The Hunters Series

by Shiloh Walker

  Ben waited, holding his breath, until Mal nodded. Then Ben turned and faced the hounds, calling upon ice as he placed himself at Leandra’s back. When he looked again, Malachi was gone.

  “Get out of here,” Leandra snapped. “Are you stupid?”

  “I love you, too,” he said with a slight smile as he concentrated on the spell building in his hands. They ached with the cold. Eying the hounds, he waited until the closest two lunged and then he unleashed it. They were hit with a rain of ice, freezing the first line of hounds solid, and several of the others behind them disappeared in a puff of smoke, fleeing the deadly cold.

  When he had time to focus on their numbers again, he decided there were fewer of them.

  “There’s not as many. Malachi must be distracting him,” Leandra panted.

  “Good.” Ben forged a shield between them and the hounds, a writhing ring of smoke that shifted and danced, reforming each time a hound tried to break through. “That will keep them busy for a while. Let’s see to your leg.”

  He had just finished leeching the poison out of the nasty bite when they heard Shadoe scream.

  Shadoe’s breath locked in her lungs. He wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real…couldn’t be real.

  Jimmy was dead.

  Malachi slammed Dumas to the ground, lifting his head, preparing to strike. Shadoe’s scream made him pause.

  Dumas laughed.

  “You had better hurry, mon ami,” the battered vampire said, blood pouring from his lips. “She sounds very frightened.”

  Malachi drew a silver knife from his thigh and waggled it tauntingly. “Since I can’t take the time to bleed you…let me give ye a parting gift,” he purred. Driving the deadly blade into Dumas’ heart, he twisted it, listening to the vampire scream as smoke poured from him.

  As battered as he was, he wasn’t able to throw Malachi off and Dumas just lay there, screaming that hideous shriek as Malachi darted away, following the sounds of Shadoe’s sobs.

  “Go,” Leandra ordered, bracing her back against one of the pillars of the veranda-styled porch. Her face was pale and beaded with sweat, her eyes glassy with pain and blood loss. Her leg was slick with her own blood, necessary for letting the poison out. But damned weakening. “I’ll be fine.”

  Ben hesitated for the briefest of seconds before he tore through the ring of smoke still protecting them. When he got to Shadoe, he saw her screaming at a slim, wraith-like woman. Then he blinked and saw a man he had only seen in newspaper clippings. Jimmy Duncan. Another blink, and the woman…illusion. A bloody witch.

  She was terrifying Shadoe with the one thing that was guaranteed to horrify her into helplessness. With a roar, he grabbed the woman before she even realized he was on her and snapped her neck. For some odd reason, witches rarely expected a physical attack.

  Malachi appeared out of the melee as Ben let her fall dead to the ground.

  “Illusion, she was making Shadoe think she was somebody else. Damn witch was playing with her mind,” Ben murmured, laying a hand on the shield Shadoe had up. “Baby, it’s okay. He’s not really here. Let me in.”

  Shadoe’s shields collapsed, Ben knelt and took her in his arms. But he had barely nestled her against him when a tremendous mental explosion shook him as the smoke-shield he had left around Leandra shattered.

  There was silence.

  The night was filled with drifting bits of fire, wild magic and smoke, frightened hounds darting here and there, launching themselves at any target and fleeing at any movement. Their summoner had lost purpose or was focused elsewhere, so the hounds were easily distracted and easily scared away now.

  Ben didn’t like what that could mean.

  If the witch who had summoned them was dead, the hounds would have fled, running to seek havoc wherever they could. That they were still here, running aimlessly, didn’t bode well.

  Taking Shadoe in his arms, he pushed to his feet, weak and shaky. Malachi scowled as he took that in. “What the bloody hell?” he demanded, bracing him with a hand under his arm.

  “My shields were shattered,” Ben said shortly. “Leandra was inside them.” His eyes were grim, and he forced himself not to think—not yet.

  He started forward, silently accepting the support from Malachi as they returned to where Ben had left Leandra.

