The Hunt

by Heather Killough-Walden

  “If you’re going to kill me, then please just do it.”

  The warlock king raised a brow. “But you came here to make a deal with me, little Katherine. Are you not interested in hearing what I have to offer?”

  Kat hesitated. Her heart hammered painfully. Her mouth was completely dry.

  Wraythe obviously took her silence for interest, because he dropped his hand and his gaze slid down Katherine’s body. Slowly. “I’ll tell you what, Huntress,” he began, his tone like ice. “You give me that which Byron Caige took away from me and I will let him live.”

  Kat didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. The lecherous look in his piercing eyes was enough to tell her. He wanted another child. And he wanted Katherine to give it to him.

  Bile rose in her throat and she turned quickly, covering her mouth with one hand. But once more, she managed to get past the threatening sickness and instead doubled over a bit. It was strange what love brought out in people. Under normal circumstances, say in a subway or a train station, she would have honestly given the warlock king the time of day. He was not an ugly man; he had striking eyes.

  But he’d killed her father. And that made him the most loathsome creature on Earth to Katherine. And at that moment, the thought of anyone but Byron touching her literally made her sick.

  Still, she would do it. She knew she would. She would give herself to the one she absolutely hated if it meant that Byron could live, would be free, and that he would be with his brother.

  Kat swore internally as her insides churned. She was in love with Byron Caige.

  The warlock king gave her room, taking a step back. “Give me your answer, Huntress. I tire of this conversation.”

  Kat swallowed repeatedly and closed her watering eyes. Now she had an idea of what Byron must have gone through for the last fifty years of his life. Somehow she managed a shaky breath, sucking in enough air to say, “That wasn’t the deal, Wraythe. You have to undo the curse your ancestor put on the werewolf race.”

  The warlock king surprised her by laughing. It was a deep, mirthless chuckle. “Ah, the ultimate sacrifice. Death for sex.”

  Kat looked up at him and straightened a little, using one shaky hand to shove a mass of blonde hair out of her face.

  “Yes, of course,” the king said dismissively. “I have no reason to live any longer anyway. And once I’m assured that my legacy will live on, I can die a happy man.”

  Kat stared at him in mild shock. It would be insane to simply believe him – but believe him, she did. It was in his eyes. He was telling the truth. Not about the happiness, but about the dying part.

  There was a hollowness to the man that only belonged to the hopeless. It belonged solely to those who had given up. She’d seen it in mug shots, in video clips of people before they’d committed suicide, and even in the eyes of some of the Hunters’ trainees. Malachi Wraythe was a warlock who had lost everything.

  Kat gritted her teeth and tried to take a deep breath. It was hard. She could feel her gaze begin to glow as she straightened fully, rolled back her shoulders, and looked Wraythe in the eyes. “Then it’s a deal.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “The Rut”

  “Where is the seer?” Lalura asked, stepping back from the werewolf council’s private scrying pool and searching the room with her clear, ocean blue eyes.

  The woman Byron remembered as Lily – the golden one, he’d thought upon meeting her – stepped forward, her face a tad pale. Byron reasoned that it was probably that Lily Kane was a touch self-conscious in front of the woman she knew to be the oldest and probably wisest member of Dannai’s coven. “I’m here,” Lily said.

  The seer moved forward and peeked down into the pool, which Byron could tell, even from where he stood, still held nothing but a faint gray mist. Lily couldn’t hide her stark disappointment as she turned away from the pool and faced the old woman.

  Lalura pinned her with a hard blue gaze. “She spoke with you before she left, did she not?” Lalura asked.

  “Yes,” Lily admitted. “I don’t normally share what people tell me in confidence, but I thought that in this case, it was important. I’ve already told Jesse everything we said.”

  “I know, dear,” Lalura said, patting Lily’s hand with a patience that said she was pretty sure she was dealing with a numbskull of a child. “I only bring it up because if you were the last one to speak with her, you have the strongest connection to her as far as time and all of its irritating quantum-physical aspects are concerned.”

