The Hunters Series

by Shiloh Walker

  Swallowing it down, banking it, he said softly, “Be easy, Leandra. We need to get Cross.”

  Ben had seduced the dancer into leaving the sax player and he had her currently backed up against an ivy-covered fence, leaning into her, sexual interest written in every line of his body. As he lowered his mouth to whisper in her ear, he skimmed one hand down her side, the heel of his hand stroking the outer curve of her breast.

  Her eyes were hot, almost drugged.

  “Bleeding hell,” Malachi swore. “He’s pulling her in.”

  Leandra cocked a brow.

  “You’ve been around Inherents long enough to know they can leak fear almost as well as a vampire, they can inspire it, cause it whenever they want in a lesser being. Somebody whose will isn’t as strong as his own…you know this?”

  She cocked her head, waiting.

  “They can do the same with lust. An Inherent can be the most seductive creature you’ll ever meet—it’s in their nature,” Malachi said, climbing from the car, Leandra at his back. “And he’s not bothering to hide any of his nature from her.”

  “So I see,” Leandra murmured, angling her head and licking her lips as Ben slid his hand inside the dancer’s form-fitting shirt, pushing dangerously close to one firm, jutting breast.

  “Fuck me, if he has five more minutes, he’ll be fucking her on the street and then we’ll have to get him out of jail,” Malachi snapped, striding forward.

  “Cross,” he said, leaning his mouth down and rasping the word in the shifter’s ear.

  “Get the fuck away, buddy,” Ben said, jamming his elbow back into Mal’s stomach. His hand was cupping her breast now, and from the look of it, his fingers were tugging the nipple. The woman was limp and already nearly mad with hunger.

  Malachi could smell it on her, and smell Ben’s rising lust. The sharp pain in his belly faded quickly and Malachi thought it was a damn good thing that a cop hadn’t seen this display and gotten to them. If Ben had jabbed that elbow at a mortal and not a vampire, it would have done internal damage just from the force of the blow.

  “You aren’t here to get laid,” Malachi said flatly as he reached out and fisted his hand in Ben’s hair, jerking him backward.

  Ben let the woman go as he pulled free, whirling on Malachi and tensing to lunge.

  “Cross…”

  Malachi tensed as Leandra’s voice rolled over them, soft and seductive. She swayed between them, her hips rolling seductively, her nipples hard and pebbled under her shirt. Malachi started to swear, but then the gleam in her eyes had him relaxing.

  Damn it, this was getting annoying as hell.

  The woman was staring at Leandra with rage in her eyes, because Ben was now circling around Leandra like a caged animal, full of hunger, full of lust. His cock was swelling against the fly of his jeans and his eyes were glowing. And they were attracting far too much attention.

  Ben jerked her up against him, fisting one hand in the thick, dark dense braids, lowering his head. The other hand he kept on her hip, holding her firmly against his groin as he rocked his hips into hers.

  She smiled seductively as she reached up and laid one hand against his cheek.

  Malachi felt the swell of power ripple through the air, and he watched with awe as she broke through the other spell, not with power, but with stealth, a woman’s weapons, sliding under the spell that clouded his mind, and slipping into his heart. “Does my body feel as good to you as Shadoe’s?” she purred.

  Ben froze. “Shadoe…” he murmured, his mouth just a breath away from hers.

  “Hmmm… you know, that pretty witch you came here to find?” she offered, smiling sweetly.

  Malachi surmised, as the comprehension started to dawn on him, that all it took for the spell to shatter was to acknowledge it, to push against it. Ben jerked back from Leandra as though she was contaminated, but she only laughed.

  “My guess is that I don’t compare,” she chuckled. She licked her lips and grinned wickedly. “Too bad.”

  As people around them started to murmur, and the dancer pushed closer, aiming for Leandra, she said, “I think we need to be going.”

  Ben was already back in the SUV, his face drawn tight and pale with fury, his eyes glittering. “Nobody fucking messes with my head,” he muttered, jamming the key in, and gunning the gas.

