Hunter Circles Series Books 1-3: An Urban Fantasy Box Set

by Jessica Gunn

  “He mumbled something about the abyss,” I said to Rachel. “Before he went out. Know what he means?”

  She nodded and swallowed hard. “Yes. God—he’s terrified.”

  “Of?”

  A sob escaped her closed lips. “He must have thought he was going into a coma again.”

  I reached a hand out to hers. “He’ll be fine. He’s stubborn as hell.”

  But the healers went on healing for far too long.

  WE’D RETURNED, with a still-unconscious Ben, over an hour ago. The healers had checked him out and though the wound was mostly healed, they’d said he’d feel it tomorrow.

  I spun on Shawn as he paced the length of our living room. “Please, go ahead. Tell me again why we should trust you after that lie?”

  Nate had woken up and now sat next to Rachel on the couch, watching Shawn and me with a skeptical look on his face. Both his and my magik had returned, too. Which was a damn good thing because I hated to think the Alzan prophecy had been thwarted by one bitchy klepto-demon.

  Shawn stopped pacing and turned to me. “Because we’re both halves of the same prophecy, for starters.”

  “Oh,” I said, throwing up my hands. “That covers everything, doesn’t it? Yup, you’re totally fucking excused.” I shot him a glare. “You lied and that put us in jeopardy.”

  “Actually, me revealing myself despite the fact that I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to control my magik was about the only reason we got out of that bowling alley alive,” Shawn spat back at me. “Never mind with Ben more or less intact.”

  “Leave him out of this,” Rachel snapped. “He’ll speak for himself when he’s awake.”

  And oh, I was certain he’d have a ton to say. I thought back to my first few days on this team and how well Ben had handled the revelation of the Alzan prophecy. Not well at all. But this—this was so much different.

  Ember witches weren’t inherently evil. But their magik was. It often made them unhinged, not stable enough to live with others. That Tatiana Viynar had clustered a bunch of them so close a few nights ago, even if their magik had been restricted under a requirem, was dangerous.

  Tatiana Viynar. “You knew that Landshaft bounty hunter,” I said to Shawn. “You called her by name. I should have known then.”

  He shrugged, his signature reaction to anything and everything. Magik? Shrug. Death? Shrug. Betrayer of Darkness sneaking into a bowling alley to kill us all? Damn fucking shrug. “When I found out why my parents had given me the tattoo, about the magik within me, they warned me about her and what undoing the tattoo might mean.”

  “Yeah, because you’re unstable.”

  He lifted his hands in defense, as if I’d actually tried to hit him. “I’m not denying I might be. I haven’t used my magik since I was a kid and I don’t even remember doing it. My parents bound it because it’s apparently way worse for me than the others.”

  “Because of the prophecy, probably,” Nate said. “Now that your tattoo binding is gone, I can feel the ether-magik inside of you. Damn, dude. How did you hide it for this long?”

  “Stronger magik than mine,” he said, his voice low. “Much stronger.”

  “Why did you hide it?” I demanded. “Especially from Jaffrin. He of all people should have known what he was getting into by assigning you to a team. By acknowledging you as part of the Alzan prophecy.”

  Shawn shot me a pointed look. “For that exact reason—the prejudice against Ember witches. Didn’t you hear what Kinder said? My magik is tainted, all of ours is. I didn’t say anything because Jaffrin, my parents… everyone was so convinced I was the Son of Alzan. Who was I to say they were wrong when they knew more than me? But for my magik to be responsible for saving a city of the Powers? Forget about it.”

  “You were scared,” Rachel said quietly.

  Shawn turned to her. “Yeah. Wouldn’t you be? I thought the Fire Circle would lock me away somewhere, knowing my magik is only supposed to get more powerful.”

  “If they haven’t locked me up, I think you’re fine,” I said dryly. Although my magik and skills were nowhere near his. Not with this revelation.

  “Ben’s going to be so fucking pissed when we tell him,” Nate said.

  Rachel shook her head. “Not it.”

