The Hunters Series

by Shiloh Walker

  Lori moved into the line of fire as Jonathan went stock-still, unable to move, his mind all but frozen with fear. Her lips were curved with a small, pleased smile. “Well, well. What have we here?” she mused.

  “Pretty little piece you are,” the witch smirked, running one hand down his flat, naked belly, the ring in his navel winking at her.

  Casting Jonathan a dismissing glare, he said, “You’re in the way, mate.” Jonathan grunted as air whooshed from his lungs and he slammed into a tree. Limber, rubbery branches came around to entrap him, like something out of a poorly written horror film. Blood was oozing down his belly and legs, matting in his fur, trickling down the bark of the tree, and pooling in the grass, although he could feel the flesh already starting to knit together.

  Cupping his groin, the witch flashed a wolfish grin at Lori and said, “Be good now, an’ maybe this could be fun, huh?”

  “Oh, I’ll be nice. I’ll leave your skin attached, which is more than you’ve done, isn’t it?” she responded, lifting one hand, palm out.

  He narrowed his eyes, cocking his head as he studied her. His long, narrow face darkened and he licked his lips. “Hmmm…a witch. What a pretty little witch you are, too, luv. But you can’t hope to fight us, girl.”

  Curling her fingers, she beckoned to him, she said, “Prove it.”

  A volley of fire flew toward her and struck something only inches in front of her face, melting into it like water, fading into it and flickering out to the edge before dying away. As it faded, Lori looked up from under her lashes, a cat’s smile curving her mouth.

  “Lovely fireworks,” she smirked.

  A snarl curved the man’s lips and the ground shook, wind snapping through the trees. Lori’s eyes took on an unfocused look, and Jonathan swore roughly as his gut ran cold when her eyes started to glow, hot, green and fiery with anger. “You’ve done enough damage here,” she rasped.

  “You can’t stop us,” the witch snarled as winds converged on them.

  “Watch me,” Lori declared, falling to her knees.

  Lori’s hands were steady as she reached into the bag at her waist. Oh, she had no qualms in shedding blood for magick. She had shed her own enough times. And today, she had every intention of shedding his. This land, these trees, they reviled him, rejected him, but were inexplicably bound to him.

  He had sacrificed women here, slaughtered men here.

  Her eyes met his as she sliced her palm open and pressed it to the earth, whispering under her breath.

  Power rose to her call, flooded her.

  And the man in front of her went pale as the earth started to shriek.

  It was when the trembling started at his feet that he tried to back away. Launching the golden ball at him, Lori watched it strike him square in the chest, propelling him into the nearest tree. Expanding, flattening into a thin shield that bound him to the tree as it slowly and inexorably pulled him, screaming, within it. Then it held him silently within that golden shield.

  “What the fuck…” the words were low, guttural, forced from a throat not human.

  “The land takes back what it has lost. Always.” Lori didn’t need to turn to know that Jonathan was back on his feet.”Come on. We can’t stay here now. I don’t know if they know we are here, but we can’t risk it now. His loss will be noticed soon.”

  With a rapid touch, she swept the area clean of the signs of battle, releasing more bursts of magick than Jonathan had ever seen. When she turned, he was in human form once more. Long, lean, naked, his sable hair falling around his body like a cloak, he gathered up the shreds of his clothes before turning and striding toward her, his eyes grim. The healing gashes on his belly still bore traces of blood, and his sex hung thick and heavy between his thighs, thickening and lengthening as he stared at her.

  Lori turned away. Before she could fall to her knees and beg.

  “No damn hotels,” Jonathan growled as Lori drove toward one. He shifted, arching his back to relieve some of the pressure on his stomach. Damn it. Getting a slice from a fucking witch was never a good thing. But this one wasn’t healing right.

  Shit.

  It had pulled together inside, but then it had stopped.

  And that meant only one thing.

  “I still smell blood,” Lori said quietly, as though she could read his mind.”You’re not healing. You heal fast, faster than any were I’ve ever seen. He didn’t do anything other than an elemental trick. No poison, no curse.” Her breath slid out between her teeth in an angry hiss. “It’s his touch. His magick is fouled. I can’t think of any other way to explain it.”

