I reached down to feel the wound as Hunters, only fifteen yards away, yelled at one another for losing me. My fingers traced unnatural cracks that ran sideways along the upright ridges of rough bark.
“How long will it take to heal?” I asked in barely a whisper.
“It depends. How long does it take for you to kill a Hunter?” she answered.
“Seconds,” I heard myself say. I’d never so much as slapped a Hunter. My mind engaged and I answered her more correctly. “I don’t think I can.”
“Well, that’s how long it’ll take your wound to heal.” Gabrielle stood and reached toward me to help me up. I rolled to my hands and knees and accepted her assistance.
Out of options, I stood on weak legs and summoned my waning strength. Thoughts of Shawna filled my mind—her kind heart, her sharp wit, her hopes and dreams. Resolve surged through me. This would not be our reality, running and hiding in fear. The seed my mother had planted long ago with her stories, sprouted, pushed from the dirt out into the night and shoved me forward.
“You take the one on the left. I’ll take the one of the right,” I told Gabrielle under my breath. Ignoring the pulsing pain, my toes dug into the dirt with each footfall as I rushed the males.
A growl bellowed deep in my throat. With my strong huldra legs, I sprang at the Hunter, landing on his back and wrapping my legs around his waist. I had to stay present. I couldn’t black out this time.
Only, I was blacking out. The more excited my huldra became, the more the darkness encased me and threatened to swallow my conscious self. A knowing deep within commanded that I talk to myself, talk to my inner huldra, bridge the gap and connect my two selves that had been forced apart so long ago.
The Hunter reached his arms to the side of his waist and behind himself, but couldn’t wrench me off. He grabbed his dagger from his pants and swiped at my legs as I unwrapped them from his waist and hoisted my weight onto his shoulders.
“One’s on me!” he yelled to the other Hunter who ran toward his buddy. The Hunter I clung to stabbed his dagger over his shoulder and I ducked out of the way, leaning my weight to one side. He started to fall sideways, but quickly righted himself.
“I can’t see it!” his buddy said. “I don’t want to stab you.”
Stay present. Stay present. Stay present, I repeated.
Gabrielle bolted for the other two Hunters. A male’s scream echoed into the night. She worked quickly. I expected her to return, to help me, but she left me to fight alone.
My inner huldra wanted to choke him, to feel the pulse of his life slow to a stop. Not willing to give my huldra complete control, I talked myself through the act. Just wrap your fingers around his neck, I told myself. The way you wrap your fingers around a branch.
A huldra’s hands are strong, our fingers muscular from climbing. I squeezed, my thumbs directly above each main artery in his neck.
The Hunter coughed and leaned forward. “It’s…it’s…choking. Me.”
With unsure hands his buddy grabbed at me. When he made contact he wrapped his forearms around my waist and heaved. I only held tighter, dug my fingers in deeper. I counted to help stay present, to not black out and give my huldra free rein. In less the twenty seconds lack of blood flow to the Hunter’s brain would cause him to pass out. Within a minute, he’d be dead.
His buddy pulled harder and I only dug deeper, wrapping my feet around the Hunter’s midsection like a leather belt after Thanksgiving dinner. The Hunter fell forward, losing consciousness, but I held tight. His buddy grabbed his dagger and slashed wildly at where he thought he’d find my torso, only grazing my shoulder with the blade.
And the Hunter’s blade burned like no other. But I refused to give in to pain. I accepted it, allowed it to hold me in the moment, in my body and mind.
I kept my right hand wrapped around the Hunter’s neck, and with my left hand I reached out for his buddy. Now, rather than me guiding my huldra, she guided me. I wasn’t sure what my left hand could do against his dagger, but I obeyed my inner knowing.
Branches shot out of my outstretched, bark-covered fingers and plummeted into the man’s chest. He screamed and flailed his dagger-clutching hand. Blood spewed from his mouth and dripped from his lips. His eyes widened as I willed my branches to wind through him, to hook around his organs. His mouth opened, twisting his expression in horror.
