Rogue Huntress: a new adult urban fantasy novel (Rogue Huntress Chronicles Book 1)

by Thea Atkinson

  "We've been through this before," he said cooly to Jeb, revealing no fear in his tone. I had to hand it to him, bastard that he was; he kept his balls hanging nice and heavy.

  "Do you remember what happened the last time you tried to kill me?" Caleb said.

  The barrel never wavered.

  "Maybe I don't care," Jeb said.

  "Oh, you care," Caleb said. "Do you really think Shana needs your help?"

  "Doesn't matter," Jeb said. "Maybe it's just a good chance to see your head explode."

  "What makes you think she won't enjoy it?" Caleb said. "You don't know her like I do."

  Jeb said nothing and Caleb took the opportunity to fill the silence with hushed, very purposeful words.

  "Do you truly know the pain of silver in a werewolf's flesh?" Caleb slipped his hands from his pockets, crossing them over his midriff almost absently. I knew better. It was a calculated move, one I noted Jeb also ignored.

  "It's like laying bare skin on a smoking cast iron griddle," he whispered and I winced as the bullet in my shoulder reminded me how accurate the description was. "It's like cutting bare skin with a white hot blade and yet it's nothing like either." His pinky finger twitched as it lay against his thigh. "There's a lot of skin on a body," he said. "Flesh over bone over muscle over nerves."

  "That's generally how the human body works," Jeb said, and I got the sense that the undercurrent that ran between them had nothing to do with me.

  Caleb ran his index finger over the length of the pinky one of his other hand.

  "It's how the body works, yes, but a body can't appreciate that pain until it's felt."

  Caleb had the absolute audacity to turn on his heel and face Jeb so that the gun was pointing directly at the middle of his forehead. While the pistol didn't waver, I could tell by the way the crystalline eyes bored into Caleb's hairline, that Jeb wanted badly to pull the trigger – yet he didn't.

  "You've tortured enough murderers," Caleb murmured. "And yet you can't know truly what horror a shifter feels for silver. Not unless you have an immediate comparison."

  Caleb made a subtle waving motion with his hand and the jailer stepped silently back into my field of vision, a very small knife clenched in his fingers. With it, he scored a bit of skin from Jeb's wrists as Jeb stood rigid and unmoveable. I expected the fully human man to cry out or to cringe. Instead, he waited as though he were standing in line at a coffee shop and had a mosquito land on his arm. He notched up in my estimation several inches, especially when the muzzle remained just as level and steady a millimeter from Caleb's head as the jailer peeled the strip of skin. The smell of blood trickled into my nostrils. Something in my belly clenched, anxious about that blood, squeezing out an adrenaline pump in reply.

  The jailer waved the piece of flesh in front of Jeb like a red flag. I wasn't sure what the idiot hoped to accomplish. Had it been my skin, I'd have made him eat it.

  Jeb's eyes flicked to mine. His top lip disappeared for a second as he pulled at it with his bottom one. The scruff of his whiskers showed a bit of gray as his jaw worked subtly, his thoughts obviously reflected in the movement.

  "Shana is nothing to you," Caleb said. "Just a paycheck."

  If Caleb thought Jeb's paralyzed stance was borne of fear or indecision, he was as big a fool as the jailer. Even I knew the kind of weighing that was going on behind those crystalline eyes. Jeb wasn't deciding whether I had any value--I knew he didn't care about me. It was the opportunity he had been given to pull a gun on his hated enemy. Jeb was assessing how much damage he could do to a conscious werewolf before that wolf succumbed to his injuries. He was working out whether or not he could shoot the jailer before he changed to save his alpha. He was figuring out the complex machinations involved in saving his own hide should he miss either of the first chances.

  Sometimes inaction is the best action. I knew that what was happening on the other side of the bars might be more productive in the end than any indignant protests I might make. I waited, breath held, hand clutching my aching shoulder for Jeb to squeeze the trigger. I prayed for it.

  "A spoiled, entitled werewolf who will eat your heart as soon as she sees her chance," Caleb prodded, his eyes swinging to mine.