  Dumas looked up from where he was feeding at Leandra’s neck, his eyes glowing, an unholy smile on his lips as he pulled away, letting her fall limp to the floor. “Thank you, mon ami, for removing that nasty poison from her blood. A powerful, plentiful meal, and I feel…refreshed. Too bad I had to damn near drain what little blood you left from purging her,” he said with laughter.

  Before Malachi could attack, he shifted to mist and was gone. They were left alone with Leandra’s still body, impotent fear and rage filling all of them.

  Sinking to his knees, Malachi took her in his arms, pressing his thumb against the seeping wound and sealing it. “She’s almost gone,” he said bleakly, his eyes stark and desolate.

  “Bring her over,” Ben snarled. As he laid Shadoe down, her haunted blue eyes moved to Leandra’s body. Slowly, painfully, she rolled over, laying a hand on Leandra’s still chest. Ben knelt by her head, stroking those long, heavy rows of braids, his eyes full of rage, guilt and grief. “Bring her over, damn it. Now.”

  Malachi shook his head. “No. You think she would want that? Walking in darkness for always?”

  “She doesn’t want death,” Shadoe whispered, lifting tear-drenched eyes to Malachi’s. “I can feel her. She actually wants to live, for the first time in years. Don’t let her die, Mal. Please.”

  Tiredly, Malachi shook his head. He cupped Leandra’s face in his hands. “She can’t possibly want this.” But she didn’t want to die, he could feel that. She didn’t understand what was happening, what was going on outside her body, but she did know she was dying.

  And she was terrified and furious.

  “She’s a witch… She’ll not be trapped the way many vampires are,” Ben argued.

  “And the change could damn well kill her,” Malachi snapped even as he absorbed some of the desperation coming from the dying witch. Her heart was starting to falter, her breathing becoming erratic. Whatever they were going to do, time was running short.

  Ben’s laughter was a harsh bark in the silence. “She’s going to die regardless. At least if you bring her over, she has a chance. Now, do it. Otherwise, I’m gonna come after your ass.”

  “She very well might hate us all for this,” Malachi said.

  Shadoe’s eyes opened, tears spilling over to run down her pale face. “No, she won’t. Hurry, Mal. I can’t feel her anymore.”

  Even though her blood was potent and sweet, Malachi had never regretted a feeding more. Drawing from the still witch was bitter, and he damned himself. Once he had taken what he needed for the bond, he tore a vein open in his wrist and held it to her ashen mouth, stroking her throat to force his blood down.

  He felt her soul hurtling back into her body, although her eyes didn’t open immediately.

  They wouldn’t.

  Not until nightfall next.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Shadoe slept, Leandra in the bed next to her.

  Malachi and Ben had gone back to burn the plantation to the ground. The anonymous hotel room was the safest they would get for now. But Malachi would be going after the vampire who had nearly destroyed them all. She had seen it in his eyes.

  As she slept, and dreamed, part of her worried.

  Shadoe woke for a few brief moments, just before nightfall, but the exhaustion pulled at her and when she saw that Leandra still slept—still lived—she closed her eyes and slid back into the arms of sleep.

  Leandra had slept all through the first night.

  Malachi had said she would wake tonight, if she was going to.

  Shadoe woke again before sunrise and showered quickly, sliding back into the shirt one of the men had put her in before she went back to sit on the bed and watch
the still woman as she slept. Her chest rose infrequently. Shadoe’s sharp hearing occasionally picked up a heartbeat.

  What kind of creature would she be?

  Had they done the wrong thing?

  Could the change push her into madness?

  Shadoe didn’t know enough about vampires…but Ben would. If it was likely to turn her mad, he wouldn’t have insisted Malachi do it. And Malachi wouldn’t have done it, no matter what anybody said if it was going to unleash a monster on the earth.

  And Leandra wouldn’t have wanted that.

  A thousand worries chased themselves over in Shadoe’s mind and she finally leapt up off the bed, pacing. When the door opened, she screamed, so caught up in her worrying, she hadn’t even heard them coming. Thankfully, it was Ben and Mal staring at her with bemusement, and not werewolves that Dumas had sent after her.

  Flinging herself at Ben, she whispered, “What if we’ve done the wrong thing?”

  He stroked his hand down her hair, murmuring, “It will be okay. I promise.”

