Drosera’s smirk morphed into the biggest smile I’d seen on her. “We accomplished what had to be done.”
“Yeah you did,” I joked. “But seriously, I only saw the thing from a near-human perspective.” I’d had the blood shawl draped over me, and even if I hadn’t, I doubted my huldra would have sensed the rusalki near if they hadn’t wanted to show themselves. “Who all was there? Who held the scissors? And why now, before the attack?”
“We were all present,” she answered, a smile still pulling at her lips in a way that proved the sweetness of revenge. “Even our missing sisters who have recently rejoined our coven. To take care of old business, before taking care of new business, is our way. Clarisse was old business—a promise to be upheld.” She paused. “Azalea held the scissors, as was her right.”
“Ha!” I said, during a moment of feeling like maybe the world was a place of fairness, maybe those who’d done wrong did end up paying in the end. Clarisse had helped in the trafficking of countless human women, not to mention her role in my sister’s imprisonment and her murdering of Azalea. “I knew it!”
Drosera’s smile dropped and she peered toward the door. “I must leave.”
“Wait,” I said, partly because I wanted more information and partly because I didn’t want to be left alone. “I need to make sure the human women get out alive tomorrow, and I don’t know how to do that while I’m fighting. Can you tell that rogue Hunter to come to me tonight?”
“The rogues’ first priority is the human women, not the Wild Women,” Drosera reminded me. “Many do not care how our kind have been treated, only the human women.”
“But does it really matter if our end goal is met?” I asked. “I just want to make sure they’re on board to help the humans tomorrow.”
Drosera took a step closer to me. “They cannot know when we plan to attack, not the rogues who still live among their Hunter brothers. They may change their minds and alert their brotherhood. It is too risky.”
I considered the parameters I had to work within. “Okay, I won’t let him know. But I’d still like to talk to him tonight.”
“I guarantee nothing,” Drosera said, her image fading from existence until she was nothing more than a silhouette of light and then nothing at all.
Drosera guaranteed nothing, but she came through all the same. Thankfully, by the time the rogue Hunter who’d told me Marcus was well and fine unlocked my door and crept into my room, I’d cleaned up all the blood and already climbed under the covers. If the rusalki didn’t fully trust these rogue Hunters, I wouldn’t either, which meant he didn’t need to see my mutilated thigh, my lack of identification number and bloodstone addition. He didn’t need to know I now operated on full huldra capacity. And there was no way my raw, wounded thigh was ready to be covered by tight jeans. Even the sheets’ slight movements across my open skin caused my breath to hitch and my sore abs to tighten. Why couldn’t one of my abilities be to heal immediately?
The large, dark Hunter shut the bedroom door behind him with a muffled clink. “Rod said you needed to talk to me,” he stated without inflection of any kind.
This time, my dark room posed no hindrance in my seeing the man, the way he stood rigid and his blank facial expression. This time I could smell the rotten scent of his indignation for me and see how much he really didn’t want to be here—in my room or this Hunter complex. Was he even from North Carolina or had my band of Wild sisters displaced him from his home complex and brought him to this one? His voice lacked a southern accent.
So many questions whirled around my mind, but only a small percentage were safe to ask, and even then, I’d have to carefully choose my words.
“Thanks for coming,” I started, despite his obvious irritation by my presence. “I wanted to see if you knew much about the human women being held here.”
He shifted his weight from one leg to the other and stuck his hands into his pockets. “I do.”
“Is that why you were brought here?” I asked, hoping to reach a soft spot of his and use it to get information.
“It’s one reason,” he answered.
Ugh, this guy wasn’t giving me much to go on. He held onto his information like his life depended on it, which it kind of did.
“Is their safety a priority of yours?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Okay, good.” I slouched more in my bed, trying to use body language to draw the Hunter out of his tightly confined protective shell. My huldra couldn’t help but think of ways to lure him in. “And you know where they’re at, to get them out when the time arises? Are there others who feel the same way you do?”