The heartbeat from the Hunter beneath me slowed until his breathing stopped. I pulled myself from his body and walked toward his buddy, who now had my branches buried in his chest.
He curdled out a bloody scream and worked hard to hack at my branches. With a sharp bite, the dagger made its way through four of my branches. I flicked my wrist to finish the job for him. With the initial throb of what a bone fracture must feel like, my last branch broke free from his chest.
“Which complex are you from?” I yelled, leaning over him. “Did you take a huldra, a couple nights ago? Where did you take her?”
He lifted a shaking hand to give me the finger as he smiled. That smile told me everything I needed to know. The Hunters had taken my sister.
The Hunter spurted out blood as he pushed words from his mouth. “How...did…you? You…shouldn’t…be…able—”
Before I could lay another hand on him, the Hunter fell over. My muscles shook and my head spun as I felt my huldra receding from battle. I couldn’t pull my eyes from the man on the dirt. Realization over what I’d done barreled through me like a tsunami. I gasped and pivoted in a circle, checked every direction for another Hunter on the warpath. No one else came for me. But Gabrielle crouched twenty-five feet away, watching.
“I didn’t know. I, I…” My heart pounded. I closed my eyes to still my shakiness.
Gabrielle gave me my space, and probably for good reason. “You are capable of doing a lot of things,” she said. “Don’t you know? Before the Hunters split up the Wild Women, turned us against one another, we were united. And the huldra were our protectors.”
I absently touched my lower back. The cracks were gone. My bark had grown thicker. The hot burn in my shoulder from the Hunter’s dagger cooled and disappeared. “Does my strength grow with each kill?” I asked, staring into the darkness.
“Our power isn’t exclusively attached to mayhem,” Gabrielle explained as she stood, but still gave me my space. “It’s always been in you, but after years of non-use it’s gone dormant. And when you’re taught that any part of your power is bad, something to be avoided, you push it down, hide it that much more.” She gripped my shoulder and looked deep into my eyes. “So to answer your question, no your strength doesn’t grow with each kill, it grows with each time you use it.”
The mermaids glowered in the living room of their home. A few older females sat on the couches while the youngest sat on the floor with their mothers protectively hovering. Some paced the hall with hands on their hips. Others grabbed chairs from the kitchen and pulled them into the living room to sit along the mirrored window walls.
The scent of saltwater, seaweed, and scales filled my nose until I could smell nothing else.
From the moment I’d stepped foot on this island and seen Gabrielle, I couldn’t understand why I’d been received so well. My coterie would never have trusted a mermaid who came to our property for help. There would be tests first…
Wait.
“If you knew I was coming, then how did you not know the Hunters had found you?” I asked the couch full of grey-haired females.
Azul released her long hair from a knot on her head. “A little birdy informed us about a week ago that the Hunters had locked on to our island. We usually know when we’ll get a flyby of the area and we make sure to stay hidden and in full scales to evade the heat sensors. But two weeks ago a sister who’d been out hunting noticed a boat fairly far out with a drone headed to our shores. With technology advancing as rapidly as it is, we knew it’d only be a matter of time before they’d reach us and learn of our existence. That time has come and gone.”
<
br /> “What does this mean for us?” Elaine, the brunette female I’d met in our shared bathroom, asked. She held a five-year-old red-headed girl on her lap with olive skin and dark freckles across her cheeks. The little one looked more like her mate, Sarah. “Are we leaving?”
The older females on the couch shook their heads as if they knew something the rest of the room didn’t, and maybe so.
Azul spoke again. “No, we will not have to leave. Not permanently, at least. For the time being we have comfortable accommodations set up in the caves within the cliffs, where the children hid.”
That’s when my whirring mind slowed long enough to put a couple more puzzle pieces together. “Wait. You weren’t hiding your children from me?” A new level of understanding flickered as the words left my mouth. “You knew the Hunters were coming and you were hiding the children because of them. That’s why you were kind to me, gave me a place to rest, to prepare and gain my strength.”
I looked to Gabrielle, but she only gave a tiny nod and a tight smile.
