Hunter and Hunted (The Shifter Chronicles 4)

by M. D. Grimm

  Glenn guessed what he wanted and reached over to a small dresser by his bed.

  “The drawer. Lube.”

  Hunter grabbed a small bottle, and Glenn showed him what to do. He squirted a healthy amount into Hunter’s hand before flipping over onto his stomach. His deer bleated and squirmed, ready to be mounted, craving it.

  “Slick me up,” Glenn said, looking at Hunter over his shoulder. “Use your fingers to stretch me.”

  His couldn’t raise his voice above a whisper, but Hunter heard him clearly. Glenn rose on his hands and knees, and Hunter did as he was told. Glenn dropped his head, his neck no longer able to hold it up, and stifled a moan. The walls might be thick, but they weren’t soundproof.

  Those thick fingers stretched him slowly, creating delicious tingles in his balls, and he grabbed his erection, stroking slowly.

  “You like that?” Hunter asked hoarsely next to Glenn’s ear.

  Glenn grunted an affirmative. “More.”

  “I’m going to make you remember me.”

  Glenn’s eyes popped open, but before he could utter a word, Hunter was slipping inside him. Closing his eyes, Glenn spread his legs wider, gripping the pillows. The pressure was intense and the pain was minimal. Hunter had certainly readied him adequately. His mate gripped his hips as he deepened the penetration.

  Glenn moaned. “Hunter.”

  “You’re mine,” Hunter whispered as he began to thrust, slow and steady. Glenn shuddered and stroked himself faster.

  “I’m yours.” Hunter groaned as he quickened his speed. “We are one.”

  The power of his thrusts intensified and his speed made Glenn grab the headboard to keep from bashing his head against it. He bit his lower lip to stifle his sounds of delight, and he knew Hunter did as well. He heard his mate’s heavy breathing, and Glenn pushed back against Hunter, matching his rhythm, his speed, squeezing his inner muscles. Hunter shuddered and his grip on Glenn’s hip tightened. His skin rippled as his deer pranced just under the surface, overwhelmed and in such need.

  They moved as one in the dark, the pleasure mounting to an almost unbearable degree—until they both reached completion, Hunter first, then Glenn. Glenn was slammed into the mattress as Hunter collapsed on him, but he didn’t mind. He could still breathe and he enjoyed the heat and weight of his mate on top of him. And the sensation of Hunter still inside him.

  “I love you,” Glenn whispered into the night.

  Hunter made a strange grunt and Glenn smiled. He knew Hunter felt the same.

  Chapter Nine

  Hunter wrote a note for Glenn. He couldn’t have Glenn trying to follow him or search for him. He was silent as he dressed, as he wrote, and as he stood gazing at Glenn, who slept so peacefully in the bed. It wasn’t morning yet—too dark to set off through the forest—but Hunter had seen a gravel road in the front of the house that led to the highway. He could follow that and go around the forest to get to his truck, where he’d parked it at the park’s entrance.

  It would be a good hike, but still quicker than going through the forest at the risk of getting lost. He had a compass but he didn’t want to risk falling and breaking a leg or something. Or surprising a predator, especially when his rifle was somewhere in the forest.

  He’d made his decision the instant his vision finished. He needed to return to the Knights. He needed to quit—and pay the consequences.

  They would probably kill him. Hunter closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He grabbed his bag and didn’t dare kiss Glenn goodbye. He would always have their time together to help him endure the punishment the Knights would inflict upon him. And Glenn would always have those memories as well.

  He hoped Glenn didn’t hate him when he read the letter.

  Hunter turned and left, shutting the door quietly. Everyone was sleeping as he crept down the stairs, across the living area where he’d spent a remarkable day, and out through the front door. The sun had yet to rise, but Hunter had a flashlight. He descended the porch steps with a heavy heart and made his way back to the people who’d tried to turn him into a monster, leaving those who were his true family behind.

  “Goodbye, Glenn,” he whispered into the silent night.

