The Hunters Series

by Shiloh Walker

  “And don’t look so glum.” Just before the door slammed, he added, “Your sister Lori lives at the school. She’s a student as well.”

  He shifted to an insubstantial mist a second later and laughed at the look of incredulity on her face.

  Chapter Five

  Five Years Later

  Sarel strolled out of Excelsior in December, feeling the freedom, the incredible release. It wasn’t just knowing she had fulfilled her obligation to Elijah Crawford, though.

  Until she had come to the school she had not realized how much of a burden her untrained magic was.

  Assuming her wild magic was what all witches dealt with—that uncontrolled energy that ran through her like a wildfire—she had thought she must constantly battle it, lest it consume her.

  After less than six months at Excelsior she had realized how wrong she had been. Trained magic was like breathing. It was natural, it was easy, it was controlled.

  No longer did she sleep in stops and starts, afraid that the magic would pour from her and damage something, but soundly and sweetly. Often she dreamt of the golden, beautiful vampire who had sent her here.

  Dreamt of him…wanted him, yearned for him.

  She could admit that now. Hell, she had wanted him even when she had wanted to kill him.

  The vampire had shown no sign of ever wanting her though.

  No way would she go chasing after a vampire like a bitch in heat, being certain he dealt with that far too much. Never would she become like every other woman he had dealt with, even if she was dying to spend one night under him letting him fuck her within an inch of her life.

  Blowing a lock of her burnished red hair out of her eyes, feeling the sun on her face as she jogged down the steps away from Excelsior, she at last felt free from the long halls, the endless training sessions and the boring meditation. Of course, if it for wasn’t the meditation, she never would have learned the control that had finally given her the most blissful peace.

  Though glad to be free of Excelsior, she would come back from time to time. For a visit. Not to teach, hell no, and definitely not as a student.

  With a laugh, she headed for the path that would lead her away from the school for the very last time.

  The trail was a long, winding one, leading from the sprawling stone construction down the hill nearly a half mile to the dorms and parking lot.

  Sarel was less than a third of the way when she smelled it on the trail. Her senses had always been very acute, but the training had refined them. Lust. After being around so many hormonal youths she recognized the scent easily now. But she was puzzled, because she smelled vampire as well as a shifter and the sun was blazing high overhead.

  She rounded the corner and saw a blond man holding a woman against a tree, her legs locked around his waist, heels hooked together just above his ass as he kissed his way down her slim, pale neck. That shaggy blond head didn’t look familiar, but it was rather fine ass she was staring at.

  But the brunette there…yeah, she knew who the woman was. Tori Reilly, bonded and married to Declan Reilly, who Sarel assumed was the blond. But Tori was a vampire. Her impossibly blue eyes opened and she stared directly at Sarel, eyes fogged by lust, but aware enough. “Darling, we have company,” she murmured.

  “I know.” The words were hardly more than a growl. “Tell her to go away.”

  “Seeing as how we came here to see her, that’s not very nice, baby,” Tori said, although her breath caught a little as he moved against her.

  Sarel felt the blush start to rise and battled it down. Sometimes—now—it actually worked. She didn’t have a fair complexion, despite the auburn hair, but rather golden skin all over—from head to toe—so why on earth did she blush so fucking easily? She wasn’t naïve, nor sheltered.

  Watching the shifter as he touched his wife, seeing the way she responded made Sarel’s body heat, made the blood rise to her face, and …shit. It made her hot. Plain and simple. It just made her hot.

  Declan slowly lowered Tori to the ground, stroking his hands over her unabashedly, from her hips up her sides, over her rounded breasts to cup her face. Then he kissed her deep and slow, tenderly, so tenderly, it made Sarel’s heart flip over in her chest before he released Tori, and moved to stand beside his wife.

  Both of them pinned her with hard, cool eyes.

  Sarel was uneasy. It didn’t feel right, standing here in the cool green woods with these two. Especially since one of them shouldn’t be able to venture outside for hours yet. There were spells, she knew, that a witch could cast that would protect a vampire from sun for brief periods of time, but she scented no magic. Being a young witch— powerful but young—there were many different flavors of magic, so maybe she was mistaken.

