The Darkling Hunters: Fox Company Alpha (Fox Company Series Book 1)

by Rhiannon Ayers

  He stared at her. Said nothing. She pressed her lips together, letting her hand fall away from Dex’s face.

  “Those bikers we saw in the bar back there,” Sam said out of nowhere, “they yours?”

  Sydney hid a sigh. Of course, Sam would pick up on the small details—like the fact that she didn’t actually have a biker gang at her beck and call. “No. My guys are…getting drunk somewhere on the road to this place. They think I’m in…Tuscaloosa, setting up some deal to impress Big Man when we meet him. They don’t know I’m here already.” Plausible enough, right?

  “Then why are you out here, if this Big Man has his base in the next town over?”

  “Scouting mission. Some of those guys belong to the Big Man.” She raised an eyebrow, hoping that would be enough to get him off her case. But Sam still didn’t seem satisfied, so she hid a sigh and gave him a little more detail. “There’s a guy who comes in here every few days I’ve been trying to get close to. He runs a club out in Boulder. Supposedly, it’s a hangout for darklings, but it’s invite-only. I’ve been hoping to get myself an invite, see if I can meet a few of them before I face the Big Man in person.”

  Dex frowned at that. “Won’t they recognize you? When you meet them again at this darkling con-fab, I mean?”

  She flashed a smile. “That’s the point. Big Man needs to think I’m a badass who does her own legwork. If I can prove I’m savvy enough to get my own intel, without getting spotted, he’ll think I’m good enough to run with his crew. All I need is to pique his interest, make him want to get to know me better. The rest will flow from there.”

  Sam studied her in silence for a time. Then, he heaved a sigh. “Well, I still don’t like it, but like I said, it seems you’ve got things well in hand here. Come on, Dex. The longer we stay, the more likely we are to blow her cover.”

  A muscle in Dex’s jaw twitched as he stared at her. She kept her expression serene, unconcerned, as she stared right back. Finally, he let out a snarl. “Fine. We’ll go. But before we do, you’re going to let me put my number in your phone. And you’re going to call me seven days from now when this shit is over with. If I don’t hear from you, I’m bringing the fucking Air Force with me next time I roll into town. Understand?”

  She chuckled. “And here I thought you Marine boys hated the Air Force. Relax, Dex. I’ve already got your number. I promise I’ll call when this thing is over. You have my word.”

  He froze. His face went carefully, quietly blank.

  That expression made her nervous. “What?”

  He blinked. Said nothing.

  She huffed. “Damn it, Dex. What?”

  He blinked again, a long, slow movement that seemed carefully controlled. Finally, after a silence so profound she could have sworn she heard the digital clock ticking, he grated, “How long?”

  “How long…what?”

  The muscle in his jaw twitched again. He spoke through gritted teeth. “How long…have you had my number? Considering…I don’t have yours?”

  She swallowed, realizing her mistake far too late. “It doesn’t matter. I—”

  “How long?” he shouted. She fought the urge to take a step back.

  Sam came to her rescue. “We don’t have time for this, dude. Come on. We need to go.”

  The mention of time made her look at the clock—and let out a curse. “Shit. Both of you, untuck your shirts.”

  That was just enough out of left field to startle them. “Come again?” Dex said.

  She gestured frantically as she dove for the bathroom. “Untuck your shirts and try to look disheveled,” she called over her shoulder before slamming the door in their confused faces. Sydney skinned off her jeans, threw a ratty white robe around her shoulders, and mussed her hair with both hands before returning to the bedroom. “Hurry the fuck up, would you? I’m a hooker, remember? Guys don’t stay this long without getting their money’s worth. You leave looking the same way you walked in, they’ll know something’s up.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Sam grumbled, but he did as she asked, pulling the tails of his button-up shirt out of his jeans as he said it.

  Dex’s upper lip curled in a snarl, though he pulled his t-shirt over his belt and grabbed his jacket off the floor before turning away in disgust. Sydney tried not to let it get to her as she followed them to the door, holding the robe closed as if she were naked underneath. As Sam pulled the door open, she said, “Head straight to your car and don’t look back. This was a business transaction, nothing more. I’ll talk to you in seven days.”