  “I know.” Arching a brow at her, he said, “I can feel it inside my veins. It’s cool, murky, oily.”

  Lori poked out her lip, a thoughtful little pout before she blew her bangs out of her eyes as she headed back down the lane, her look dark and brooding. It wasn’t a look he normally associated with Lori. Lori was light and laughter, wasn’t she? Lori wasn’t a warrior—yet, she had battled like one.

  “You’re going to need a Healing,” she said grimly.

  “What of it?” Tension raced up his spine as a sulky snarl formed against his will. She didn’t have to sound so damned unwilling. So what if he hadn’t been too thrilled a moment ago that she was going to have to lay those slim, wonderful hands on him? It was okay if he wasn’t real thrilled about having to fight down the need to touch her, especially after she had made it clear that she didn’t want him touching her anymore.

  And he had said he wouldn’t…not until she begged. Damn it, why had he gone and said that? Gnashing his teeth together as his cock started to throb and swell, Jonathan wondered exactly when he was going to start listening to something other than his dick and his pride, and his fool excuse of a brain.

  A soft, growling chuckle echoed through him. The wolf was awake. Something had roused him, most likely the lingering pain in the wound that hadn’t healed.

  ‘Tis high time you started thinking with your heart, brother. High time. Didn’t think the day would come. A warm soothing presence settled around him, like the wolf had wrapped his great body around Jonathan, and he felt the pain and the aching cold recede some, his mind clearing as he focused on Lori.

  She is a warrior, the wolf whispered. Stop doubting her so much. It’s insulting to us, and her.

  Blood started to pound thickly in Jonathan’s veins. The knowledge had been brewing dimly within him for some time. He hadn’t accepted it, for reasons he couldn’t face, but it had been there. My soul is too dark for her.

  No. The wolf shook him mentally. Your fears are too dark. But they are groundless. There is nothing of the evil that spawned you inside of you. Lori and Sarel came from evil—do you see the dark inside of them?

  Nothing dark lived inside Lori.

  And though Sarel battled her demons, her soul was not dark.

  And neither of these women could love a man of darkness, not after what they had lived with, been through.

  With eyes that glowed, Jonathan turned his head, studying Lori. Leave us, wolf. I think I understand what you are saying now.

  The wolf laughed, deep and heartily, his presence stroking over Jonathan’s body like the warm brush of faerie wings as he slid away. Yes, I see you do.

  Lori swung off down a path, her eyes vague and unfocused. She didn’t even seem aware that he was there, watching her, his eyes moving over her face, down the line of her neck before following it to the neckline of her shirt. Her rounded breasts were full and smooth, the nipples soft. He could smell her, the scent of vanilla and jasmine, delicately scented skin, sweet on the air.

  And the scent of sweat, the smell of the earth and adrenaline still pulsing under her skin. The scents of battle. She had fought, and she had done well. He hadn’t stood a bloody chance against the witch—witches had something against the other paranormal creatures that many of them couldn’t fight. Sarel could only be in so many places at once.

  Lori had done more than prove her worth as
a fighter.

  Hell, she had been trying to get out of the safehold of the Enclave for months, and Jonathan had refused it. Not soft, pretty Lori.

  The firm lines of her face right now looked anything but soft. She looked strong, serious, and capable—and damn it, that was just as arousing and intriguing as the soft Lori.

  “We’ll be safe here.”

  Her voice broke into his intense study of her face. Looking up, he glanced around the small clearing.”Where is here?”

  “Shenandoah National Park,” she said shortly. “Nothing’s wrong in here. I can feel it. If one of them comes, it will disrupt the flow of things and I’ll feel that. It will give us enough warning to prepare.”

  “What do you mean, nothing is wrong?” he asked, reaching over and catching her arm before she could slide out of the truck.

  “They haven’t tried tapping into the land here, or done anything that’s screwed up the earth. If they move in around us, the earth will feel their evil—and I will know. We’ll have plenty of warning,” she said, tugging her wrist free. “Come on…let’s make some sort of camp.”