  Absently she reached up and pressed her fingers against the cross she wore under her shirt. It was silver, heavy, almost as old as Excelsior, and it gave her great comfort to wear it. Having learned in the past five years that while Elijah Crawford was most definitely one of the ‘good’ guys, many other vampires weren’t, and Sarel didn’t trust Tori. Granted, most of that was probably just jealousy, but hell.

  “Isn’t there something about vampires and sunlight?” she finally asked as Declan and Tori continued to stare at her.

  Tori smiled slowly, a rather disturbing smile that brought no warmth to her lovely, angelic face. It revealed two sharp, white fangs and it made Sarel’s blood run cold. “I’m a rather unusual vampire. Elijah could tell you all sorts of things about me.”

  Sourly, Sarel said, “Oh, I just bet.”

  Declan suppressed a smile. Tori didn’t bother. She laughed outright, her blue eyes glinting with amusement. “Isn’t that—fitting,” she decided.

  “What?” Sarel asked defensively, crossing her arms over her chest. Her heart was still pounding hard and heavy. Fear, she knew. She was afraid. She should use the meditation skills she had learned and calm the fear. But that would be admitting she was too afraid and she didn’t want to admit that she needed to be calmed down.

  “You are jealous,” Tori replied, sliding her hands into her back pockets, rocking back on her heels and smiling sweetly. “I don’t normally share details of my sex life, but I’m tempted. Eli’s quite excellent. Want details? How good it feels to be between the two of them?” She slid her eyes sideways to study the sexy form of her husband—the way his pale blond hair tumbled over his face, his large intelligent green eyes, his long lean body, broad shoulders, narrow hips. “I could give you details.”

  Sarel’s breath caught in her chest, her face went hot. Details? No. It wasn’t details she wanted, she wanted the experience. And to wipe that smirk off Tori Reilly’s face. Even if that bitch had every right to hate her, just to be petty, she’d prefer the experience to be with Eli and Declan, not Eli and some faceless stranger.

  “Tori,” Declan said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t be evil.”

  “But Declan, the little bitch deserves it.” Tori caught her husband’s eye and shrugged, muttering, “Oh, all right.” Turning back, she met Sarel’s gaze, a tiny, pleased smile on her face, having accomplished exactly what she’d intended, after all.

  If Tori hadn’t had what she had been wanting for the past five years, Sarel just might like the cocky vampire.

  “We’re here for the Council.”

  The Council.

  Sarel knew of the Council.

  No student at Excelsior didn’t know. Many of the students were recruited by the Council after graduation. Many dreamed of being a Hunter, but most went on to become teachers, healers—like Kelsey—or scholars.

  Hell, even her little sister Lori was going to go on to serve the Council as a Healer. Lori had completed her training already and even now was with Eli, serving an internship—to see if they were compatible.

  That really burned Sarel, but she refused to let Lori see. After being separated so long, she couldn’t let anything dampen their blossoming relationship. And Kelsey had assured Sarel, with mild amusement,
that Eli would feel far too…fatherly towards Lori to indulge in any sort of relationship with the young Healer.

  One sister serving as a Healer—

  And the other, possibly a Hunter.

  Not many witches had it in them to become a Hunter. Witches were healers, teachers. Rarely were they warriors.

  Sarel had never really thought of it. The Council had not sought her out. Many times, that was what happened. The outside world thought Excelsior was an arts school for talented and troubled children. They found the children who needed them—and those children were definitely talented, and most often troubled—and sent them a scholarship. If the scholarship wasn’t enough, then usually some ‘persuasion’ was used, in the form a light mental touch. The children’s magic needed training, before they hurt someone.

  Or before somebody who saw the magic hurt them.

  So the witches had no problem using magic to get the child into the school.

