The Jaded Hunter

by Michelle M. Pillow

  “He’s in the New World,” Ragnhild answered gruffly. The leaders’ noses wrinkled in distaste. None of them found a liking for the Americas. It was too far to travel for too little reward. The Drauger’s voice rose as he spoke, divulging his information for all to hear, “I have been sent documents.”

  A stern quietness fell over the leaders as Ragnhild paused. He reached into his tunic shirt to pull out a tattered piece of paper from within.

  “This is a document of Alan MacNaughton’s,” he continued. “It was taken off one of his men. It’s a work detail for one of his excursions.”

  Pietro’s head snapped up to study the page from the distance. The word ‘excursions’ had been said with supreme disdain. All other eyes were turned the same way.

  “Would MacNaughton be so foolish as to write down his deeds?” Chara questioned aloud. Pietro nodded in agreement.

  “He is overbold,” Amon said quietly. “He would dare much.”

  “Excursions,” Vishnu said with disgust, her tone mimicking Ragnhild’s. Amon glanced regally at her, sharing the sentiment but keeping quiet. Hissing between her teeth, she said, “I do not need to hear more. Order Tyr to kill him. Mortals are too tiresome.”

  “He’s a hard man to get to,” Ragnhild said, not liking the interruption.

  “If your Tyr is not up to the challenge of a mere mortal, then I’ll be happy to send Shiva. He will make MacNaughton suffer.” Vishnu smiled at the prospect.

  “I didn’t say he couldn’t do it. He will kill the man soon enough. But right now he is carrying out his orders to discover what he can of the dhampir Jaden MacNaughton.” Ragnhild’s anger dissolved quickly at the look the sisters gave him. “It is too soon to act so impulsive. There is too much that needs to be learned first.”

  “And what of the rumors?” Pietro asked quietly.

  All eyes turned to him in amazement. He hardly ever deigned to speak.

  “What rumors?” Andrei asked, ready to steal some of Chara’s attention back to himself.

  “That he has made the dhampir his indicium,” Pietro replied quietly. “Mayhap he cannot be trusted.”

  “What are you implying—” Ragnhild began, rising to his feet in anger. He levitated over his chair. Blood swirled dangerously in his eyes, his fangs extending as his face contorted into a dark look of forewarning.

  “Shh, Ragnhild,” Theophania soothed. She waved her hand through the air. “No one is insulting the cleverness or strength of your tribe.”

  Ragnhild sat but directed a hard glare at Pietro. Pietro returned the look with one of his own before growing bored with the battle and turning away.

  “Continue,” Theophania instructed.

  “I only wondered at the rumor,” Pietro shrugged as if it were no big deal. The old Albanian again found renewed interest in the flames. He was done talking to Ragnhild.

  The attention on Pietro turned dismissive. Soon what he said was forgotten.

  “The document,” Ragnhild started anew, “describes that a woman is to be turned by an unnamed vampire working for MacNaughton. The new vampire is then taken, strapped down and left to the whims of MacNaughton’s patron. Ultimately the vampire is done to death. From what Tyr has gathered it seems sometimes the vampires are raped by the patrons, or by his men in front of the patrons. They can be cut, tortured—whatever has been paid for.”

  The leaders’ eyes became livid with volcanic rage, all but Pietro who watched his flames. Ragnhild dropped the paper before him on the table.

  Standing, Theophania screeched, “Who dares defy our laws? Which vampire turns for such purposes? It matters not what has been done with a mortal woman. But once she is turned she is ours. I want the traitorous vampire brought here to face judgment.”

  “To help a blood being use our kind for sport!” Amon said in disgust.

  “No one makes sport with our kind, but us,” Vishnu added, with a stiff nod to Amon. None of them cared to mention that their kind had done worse to humans since the dawn of time. To them, it wasn’t the same thing. Humans were beneath them—like cattle grazing in the field, waiting to be slaughtered.

  “This,” Ragnhild said with a glare at Vishnu, “is why I have not ordered Tyr to kill MacNaughton. I have ordered that he find out who is helping him. Then all parties will be brought here for us to feast upon. We will show these transgressors the true meaning of pain. Their last lesson on this earth with be—”

  “—of anguish,” Chara murmured, a sparkle in her deadly eyes. Slowly, her crimson lips curled into a smile. The remembrance of spilled blood entered lustfully into her eyes.