  Sam shook his head as he crossed the threshold, but he didn’t argue with her. Dex stood for a moment, glaring, before turning on his heels and following his partner. Sydney just started to breathe a sigh of relief—

  When Dex stopped, spun around, and marched back through the door. She backed away from his determined look, unable to get a read on him, and jumped when he kicked the door closed. Before she could react, he had his arms around her waist, mashing her against all those delicious muscles.

  His mouth descended on hers, hot and heavy. The feel of him, the taste of him, the scent of him, set her world off its axis. He kissed her, and kissed her, and just kept kissing her. She nearly drowned in it.

  “I forgot to tell you something,” he said when he finally let her up for air. The green flecks in his eyes glowed like kryptonite. “I wasn’t fucking pretending.”

  She was still standing there, dazed, when the door slammed shut.

  Chapter 3

  Lightning split the night sky, sending a booming crack of thunder echoing through the nearby mountains just as Dex and Sam reached the car. Dex grimaced, tossed the keys to Sam, and folded himself into the passenger seat without saying a word.

  Sam slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door. The silence inside the car was deafening. He sat still for a moment, then revved the engine, casting Dex several sideways looks. “Dude…”

  “Don’t,” Dex said flatly. He stared out the windshield as huge, fat drops of rain splattered across the glass.

  “I was just going to say it’ll be okay,” Sam said anyway. He put the car in gear. “Sydney is—”

  “I said don’t,” Dex growled. “These juices have gotta be stewed by someone. Might as well be me.”

  Sam sighed, peeled out of the parking lot, and went back to driving.

  Another crack of thunder rolled over the mountains, echoing Dex’s mood. A peculiar, yet all-too-familiar, sensation built inside his chest with every foot put between him and Sydney’s last known location. It was the same sensation he got when he held his head under water too long—a desperate, burning desire to take a deep breath, coupled with the knowledge that taking that breath would mean certain death. Yet the only water nearby was coming from the rainclouds above them, and the car was still high and dry. He breathed in and out, feeling his lungs expand and deflate with the motion. The air was there. He was breathing it. Yet the feeling persisted, a yearning desire for something that should have already been there.

  Like drowning in mid-air. A sensation he’d had to live with, off and on, for the past seven years.

  A sensation he’d had to deal with since the moment he met her.

  Seven years ago, he and Sam had still been fresh out of the DEA Academy. They’d spent the year before working low-priority darkling cases, mostly in Houston and Dallas, but they’d earned a reputation for being efficient and thorough—no darkling ever escaped when they were sent out on a hunt. Their early successes led them to believe their darkling hunting skills were among the best of the best, and they both chivvied their superiors for a chance to work a real case, rather than these low-profile dirtbags who just needed to be hurried to their graves.

  As usually happened, they got more than they bargained for.

  They were on a recon trip through Little Rock when intel came through that a darkling had been spotted in the area. At the time, the shadow arm of the DEA had few resources to devote to rural, out-of-the-way p
laces, and they rarely sent in agents unless the intel was deemed a credible threat. But since they were close by, Dex and Sam had demanded the right to investigate. A single darkling, operating in a remote part of rural Arkansas, wouldn’t be much of a challenge for two battle-hardened agents like themselves. They pestered Boss until the man finally gave in. He gave them instructions to take the darkling out and return to civilization as soon as was physically possible. Gleeful with the certainty of their soon-to-be victory, Dex and Sam set out to make a name for themselves as competent field agents.

  Several tips led them to a remote farmhouse, forty miles outside Little Rock. Their sources claimed the darkling had set up shop there, causing havoc among the locals. Dex and Sam went in, guns blazing, prepared to take the darkling down before anyone else got hurt.

  But their intel was off. Way, way off. There wasn’t just one darkling living on that farm—it was a nest of eighteen of the bastards, plus thirty or more civilians. The darkling leader had set the place up as some kind of demon-worship cult, and he had been busy training his minions to perform so-called sacred “Satanic Rites.” Dex and Sam marched into the middle of a human sacrifice in progress and were captured trying to save the poor girl’s life.