“You were using me,” I said.
“No, we were helping you,” Azul answered.
“Um, that’s not the help I came to ask for.” Irritation shook within me and I pushed off the glass wall I’d been leaning against. My right foot tingled and I peered down to see bark creeping across my toes.
“Now, Faline, calm down.” Azul stood and placed her hands out in front of her.
I shook my head. “What if I’d died? What if they’d taken me? Do you realize you put my coterie and my sister at a greater risk?”
“We did not use you to protect us against the Hunters,” Gabrielle said with clipped words, as though the thought of it was offensive. “If you’ll remember, my sisters took out most of the Hunters, not you.”
“Oh, right.” I smiled and scanned the room. “So which one of you took two out? All by yourself?” I turned to eye Gabrielle. “While another mermaid watched?” Bark crept up my ankle and under my pant leg. I wondered if branches could extend from my toes too, and in that moment, five grew from my foot.
“You are not thinking clearly,” Gabrielle said, again with a clipped voice. Funny. She hadn’t shown that side of herself when she’d wanted me to fight for her shoal. “You know I took on two. You were there.”
“And then, instead of helping me, you took a breather.” I wanted off this island now. They’d lured me in, distributed sage advice as though they’d cared, and then pushed me into a cage fight. Maybe they were as unstable as the succubi, only more cunning.
“No, I was nearby in case you needed me,” Gabrielle argued. “But you didn’t. Which means we can save your sister. We can save all the missing sisters.”
Bark receded down my ankle along with the branches growing from my toes. Shivers replaced the tingling sensation. “You know for sure that others have been taken recently?” I asked. “Not just Heather and my sister?”
Gabrielle lowered her head and Elaine answered. “Wild Women have gone missing from every group that we know of. But like I said earlier, we don’t know why. They want something from us.”
Elaine shook her head and held tighter to her and Sarah’s little girl.
“Most American Wild Women are cut off from their origins. They do not remember their traditional roles from before we were scattered. Living outside the Hunter’s control, our shoal has passed down the stories from generations past. Huldra were the warriors, the protectors, much like their goddess, Freyja. It is time they become that once again.”
If huldra had been the protectors, it made sense that we functioned like a military group with rules and partner sisters, unlike the other Wilds I’d met so far.
Azul walked toward me with softness in her step as well as her eyes. “You are the only living huldra we know of who has tapped into her legacy. We had no way of knowing this when you arrived. We only knew you were huldra, a tree woman, who came to us. We were prepared to train you, to help you.”
“So then when do we start saving my sister?” I rubbed my temples to loosen my headache’s hold. I didn’t fully trust the mermaids. They clearly had layers of intentions behind their words and actions. But for the time being, they sought to save all missing sisters, so our goals lined up.
Azul placed a gentle hand on my right arm, though she steered clear of my fingers, probably knowing branches could sprout from my hands at any moment. For the first time, I noticed dried blood-spray across the chest of her capped sleeve dress. Azul took a long breath. “Fear runs deep, like termites. It rots out your good intentions, your abilities, your power. It turns your strengths into your weaknesses.”
Her words conjured an understanding buried deep within myself. In a way, I had feared Hunters. It’s why I’d complied with their oppressive rules and regulations. Why I believed they were only there to protect us when my gut had always fought that notion. And when I didn’t have the choice to comply with the rigid framework they’d set, I’d blacked out and let my huldra take over and woke up to a bloodied body. I feared my huldra. I feared myself.
I closed my eyes for a slow second, took in a cleansing breath, and nodded my head.
“We would like to book you and Gabrielle a flight to the east coast, to meet with the harpies.” Azul smiled at Gabrielle, who didn’t return the gesture.
“How will this help my sister?” I said, the wheels in my head already spinning. “Wait. Is this about your war on the Hunters? Reaching out to the other Wilds? But you’ve already sent word.”
Azul answered, “No one has responded yet. This method is quicker. And about your sister, the more allies you collect to help retrieve her, the more likely you’ll be successful.”