  Jonathan slowly loosened his grasp on her wrist, a smile curling his lips as he met her eyes. He’d have her whole body under his hands soon enough. Whether she begged or not.

  Lori met his eyes, and her cheeks flushed, her gaze dropping to his mouth. He heard her heart rate kick up, saw the stiffening of her nipples under the shirt she wore and scented the sudden sharp rise in the unique smell that was her. Meeting her gaze, he saw that she knew it.

  Smiling, he lowered his gaze to her lips, a touch as gentle and light as a kiss. He climbed out of the truck, reaching behind the seat for the camp gear. Every Hunter who owned a car had a similar pack. He made damn sure of it. Never knew when it would come in handy. There was water, basic food and other stuff back there as well. He might not have been a Boy Scout, but he sure as hell studied a similar handbook.

  Lori eyed him nervously when he didn’t argue with her about helping with the camp set-up. Jonathan could scent her anxiety, hear her heart rate as she moved into the tent to unroll the two separate bedrolls. His lids lowered and his mouth started to water, his ears tracking her movements.

  “I’m done. Get in here so I can deal with your stomach,” she said shortly.

  A slow, heated smile curled his lips at the sound of her voice. Jerky, short sentences, when she usually sounded so calm, so confident. Ducking his head under the flap of the tent, he met her eyes and dropped to his knees, crawling over to her, pausing a long moment to stare into her eyes.

  She met his gaze, her lips parted, their noses nearly touching, the light kiss of her breath touching his mouth as they watched each other. Jonathan could all but taste her now, wanted to taste her, wanted to grab her to him and rip the clothes from her body as he sank his cock deep inside her sweet, wet pussy.

  But that lingering, cold ache in his side was getting worse, and he could feel it spreading to his bones.”Such a pretty little witch,” he murmured, lowering his head and stroking his tongue across her lower lip in one slow pass.”So sweet.”

  Her breath left her lungs in one slow, shuddering rush as he shifted and lay down, rolling onto his back. Staring up at her through the fringe of his lashes, he gripped the bottom of his shirt and slowly pulled it up as he watched her face. She was staring at his hands, watching as he bared his belly and chest, a flush spreading up her neck, her cheeks going rosy, her eyes clouding.

  Jonathan could smell it as her arousal grew. Shifting onto the elbow of his uninjured side, he pulled his shirt off and tossed it away before he lay back down, still watching her.

  Carefully, she probed the cold skin around his wound. “It must be his signature. Some witches can leave one in their wake. Some leave a poisonous, almost gangrenous stench. Others, an acid-looking burn. His is cold. Icy. And it spreads.” Flattening her hand against his belly, she hummed with sympathy, deep and low in her throat. “Very cold. This would have killed a mortal. Could kill lesser weres. Weres are so hot-natured, this cold would be a big danger.”

  Heat started to chase the cold away as her hand pressed harder and harder against his flesh. It arced through him and his breath hissed through his teeth as it punched him in the gut. Hot, fiery licks of magick sought out every icy-cold corner of his soul where the malignant magick had taken up hiding. The pain swelled, intensifying, and Jonathan swore raggedly and bellowed, feeling something putrid and evil flee his soul as her Healing flowed through him.

  Darkness washed over him from above as her hands, and her soft, soothing whisper guided him into a restful slumber.

  Chapter Nine

  Jonathan could feel her eyes on him as she finished the task of closing the wound as he drifted up from the healing slumber, feeling revived, refreshed, hungry. The major healing had been removing the ice of the other witch’s magick from his body.

  Closing the wound was child’s play to her.

  Opening his eyes, he met her gaze and felt his mouth curl into a hungry smile.

  “I like the way your eyes feel on me—I like knowing you watch me,” he murmured. Taking her hand, he pressed it flat to his belly and held it there.

  “Stop it.” She swallowed thickly as she slowly moved her eyes up the line of his body, tugging her hand out from under his, trailing the tips of her fingers over his side before folding her hand into a fist that she held in her lap. “I’ve been watching you for years. You’ve never given a damn before. And on the rare occasion you did, it only pissed you off.”

