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

by Thea Atkinson

  "But you came to get me anyway," I said.

  "I did. I had to."

  I sighed and rolled onto my side so I could push myself to my feet.

  "You're not fooling me," I said. "The executions you helped me with? Caleb no doubt had to rid himself of a few upstart pups and you were just the muscle to do it."

  "Waste of muscle if you ask me," he said.

  It was a dance, this. Walking around each other to take a measure. See what fit, what didn't. Who had the better moves, the fastest mind. He had let me go, and yet he had come to collect me. Something wasn't right. He was lying about the boys. He had to be.

  I could take him, I thought. He wouldn't expect it.

  "Maybe muscle is all you are," I said.

  He grinned at that. The salt and pepper whiskers bristled as he chewed the inside of his cheek. "I have some skills," he said. "Sniper training."

  I murmured my agreement. "Yes, I saw that. Pretty impressive for a human."

  He sucked the back of his teeth, not rising to the bait. He crossed one booted foot over the other. It was my chance, I knew it was. I flew at him, fists clenched and ready. He was on his feet before I came close enough to land a punch on the chiseled and handsome jaw, but I wouldn't be thwarted. I round house kicked his legs from beneath him, leapt on his chest when he fell, my face inches from his, smelling the musk of his sweat and the stink of fear on him that mixed with that peculiar smell of licorice.

  "My brothers," I yelled. "Tell me what he's done to them."

  He grunted. "I told you."

  "I don't believe you." I wanted to sound confident and aggressive. It came out sounding pathetic and pitiful. I even heard a sob weaving through the words and a wash of water flooded my eyes.

  I should have been ready for the twist and roll over when he used it on me, I should have seen it in his eyes, but I didn't because the intent simply wasn't there to read. He was good. Too good. When he flipped me over as though I was no more than a limp rag, I was as surprised as he was that I could do nothing but lay there and bawl with my arms flung to my sides and my mouth open in a silent howl. I felt betrayed and angry and grief-stricken all at once. He hung over me like a vulture, damn him, watching my self-control leak from me in shameful waves of shuddering tears.

  And as the sense of all that seethed in my belly, it broiled into a rage that bade me twist beneath him, thrusting my hips upward so I could buck my ankles toward his neck. I'd twist it if I caught it, I'd flip him backwards and finish him right then and there.

  And yet doing so proved harder than I'd thought. He deftly avoided every movement until he had once again, very neatly, pinned me to the earth. This time, his face was inches from mine, but he didn't hiss at me or snarl in anger.

  "Stop," he said in a tone that was at once commanding and gentle. His thumb moved onto my mouth, holding it still from its trembling. I wanted to roll over to avoid that strangely kind gaze. I didn't want him to see my shame at breaking down. An assassin just did not break down.

  That battle-weathered thumb scuttled over my lip and up over my cheek where it swiped away the remaining tears. "You have it all wrong," he said. "Your brothers are fine. It's my sister that's in trouble."

  A peculiar look flashed across Jeb's face, one that told me he was telling the truth. His face had a pinched look that made me feel immediately sorry for him. The broad shoulders sagged and for a second as his gaze traveled to my lips and then stared off over my head as his face crumpled. I imagined myself embracing him, consoling the grief that rode his features in a mirror of my own. I heard myself shushing him the way a woman would comfort a child and he all but collapsed over me, his cheek falling into the crest of my shoulder. I felt his breath there exhaling twice before he lifted his head and stared into my eyes. I froze in realization.

  He was going to kiss me. It was a flash of thought and no more and yet, though it was the worst of circumstances, I knew I was going to let him. I went slack and compliant, waiting. My throat ached with the desire for it. Damn the beast inside me. It wanted to feel those lips against mine, taste his breath the way I'd felt it on my skin. I held my breath in expectation. It wanted to feel the way coupling could medicate better than any opiate draft.

  I watched as he mustered his face back into its implacable expression and his gaze locked on my eyes instead of my mouth.