  Pietro snorted. The others ignored him, nodding their approval. When the murmuring died down, Pietro again spoke. “And the dhampir?”

  “Bring her too,” Andrei said to Ragnhild. “Let us judge her for ourselves.”

  Ragnhild nodded and it was agreed. Suddenly, all eyes turned to a cobwebbed hole high in the ceiling. All talk of Tyr ceased. Ragnhild pulled the paper from the table, slipping it back into his tunic.

  “Jirí’s report is of little importance,” Vishnu murmured. “I don’t care about a club of London young ones. Let them kill themselves.”

  A figure fell down from the ceiling, landing neatly on his feet. He folded his hands elegantly in front of him, standing tall as if the descent took no effort. His long, wavy brown hair landed gently on his shoulders. Smiling politely, he respectfully met the eyes of the others gathered, nodding his head to all around.

  “Jirí of the Moroi,” Ragnhild’s weathered voice acknowledged. His old, blue eyes glowed slightly yellow from his handsome Nordic face. “Has Vladamir not risen from his rest to take his rightful place in the chair?”

  “Nay, he has not. But his body is safe, buried deep,” the new arrival allowed, as he had every meeting since his first.

  When Jirí was seated at his chair, Theophania silently raised her delicate fingers. One of the four corner doors burst open revealing a line of eight beautiful, young women in white shrouds, each a human native of their respective vampire. The women walked dutifully to their designated master or mistress to stand by the sides of their chairs.

  The leaders could smell the rare ethnic purity of the offerings’ blood as it flowed in their veins. Their eyes were clouded with a fine mist. Their bodies glowed with warm brilliance. Pulling up their sleeves, the women held an arm out for the vampires to drink. And, as the leaders partook of their meals, all hid their thoughts, suspiciously wary of the motives of others.

  Chapter Seven

  Jotunheimen Mountain Range, Norway

  “I’m going to butcher him.” Jaden’s foot tapped in irritation. Her jaw tightened, worked and pulsated with all the pent-up frustration four long days could bring. Her eyes saw red. Her heart hammered the color until blood flooded her face, neck and body. Outrage poured out over her like a rockslide from the highest cliff on a mountain top. Only her anger had nowhere to land, no one to pummel and crack against with a satisfying burst of destruction. She was trapped, imprisoned with her outrage.

  She remembered Rick drugging her sandwich and she remembered wanting to kill him for it as she collapsed on the floor. However, when she awoke, ready to strike out though her mind was hazy, her fists met with air, not flesh, and her eyes with the solemn gray-green of a stone prison. From her rough estimation, it had been at least four days since she awoke in the dark tomb. But who could tell how long she slept before then? Her dreams had been long and endless, but were impossible to keep time by. They could’ve lasted a night or a month.

  She knew who had her. Tyr. He spoke with her through the thick iron door, pushing food beneath the little swing gate for her. As for the fare, it wasn’t very inventive—cold meats and cheeses, bread and fruit. More humiliating than that was the linen-covered chamber pot he allowed her for her more personal needs. Each night he came he offered to let her out if she would be willing to ‘behave’. She offered to smash his face into the back of his skull when he did. Needless to say, he
left her alone with her anger—and oh how her anger did seethe!

  Jaden could feel him outside her door. It was the only diversion her mind was afforded, aside from staring mindlessly at the dancing flicker of a candle flame and plotting her revenge. She had smashed the first candle given her, only too late realizing her mistake. The darkness surrounded her like a crypt. A straw mat lay on the hard floor as a bed. The walls and ceiling were constructed so thick that Jaden realized the soundproof walls were more than likely underground, as they weren’t constructed of bricks but rather hollowed out stone.

  After careful examination, she discovered claw marks dug into the stone. No mortal could’ve made such a marking on the walls. The prison was originally constructed to house a more dangerous breed. It was made to hold vampires. Jaden smiled, longing to lock Tyr within these silent walls. Ancient markings were gouged into the door to keep creatures from sliding through. His mist would not filter past the iron—presumably. But if her fantasy was ever going to be close to becoming a reality, she would have to bide her time and she would have to let her anger go. He detected it too easily on her.