  “Me either,” Nate said, touching his nose.

  I rolled my eyes and stalked over to the stairs. “Oh, for the love of god, I’ll do it.” Ben already disliked me a good seventy percent of the time anyway. “Just don’t go anywhere or do anything or use your magik at all until I’m back.”

  Shawn threw me a fake salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh, fuck off.” I climbed the stairs without looking back.

  BEN’S BEDROOM light was on, but that didn’t give me any indication whether he was awake or not. We’d left it on after the healers had departed in case he woke up without one of us there. Waking up in the dark alone after a fight never ended well.

  I knocked lightly on Ben’s door. “You awake in there?”

  I rested my head against the door as I waited. With Ben knocked out, it was hard for me to not slip into the leader role—especially with all that was weighing on us. And now Shawn.

  “Yeah,” Ben called from inside, his voice thick with sleep.

  My breath caught, and I leaned my forehead against the cool wood. “Thank god. Can I come in? It’s just me.”

  “Sure.”

  I pulled in a deep breath to settle my nerves—and my lingering anger—and turned the door handle. Ben sat almost upright in his bed, propped against a tower of pillows… shirtless. White bandages had been wrapped around his muscular shoulder.

  I shut the door behind me and walked softly to his bedside. “How are you feeling?”

  Ben looked down to his shoulder and cringed. “Like I’m never going to throw a football again.”

  I shrugged. “I mean, college has been over for a while, right?”

  “Ha ha.” He twisted his neck, working out a kink, and met my gaze like everything was fine and he wasn’t injured and half-naked in front of me.

  My cheeks flushed as I tried not to look, but it was hard to not notice his well-built arms and chiseled chest when staring down at the man.

  “What’s going on?” Ben asked.

  “I, um—”

  “With the team, with Kinder,” Ben clarified, a smirk on his face. His eyes laughed at me. I’d been caught red-handed.

  I set my jaw, a slight grin working its way onto my lips. “Where did you want me to start?”

  “That bad?”

  “Oh yeah.” I nodded to the bed. “May I?” I could have sat on the floor, but that’d have been weirder.

  Ben flashed a thumbs up, then pulled his body back so he sat fully straight. The bed covers slipped down to his waist, revealing his muscled abs. My cheeks flushed all over again.

  “Kinder ran,” I said, ticking the item off on my finger. “We haven’t heard from Landshaft or Lady Azar since you’ve been out, so there’s that. And Giyano’s still missing. But you got knocked around pretty bad. The healers took care of the rest of us, but you’re still bandaged.”

  Ben peered down at his shoulder again. “I don’t see why.” He reached across and gripped a side of the tape—and pulled. The bandage came off, but only new, pink skin remained. “Huh. Why does it still hurt, then?”

  “Maybe all they could heal were the top layers,” I told him. “It wouldn’t surprise me, given how much work they’ve been doing over the past few days.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “Fantastic. And—I’m sorry, did you say Kinder ran?”

  “Yup.”

  His eyes narrowed on me. “Not that I’m not happy about that, but… why? She could have taken us all out in seconds.”

  “Shawn scared her off.”

  “Shawn?”

  I nodded. “Yup. You’ve missed a ton.”

  “Sounds like it. Did you finally unlock the Alzanian magik?”

  I wished. “No. But he unloc
ked a different type of magik, all right. And you’re not going to like it.”

  His expression fell. “Do I even want to know?”

  Turning so I faced him better, so there was no mistaking my next words, I looked him directly in the eye. “Shawn’s an Ember witch. He lied about who he was and the magik he possessed. Even Jaffrin didn’t know. And not only did Shawn know he had powers, he knew exactly how to destroy the binding on them to restore his magik. He’s known this entire time that every training session we did together was pointless with that binding tattoo intact.”

  Ben blinked. “An Ember witch.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, like all those other crazies whose magik is unstable at best, firecrackers at worst.”

  Ben scrubbed his eyes. “I want to go back to bed.”

  “Nope, you won’t get a chance to before I tell you the rest.”

