by Kay Hooper
He wanted to see her.
And he did, but not as he wanted to.
Two more Huntmen rushed him, carrying him off his feet in the strength of their coming. He rolled, gaining his feet again just in time to dodge a lethal slash of a knife. A booted kick sent one sprawling, leaving the other to close with Hunter in a murderous struggle.
And Siri was there, leaping at the fallen one, a single heartbeat too slow to keep him down permanently. Her black warrior eyes were flashing their warning of death, her slender strength a lethal force.
Hunter could no more keep his eyes off her than he could voluntarily stop breathing, but the sight of her spurred his own strength rather than distracted from it. He kicked the feet from beneath his adversary, drawing the knife he’d had no time to reach for until now and thrusting it home in a single merciless blow. He saw Siri struggling with her opponent on the ground, his knife scant inches from her throat. Then, with a surge of inhuman strength, her own knife found its target.
And it was while she was in that vulnerable position that Boran, master tactician, chose to strike. He was there instantly, kicking Siri’s knife from her hand even as he dragged her away from her fallen victim. He pinned her arms, his knee pressed hard into the small of her back, arching her slender body. His knife was at her throat.
Even beyond his fear for Siri, Hunter felt his flesh prickle with a different kind of horror, an unearthly chill. Boran’s neck had been broken in their earlier battle, and his head rested on one hunched shoulder; it lolled with his every movement, a thing apart from the body that no longer supported it. His once-good eye was seared, a blackened pit in the angelic side of his face. And Hunter saw the amulet then, glowing green as the blinded eye had once done, as if Boran’s sight and all his power inhabited crystal rather than flesh.
Hunter knew Boran was blind, his eyes useless. But he was also aware that Boran could, somehow, see, because he could feel the inimical shaft of that vision—from the amulet.
“Boran—”
“Fetch the talisman, or I’ll cut her throat!”
“The talisman? What are you talking about?”
“The ring, goddamn you! I was your childhood’s shadow, remember? I saw Caprice give the ring to you. The ring that should have been mine. I was firstborn. With that talisman I’ll be invincible!”
Hunter tried to think. “The ring has nothing to do with rulership, Boran.”
“Give me the talisman or I’ll cut her throat!”
“Don’t, Hunter.” Siri’s voice was steady. “He’ll kill me anyway. You know that.”
Boran chuckled. “Don’t you trust my word, princess?”
He leaned forward as he spoke, and Siri saw the pulsating green shimmer of the amulet as it swung outward past her cheek. His power. The amulet was alive with his power.
Ignoring his taunt, she tried to gain the time she needed to gather her own mental energies. “You should be dead. Even the Unicorns thought you were dead.”
“Because that’s what I wanted them to think,” Boran told her, then added in a chillingly conversational tone, “Hunter, if you move again, I’ll kill her.”
Hunter, who had barely shifted toward them, went still.
In the same conversational tone, Boran went on, explaining his resurrection. “You blinded me, of course, and Hunter tried to kill me. But neither of you knew how powerful I was even then. The amulet saved me. It even gave me back my sight.”
She had to aim all her energies toward his sight again, Siri realized. But this time her target was a crystal amulet. She needed time. “But how did you—”
“I want the talisman,” Boran snapped to Hunter. “Now!”
“Let her go,” Hunter demanded.
“Give me the talisman,” Boran said, “and I will.” On the insanely lolling head, slack lips twisted in a hideous smile. And, slowly, his head rolled to rest on the opposite shoulder until Hunter could see only the blackened, pitted side of his face.
Hunter reached to free the talisman from his tunic. He knew Boran wouldn’t let Siri go, but a glance at her inward-turned eyes told him she was preparing herself for some attempt, and he wanted to give her that chance.
Boran stiffened visibly, and the amulet seemed to glow with increased brightness. “Throw it to me!” he ordered.
Hunter drew the necklace over his head and tossed it. He thought Siri might try to escape as Boran reached for the necklace, but she lay pinned, his knee at her back and the knife at her throat.
