The Hunters Series

by Shiloh Walker

  Malachi understood that ennui. But he had those to keep him grounded. Friends…like Eli. A brother in arm.

  And something was threatening that brother.

  No, not just something. An enemy.

  Malachi weaved in and out of the various sentinels Eli kept posted. A few vamps, but most were shifters. Inside the house, more people, humans and shifters and vampires. The sentinels could scent him, but he moved between them like a dark shadow, shifting from true form to mist and back, eluding them as they tried to track him.

  He was at Eli’s door when they finally discovered his goal. They launched themselves, eerie howls coming from their human looking mouths, as they swarmed closer to the intruder.

  “If you had bothered to give some warning, I could have prepared them and they would have given escort instead of chase,” Eli said from the open doorway. “My wolves do not like surprises.”

  Malachi flashed Eli a grin as he asked, “And what fun is that?” But he was pleased. Most others wouldn’t have eluded the sentinels, so Eli had some protection, even in the day while he slept. The bitch who was hunting Eli was a witch, but untrained and young. She’d be a little easier to catch, as long as Eli stayed on guard. “Surprises are the only things that make life tolerable.”

  Eli grinned. “Not the only, my friend. Not even the best.”

  Malachi lifted a dark red brow, the same deep red of the hair he wore in a long, thick braid that nearly touched his waist. He could scent, only faintly, the lingering sweet perfume of woman. It was…different. Human, but not. Vampire, sort of. “Still enjoying that young Huntress you brought into the Council? I’m surprised her wolf allows it. Think he’d let me have a taste?”

  Eli’s face went blank and he said in a flat, cold voice, “Not likely. Stay away from her, Malachi. She’s happy with Declan.”

  “Then there’s no reason to stay away, is there?”

  Malachi knew damn good and well there was a reason. All vampires could draw people to them—it was simply their nature, and what allowed them to feed freely and pleasurably. The older a vampire became, the stronger the call.

  Eli had seen women fall prey to that call, some he never would have imagined susceptible. Nuns, grannies, gay women, and women who despised the touch of a man. Tori may well be able to ignore it, but he wouldn’t see Declan hurt. “Leave her be, Mal. I am asking as a friend.”

  Malachi was eaten with curiosity to learn more of this woman, but it hadn’t come to pass. Staring into Eli’s serious, somber, golden gaze, he rolled his eyes. “Then, as a friend, I will,” Malachi said, sighing. Flashed him an evil grin, he said, “But tell me, does she taste as good as she fucking smells?”

  Eli’s mouth curled in a slow smile. “Better.”

  Malachi hadn’t changed.

  Not in the all the years Eli had known him.

  He still had a wide streak of mischief in him, and a craving for creating havoc. And he still treated their friendship the same.

  Few vampires had the somewhat dubious privilege of calling Malachi ‘friend’. Dubious because Malachi was sometimes a harbinger of things to come, and rarely were they pleasant, though he also would alight on Eli’s property every few decades simply for companionship.

  Of course, not tonight. I couldn’t be so lucky, Eli thought darkly. He lounged against the wall in the bathroom, as Leslie soaped and rinsed Malachi’s body. The bastard had loved the baths of medieval times, and more often than not, this was how they spent their conversations. Hell, more than once, Eli and Malachi had both ended up in that tub, either feasting on one woman, or bringing in a second so they each had one.

  But Malachi wasn’t up for sex sport tonight.

  “Nobody seems to know who the lass is,” Malachi said, eyes closed in pleasure as Leslie massaged his arms with talented fingers. As Eli had expected, she had fallen to Malachi’s silent call the moment she laid eyes on him. Of course, the bastard had also refused to take her with him, so on top of replacing Leslie, he was going to have to deal with the pseudo-withdrawal she would suffer when Malachi left.

  That was worse than anything else.

  It was unsettling to see how easily a woman succumbed to Malachi. In the early days, Eli had envied it. As he grew older, and started having some of it directed his way, he pitied the women. When Malachi left them, Eli had seen women cry as though their hearts were broken.

  He used to wonder if Mal even noticed.

