Hunter

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Okay. About my sister...”

  Hunter stiffened, his posture straightening. “Yes?”

  “Relax.” Dimitre chuckled. “I was just wondering how the magic thing is going for her.”

  “A few problems, nothing too major. I figured out her school.”

  “Hey! That’s great!” He paused when he saw Hunter’s expression. “It is great, isn’t it?”

  “Eventually. At first ... not so much. She’s a Mentalist. It’s as difficult to manage as your school is. More so because the number of talents involved is triple or more. You have sheer power and eventually will control a frightening ability; she has abilities that will require years of practice and a lot of focus to control. Just keeping herself sane is going to take hard work.”

  “They say the same about my power, but I haven’t experienced that so much.”

  “You’ve also been isolated. Wait until the first time you are in a real crowd. You’ll be jumping into past memories you would never want to see or experience. Everything from the horrendously boring to ... well, I was told you went through some of Annali’s past”

  “Some of yours, too. Via Ryce. The night you rescued her.” He glanced at the ‘her’ in question. “I watched how Evan died.”

  Hunter didn’t so much as blink. Dimitre was part of Willow Coven now. He knew what was expected of all its members, especially its Sentinel. Hunter wouldn’t apologize for his tactics, or for any warlock deaths, however brutal they had been. Most especially not Evan’s. He had carried out that assassination with joy, and he would do it again.

  “I admit, I was a hypocrite about it. I didn’t like the idea of my little sister hanging around with a man who cut the heads off of other men like it was nothing. But then you came to her rescue when she needed it most, and all I could think was, thank God a man like you was there to save her. I realized I wouldn’t want it any other way. I will kill one day. And so will she. I understand that. I wish it weren’t that way, but...” He shrugged.

  “So then, tell me why you want to know about her power.”

  “I was just wondering ...” He leaned in close and whispered. “Do you think she could do that trick again? The power of suggestion thing, making everyone think she is someone else? If so, how long can she hold it? See, I figure if it could fool someone as powerful as Ryce ...”

  “Then it could fool someone as powerful as Braen,” Hunter finished for him. “Someone has a sense of irony. You want to do a version of his trick with Asher right back at him?”

  “I guess so. I have a plan. It’s dangerous, though. I’m terrified to even suggest it”

  “Run it by me, and then we’ll go from there.”

  Kaia fiddled with her defrost. She could still see her breath in the car even though it was starting to warm up at last. It was a bitter cold day, despite the glaring bright sunshine.

  Or not.

  Kaia instinctively touched the brake pedal when a heavy darkness crossed over the sun, thick clouds gathering out of nowhere. As she approached a corner and was about to turn, something massive and dark suddenly fell onto the center of the hood of her car. Out of reflex, she screamed and slammed on the brakes. The car began to skid and the anti-lock brakes began to jerk in short spurts of release as they, and Kaia, tried to correct her panicked mistake.

  Her heart racing, she finally came to a halt and looked onto the hood to see what she had hit. In the back of her mind was the understanding that the laws of physics, as she understood them, dictated that the process of deceleration ought to have thrown the object from the hood. The object in question should not be crouched in wait, staring with glittering dark eyes into the windshield and directly at her.

  The object in question being a darkly beautiful girl.

  Odessa rose smoothly from her crouch and stood up in the center of the hood, her black and red painted lips curving in a smile.

  Kaia watched her leap off the hood of the car as nimbly as a gold-medal gymnast. She landed firmly in the snow and ice, her black clothing making her stand out sharply against the white landscape behind her. She was dressed in the gothic manner that was so popular with the rebellious younger generation. She had opted for a thick, Spanish-lace skirt with skintight black Capri pants beneath it, no doubt for warmth. A goal that seemed defeated by the short black shirt that stopped just below her small breasts, baring her entire midriff of supremely pale skin, including the tops of her hips and the malachite and silver chain ringing the circumference of her waist through a ring in her navel. Her hair was dyed a flat, pure black; her nose, eyebrow, and ears were all pierced a varying number of times. With it all she wore an incongruous long black trench coat and thick combat boots.