  "Again with the flattery," I ground out even as my heart stuttered when that green gaze landed on my throat.

  He didn't need me to secure his place-- he already had it-- but it was clear the pack wasn't responding to his new leadership as well as he'd hoped. I also knew Jeb was going to pull that trigger. I knew it like I knew my own breath. I knew it because the want to do so was plastered over his face as acutely as it was lodged in my throat. Moments. That's all it would take and I'd be free, and I'd leave no body unturned in my quest for vengeance. The length of time I had to wait just all depended on Jeb and how badly he ached to kill Caleb.

  I counted on his desire so deeply that I leaned forward, anticipating the report, the explosion of tissue, the disappearance of Caleb's smug smile. Jeb caught my movement and his eyes flicked to mine then that hard gaze raked over me in frank assessment. I could hear my blood pounding between my ears as his glance landed on my shoulder where he'd shot me. If Caleb noticed the shift in Jeb's attention he didn't show it. In fact he had the audacity to let Jeb continue to hold him at gunpoint as though he knew the mercenary wouldn't engage the trigger.

  He obviously saw something in Jeb's face that I didn't.

  Within a heartbeat, Jeb dropped the pistol to his side. I watched his Adam's apple plunge down his throat as the obvious contemplation worked gears behind those stone cold eyes.

  "Coward," I hissed at him.

  "Take her, then," Jeb said, jerking the pistol muzzle toward me.

  Caleb's smile slithered across his face. "Oh, I plan to," he said. With careful fingers, he plucked the piece of Jeb's skin from the jailer's fingers and tossed it into the trash bin in the corner of the foyer.

  Whether or not Caleb planned to let Jeb's indiscretion go, he wouldn't forget it. I knew if I was the alpha, I wouldn't.

  Of course, Jeb was human. He wouldn't understand all of the finite machinations that swam through the undercurrents of our culture. He would think as most humans did, with the strict moral codes of a society that had forgotten its connection to primal instinct. Humankind was ruled by laws and codes of conduct that were rooted in outdated moral fabrications rather than the much more visceral understanding of how a body was connected to nature.

  I raked a glance over Jeb, wishing he'd have pressed on. I had no doubt I'd be free if he had, and now because he'd given in, I faced god knew how many days of this insufferable imprisonment.

  "Whatever you're in it for," I said to him. "You'd better tread carefully."

  He turned his back to me and strode to where he'd lain his pistol on a table in the portico in surrender. I wanted to call out after him to be careful, but the way his shoulders pinched together as he laid it down, I knew I wouldn't need to. He swung back around and crossed his hands in front of his hips like a secret service man awaiting orders, but his shoulders were anything but dutifully set.

  He might not understand werewolf culture, but he understood a threat, that much was obvious.

  Caleb turned to me, victory scoring his features.

  "What do you say we get about finishing this business," he said.

  "My business with you is finished," I said and turned with as much dignity as I could muster under the pain of my shoulder's screeching jaunt down the line of my nerves. I staggered a few steps until I found myself against the wall and sunk down onto my bottom, gripping my shoulder as my knees stuck out at odd angles in the air. "You're going to have to do better than that, Caleb, and you know it."

  I watched him set his mouth in a firm line much as he had done throughout our years of training together. I knew what it meant. He was pissed, but he didn't want anyone to know it. The hands in his pockets worked at the material within, and I imagined he had dug his palms bloody trying to control his temper.

/>   "I can wait," he said. "Council doesn't meet until the full moon. You'll break long before then."

  "When have you ever known me to break?" I said.

  He shrugged. "You've never had such good incentive before."

  "They're your brothers too."

  He shook his head. "That's where you're wrong. They're nothing to me. Two young brats. There's no blood between us."

  "You're an idiot," I said, the heaviness of pain making my eyelids feel as though they were lined with sandpaper. "No go away before I decide to act like a true wolf in a trap and start chewing off my own appendages."