  Leandra and Malachi tumbled in only moments before he shot away from the curb, still swearing.

  “Well…the good news is that I can think a little clearer,” Leandra said blandly. “And you’re heading in the wrong direction. Shadoe is on the other side of town.”

  Ben had never been so furious. Although embarrassment warred a close second.

  Something had sneaked inside his head and stolen a part of him, seducing him into forgetting.

  And to try to make him forget Shadoe…oh, somebody was going to pay for that. He’d turn them into a talking carpet for that, flay their skin from their bodies, laughing all the while.

  He still couldn’t feel her.

  But Leandra could sense her, somehow.

  She was powerful, more so than Ben. And for that, he thanked God.

  They were outside town now, driving down a narrow, overgrown street that was more of a path than a road. Finally, she pointed to a smaller path and said, “Pull in there. There’s nothing down that way and we can walk the rest of the way.”

  “Walk?” Ben growled.

  “Yes, walk. We have to figure out what we are dealin’ with,” she said quietly. “It’s something…different.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Shadoe’s eyes opened.

  She lay on her side, surrounded by silk and lace. Naked.

  She had never been so afraid in her life. Not when she had been pinned under Jimmy’s body, not when she had driven a blade into Marcus to keep him from raping her, not even when she had seen Marcus shift to wolven form that first time as she had burned Jimmy’s heart to ash with her touch.

  Something insidious was inside her mind. Blackness was trying to eat away at her.

  “Not yet…but I shall,” a soft voice purred from over her shoulder.

  She bit back the scream that rose to her lips and rolled limply onto her back when a cool hand tugged her over. He had read her mind.

  “Yes. And you’re going to be a tasty little treat, Shadoe,” he mused, lowering his head to sniff at her skin.

  “I’m not a fucking treat,” she said, forcing confidence into her voice. Even though she wanted nothing more than to babble incoherently with fear.

  He laughed and the sound rolled over her like silk. He traced a finger around her soft nipple and she cowered against the mattress, his touch feeling dirty and foul. Her skin shrank tight at his cold touch and she wanted to rail against her body’s reaction, at what looked to be arousal. “You are…and such a sweet, innocent thing you are. I can hardly wait for a taste,” he whispered, grinning at her.

  She watched horrified as his fangs dropped. When he lowered his head, his lips hovering only a breath from hers, she struck out, her palm glowing red with fire as she struck the side of his head. “Incendiaire!”

  He bellowed, rolling away and slapping at the flames in his hair. “That was a very bad move, child,” he said, a burn on his cheek. Charred bits of his long golden hair floated to the ground as he stalked around the bed, eyeing her where she cowered against the headboard.

  “Come near me again and I’ll burn you to well-done, vampire,” she said, forcing bravado into her voice, but knowing she’d do it. She could do it.

  He laughed. “Stupid bitch. You cannot even tell that I’m like you,” he murmured. Lifting one hand, he watched her with a smile.

  Shadoe shrieked as an unseen hand closed around her and jerked her up. Something gagged her, keeping her from screaming as she was slammed against a wall and pinned there.

  “You won’t catch me by surprise again,” he said, strolling over to her. “And you’re so fucking young, you don’t know how to manipulate things w
ithout using your mouth or hands, haven’t figured out you don’t need it. Bad thing about the pathetic Hunters, they insist on muzzling their own, putting blinders on them. By the time you’ve figured out you don’t need to speak…you will not be able to,” he said, smiling brightly.

  As she whimpered and shrank away from him, he cupped her breast in his hand, circling his thumb over the soft nipple over and over, pinching it until it finally peaked for him.

  “Very nice…oui. You are a very lovely woman,” he murmured. “I’m going to enjoy owning you.”

  Her eyes blazed at him and he chuckled. “Yes, I know… You think you aren’t owned. But you will admit it, by the time I’m done. I own you, body, mind…and pussy.” He cupped her in his hand and plunged his finger into her dry passage as he spoke, smiling a pleased, satisfied smile. “And what a tight pussy it is.”

