The Hunt

by Chloe Neill

  “Sure,” Gunnar said. “Sure.” He looked around the church. “You all good for tonight?”

  “We’re fine,” Liam said. “We’ll meet back here in the morning?”

  “Let’s make it Moses’s house,” I said. “He gets testy when he’s not included.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Liam said. “Dawn, then.”

  Arrangements were made, and Gunnar and Rachel left.

  “I need to make some contacts,” Malachi said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “I’ve also got something I need to take care of,” Liam said, then glanced at me. “You can get back okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Then I’ll see you.”

  The promise, however vague, was enough to have a blush rising in my cheeks. He’d spoken those words to me, for me, and my body eagerly responded.

  Since we were preparing to face the music all the way around, I approached Erida, the only one who hadn’t yet arranged her getaway.

  “Can I talk to you before you leave?”

  If the request made her suspicious, she didn’t show it. But then, her poker face was nearly as good as Malachi’s. “All right.”

  “Maybe outside?”

  Her brows lifted, but she nodded, followed me through the back of the church and outside again. The sun was setting, the sky streaked with orange and purple.

  I walked a few feet away, giving myself time to prepare, then turned back to her. “I know you and my father were lovers. Is that why you hate me?”

  Her body jerked at the question. It didn’t bother me that I’d shocked her.

  “I don’t hate you, Claire. I don’t even really know you.”

  Given what I’d seen lately, I didn’t think knowing someone was a requirement for hating them. So I stayed quiet.

  “If you mean,” she went on, her voice softer, “do I hate you because you are your mother’s daughter . . .” She paused, seemed to gather her thoughts. “I didn’t know your mother well. I only knew what he told me, that she had broken your father’s heart.”

  “He told me she was dead.”

  “You mentioned that,” she said. If she’d judged my father for the lie, it didn’t show in her face.

  “And now I know she isn’t. You’d know that now, too.”

  She inclined her head. “Malachi told me.”

  “I thought my father and I had this nice simple life. Antiques and MREs. That my mother had died, but we survived together.” I looked at her. “But that’s not true. She was still alive. He had magic, and he had you.” I paused. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  As if to give herself time, Erida went over to the wisteria that climbed over the church’s back wall, ran her finger across a cluster of lavender flowers. Then she turned back. “I don’t know. I thought he had, and that you simply didn’t want to be near a woman you saw as a poor replacement for your mother.”

  “He told you that?”

  “No,” she said, with a soft smile. “I thought perhaps he sought to soothe my feelings. I imagine he wanted to keep you safe in the way he knew how—by keeping you away from magic and keeping magic away from you.”

  The same protective instinct that had driven Liam into the bayou.

  “He loved you, Claire, and he wanted to build a wall around you to keep you safe. So he compartmentalized his life.”

  “You shielded Royal Mercantile from the magic monitors.” It was a guess, but I was pretty sure I was right.

  She nodded. “He was concerned he might use his magic without thinking, trigger the alarms, and bring Containment. He didn’t want you left alone if he got dragged into Devil’s Isle.”

  But I ended up in Devil’s Isle anyway. Not dragged, but there because I’d used my magic, triggered Containment, and had to ask Moses to erase the evidence.

  “He had such plans for you and the store, for life when things got back to normal. He was working on a second location for the store—an old Apollo gas station in Carrolton.”

  So he’d told her about the gas station, or at least part of it. “You don’t know if he finished it?” I tried to keep my voice neutral, but it was hard.

  Grief was clear in her eyes. “I don’t know. I shielded it while he was restoring it, but I had to leave New Orleans. Fighting in Shreveport was getting heavier, and I was needed. I was gone for two months . . . and he was gone by the time I got back.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you lost him. But I lost him, too.”

  I nodded.

  “I haven’t been to the building since he died. It’s been so long, I’m not even sure I could find it again.”

  We’d both lost my father. Maybe it was time to find something new.

  “I know where it is,” I said. “He finished it. Maybe I can show it to you sometime.”

  She looked at me for a long time, a dozen emotions swirling across her face. “I’d like that,” she finally said, the deal between us done, and maybe something forged.

  • • •

  I drove Scarlet back to the gas station, parked her in a narrow slot in the alley behind it, covered her with a couple of tarps I found in a nearby garage. They’d keep her safe for now, or at least make her appear uninteresting to casual observers.

  It was ironic that I couldn’t park my newly adopted car in the gas station I lived in, but none of the garage doors were operable. They’d all been closed and sealed to keep the temperature and humidity consistent. So until I came up with a better plan, it was the alley for her.

  I came around the block, waited halfheartedly for a bit to ensure that all was clear, and then stared.

  The Snoball sign I’d found in Moses’s butter house—and walked away from—was propped beside the gas station door. The grime had been cleared away so the metal gleamed, the letters brilliant and enticing.

  I walked toward it, knelt, and ran a finger down the raised ridges of each letter. Memories of another time, as if swollen by the history they contained.

  The air changed, shifted, raising the hair at the back of my neck.

  Slowly, I rose to my feet and glanced behind me.