  Now he knew the older vampire did notice, but he was weary. Too damned weary too care.

  Sometimes Eli wondered why Malachi chose to continue when he was so obviously tired of his life.

  Maybe, after all these centuries, it was habit.

  “Are you listening to me?” Malachi asked, his voice rough with aggravation.

  Eli forced his gaze back to Malachi and fought down the instinctive urge to fall to his knees in submission. “Wandering mind, so sorry,” he said, his voice clipped.

  Even after all these years, he still had to fight the urge to submit.

  And he was a fucking Master.

  Sometimes, when Eli found himself doubting there was any kind of God or heaven or hell, he made himself think of Malachi. Somebody had once told him, when he was a child, that God’s own angels walked the earth to help those who needed it the most. To protect those who couldn’t protect themselves.

  That was Malachi.

  Had Malachi been born with evil inside him, being the powerful Master that he was, he would have wreaked more havoc than the Council would have been able to control. Instead, he had been born a good, decent man, even if he was somewhat demented at times.

  “There’s a girl who wants ye dead,” Malachi snapped. His accent was odd, difficult, no, impossible, to place. That came from spending too much time in too many places. But when he was aggravated, the burr of Scotland came out. Even after so many centuries, Scotland was still where he called home.

  “More than one, I’d wager,” Eli said with a shrug. “What of it?”

  “This is a girl who can run like the wind and can hide in plain sight. I’ve tried tracking her, but she eludes me. She’s been askin’ about you, boy, and I don’t see her trying to sell you a bridge.”

  “Who is she?”

  Malachi dismissed Leslie with a glance and leaned forward in the water. “We don’t know, Eli. She asks, she searches and hides. But she asked the wrong person—Agnes Milcher. Agnes felt the hatred and the power. She’s a bloody powerful witch and none of ours can find her.”

  “Looks?”

  Malachi shrugged. “We don’t know that, either. She wears glamour like you wear your skin, Agnes says her image changed constantly while she tried to break the glamour and it never broke. Some saw a young tiny blonde who looked rather fey, others a strapping red-headed Amazon. Agnes saw both of those, plus a dozen more faces.”

  Eli knew you couldn’t live as long as he had, do the things he had done, and not make enemies. But none of them had gotten to him yet, and he wasn’t going to lose sleep over it.

  Chapter Two

  Eli was going to die over it.

  He had been out hunting, and hadn’t paid attention. His prey had been a child molesting bastard. He never made it to the pervert’s house.

  As he stumbled to his knees, agony tearing through him, he decided that was his number one regret.

  If he had known he’d never see another moonrise, he would have made certain Tori and Declan knew about this kill before he had left the house.

  But he hadn’t been expecting this.

  The warning Malachi had issued had fallen to the back of his mind.

  Hell, it had been nearly a fucking year since Malachi had shown his face and not one sign of this supposed girl who wanted him dead.

  Until tonight.

  Now he had a thick arrow—more like a spear than anything else—piercing his chest. Tinged with the scent of human blood, soaked in garlic—it wasn’t the garlic that would do him in. No, the real problem was whatever sh
it she had rubbed all over the spear—something toxic.

  Eli knew he was going to die. He summoned what little strength he still had and called out to his people. Hopefully some of his wolves could arrive in time. Quickly he sent a final, urgent command to Jonathan to take care of his prey and the child.

  Jonathan wasn’t a true Hunter, not yet, but he would be in time and any were could handle one fucking, perverted child molester.

  At least, he could die knowing the little girl would be saved.

  Behind him he heard footsteps, smelled a soft, sweet perfume and the musk of woman but he was too fucking weak to turn his head and look at his killer.

  Soft, pleased laughter filled the air, but a bay rent the night and the woman cursed. “Seeing as how I don’t want to die, and I know how many steps it takes to make sure a vampire is dead,” she whispered in his ear from where she knelt behind him, “I think I will have to run.

  “But I will see you dead. Until that happens, I have the pleasure of knowing you will suffer.”