  Surrounded, out-gunned, beaten to within an inch of their lives, the two DEA agents had found themselves tied to a support beam in the massive central barn. The darkling leader forced them to watch several human sacrifices, reveling in their terror and rage at being unable to put a stop to it. After three days, the darkling told them they had been chosen to participate in the next sacrifice—as the guests of honor. Starving, dying of thirst and exposure, Dex and Sam were both too physically weak to defend themselves. They waited for the end.

  On the night of their sacrifice, the darkling leader had them dragged out of the barn and bound to a pair of stout, ten-foot poles. Both men were hung like pigs on roasting spits, suspended over piles of gas-soaked firewood. Dex struggled against his bonds, but he was too weak to do anything but wiggle feebly. He glared at the darkling leader, hating him with every fiber of his being. The darkling stared right back, an evil smirk on his face, and struck a match.

  And then, an angel of vengeance arrived. That’s what it seemed like, anyway. One moment, the darkling leader was standing there, lit match in hand, preparing to light the bonfire beneath Dex and Sam. The next moment, the darkling’s head seemed to leap off his body, propelled by a spray of blood, bone, and tendon.

  Shocked exclamations roared through the darklings as their dead leader dropped to the ground. In that moment of uncertainty, Dex felt his bonds part, and he dropped to the pile of splintery wood with a cry of surprise mixed with pain. Sam dropped a moment later, and both men scrambled out of the severed ropes. Still dazed and weak, stripped down to nothing but their underpants, they could do nothing but stare stupidly as the bloodbath commenced around them.

  It was like watching a Quentin Tarantino movie on fast-forward. Darkling bodies seemed to explode in clouds of guts and gore as a shadow flitted from one group to the next. In the feeble torchlight, Dex caught a glimpse of a female figure wielding what looked like a blade ripped from a jigsaw. She used it like a broadsword, making use of all the cutting edges while easily avoiding stray blows from her victims.

  At one point, the saw snapped in half, leaving the woman seemingly defenseless. Dex’s heart went into his throat as he watched six darkling converge on her, knives gleaming in their fists. But the shadow woman didn’t hesitate. She picked up a weed-whacker from a pile of equipment beside the barn, revved the small engine, and proceeded to decapitate each and every one of her attackers. She melted into the shadows after that, the only indication of her presence the sound of the weed-whacker’s motor.

  And everywhere the shadow went, the darklings were sure to die.

  Eventually, he and Sam gathered enough of their wits to join the fray, and they took out a pair of darklings between them. By the time it was over, all eighteen of the creatures were lying in pools of their own blood. Of the thirty-odd civilians who’d been part of the darkling cult, a dozen or so survived the carnage. They fled into the darkness, never to be seen again. Dex didn’t even know if they were still alive.

  Silence fell over the farmyard, broken only by the crackle of torches. Dex and Sam waited, wondering if the woman would disappear back into the shadows. But then she was there, standing in front of them. She calmly flicked a button on the side of her trusty weed-whacker, waited for the engine to go silent, and set the contraption on the ground. She looked them over, scanning them from head to toe with startling, ice-blue eyes, and then nodded.

  “You’ll survive. Thanks for providing the distraction. Not the way I would have done it, but then, there’s a reason I don’t work with the DEA. I’m Sydney, by the way. Sydney Carpenter. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  She turned slightly, met Sam’s eyes, and smiled a small smile. Then she pivoted, just a little, and those eyes met his.

  She smiled. And the world just…stopped.

  That moment, that instance, that one crystal-perfect millisecond of time, was branded on the inside of his brain like a technicolor snapshot of life itself. There he stood, wearing nothing but a pair of ratty gray boxer-briefs, his body covered by a landscape of purple and black bruises. His face was all swollen and deformed from numerous hits to the head, his wrists and ankles covered in welts and rope burns. He didn’t look like a Marine at that moment; he looked like a guy who wouldn’t even have the audacity to say the word out loud. Pathetic, half-starved, weaving back and forth from weariness and deprivation, he hardly even looked like a man.