  Standing, she went over to the door, greeting the oblong shape of her shadow as it crept before her. Glancing at the food hatch, she grimaced. Already, she knew it couldn’t be opened from the inside. She had bloodied her hands trying.

  Turning her back to the iron door, Jaden kicked the metal in steady thumps with the back of her heel. She hated to admit that she was starting to waver. How men spent years in such isolated prisons, she had no idea. Four days and she was already losing her mind. Her limbs longed to stretch out and her skin begged for the feel of the open night air.

  Any truce she called would be temporary—as temporary as it took for her to walk out the door. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to discover what part of the States she was in. They couldn’t have gotten too far out of New York.

  “I’m going to kill him,” she hissed under her breath, repeating the words like a mantra.

  “Argh,” Tyr growled. A door slammed with a heavily muffled thud. It sounded like a trunk or coffin lid. She couldn’t be sure. Without a window, it was hard to tell if it was night or day. “What is it, woman? For the sake of Odin, stop that blasted noise!”

  As she felt him draw near, she stopped pounding. “Good morning,” she called with as much sugary sweetness as she could muster. She pasted a false smile on her face so that her words would sound properly concerned and contrite. “Did I wake you?”

  Jaden felt him falter outside the door. She could almost see the question in his ice-blue eyes as he tried to discern what she was up to now. Hiding her laugh, she waited.

  “What is it?” he asked at last.

  “My, my,” she said, playfully scolding. “Aren’t we the grumpy little vamp?”

  “Are you…pouting?”

  Jaden’s grin widened. She had never thought sweetness would send this vampire off guard so much quicker than fighting. “I do have quite a lot to be upset about. I’m in jail. I have been kidnapped, wrongly accused—”

  “Jaden—”

  “—of a crime that remains unnamed, and I am in need of a hot bath—” Wrinkling her nose at the all-too-pungent truth of her words, she mumbled, “—badly.”

  “It’s not a jail,” he said quietly, his voice belying the matter-of-fact statement of his words. Jaden didn’t have to strain to hear his low, pointed answer as it came in an aggravatingly reasonable tone. “It’s more like a dungeon. And I did try to free you, but you refused to come out. As to the bath, I have been able to smell you for days. Only I figured if you didn’t mind smelling that way, I shouldn’t mind it either.”

  Jaden’s false expression fell, only to be replaced by the more biddable sensation of her outrage. With sudden insight, she realized he was having fun at her expense. “Why, you—”

  “Tsk, tsk, now who is the grumpy one?” he taunted with even assurance.

  “Just let me out!” She gave the door a vicious kick. Snapping back her foot, she grabbed it, hopping as she tried to rub out the stinger. Jaden let loose a dark curse. Liking the feel of it on her tongue, she followed it with a few more, each growing in intensity.

  Tyr wondered if he’d kept Jaden imprisoned too long. Sometimes he forgot a week was much longer to a human than to a vampire. Shrugging off his guilt, he leaned his head to the door and shut his eyes. He’d wanted her to cool her temper.

  He smiled at her hushed venom. He’d tried to illicit her promise not to try to escape him—not that escape would be possible. He would find her wherever she went. There was no evading him. Part of him hated the fact he must force her cooperation in such away. But no, the council’s orders had been clear and Jaden MacNaughton hadn’t given him much of a choice or much help.

  He felt her moving within the prison. He could always feel her. She surrounded him, haunted him in his dreams. No matter what he did, she was inside of him, stirring emotions and desire where he preferred there to be silence.

  “Tyr?” A long moment passed before her voice trailed from inside the cell. The word was soft, almost heartbreakingly abandoned. He held silent against the door, knowing she couldn’t hear him. He felt her quiver. He heard her breathing slow.

  What? He thought wearily, allowing her to detect his word within her mind.

  “Let me out.”