  "Are you going to be reasonable?" Jeb said with all seeming calm, but I noticed his voice was far from even.

  I nodded, feeling stupid for imagining he wanted the same thing I did.

  He gave me a warning look. "You won't try to kill me again?"

  "No," I mumbled, feeling the sting of rejection. "Not right yet."

  "Good enough."

  I felt his weight ease from me as he peeled away his body from mine. His tone had reclaimed its sense of authority and control but his shoulders were tense. I caught him jamming his hands into his pockets and I couldn't look at him for a long moment while I wrestled my beast back in her cage. I might have been able to manage locking her away for hours if he hadn't dug into the back pack again and pulled a pair of khaki pants and a jacket and passed them to me.

  "You could have given me these earlier," I said, looking down at the T-shirt I wore barely covering my upper thighs. He shrugged with a thinly disguised look of lechery.

  "I'm only human," he said, his gaze pinned to my thighs. "Maybe you don't know what that means."

  He was trying to regain equilibrium, I could tell. My own body was doing much the same, trying to process grief and desire all at once.

  I pulled the clothes on gratefully and in silence, processing the new information. My human skin had grown cold and the shivering that had taken over my body after he'd nearly kissed me made me wish for my coat of fur. I had the jacket pulled over my arms and was plaiting my hair when the truth occurred to me. I couldn't believe I didn't think of it before.

  "She's the one you were talking about when I was having my bath," I said.

  Jeb's jaw clenched but he didn't protest or agree. I took it to mean it was true. And yet something in his posture told me I didn't know the whole story.

  "What are you keeping from me?" I said.

  He dug into the pack again and extracted a green apple and a thin small blanket.

  "It's going to be dark soon," he said. "We should eat and find a warm place to dig in."

  My stomach growled as I spied the apple. I wanted it very badly now I had seen and smelled it. I couldn't take my eyes off the damned thing and I nearly missed his comment. "Dig in?" I said. "What's that mean?"

  He nodded. "I have to tell Caleb you killed the wolves and that it took me all night to track you. It'll give you time to recover."

  I gaped at him. "And your sister? The secret you're keeping ?"

  He sighed. "It's a long story, best told when warm." He tossed me the apple and turned his back on me as I caught it and sunk my teeth deep in its flesh. It tasted divine and I was so caught up in savoring it when I noticed he had already wrapped the blanket around his shoulders as had strode deeper into the trees. I followed the tail of the blanket in the growing dusk as it created shadows in the gaps of the trees until he hunkered down in the hollow made by a windswept oak. The great roots sprawled forward like pikes and the ground beneath had been worn into hardpack by some large animal.

  "Better not be a bear's bed," I said, coming up behind him.

  "You're the wolf," Jeb said, spinning around like a dog would to find the best direction to lie down. "You tell me what kind of animal's bed it is." He plopped down and spread the blanket open, inviting me into its depths.

  I shook my head. "I can keep myself warm." I pointed to my chest. "Wolf, remember?"

  He grinned and his teeth showed through the gloom in a heart crunching way. "To be honest, I thought you could keep me warm."

  I didn't trust myself. I swallowed, trying to decide how to best handle things. He watched me struggling and sighed.

  "You need some rest," he
said. "I can't have you collapsing mid attack in the morning, and this blanket won't be enough to keep my muscles warm if someone attacks us while we sleep."

  I crept closer, ducking beneath a sky-reaching root, careful to keep my voice light.

  "What do you mean attack?"

  Jeb patted the earth next to him. "I mean Caleb will send more wolves when I don't return with you tonight. He might already have sent them."

  "He can't have that many left."

  "He has enough." Jeb shook out the tails of the blanket.

  Then we should take turns sleeping."

  "Nice idea, but both of us are dead on our feet."

  I groaned and was surprised to hear it so loud in the air. He shushed me. "Do you want them to find us?"

  "I can't trust you," I said.

  "After I killed all those wolves for you?"

