His face went wooden, impassive. Moving her away from him, he eyed her with cold, blank eyes. “Then so be it. I won’t touch you again until you beg me. But the day will come that you will beg me. But I won’t make you the promises you want, Lori. I’m not the man for them,” he said flatly. “I told you years ago. You want a fairy tale prince. I’m the monster from the fairy tale.”
Lori suspected Jonathan had believed it for so long, he was starting to become it.
His words echoed in her ears.
“But the day will come that you will beg me…”
His precious Lori really believed he could hurt her, take her by force—no—against her will. A difference, slight, but still a difference. Jonathan’s hands flexed as he followed the road down the mountains to the bypass in Virginia. And his rage only grew.
Her resolve to leave was firm.
It was for the best, wasn’t it?
A deep throbbing growl built in his chest as his hands tightened and his nails darkened, the claws showing and lengthening as his rage called to the soul of the wolf within. He heard the ancient, wise creature rouse and felt a questioning from him.
So very few were could communicate with the wolf on such a level, and the creature was amused at Jonathan’s frustration. The wolf simply thought the one word that would shatter what was left of Jonathan’s composure.
Mate…
Jonathan adamantly thought, No. Even though the word resounded through his soul, his heart, his gut. And the wolf was ancient, wise…
Mate…lose your mate, lose yourself, brother.
Jonathan sent images of himself to the creature, his dark, shattered soul, while glancing at Lori out of the corner of his eye. I have no right to take a mate with all this darkness in me. I may not be tainted, but I have too much darkness, too much unrest. She’s got too much goodness inside her for me. I’m still fighting my demons. I don’t deserve her.
He felt a chuffing in his head, the wolf’s laughter. Personal demons? The only demons you have are inside your head. If you had that much darkness, you wouldn’t hear me.
The were can be tainted. How many feel the call of the werewolf and go feral? Jonathan said.
They don’t hear me. You do. What a person does with the soul is his choice. Know that, if nothing else.
Jonathan stiffened as the wolf’s words, so easily understood, sank home. Tavis could bespeak the wolf. A handful of others…Declan, on very, very rare occasion mentioned feeling his touch. But he was inherent, only part were, so the touch wasn’t as strong.
Tell me this, young brother…can you see yourself without the witch in years to come? Can you see her with another?
Bleakness filled his soul at the thought of a life without her—years stretching on into forever—year after empty year without the sight of that lovely face, her enchanting laughter. It wasn’t even that physical contact that he’d grown crave. It was just...her.
Fury twisted through him as an image of another man, faceless, nameless, appeared in his mind.
Another Hunter…she would go to the Council. Her sense of loyalty ran deep, and she would continue to help those who had saved her. Rage—hot, deep and pulsating—worked through him, pumping in his veins as his mind’s eye saw them together, laughing, working…fucking…
And then, years down the road, her lovely face finally starting to show slight signs of age, she was walking. Alone, and lonely, down a cold and empty road on a blustery day, her long hair whipping around her as she looked back, and Jonathan could have sworn he was actually seeing her, and she him, through the span of time.
Their eyes met—hers older, wiser, sadder.
A scar marred her face now, thin, from the corner of her eye down to her mouth as she stared at him. And her voice, when she spoke, was substantial, but only inside his head…”I wish it had been you, Jonathan. I really wanted it to be you.”
“What?”
She laughed sadly, wrapping her arms about her and looking around the cold wintry plain that surrounded her. “This.”
Frowning, he shook his head and said, “I don’t get it.”
She smiled, sadly, an echo of what it used to be as she stared into his eyes. “I know.” She stared around her, turning in a slow circle, her gaze moving over the landscape, leaves rushing around them, pausing as her eyes rested briefly on a trio of stone markers. Her face flinched with pain and she turned away too fast for Jonathan to see the names. He couldn’t take his gaze too far from that face…he couldn’t.
Moving her gaze back to his face, she smiled at him before she looked away. “This was my life.”