  Kaia knew in an instant she was in trouble. She scrambled out of the car, knowing it was useless to try to flee, and fought back panic as other dark shapes began to land in the road around her.

  “Kaia,” Odessa greeted her as though they were long-lost friends, even holding her arms out. “So good to see you. Braen sent me to tell you he is very much in need of your ... services. And he would be so grateful if you would ... come for him.”

  “Hmm. Let me see. Umm, that’d be a big fat ‘no freaking way.’ But really, thanks for thinking of me.” Kaia’s bravado barely held when she felt a warlock pass close behind her. The bane of a Healer’s magic was that Healers needed to touch their target, whether to heal or harm. Without contact, Kaia was useless. She knew very well that these warlocks had no such limitations. And they knew better than to come in contact with her while she was still conscious.

  “Oh, really? You have something better to do? Coven mates to heal, perhaps?” Odessa mused, looking all around the area. “Not very nice of them to leave you out here all alone.”

  “Why don’t you leave me alone? Then, for once, you will be equal to Willow Coven,” she mocked the other woman. The warlocks were going to do their worst no matter what she said or did, so she might as well get her licks in.

  Odessa’s dark eyes flashed with wickedness.

  “You know what, I’m going to have a lot of fun with you,” she pronounced. Then she nodded to the other warlocks and Kaia braced herself for the inevitable.

  She wasn’t expecting the bolt of chain lightning that crashed into the quartet of warlocks, jumping from one to the other in violent blue arcs and blowing every one of them back off their feet. She screamed a little in shock and surprise, her heart racing as she jerked her attention to the sky and saw Hunter descending toward her.

  Hey, angel. You okay? Hunter greeted her in her mind as his booted feet hit the icy ground. The man was dressed to kill, literally. All in black, his clothing close fitting but flexible. He wore athamés on his left hip and biceps, probably one in his boot as well. His casual manner hid a barely repressed fury that she could feel in every fiber of her being. The Sentinel of Willow Coven took it very personally when one of his witches was attacked.

  Odessa was the first to regain herself. She cast a flame devil between Hunter and his sister witch, forcing them apart. Kaia stumbled back into the grasp of a warlock who grabbed her around the throat and started to throttle her. But it was the red haze of rage he was using to power his effort that was damaging to her. He shoved her back against her car and her feet slid out from underneath her. Her head rang with the purity of evil intent that ran through these warlocks and she suddenly knew exactly what they had plotted. She knew why Odessa wanted to provoke this fight, and what she planned to do with her spoils.

  Her breath was clogged beneath the restrictive hand, and her nose began to bleed. Instantly she thought of her brothers and used what little breath she had to suck blood into the back of her throat and spit full bore into the warlock’s face, spraying him with brilliant red. He let out a rather high-pitched squeal for a man, letting go of her and swiping madly at his face. He growled with fury and lunged for her.

  “Tatyana! Duck!”

  She obeyed, diving for the cold ground near the car. Ryce blasted in out
of nowhere it seemed, blowing the warlock right off his feet with some kind of percussive force. Once the warlock was lying in a heap on the side of the road, Ryce leaned down and offered the disguised Tatyana a hand up. Even under the stress of attack, Tatyana had maintained the strength of her magic suggestion. She looked and felt exactly like Kaia. Even the height difference was maintained in his mind. He could even sense her just as though she were his sister witch. That was unexpected. But it was also obvious that she was paying for being in among all of this wrath. She was bleeding heavily from her nose and he could even see a burst blood vessel in her right eye. Her eyes were glowing a bright amber.

  Ryce turned to see Hunter. He was taking on three to one odds and Ryce needed to help him, but Tatyana looked like she was in bad shape.

  “I’m fine,” she said, reading his mind. “Go. Please. There could be others. I’ll sit in the car.”

  “Right. You watch your back, understand?” he warned.

  “I’ll yell if I need help.”

