Hunter's Rise

by Shiloh Walker

  After a quick shower, she found herself staring at the mirror, searching for some sign that she’d changed. A month ago, she never would have bothered with what she’d done earlier.

  If it didn’t come with a paycheck, she only messed with those who got in her way. Or the rare monster like Pulaski.

  So why had she messed with the vampire earlier?

  She still looked the same— she looked like the young Japanese bride she’d been when she’d came to America all those years ago… just with a lot more knowledge in her dark eyes. The long black hair was the same, the pale skin, the unsmiling mouth…

  Absently, she reached up and touched her lips.

  Up until Toronto had come into her life, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled.

  “Shit.”

  Spinning on her heel, she headed to bed. She was done mooning about this. It was over, right? They’d walked away. They had decided that was what they should do, right?

  Halfway there, she stopped and scowled, shoving a hand through her hair. “Okay, we didn’t decide. He just said it. I didn’t argue.”

  Blowing out a breath, she tipped her head back, staring up at the ceiling. Shit. She wasn’t going to get him out of her head as easy as that. She just wasn’t. “Okay, fine. I’ll call.”

  She even knew the number for the Enclave.

  The phone only rang once before a bright, cheerful voice picked up. “Hello!”

  Sylvia scowled. Shit, she’d hoped… no. It didn’t matter. “I’d like to speak with Toronto, if he’s available.”

  There was a pause. “Ah, is this… Ms. James?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hold on a second.”

  She waited, feeling the exhaustion spread through her body. She stared at the clock by her bed, knowing even without its help that the seconds of night were burning away fast, too fast. Legs leaden, she made her way to the bed and sat down.

  She heard footsteps, then the whisper as a hand took the phone— a woman’s voice. “I have that mercenary on the phone.”

  That mercenary—

  Her heart, that damn useless bit that reacted more to him than it did for anything else, leaped around in her chest. But then it crashed… the voice that came on the phone wasn’t Toronto’s.

  “Hello, Ms. James.”

  She swallowed. “I imagine this would be Rafe.”

  “It would. You want to speak to Tor.”

  “That’s why I called.” She closed her eyes. If she was told he didn’t want to talk to her… shit. No. She’d just kick his ass. He could be a man and tell her that on his own, right?

  “Tor’s not available,” Rafe said softly. “I’m sorry. Can I—”

  “Not available?” Her hand gripped the mattress. She heard fabric tear.

  “I’m afraid not. He…”

  Outside, the sun hit the horizon. She fought it, clinging to wakefulness with everything she had in her. “He what? Doesn’t want to talk me? Get that fucking jerk on the phone, now. He can tell me that himself.”

  “No, he can’t.” Rafe’s voice changed, became heavier. Harsher. “Tor’s not… he’s not with us anymore, Ms. James.”

  “Not…” Her tongue felt thick in her throat. She swallowed as her lids tried to glue themselves shut. “Not with…”

  Sleep grabbed her, like a greedy, hungry monster and stole her will away.

  The phone fell from a numb hand as she sagged backwards onto the bed.

  N

  OT with us anymore…

  The words haunted her sleep.

  What does that mean?

  She dreamed they were in his house. She found him in the kitchen, standing bare-chested over the stove, cooking, of all things, a bologna sandwich. “That’s not enough food for a full-grown wolf,” she said. Her chest ached, even to look at him.

  He glanced back at her, face weary, eyes somehow… dim. That wicked light, it was gone. A faint growth of stubble darkened his face. With a half shrug, he looked back at the stove. “I’ll make four or five sandwiches,” he said. “What do you want, Sylvia?”

  She frowned, glancing around. “I just… I think about you. I called, looking for you.”

  “Did you now?” He stabbed at a piece of the deli meat and flipped it. “Too late. I’m gone. You didn’t want to be around me, anyway.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but his words echoed in her mind. I’m gone… gone… gone—

  Swallowing, she closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. This… this wasn’t happening. “What… what happened?” She lowered her hands to stare at him as the ache in her chest spread.