  “Too late to worry now… She’s coming back,” Malachi said obliquely.

  How he knew that, Shadoe didn’t know. Staring at Leandra’s face, she saw nothing, felt nothing. And nearly an hour passed before anything changed. When her eyes opened, Shadoe was sitting on the bed, stroking the coarse braids absently, not seeing anything but the sight of the vampire as he dropped Leandra to the ground, his mouth stained with her blood.

  “You’re safe,” Leandra said, her voice husky. She smiled, a sweet, happy curve of her full, wide mouth that made Shadoe’s eyes sting.

  “Yes, I’m. Thank you for helping them.” She licked her lips, unsure what to say. Leandra’s eyes studied her face, moved to Ben’s, then to Malachi’s.

  She was far too calm. Malachi had said she would most likely awaken frightened, screaming, and that they needed to be prepared to slam shields down on her.

  But she was…calm.

  “Something is wrong, isn’t it?” Leandra asked quietly, a frown marring her exotic features. Her eyes clouded and Shadoe could see her thinking. She doesn’t remember… “What happened?”

  She swallowed then, and winced. The bite from Malachi had faded, healed thanks to her wondrous new vampire metabolism. But the larger, nasty jagged bite from Dumas remained, smaller, healing, but not gone. Her hand came up to touch it, and Shadoe watched with tears in her eyes as Leandra probed it and started to recall. “The vampire… He came up and broke Ben’s shield. I didn’t even see him, not until it was too late. He grabbed me, froze me with a mind spell…and he bit me.”

  Her eyes closed and her mouth spasmed. Shadoe reached out and folded her hand around one of Leandra’s, the hot tears burning her face. “He bit me, whispering into my mind…” Leandra whispered, clutching desperately at Shadoe’s hand. “Why aren’t I dead?”

  “Malachi…”

  Before Ben could finish his sentence, Malachi stepped up, his face grim. “I brought you over. I knew the consequences, regardless of the arguments Shadoe and Ben may give in my favor, I knew them. If anybody is deserving of your anger, your hatred, it is me, not them,” he said quietly, dropping to one knee by the bed, meeting her eyes levelly.

  “Brought me over,” she repeated.

  Malachi inclined his head.

  Silence reigned.

  Slowly, Leandra sat up, tugging her hand gently away from Shadoe’s. “I remember thinking,” she said quietly, “as I went to face the hounds that I really wasn’t ready to die.”

  She licked her lips. Her fangs hadn’t yet broken through, although she knew they would, sometime that night. Her eyes closed, and she gave a brief moment’s mourning to the sunrises she’d never see. But she was alive. And that was exactly how she wanted to be.

  “I didn’t want to be dead. I don’t want to be dead,” she said vehemently.

  Rising, she whispered, “I need to think.”

  Her legs quivered and shook as she walked outside.

  Once outside in the moonlight, she collapsed.

  Malachi swore roughly. “She’s not dead, damn it.”

  “She knows that,” Shadoe said quietly, leaning over the bed and kissing him lightly. “She needs to think. Like she said.”

  He smiled tightly. “The lady has not had the easiest of lives. She deserves something easy…not this.”

  “Nothing in life is ever easy, especially not for a Hunter,” Ben said softly, resting a hand on Mal’s shoulder. “It will be okay. She will be okay.”

  “I hope so,” Malachi murmured. Rising, he took Shadoe’s hand and bowed over it, lifting it to his lips.

  Then he shifted to mist, the echo of his voice floating through the room. “I’m going Hunting…for now.”

  Ben couldn’t have gotten Malachi and Leandra out of the room any quicker if he had wished it.

  As the echo of Mal’s voice faded from the room, he approached the bed, reaching down and pulling Shadoe to her feet, slanting his mouth roughly across hers. Her arms, slender and strong, wound desperately around his neck, holding him to her tightly as he tore at her clothes.

