The Hunt

by Heather Killough-Walden

  When the dust settled after the fight with Phelan and the warlocks months ago, Malcolm had been faced with a dilemma. Charlie was far too vulnerable as a dormant; the sooner she made the transition to wolf, the better for them all. But at the same time, the act was a violent one by nature – there was biting involved. And no alpha wolf worth his salt was able to overcome the strength of the animal within himself once he’d tasted his mate’s blood. Malcolm wasn’t sure how much more “dominant male” Charlie could take after her ordeal at the hands of Gabriel Phelan and his minions.

  During the first few days of Charlie’s forced, second dormancy, Malcolm had nearly gone mad. He was sure she was innocent, but it seemed as though everything Charlie did, she did solely to taunt him. She was more lovely, more graceful, more tempting than she had ever been, and yet Malcolm had held back, uncertain. The last thing he wanted to do with the woman he loved was scare her or hurt her.

  He’d broken a door knob and a cast iron frying pan in his frustration.

  It wasn’t until the fourth day alone with her in their cabin that he realized Charlie had been doing it all on purpose. And only then did he realize it because she actually came out of the master bathroom wearing a Little Red Riding Hood costume that left little to the imagination.

  Malcolm had been floored. Charlie had grinned and leaned seductively against the doorframe.

  And two hours later, she was a made wolf once more.

  Charlie was a very strong woman – but even the strongest chains had a weak link somewhere. No one in her circle of friends wanted to inadvertently find hers.

  So, they made sure to keep the pressure of children off of her and allow her to bide her time. If she someday decided she wanted to become a mother, Malcolm was in for the long haul and they would face parenthood together and with open arms. If not, then they would still face the future together, and Malcolm knew damn well he was incredibly fortunate just to have Charlie.

  “It’s a good thing you make a disgustingly large amount of money,” Charlie teased him now, her ice blue eyes shimmering like an arctic sea. “Because I’m sure that the world’s first post-wedding bachelorette-slash-twin-baby shower is going to cost a pretty penny.” With that, she spun and raced up the wooden stairs to the second floor of the log cabin. Malcolm watched her go, marveling as ever at the way her shapely, long legs ate up the distance.

  From what he’d heard, Lucas Caige had a cabin somewhat similar to this one. It must have been something about werewolves that made them more inclined to surround themselves with felled trees than with steel beams.

  Malcolm turned away from the stairs and faced the floor to ceiling windows on one side of the room that looked out over the Northwest Coast beyond. It was a different sort of view than what he was used to; most of his homes were in New Mexico or Arizona. However, a lot of alphas had convened more or less along the West Coast due to its proximity to Council headquarters. Much had gone down over the last few months; the werewolf community as a whole had the urge to draw together and become closer.

  Malcolm was thinking about this when the phone rang for a second time that morning. He turned from the windows, made his way to the phone, and picked it up just as Charlie’s long legs once again took the stairs at a break neck speed, this time on their way down.

  “Who is it?” she asked excitedly. “Is it Lily? I knew she would call!”

  Malcolm was getting excited by proxy by the time she skidded to a breathless halt beside him and steadied herself with her hands on his bicep. The touch sent an electric thrill through him.

  He tried to hide his smile and placed the phone to his ear. “This is Cole.”

  “Cole, this is Graves.”

  Malcolm stilled and the anticipation he’d garnered over the last few minutes slipped away, as did the smile that had been gracing his lips, despite his efforts to hide it.

  Beside him, Charlie picked up on the change in his mood and moved in to try and listen. He let her. There was no point in keeping anything from her. She would find out on her own anyway.

  The man on the other end of the line was not one of the overseer’s assistants, as was usually the case, but the overseer himself. The overseer, Jesse Graves, was also Charlie’s guardian and a former sentinel. He’d been hand picked by the last overseer, Alexander Kavanagh – Charlie’s late grandfather.

  It was lucky for all of them that Kavanagh had been smart enough to put the request in his will, or Graves never would have taken the position. Cole might have had his own issues with the man in the past, but what had transpired between Graves and Charlie was water under the bridge – for the most part. And Cole would be the first to admit that Graves was the right man for the job. As long as you didn’t call him “overseer.” Or “sir.” Jesse Graves hated formalities.

  The fact that it was Graves calling him and not one of his assistants was ill-boding. Every alpha received a debriefing after the council met, and normally it was someone underneath the overseer who was sharing the information. The phone calls were standard practice these days, again, because the werewolf community was walking such a thin line and it was important for everyone to be up to date and on the same page. Fortunately, the meetings were only held when absolutely necessary. Werewolves weren’t big meeting people.

  Unfortunately, what that meant was that if the overseer’s assistants were calling you, a meeting had taken place because something in the community had either gone really right – or really wrong. Jesse Graves didn’t schedule meetings for good news. He just allowed the supernatural grapevine that existed in their community to work its magic and word spread of its own accord.

  It was only the bad news that made the phone ring.