“Why? Is there something coming I should know about and be prepared for?” he asked.
I kept from shaking my finger at him and letting him know he didn’t get to ignore my questions to ask his own. This would be a give and take or nothing at all. Seriously. You could take the Hunter out of the complex, but you couldn’t take the entitlement out of the Hunter.
Wait. No, that wasn’t right. We were still in the complex and Marcus had never displayed such a sense of entitlement.
I brushed aside the needless rabbit trails from my thoughts. Clearly, my mind needed a good rest.
“No, I’m not aware of anything coming you should know about. But you didn’t answer my questions,” I reminded.
He grumbled. “Of course there’s others who feel the same way I do. And yes, we know where they’re being held. It’s no secret.”
I thought to ask how the operation worked, who was in charge of the human trafficking part and when were the latest group of women supposed to be shipped out. Had they already found buyers? But I figured none of that mattered because they’d be free and telling the police everything tomorrow anyhow. At least I hoped. And plus, I doubted this Hunter would tell me anyway.
“Okay, thank you,” I said, laying down in the bed, signaling we were done.
He seemed more than happy to leave. But before he touched the doorknob, he turned and whispered. “If you’re planning anything for any time soon, I’d highly advise against it.” When I didn’t respond—even though everything in me wanted to—he went on. “They aren’t only using the human women to sell off to the highest bidder. And if you think you’ll succeed in taking on the beings in this complex, you’re wrong. You have no idea who and what they’ve got on their side. No idea.”
The Hunter left my room and locked my door behind him.
The sleep I’d planned to get to heal my mind and my thigh…it now seemed like nothing more than a ship tossed upon thrashing waves of worry and doubt. What had he meant? Which other beings, other than Hunters, humans, and Wild Women did they have locked up in this complex? I thought of the etchings on the cabin door where Shawna had been held at the Washington Hunter complex. Marcus had told me the door displayed an array of supernatural beings, many of which I’d never known existed.
I’d since met incubi, who’d been the love children of a succubus and a vampire long ago. Which led me to my next question, if incubi and vampires were real, what other folkloric monsters roamed the world? And which ones were in cahoots with the Hunters?
Twenty-Eight
The harpies’ large historical bootlegger house felt cramped with the number of Wild Women filling the spaces. Groups convened in the living room, the kitchen, the front room, and the dining area. They shared information and tactics and stories. Neither of the xana showed up, Conchita or Avera. I assumed they were already on a plane headed home to Spain, seeing as I wasn’t the long-lost child of Avera and therefore our battle against the Hunters failed to grab their attention.
I stood from the couch to stretch my legs. “I’ll be right back,” I told Shawna, who sat on the couch in the living room, listening to Drosera re-explain her latest conversation with Faline to their coterie. Shawna’s little white dog slept on her lap and only looked up when Shawna moved enough to give me a nod.
I appreciated Drosera filling us in, but I couldn’t listen
in a second time. I didn’t need the reminder of my inability to get to Faline right at this moment. I’d have to see her in the morning as I fought my way into the complex and she fought her way out. And on top of it all, knowing she’d cut up her thigh and they’d stuck a needle in her abdomen, I worried for her safety and strength. Would she be able to fight at the capacity necessary to get out alive?
But what bothered me the most, made me want to head down to the complex right now and bust through the doors, my dagger swinging, was what Drosera and her sisters felt in the complex when they’d visited to take Clarisse’s life. She’d said she hadn’t told Faline because they couldn’t be sure why they’d felt it. Something had been different, a new presence—one they’d never experienced before—in the complex entry earlier today, and its energy still lingered. An energy they believed wasn’t human, Hunter, or incubus and was incredibly male and aggressive. She’d mentioned it to the coterie and me, hoping I’d know what they may have felt. And I wished I had, but an aggressive non-human male with the energy similar to water and the scent of seaweed rang no recollection bells for me. It just pissed me off that I couldn’t get Faline tonight, that I had to wait for tomorrow, knowing other males roamed the halls outside her door.