  Pulling his mouth away, he glared down at her and swore, “If you ever leave me again, for anything, I’m going to tan your hide. No, I’ll pink it. I’ll spank you so damn hard, you’ll feel my hand on your ass for a month.” His heart swelled painfully in his chest and he rested his brow on hers. “Damn it, baby. Don’t ever do that again… I love you so much. I was so fucking scared I’d never see you again, that he’d hurt you…”

  “I love you,” she whispered into his mouth. “I’m sorry. Spank me, I deserve it.”

  He laughed. “No. I think you’d like it. You don’t get a reward for scaring me to death,” he said with a mock scowl. Then he cupped her face in his hands. “I love you…Shadoe Wallace…Tiffany Morgan…both of you, all of you.”

  She gave a watery laugh. “That’s a good thing. Tiffany is the one who freaked at the vampire’s. Shadoe’s a little bit stronger.”

  He smiled, pressing a gentle kiss to her mouth. “You’re both incredibly strong. They are both you. And you are amazing, and mine.”

  “I’m sorry I went with Marcus. I shouldn’t have… You could have done something. I know that now,” she said, swallowing, licking her lips and looking away. “I’m not used to having anybody to depend on.”

  “We’ll take care of that,” he murmured, sliding his hands under her shirt. “I’m going to change it so that I’m the first thing you think of with everything that comes…and speaking of coming…” He grinned wickedly and sank to his knees, pressing his mouth to the vee of her thighs. Spreading her thighs, he lifted one and propped it on his shoulder, opening her, before he pushed his tongue inside her with slow, sensuous movements, nuzzling her clit with his nose, fucking her tight pussy with thorough strokes of his tongue until she was rocking against his mouth and clutching at the back of his head.

  He tumbled her back against the bed and shoved her thighs wide, using his thumbs to part her sex, staring at the reddened folds of her pussy for a long moment before lowering his head and drawing his tongue up the cream-drenched slit. “Yummy,” he purred, smiling as the vibrations of his voice had her shaking.

  “Ben,” she sobbed, clutching his head and pushing her cleft against his face eagerly.

  He muttered, “Be still. Think of this as your punishment for scaring me to death.” Then he set about driving her thoroughly insane as he slowly ate her out, sucking her clit for long moments, finger-fucking her until she was begging to come, backing off just before she hit climax.

  Then Ben started to plunge his tongue inside her weeping pussy while he speared the tender hole of her ass with one long, agile index finger. She shrieked and rocked up to meet each diabolical thrust of his tongue, her hands knotted in his hair. He grunted when she pulled, the sharp pain distracting him just slightly from the sweet pleasure of her cream on his tongue, and the hot silk of her ass clenching around his invading finger.

  “I�
�m gonna fuck you until you scream,” he growled. “And then I’m gonna flip you over and fuck your ass until you beg for mercy.”

  “I’m begging now—let me come,” she demanded, arching her hips higher and rocking against him, trying to get the angle she needed for climax.

  “Not yet…not yet,” he purred. Pulling back, he settled on his heels and slowly pulled his shirt off, smiling as her eyes landed on the flexing muscles of his belly and chest, lingering on the bulging biceps as he threw the shirt aside.

  Her eyes again dropped to his belly and Ben felt his cock jerk in response even as he started to tug at the buttons of his fly. “I want to feel your mouth on me first,” he said gruffly, freeing his cock and standing, shoving his jeans off and kicking them away. He pulled her off the bed and shoved her to her knees, wrapping his hand in the tumbled silk of her brunette curls. “Like this… I want to see you on your knees, and my cock in your mouth.”

  Heat flared in her eyes and she reached up, wrapping one hand around the base of his cock, feeling the pulse of the blood just below the skin, feeling the silk-wrapped steel of his erection. Her belly clenched as she drew her hand up and down his length in one long, slow motion.

  Leaning forward, Shadoe licked a wet trail up the throbbing vein on the underside of his length. “In your mouth,” he grunted, rocking his hips forward. “Take me in your mouth.”

  A tiny smile curved her lips as she dipped her head and lapped at his balls instead, raking the sensitive flesh with her teeth.

  He snarled and gripped her head between his hands, putting pressure on her jaw until her mouth opened with a surprised “Oh”. Then he pushed the aching head of his shaft inside with a growl. “I said, take me in your mouth, damn it. Suck on me.”