  Liam stood fifteen feet away, hands at his sides, longing laid bare on his face. His eyes shimmered—blue, then gold, then blue, his brows drawn together with an intensity that reminded me of a warrior, of a wolf. Of a man on a mission.

  Lust rose so hot, so bright, it might have been a forming star.

  “You looked like you wanted that. Back at the house near Moses’s, I mean.”

  I nodded, and felt like gossamer glass, fragile and ready to break. It took two tries to get out “Thank you. It will look good in there.”

  Liam nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and I could see the truth of it in his eyes. “I’m so sorry I left you alone.”

  I ran to him, and he welcomed me with strong arms.

  “I’m sorry,” he said into my hair. “I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  In his arms, I broke, shattered into a million pieces. “You left us.”

  “I know. And I’m so sorry.”

  “I didn’t know my mother. She left. The war came, and my friends left. My teachers left. My father died. He left.” I looked at him, let him see the truth in my eyes. And when he realized it, regret settled into his face. “The battle came, and you left. You left when we needed each other most.”

  “I thought I was saving us, shielding you. Instead, I put myself far away from the one person who makes me stronger. Because we’re stronger together.” He tipped my chin up. “I love you, Claire. Maybe it’s too soon for that; maybe it’s too late. I don’t even care if you say it back. I love you. And I will never leave you again.”

  I lifted my head, searched for his mouth. He met my lips softly, careful but hopeful. His fingers slid i
nto my hair as he moved closer, melding the long line of his body with mine.

  I felt my body warming, loosening, relaxing for the first time in weeks, melting in the heat of his arms.

  The rain fell suddenly, the sky letting go just as we had, and soaked us to the bone immediately.

  He pulled back, pushed wet hair from my face. “We should probably get inside. If you’re okay with that.”

  “I demand it,” I said with an answering grin.

  Before I could argue, and probably because he knew I would, he picked me up, carried me to the door.

  I unlocked it and flipped on the lights, but Liam switched them off again.

  “Don’t need lights,” he murmured, shutting the door and leaving us in darkness. The room was pitch-black, and there was a moment of exquisite anticipation before he found my mouth again and steered me backward until my hips hit the lip of a table.

  He hoisted me onto it, pulled me hard against his body while rain pelted the roof like a corps of drummers. His mouth pummeled mine, assaulted and possessed it. He kissed me like a man long denied, like a man returning from war.

  And maybe that wasn’t far from the truth.

  I dug my fingers into his hair and wrapped my legs around his waist, nearly moaned from the feel of him, hard and ready, at my core.

  Our kisses became brutal, full of heat and anger and promise. I pulled back, yanked at the hem of his shirt, slid my hands against the bunched muscles of his abdomen. His body was strong, lean muscle honed from hard and honest work.

  He pulled the T-shirt over his head and I let my hands roam against skin still damp from the downpour, every inch of skin and muscle taut.

  “Your body . . . is a wonderland,” I said, when I couldn’t think of any other way to finish that sentence.

  Liam snorted, pulled my shirt over my head, found my breasts with his hands. I arched forward into his fingers as fire erupted under my skin, fire that only he could control.

  Then even that bit of lace was gone, and we were down to rain-sodden jeans. I caught my lip between my teeth, smiled at him as I reached for the snap of his jeans.

  “Are you sure—?”

  I cut off his question with a kiss. “I need you,” I murmured against his lips. “I’ve needed you for a long time. I just didn’t know it until we met. And then I told myself I didn’t. And then you came back.”

  “And I’m not leaving again.”

  “You may have mentioned that.”

  Then the rest of his clothes were heaped on the floor, and he was hot and heavy in my hand, his arms braced on the table as he dropped his forehead to mine, struggled to breathe. He reached back, pushed artifacts carefully but decisively away, and pressed me into the tabletop. Then his hand was at my core, inciting.

  “Now,” I said, and his hands were at my jeans, and then I was bared to him, too.

  He was already hard, his body primed and ready. “Now,” he agreed. He thrust, locked our bodies together. He paused, his body shaking with desire, arms corded as he sought to gain control.

  “Claire,” he muttered, his breath heavy at my temple.

  “Don’t stop now,” I said, and wrapped my arms around his neck as he climbed onto the table above me, his gorgeous face above mine, one hand behind my head to cushion it, as his hips worked.

  “Never,” he said, and pressed his mouth to mine, found my center again, and sent us both over the edge.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I woke with a mission. It was stupid, and it was dangerous, but there was a fire in my belly, enough curiosity to kill a very fat cat, and enough anger to get me up and moving before the sun rose.

  And before Liam climbed out of my bed, where he still lay, one hand thrown over his head, the other on his abdomen.

  I ate half an energy bar that was somewhere between hardtack and cardboard, chasing it down with a bottle of water.

  I hid my hair beneath a cap, pulled on a tank top, capri leggings, and tennis shoes. I’d stay cool in the humidity that already fogged across the city, and in case I was noticed, I’d look like a jogger. At least at first glance. And if nobody questioned whether there were many joggers in postwar New Orleans.