Renee burst into the house, revealing the dark night outside. She slammed the door against the cold wind and slumped her bag and purse on the entry table. “Eonza has given birth to her baby girl,” she announced, her cheeks flushed and hair frizzy.
The house erupted in excitement as Wild Women made their way to Renee, squeezing through openings connecting rooms like bottlenecks, full of questions about the size and appearance of the new harpy baby.
Renee regaled them with details. “Or, I mean the egg. It was my first harpy birth, so I’m used to saying baby. The egg was much smaller than a newborn huldra baby, and came out a soft green, gorgeous.” She paused in thought. “I suppose that’s how they name their daughters, based on the color of their egg at birth, because they’d mentioned different stones of a similar color and tried those names on their tongues.” She laughed. The other Wild Women hung on her every word. “I didn’t hide my shock very well. They said once her egg cracks and she comes out, her feathers will be soft and fluffy and the color of her egg’s shell. Then her feathers will fall out and smooth skin will replace them all.” She sighed and made her way to the kitchen, finding a chair to rest her body. “So strangely amazing.”
A nagin woman gave Renee a glass of water. “When will Eonza be back to normal?”
Renee drank deeply before answering. “She’ll need to rest in the nest they’ve created. She and her sisters will take turns keeping the egg warm until the baby girl is strong enough to crack through the shell.”
“Will none of them fight with us tomorrow?” the nagin, Anwen, asked.
Renee sighed and leaned back in the wooden chair. “Their mother, Rose, is still at the complex. Eonza will stay behind with the egg while the others join the fight. Rose certainly has a gift to come home to.”
She finished her water. “And did you know Clarisse is dead? The Hunter’s woman? I heard it on the news while Eonza was in labor. The police found her body in the woods, from an anonymous tip. They’re still deeming her the leader of the human trafficking ring, so they’re theorizing the parent of a missing girl found and killed her, or maybe a deal went south with some foreign buyers.”
“The rusalki killed her,” I said. “But I’d bet my motorcycle the Hunters used her death to their advantage to make the cops think the whole human trafficking thing is over, ended with her.” I decided to add what I’d discussed earlier with her coterie and the rusalki while she’d been helping a laboring harpy. “I’m going to call the local police department, as well as the FBI and a few local and national television stations after we get to the complex. That way if there’s any Hunters among any one of those groups, they won’t have time to be notified of our plan. I’ll call, give them the location of the complex and some key information about the human trafficking, and hopefully by the time we’ve leveled the place, the truth will be out about these missing women.”
“The news people can’t show up when we are there,” an echidna said, her tone assertive and wary at the same time.
“None of us can be seen,” Anwen, a nagin, agreed.
“I know,” I assured them. “I plan on staying behind.”
Drosera and her sisters didn’t seem shocked, but the huldra coterie shook their heads. Yeah, I hadn’t mentioned that part in our earlier discussion. Shawna’s eyes fill with tears. She stood beside the kitchen table and held her dog tighter.
I hadn’t meant to let them know my plan, to stay after and make sure my brethren paid for their transgressions, to out the elusive leader in charge of all the American Hunters, and make sure he was brought to justice. But the random sharing moment helped to solidify my decision. Sometimes, speaking the words of the heart rather than the mind helped more than it hurt.
“I have to,” I told Shawna.
“What about Faline?” she asked. “She won’t agree to it.”
“She knows,” Drosera answered. The rusalki must have read my thoughts last time we’d talked about this. I wondered how Faline reacted when they told her.
Shawna shook her head. “There’s got to be another way.”
“I can’t think of one,” I said honestly. “If we want to know the Hunters are outed for good, stricken from their high places in government and law enforcement, unable to hurt you all ever again, I have to be the one to do it.”