  Fury flooded her and she narrowed her eyes, breathing through her nose as whatever it was threatened to gag her when she tried to drag in enough air to scream. No sound escaped her—but she did feel the ripple of magic. She rarely used words… Ben hadn’t taught her that way. Her hands, she needed sometimes, or at least she thought she did.

  Her eyes opened wide and she let the fury take her.

  Wind started to whip.

  Heat pooled inside her.

  As he jammed his fingers back inside her dry vagina, the heat erupted from her. She didn’t seek to control it, just channeled it as it shot from within her to him.

  A wall of fire shot up from the floor, a muffled roar that was drowned out by the French bastard’s shriek of pain. His hands left her and he was across the room like a shot, cradling his singed arm to his chest. “Little coquette. I shall make you hurt for that one.”

  The flames were dying out as he straightened, and Shadoe instinctively flinched. Forming flames, she could do. But she didn’t know how to maintain them.

  “Little witches who don’t know their own powers should really be careful,” he murmured.

  His eyes closed and Shadoe felt a chill wind brush by her and settle over her. Cold…very cold. It settled into her bones and made her ache deep within. When her eyes opened, she could see, out of the corner of her eye, something dull and gray. But it disappeared when she tried to look at it head on, forever trapped just outside her line of vision.

  “That is your cage, chére,” he purred. “It locks all that magic inside, with you. And it stays inside, with you. If you try to strike out at me, you may not live to regret it…all of your magic is magnified with that sphere. And this could be a very bad thing, especially if you try fire again.”

  He moved closer, stopping just a few feet away from her face. “This will be…most pleasant,” he whispered. “Enjoy your time away from me. I’ll be back, once you are ready to control yourself. In the meantime…enjoy your company.”

  Shadoe nearly choked on bile as Marcus dragged somebody in, a small, slimly built girl, whose frightened eyes wheeled around in their sockets. He threw her at Shadoe’s feet, and while she watched, he started to stroke her body as the girl screamed and sobbed.

  Shadoe struck out and pain tore through her as the energy bolt of magic reflected back at her, tearing her flesh and burning it.

  Shadoe screamed her fury and lobbed another bolt before she could control it and it launched back at her, this time knocking her out. She fell into the pit of blackness with a sob, the woman’s helpless screams chasing her as she went.

  Ben clung to the shadows as he slid through the woods. Leandra was behind him, her steps nearly as quiet as his.

  Malachi was nowhere to be seen, but Ben could feel his presence. Why couldn’t he feel her?

  Never before had he cursed his own gift of magic, strong, certain, and sure. But it wasn’t strong enough this time. He couldn’t feel his woman, couldn’t track her magically, couldn’t sense her. He should have been able to think of her face and feel her.

  This terrifying blankness would have had him turning into a ravening beast, if not for Leandra’s calm assurance.

  The witch with the amber eyes was nothing if not good. He suspected her gift damn near rivaled Shadoe’s. And she had learned through means other than Excelsior, so her way of using it would be different.

  His lips spread in a cold smile as he came upon a still corpse. Malachi rose out of the darkness, his teeth flashing white, lips unusually dark. “She is there, my friend. And unharmed, for now,” he said. Then his face sobered, the smile fading away, his features going cold and still. “There is a Master in there, vampire with magic of his own. He is the one who cast the web of forgetfulness. This pathetic…creature was one of his minions, a werewolf who defected from the pack that is charged with patrolling this area. He is nearing his first century and this vampire was ancient when the wolf came to him.”

  He stood in the moonlight, absorbing it. “I can feel it…and he knows I’m here. A Master cannot physically enter another Master’s territory unknown.” An evil grin split his face and he said, “I ought to introduce myself.” Sliding his eyes to them, he said, “There’s the distraction for you—go get your woman, Cross.”

  His form faded away as he shifted to mist and then even the mist was gone.

  Meeting Leandra’s eyes, Ben asked, “So, how good are you?”

  She grinned and reached down, rolling the leg of her black cargo pants up and drawing a wickedly long blade. Ben saw the liquid glow of it in the moonlight and surmised it was nearly pure silver. It winked at him as she tossed it from hand to hand. “Keep up if you can, Hunter,” she murmured.