  "Might be a trick." I stepped close enough that I could sit on my haunches across from him with my arms on my knees. So much of me wanted to trust him, but there was that one small part that couldn't. If it was a trick, I needed to be ready.

  "It's deer," I said.

  His brows scuttled down.

  "Deer," I said. "The animal whose bed this is."

  "Oh." Jeb sighed and I had the feeling it was more impatience than relief, a hunch he proved when he spoke again. "Just give in, Shana. Don't you want to hear about my sister?"

  I edged closer and Jeb chuckled low in his throat. "You're like a skittish squirrel and not a wolf."

  I couldn't tell him it was myself I didn't trust. I could already smell the heat coming off him in waves. It would feel too delicious to snuggle in to his body.

  "Come here," he said and the tone made something deep in my chest squirm and then I found my feet crabbing for him. I turned back to and settled in. The blanket wrapped around us both, enclosing me against Jeb in a way so intimate I would have blushed if I had any sense of shame. As it was, the wolf in me groaned in satisfaction, and I had to speak to cover over the lust that rose to my throat.

  "Tell me about your sister, then," I said. "Is that your deep dark secret?"

  His breath moved against the back of my neck as he spoke and I could have sworn he leaned in closer.

  "A few months, ago Olanna started acting strangely. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, until I realized she was changing in ways that reminded me of your kind."

  "And how would you have known about my kind?"

  There was a smirk in Jeb's tone as he answered. "You think I'm some regular soldier for hire?"

  His fingers walked across my midriff, pulling me closer and I stiffened automatically, afraid of what I would do if I got too close.

  "Don't," I said.

  "I'm cold is all." Those battle-hardened fingers twitched on my stomach, slipping beneath the t-shirt and sending a jolt of cold down to my toes. I might have yelped except for some reason, I savored the feel of his touch too much, and then when I didn't say anything, he wrapped his arms all the way round me. I found myself clinging to the blanket so I wouldn't touch his fight-weathered hands and imagine all the luscious ways the callouses would raise the lust on my skin.

  Jeb shifted about, making a hollow in his body I could lean into and then carried on his conversation as though he had no idea what his touch was doing to me.

  "You might say I have a history with all things fairytale."

  I rankled at that. It didn't matter that we shifters purposefully nurtured the belief that our kind was fiction at best, the way he said it made me feel inconsequential.

  "We are far from fairytales and witches in gingerbread houses."

  "Not too far off in my experience," he said.

  "And you have plenty of that, I suppose."

  "It's how your Caleb found me."

  Something reared up from beneath my ribcage, something primal and inarticulate. All I knew was that I couldn't separate the feel of this man's touch, his smell, from the desire for the strength my beast lusted for in Caleb. Best I shush the beast and sort it out later.

  "He's not my Caleb," I said.

  "No, I suppose not. However, he is very resourceful and he's very ambitious."

  "So you're telling me he has had this planned for months."

  I felt him shrug. "More like years."

  I blew my lips in disdain. There was no way Caleb could have been planning something like this for a year and me not discover it.

  "Bit ambitious for him," I said. "He'd never have been able to fool my father or Galen. Or me."

  "No," Jeb asked. "I wonder what those two would say now about the unambitious Caleb."

  My blood boiled at the reminder of Jeb's involvement in those deaths. "I don't know," I said. "What did they say when you killed them?"

  His hand clutched at my waist. "I didn't execute them," he said. "That was all Caleb. My job was to provide backup and to make sure you were contained while he and his wolves executed the coup."

  "And you certainly were willing," I said, tasting the sour note in my voice.

  Jeb blew a sigh into my hair. "That's where Olanna comes in," he said. "Your brother used her to get to me. Caleb might not trust humans, but he was willing to use me."

  "You have delusions of grandeur," I said.

  His chin leaned on my shoulder as he whispered in my ear. "There's only a few of us," he said. "Just a few who have all of the skills required not only to track your kind, but who are trained in the same kind of discipline as a Navy SEAL. We have martial arts training. Sniper training. You name it, we've done it."

