The Jaded Hunter

by Michelle M. Pillow

  From the bedroom, there was only one escape. Jaden’s feet skirted past the end of the bed, following the carpeted corner of the rug. As she turned the corner, she was forced to take a step down. Tyr moved behind her, studying her reaction.

  For a man, even an undead one, the home was tastefully done. Jaden was surprised at the continuity of style. The cave was set up like a studio apartment, only there was no kitchen or bathroom, just one long chamber that functioned as a living room.

  The oval room fell forward like the hall of a small museum. Couches and chairs were impressed into the stone along the sides, cushions fitted perfectly to the carved inlets in black with red and gold pillows artfully arranged. On the far side, the floor was carpeted completely. The space was left wide and open. Jaden decided it would be the perfect sparring corner. In the far wall she detected a wooden door with large iron hinges.

  A stone-based couch was set down into the floor before a fireplace that burned hot. The crackling of wood was distinct now that she was in front of it. One would have to walk down a slight incline to reach the comfortable nook.

  Heat poured over the room in perfect temperature. Hanging from the tallest crevice in the center of the ceiling was a metal chandelier with melted candlesticks. Matching candle sconces were set into the walls, the candles unlit.

  But Jaden’s greatest discovery was the hollowed out spaces along the wall, encasing ancient and not-so-old artifacts. Where she expected to see only weaponry and torture devices, she found paintings and old nobleman clothes. The groupings passed over the walls like a testament of the eras of human growth—and failings. Odd knickknacks found their respective places amidst their brethren. Swords hung next to their respective eras, the metal gleaming and well kept. A gem-encrusted jewelry box settled next to a plain locket resting alongside a metal crown. A silver-handled cane rested next to a snuff box and top hat. A rifle met with a leather satchel and silver timepiece. An expensive pistol, available at any American pawn shop, nestled next to a box of ammo. The items were as endless as time itself.

  “It’s beautiful,” she admitted with reluctance and awe

  Tyr nodded his thanks.

  Jaden slowly made her way forward over the slight incline. She discovered the oldest collection, the collection from his human past. The items seemed like a once loved but now worn and forgotten dream.

  Stepping next to the fireplace, she stopped by the lonely inlet. Most predominately displayed was the cross-shaped handle of a broadsword. The blade was straight, perfectly even and looked sharp to this day. Jaden leaned forward, seeing an old inscription weathered across the tang. Her fingers itched to touch it, to test the mighty weight. A round wood shield rested on the ground, its edges a bit chipped and worn. Next to the sword was a trunk. The edges once tattered were now smoothed and disfigured by time. She reached down to lift the lid and hesitated. Her fingers trembled, afraid to touch it lest it turn to dust.

  “Go ahead,” Tyr said from behind. “It’s only clothing and a suit of armor.”

  Jaden refrained, even with his offer. It didn’t seem right disturbing the relics, as if her touch could undo the last centuries and alter time. On its shelf were some crude grooming instruments, bronze artifacts, an amber decorated brooch, a once brightly colored tunic shirt and some leather shoes starting to stiffen and deteriorate.

  Jaden closed her eyes, not turning away. Her breath came in hard gasps. Guilt, thick and choking, surfaced within her. Her nose stung with the need to cry out. She only now realized the true impact of a vampire’s life and the length Tyr had lived. He had seen so much of life, but even more of death. He had seen countless eras come and go and still he braved the years, forever alone. And here she was ready to give up after a few lousy years. She was a coward.

  “Why do you keep these?” She could already guess at his answer. Only a sentimental being would care about such everyday things—things used and discarded by the humans of their respective eras without thought, yet kept and preserved by an immortal who never forgot them. An immortal who loved and cared for them, dusting them off for an eternity, keeping their memory as alive as he—stuck in their immortal tomb never to find the rest everything must eventually seek. Time had no meaning in this cavern of infinite age.

  She heard him carefully move forward before touching her shoulder. Her anger slipped, her animosity fleeing with it.

  “It is all the memories I have of the passing time,” he said.