  “The rest?”

  “Kinder pulled me aside,” I said, anxiety clawing at me. It was nice to finally get this off my chest to someone I trusted. Not that I didn’t trust the others, but Ben was the team leader. He was also in the same headspace as me most of the time, even if we didn’t agree on anything within that space.

  “I saw,” Ben said, his brow furrowed. “What’d she say?”

  “Not much before she got interrupted, but enough to let me know that whatever her plan’s circling on, it has to do with Cianza Boston. She wanted me to help her blow it up, I think.”

  “What’d you tell her?” Ben asked, falling back against his pillow tower.

  I shrugged. “To fuck off, basically. I’m sorry. Things sort of fell apart while you were out cold. It’s my fault.”

  “No, it’s not,” Ben said. “Your job isn’t to lead this team; mine is.”

  And yet something still felt wrong. “Every leader has a right-hand man… woman… whatever. On this team, it feels like me. And I could be totally wrong. But as far as hunting experience goes, I’m your number one.”

  His blue eyes met mine as he bit his lower lip. “You pretty much always were.”

  I blinked, unmoving. What did I say to that?

  Ben broke the eye contact and scrubbed his face again. “I don’t know if I can do this. If we can.”

  “Fight Kinder?” I asked as his cheeks flushed from the scrubbing. “You’re right on that one. It’ll probably have to be on a field of our choosing, if possible.”

  “No, I mean all of it.” His words in that moment were so small, so unsure, that my chest constricted in worry.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Even if Kinder has nothing to do with Landshaft, those bounty hunters are still working around here,” he said, holding my gaze. “That means Riley is now in danger from two sides. If Kinder still has the Power, we have to assume she knows Riley does, too. Why else come straight to Boston, to where he might be? If Kinder’s really after revenge against the Fire Circle—and that’s my guess, for the record—what better way to hurt a Fire Circle Hunter than to steal his son?”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. His conclusion was a mighty leap, though one with plenty of logical steps. “You really think Kinder would go head-to-head with Lady Azar for Riley, given the chance?”

  “Yeah, I do. She’s Lady Azar’s mother after all, no matter how much Aloysius wants to forget about it.”

  “Then the question is: Is Kinder also after Cianza Alzan with Lady Azar, or is she just along for the ride here in Boston?”

  “I don’t know. I get the feeling it might be a while before we do.”

  I shook my head. “The history books at Headquarters were pretty clear: Kinder hates the Fire Circle because of how they turned her in and wanted her executed for her Power. She narrowly escaped. I don’t think she’d willingly come back here to help her daughter, whom she also abandoned.”

  “I don’t understand how parents do that,” Ben mumbled under his breath, so quietly that I wasn’t sure he meant for me to hear.

  All of this sudden stress couldn’t be good for his still-healing concussion. And the fact that despite being so overwhelmed by this, he hadn’t tried to get out of bed… that worried me. Was he hurt more than he was letting on? Ben didn’t seem like the type of guy who’d let you see the worst of it. Even if he was already half-naked.

  “Don’t worry. We’re going to figure this one out.”

  His fists balled at his sides, pulling the bedspread with them. “Which ‘one’? Stopping Lady Azar from jumping across the Canadian border and stealing my son regardless of the rules? Or Kinder attacking us at home, since we can’t even go bowling without something attacking us? Or the fact that no one on this team is who they say they are? What the hell do I do about Shawn? An Ember witch.” Ben rolled his eyes. “How can he be one half of the Alzan prophecy, part of the Powers’ doing, if his magik is half-demonic? I don’t—”

  I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his, silencing his onslaught of words. His lips were slightly chapped but full and tasting vaguely of mint.

  Crap. I shouldn’t have kissed him. Seriously, that had been a bad idea.

  But Ben didn’t pull back. So I didn’t either. I lifted my fingers to cup his warm face. The longer this kiss kept him silent and his brain cells occupied, the longer the both of us could think straight. But this kiss sent my thoughts into a flurry of senseless movement. A chill shot down my spine, straight to my core, and my stomach fluttered. Fluttered.