  Lily blinked. And so did half of the people in the room. “Okay,” Lily said. “What do you need me to do?”

  “That’s a good girl,” Lalura said, nodding sagely and again patting Lily’s hand. “Come here and place your palm over the water.”

  Lily did as she was instructed and Byron felt his fists clench. He had run out of patience half an hour ago – ten minutes after they’d discovered that Katherine was missing. Now he was just about going insane. However, he knew damn well that the Overseer had placed the guard on him. Did they really think they could hide the fact that they were watching him like that? And what was more, even if he did leave, Byron didn’t know where to go.

  It wouldn’t do anyone any good for him to dash head-long out of council headquarters with absolutely no idea where Katherine was and with half of the supernatural world wanting him dead. He couldn’t even follow Kat’s scent. They’d lost it at the road half a mile from here, so she’d obviously caught a ride somewhere. They had nothing to go on.

  Nothing but this.

  So, he sat tight. Or, he stood tight anyway. Like a tall, dark, glowering rod of barely kept lightning dressed in Armani.

  “Good, now keep right there until I tell you to move.” Lalura moved to the other side of the scrying pool and reached up so that both of her palms were on either side of Lily’s hand. Then she nodded at Dannai, who joined her as the third woman at the pool. Seeing them there like that, Byron was reminded of Shakespeare’s three witches. He was also struck with a realization.

  Fate had attempted to take power from the women of his society four thousand years ago. And yet, the women seemed to be so inherently strong, so basically magical, they found a way to evolve and let their power show anyway. Some of the most powerful members of the werewolf community were apparently women. He’d learned a lot in the few hours that he’d been back amongst his kind. And if he hadn’t been worried sick and ready to barrel through ten enforcers so that he could crash through the windows and do something, then he was pretty sure it would be blowing his mind.

  Dannai and Lalura began to chant. In front of them, the water inside of the large stone bowl began to glow. Lily shifted nervously and then gazed into the water with wide, golden eyes as all five of their hands lit up with magic.

  And then Lily went still and her eyes began to glow as well.

  To Byron’s left, Daniel Kane grew nervous. Byron could feel the sudden tension rolling off of the alpha werewolf who also happened to be the Chief of Police of Baton Rouge. He was worried about his mate.

  Byron couldn’t blame him. Lily Kane had gone utterly motionless – as if she were a living statue. Lalura didn’t look worried, though. She glanced up at Lily, nodded in satisfaction, and then removed her hands from above the pool. Dannai did the same.

  Only Lily’s hand remained – and the water within the pool began to swirl and shift until an image took shape.

  Byron couldn’t help himself. He strode forward, his strong hands gripping the edge of the stone bowl of the viewing pool as he bent and peered inside.

  What he saw there made his tainted blood run cold.

  *****

  “Glad to hear it,” Malachi said, smiling a nasty smile as he suddenly reached out for Katherine and grabbed her by the shoulder. He spoke a word of magic and before she could inhale for a scream, Kat was being dragged through a rip in the fabric of space and time.

  They came
out the other end, she stumbling, he holding her up with his strong grip on the collar of her jacket. Katherine straightened, sucking in air, and frantically looked around.

  They were standing in a lobby. Dust and grime covered the tiles and the doors and windows were boarded up, but Kat would have recognized this room in any condition. Shafts of light that slotted through nail holes and cracks in the boards illuminated dust moats floating in the air. All along the walls were rows of metal mailboxes. Some of them hung open and empty, others remained shut tight.

  It was the lobby in the apartment she and her father had shared twenty years ago. It was the room where her father died.

  “So where was it, little Huntress?” Malachi asked, roughly jerking her around until she spun in his embrace. He yanked her up against him, her back pressed to his chest, and then he bent and hissed in her ear. “Show me the spot where you found daddy dying in a pool of his own blood.”

  Katherine felt the world drop out from under her. She was floating, groundless and insubstantial, held aloft on a cloud of misery and memory. She couldn’t help it when her eyes found the exact spot Wraythe spoke of. They zeroed in on it as if she were a child again and she’d just come sailing around the corner.

