She lifted her chin and looked down at her fingernails, dirty around the rims since the bank explosion. “And if you get me out, then what do I owe you?” She wasn’t stupid enough to believe he’d do this out of the goodness of his Hunter heart—if he even had one. She glanced up.
His firmly sculpted lips tilted into a calculating half smile that made her shiver. It reminded her of Rathe. Dead certain you were gonna do whatever it was he wanted because he had you by the shorthairs. “You’ll give me what you retrieved from Diego Mendoza’s box.”
Out of habit her index finger went into her mouth, and she nibbled at her nail. “What if I don’t have it?”
All traces of humor suddenly vanished and his blue gaze turned to ice. Out of sheer will, China forced herself not to squirm under his scrutiny. “Don’t bother lying to me, Miss McGee. I’ve learned to spot lies easily enough in my profession. The deal is simple: your freedom in exchange for whatever you recovered from Mendoza’s deposit box. Agreed?” He held out a hand to her.
For a second China hesitated. The hand-scrawled page from Diego’s safety-deposit box was burning a hole in her shirt pocket right over her heart. What choice did she have? She’d already tried to shift into something small enough to crawl out of her cell, but each time she touched the iron bars either at the door or at her window, she shifted back to her human form. Iron was a pain in the ass to shifters, neutralizing them back to their original form and sapping their other Darkin powers.
She slipped her hand into his to shake on the deal, but the first contact of his warm, dry skin against hers sent a shock of awareness up her arm. Her heart went from a trot to a gallop. China sucked in a startled breath and got hit with the scent of expensive Bay Rum aftershave with its distinct blend of bay leaves and cloves. It reminded her of wood warmed in the sunshine, but spicier. He not only looked nice, he smelled nice. She stopped herself from taking another deep breath.
Remington Jackson was trouble, plain and simple. He’d ruin everything she had planned.
China went to yank her hand back and found his grip suddenly tightened while his other hand placed something cold on her wrist. An iron bracelet! He released her, and for a second she stared at it. She tried prying it off, but it was locked.
China glared at him. “How dare you!”
He didn’t seem the slightest bit ruffled by her anger. “You’re a shifter. Did I really have a choice? You were planning on shifting into God knows what the second we got out of this building and leaving me without honoring our agreement.”
China’s eyes narrowed, even as her fingers fought to pull off the hated manacle. How had he known? “I said I’d go with you,” she gritted between her teeth, wishing like hell she could have transformed into a mountain lion right then and there and bitten his head off.
Remington had the balls to grin at her, which only pissed her off more. “Yes, but you never said how far you’d go with me. My guess is to the front door. The bracelet is just to insure we’re on equal terms until I have Diego’s information, then you can be on your way.”
She muttered some choice curses beneath her breath. Remington Jackson was a snake. A slippery, loathsome snake of a Hunter who was too smart for his own damn good. She didn’t have a damn map. All she had was Diego’s chicken scratches on a patch of paper that Colt claimed were supposed to lead them across the border. On one half was a jumbled series of numbers that made no sense to her and on the other a few scrawled lines that looked like a trail through some mountains. No well drawn roads, no place names. Nothing to help pinpoint where it was or what it meant. She figured Diego didn’t intend for anyone but himself to understand the dang thing. But the bit of the Book of Legend it was connected to was her ticket to redemption in the Darkin realm, and she wasn’t going to let any fool Hunter, Jackson or otherwise, take away that opportunity to regain her standing with Rathe.
“So how are you planning on getting me out of here? They’ve got a price on my head. And you ain’t a judge, and now you’re stuck here in the pokey same as me.”
Remington Jackson’s eyes sparkled with a mix of mischief and determination. “You didn’t think I’d walk in here without an alternative exit plan, did you?” He pulled the right side of his jacket back to reveal not just a holstered revolver and gun belt filled with silvery bullets, but also a couple of glass vials of clear liquid topped with cork stoppers.
China snorted. “It’s gonna take a lot more than that little bit of water if you want to get through those walls. They’re at least two feet thick.”
He gave her an arch look. “It would, if it were water.” He picked up one vial and glanced at her. “But considering it’s nitroglycerin, I’m assuming it’ll be much more effective. Toss that mattress up on its side and hunker down behind it for cover.” She didn’t question, just did as he said.
Remington crouched down behind the mattress with her in the corner of the cell, their backs to the bars. He threw the glass vial as hard as he could at the outer adobe wall, then ducked.
The explosion rocked the jail, sending down a shower of dust and chunks of stone and mortar. Miss McGee coughed, then frowned. “Blowing up the jail? That’s your solution?”
He shrugged. He really didn’t care what she thought of his methods. “It works.” His life wasn’t a black or white proposition. It was more like a smorgasbord. He took what he needed, when he needed it, to get the job done. Being a Hunter, even part-time, meant he didn’t always have the luxury of doing things by the book.
Judging by the narrow-eyed look and pinched mouth on Miss McGee’s pretty face, he’d been right to bring the iron bracelet along as a precaution. Colt said she could change into many things, including a mountain lion, and he had no plans of getting shredded to pieces on the way back to Tombstone.