  "Such an elite force," I chided. "How was he ever able to subdue you?"

  "He wouldn't have," he said. "If it wasn't for Olanna. He purposefully infected her," he said and the bald way it came out told me he believed it.

  "Because he wanted leverage against you." It sounded ridiculous. He had to know that.

  "Yes," he said. "So I could neutralize you and any threats to the compound while he murdered your father."

  "Yet he still holds her captive and you decided to rebel." I snorted. "What changed?"

  "You."

  My heart stuttered. That thing within that I'd barely ordered to sit reared up on its back legs and clawed forward. It wanted more and it wanted it so badly I squirmed beneath the force of it. I could barely speak as the longing clogged my throat. "That's ridiculous," I said to cover up my awkwardness.

  "I suppose it is," he mused as though he had no idea what struggles were tying my insides into knotted electrical cords. "She'll certainly be pissed when she hears I risked her life for yours."

  "Because you need me."

  He tightened his grip on my stomach and his voice grew light-hearted. "You are pretty badass."

  I wasn't sure what I was fishing for or why I was fishing so hard, but the fact that he wasn't giving it up made me feel petulant and spiteful.

  "What if she's dead?" I said.

  "I hope to god she is," he said and the way his body tensed made the back of my neck crawl. I had the feeling he was imagining all sorts of tortures being inflicted upon her and that he believed death was better than what Caleb was capable of. It put my own situation in stark light. It might have been anxiety that made him so rigid, but I knew it was anger, and I imagined when Caleb was finally in reach, Jeb would be the one to kill the wolf and not me, robbing me of my vengeance. Even so, I couldn't feel pity. My own brothers were even now suffering under Caleb's captivity. What was a man, what was a woman I'd never met, newly transformed into a werewolf, to me in the face of family?

  "The infection doesn't last," I said, offering an olive branch. "Only those born into it have it in their blood. The bite brings on nothing but a sort of flu. She would have been fine after a couple of months."

  I squirreled my toes around in the leaves, picking up stray twigs between them. I peered over my shoulder at him with some compassion. "She might already be better."

  "She might have been better if he hadn't kept working at her," he said, bitterness coating his word
s. "If I can't get her out soon, the only way she will be better is if she's dead."

  A Kiss and a Kit

  I was dreaming of Jeb's touch when he woke me bleary from sleep and feeling safe for the first time in weeks. I rolled into his embrace from reflex, my arms winding around him before I realized what I was doing, savoring the warmth of another body, smelling the hot fragrance of sleep and sweat. If he was surprised, he returned my embrace without hesitation.

  His member pressed into my thigh with a demand that made me reach down to touch it through his khakis. I heard his sharp inhale when my fingers traced the outline of the shaft to its head and the sound of his moan made my sex ache. I wanted him; that was the truth of it, and in the early dawn with the way our breath mingled beneath the canopy of tree branches, I could forget our history together and see him as purely a means to satisfy a lust that had been building heat through hatred and anger and grief. A few moments and I could relieve all the pent up emotion and clear my head for battle.

  He swore when I burrowed beneath his pants to find the smooth tip of his shaft. He clutched my hair, tangling his fingers within it as I lowered my head to his member and pulled that tip into my mouth. I heard his gasp and I realized just the sound of it made me want him more. I was a fool to think I could control the desire and let it just be a languid experience. When his fingers gripped me beneath my armpits and pulled me up along his body so that our faces were inches from each other, his blue eyes looking black in the dim light, I found I couldn't tear my gaze from his.

  "Let me see you again," he said. "All of you."

  I stood and pulled the shirt and pants off, kicking the legs free of my feet. Goosebumps peppered my skin and I knew he couldn't see the scars in the dim light, but he might remember them. Once, my skin might have been smooth and creamy; now it was so just in spots. I held my breath as he looked me over. I watched his eyes travel my body, lingering on my shoulder, his expression shifting from lust to something I didn't understand, and my fingers went to it automatically.