  “Because I wanted you too much,” he said hotly, reaching out and sliding his hand up the side of her thigh where she knelt beside him. “And those sweet, innocent eyes that followed me everywhere.”

  Her eyes sliced across to meet his, narrowed and angry. “I am tired of being called sweet and innocent.” The air between them was all but vibrating with her anger, Jonathan could feel it. “I lost my innocence years ago, once I realized what I would be expected to do when I joined an enclave. And I’m only sweet in your eyes. Eli knows I can be a veritable shrew. Sarel thinks I’m a bitch and a half. To everybody else, I am just me. Only you label me as sweet and innocent and then bother to call me by name. Bloody hell, I spent several years wondering if you even knew it. All I ever heard was she is too sweet, too soft for this life.”

  “I always knew your name. I’ve been whispering it in my sleep from the time I met you,” Jonathan rasped, rolling to his knees and catching her face in his hands, tilting her chin up. Her lips parted and she tried to jerk her head away, but he covered her mouth with his and plunged his tongue inside, sliding his hands down the line of her back and rocking his cock against the soft curve of her belly.

  With a furious, muffled curse, she tore her mouth from his, and wedged her hands between them. “Whispering it, and probably cursing it,” she laughed bitterly, her eyes sharp as glass as she stared up at him. “I’ve lost count how many times you tried to send me back to Excelsior, how many times you tried to convince Eli and Sarel that I wasn’t fit for this life.”

  “Because you were too damn tempting, and I didn’t want to give in. I didn’t want to have to fight myself every time I saw that pretty face or smelled your sweet body,” he growled, lowering his face and burying it in the curve of her neck, raking his teeth along the curve. Against his chest, he could feel the hot burning stab of her nipples and hear the pounding of her heart, feel her pulse against his mouth as he sucked a patch of delicate skin.

  “I’m not begging you, not now, not ever,” Lori rasped, trying to arch back out of his grasp. All she succeeded in doing, though, was pressing her pelvis against his cock and making him groan as she wiggled and undulated against him.

  Moving his lips up to her ear, he murmured, “What about if I am willing to beg you? What if I say I was a fool, a blind dumb fool?” Sliding his hand up her side, he cupped her breast and massaged the soft, malleable flesh there, pinching the nipple, milking it as he told her, “I’ve always w
anted you, needed you, loved you. I never opened my eyes to see how much, though. Never opened my eyes to see just how much you are the other half of me.”

  Her body tensed, as though folding in on itself, a rabbit going still and silent as a predator started to stalk the woods. “Don’t. Don’t do this to me,” she said quietly.

  Shaking her head, she slowly started to work herself out of his arms and Jonathan let her. “I’ve been waiting for you for weeks, months, years. Only hours ago you told me that it would never happen. That there would be nothing but sex. I will not let myself start to hope only to have my heart broken,” she said, moving away from him in the tight confines of the tent. Sinking down on her pallet and drawing her knees to her chest, she rested her chin on them and stared blankly at her feet.

  “I didn’t think you were strong enough—I was a fool. My eyes were opened in a very harsh way, admittedly. But even before that, I knew I was wrong,” Jonathan said gruffly, drawing in a deep breath, taking the scent of her body into his lungs and shuddering as it flooded him. Crawling across the tent to loom over her kneeling form, he murmured, “I will have you, Lori. Make no mistake of that. You’re mine, forever.”

  A tiny smirk crossed her lips.”It’s odd…up until just now, you didn’t even really want me for more than thirty minutes.”

  A wolfish smile curved his mouth, and his eyes flashed. “Don’t push me, Lori. I’ve wanted you for years and you’re the only one who’s been too blind to see it. Push me, and I’ll push back.”

  He pulled away, moving faster than her eyes could track, leaving the tent before he gave in to what they both wanted.

  Lori felt the strength drain from her body.

  Damn it.

  Sagging back on the blanket, she pressed a fist to her breast, feeling her heart pound there as she sucked air into her lungs. Had she really just passed up a chance to feel Jonathan’s warm, naked body against hers?

  Yeah, and damn him to hell.