  And then she took the lead, gliding in and out of the shadows as though she was one with them.

  “Wake up, bitch,” Marcus purred.

  The words whispered out of the darkness, sending black fear streaking through her.

  She fought away from it, struggling to cling to the painless oblivion.

  Sharp pain rocked her and she whimpered.

  It came again, and against her will, she worked her way out of the darkness, opening her eyes just as Marcus drew back his foot, kicking her in the side sharply. The magically made cage parted around his foot, closing around his leg, keeping her from striking through the hole his strike made.

  Her hand flew out and caught his ankle and twisted. She didn’t have the energy to smile as he landed on his ass.

  Shoving herself up, she settled on her butt with her back to the wall. A horrified moan choked her as she caught sight of the woman lying by the wall, blood staining her thighs, bruises ringing her throat. Shadoe caught the coppery scent of her blood, too much of it. Her breathing was shallow and ragged, wet sounding.

  The woman was going to die—by morning, Shadoe’s instincts whispered—if she didn’t get help.

  Marcus lunged to his feet and loomed over her, drawing his leg back, a snarl contorting his face.

  “Do it… I’ll set loose a firestorm that will burn your leg off at the knee, and damn the consequences,” she rasped, the pain in her side stealing her breath.

  His response was cut off when the door flew open and the golden-haired vampire came in like a vicious storm, his eyes flashing, face scowling. “There is somebody on my land, somebody ancient, a Master Vampire who isn’t touched by any of my spells of protection. He is filled with purpose and drive—my spells rob a person of that. I don’t know a single creature that can withstand my magic. But I have heard tales of a vampire who just might be able.”

  Though the bastard never once mentioned a name, Shadoe knew damn well who it was—Malachi. Unconsciously, a tiny smile curved her lips.

  The rage rolling from him would have made her quiver with fear, except she could sense the fear that was fueling that powerful rage. Fear of Malachi, she suspected.

  “I thought you said she belonged to an Inherent,” Dumas growled.

  He stared at Shadoe with rage in his eyes before moving his furious gaze to Marcus. “If he’s the one I’m thinking of, Marcus, you’ll die before I do. Be aware of that,” he pro
mised softly.

  “Pierre, the bitch was fucking some bastard wolf. There was a vampire, but if he is so powerful, he would have enthralled her and she’d never go running back to that bastard, Cross.”

  Shadoe couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face any more than she could muffle her snort of laughter.

  He tossed her a venomous look and responded, “I don’t think she agrees with you.” He moved toward her, with a loose, liquid walk, his body a seductive promise as he knelt beside her. “Who is this vampire who was so lucky to have a taste of that sweet pussy?” he asked silkily.

  She stared at him in stony silence.

  He swore softly, reaching through the unseen barrier and cupping her face in his hand. “I can make you tell me, bitch. Do you want… What is this?” he asked, frowning, brushing her hair aside and revealing the faintest of marks of her neck.

  The bite had nearly healed completely. It wouldn’t even leave a scar. But it was still visible, if you looked.

  And he was looking. Brushing his hand against it, everything went still as his rage grew almost palpable. “You’ve brought me used goods. I don’t want another vampire’s leavings,” Pierre whispered, his voice an insidious hiss that made Shadoe think of snakes, slithering and writhing together. Every word sent fear coursing through her, and the fear grew, overtaking her mind.

  Not real… He’s making me feel this way…not real. Not real… Clenching her eyes closed, she focused, trying to think past the fear. Miraculously, it fell away and she sucked in a ragged breath, wincing as her ribs protested. Opening her eyes, she stared at Pierre who narrowed his eyes at what he saw in her face.

  “If you want to live, you will tell me what I want to know. Tell me of this vampire.”

  Her eyes never wavered and she didn’t say a word.

  Rising, he turned, his bare chest rippling as he took a slow, deep breath. She suspected he was trying to calm the great rage she sensed within him. Great rage…and fear.