Remington didn’t waste any time. He hustled Miss McGee out of the jail as quickly as possible, assisting her with his hand as she crossed the rubble, aware that the sheriff and half the town would likely be on their heels at any moment.
They dashed around the outer edge of the jail and waited for everyone to disappear inside. He grabbed hold of her hand. “Let’s go.”
He rushed to his horse, Joe, grabbing on the reins that swung about the horse’s legs. The explosion had spooked the chestnut gelding and he’d pulled free from the hitching post.
China’s mouth dropped open. “How are we gonna get out of here quick on that? Don’t you have a mechanical horse like Colt?”
“No. Hate the damn thing. Now are you coming or not?”
China snapped her mouth closed and nodded. Remington mounted in one smooth, swift motion, then hauled the Darkin up to sit in front of him. Well, really, given the confines of the saddle, she sat more in his lap than in front of him. She was far softer than he’d anticipated. Somehow Miss McGee’s prickly exterior didn’t change how very feminine she felt. “Hold on to the pommel.” She gripped it hard, and he grasped the reins in each hand.
“Is this really necessary?” she growled as he kicked Joe into motion.
“Until I have clear access to Diego Mendoza’s information, absolutely.” That was a half-truth. He could have just taken whatever she’d gotten from the safety-deposit box and left her there, but his gut had told him that wasn’t the safest path. And if there was one thing Remington did, it was always listen to his gut. Besides, everything Colt had him meticulously research indicated a Darkin was needed to access the hiding place of the missing pieces of the Book. No, he didn’t intend on letting Miss McGee out of his sights any time soon.
He wheeled Joe around and sped up the hill, making quick tracks out of Bisbee before anyone figured out what had happened and where they’d gone. A hot breeze, tainted with the ozone of heated metal and the acrid stench of woodsmoke belching from the stack on the Copper Queen smelter at the base of the hill, blew hard as they crested the hills around Bisbee and powdered his coat with a fine layer of grit. But he didn’t stop or slow until Bisbee was completely out of sight.
Remington smiled. She was just as anxious to get away from him as she was to get back at Colt. He could tell by the nervous way she fidgeted. “No deal. How do I know that paper will lead me anywhere?”
She shrugged, the movement causing her back and the curve of her shoulders to rub up against his chest. Remington grit his teeth. He was a Hunter, not a monk, after all. And despite the taint of being Darkin, she was a beautiful creature.
“You don’t. But I don’t have anything else, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, I think you have a bit more than that. You were working with Colt to help find the lost piece of the Book Diego knew about, weren’t you?”
She heaved a sigh. “I don’t know anything.”
“That’s not what Colt said.”
A fine tremor worked its way through her body. Remington wasn’t sure if it was anger or desire. There was an exceedingly fine dividing line between hate and love, and it didn’t take a whole hell of a lot to push some folks from one to the other.
“Colt knows everything I do.”
“Yes, but he’s bent on finding Cadel’s piece of the Book, which my father hid. That means I’m collecting you so you can help him find the piece Diego is rumored to have discovered.”
She twisted in his lap. The leather stretched across her finely curved ass was not nearly enough of a barrier between them. Remington grunted. China gazed up at him. “You’re trying to put the Book of Legend back together, aren’t you?”
They started down the rugged hills surrounding Bisbee, and Remington weighed the options of telling her the truth versus telling her only what he wanted her to know. His gut told him to trust her when every bit of Hunter training told him he was a fool to do so.
“Yes.”
Something changed in her eyes. A flash of silver, like lightning streaking across a stormy, cloud-covered sky. It was a breathtaking sight. “I’ll help you on one condition.”
Remington was tempted to tell her she wasn’t exactly in a position to bargain, but his curiosity got the better of him. In the courts, sometimes what people told you when trying to bargain revealed far more about their intentions than they realized. “And what’s that?”
“If you do find all the pieces, I want to be there when you put it together.”
Remington frowned. “Why?”
“’Cause if what the Darkin legends say is true, it’s gonna be one hell of a show.”
In Remington’s opinion deals were made to be remade. He didn’t see the harm in agreeing to it if it could get the information Colt needed out of her. “Sounds like you have a personal stake in the matter. Is that true, Miss McGee?”
She shifted uneasily. “You’ve got your secrets, Hunter. I’ve got mine. Do we have a deal, or don’t we?”
“Your help in securing whatever Diego’s map leads to in return for being there if and when the Book of Legend is reunited?”
“Yes.”
He paused for a moment, letting her believe he contemplated things. “Deal.”
She relaxed a little, her back curving into his chest as she handed him the paper she had retrieved from Diego’s box and he unceremoniously stuffed it into his pocket.
“Ain’t you even gonna look at it?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. I’ll look at it when I have the time and space to properly analyze it. Maybe you’ve just missed something and I can figure out Diego’s intentions.”
“And maybe you can’t.”
He gave her an enigmatic smile. “Never bet against an educated Hunter, my dear. You won’t win.”