  Glenn opened his eyes and stretched. He turned over and realized he was alone. Touching the pillow where Hunter had laid his head, he discovered that it was cold. He frowned and sat up, at once noticing that Hunter’s bag was gone and so was his mate. Glenn flung off the blankets and checked the clock. It wasn’t morning yet. Then a piece of paper slipped under the clock caught his attention. He grabbed it and the first line told him who it was from.

  He swept his gaze over the tidy scrawl and as it did, his heart sank. Hunter had lied about the vision and while he explained his reasons for it and his actions in the letter practically, Glenn’s legs trembled and he collapsed on the bed. The Knights would kill Hunter, there was no doubt of that. He told Glenn not to seek him out, he told Glenn to let him go, that he was doing all this for Glenn and his family.

  “You son of a bitch,” Glenn said with a trembling voice. Hunter was trying to protect him, but who would protect Hunter? Mates protected the other.

  You have my heart, said the last line of the letter. They can never take that and I will always know the truth. Your mate, Hunter.

  Glenn crumpled the letter and shoved it into his jacket pocket after he quickly dressed. He yanked on his boots as he hopped down the steps.

  “Where’re you going?” Rowan said sleepily. She stepped out of the bathroom on the second floor and stared at him blearily. He looked up at her.

  “No time.” Glenn grabbed the keys to the truck off the hook and dashed out the front door.

  “Glenn!”

  He shushed her. “Quiet, Ro! Don’t wake the house.”

  “What’s going on?” she said in a loud whisper as she followed him, wearing only a long T-shirt that proclaimed her a fan of a band called “The Blaggards.”

  “Hunter’s being stupid,” Glenn said and got in the truck. “Now go inside before you freeze to death. Don’t tell Dad.”

  Rowan’s eyes widened. “Was Hunter tricking us?”

  “Of course not,” Glenn snapped. He slammed the truck’s door and started the engine. “He’s being a martyr, and I have no intention of letting him.”

  Glenn left Rowan confused and afraid but couldn’t help it. He drove like a maniac to the park’s parking lot, hoping, praying he would spot Hunter there. How long ago did he leave? It couldn’t have been too long—although the mattress and pillow were cold, Hunter’s scent was still strong on the fabric, and they’d spent most of the night making love.

  Glenn’s hands tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles paled, and he roared into the parking lot. He didn’t know what Hunter’s truck looked like, and he searched them all. But he found no evidence of his mate. His deer pleated, crying out to his missing mate.

  Standing in the middle of the parking lot, despair almost driving him to his knees on the pavement, Glenn wracked his mind. Hunter never told him where the Knights were, and he dared not get his family more involved. He couldn’t risk them.

  What was he going to—

  Glenn gasped and leapt into his father’s truck. He grabbed the satellite phone out of the glove compartment and dialed a number his father had made him memorize—a phone number his father always told him was to be used only in an emergency.

  Glenn was convinced this was an emergency.

  Agent Poe felt frustration weigh him down like a wet blanket. And he couldn’t shake it off, no matter how hard he tried. Nothing seemed to be going the way it should. The Agency still had no leads to the location of the Knights’ main headquarters. It was over a month, nearing towards two, since the city of Haven, Montana had been discovered by the Knights, and those sadistic pricks had yet to make a move. Since Haven was a town founded by shifters for shifters, it wasn’t complicated to understand why its discovery by the Knights was such a success. But no signs of kn
ight activity had been detected anywhere near Haven. So what were they waiting for? Some agents were stationed in Haven—was that the reason for the lack of attention? Were the Knights as cowardly as that? Unwilling to risk warfare with the Agency? They should be.

  Poe stomped down the narrow aisle that lay between endless cubicles. He was at the current Agency Headquarters and had just worked off a good rage in the gym. There were other missions that required his attention, but the Knights occupied him most days and were the reason he got so little sleep at night. The Knights were the reason he barely ate and lived off coffee and chocolate and would work hours on end until his captain was forced to order him to his Agency-acquired apartment. But even there he would just lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, his mind racing over all the facts and figures.