  Malcolm listened as the Overseer filled him in on the situation. When Graves was done, Malcolm pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Just do me a favor, Graves,” he said softly. “Wait a day to tell Caige. He should be celebrating right now.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Trap Line”

  Nothing in the world made any sense to Kat any longer. Everything she’d thought she’d known about the universe had been turned on its ear; werewolves were not the only supernatural creatures on the planet, some sort of strange portal to another dimension existed within Muir Woods across the bridge from San Francisco – at least that was what she was going to call it because she didn’t actually know what the hell it was - and the demon she’d been trying to track and destroy for the last twenty years was gently carrying her out of the forest instead of killing her. In fact, he’d saved her life. And he claimed to have done so without the intent of torturing her for Hunter information.

  His body was hard and hot against her skin. It was impossible not to notice. And he smelled good… like sandalwood and aftershave and leather. She’d had to lay her head down against him; the poison she’d ingested had done a number on her system. She was so weak, it hurt to flex the muscles in her neck.

  But the moment she’d relaxed in the warm and tight embrace of his arms, she’d known that something was very, very wrong with her. She couldn’t possibly be feeling the things she was feeling about her father’s killer.

  Maybe it was the poison. Maybe there was some of it left inside of her, wreaking havoc on her senses and better judgment.

  Because he felt good. Really good. His arms held her firmly and confidently, and she could feel the strength behind them. If he’d wanted to, he could have twisted a man’s head off with his bare hands. But he was gentle with her; his fingers didn’t bite into her skin as she would have expected them to. Instead, she was able to nestle into the broad, thick plane of his chest like a cradled child. She felt warm there. She felt cared for. And against all reason, she felt safe.

  Within a few short minutes, the darkness was still and deep and all signs of the fire and turmoil that had existed at the estate they’d left were gone. The night was absolute here; they were in the middle of what appeared to be state park property. A
ll around them were the redwoods of Muir Woods. From what Kat could wager, the vast, burning property had been shielded by magic, its portal hidden somewhere within the park around them, and she and the wolf were now out of its range.

  Here, the sky was clear, the night was cool, and the only sounds she could make out were the rare song of a cricket, the rustling of branches overhead, and the footfalls of the wolf who held her tight.

  Within a few minutes, they reached a road and Katherine recognized it as a service road; it had been created for park rangers and was too narrow for a full sized vehicle’s tires. The werewolf gently set Katherine down on the curb and kept his arms around her while she tested the strength of her legs.

  “I’m fine,” she said simply, desperately wanting him to let her go. His arms were too real and secure around her, and her stomach was beginning to feel squirmy.

  The wolf hesitated a moment and she looked up, meeting his gaze. It was the wrong thing to do.

  Storms, she thought as his eyes took on the cast of the skies over the Pacific just before a hurricane. His blue-black hair was moon-lit and its thick waves framed the angelic angles of his face to a kind of perfection that made her ache inside. She was lost in him in that moment; his beauty was arresting in the most literal sense. She was frozen before him, caught not only in his strong embrace but in the magnetism of his incredible aura.

  “You sure about that?” he asked softly, the edges of his lips curling up slightly. He’d clearly caught her hesitation and was well aware of her attraction to him.

  Kat felt her face heat up, and it pissed her off. He pissed her off. He had no right to be having this kind of an effect upon her. Evil should be ugly. Where the hell did it get off being tempting instead?

  Kat gritted her teeth, jerked out of his embrace, and took a step away from him. She was impressed with herself. Anger was fueling her strength. “Yes,” she repeated through her teeth.

  For the briefest of moments, it actually looked as though the werewolf wanted to reach out and pull her back into his arms. But the impression was quickly gone, and Katherine wondered if she’d imagined it.

  “What is your name?” she asked him, wanting to know it for so many reasons.

  The werewolf considered her for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he straightened and the sheer height of him seemed at once overwhelming. There were some men who were boys – and there were some men who were men. This one was a man, pure and simple.

  “Byron,” he said. “Byron Caige.”

  Byron, Katherine thought. Like Lord Byron. She’d had a crush on the enigmatic poet when she was in high school. Those had been difficult years for her and she’d buried herself in books to escape the reality that was life…. Until the Hunters had come along.

  “Do you have any money?” Byron asked, his deep accented voice slicing through her memories and grounding her to the spot before him.

  Katherine shot him a wary glance. “Why?”

  “Because, for all intents and purposes, I’m an escape prisoner and have none on me. We need to get a ride into town and then a hotel once we get there.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she ground out, suddenly highly irritated by the way he obviously assumed he was in charge of the situation.

  Byron’s brow raised. He looked entirely too good doing it. “Oh?” he asked softly. “You’ve already come this far with me.” Katherine’s gaze narrowed. “You gave me no choice.” “And what makes you think that’s going to change?” he asked. Katherine glared at him for several more seconds, and then, at a frustrating loss for any kind of come-back, she looked away. “This road won’t take us into town,” she told him as she turned to gaze down the small ranger path to the darkness in the distance. “It’s not really a road. It’s just used by people who work in the park.”

  She turned back around to find Caige watching her with stark intensity.

