Shadow Hunt

by L. L. Raand

  Sylvan ran on along the ever-changing path, drawn by Drake’s scent. Not her scent exactly, but the sense of her, pulling at some place deep in Sylvan’s core. She moved from the high grasses and dense trees into a valley, where a wide river twisted through tangled marshes dense with flowering plants whose leaves were as huge as boulders, and let her wolf rise. She could move faster and less visibly in pelt, staying close to the ground under cover of the thick undergrowth. When she’d followed the river around yet another bend that led to yet another glade that hadn’t been apparent until she’d emerged into it, she stopped at the water’s edge to drink. The aqua water was cool and crisp and tasted fruity, like a delicate wine. She lapped at it cautiously. A shadow fell across the water and her wolf spun, snarling a warning. Only shadows danced behind her where there had been sunlight before. A weeping willow now arched high above her, its dangling branches thick with delicate tendrils that waved like sea grass in the sudden current of a floral-scented breeze. The path was gone, and she was surrounded by pale yellow reeds capped by blood-red petals edged in swirls of silver. A petal brushed against her foreleg and burned a trail through her pelt.

  Sylvan rumbled warily and slowly padded through the lethal foliage, her ears pricked forward for any sound, her nostrils flaring to capture any scent. A dove rose from the willow, its pure white wings spread wide, lifting on the sweet air current and carried away like a leaf in an autumn breeze. The trail was gone but she wasn’t alone. The reeds bent toward the taller undergrowth that ringed the glade as if reaching for a lover. Sylvan growled softly, her pelt rising along her spine, her canines exposed beneath her curled lip. Moments passed in silence except for whispers on the air that might’ve been music or the rustle of a thousand wings. A path appeared off to her right, and she heard a roar like thunder rolling over the mountains.

  She kept the water at her back and hunkered down, belly low and muscles coiled. A boar the size of a small pony, with short powerful legs, a wide snout, and two foot-long, razor-edged tusks, charged out of the underbrush. Massive, red eyed, and wild, it lowered its tusks and raced straight for her belly. She waited until he was almost upon her to spring out of the way, slashing at its throat with her claws. His head swung around and struck a glancing blow across her hindquarters that drew blood. She chased it down before it could turn, caught it from the side, and snapped her jaws closed on its neck. Her strike was aimed for the jugular. The hide was thicker than any prey she’d ever hunted and her bite was too shallow to reach the vulnerable vessels. It roared and twisted while she hung on, clawing at its heavy body, hoping to damage a leg. If she could bring it down, she could kill it. If there weren’t more.

  The boar-thing tried to dislodge her, dragging her through the reeds where a hundred slender silver blades sliced through her pelt. She clenched her jaws tighter, gouged bloody trenches in its flanks with her claws, and the heavy beast slowed a fraction. Then she felt the other coming. The earth trembled, and a wall of hot air burst out from the undergrowth as if fleeing in the face of a raging storm. A rumble so deep her blood vibrated assaulted her ears. She released the boar and jumped free of its swinging head. It panted, blood running from his neck and side. She watched it warily and waited for something far bigger to emerge from the bush.

  The boar let out a furious scream and raced off into the underbrush in the opposite direction.

  *

  Sophia laughed softly in the dark. “What if someone sees us leaving?”

  Niki pulled Sophia’s head against her shoulder and nuzzled her neck. Sophia had been as ready as her, and she’d emptied in a fury almost as soon as she’d felt Sophia’s legs tighten around her hips. The hot flush of release still burned through her belly. “What if they do?”

  “The imperator sneaking off into the barracks for a quick tangle like some adolescent with no control?”

  “They’ll be envious.” Niki grinned and rubbed her cheek against Sophia’s hair, immersing herself in the scent of her mate. “And what does it matter where we couple?”

  “You’re right, it doesn’t.” Sophia scratched her claws up and down the trench between Niki’s abdominals, and Niki tensed with a deep growl that might have been a warning if Sophia didn’t recognize the rising scent of need. She kissed Niki’s neck and teased her with a bite. “Everyone will know from the look in your eyes. You’re always very proud of yourself after you take me.”

  Niki rolled on top of her and lightly clasped her wrists, letting her weight pin her to the bunk. “And why shouldn’t I be? My mate is the most beautiful in the entire Pack.”