I’d made the decision last night in the clearing, before I spoke to the rogue Hunters about their dedication to the cause, told them how they’d be tested and possibly change their minds when push came to shove, how they’d have to live with themselves long after they had washed their brothers’ blood from their hands. I’d said those things because I knew the heartache. I’d let my father go that day in Oregon, when I shouldn’t have. And Faline, my lover and friend and hopefully life partner, was a Wild Woman. If any ex-Hunter had enough inspiration to stand against his own father, it was me. And in a moment of weakness, I had fallen. I couldn’t ask another brother to stand strong, to not give in, when law enforcement came calling and wanted the names of his loved ones to indict. I had failed once. I would not fail again.
Twenty-Nine
The moment the heavy footfalls of boots reverberated along the stairs that led to the hallway outside my bedroom door, I started the process of getting out of bed. Sleep had been impossible, so I’d spent the night stretching my muscles, trying not to let my abs and thigh stiffen from inactivity due to soreness. Before the sun came up, I’d used a piece of torn bed sheet to wrap my thigh and keep it from leaking through, then pulled on my jeans.
Did my mother and Rose already remove their tattoos? Did they even have them? The Hunters hadn’t given Shawna one. Maybe they reserved that honor for the leaders of revolutions. That particular honor didn’t feel too wonderful as I hobbled around the bed, tidying it up enough to keep the Hunters or their women from noticing the missing strips of sheet and blood stains.
I quickly double-checked my hands to make sure I’d cleaned my blood from beneath my fingers well enough to keep from bringing suspicion upon myself.
I blamed my lack of sleep on night-before-battle jitters, but I couldn’t deny the other part of the equation—the return of my huldra abilities. As though someone had turned the volume up, noises I’d always just been used to became blaring irritants. What had once been simply white noise—floor boards creaking, wind in the trees, birds calling out warnings—had taken on a whole new threat while I lay in bed, wishing my leg would stop pulsating and morning would hurry up and come.
But now morning was here and so were the Hunters.
I had no choice but to go with them to the courtyard and meet my fate.
A woman entered my room first, one of the women who’d met me behind the white curtain yesterday before my procedure. She wore a different colore
d jean skirt today, a darker one, with a black top. In a twisted sort of way, I wondered if she unconsciously knew she’d be getting her own blood on her clothes today. Her eyes bounced around my room to find my shawl. She unfolded it and, without touching me, placed it over my shoulders to clasp around my neck. She was a master at not making eye contact, clearly someone who had years of eye aversion practice under her belt.
The bloodstone shawl weighed heavily across my shoulders, and I slumped lower without trying. I hated the thing, a piece of clothing that carried its own secret identity as a cage woven within its threads.
Two Hunters stood outside my door, which was cracked open, while the woman worked. She cleared her throat once she finished preparing me, and on cue the men entered to retrieve me. The woman scurried out and away, and my more merciful self hoped she had an appointment to get to or some reason to leave this property in the next twenty minutes or so.
For as secret as the rogue Hunter said my being here was, they sure did use a lot of Hunters to transport me. Since arriving here, I hadn’t seen one Hunter more than a couple times, other than the rogue guy and John. I breathed deeply and caught faint traces of a very non-Hunter scent. Damn, if it weren’t for the bloodstone shawl I’d probably be able to get a better idea of the odd smell. These particular Hunters had been near the sea recently, or had eaten sushi, because I picked up faint traces of salt water and seaweed.
The mermaids. I glanced up and down the hallway. Were there mermaids here, working with the Hunters, betraying us on a whole new level? They were probably talking to John, in his stupid temporary office, giving away all of our secrets and plans.
“Where’s John?” I asked, although the Hunter leader rarely escorted me to the courtyard. Still, the moment shit went sideways I hoped he’d be nearby for me to plunge my branches into. And if it came down to fighting my mermaid foes, I was game.
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