  Jaden stiffened beneath his hand but didn’t pull away. She lacked the strength to fight him. She took a deep breath and then another. She couldn’t face him. She couldn’t face herself. She wanted the floor to open and swallow her up.

  He forced her around, her body too weakened to protest. His eyes ran over her. “Are you ill?”

  “Can I have a bath?”

  When Tyr hesitated, Jaden glanced at his face. It was as pale as she remembered. But the unnatural blue of his eyes wasn’t as cold and unfeeling. They bid her to go to him, to draw comfort from his arms, to lay her head to his chest and confess everything as a small child would to a loving parent.

  Jaden drew strength from within, turning her eyes purposefully hard against him. She couldn’t tell if it was his power pulling the emotion from her or her own treacherous heart seeking comfort where there could be only a lonely void. Either way, it wasn’t in her best interest to indulge. Tyr wanted information from her and would stop at nothing to get it, had kidnapped her to discover what she knew.

  She’d be damned before she would incriminate herself or Mack. No matter what Mack was guilty of, she would be the judge of it. She wouldn’t turn her only family over to the hands of a professional killer. Faulted or not, Mack was her kin and she loved him as much as she could love anyone. And if not for love, then for loyalty she would act.

  Tyr clearly detected the change in her. How could he not? It came like a sheet of ice announcing a blizzard. His hand dropped away in regret. The fast gait of his stride took him from her with supernatural speed until she was left alone in his living room.

  Jaden glanced around. Her eyes fell on the wooden door. She tensed, ready to run for freedom. His words in her head stopped her.

  Don’t even try it, dhampir, he warned. You’ll get lost in the maze of the black caves and I’ll be forced to put you back inside the cell.

  Jaden swallowed nervously, the artificial strength draining quickly from her limbs. Her body surged with a numbing fear. She couldn’t go back in the small prison, not yet. Besides, at the moment she could think of nowhere to go. Turning back to the sword, she moved to touch it. Her fingers hesitated, shook and fell away before ever knowing the cold steel of the ancient blade.

  Spurned by her rejection, Tyr needed to put distance between them. The feelings stirring from her had not been her usual strength and defiance and his offer of comfort had been pure. He wanted to help Jaden, to find her innocent. He wanted it desperately and not so much for her but for himself. He wanted everything he’d learned about her to be wrong. But she wasn’t helping him and he was too proud to force her before duty demanded it. Or perhaps it wasn’t pride. Perhaps he simply did not want his interactions with her to be over.

  * * *

  Steam curled and danced in ethereal patterns up from the portable metal tub to create a soft mist of clouds. They pulled together like the upper reaches of the heavens before dissipating altogether. The mist reflected the softened glow of firelight as it blazed from the bedroom fireplace. Lifting her arm, Jaden watched as the pale cast took over her wet skin and golden rivers of bathwater trailed and beaded on her flesh.

  She sighed in momentary contentment and let the heated water warm her blood. It had taken an eternity for Tyr to prepare it, hauling water in buckets to the tub from where they heated on a hook in the living room fireplace. She didn’t know where the water came from, only that he hauled it in from behind the mysterious brown door.

  Guiltily, she almost offered to help him. Pride and the annoying trut
h that she was there by force kept her from speaking. Instead, she wandered patiently about his living room, watching and waiting for him to finish. By the time he was done, she had fashioned herself a medieval princess—a princess locked in the tower guarded by a terrible dragon, but a princess nonetheless.

  Tyr left her alone in his bedroom to bathe. He hadn’t spoken to her as he worked, only motioning when he was finished. For a brief instant his cold blue eyes had found her. Jaden imagined she found dislike there.

  Next to the bath, on his bed, he left folded linen for drying. The thin material was a far cry from a thick terry-cloth towel, but she decided it was a small price to pay for getting clean.

  Jaden had literally peeled her clothing from her itching skin, surprised when her shirt didn’t crawl away on its own. Her first task had been to wash her hair with a shampoo and conditioner he’d set out for her. They didn’t have any particularly distinct scent to them, but they were clean and that was all that mattered.