  “And I have the only one I’ve ever wanted.” Sophia clasped her legs around the back of Niki’s thighs and shifted her hips until they were fitted to one another again. She lightly bit Niki’s neck. “Again.”

  Niki kissed her, still ready. Always ready and done with waiting. “Did your parents speak with you?”

  Sophia grew still. “They didn’t tell me they had spoken with you.”

  “We weren’t trying to hide anything from you.” Niki rubbed her cheek on Sophia’s breast, making her arch and growl softly. “I was with the Alpha when your parents told her of the results. I didn’t have a chance to see you before I left.”

  Sophia looked away and Niki cupped her face, drawing her gaze back. “Why aren’t you happy?”

  Sophia took a deep breath. “Because I know what you will want.”

  “You’ve always known what I wanted. You’re my mate, I want us to be bonded. I want everyone to know you’re mine.”

  “And you think I don’t want everyone to know you’re mine?” Sophia’s eyes sparked. “You think I don’t see how many females still try to catch your attention?”

  “You know that’s not what matters.”

  “I know it does matter, no matter what you say.”

  Niki rumbled. “You doubt me after all this time?”

  “Never. I never doubt your love.” Sophia stroked her face. “But we are what we are, and until your wolf is bonded, you will feel the call of others. You are free—”

  “No.” Niki caught Sophia’s lip between her teeth and tugged, a reminder that she was a dominant wolf who had made her claim and would not be denied.

  Sophia snarled and Niki kissed her until she stopped protesting. “I have the one I want. And now there’s no reason that everyone shouldn’t know what we know. That we are mates. Your parents said it was safe.”

  “No, they didn’t. They said there was a better chance that it was safe, but there is still a substantial possibility that I could infect you.” Sophia took a long breath. “Niki, you could develop the fever.”

  “That’s not going to happen. You’ve never been sick. You survived. You won.”

  Sophia shook her head in frustration. “We don’t know that. We can’t know that for certain, and until we do, I won’t—”

  “Nothing is ever certain. There will always be threats, we will always have to fight. You are my strength.”

  Sophia’s eyes filled. “As you are mine.”

  “Then it is time.”

  “Let’s wait a little longer,” Sophia whispered. “Let my parents test—”

  “We don’t need any more tests. It’s time.” Niki rocked her hips into the valley of Sophia’s thighs, inciting Sophia to tighten around her. “Now. Together.”

  “I won’t—”

  “You will. I will drive your wolf to make the claim no matter what you think you want.”

  “I want,” Sophia gasped. “But—”

  Niki kissed her throat, grazed her canines along the swell of her breast, and closed her mouth over Sophia’s nipple. She bit slowly, pressing her clitoris to the cleft awaiting her, until Sophia’s need misted both their skins. “I’m not worried. It’s time.”

  Sophia arched, her claws scraping down the center of Niki’s back. Her snow-white pelt gleamed beneath her skin. Niki kept up the torture, holding her down, biting lightly, teasing all the places she knew would drive Sophia’s wolf wi
ld with the need to join, the need to release.

  Sophia whined, the gold ring around her brilliant blue irises widening, her skin slick and shimmering. “Don’t. Don’t let me hurt you.”

  “I won’t.” Niki kissed the bite she’d placed on Sophia’s shoulder, the bite that made Sophia hers, licking and sucking lightly, stirring Sophia’s wolf to return the claim. “Trust me. I need this. We need this.”

  Niki sat up, pulled Sophia into her lap, and Sophia instantly wrapped her legs around Niki’s hips until they were face to face, breast to breast, sex to sex.

  “I am yours as you are mine. I have always been yours,” Niki whispered. She lifted her hips and her clitoris slid beneath Sophia’s, enticing her, inflaming her.

  Sophia threw her head back, her canines gleaming, a high-pitched cry escaping from her throat. Her breasts flushed, her nipples tightened into peaks. A fine dusting of pelt feathered her lower abdomen. “Please, I need you.”

  “Not until you give me what I want.”

  The mate bite on Sophia’s shoulder darkened, beckoning for Niki to bite, to send Sophia spiraling into her release. Niki’s clitoris pounded, her vision narrowing until all she knew was the need in Sophia’s eyes. The need to empty into her. She spread her hand into Sophia’s hair and pulled Sophia closer to her exposed throat.

  “Make me yours.” Niki tilted her hips and notched her clitoris into the cleft between Sophia’s thighs. “Let me be your mate.”

