The Gathering

by Jennifer Ashley

  “It must be this way, Leda.”

  She shook her head, folding her arms tightly to shut him out. “Tell you what, I will give you that phone number. You go find your brothers, and I’ll feel free to do as I please. Whether that means searching for a home for Mukasa or going back with Samantha and helping her—it will be none of your business.”

  “Why does Mukasa need a home?” Hunter asked. “His home is here.”

  Leda made a noise of exasperation. “Look, this isn’t some haven where you can keep me and your animal friends penned up for your convenience. We had lives before you got here, and we’ll keep living our lives when you leave. Me, Mukasa, Taro, Samantha . . . whoever.”

  She whirled around, not waiting for his response, and stamped through the sand toward the house.

  Samantha looked up from drying the dishes when Leda slammed inside. She’d washed them by hand even though Leda had a dishwasher—maybe it was therapeutic for her. “Everything all right?” she asked.

  “Immortals.” Leda ground her teeth. “They should be called Insufferables.”

  Samantha glanced outside the open door, the wariness in her eyes whenever she looked at Hunter still there. “Be careful with him, Leda. He’s dangerous.”

  “Right now, I’m feeling a little dangerous.”

  “Seriously.” Samantha shook out the towel and hung it up. “I see the way you look at him, and he’s cute, but he’s not here, if you know what I mean. The Immortals, from what the Coven told me, are ancient. They don’t look at the world like we do. I’ve seen a lot in my job—when I deal with an Old One, it’s terrifying. Doesn’t matter to them that I’m half demon. They don’t live by the same rules, because they’ve watched rules come and go, and they’re still standing.”

  “I know.” Leda’s hands clenched; her emotions wouldn’t settle down. “He makes me so mad, but I know I’d never best him in a fight, especially not a magical one. He erased my air wards like they were nothing.”

  And then he’d smiled at her, kissed her, and freed her.

  “Damn it,” Leda whispered, and went to find her cell phone.

  Hunter didn’t come back to the house. Leda showered from the hot walk up the cliffs, then Samantha did, then they made up a bed for Samantha on the sofa.

  “Tell me about your mother,” Leda said as they shook out the sheets. “I’ll need as much information as I can to do a locator spell.”

  Samantha concentrated on laying down a sheet and smoothing it, not looking at Leda. “I grew up human. My mom and I were always close, though she never liked to talk about the demon who’d sired me. Whenever I brought up the subject, she’d change it. I was lucky, though. She could have abandoned me, knowing what I was, but she didn’t. She loves me for me, not my origins. She’s a very smart and skilled witch, and she worked her ass off for me.”

  Samantha’s tone was proud and fierce. Leda acknowledged her with a nod. “What happened the day she went missing?”

  Samantha plopped down on the sofa, picking up a pillow and hugging it. “I went to my mom’s on my day off, two weeks ago, and she was gone. Her car was in the garage, but the wards on the house were broken, the place was a mess, there was blood . . .” She stopped, swallowed, and took a sharp breath. “I called for backup, and we investigated, but turned up nothing. He must have pulled her through a portal, but the portal was long gone by the time I got there. It must have been my father who took her.”

  “Not to doubt you, but are you sure? I mean, did you find evidence of it? I’ve been hearing about a lot of demon and vampire gang activity heating up, especially in Los Angeles.”

  “I’m aware of it,” Samantha said in a hard voice. “That’s exactly what my department said—they didn’t take me seriously either.”

  Leda sat down next to her. “I do take you seriously. I’m trying to explore possibilities.”

  Samantha sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just tired of no one believing me. My captain told me to take a leave of absence, probably because she was sick of me begging them to put more people on the case. But it’s stupid. Things are breaking down in Los Angeles, and they need everyone they can get. The real reason my captain told me to go, I’m sure, is that I’m half demon, and everyone’s getting terrified of demons.”

  Leda put her hand on Samantha’s shoulder, finding strong bone beneath firm flesh. “I’m not terrified of you, Samantha. I know you’re a good cop. Demons are hard to pinpoint with locator spells—they can throw up all kinds of shields, but your mother is human. If she’s in trouble, she’ll be broadcasting some magic herself, whatever she can. We’ll find her.”