  And he would never come up with anything. The Knights always managed to stay one step ahead of him, and it wasn’t long before he’d realized that the Agency was tracking substations, not their headquarters. Those substations were always cleaned out before agents arrived. Shannon, the former knight now acting as the aide to Captain Hera, could only tell them the location of a handful of substations. As to the headquarters themselves, she wasn’t high enough on the food chain to have that information. All she could tell them was that HQ moved yearly and that the Knights seemed to choose big cities for their headquarters, but how many big cities were there in the U.S. of A?

  Poe turned into his own modest cubicle and kicked his chair before dropping down onto it. He wasn’t the only agent working on the Knights’ case, but he was the lead. The annihilation of the Knights was his responsibility. And shifters were dying because he couldn’t catch their scent.

  Hatred for the Knights rose up in him again, and only his training kept him from acting out that rage on some innocent bystander. Not only did they murder and experiment on shifters, but they corrupted children with special abilities before the Agency could find and protect them. Even recruit them (as all the agents had been) for the mission to protect the shifters. Somehow the Knights had access to the same information as the Agency did about children with special abilities and where to find them. Poe shared his captain’s suspicion that they had a traitor in upper management, maybe even their own newest chief of the US branch of the Agency. A chief who was currently in Switzerland somewhere having a meeting with the chiefs of other Agency branches. But it was treasonous to accuse a chief of feeding the enemy information. Poe had to have proof, and right now all he had was suspicion.

  Poe swiveled around in his chair and stared at the photograph of his parents. His ability was immense strength, and he was sure he’d gotten that from his dad, who was a real-life axe-wielding-jewel-mining-Lord-of-the-Rings-short-in-stature dwarf. He was even born in Iceland.

  Poe sighed and glanced at Agent Hecate, who was showing her partner Belle something on the computer screen. While Hecate was a Level 4 field agent, Belle was still a Level 3, though Poe suspected she was close to earning a promotion. Hecate had the unenviable ability of necromancy and Belle had a super-charged eidetic memory. They worked well together, despite their disparate backgrounds and ages—Hecate was in her early forties, a native of New Orleans with dark skin, silver eyes, and a thick Cajun accent while Belle was in her twenties, Hopi, and born on the reservation in Arizona.

  Poe used to be partnered with Captain Odin, before he was captain, and didn’t miss it. He liked being a Level 4 agent—it meant he could work independently and call his own shots. While Captain Odin liked to be kept in the loop, he trusted Poe to get the job done.

  Poe turned to his computer, about to log in, when something pulled his attention to Mackenzie, their competent receptionist. She took calls like a pro from shifters and humans needing assistance. As Poe leaned out of his cubicle and considered her, it surprised him when her eyes widened and her usually peppy, warm brown face paled. Her dark gaze immediately searched for his, and then she gestured to him.

  He was out of his chair in less than a second and moved swiftly to her side.

  “What is it, Mackenzie?” he asked.

  “A deer shifter named Glenn,” she said with a slight accent, hinting at her Hispanic heritage. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “He says he encountered a knight in his forest in Ohio and they became friends. Then the former knight left and Glenn fears the worst.”

  Even as his stomach dropped to his feet, his heart pounded and he was suddenly lightheaded. Poe grabbed the receiver and took over.

  “This is Agent Poe. Start at the beginning and tell me everything.”

  As Glenn continued to talk, Poe grew more excited and his muscles twitched, bunching for action. Glenn’s voice wavered at some parts, but it was steady the majority of the time. He sounded young, but determined. And in love.

  It was always worse when they were in love. Imagine, he thought, a knight converted by love. Maybe there is hope for this bloodthirsty world.

  “We’ll be there immediately,” Poe said after Glenn concluded his story. “Do you have anything of his? Something he handled recently?”

  “I—I have a letter he wrote,” Glenn answered.

  “Great.” There might be hope. “Touch it as little as possible. We’ll need it. Where is your exact location?”

  Poe wrote it down. “Good. Watch the skies.” He hung up and immediately got on the loudspeaker.