The word “NO” was working its way past his tight throat even as her body started to fade away. Jonathan lunged for her, but she was already gone and he fell, shaken, to his knees.
Grimly, he rose and walked to the stone markers and found her there, resting. With two babes, twins. Dropping to his knees, Jonathan rasped, “No.”
“She didn’t choose her life, or her death.”
Turning his head, he watched as the wolf padded into the dreamscape he had woven. “It chose her after she walked away. It was the only thing she could do. There were other paths, true. Other paths she could have walked. And paths she may walk still. But none hold any true joy for her. Except the path that lies with the man she loves.”
The sound of baying wolves, their cries full of sorrow started in the distance. Jonathan’s throat tightened and trembled with the need to release his own howl, but his teeth clenched shut as he refused to give voice to it.
“A woman’s heart can only take so much bruising, brother.” The wolf spoke softly yet again, and though his mouth didn’t move, the words were spoken aloud.
“What happened?”
The wolf stared sadly at the stones. “She married a Hunter from the enclave she joined, a rather formidable psychic. They were together nearly twenty years before they decided to have children. He never…quite felt he had her heart. Knew he did not. And he fell prey to a witch like the one who struck you, only his heart was full of anger, and doubt.”
Jonathan felt the anger, and the horror rising. A Hunter turning on his wife and children…
“This isn’t real. This is the dreamscape, one of the ways you taught me control.” Shaking his head, he rose and stalked away, the howl building inside his throat, seeking release.
“It very well may come to pass...it is one of her paths, if she walks away. Know that it will be her choice.” The wolf sighed, gazing around him at the bleak, empty desolation. “This is one of the darker roads, but there are...others. Few of them hold pleasure of her.”
The howl erupted from his throat and Jonathan fell to his knees, his fingers sinking into the earth. “He killed them.”
“Yes. First the babes, one night while she was out Hunting with a partner, training to stay in shape. He had gone insane, through the curse’s touch upon his mind and heart. It was easy for the witch to break him, his heart was so full of self-doubt. He was a powerful man, big and strong, more powerful than any human the Hunters there had ever seen, and his rage infused him with a strength that was unreal. When she came rushing home, feeling their loss…she found him. She was the only witch there other than him, otherwise, somebody else would have felt it, stopped it.
“Dirke had insisted they have their own home away from the main house, so by the time he had torn her body to shreds as she tried to bring her babies back, it was too late to help her.”
Jonathan’s howls rose and fell in the dreamscape, eerie, forlorn, that of a wolf seeking a mate who was lost to him.
“She was a WITCH!” His words came through a thick throat and the tears that all but blinded him refused to fall, as though the release was refused him.
The wolf nuzzled his arm gently. “The dreamscape, brother. Not reality, not yet. Yes, she was a witch. Did she fight back, you want to know? She flung up spells to hold him. But…once she saw her babies couldn’t be saved, that they were indeed gone, smothered by the
hands of their father…she let them fall. And she did not fight. She knew he would not leave the enclave alive. And she wanted to be with the two souls who had given her joy, her children.”
“So he just fucking killed her,” Jonathan rasped. “And she just let it happen?”
“She wanted it. She waited for it and welcomed it and in the end, screamed for help loudly, blocking off his retreat so that he couldn’t possibly run, spells that bound him even through her death. The Master slaughtered him, but it was too late for her.”
Jonathan’s entire body shuddered, and the wolf curled his great body—three times that of a normal wolf—around him, nuzzling his neck. “The choice, always, my brother, is yours. But you’re keeping yourself apart from her because you fear your own demons. The only demons you have are the ones you’ve imagined for yourself. And they create a bigger threat than anything in your past because they are about to cost you everything you’ve ever wanted…”
And then the ancient creature sighed, and as the dreamscape started to fade, Jonathan realized the wolf had guided him to pull over and wait, and he was half in a daze, his eyes slitted, hands relaxed on his thighs.