  Leda tried to sound reassuring, but privately, she was not optimistic. Demons were difficult to track at the best of times—the stronger and older the demon, the more difficult it was. If the trail was already two weeks old, and the paranormal police, whose job it was to hunt down demon criminals, couldn’t find anything, then there wasn’t much hope Leda could either.

  Samantha was scared. The young woman tried not to show it, and she had a strong body honed from fighting and working out for her job, but her dark eyes were troubled. Leda sent her a smile.

  “We’ll go back to Los Angeles and look at the house again. I might be able to find something there I can use to trace her. The Coven disapproved of what I did, but they didn’t kick me out entirely, because I was one of the strongest witches they had and they knew it.” Instead, they’d given Leda a hard time until she’d left on her own.

  “I’d be grateful.” Samantha deflated under Leda’s touch. “I’m worried, but I also know that my mom’s unimportant to most people right now. My captain made that clear.”

  “Some people tend to focus on the big picture,” Leda said, “and forget that each person making up the big picture is as important as the whole. I might not be able to stop a horde of demons with a word of power, but I can help track down your mother.”

  Samantha gave Leda a shrewd look, even through the tears in her eyes. “By some people you aren’t talking about the paranormal police. You mean the Immortal outside with the big sword.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Is he what he claims to be?”

  Leda glanced out the window to where Hunter sat in front of Taro’s enclosure, talking to him. “I think so. Warriors who are summoned by witches to help when things get bad, he said. They haven’t been summoned for centuries, I gathered. I can’t help thinking things are really bad if all the sudden they’re starting to turn up.”

  Leda’s anger at Hunter faded a little as she spoke. She’d been growling at him as though he were a normal human male, when she really didn’t have any idea what he was. He looked like a man—a gorgeous, hard-bodied man—but what kind of thoughts would a person who’d lived thousands of years truly have?

  “He did a heavy shielding spell today,” Leda said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “He makes me nervous, anyway.” Samantha hugged the pillow again. “I’m used to people looking at me funny when they realize I’m half demon, but I’ve never felt such intense power from anyone before. He was ready to kill me without a second thought.”

  “I won’t let him,” Leda said quickly.

  Samantha raised her dark brows. “You’re sweet, Leda, but naïve. You couldn’t stop him doing a damn thing.”

  Leda said nothing, because she knew Samantha was right. Hunter would come and go as he pleased, and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

  After Samantha had bedded down on the sofa, Leda lay, alone and awake, on sheets that held Hunter’s scent. Moonlight poured through the window, darkening as a cloud slid past.

  She wondered if Hunter would return at all to the house tonight. She heard him out in the dark, murmuring in a low voice to Mukasa, who made little growling noises at him. Her clock showed her it was past midnight, and still he stayed away.

  So much had happened today. Hunter landing in her lion’s pen at the crack of dawn, Valdez’s men coming for Mukas
a, Hunter revealing his immortality and his great powers. The island was still shielded, Leda sensed. The only reason Samantha had been able to penetrate the shield and land was because Hunter had let her.

  The more Leda thought about how Hunter had freed her from death magic, the more she understood the gift he’d given her. The process of pulling out the death magic that had twined the very essence of her could have hurt Leda unbearably. But Hunter had drawn it out slowly, masking the pain with the intense pleasure of sex.

  Leda sat straight up in bed. He’d done that for her—well, he hadn’t exactly hated the procedure—but Hunter could have taken her body and given her nothing in return. He’d been holding himself back, gentling himself for her, and Mukasa and Taro, and even for Samantha.

  Leda got out of bed and quietly pulled on shorts and T-shirt. She stuck her feet in sneakers and walked softly through the living room, past the sleeping Samantha, and out the door to the veranda.

  Hunter stood at the edge of the breakers in the moonlight, the tide coming in, the line of foam on the beach luminous. Mukasa waited a little away from him, his face to the wind, his mane stirring.

  Hunter was naked, the moon’s silver light etching sharp shadows on his perfect body. He dropped his head back, his hair catching the wind, moonlight on his face. He was speaking softly, the words chant-like, in a language she didn’t know.

  The sand around him began to swirl upward until it flowed around his body like a dust devil. Leda thought she saw another figure in the shimmering sand, a woman’s body, her limbs outlined in fire. When Leda looked directly at the image, it faded, though it seemed sharper viewed from the corner of her eye.