  Sarel had been much older when she had gone to Excelsior and it had only taken her five years, instead of the normal ten or more. But she had never dreamed of the Council. She had dreamed of someday living a normal life with her sister.

  Of course, her sister was one of the starry-eyed ones who wanted to stay on in service to the Council. She was serving who she wanted, Elijah Crawford. And she had become exactly what she had wanted, a Healer.

  What they wanted of Sarel, she had a pretty good idea. She was a fighter, born and bred.

  Neither Tori nor Declan looked pleased about being here.

  “You’re a witch. You’ve a gift. Are you familiar with noblesse oblige?”

  Sarel sneered at him. “I don’t owe you damn thing.”

  Tori laughed. “She’s not familiar with it, darling,” Tori said, answering the question Declan had asked of Sarel. “Noblesse oblige is the premise that those who are more fortunate are obligated to help those who are less fortunate. The Hunters Council was founded on such a premise.

  “And for some unfathomable reason they think you ought become a part of it,” she finished, looking at Sarel like she had climbed out from under a rock.

  “Tori, enough,” Declan said with a sigh. “She is practically a child. And she was a child when she did it—a stupid one, but a child nonetheless. She thought he’d killed her sister. It was mistake. Let it go.”

  “Let it go,” Tori whispered. Her eyes started to glow. Like neon, Sarel thought. And if she’d had any doubts whether Tori was indeed a vampire, they died in that second.

  Tori’s eyes glowed like a neon blue sign—hot and wild and glimmering—full of anger and rage. “Let it go?” she repeated, her wrathful whisper filling the forest, sliding through the trees like a deadly snake, sending icy chills down Sarel’s spine. “She nearly killed him, yet he repays her by sending her here, to the finest of schools, paying Excelsior to take her in. Excelsior wants her, of course. The Council wants her. And all is forgiven because she was just a stupid kid?”

  “Look, bitch, you got a problem with me?” Sarel snapped, tired, ready to go home, to go to bed. The euphoria from just moments earlier had faded and she was tired, angry and ashamed. Guilty still, after five years. “Let’s just settle it.” Surely, she could handle one young vampire. Tori had only been dead less than a decade and—

  Sarel was on the ground under one hundred thirty pounds of furious, deadly female—flashing fangs and venomous anger. She should have been able to throw her easily. She had a good thirty pounds on Tori, and probably five inches in height, but the small, slim hands held her pinned with laughable ease.

  Sarel waited for Tori to strike. There was a hunger lurking in her glowing eyes and an anger that Sarel knew Tori had every right to.

  But her neck wasn’t ripped open. Sarel awkwardly spilled the silver crucifix from her shirt and Tori laughed, reached for the chain and snapped it, lifting the cross to her lips and kissing it. “A lovely piece. My mother would have loved it. You should cherish it.” Then she had the gall to tuck it back into Sarel’s pocket and pat it lightly.

  Sarel started to mumble lightly. In time, she would be able to cast spells and work magic without words. She no longer needed gestures, but the words—she needed them still. However, she didn’t get the chance to finish them. A fist flew out of nowhere and struck her in the mouth. Then the weight on her waist was gone and she could rise.

  “Settled,” Tori said, smiling as she daintily licked a few drops of blood from her fist. “Hmm. Female. Female blood just never tastes as good to me.”

  Declan closed his eyes.

  If Sarel had any clue about men, he was praying for patience.

  When he opened his rather dreamy green eyes, he looked at Sarel with an assessing gaze. “Tori can most likely let this go now—can you?”

  Sarel sat up slowly, her head aching, her mouth numb and wiggled her jaw slowly. It wasn’t broken. If the vampire had wanted it broken, then Sarel figured she would have been drinking her meals through a straw for the next few weeks, though she could taste blood—bitter, salty, metallic. “She’s a right to one free hit, I’d say. One.”

  “Honey, if I had wanted more than one, I would have already taken it,” Tori smirked, dusting her black pants off, smoothing down the short, snug blue sweater she wore. After tossing her hair back, she smiled sunnily. “The Council is asking for you.”