Instantly Boran slipped the necklace over his head, allowing the ring to lie alongside the amulet. And he didn’t seem to notice, as Hunter did, that the talisman barely touched the amulet before sliding away from it jerkily, as though physically repelled.
“Let her go, Boran.”
Boran laughed. “Fool! Do you think I don’t know your seed took root in her belly? I won’t allow your bastard to steal my throne!” He caught his breath in a horrible chortling laugh. “I’ll cut it out of her belly, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll cut it out, and then she can be all mine—”
The brutal threat caught the last tendrils of Siri’s focusing energies and fused them into a desperate thrust outward, aimed at the amulet she couldn’t even see.
Boran cried out and fell backward away from her to lie writhing on the ground. The amulet at his throat was darkened, but dim flashes of green fire webbed outward from the center.
Siri turned as Hunter lunged past her. Yanking the amulet from Boran’s neck, snapping the chain, he threw it to the ground. It was Siri who found a large stone and carried it to her husband, both of them realizing, finally, what they had to do to destroy this evil.
The stone crashed down on the dimly glowing amulet, shattering it into shards of lifeless crystal.
Boran twitched once and lay still.
—
Then, in a moment out of time, Maya stepped from the glade. And at her side—
Twins.
They were gleaming gold, from tiny muzzles to minute hooves, long-legged and unsteady. Deep golden eyes, bewildered and afraid, looked on their first glimpse of a world outside their birth-glade.
The golden birth.
Epilogue
Fall.
She sat alone in the library, an old woman with old eyes, carefully transferring the last of the books to their most compact form. Satisfied, she gazed on the neat packages, nodding to herself. Yes, they would fit into his ship. And there would be no difficulty in reprinting the books on Rubicon.
Everything was ready.
“Maggie?”
Maggie O’Shea turned and looked at them with a smile, a tall, handsome prince and the beautiful Keeper at his side.
“Maggie,” said Hunter softly, “there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Smiling, her ancient eyes glowing, Maggie said, “I’ve been waiting. I’ve been waiting such a long time.”
To my agent, Eileen Fallon, and my editor, Carolyn Nichols, for making this book possible.
BY KAY HOOPER
The Bishop Trilogies
Stealing Shadows
Hiding in the Shadows
Out of the Shadows
Touching Evil
Whisper of Evil
Sense of Evil
Hunting Fear
Chill of Fear
Sleeping with Fear
Blood Dreams
Blood Sins
Blood Ties
The Quinn Novels
Once a Thief
Always a Thief
Romantic Suspense
The Haunting of Josie
Amanda
After Caroline
Finding Laura
Haunting Rachel
Classic Fantasy and Romance
On Wings of Magic
C.J.’s Fate
Something Different
Pepper’s Way
If There Be Dragons
Illegal Possession
Rebel Waltz
Larger than Life
Time after Time
In Serena’s Web
Raven on the Wing
Rafferty’s Wife
Zach’s Law
The Fall of Lucas Kendrick
Unmasking Kelsey
Outlaw Derek
Shades of Gray
Captain’s Paradise
It Takes a Thief
Aces High
Golden Threads
The Glass Shoe
What Dreams May Come
Through the Looking Glass
The Lady and the Lion
Star-Crossed Lovers
The Wizard of Seattle
The Delaney Christmas Carol
Rafe, the Maverick
Adelaide, the Enchantress
Velvet Lightning
Golden Flames
Summer of the Unicorn
The Matchmaker
PHOTO: © SIGRID ESTRADA
KAY HOOPER is the award-winning author of Sleeping with Fear, Hunting Fear, Chill of Fear, Touching Evil, Whisper of Evil, Sense of Evil, Once a Thief, Always a Thief, the Shadows trilogy, and other novels. She lives in North Carolina, where she is at work on her next book.
Kayhooper.com
Facebook.com/BishopPage
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