  Ryce nodded and whipped his attention back to the fight going on across the road.

  Hunter knew who the immediate threat was. The other two warlocks were incidental. He bee-lined for Odessa, casting as he went. Snow from the sides of the road suddenly exploded in her direction, pelting her with solid ice pellets, road salt, and road debris. She screamed out in fury and Hunter saw he had drawn first blood. He cast behind himself, a blowback spell to deter the other warlocks at his back, flinging them several yards away from himself and Ryce and Tatyana as he quickly turned back to Odessa.

  The Goth warlock screamed out her next spell, and the ground shook in warning beneath his feet. Hunter instinctively reengaged his flight spell right before the ground ripped open beneath him, swallowing up roadway and Kaia’s car. Ryce was suddenly occupied with snatching Tatyana up out of the car and trying to scramble back out of the path of the ever-widening hole in the earth. The body of the warlock they had killed fell into the chasm. Tatyana’s feet slipped down into the widening hole just as Ryce cast flight on them and took them away to safety.

  Odessa remained a step ahead as Hunter was distracted with watching Tatyana get pulled to safety. She cast a hail of fire over them, the large stones pelting and burning the vulnerable witches. Hunter ignored the pain and danger with ease, years of calm in a fight keeping him centered. He trusted Ryce to care for his woman, so he turned to the imperative target.

  Odessa.

  Odessa was scrambling. She was young yet, and he could soon see that she was struggling to keep up with him spell for spell while managing her fear as well. She had not felt fear the last time they had met. This was because she had not believed his claim of who he was. She believed him this time and she knew he was definitely a man to be feared. Anyone who had grown up more powerful than her High Cleric had to be a man she should fear.

  “Come, come, Odessa,” he mocked her as he set down on solid ground. “Surely you can do better than this biblical bullshit. Next you know, it’ll be locusts and a rain of toads.”

  He advanced, a new spell in Romany thundering out of him in a voice meant to intimidate, as well as to pour magic into the casting. Odessa barely knew what hit her. The geasa knocked her off her feet and pinned her to the remaining roadway. She was bound to the earth now, unable to move or gesture, the paralysis cutting down her repertoire by more than half because so many spells were best focused with accompanying gestures. She could still speak, though, so she was still dangerous. Hunter flew across the distance just as she countermanded his spell with a powerful magic rhyme. She was sitting up just as he reached her. His athamé sang out of its sheath and with a savage cry he stabbed it through her shoulder, forcing her down again until the blade had pinned her to the blacktop. Then without so much as thinking, he grabbed for the dark witch’s head and wrenched it hard off of her spine. The snapping of her neck was accompanied by a gurgled cry, and then she fell silent as she dropped from his hands.

  The Sentinel wasted no time before turning to face the other two warlocks who were trying to rush him.

  “Back off!”

  Hunter flung out both hands in warning, his palms flaring with electric blue power to match the blaze of his eyes. Lightning arced from the fingertips of one hand all the way to the other, like a juggling act of deadly force. He stood with his feet braced hard apart as he faced the two warlocks of Belladonna Coven. After what had happened to Asher, Hunter was spoiling for a fight. What was more, he was spoiling for blood. He would be fully within his rights to destroy them. They had threatened members of his coven.

  The faces of these witches were fresh ones. He hadn’t seen them the night of the original attack. The High Cleric in charge of Belladonna Coven would generate as many witches as he felt necessary to defeat Willow Coven. Even if it cost him some precious measure of power in the process.

  “I’ve a message for your Cleric,” Hunter announced, his voice booming out across the frozen road. “Tell him ...” He smiled, his teeth gleaming like the fangs of a predator. “Never mind, I’ll tell him myself.”

