while the hunters were stuck on their side, unable to pass through. Once I was able to arrange teams based on strength, set up guard posts, arrange for weapons and rations, I would feel better, less worried for the outcome. Strength in numbers was our best bet, but I had to see what those numbers consisted of first and then decide how best to go on the offensive with an enemy who so far was still as solid as smoke.

  I was back inside the barrier only an hour before first one hunter appeared just beyond the purple haze as though he had been magicked there. Several shifters saw him too and were heading toward him with an electric sort of rage. I was closest. I peeled my clothes off right in front of him, taking my time almost like a lover would, shifted and then leapt.

  I knew from experience that his blood coursed with a lacing of colloidal silver and magic that would drop a regular wolf into spasms of agony as a result of attacking him. It was a clever defense, but I had his number. Instead of biting down, I tore at him with my claws until he was nothing but a bleeding mess on the driveway. I transformed and stood looking down at him from my mortal eyes, not feeling one bit of regret as he twitched in the last throes of death.

  "Bastard," I said and spat on him. I turned and walked back through the haze, barely thinking about the way he had let me attack him or the way his face showed no fear or alarm as I had leapt with obvious intent to kill. How he didn't scream out or try to defend himself.

  I thought about it plenty, though, when the next huntsman came at me ten minutes later. This time I was smart and I shot him in the forehead. Then another arrived and I did the same. Over the next half hour, they fanned out behind the purple perimeter like zombies. Each one wearing with the same impassive but clouded expression.

  Many of the shifters took to shooting the hunters as well, following my example with a certain glee, but they all looked distinctly disturbed by the time they had killed their fourth or fifth hunter. Like shooting fish in a barrel. None of the hunters made any move to defend themselves and it was only too late that I realized their fleur di lis face tattoos were fresh and raw. Fodder. That's all they were. Made with magic by the real hunters to force us to exhaust our ammunition.

  That's when I realized we were the fish in the barrel.

  "Stand down," I shouted to the pack as they tried to shoot the false hunters into nothingness. "Don't waste the ammo on them."

  Little by little, the pack melted away. I hoped they went to the kitchens to pick up a coffee and donut, maybe a bit of protein. We were all getting antsy. The air was electric with tension and it tingled against my skin. We needed action, but this wasn't the moment. There were still a few elderly out there. At last count, I was still missing a family from the farthest outskirts who had six children under the age of ten and one very old council member. I also couldn't just let the swelling group of angry shifters lose until they had a focused target.

  I caught sight of Rena once. She stood in front of a small grouping of hunters, staring into one of their faces. For a long time, she made no move to strike out
at him and when she did lift a hand, it was to reach through the chain link to touch one tattooed cheek. I waited for the hunter to grab her wrist, but it never happened. She merely stood there, frozen with him, and then she let her hand drop and she turned heel and walked briskly away.

  I turned to watch her, and noticed she halted at the corner of the manse and went rigid as though she'd seen something that terrified her. My heart went into my throat as I glanced around the grounds. Empty. I'd been so engrossed in the hunters about the gates, I hadn't noticed that not one single shifter hung about. Not even in the adhoc infirmary.

  I glanced behind me. The hunters had increased to at least three men thick. The wave of hum from the barrier pulsed each time they swayed sideways and back. I felt my stomach moving with them. I peered again at Rena. She was coming toward me now, walking briskly, a deadpan look on her face that made my feet start moving. I took to running the same time she did.

  "What is it?" I said, breathless from fear not exertion when I got within two feet.

  "Your mother." She was twisting her hand over her wrist, wrinkling the tattoo. She heaved a sigh and shoved her hands in the pockets of her lightweight cardigan. I noticed she had strapped a knife to the belt of her jeans and it peeked out from beneath the side panel of the same cardigan when she let her hands hang in the pockets. "You'd better stop her." she pointed to the corner of the manse. "On the front porch."

  I clamped my lips together, gritting my teeth and was aware of how tight my muscles were in my jaw as I ran. Obviously whatever it was my mother had going on, Rena was afraid to give me the full extent of it. In fact, she trailed far along behind me, hovering to show me she was there, but far enough away that she was out of reach enough to be the blameless messenger.