She grumbled, the sound of it vibrating through her body and into him. Remington resisted the urge to laugh at the absurdity of it all. He knew Colt liked women with spirit; he just hadn’t realized his brother liked them hardheaded too.
The horse huffed. As the white hot sun bore down on them from overhead, heat rose up in shimmering waves from the parched earth. Joe was growing tired carrying a double load. Only the large saguaro cacti, their tall, prickly bodies topped with multiple arms reaching toward an endless blue sky, offered meager shade. They rode on in silence. Remington didn’t want to get too chummy with the shifter.
Finally China broke the endless shuffling sound of the horse’s hooves in the dirt. “You ever get tired of being a Hunter?”
His gut contracted. It was too personal; too close to something he might have discussed with his brothers, but never with a stranger, and certainly not a Darkin. “That’s an odd question.”
“Why?”
“It’s like me asking if you ever get tired of being a shifter. You’re just born to it. It’s not a matter of if you want to be one or not.”
“I do.”
“Do what?”
“Get tired of being a shifter.”
Remington frowned, the sweat on his forehead making his hat slide a little lower. He’d never thought about a Darkin in that way—that they could possibly not like what they were or want to change it. It made them seem almost, well, human.
Curiosity bit at him. “If you weren’t a shifter, what would you be?”
China twisted and gave him a brilliant smile that took him by surprise, making his stomach flip-flop. “I’d be a high society New York heiress.”
He chuckled. “Of course you would.” He had to give her points for being both practical and smart. Had he been a woman and not a Hunter, he might have chosen the same. A life completely different than that of his brothers. One with proper society, wealth, and privilege—not worry, sacrifice, and death.
But Hunting wasn’t something one elected to do. He didn’t get a choice in the matter. It was his birthright. He’d been trained since he could talk about what Darkin were, how to defeat them, and how to defend innocent bystanders against their attacks.
He couldn’t help but muse about how the shifter sitting on his lap didn’t quite measure up to his idea of the ruthless, depraved monsters he hunted.
In the heat of the afternoon when everything fell silent, a rattling from the creosote bushes up ahead caused the horse to raise its head, perk up its ears, and come to a sudden halt. It whickered, an uncertain, unhappy sound. Both China and Remington peered into the desert scrub.
“Sounds like a snake,” Remington muttered.
“But it doesn’t smell like one.” China’s body turned hard and tense against his.
He reached for his hip holster, pulling out his revolver and cocking it in one quick, smooth motion. Darkin, shifters and vampires in particular, had a keen sense of smell. If China said it didn’t smell like a snake, then in his Hunter experience it was likely something far worse.
Amorphous forms, fast and dark, came streaking out of the desert. The shots of black smoke caused the horse to rear. Demons?
Remington did his best to hold the reins in one hand and his gun in the other and maintain his seat in the saddle by gripping his thighs tight around the sides of the horse. China held fast to the pommel. The rattling turned to hissing as the forms coalesced into solid matter. Boots and dusters, beefy shoulders and craggy, scaled olive-green faces with yellow, vertical-slitted eyes. Black forked tongues flicked from openings where their mouths should be.
The six creatures were shaped like men, but Remington knew they sure as hell weren’t human.
He did his best to get Joe to settle down before he and China got knocked to the dirt, or worse still, knocked down, then trampled. The animal huffed and snorted, its nostrils flaring. Its soft brown eyes were now liberally surrounded by white as it shied and sidestepped backward from the creatures surrounding them in a loose circle.
China had got
ten even stiffer, if that were possible, her back now ramrod straight. If the horse and the Darkin were scared, they were in deeper shit than he’d first thought. He’d never seen anything like this described in Pa’s Book. “What the hell are they?”
“Viperanox. Snake demons. Usually you don’t see them this far north of the border. The Indians down in Southern Mexico thought they were gods, but they’re just Rathe’s rustlers.”
The hissing of the strange creatures garbled into words Remington could understand. “Give usss the map.”
China spat in the dirt. “Go to hell, you bastards. You know the way.”
They exchanged quick glances, a few of them hissing and barring sharp, dagger-length fangs. One moved in to grab the reins from Remington. He didn’t hesitate. He shot the creature point-blank in the forehead, knocking it backwards into the dirt. It writhed and shrieked, its scaled hands pressed hard to its face. The creature twisted in upon itself until it was once again dark, undulating smoke that sank into the earth.
China turned in his arms, her gray eyes fierce. “What the hell are you waiting for? Shoot them all!”
That was easier said than done. He was down to only three more of Marley’s special bullets, and there were five, now very pissed off, viperanox left.
Chapter 2
Remington squinted against the glare of the sun and popped off another three shots, taking down three more of the scary as hell snake demons that were after their asses. Joe skittered sideways and whinnied as the remaining viperanox tried to pull China from his back. China growled and kicked at them.
Remington grabbed hold of the pommel with one hand, his arm braced around China, and spurred Joe into motion. The horse didn’t wait to be told twice and took off at a full-out gallop. The hisses and snarls of the viperanox faded for only a moment as they turned into two dark streaks of smoke hot on their heels.
The Chosen Page 2