  Lightning leapt from his hands even as his feet lifted from the ground in flight. Two bolts, one to the left and one to the right, found their targets, arrowing through the miniscule shields each of the warlocks tried to throw up to defend themselves. The scent of burning hair and charring flesh, both so sickeningly unmistakable, began to cloud the air. Hunter continued to feed power into the charges, refusing to release even when he was fairly certain the witches were both dead. This wasn’t about simply killing the witches, however. This was, as he had said, a message. Braen would find the remains of his subpar forces and would know that Willow Coven was through playing nice. Braen would know exactly who had done this, and exactly what it meant. Hunter would be coming for the heart of Belladonna Coven, sooner rather than later if Braen dared to attack a Willow witch or cross into their territory again. Even lurking at the edges of their property would be considered an act of war, and the Sentinel of Willow Coven would answer in kind.

  Whether he would heed the warning would be up to the Cleric.

  Once he began, Hunter wouldn’t quit until there was nothing more than ashes left of the two warlocks. As it was, he would have to dispose of Odessa’s body and seal the hole in the road. They could leave nothing that would attract attention from outsiders.

  Hunter cast a spell, kicking up two small dust devils out of the ashes of the dead warlocks. The ashes burst into beautiful red and gold flames, and then became feathers of two magical phoenixes. The birds flapped into flight with their long wingspans, their bright plumage gleaming like suns in the starlight. Their extra long tail feathers trailed elegantly behind them as they flew off slowly and majestically toward Pennsylvania and Belladonna House. Tomorrow, when the birds reached the house, they would seek out Braen as instructed and burst into flame before falling into piles of ash at his feet. Hunter rather liked the entire poetic bent of the idea. It would deliver his message quite nicely.

  It would also piss Braen off in a major way.

  Hunter’s eyes found Tatyana and he sighed when he realized it was over, and she was safe.

  He had done what he had been born to do.

  And it felt wonderful.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ryce laid Odessa’s body down on the floor of the basement. It was blasted out of the mountain rock and would provide an additional dense barrier besides the house and wards that would keep anyone from discovering her. This was crucial to the second part of Dimitre’s plan. The part both he and Hunter were now balking about, despite having been the ones to suggest it in the first place.

  “This is a bad idea. We should just send her body back to Braen along with the others. It’ll be enough of a warning—”

  “It will piss him off and you know it,” Ryce cut Hunter off. “He will bring the war here and he won’t care who sees it. Whether we win or lose we will be forced to leave this state and I will not lose my home because of that bastard.”

/>   “My sister is bleeding like a stuck pig, Ryce! She can’t do any more of this!”

  “She can, after she rests. Kaia will heal her of any damage caused by the magic paths.”

  “You know damn well that isn’t the problem. She made it through this time, but she could have a stroke the next,” Hunter railed as he paced sharply across the cement floor.

  “Not to mention her blood loss.”

  “We just got a supply of blood from the clinic. If she needs it, she can get it from Kaia. If we run out, Kaia can get more blood from you, Dimitre. Why are you two arguing with me? You know damn well we can’t turn back now. Odessa reeks of your brother, Hunter. If she isn’t his mistress, I will eat my spellbook. The Lady knows she’s certainly twisted enough to suit him. You heard what Tatyana said. They weren’t going to kill Kaia. They were going to kidnap her. They were going to serve her up to him like a concubine. Hasn’t he hurt enough of our women to suit you? You know he won’t be satisfied until he’s raped every last one of them, and that includes Tatyana. She’s the one that got away, and don’t you think for a minute that isn’t infuriating him. When he comes for her, and he will come for her”—Ryce bit out to the men who loved her—“he will see to it she pays for her escape. Most of all, Hunter, she will pay because she is yours. Why do you think he targeted her in the first place?”

  “All the more reason to keep her away from him!” Hunter practically roared. “She has no defenses! If he catches her—”

  “He won’t kill her. Not until he’s had his fun. That will give us the time we need. We’re doing it. This argument is over.”

  Ryce moved to leave the basement.

  “When did you become a goddamn dictator?” Hunter lunged for Ryce, but Dimitre plowed between the two men and shoved hard against his sister’s lover. He saw the fear behind Hunter’s rage, and he recognized it instantly. It was the fear of a man in love. One who was terrified of losing the object of that love.