  She, on the other hand, looked gloriously un-mussed, despite her recent physical activity. Her hair was long and straight, a solid silk curtain of raven-dark strands that framed a triangular face. Those enormous, ice-blue eyes would have looked at home on an anime warrior princess. Her body was all luscious curves, encased by skin-tight black leather that might as well have been painted on, with petite feet guarded by knee-high, buckle-entrusted, steel-toed boots. A black leather baldric crossed over one shoulder, suggesting she’d carried a blade of some sort before resorting to the jigsaw. Empty holsters were slung low on her hips, suggesting she’d also been packing heat, though the guns themselves were missing. She looked as if she’d be just as happy carrying a broadsword or a bazooka. Life’s personal avenger.

  Contrasted against her sheer physical perfection, he wasn’t even good enough to lick the rag that cleaned her boots.

  And yet, she smiled at him. This woman who looked more like an avenging angel than a human being looked him in the eye and just…smiled.

  At that moment, the most peculiar thing happened. His heart, already doing some crazy Macarena behind his ribcage, slowed to a standstill. The world outside the farmyard no longer existed, and yet he felt as if he stood in the center of the universe. And for the first time ever, he took a deep breath—and actually felt like he could breathe.

  Until that instance, he hadn’t even realized something was missing from his life. Hadn’t known there was more to the world than sleep, food, and water. With that simple smile, Sydney Carpenter brought air into Dex’s world for the very first time.

  And he hadn’t even known he’d been doing without it.

  But if that one moment stood out in his mind with crystal clarity, what followed had faded into an insignificant blur. He vaguely recalled finding his clothes and helping Sam find his. He remembered Sydney talking to them, asking questions about their darkling hunting unit, and mentioning something about preferring to hunt alone. He’d gotten some water, a little food, and had just started to get his head screwed on straight when he looked up to ask Syd a question—

  Only to find her gone.

  He and Sam looked for her afterward, but to no avail. She’d disappeared just as quickly as she’d come, leaving no trace behind. For a long time, they’d even debated the reality of her existence—they’d been near death by that point, clearly no
t thinking straight, and nowhere near their full capacity. They’d half-convinced themselves she’d been nothing more than a figment of their collective imagination.

  Except Dex still remembered what it had felt like to breathe free air. That sensation, coupled with the persistent, nagging tightness in his chest, proved the truth of her existence more than any other evidence could have. He told himself that, if he had the chance to meet her again, he would find a way to make her stay.

  His chance did come—two years later, outside Las Vegas in Red Rock Canyon. He and Sam had tracked a small darkling nest to the area and were setting up a sting to take them all down. Sydney showed up out of nowhere, appearing out of the night like a shadow spirit, and took over their operation as if she’d been planning it all along. And for some strange reason, neither he nor Sam had questioned it—they accepted her into their unit as if she’d never left.

  The mission in Red Rock lasted three days. Three long, glorious days where he got to be near her. They’d talked a little, gotten to know each other, but it was a superficial kind of thing. He kept telling himself he’d find time to get her alone, to really get to know her. But as soon as the darkling pack had been eradicated, she disappeared again. She didn’t even say goodbye.

  After that, Dex told himself it just wasn’t meant to be. Sydney was, and always would be, a lone-wolf hunter. He told himself to let her go and promised not to think about her anymore. But it was a feeble promise, one that couldn’t withstand the pressure of his sleeping mind. He dreamed about her every night, without fail, whether he wanted to or not. Still, despite all that, he told himself it didn’t mean anything. He had his life, and she had hers.

  Besides, even if he did want to find her, he didn’t know where to look.

  He and Sam did see her again, of course. Even though darklings were scattered all over the world, the world of the darkling hunters was very small indeed. Running into each other was inevitable. They’d gotten a chance to work with her again in Salt Lake City, and a fourth time in Chicago. That had been the best by far—two solid months, working together to take down a massive darkling alliance that had spread like a diseased net over the city. By the time they finished that mission, Dex had half-convinced himself she’d stick around this time, certain that she’d enjoyed their time together as much as he had. But one night, after they’d cleared the last darkling nest, she’d mentioned something about needing to find a lady’s room—and never came back.