  “What?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious despite the absurdity of the idea.

  Byron blinked and frowned. “Nothing,” he said. And then his eyes softened, the cold metal gray melting to liquid mercury. “You have beautiful hair, Katherine.”

  Katherine’s eyes widened. He was complimenting her? She felt glued to the spot as he took a step toward her, closing the distance that she had put between them seconds before.

  “It begs to be touched,” he continued softly, his expression one of honest fascination. Touched? she thought, feeling her mouth go dry. “When was the last time you let a man run his hands through it?”

  Kat inhaled sharply, almost choking on the lump that lodged itself stubbornly in her throat. He reached out and she stumbled back, the heel of her boot catching on the lip of the paved road. She began to fall, but before she’d even fully digested the fact that she was falling, Byron reached out and caught her.

  He moved so fast, his hand and arm literally blurred before his fingers were closing around her upper arm and he was steadying her once more on her feet. A dichotomy of emotions whizzed through her in that moment. He was so close and he’d just saved her and he smelled so good. He was uncommonly tall and handsome, and she was utterly and insanely stupid, but she was attracted to him.

  And he was a wolf. His speed was a vicious and hard reminder, a hot knife that sliced through the butter her will had become around him.

  Katherine felt reality’s blade slice along her spine and she straightened in Byron’s grip. Then, with the slow and cold deliberation of renewed hatred, she gently pried his fingers off of her with a few of her own. “Thank you,” she said icily. “But please don’t touch me again.”

  *****

  Byron watched the change come over her and knew right away that the night was only going to get longer, not easier. She was still wrapped in the inkiness of twenty years of pent-up sadness, confusion and wrath. He’d been a fool to believe he could dispel it in less than an hour.

  He lowered his hand and considered their next course of action. “Since you obviously know your way through these woods, I suggest you lead. I’ll follow,” he told her. “Take us to the main road and I’ll thumb down a ride.”

  Katherine looked at him incredulously. “You want me to hike two miles through the woods with you staring at my butt and then let you take me on some hitchhiking trip to God only knows where?” She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “And then what?”

  “And then we use your money to get a hotel room and rest for the night.”

  Katherine’s eyes widened and it looked as though she would have laughed if she’d had the extra energy. “Is that so! You want me to pay for a room that we will share? Me and you? A Hunter and the wolf who killed her father?”

  “I didn’t kill your father, Katherine. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. And yes,” he said, trying his best to keep what little patience remained within his tall frame, “I expect you to use the money the Hunter organization no doubt gave you to buy us a room for the night so that we can regain our strength and – yes – we will be together in that room. You,” he said slowly and pointedly, “and me.”

  “You’re out of your fucking mind.”

  Byron’s brow raised. This one really had some fire in her. He liked it. “I didn’t realize that ladies said such things,” he taunted.

  “I never claimed to be a lady,” she retorted quickly.

  “Then at least I know you’re not a killer and a liar,” he shot back.

  “No, that would be you.”

  Byron stilled. He had to admit that she’d gained the upper hand on that one. She had a very quick mind. She believed in a terrible fallacy and it was going to cause them both a lot of trouble, but he had to admire how rapidly her brain worked. He’d always liked smart women. In the sixties, before he’d been taken, it hadn’t exactly been in fashion for women to reveal how very much they actually, but he’d admired any woman brave enough to do so nonetheless.

  He wondered suddenly how much
had changed since his “incarceration.” The last time he’d escaped, he’d been subjected to the change in transportation and mode of dress. Women had gone from wearing poodle skirts and bobby socks to draping themselves in grungy looking army pants, combat boots or scuffed sneakers, and open plaid shirts over white tees. Their hair had taken a more natural turn; no longer hair sprayed into tall designs, it was left loose over the shoulders.

  He’d only had a few hours of freedom, but he’d taken in as much as possible. The cars, the trucks, the overall growth across San Francisco that Byron guessed reflected a growth around the world overall. He wondered how things were looking in Brisbane, where he’d grown up.

  “Let’s get going,” he told her, gesturing pointedly toward the road behind her. “I don’t know whether you had anything to do with the chaos at Lord Wraythe’s mansion, but his daughter is dead and his estate is destroyed and I can promise you it won’t be long before he goes looking for revenge. So the sooner we put distance between ourselves and him, the better.”

  Katherine watched him warily for a moment and he wondered again what she was thinking. For a second, she seemed to be a little confused. And he had to wonder just how much a part she’d played in the maelstrom of death that had resulted in his escape. She may have been a Hunter, but she was only one, and she was human.

  Now that he considered it, there was no way she’d acted alone.

  “Fine, but you walk where I can see you,” she told him. She sounded sulky when she said it, as if she knew how useless a request it was. Not only could he have done anything he wanted to her, whether she could see him do it or not, she knew damn well that if he’d wanted to harm her, he wouldn’t have saved her life in the first place.

  “I’ve got no problem with that,” he said.

  They started off down the paved path and the night and its silence closed in around them.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Holed-Up”