  A Newborn Mouse

  They did leave me alone, and I felt worse than I had when they'd been standing there with their taunting presence. Both of them had peered back over their shoulder as they left the room, one expression with a knowing, victorious look and the other with a strangely sorrowful one in his icy eyes. I could barely lift my head up long enough to watch them close the door. I had called my jailer a fool, I had called Caleb an idiot. What did all that make me? Here I was, the lead assassin for my pack – a pack that had been viable and vital for over 200 years--and I had barreled into a dangerous situation with blinders on because the battleground had been my own territory. I'd not been expecting war on my own turf. Got myself captured when I should have known better--should have been more careful. I let my family down,, and now my brothers were god knows where probably suffering god knew what under Caleb's orders. I should have been stripped of my rank and outlawed.

  With the thought of torture, a quick flash of Jeb's mournful eyes came to mind. A torture master in Guantánamo Bay. That unsettled me. Mostly because after seeing his calculated and cold demeanor, it rang true. If it was true, what machinations had he put to my brothers' bodies already. And if he hadn't begun torturing them yet, exactly how far would Caleb go in his bid to force me to submit to him and win over all of those reluctant pack members he was struggling to win over. Why else would he have taken this desperate route? He'd obviously marshaled a few of the weaker wolves to his side, but if I knew certain ones, those the most loyal to my father, he would never be able to win them all over with pure aggressiveness and violence. They were cunning wolves. All of my father's compatriots. Gerald, father's best friend from a childhood he wouldn't speak of; Marcel the younger who took over his father's post when the elder had succumbed to injuries from a fight with his mate; the exotic and aged Sayed, a quiet man as old as Methuselah about whom I knew little except he was respected by every pack member as though he were a shaman. All high counsellors in my father's roundtable, devoted to a man who had always admired King Arthur's legend, and had set up a sort of democratic rule instead of a dictatorship. I was willing to bet that Caleb wouldn't honour that. I figured I had only two choices: hold on until that faction of my pack was able to overthrow Caleb again and free me, or give in to Caleb's demands.

  I was never one to wait, and the second one was about as appetizing a thought as congealed moose fat.

  I tried to strain my eyes forward for as long as I could, waiting stubbornly for some flicker of hope, some opening to just present itself, but eventually the sandpaper film over my eyelids was too much to bear and I had to let my eyes close. Even as they scraped over my tired eyes, I knew I wouldn't have to blink again for a long time.

  Whether it was unconsciousness or sleep that overtook me, I had no idea. I only knew that I was awakened by a sudden jolt that tore through my body like liquid energy. It sent me from my sprawled position into a sudden spasm on the cold floor with such potency that I bit my tongue again when my muscles went taut and stiff. It was a hellishly long moment before I could find my feet, and only then from sheer determination, only to have the pain in my shoulder drop me to my knees. I panted hard through the pain, looking up as I crouched there, the beast in me snarling but unable to transform. It was all I could do to remain steady. I had to force my mind to process what my eyes were sending it. The jailer. Standing two feet away from me with a smirk on his face. The pimples over his nose marched angry red tracks into his hairline. Even before the wash of dizziness overcame over me, making me sway, I realized we were tethered together by two long Taser wires. I gasped in a breath. Held it.

  "The boss says you've been asleep too long."

  I regarded the hateful wolf with a calm I didn't feel, all along trying to process how deep the barbs had stuck into my skin. I followed the wires from the humming Taser in his hand to my skin. One in my uninjured shoulder, the other pricked into my rib cage below my breast. I would not faint. I would not.

  "What time is it?"

  He fidgeted with the handle of the Taser.

  "It's not a hard question," I said. "How long have I been asleep?"

  "Day."

  A day. Not sleeping, then. Spent and exhausted and unconscious. The meat and muscle in my shoulder throbbed. I knew that if I didn't play nice, he would send that jolt of electricity through me again. I staggered to a careful stand, careful not to spook him, moving slowly and methodically. My hand spread out away from me and faced him in a supplicating way. I hated to see the look of smugness cross his features as those traitorous hands of mine sought support when I swayed on my feet. Not finding it, I had to content myself with steeling my spine with hatred. He was ugly, now that I really looked at him. I didn't remember him from the pack at all. An outsider. How many outsiders had Caleb brought in?