  “What do you mean, what happened?” He flipped the meat onto a piece of bread and added another slice of bologna to the skillet. But just as it started to sizzle, a weird look came over his face.

  “I mean what happened,” she snarled.

  “I…” He turned around, scratching at his bare chest. Then he shook his head. “I’ve got to go, Syl.”

  He padded toward her, a sad smile on his face. As he paused at her side, she thought she could almost smell him, and she thought maybe, she could almost touch him. But when she reached out, her hand passed right through him. “Take care of yourself, sweetheart.”

  From one blink to the next, he was gone.

  W

  ITH a scowl, Toronto swung himself out of the small bunk he had tucked in a small room in the main house.

  The dream about Sylvia clouded his mind. It wasn’t the first one he’d had, but it felt different. He’d like to sit around and analyze it, think it through… brood… but he didn’t have that luxury.

  The bite of anger was in the air.

  The entire fucking reason he was here.

  There wasn’t a clock in his room— there was barely room for a damn bed, but this was the only place for him. He grabbed his phone and checked the time. Past midnight. Shit. He was fucking pissed.

  It was after midnight, he’d already been asleep, and there was no reason for anybody to be at the house, all chewed up with rage. It was there— the stink of it clouding the air even from here. And unless Toronto was way off base, he smelled booze. A lot of it. Which was exactly what it would take to get a shifter drunk— a lot of it. Hard, and fast, in copious amounts.

  Slipping out of the room, he made his way down the hall, listening to the voices.

  “You don’t fucking belong here.”

  “Graham, it’s late. You should go back home, back to your wife.” Matt was in the office where his dad had conducted most of his business, and although he was hiding it, it was hard for the kid to be in there.

  Poor guy, forced to be a man too early.

  It wasn’t going to get any easier for him any time soon.

  He made himself stop in the doorway. Matt had to handle this. It didn’t matter that the kid was only sixteen. It didn’t matter that the other guy outweighed him, outreached him.

  Matt was the stronger wolf and if he wanted to hold his place, he had to prove he could.

  Toronto couldn’t do that for him.

  But he could damn well make sure the buffoon in front of him knew he was being watched.

  It took him a few seconds to realize it, the knowledge having to work its way past the fog of alcohol and the haze of stupidity the guy wore like a shield. He half fell as he turned to glare at Toronto, eyes flashing with rage, glowing despite all the alcohol he had in his system.

  Alcohol still depressed the body— it should make it harder to shift. Higher level shifters and weres could always find a way, though.

  Great, so the kid had a stupid fuck with enough juice in him to make it interesting. And Toronto couldn’t do jack but watch.

  “What are you doing, you fucking moron?” The man glared at Toronto. “This ain’t none of your concern, you mongrel dog. You shouldn’t even be here.”

  Toronto bared his teeth. “If the kid had a halfway decent right-hand man, I wouldn’t have to be. Don’t worry, I’m just here to watc
h.”

  “There’s nothing to watch.” Matt gave both of them an equally derisive look, still slumped in the big leather chair behind the massive sprawl of oak that had been his father’s desk.

  He looked too small behind it, too young, Toronto thought. Another thing they had to work on.

  “Graham, you need to go home,” Matt said. “It’s late, I’m tired and there’s nothing…”

  The sound of ripping cloth was a loud echo in the room. Too loud. Toronto shifted his gaze to the boy.

  Matt was already on his feet. “I’m not fighting you in here.”

  Then you better move your ass outside, Toronto mused. The drunk idiot wanted to fight, and he wasn’t going to leave until he tasted blood. Toronto wouldn’t have minded giving it to him, but he was here to help the kid find control, and get control.

  Not take control.

  Hard-ass job.

  I

  T only took Matt a few minutes. As he straightened up over Graham’s prone body, the fur melting away into his skin, he had a look of molten fury on his face, one that whispered of madness lurking too close.

  As he went to kick the still form, Toronto moved.