  The tiles were dusty and chipped, but there was no horrible blood stain, no sign that read “Here, was something lost,” no evidence of the tragedy that had taken place there at all whatsoever. It was cruel and unfair.

  “Ah,” said Malachi. “So that’s where it was.”

  Kat cried out as he gripped her arm painfully and dragged her toward the spot she was staring at. A strange keening sound had started up around them and only peripherally did Katherine realize that she was making it herself.

  Like lightning, Wraythe turned on her, grabbed her by the throat, and took her to the ground. She went down backwards and would have landed hard on her back if it weren’t for the grip the warlock king maintained on her neck. Her hands were wrapped around his arm reflexively. She stared up at him, shriveling inside. She wanted to fight, to run, to lash out and kill him or probably die trying, but some small, horribly stubborn part of her kept her from doing any of those things. It was the part of her that had whispered it loved Byron Caige. It was the part of her that wanted to save his life – and the people he cared for.

  Even if it meant this.

  Wraythe released her throat and moved over her, quickly taking her wrists in his hands and pressing them into the ground. The ground where her father had died two decades ago.

  Nausea overwhelmed Katherine and she turned her head, certain she would choke on it this time. Wraythe’s grip on her arms tightened and she felt his fingers brush the insides of her wrists.

  The nausea instantly receded.

  “I can’t have you getting messy on me,” said Wraythe. “So you want to pay for Caige’s sins?” he asked through her confusion. “You can start by feeling what he felt for the last fifty years.”

  Kat gasped as Wraythe shoved both of her wrists into one of his hands and wrapped his fingers around the top of her shirt. His fingernails gouged furrows into her skin as he did. Then, with one vicious tug, the material tore, eliciting a cry of pain from deep within Kat’s throat as the material dug into her flesh and broke the skin.

  Through blurred vision, she caught flashes of her attacker, his angry, hate-filled eyes, his bared teeth, the coldness in his all-but-dead expression. This is what it looks like, she thought numbly – faintly. This is what hate looks like. This is revenge. It’s hideous.

  “Did you know, little Huntress,” Wraythe said as his hand roughly ran along her exposed skin, “that a warlock can make a person feel whatever he wants her to feel just by touching her?”

  Kat heard herself sob when he moved over her rib cage to cup one of her breasts. Viciously, he squeezed and she screamed in pain again. “For instance, right now, I’m betting this hurts,” he hissed. And then he laughed harshly and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “But I can make you like it.”

  “No!” Something snapped inside of Katherine and the will of Kat’s body surpassed her mind’s in that moment. Deal or no deal, werewolves or no werewolves, it simply couldn’t take any more of his abuse. With a show of werewolf strength she hadn’t fully realized she possessed, Kat jerked her hands out of his grip, her strength no doubt surprising him. But Wraythe’s free hand was still pressed into her torso and in the next split second, a wave of orgasmic pleasure rolled through her, crackling through her mind and blotting out the room.

  She cried out under the power of it, her body bucking beneath his. It was a hard, angry orgasm, the kind that was all take and no give and it squeezed through her again and again, bringing tears to her eyes.

  “That’s more like it,” Wraythe said, taking hold of her wrists again, and this time pinning them with all of his weight. “But there’s more.”

  “Not for you there isn’t,” came a deep, unearthly growl. Somewhere not too far away, thunder rolled across the sky.

  Wraythe spun, but not fast enough. Kat caught the blur of movement above her, heard a painful sound, and then rolled over onto her side to block it all out. With shaking fingers, she pulled her jacket closed over the remains of her shirt and buttoned it once to cover her exposed, bleeding, and bruised body.

  *****

  There wasn’t enough pain in the universe for Malachi Wraythe to endure in that moment. Byron could have killed him a thousand times and it wouldn’t have been enough.

  His claws bit through the man’s clothes and into his flesh as he hauled the warlock king off of his mate and spun with him, intent on slamming the man’s body straight through the plaster and stone of the wall and into the next room.