  Eli coughed up blood, gagging, and spat it out as he fell forward, catching his weight on one hand. “Mind if I ask why you want me dead, witch?”

  “Because you stole someone from me,” she purred, her voice a soft seductive caress even to his dying ears. “Five years ago, a man and child died because of you…”

  God help him, if Eli had possessed the strength, and the blood, that low, sexy voice would have made his cock hard as a pike without him even seeing the woman.

  That was the last thing he remembered before he tumbled into oblivion.

  * * * * *

  Tori awoke with a gasp, fiery pain streaking through her chest, then coursing through her veins with every beat of her heart. Declan mirrored her position and they both cried out at the agony.

  When she looked down, Tori half expected to see her chest torn open. But the naked pale skin of her breasts was unmarred. Through their bond she could tell that Declan was suffering the same as she.

  Tori was the one to realize why.

  “Eli,” she gasped, forcing herself to concentrate and tamp down the bond she and her mate shared with the vampire. She couldn’t think through the pain and she needed to think.

  Somebody had tried to kill Eli.

  Somebody just may have succeeded.

  Stumbling from bed she glanced at Declan. He, too, had made the connection, his thoughts mirroring hers as he climbed from bed as well.

  “We have to go to him.”

  His beautiful face was gaunt. Gray.

  Always so golden and alive, and now Eli lay like death on his bed.

  Tori approached, her eyes burning with tears.

  But she already knew what to do.

  Tori had spoken with some of the council, spoken with the healer at his side. He’d been poisoned, all right. With a witch’s poison. If he hadn’t been a Master, he’d be dead already.

  Foxglove and sage, combined with a witch’s power, it was draining his life away.

  Drawing the dagger she had taken to carrying, Tori sliced her wrist open, deep, nearly to the bone as she knelt by Eli’s head. Declan stood ready behind her, to take over feeding Eli once Tori grew too weak.

  Tori held her bloodied wrist to Eli’s mouth as she asked, “Has the witch Agnes promised us called?”

  From the doorway the werewolf Jonathan—the one who had fed her only seven years ago, in this same house—answered quietly, “Yes. She will be here by nightfall. And she already knows what to do.” His handsome young face looked older, angry, weary. A tiny blonde child cuddled on his shoulder and he had shrugged when Tori had sent him a seeking gaze. “Eli had been hunting her father when this happened. He sent me. I took care of her father and now I can’t get her to turn me loose. I think she thinks I’m her puppy. I can’t control her mind the way…the way Eli could. Any time I lay her down, she wakes up screaming and she needs to sleep.”

  Tori had stroked the tiny blonde head and told him, “Find one of the lesser vamps, Jonathan. I know you’re getting—attached, but she doesn’t need to see this.”

  His jaw had tightened and his reply was, “I am not a child, nor do I belong to you. Eli is my master, and I answer to him. The child is asleep, unconscious actually. She is fine. Now see to Eli.” The were rarely showed anything other than deference and Declan bared his teeth at him.

  Tori had merely sighed. “Whatever. We need to focus on Eli. Now.”

  “This witch, she can handle it?” Declan asked, his voice gone deep and rough. Brilliant green eyes dancing and swirling and glowing with his rage, only his immense willpower kept him from shifting. “The bitch will most likely come tonight or tomorrow to make certain she has finished the job. Tori won’t be able to handle her tonight and I don’t know about myself. Depends on how much blood he takes from me when he is done with her.”

  “I will feed him,” Jonathan offered.

  Declan forced a tight smile and shook his head. “We’ve got a bond. He needs it from us, but you will be helping. The wolves will have to do most of the guarding until that slut is caught. The vampires can’t risk it. This would certainly kill them.” Then his eyes drifted to the little girl Jonathan still held. “You do have to let the girl go, though, Jonathan.”

  The were smiled, stroking the tiny blonde head. It was an amazing thing to have a child throw her arms around your neck and cling. “If it will kill them…” His large, luminous eyes drifted to Tori, unable to hide the worship there. His canines lengthened in rage and Declan felt the power ripple through the air as the werewolf fought the animal inside and contained it.