  "I'm not going to do anything," I murmured. "I just want to get these things out of me."

  He shook his head. "Not until I get back on the other side." He took a step backwards, pulling the wires taut.

  I had no choice but to follow him so the wires wouldn't pull at my tender skin, but I did so carefully.

  "Look at me," I said. "I'm sweating. I'm in pain. I'm not going to attack you."

  He said nothing, just kept shoveling backwards, his combat boots scuffing across the floor until with his free hand, he fumbled behind him at the cell door. He opened it up behind him, and scooted through so fast I couldn't have leapt for him at all. When he banged the door closed and propped himself against the table in the portico, the handle caught on the wire and pulled the one beneath my breast free. I felt it tear the skin and I sucked in my breath. I thought of my mother in those moments. Do what you will, jailer, I thought. My mother had done far worse. By the time I was five, I'd already taken a dozen baths infused with colloidal silver. It always hurt like hell, but I had managed to get to a point where I could withstand the pain for longer than most werewolves. I might have hated the woman for it when I was a kid, but I was eternally grateful at that moment for her paranoia.

  "Can I take the other one out now?" I asked him, all docile and meek.

  He nodded.

  I pulled at the hook that had caught in my skin and yanked it free. The sound of it ticking against the floor as it fell made me nauseous.

  "There," I said with a bravado I didn't feel. "Now what is it that Caleb needed so badly from me that you had to jolt me awake like that?"

  I wanted to put on a brave face, but I knew I was trembling. Everything in front of my vision blurred when I moved my head too quickly. Probably an infection starting. As a wolf, I might heal myself of that during transformation. As a human woman, I was just as susceptible as any other mortal. It wouldn't kill me but it would certainly make me ill until I could transform. I fell against the bars and although I knew it was coated with silver, I barely felt where it seared into the bits of skin that were bare. Maybe my brain was already too hot to register the heat. That was when I knew how bad off I really was. I gripped the bars with my hands to steady myself, and then realized how brain-fogged I was because I had forgotten the silver altogether until my palms burned. I sagged against the bars anyway, my cheek laying against the back of my hand as I regarded him.

  "I need a doctor," I said.

  "Little infection won't kill you," he said.

  "No, but it'll make me rather waspish," I said.

  He reached int
o his pocket and tossed out a couple of pink capsules. They clattered at my feet.

  "Antibiotics," he said. "Two doses and you'll be fine."

  I peered down at them as they lay snuggled next to my boot. With a sigh, I bent over to scoop them into my hand and stuff them both into my mouth. It was a hard swallow, dry and dull, but I knew I couldn't transform to rid my body of the damned bugs. Neither could I afford to have a fever raging through my body. Medicine and sleep. That's what I needed. I'd be right as rain in a dozen hours or so.

  I looked over my shoulder at the bed, still smoothly made. I was heading for it when I heard another voice behind me, coming from the portico. My teeth clacked together as I recognized it. I swung around to face him, the bastard and almost stumbled to my knees when my head swam.

  "I'm surprised you've come back," I said to Caleb. "You being the coward you are and all."

  "It's time," he said. He was already next to the bars, the jailer lurking behind him but looking like he wanted to sprint down the stairs. I fancied for a second that I could ram my palm onto the panic button and shut Caleb off from the suite altogether. But then, it would shut me in as effectively as a tomb with no one to call for help. Besides. I wasn't a coward. I didn't panic.

  I lifted my chin. "I'm tired but I'm not broken."

  "That's just the thing, Shana," he said. "I know you won't break. It's why I chose you..among other things." His hand moved toward his crotch in an obscene way that both thrilled me and made me grimace.

  "I'm not stupid either," I said. "You chose me because you need me." I swayed on my feet. A day of unconsciousness and I still was spent. I had to be feverish.