  Sophia buried her claws in Niki’s back and rode her, milking her length, drawing her tight into her center. The pulsations in her glands pounded in time with her heart. The drive to release, to join, to surrender was so painful she whimpered.

  “Complete me,” Niki groaned. “I need you.”

  I need you.

  I need you.

  “I need you too.” Sophia buried her canines in Niki’s shoulder at the instant Niki pierced hers.

  Niki exploded, blind with pleasure and filled with belonging.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sylvan crouched as air rushed by her with the force of water cascading down the mountainside. The reeds on the far side of the glen parted as though a great hand reached down and scoured a path through the dense undergrowth. The earth beneath her feet vibrated. A great beast nearly six feet at the shoulders emerged. Its clawed legs, as large around as tree stumps, dug into the earth with every stride. It halted ten feet away, its dense hide dark and weathered, its immense head capped by short ears above deep-set fiery eyes and a long, broad snout. Its thick, leathery black lips skimmed back to expose rows of daggerlike teeth, half the length of Sylvan’s forelegs. Hot breath washed over her, and the fierce rumble emanating from its massive chest rolled down her spine like ice.

  Is this any way to greet a friend? Sylvan’s wolf snarled softly, showing her teeth.

  Gold shimmered as bright as sunlight and the Hound faded in a wisp of smoke.

  “I was more interested in the bush hog planning to make a meal of you.” Torren stepped toward her, long slender body encased in shimmering black from her booted feet to shoulders. A scarlet sash ran across her chest and ended at one hip, where a silver scabbard swayed as she walked. The ornate hilt of her sword gleamed with precious gems.

  Sylvan circled, keeping the distance between them as she sniffed the air, testing, searching for a hint of illusion. I would have had hog for breakfast.

  Torren laughed, her voice chiming with ancient power. “And that’s not blood I see on your flank.”

  Satisfied, Sylvan shed pelt and rose. Her wound closed as she shifted. The hip still burned, but she’d had far worse, and injuries were of no matter now. “Where is Drake?”

  “Safe for the moment.” Torren put her hands on her hips, dark eyes glittering like diamonds cast upon a field of coal. “Come with me, and I’ll take you to her.”

  Torren paused and waved a hand. Sylvan found herself wearing plain black trousers, short black boots, and a white shirt so soft it might have been woven from air. “Is it real?”

  “As real as anything,” Torren said, “and more comfortable than the alternative, I hope.”

  “I’m not worried about comfort. I want my mate and my wolf returned.”

  “Wolves are always so single-minded.” Torren sighed. “Sylvan, they came here voluntarily, as did you. We did not seek them out and kidnap them. Technically, you are all trespassers in Faerie.”

  “So you have made my mate a prisoner?”

  Torren’s shoulder lifted. “She is a guest of the Thorn Queen.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  The Fae Master of the Hunt only smiled. She had shown herself to be a friend of the Pack when she had joined Sylvan and her warriors at the battle to rescue a captive wolf and dethrone Francesca. But Torren was a royal Fae, an ancient and powerful Hunter, and her loyalty would always be to her Queen.

  Sylvan growled. “Drake would not have willingly broken your laws. How did they pass through the Faerie Gate?”

  “Come,” Torren said without answering. “It will be dark here soon, and you would not like to meet some of the inhabitants of the Glen after moonrise.”

  Sylvan glanced at the sky and saw nothing to suggest that night was coming. “The Glen?”

  “That’s what we call this area. The ambassador is the Governor of the Glen when he resides here.”

  “And that’s why his Faerie Gate brought me here?” Sylvan remembered the shimmer of green and hint of scales beneath the ambassador’s glamour and wondered at what other forms hid beneath the animals she had passed.

  Torren nodded. “Cecilia is most unhappy with him right now.”

  “His fate is not my worry,” Sylvan said, “but I did promise him a painful death if he didn’t guide me through.”

  “Of that I have no doubt. However, Cecilia prefers death to betrayal.”

  “I gave him my word I would speak for him with your Queen.”

  “And perhaps the Queen of Thorns will be receptive.” Torren did not sound convinced or concerned.