  “Would Captain Odin please come to Floor Three’s reception desk? Captain Odin to Floor Three’s reception desk.”

  “Madre de dios, is it enough?” Mackenzie asked, her slim hands gripping the edge of the table.

  “I hope to whatever deity it is,” Poe said passionately. It wasn’t long before his captain was striding toward him. At almost seven feet tall and built like a professional football player, Captain Odin was an intimidating sight. He was bald and his eyes were black, contrasting with his pale skin, giving him an almost alien look. But, ironically enough, despite his intimidating presence, his gift was the ability to be invisible in plain sight. If he didn’t want people to see him, they wouldn’t. He could hide without actually hiding.

  “Poe?”

  Poe grabbed his captain’s arm and urged him to a corner of the room. He knew attention was on them, even though all the agents had their eyes elsewhere. He also knew they were trying to listen. He couldn’t blame them.

  “I’ve got some good news, Captain.” Poe outlined the situation in a low voice.

  Odin’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. His eyes came alive and the air around him changed. He asked softly, “You’re certain?”

  “Positive,” Poe said. “We have to move now. We have to get them now, Odin.”

  It was rare for him to be so informal with his captain in public, but the urgency made him slip. They had history and trust, and he needed his friend to back him up.

  “I agree,” Odin said. “We have to contact Chief Anu—”

  “No.” Poe nearly shouted. He winced and lowered his voice again. Odin ducked his head down until they were nearly touching.

  “Odin, not only will it take too long to reach him, you know we have a traitor. And every time we get a lead on the Knights, and he’s involved, when we arrive... I just can’t take that chance this time. Too much has happened since he became chief only a month ago.”

  Odin grunted. Poe understood that the ingrained loyalty every agent gave his or her chief was being challenged. He felt the strain as well, but hard choices had to be made.

  “We need to move swiftly and stop them before they can destroy anything else,” Poe said urgently. “We need to bring Isis, and Genii can fly the helicopter,” he continued. “We’ll find their HQ and then call for reinforcements. This has to be done delicately. We have no room for error.”

  “I know,” Odin said solemnly. He straightened and scanned the office. Phones rang, keys on keyboards clapped, and chatter flourished. Mackenzie kept giving them sidelong glances. Poe struggled to swallow his impatience. They needed to move now.

  �
�I will come,” Odin said. “But you will be in charge. You’ve been the head of the investigation concerning the Knights for nearly a year now. You know more about this case than anyone. You and your team have trained for this moment. You take the lead and I will follow your direction.”

  Poe was staggered by the honor. Odin was a formidable leader who could easily command an army into a bloody battle. And yet, he was handing over the reins. Poe had never expected that.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said with dignity.

  Odin turned back to him and nodded but did not smile. “You’re in charge, Poe. That also means if anything goes wrong, it will be on you.”

  There was always a cloud to any silver lining.

  “I know,” he said.

  Chapter Ten

  Glenn paced the parking lot, Hunter’s letter on the passenger seat. He’d held it by the corners and tried not to breathe on it. Glenn stuffed his hands into his pockets and realized with a start that the jacket he wore belonged to Hunter. The one Hunter had let him borrow. Hunter’s scent was weak on it, but just the knowledge of it once being Hunter’s kept his mate close to him. It gave him hope. It also served to calm his deer.

  Why the Agency wanted the letter, he had no clue, but he wasn’t giving up the jacket.

  The sun was rising when he heard an odd noise that slowly grew louder. He glanced around before looking up. He gasped and backed away from the helicopter coming in for a landing on the parking lot. The chopper was sleek and black with tinted windows and no logo whatsoever on it. It was meant to blend in, as much as something that noisy could blend in.

  Before the propellers stopped moving, the door slid open and a short pale man in black, with spiky blond hair, jumped out. He stood and Glenn noticed that while he wasn’t tall, he was well muscled—the skintight black pants and long-sleeved shirt not hiding that fact. Two others followed him: a very tall and broad, pale bald man also wearing black, and a sultry woman. She was as short as the first man, but curvy and generously endowed with copper skin and dark eyes and hair.