I looked at Gabrielle. “But you’re not happy about it. Do you know something I don’t?”
She sighed. “The harpies have a thing against the huldra. A long time ago our kinds—the harpies and the mermaids—used to work together to take down those we sought.”
“Is that a nice way of saying your victims? Sailors?” I asked, remembering the Hunter’s history lessons well. Unsuspecting sailors were lured to the depths of the sea by heavenly singing, or their ships crashed against the cliffs due to sudden storms. None ever survived.
“They were hardly victims,” another mermaid I hadn’t met interrupted. Her long brownish-blonde hair hung tangled from either fighting, or swimming, or both. “Our foremothers only took down those who would do more damage than good—the pirates and slave ships, before they picked up their slaves, of course.”
“Anyway,” Gabrielle snapped. “They don’t despise us as much as they despise you.” Either the tension of the evening had gotten to Gabrielle or she really didn’t want to visit the harpies.
I assumed the succubi would distrust my kind due to the mere fact that we lived closest to them, so the Oregon Hunters no doubt focused much of their “trainings” around how awful we are. And I’d heard stories from my mother of a negative encounter between a rusalki and a huldra many years ago, but the harpies too? “If huldra used to protect the other Wilds, why the common disdain for us?”
“We can’t be sure,” Azul answered. “The scorn runs deep and old, but we believe it may be rooted in the time of the Inquisitions, when Hunters rounded Wilds up for slaughter and huldras stood at the front lines to defend us. Remember, the winners write history. It’s likely that the Hunters twisted the bravery of your foremothers into a less than honorable intention.”
Everyone hated the huldra, I was learning. Except for the mermaids, of course.
“Fine. If this is going to help me get Shawna back, when do we leave?” I asked, looking around for the next random mermaid to answer my question. I’d call Marie to explain the newest developments once I got to the mainland. After I reported back to my coterie, of course.
“Caleb will be on his way shortly,” Azul answered.
Without so much as a head nod, I turned and walked down the long hallway to the room I’d slept in. I hadn’t been here a day and I was already
on my way out. Good thing I hadn’t unpacked my purse. That suited me just fine. The faster I got to Shawna, the better. At least now, I wouldn’t have to face the harpies alone. More than anything, I wanted to go straight to the Hunters’ complex and start a shit storm. If only it were that easy. They were the most formidable force my kind had known for ages, so as much as I hated it, I gripped what little patience I had left like my weapon of choice. If all went well, I’d have an army of Wilds at my back. If it didn’t, Shawna might not be the only one who needed saving.
Sixteen
“Why do you have handcuffs in here?” Gabrielle asked. She sat, fully clothed for the first time since I’d met her, in the front passenger seat of my car. White zip-tie cuffs dangled from her pointer finger.
I’d driven to the Oxnard airport—only about fifteen minutes from the harbor. The whole drive had been silent, and now, right before I parked my car in long term parking, she’d chosen to rifle through the glove box and door compartment.
I turned into the parking area and searched for a spot. “What, you don’t?” I asked, evading the question.
She arched a dark eyebrow. “We both know I don’t have a car,” she said. “Oh.” She nodded as though she’d cracked the code.
“What?” I asked, my curiosity piqued as to what she no doubt wrongly assumed I had cuffs for. I found a parking stall and pulled in.
“It makes sense,” she said, putting the cuffs where she’d found them. “Huldra. You guys like it rough, don’t you? Like dominatrix rough.”
I tilted my head and stared at her. Seriously?
“No judgment,” she promised. “Thanks to current media, it’s a respected form of sexual pleasure.”
I shook my head. “I’m a bounty hunter. I don’t need to cuff my lovers for pleasure.” I laughed a little to myself. “Or rough them up.”
“The bounty hunter thing makes sense, too.” Gabrielle opened the car door, grabbed the straps of her bag from the backseat, and struggled to get it unstuck from between the two front seats. I considered reminding her that my car had four doors, not two—she could open the back door to get her bag. But her battle against the seats was half over and she was winning.
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