  She didn’t live far away, according to the information Moses had waiting on a note on his front porch, tucked between the screen door and the main door. That had been the favor I’d asked of him yesterday.

  We needed to find out where Laura Blackwell might strike, where she might try to deploy her particular weapon. Maybe, if I watched her, I’d find some clue. I wasn’t sure what that might be—a giant photograph of a spot where the Veil crossed, a printed set of Google directions accidentally discarded in her yard? I’d know it when I saw it; the point was the looking.

  But that’s not why I was doing it. That was just the collateral benefit.

  I wanted to know who this woman was. And maybe, in the tiniest hidden recess of my heart, in the Corner of Lost Causes, I wanted to be proven wrong.

  She lived near Tulane in the Audubon neighborhood, one of the fancier areas of New Orleans. It was too far to walk, but I didn’t want to chance getting caught and having to dump Scarlet. So I left her at home, safe and covered, and rode my bike downtown.

  I came within a block of her address, stopped, and stared.

  Where there’d once been a grid of streets with small cottages, camelbacks, and shotguns, a tall brick wall towered. The bricks were clean and ran in perfectly aligned rows down the wall, which bowed prettily until it curved around away from me. I got off the bike, locked it to a tree, and walked toward the gate.

  There was a pretty cottage-style gatehouse in the middle of the divided avenue that led inside. The cottage house was dark, and the gate was open. I wasn’t sure if I’d happened to visit when there wasn’t a guard, or if the gatehouse was just for show, because there weren’t enough people left in New Orleans to cause concern.

  I made my decision and crept closer.

  I stayed close to the wall, walked inside.

  The houses were brick with tile roofs. All of them new, all of them immaculate. The roads were no longer grids, but sweeping avenues that curved around landscaped lawns and sidewalks marked by trees and wrought-iron benches.

  They’d torn down the houses that had been here before and constructed an entirely new neighborhood. One that was gated and walled from the need around it. It was Devil’s Isle in reverse—the renovation of a neighborhood with a wall to keep unmentionables out.

  The sun was beginning to color the sky as I followed the main road around. The houses weren’t just new; they were enormous. Two stories, lots of dormers, two- or three-car garages, huge windows with pretty mullions.

  This was a beautiful neighborhood. Before the war, it would have fit well in a suburb for the wealthy who commuted into the city for work every day. But to be here? Now? The only big business in New Orleans was Devil’s Isle, and Devil’s Isle was run by the PCC—Containment, specifically. Maybe the PCC had set up the neighborhood for the Containment bigwigs. Maybe the Commandant lived here, in one of these set-back houses with the cobblestone sidewalks and hanging ferns.

  A street sign atop a fluted black pole—gas lamp mounted on top—told me I’d reached the place I wanted: Hidden Ridge Circle.

  I wrapped my fingers around the pole, the painted metal cool beneath my hand, and tried to catch my breath. I hadn’t been running, but being close to her again made my lungs feel like they’d been belted, tightly wrapped and very constricted.

  I could walk away now. She’d almost certainly call Containment again if she saw me, and it would be hard to hide among these sweeping lawns, especially when my only way out was the narrow gap in the wall.

  But I had to look. My feet were already carrying me forward, bearing me to the end of the dead-end circle where my mother lived.

  It was a story and a half high, with a
small brick porch. The windows were bare, the house lit even in the early hours of the morning.

  I adjusted my cap, rolled my shoulders, and began walking like I belonged there.

  And then I was there, standing in front of the house.

  In front of my mother’s house.

  There wasn’t a single item of decoration outside except for the number on the house. No chairs on the porch, no flowers in urns by the door, no extraneous plants in the landscape. Just the solid brick house in a corner of a gated neighborhood of fraternally similar houses.

  I bent down to tie my shoe, glanced to the side to look in the front window. It was probably supposed to be a dining room, but the room was empty except for the wrought-iron chandelier that hung low in the middle of the ceiling, waiting for a table to be slid into place beneath it.

  I could see the edges of a kitchen beyond, but nothing else.

  I stood up, stretched, took a look at the yard. It sloped gently to the back, a hill created where there hadn’t been one before; this part of New Orleans had been as flat as the rest of it. If I wanted another look inside, I’d have to get closer.

  I walked around to the back of the house, where a live oak’s branches skimmed over the lawn. Since the tree was dozens of years older than the houses, they must have managed to build around it.

  There was a wooden deck at the back. Light blazed through windows above it. I crept beneath the wooden slats across a bed of mulch, then around to the stairs—the only way I’d be able to get high enough to see. I took a testing step, putting my weight on one tread to ensure it was quiet, before moving to the next.

  The window came into view halfway up the stairs. I peeked inside, was immediately faced by disappointment when I didn’t see her in the eat-in kitchen. I took the opportunity to study it.

  There were no knickknacks, no art, no kitsch in the kitchen. No canisters or napkin holders or towels or bottles. Just empty granite countertops and tall cherry cabinets. The kitchen table was the same shade, but there were no place mats, no centerpiece. A family room flanked the kitchen on the other side. I could see a couch, a coffee table, and nothing else. No pictures, no television.