  Next, she managed to shave with an old straight razor he’d procured. It was a thoughtful gesture, one that was very badly needed. She couldn’t even fathom from which decade on the wall he had taken it.

  Jaden let the water soak into her skin as she relaxed her tense neck against the edge of the tub. Languidly, she pushed her knees up, letting them bob from beneath the surface as she lowered her shoulders. She could feel the grime soaking from her body. Reaching over the rim, she grabbed a bar of soap. As she worked up lather, she recognized the faint odor of it. It smelled like Tyr.

  Unbidden, her hands drew themselves before her nose. She breathed deeply the earthy smell of him. It was strange that he would bathe. Most vampires got out of the habit. The clean potency of the soap encased her senses, making her body shake with longing. The bar slipped from her hands, landing with a splash between her legs. The noise brought her up short. Never had a smell evoked such a compelling reaction from her. For all that Jaden could remember, never had a man elicited such feelings of lust and power inside her.

  “I must be going insane,” she said in a heated whisper. The sound of crackling wood grew in the silence. Scornfully, she scrubbed her skin raw, refusing to breathe through her nose lest her senses be tempted. Rising, she worked vigorously on her thighs. “It’s this damned place, made to make you forget reality. No wonder I’m going crazy.”

  “You’re finished then?”

  Jaden spun around in shock.

  “I apologize,” he said quickly, though he wasn’t as quick to turn his back as his eyes roamed over her soapy skin.

  She proudly straightened to her full height. He stared at her hips. The ice blue roved over her with an uncivilized enthusiasm. His lips parted and he worked his jaw, as if he might sample her true essence. Jaden’s chin lifted into the air. If he was trying to make her nervous, she wouldn’t succumb to it. She mustn’t give in…she wouldn’t give in…give in...

  Tyr’s blood slowed, filling into his lower extremities. Small scars from many battles lightly puckered her flesh, though they couldn’t even begin to mar her beauty. Her flesh was the color of cream with a hint of pink roses. The orange firelight silhouetted her slender form, shadowing her face. But Tyr didn’t need the aid of light to mark all of her features, every subtle nuance of her form. He could see her perfectly in the shadows—her parted lips, her pert breasts, her moist thighs.

  He took in the wet strands of her washed hair sticking in wild trails to her shoulders, curling just above her collarbone. His eyes followed her hair’s direction, sliding easily down the texture of her breasts, large enough to fill his palm but not overwhelmingly so. Suds clung to the puckered tips of her nipples, teasing him. Rivulets of water trailed down the valley beneath her neck, running down in slow motion over the flatness of her finely toned stomach, pooling into her shallow navel, entangling in the short, soapy hair of her womanhood. Easily, he saw the gap between her shaved thighs, thighs that were parted naturally as she stood. There was just enough space for him to slip a finger into the lathered folds. Tyr’s hands tensed.

  Tyr knew if he wanted, he could move forward faster than her eyes could catch. He could claim her for his own, without giving her time to think or protest. He smelled her readiness as assuredly as an untamed beast senses estrus in his female mate. It called to him—she called to him with everything but her words. Her lips begged to be kissed—her body beseeched him to release it from the primitive longing she tried to deny.

  Nevertheless, he wouldn’t bend her to his will in such a way. When he took a woman to his bed, both before and after his dark rebirth, it was with her willing consent. Not like the others of his village when they went out on scouting parties to defeat the Saxons. Conquering the women after burning their villages had been a way of warfare. Tyr had claimed his fair share of feminine plunder, but by the time he bedded them, the women were most ready partners.

  He shook off the distant memory of the past, letting it slip as he focused on the woman in front of him. She reminded him of the strong women of his human time—women who knew how to fight and to defend themselves, queens who knew how to conquer a nation beside the throne of a king—women who weren’t afraid of passion in his arms once it had been learned. Not like the women of modern era. They were weak, pampered, spoiled and greedy. They didn’t know the meaning of turmoil or hard work. They wanted everything handed to them. And the men were just as bad.