Lori’s scent filled his head, and he whipped his head around as hunger clenched his body.
A brief, lingering laugh from the wolf echoed through his mind as he reached for Lori. Her cold voice filled the truck. “Don’t touch me, you bastard.”
“But you had best wait to stake that claim…until she is more willing to hear it.”
Jonathan wasn’t so certain such a brief talk with the wolf could change what he had always felt. But…the lingering memories of what he had seen, his rage, and even the pain he had felt before he had walked to the stones. How desolate her eyes had been when she had looked around the dreamscape at the emptiness and said, “This is my life.”
They had to stop at the base of the mountain. Lori insisted. Refueling the truck, eating, and then she just wandered around, staring up into the air, her eyes slitted and thoughtful. “I’m so confused by this woman who holds her. She is the one who took her, who planned this. They defer to her. Yet, as I touch her mind through Erika…I feel nothing but honor. She’s got to be one of the most conflicted people I’ve ever encountered.”
“She organized an attack on the Hunters, has killed Hunters, and kidnapped a child. That is the epitome of evil.” Jonathan swallowed down a growl as he paced. He could smell his daughter. Faintly. Erika hadn’t been outside, but somebody who had touched her, and recently. And Lori…damn it, he needed to touch her, hold her, assure himself she was real. And safe…that she would stay that way.
Damn it all to hell. What in the name of heaven was he supposed to do?
“A man came into the cavern where she is being held while the woman was out. Touched her, scared her badly. Might have done worse, but the other woman…this warrior came in and she went ballistic. Not because her orders were disobeyed, and not because merchandise was soiled.”
In an eerie voice that sounded like somebody else’s, Lori said, “A child...you’d harm a child...”
The passion in that voice was that of anybody who was repulsed at a child being hurt.
“Erika was…pulled under magick after that so I don’t know what happened, but the woman came back and whispered that the bad man was taken away forever and wouldn’t hurt her, and wouldn’t ever be able to touch her again. And she feels remorse for the…necessary casualties in a just war, is how she thinks of this.”
Shaking her head, Lori glanced at him, meeting his eyes for the first time. “I don’t think she understands the Hunters.” Brief, very brief amusement lit her eyes for the first time in hours as she showed him something beside blankness. “Something the warrior witches of the world might have in common.”
Erika felt the hand on her head, urging to eat and drink. She accepted the milky drink, knowing the witch had put extra stuff in it to keep her healthy, but she didn’t want to eat. “Why are you being so nice? Kidnappers aren’t nice.”
“I have no reason to harm you. I just want Jonathan,” Leandra said.
Erika shoved the cup away, curling into a ball. “I need him more. He’s my dad, damn it.”
“Wars are important, child,” Leandra said, sighing and shaking her head, her exotic eyes showing too much pain, too much sympathy. Erika didn’t want to feel sorry for her. Didn’t want to like her. “My mistress needs him. We are preparing for a battle.”
Turning away, Leandra paced, her long, loose clothes flowing around her lean body. Erika bit her lip and hid her face in her arms, hoping the woman wasn’t what Lori was.”The Council wants all witches, all weres, all vampires who are not with them to be dead. It’s wrong, kid. We can’t let it happen.”
Erika sat up, outraged.”That is not true!” she shouted furiously.”If you didn’t go around eating people and killing people and drinking blood till they died, they’d leave you alone!”
“I had never killed a soul,” Leandra said, amused, glancing at Erika with indulgence an adult shows a wayward child. “And they came, looking for me when I was just your age. An old witch and a big red-haired vampire, down in Jamaica. And why…if not to kill me? They had already killed me father. Not that he didn’t deserve it…but I saw that redheaded vamp kill him myself, just a few days earlier as I hid on the roof of the house across the street, glad I had been out picking pockets. My father liked to bring home…friends who sometimes felt I should be part of their parties so I was never there. But he smelled my magick. And he came Hunting me.”