  Amazing, that he could. So few of the weres could control such rage, with the full moon so close. The young man would be a Master Hunter in time.

  “Tori isn’t susceptible,” Declan said, watching his wife’s face. She was focusing on the task at hand, concentrating and trying to force the life that was slipping away from Eli back inside his dying body.

  Her blood wasn’t just intoxicating. Over the years they had discovered it was damn near miraculous and could heal almost anything. They had learned this after a silver bullet had torn through them both, nearly destroying his heart. Declan had lain nearly dead, while Tori wept and cried over him, her own blood seeping from the ever-shrinking hole in her belly.

  As her blood flowed onto him, his own bullet wound started to heal. It finally closed nearly an hour later, after expelling the bullet that had lodged inside him. A wound that should have killed Declan instead laid him up in bed for a week while he recovered.

  Whether or not it would work on Eli, they didn’t know.

  The young witch looked like Pippy Longstocking, with two long fat braids that lay over her gently rounded breasts, freckles splattered across her nose. A kid…she looked like a mere kid. But her eyes, big, green-gold eyes looked world weary, and as old as the ages.

  A nubby brown sweater hung to her hips and she wore clunky hiking boots on her feet. Tori stared at her with suspicion while thinking, this is the best the council has?

  The witch, Kelsey, smiled at Tori and said, “Not the best, no. But the closest. I’ll do what I can, and if what I do isn’t enough, then I can buy him time until another, more powerful witch arrives.” She turned her large eyes to the blood stained clothes and the wooden arrow, the end decorated with beads, feathers, and magic.

  Tori watched as Kelsey trailed her fingers lightly, almost timidly, down the shaft of the overlarge arrow, a hiss coming from her parted lips. “Hatred. So much hatred. Need for justice. Grief. And power.”

  When the girl lifted her eyes, Tori saw that they glowed hot, the brown gleaming and glowing nearly red with her power. “Blood-spell. She forged this herself, cut it, shaped it, breathed her hate into it. Only her blood will completely save him.”

  Kelsey’s skin was glowing like a pearl in the sunlight as she held one hand above the arrow and uttered a few words in some unrecognizable language. An orb floated from her hand, forming out of thin air, to hover over
the shaft making it whirl, and then it stilled, pointing east. Another guttural word from Kelsey and the orb drifted down until it encased the arrow and she whispered, “Got you.”

  Moments later she stood over Eli’s still body and said quietly, “Your blood has bought him time. But it won’t heal him. It can’t, Tori. She’s cursed him.”

  Tori rubbed her wrist where the deep cut healed slowly. In a few days, it would be gone. She was weaker from the loss of so much blood. Thank God Kelsey had arrived before Declan had tried to feed Eli. He was in fighting form and not weak from blood loss. He’d be able to hunt the assassin.

  “Cursed him,” Tori repeated, staring at Eli’s still face. “Curses are real?”

  “As real as we are,” Kelsey murmured, staring at Eli with pity. “So handsome. He’s something of a wonder, Eli is. He’s what many of the Hunters aspire to be.”

  “You?”

  Kelsey laughed. “No. Not me. I’m a healer, a witch. A damn good witch, if I may say so. But I’m no warrior. I serve the council in my own way.”

  “How can we break the curse?”

  Kelsey shrugged. “If it wasn’t a blood-spell, I could probably do it myself. Most curses are fairly simple. But…but a blood spell can only be broken by the one who did it.”

  Declan had entered in silence and now he stood behind Tori, a hot, angry presence at her back, while he listened to the witch. “So I just find this woman and …convince her to break the spell and he will be fine?” Declan asked. His voice was a low pitched growl in his anger, as it had been for the past day.

  “Don’t you mean coerce?” Kelsey asked with a tiny smile, and then she shook her head. “Not that simple. She has to give back what she tried to steal. Her life essence to replace his.”

  “An eye for an eye,” Tori murmured.

  “Not exactly. She doesn’t have to die. Actually, the way magic works, it’s better if she doesn’t. What she has to do is feed him.”

  “And if we don’t find her?”