  “You can’t tell me you have never seen a naked woman before,” Jaden mused wryly when he continued to stare.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such as you, m’lady, he thought.

  Tyr refused to let her detect the words. Seeing the bravado on her face wavering slightly, he let the side of his lip curl up. If she wanted to play, he would play. Slowly he skulked forward. His eyes took further possession of her form until she knew he branded her for his own.

  Tyr detected she wanted him, as badly as he wanted her. He felt her blood racing in her veins, pumping furiously. He heard the rhythm of her heart in his ears. He felt the heat radiating off her sweet smelling womanhood. He smelled her blood. It filled with ripening passion. And something inside of him urged him to provoke her, to taunt her, to tease her relentlessly until she lost all self-control.

  Jaden gulped and panted and shivered. She knew the look on his face. She saw the evidence of his meaning in the growing bulge of his tight pants. It was too late to back down, too late to scream and hide in the depths of the concealing water. Her hands quivered, wanting to shoot up and hide her private areas from view. She felt like a piece of raw meat about to be devoured by the wolves.

  Animalistic hunger devoured her. She wanted to jump out and tackle him to the ground. But seeing the silver splinters lighting in his eyes, she held back. It was all a mirage. He was forcing her to feel. She couldn’t trust him, couldn’t trust herself around him. He was a vampire, an undead being of the night, a nightstalker. His reaction growing between his thighs was just a primal impulse felt by all things that moved, a need that surged in even the darkest of beings. It didn’t mean he could feel. It didn’t mean he wanted her in particular. It just meant he wanted to fulfill a basic need, to find an opening in which to do so.

  “Do you mind?” she asked flippantly.

  “Not at all,” he said, tilting his head irresistibly. He stopped before her. Jaden held still. He leaned forward, his face not touching her flesh as his head moved near her neck. She felt the push of his breath on her wet skin, chilling it with the breeze of his words. “I would be happy to stand immodestly before you, as you have for me.”

  Jaden gasped. The audacity of him thinking she put a show on for him. That her bold, brave act of defiance was somehow, in those few words, torn down as an invitation to his lust. After all her years of training, she did the first thing that popped in her mind. She slapped him across the face with an open palm while releasing a feminine sound of affront.

  Tyr smiled, amused and unharmed. Jaden trembled before him. Pride kept her fro
m running away. His hand lifted. Inwardly, her hips strained to press against his palm. Outwardly, she didn’t move. Without touching her, he traced the angle of her shoulder and arm. His hand rotated, letting the backs of his fingers moving past her hip, over her stomach, down the front of her thighs. It was as if an invisible demon followed him, straining inside of her skin to close the distance. His hand stopped before her womanhood, soaking in the intense heat coming from her and returning it tenfold. His fingers moved slightly and Jaden imagined she could feel him as clearly as if he pushed into her.

  “Are you quite finished?” she asked, though her words shook and the forcefulness of her declaration was lost in the panting of her breath.

  “If you tell me to be,” he whispered. His eyes pierced into her. His lips formed over his words seductively. “Or I could only be starting. Just ask me and I’ll show you untold pleasure.”

  Jaden had never heard the offer made in such bold terms, demanding such a clear cut answer from her. There was a confidence to him, an assurance that he could make her scream in ecstasy for hours. Jaden couldn’t ask. She never once asked with words. Usually it only took a look and then nothing was at stake. If the man refused, no harm was done. No sense of rejection or loss, because hey, it had only been a look. But with Tyr, she would have to say the words. She would have to ask him. It was something she vowed never to do. She didn’t need his attentions, handed down like a god bestowing favors on his lowly subjects.

  Jaden waited, wishing he would just force himself on her so she could pretend to protest. Then later, she could hate him for doing it to her. She could take the pleasure and retain the pride.

  Tyr moved forward, his eyes closed as he narrowed in on her neck. Jaden’s head fell to the side, unafraid of his bite. Her skin begged to be touched, to be set free of all her damnable principles. She glanced at the bed, wanting to test the softness of it, to test the strength of the chains against their thrusting weight.