Erika started giggling. It was probably because she was hungry, and scared and the panic was making her crazy. But she started to laugh and she couldn’t stop. “Hunting you? You’re so stupid. They weren’t Hunting you. You weren’t dangerous, especially not to Malachi. He could have eaten you for breakfast—shoot, he probably knew where you were hiding but brought the old witch there to make you feel better.” Wiping the tears away, she snorted and giggled again, staring into the dark eyes that just glared at her with anger.”I bet that old woman was Agnes. They weren’t Hunting you. They were probably trying to get you into Excelsior.”
“A breeding ground for killers.” Leandra hissed.
Erika hiccupped a little and tried to stop laughing. “Somebody really did a number on your head, didn’t they?” Shaking her head, she added, “You are a killer. Call yourself a soldier all you want, but you’re a killer all the same. Because you don’t really know about the people you’re killing. You know what those people told you.”
“Hunters are just a bunch of killers.”
“They hunt down those who won’t stop killing or hurting others,” Erika said quietly.”They are heroes.” Reaching up, she lifted her shirt, pulling it out of her waistband, showing what she never showed anyone. The brand her daddy had put on her shortly after birth—shiny, smooth, and flat. His initials. M.B. “My dad did that to me. And my mama. He killed her a few years after I was born. I don’t know for certain, I didn’t see it. But Eli searched the records and he knows. Jonathan saved me. My daddy would have raped me. Jonathan didn’t tell me that—I just know it. I remember it, all of it. And Jonathan saved me. That is what the Hunters do. They save us. Protect us. From whatever we need protecting from.”
Leandra’s mouth snapped shut at the sight of the scar on Erika’s belly.”Your father did that? Your real father?” Moving closer, she brushed her fingers over it, and as she did it, Erika could feel her touch on her mind.
“He did. And worse. But I’m okay now. Jonathan made sure of it. Eli made sure of it,” she said, smiling. “I don’t even have nightmares. Lori and me talk a lot. She worries, but I’m fine.”
“Lori…the Healer.”
Erika nodded, keeping her mind and eyes blank even though Leandra’s hand had fallen away. “They are killers, girl.”
“Yes, they are.” Erika sighed, letting her shirt fall. “Maybe they are. But some people, don’t they deserve to die?”
Leandra didn’t lik
e it when people made her rethink her way of life.
Particularly a young, guileless child with big innocent eyes. A child who talked like an adult, with a sure, certain way of looking at her, a way that said, I’m right. And somewhere inside, I think you know it.
Calling her ladies, she assigned them guard over the girl, and stalked to the men, harshly reminding them, “I’ve already killed one who touched that girl. The next one won’t die easily.”
Once she was safe within her chambers, she closed the manmade door, locked it…and left…smiling and laughing as the freeness of it moved around her. It was almost like flying without wings. For the few brief seconds that it lasted.
None knew she could do this. She kept few secrets…but this was one. She kept it, holding it fierce and close. None she knew could do it. None she’d ever heard of could come and go with a thought, simply by concentrating that person’s face.
Leandra focused on the mistress and as her hair whipped around her face, her body weightless, she was suddenly there, back in the commune where she had landed more than fifteen years earlier. She pressed against a wall, making sure none had seen her rather unusual arrival.
And then she turned and strolled confidently down the corridor to the Mistress’s hall and her quarters. It was when she heard Marick’s voice that she stopped. Halting, she slowly and cautiously moved against the wall.
Marick. She didn’t trust him…especially since he had left her command last night without her permission. He was supposed to be out patrolling back where Leandra had set up camp. And he hadn’t returned just yet. She had sent others out looking for him, but she hadn’t notified the mistress…
Hadn’t thought he would be here.
The bastard.
“She’s kidnapped a child, which surprises me. You know how Leandra is about what she considers innocent bystanders,” Marick’s deep voice echoed through the chamber.
The Hunters Series Page 41