  And you didn’t tell the Council no.

  You could always refuse to join.

  But you had to at least listen.

  Sarel didn’t tell them no .

  She had known she wouldn’t.

  She even knew on the trip there why she was being called to the Council. She was a warrior. Witch or no, she was a fighter, and she always had been. All the students at Excelsior had to go through self defense. After less than a month, Sarel had been asked to assist in teaching the younger students.

  It was on the trip back, flying over the Atlantic, that she had wondered who they were sending her to. She’d been told she would be given to a partner. The Hunters were almost always in pairs. And the newest Hunters were always put with a more experienced Hunter.

  Malachi, one of the vampires on the council, had told her in a quiet voice her mentor would meet her flight in Chicago. His voice hadn’t sounded of England, the way many of the Councilors had, but almost Irish, like Declan’s. Though not…quite. Maybe Scotland.

  He had watched her warily, with distrust.

  Sarel had watched him, warily. The older vampires had a…feel to them. And Malachi wasn’t just old…he was ancient. He had a feel of age to him, great age, like the forests in England, the stone circles in Ireland—great age.

  Malachi didn’t like her.

  She suspected she knew why.

  Elijah Crawford.

  They were close, her gut told her.

  The flight seemed to go on for an endless night, but it wasn’t even two a.m. when they landed. Disembarking quickly, she was ready to meet her new mentor—cripes, what a hokey word—get it over with and find a fucking bed. She was so damned tired.

  It had been exhausting, the whole damned week, ever since finding Tori and Declan at Excelsior, the packing, the whirlwind flight to England, the intense, relentless interviews.

  Needless to say, witches, vampires, shifters had all presided. Kelsey had been there, smiling comfortingly, a silent, soothing presence. Malachi had been there, a very disconcerting presence.

  There had been a number of excited phone calls from Lori, filled with nerves, pride, and worry.

  At least they had wanted her. Until Excelsior had gotten hold of her, she had been rough and unrefined, guilty of attempted murder, and had no last name until she chose one at random. Sarel Chandler.

  Still, they had wanted her.

  No one had ever wanted her before.

  Chapter Six

  Elijah wanted her.

  When he had been lying in his bed, still nearer to death than he liked to think about, he had wanted her. That unusual dark reddish hair, shot thro
ugh with streaks of pure gold, her widely spaced, slanted green-gold cat’s eyes, and that lush body. She was built like a movie star from the 1940s, lush and sexy. Why in God’s name had men decided that women weren’t supposed to look like women anymore?

  Sarel Chandler looked like a woman. Big breasts, little waist, round hips, round ass, long lovely legs.

  And that hair. To be able to free it from its confines and bury his face in it and see if it still smelled like honeysuckle.

  He grinned. Waxing poetic about a woman’s hair—he had it bad.

  Elijah stood in the shadows, watching her among the milling passengers, looking tired, confused, lost, and defiant.

  Why couldn’t they have sent me somebody a little easier? Eli wondered.

  But, hell, Eli had never really enjoyed easy.

  Lately, he had been bored, and so fucking lonely.

  He wanted her, and damn it, he was going to get her.

  He was briefly distracted by a whisper in his mind…one of his vamps, Sheila touched his mind and waited for his response. A brief smile crossed his face as he thought of the newly turned young vampire from Georgia and he answered, “Yes, sweet?”

  “We have intruders, prowlers. They seek you…I hear them looking for you on the streets in town, and I smell them around our lands. Shall I go and find out more?”

  “Not alone, Sheila. You’re too young, too new. Take Jonathan—”

  Sheila’s mirth filled his mind and he sent a silent query. “He’s too hooked on your new Healer to bother with escorting me into town. Rafael?”

  Eli suppressed a smile. Sheila was entirely too taken with Rafe, but Eli wasn’t about to have the two hundred year old vampire out on the town, so to speak, with a vampire who had been changed less than a year. Sheila was entirely too…charming. Eli preferred to keep Rafe focused when he wasn’t around.