  Torren slipped back along the path through the reeds, and Sylvan followed. When she glanced back, the undergrowth was closing behind her as if a net were weaving itself shut. The river was gone and the trees pressed trunk to trunk in a solid mass as dense as stone. Night had fallen behind her but ahead the sky was still alive with light. The grassy path wound through an orchard of short trees with flesh-colored bark and fruit resembling apples hanging from gnarled boughs. Each orb was decorated with a cap of green leaves the color of mint and pale unblemished skin that glowed like the surface of fresh-fallen snow. The ground was littered with ivory petals that emitted a fruity perfume. The fruit swirled in a breeze she couldn’t feel as she passed, and dark pits swam beneath the surface of the glowing skin. Her wolf rumbled as a thousand eyes followed her. “What are they?”

  Torren smiled. “We call them watchers.”

  “Are they alive?”

  “Of course. Everything in Faerie is alive, even the stones beneath your feet.”

  Faerie was a realm of shifting time and place and form, totally unlike the world of flesh and blood and instinct Sylvan and her wolves inhabited. The Fae and the Weres had nothing in common, but Torren had somehow called to Misha’s wolf, had formed a bond with her. With all that divided them, what shape that bond would take was hard to imagine, and Sylvan wanted Misha back almost as much as Drake.

  “Misha’s bond brought them through the Gate, didn’t it.”

  “Possibly,” Torren said.

  From a Fae, that was as good as a yes. Sylvan grumbled. “Are you going to let her go?”

  Torren slowed, met Sylvan’s gaze. “No.”

  “Misha is of the earth. Without the Pack, part of her would die.”

  “Misha, all of us, are part of a much larger universe. Her ties to Pack will not be broken.” Torren smiled, a smile so beautiful Sylvan’s chest ached. “Are yours?”

  “Not to Drake, but the Pack—” Sylvan reached out, sought the fa
miliar threads that bound her to the hearts and minds and souls of those she served, and felt the distant beat of hundreds of hearts, strong and steady. She frowned. “How—?”

  “Faerie is a place of answered dreams. Before, your wolf sought only Drake. The connection you share with her is more powerful than all the others, and you felt only her. So it will be with Misha, but she will never lose what ties her to Pack.”

  “She must choose.”

  “She will,” Torren whispered.

  They rounded a bend and a valley opened before them, lush and green, spreading out between mountain ranges whose peaks disappeared into a cloudless sky. At the far end of the divide, the valley ended at the base of a huge vine-covered dome. The Faerie Mound of Cecilia’s court.

  “How near are we to Earthside?” Sylvan asked.

  “As close as a breath and as far away as the night stars.”

  “The Gates are really curtains, aren’t they?”

  “You ask questions that cannot be answered.”

  “And you never give those of us who live beyond the veil the answers we seek,” Sylvan said.

  “What we seek may not be what we need,” Torren said.

  “It is for me. I seek my mate and my wolf.”

  Torren led her to the base of the Faerie Mound. “Then may I present the royal court of Cecilia, Queen of Thorns and Ruler of All of Faerie.”

  An archway appeared in the mound, a great gate carved from gold and guarded by helmeted soldiers with sword and spear. Sylvan followed Torren through the archway, aware of the path behind her disappearing into mist as thick as midnight fog.

  *

  Dru pulled her motorcycle into the end of a line of bikes in front of Raptures, a Vampire club in a run-down neighborhood adjacent to a towering bridge crossing the Hudson. The narrow four-story building was squeezed into the center of a block of derelict and abandoned factories and apartment buildings. The upper stories were dark, with boarded-over windows and sagging eaves, and the club itself was marked only by an unlit sign hanging askew from a bent iron rod above the windowless door. On the far corner of the block, a solitary bar sported an erratically blinking beer sign in the streaked plate-glass window, but otherwise the neighborhood was deserted. The customers who frequented Raptures tended to be Weres and humans who didn’t want their business known to anyone who might ask too many questions. The humans were mostly addicts, willing to do anything for a Vampire bite, including sell drugs, their bodies, or the bodies of their children. The Weres were all loners or renegades who had left their Packs and formed gangs, loosely ruled by leaders who kept order through violence or drugs. The submissives among them were often addicted to the street drug desoxyephedrine. DSX was a variant of methamphetamine, one of the few drugs capable of corrupting Were physiology. In addition to hyperaggressiveness, the drug intensified the Weres’ naturally high sexual drive, creating sex slaves of the submissive, males and females alike, before they eventually spiraled into psychoses. Dru suspected some of the Weres who frequented the place had been part of the past attempts to assassinate Sylvan. The idea made her chuckle as she booted down her kickstand and swung her leather-clad leg over her tank and strode toward the door.