  He caught the boy’s arm and said, “It’s done. He’s had enough.”

  “He fucking challenged me— in the middle of the night. Drunk. I say when it’s done,” Matt snarled.

  Toronto dropped his voice. “Look around. You’re not alone. You want to be known for beating an unconscious follower?”

  Matt trembled under Toronto’s hand and he could feel the violence spurring inside him. Feel it burning through the kid. Toronto could understand that, but Matt couldn’t lose it like this. For every step forward he took, he either fell backwards ten or was pushed twenty.

  It had to stop.

  And Toronto was damned well going to see it happen soon.

  “Look at them,” he said again. “What do you want them to remember about tonight— that somebody challenged you and you won? Or that you were beating an unconscious man?”

  S

  HE’D just left Toronto’s empty house— and she meant empty. There was nobody there, and more than that… his clothes had been gone, the few weapons she’d noticed the one time she’d been there. Maybe she shouldn’t have looked, but Rafe’s words had left a hollow feeling in her gut— an empty ache that just kept spreading and spreading until it felt like it was going to swallow her whole.

  He’s not with us anymore…

  What in the hell did that mean, anyway? She could have called back. Demanded the information on the phone. But she wasn’t going to have them stonewall her. Have them handing her empty answers, giving her the runaround or any of that.

  Hoping against hope, she’d come here first. It had been a mistake, because she now had the image of his empty closet in the back of her mind, the empty dresser. And the weapons chest, that was gone, too.

  With that knowledge adding to the ache in her chest, she blinked away the tears that tried to turn her field of vision red. She didn’t have time for this. She had a Master vampire to deal with, and a Master werewolf to find.

  He’d be there. That was the only way she managed to make the drive, by convincing herself he would be there, or that she’d find out where he was.

  Yet in the back of her mind, she kept hearing, He’s not with us anymore.

  As she drew closer to the Enclave, she realized she’d picked up a tail. Several of them, actually. A couple running on four feet. Some just watching from the shadows. Fear tried to well inside her, but she shoved it aside. She wasn’t breaking any laws being here— nothing to be afraid of.

  Nothing.

  Yet when she felt the buzz over her skin as she crossed over the official line of Rafe’s territory, she had to yank herself under control. She wasn’t going to walk in there stinking of fear, damn it. She had no reason.

  She wasn’t one of them, damn it.

  But she wasn’t one of the monsters, either—

  Whoa.

  That was… unexpected.

  I’m not one of the monsters…

  The road abruptly curved and she came around the corner, still wrestling with the knowledge reverberating through her brain; she didn’t notice the house until she was almost on top of it. What caught her attention first was them. All of them.

  That was when she noticed the house. Because there were even a couple of people up on the roof.

  Oookay…

  Slowing her bike to a halt, she met the dark gaze of the vampire who had to be the Master. Nobody else here quite carried the punch he did. He wasn’t as strong as some she’d met and she suspected he wasn’t too much older than she was, but he carried some serious power in him.

  And he could kill her in an instant. She knew that before she’d even managed to turn the bike off.

  “Hello, Ms. James.”

  She remained on her bike. “Everybody seems to know who I am. I don’t much care for that.”

  “Sorry.” He smiled, his teeth a bright flash in the dark. “What can I say… your reputation has just… preceded you.”

  Eyeing him narrowly, she tried to figure out how to respond to that. Then she decided not to bother. She didn’t give a damn about her reputation. Swallowing around the knot in her throat, she asked, “I’d like to speak with Toronto.”

  Around them, people shifted, looked to Rafe, then to her. Then away.

  “I already told you… he’s not with us any longer.”