  Because I was kissing Ben.

  I pulled back and dropped my hands. We stared at one another for a few long moments, breaths ragged. He didn’t blink once, just looked at me with his sapphire eyes.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” I said as I brushed back a single lock of hair that’d fallen into my face in my rush to kiss him. To shut him up. “Sorry. It’s just—you were freaking out and—”

  Ben looked at me for a beat, then leaned forward, wincing at the discomfort in his shoulder, and crashed his lips to mine, barely giving me time to gasp in a breath. He angled his head, deepening the kiss as his fingers threaded into my hair. His tongue prodded my lips and I let him in, our tongues dancing as I scooted closer to him. Despite the goosebumps I felt on his arms as I ran my fingers up over his hard biceps, Ben’s body radiated waves of heat. Another chill rolled down my spine excitedly, jolting a life into me that I’d forgotten. It felt like I’d been struck by lightning kissing Ben. Which might not have actually been that far of a stretch.

  Finally, we broke away from each other, breathless.

  “Holy shit,” I muttered, rubbing my temple. “That was…”

  He nodded quickly. “Yeah.”

  I shook. “Not good.”

  “Nope.” His breath ran ragged. “Amazing. But not good.”

  “We’re teammates.” I inched my way off the bed. “You’re the leader. You have a son.”

  “Not a girlfriend, though,” he said beneath his breath. He looked up, reaching out for me. “Please don’t go.”

  I bit my lip, glancing between him and the door. “I think I better.”

  “I don’t regret it,” Ben said. “I… well, I’ve wanted to do that for a while now, honestly.”

  Nodding again, I said, “Me too. Still doesn’t make it—”

  His eyes tightened. “Don’t. Don’t do that.”

  “You’ve already yelled at me once for not following the rules, Ben.” That same lock of hair fell over my flushed face again. I roughly brushed it back into place behind my ear. “I don’t want to give you another excuse to.”

  “Krystin—”

  I held up a hand. “It’s fine, okay? We’re fine.”

  Ben sucked in a breath, then pushed himself to the edge of his bed and swung his legs over. And stood.

  “Ben, you’re not supposed to get up yet.”

  He paced a few steps toward me. “I’ve rested enough. I’m not going to let you make this awkward and leave—”

  I turned into him. “It wasn’t awkward.” It was the furthest thing from weird. That kiss had b
een amazing—everything and nothing at the same time, stars exploding, all that good romance movie fluff. It had all been real. But that didn’t change our positions on the team.

  “Krystin…” His gaze traveled down to my lips again.

  “Jesus, Ben,” I said but stepped forward to kiss him again anyway.

  Ben wrapped an arm around my middle and walked me back against the door. My back hit gently, cushioned by Ben’s one good arm, and he leaned into a kiss that went on for far too long, curling my toes and causing my entire body to heat and cool and heat all over again.

  He pulled back, looking into my eyes. “I don’t know that I care if I’m the leader or not.”

  I swallowed hard and bit my lip. So far, Ben was the only person who’d challenged me and not given up. We’d worked hard to earn each other’s trust. And he was strong, loyal, and never seemed to give up. Ever. On anything.

  Even this.

  “Let’s at least take it slow, okay?” I asked. “I… I don’t want to jump into anything when we don’t even know if we’ll survive the night.”

  He smirked. “Didn’t you just assure me we would? And besides, that seems like a perfect excuse to jump—”

  I smacked his good shoulder. “Shut up.”

  Ben winced, yelping a little. “Shit.”

  My eyes widened. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry.”

  He waved it off. “It’s fine. I’m okay.” But his pinched eyes and frown told a different story.

  “Back to bed,” I told him. “Go rest. I’ll tell the team you’ve been briefed.”

  He nodded and moved to follow my order. But before he backed to the bed, I leaned in and kissed him on his stubble-ridden cheek.

  “Rest, for real, then we can talk,” I said, a grin on my lips.

  “Deal.”

  CHAPTER 15