  Her breathing became staggered. She placed a hand next to his forehead on the door and he jolted back as if it was direct sunlight.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  “I must have your pledge that you’ll behave,” he said, lifting his hand to let her out if she agreed. Jaden was the first mortal he’d brought to his home. It was strange and he found himself waiting anxiously for her opinion of it.

  “I won’t have my time done in—”

  “I promise,” Jaden said, the words forced.

  Jaden’s anger faded by small degrees. She still hated him, but she was beginning to hate the encroaching stone walls more. She definitely didn’t want to hear his lecture on wasting a vampire’s time. In fact, the concept was an oxymoron. All a vampire had was time.

  To her relief, a heavy lock was thrown on the door. The iron soundlessly swung open on its hinges. Jaden paused, swallowing, not knowing what she should expect. But whatever she might have anticipated seeing, she couldn’t have been more wrong.

  The prison led out into a stone cavern filled with the natural carvings of rock formations. She had been right. They were under the earth in the belly of a cave. But it wasn’t just a cave. It was a home too. His home.

  Jaden shook. She tried to force her legs to move. Her mind sung with freedom, only to be frightened in the face of it. Closing her eyes for a split second, she forced herself to walk, not knowing what horrors she could possibly find in a vampire’s lair.

  Jaden slowly took a step forward, terrified of looking too closely at the surreal ambiance of her surroundings. The room was amazingly clean, no spider webs hung from the ceiling, no dust gathered on the walls and furniture. For a vampire’s lair it was astonishingly well attended. Thick red rugs lined the smoothed floors. The stone had been worked flat by endless pacing until it was as fine as any marble. At first she didn’t detect Tyr carefully watching her. She moved past him, her eyes twitching in one fascinated direction, her head urging her in another.

  Anchored into the ceiling hung a bed. Instead of wooden posters there was thin red gauze clinging around chains as they led up, hiding them from view. The gauze swept over the top stone forming a roof of sorts over the mattress. On the bed was a silken coverlet of the deepest red edged and decorated with embroidered gold. The craftsmanship of it was fine, sewn by hand. Matching pillows scattered the top.

  Jaden had to turn her eyes away in embarrassment as she thought of Tyr’s large body filling the span of the mattress. It was a mistake. Her vision took her right to the object of her fantasies. Tyr raised a brow in expectation. He was handsome, dressed all in unforgiving black. His hand lifted with the
silent, consuming ease of shadows creeping over the earth.

  Jaden shivered, feeling as if he could read the wicked thoughts that swam in her head. She tried to deny her body, but seeing his cool eyes, the fire he ignited in her swept over her once more. All anger disappeared, replaced by passion. She resisted the urge to go to him, knowing he must have surely put it in her.

  When she spoke the words were quiet. “Where is your coffin?”

  “I have no need of one here.”

  “I heard a coffin lid.”

  “Storage.” He pointed to a small door.

  Jaden was sorry she asked. It would have been better for her self-control to imagine him in a rough pine box. Then a sudden insight hit her. We must be under a crypt, which means we are in a city.

  “Go ahead,” Tyr urged her from behind. His words carried the soft essence of a babbling brook with the hard finality of fire—tender, yet dominating. “Explore. For as long as you are here, my home is your home. But try to escape and my home will become your prison.”

  Jaden glanced at him, seeing the handsomeness of his youthful face, the steadfastness of his firm mouth. The black of his turtleneck sweater and pants contrasted his pale beauty in a most dangerous and delectable fashion. She waited for him to attack like the wild beast she could feel churning beneath his surface. He held still.

  Seeing the tip of his lip threaten to twitch at her staring, she turned her attention back to the bed. It was the last place she wanted to look. It brought forth images she tried hard to banish in her dreams. Pride kept her from darting away. She forced herself to resume inspection.

  At the end of the bed was a trunk, very large and old in design. Next to the bed a thin table fitted along the wall, its top barren, a single high-back chair pushed up against it. Candles sprinkled in sconces and on surfaces adding a soft glowing light that provided the ambiance of his whole seductive theme. To her side, close to the prison door, was a wide, cushioned chair carved in a style of a throne, but done in such a way that she was sure she had never seen the like of before. Through the dimness of the corner, she detected an unlit fireplace, its stone mantle carved into the wall.