  Her heart shattered. It was like that organ had just been turned into glass, and then smashed with a hammer. Pain splintered through her and she wanted to scream, wanted to rail, wanted to cry—

  Yet she just stared at him. Rafe held her gaze levelly, unflinchingly. He wasn’t lying. And she didn’t catch any hint of that scent…

  No—

  Convulsively, her hands gripped the handlebars of her bike while she fought for control. Gone. He was gone—

  She started her bike. Fuck. She had to get out of there. Now. Before she lost it. Finding out what happened could come later and if whoever killed him was still breathing, they wouldn’t be for much longer. It might take a bomb to do the bastard in, if Toronto hadn’t been able to handle it, but still.

  Shit. This wasn’t happening.

  A hand touched her shoulder.

  Snarling, she shrugged it off.

  When that didn’t work, she whipped her head around and said, “Get the fuck—”

  Angel’s blue gaze met hers. “Rafe’s an idiot sometimes… Sylvia, Toronto isn’t dead.”

  CHAPTER 26

  A

  NOTHER day.

  Another dipshit.

  “I just don’t understand how much longer he has to be here.”

  Matt sat behind his desk. Still that solid, heavy oak that had been his father’s. Toronto had asked him the other day to consider getting a new one. They could use the old desk in the library, if Matt couldn’t part with it.

  Matt didn’t seem to see the point.

  Telling him it made him look that much more like a boy trying to fill a man’s shoes hadn’t exactly made the kid like him more.

  Still, as Matt faced yet another one of the adults from the broken pack, there was a little less antipathy in his gaze. It had been almost a week since the last fight, the one involving a drunken fool.

  It wasn’t much, but after more than two months, Toronto was ready for any sign of improvement.

  “He’ll be here for as long as we need him here,” Matt said, looking bored as he hunched over a laptop. The spreadsheet held the information on the pack’s finances. Toronto had been helping him get things back under control after they’d been left to float for just a little too long. They weren’t in bad shape, but they weren’t exactly ready to dance on the mountainside, either.

  “Matty, look…”

  Matt stilled and sat up, his eyes flashing from green to yellow. “Matty?” He lifted a brow.

  The guy in front of him gave a cheerful, forced l
augh, while behind him, Toronto pulled out his knife. The older wolf’s eyes cut his way and Toronto smiled at him, nice and friendly. If only one of these bastards would just come up to him, they could have it out, but no…

  “Matty is the kid who died the night I had to chase off feral wolves after they’d killed my father, Charlie.”

  A poker seemed to shove its way up good ol’ Charlie’s ass, Toronto noticed. His spine stiffened, hands clenched into fists. “We would have helped more, if we could have. We had families to protect.”

  “Yeah. You did.” Matt shrugged. “I’m not disputing that.” He paused for a moment, hit a button on the laptop and then shut it down. “You had families to protect, and you did it. But where were you when I was out there broken and bleeding, the next day? You were still protecting your family when I had to crawl back home?”

  Charlie, wisely, kept his mouth closed.

  Rising, Matt came out from behind the desk. “It was me and four guys my age out there. Two of us came back. The rest of you— grown men—were hiding in your houses afraid to come out because you were afraid of the other pack.”

  He glanced at Toronto, a faint scowl on his face. “Hunters were the ones to track down the stragglers who got away from us and kill them. A Hunter had to clean up the mess you all were too fucking chicken to clean up. So, yeah, he’ll be here for as long as I want him around. You got a problem with me? We’ll have a go, right here, right now.” His eyes burned wolf-yellow now and he watched Charlie with a look that said he really, really wanted to hurt him. “If you got a problem with the Hunter, then maybe you should take it up with him. And spread the word— I’m not doing this every other day, damn it.”

  As the door closed quietly behind Charlie a few minutes later, Toronto looked at Matt. “You know, the Hunter has a name.”

  “Hell, you’re lucky I didn’t call you that fucking jerk,” Matt muttered, returning to his spot behind the desk and staring at the computer with a look of abject misery.

  “You wouldn’t be the first.” Moving to settle in the chair across from the desk, he said, “You know it’s going to be a while before I can leave.”

  Green eyes stared into his. “I figured that out the day you stuck a silver knife in me. I’m stuck with you until I can function past that sort of thing, aren’t I?”