  Byron had in his hands the man responsible for the misery he’d lived for the last half of the twentieth century. He could have been thinking several different things at that moment. Wraythe was the one who kidnapped him. Wraythe took his brother from him.

  But all Byron could really see Wraythe as just then was the evil son of a bitch who had hurt his mate. And all he wanted to do was make sure the bastard never – ever – hurt her or anyone else again.

  Malachi Wraythe wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Before Byron was able to get him up against the wall, the warlock king vanished, slipping from his grip like so much thin air.

  Byron spun to face the dank, musty darkness of the deserted lobby once more. He hadn’t come alone. Lucas was there, of course, and despite the fact that Lucas had bold-faced told her “no,” his new wife Dannai had insisted on coming in case Katherine needed healing. Daniel Kane was there, Malcolm Cole and his mate Charlie were there. And Jesse Graves had come as well. In the vision, they’d seen the warlock king alone with Katherine, so their sheer number was probably unnecessary.

  But no one was in the mood to take chances.

  Across the room, Lucas saw Byron turn around empty handed, and his expression hardened into a mask of wary wrath. He was kneeling beside Dannai, who was on the ground with Katherine, both her hand and Kat’s body glowing.

  Byron didn’t even want to think about what damage Wraythe had managed to inflict before their arrival. Whatever it was – Dannai was healing it. But before he could do more than take in the scene, the warlock king reappeared, this time directly behind the Healer.

  Lightning split the sky outside, casting the room into stark relief for a split second before thunder boomed all around them.

  In one swift move, Wraythe knelt, grabbed the pregnant woman by the back of her collar, and yanked her to her feet, enveloping her in his strong arms. The next thing he did was cover her mouth with his hand. A magic user unable to speak was very often powerless.

  A thrum of fear coursed through Byron as he watched his brother’s mate being held by the man who had been so violent with his own. His gaze slid from Wraythe’s eyes – to Dannai’s stomach.

  Another flash of lightning, so close this time, Byron could feel the electricity in the air.
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  Lucas stood frozen to the spot, either unable or unwilling to move toward his wife and the demon who’d grabbed her. His fists were clenched at his sides, his tall body radiated malign intent. His dark eyes were glowing red like a vampire’s.

  Byron realized that Lucas didn’t want to try to attack Wraythe – not while he was holding something so precious. All it would take was the slightest incantation, one evil word of dark magic, and not only Dannai could be harmed, but their twins might be as well.

  Byron had never felt so helpless in his life. Fifty years, he’d been a prisoner, going from chains to ropes to bindings of a more malignant and mental kind. And he’d never felt as utterly out of control as he did in that moment.

  Especially when Wraythe said, “It’s over Caige,” as he looked down a the woman in his arms. Whether he was talking to Byron or his brother, he couldn’t tell. “I’ve finished with the lot of you. But before I go – a token of remembrance.” He slid his hand down Dannai’s body to her abdomen and Byron felt his heart turn to ice.

  Suddenly, there was a flurry of incredible movement, nearly blurred with speed, and Katherine, who had been laying on the ground on her side seemingly resting under the aftermaths of Dannai’s healing, proved she had actually been doing no such thing. Byron’s chest swelled with a warm sensation as Kat slid beneath Wraythe and her leg shot up in a kick so fast, so strong, and aimed so well, he was surprised the warlock king was still conscious.

  Wraythe doubled over in obvious agony, all thoughts of causing others harm temporarily flung from his mind. Dannai spun in Wraythe’s now loosened embrace and pressed her hand to his chest, muttering a word of incantation. There was a blast and Wraythe shot backward as if he’d been punched by a wrecking ball. A second later, his body slammed with tremendous force into the opposite wall, and the plaster and wood behind him cracked and crumbled under the pressure.

  Wraythe hit the ground, slipping to one knee. When he looked back up at Byron and the others, his hazel eyes looked strange. It was as if they reflected the light, a set of iridescent mirrors lit from within.