  The woman writhed and twisted around Hunter, and Leda thought she heard low, hissing laughter. Hunter remained in place, arms stretched overhead, eyes closed, his lips moving while the woman’s ethereal figure whirled in the sand.

  She gave off something stronger than life magic—more than the magics of life and death—the touch of a goddess. The residual magic that came to Leda was exciting and terrifying at the same time. Hunter stood motionless in the midst of it, not reacting.

  The whirling sand became denser and obscured Hunter’s body a brief moment. Then the sand flowed away from him straight toward Leda. The goddess’ awareness brushed her, and Leda heard a voice, a grating hiss.

  “Be good to my son.”

  The hiss faded to a soft whisper, then the sand streamed upward into the night and disappeared. The wind died. Hunter lowered his arms and remained staring out over the ocean.

  Leda walked to him with slow steps, wondering if he would resent her intrusion. He was so beautiful, standing unashamed under the empty sky, a demigod not bound by human rules.

  Hunter turned his head and waited for Leda without speaking, betraying no surprise she’d watched him. Moonlight kissed his body, and the tattoo on his lower abdomen stood out stark against his skin. His cock below it hung thick and long, and the memory of being his lover made her heart speed.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” Hunter asked Leda when she reached him.

  “I wondered where you were.” Leda hugged her arms to her chest, the wind cool. “What was that? What were you doing?”

  Hunter gave her the ghost of a smile, green eyes bright. “Calling my mom.”

  Chapter Eight

  Hunter liked the way Leda tried so carefully not to look at his naked body. She enjoyed looking at him and pretended she didn’t, which amused him.

  “Your mother?” she asked.

  “Kali.”

  Her lovely eyes widened. “Kali? The Hindu goddess of destruction? Is your mother?”

  “Destruction and creation,” Hunter corrected. “And of women and childbirth. She’s very caring, but don’t piss her off.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  He’d summoned Kali—rather, he’d requested politely that she come talk to him if she wanted to—and asked her what was going on. Kali came on the wind, her body surrounded by fire, not manifesting all the way to avoid scaring the humans on the island to death. Kali in her pure form could do that—literally.

  She’d touched Hunter with warmth, a love beyond understanding, but at the same time it was a distant love. Hunter had spent his childhood with his father—a slave captured from northern tribes, which was where he’d come by his lighter hair and green eyes—alone before being sent off to Ravenscroft to meet his brothers and begin more serious training.

  Kali had been a voice in the night, a hand on his head, comfort in times of fear. While Hunter’s brothers had somewhat closer relationships with their mother goddesses, Kali had remained aloof. This time she’d spoken to Hunter directly and actually answered his questions, in her own way.

  “The world grows dark,” she’d said in her hoarse whisper, using a language that hadn’t been heard in the world in eons. “You are needed.”

  “Who did the Calling spell?” Hunter asked in the same language. “Why didn’t it work?”

  “The world needs you,” Kali had repeated. “The darkness grows. This evil is more than your brothers can handle. It is part of you, and yet outside you.”

  “Something Adrian can’t handle?” Hunter said, trying to work through her cryptic speech. “I bet that pisses him off.” Hunter’s oldest brother liked to control everything around him, and took his position of leader of the Immortals seriously.

  “The brothers must join or the world will be lost.” Kali’s voice was tinged with unimaginable sadness. “Tain must be stopped before he annihilates all.”

  “Tain?” Hunter blinked in surprise. “My little brother who rescues birdies fallen out of their nests? What’s he got to do with it?”

  “I am the destroyer of the world. If I must be called, then I cannot save even you, my son.”

  The sibilants of her speech hissed into the wind. Hunter listened in worried silence. Kali could unmake the world if she had to, he’d always known, but she’d never spoken of it before.

  “So this is more than a few Old Ones acting up,” Hunter said. “You mean you need us to kick some serious ass.”

  “Tain has found a way to unmake his pain, and he will unmake all with it. You must stop him.”

  What pain? Hunter hadn’t seen Tain or any of the others since they’d battled some Unseelies in Scotland seven hundred years ago. Hunter had gone off to slake himself after the fight with several grateful females of the village, and when he’d emerged three days later, his brothers had disappeared.

  He hadn’t seen them since, which had been fine with him. He’d assumed they’d all gone back to Ravenscroft like good little warriors, except Kalen who’d probably run back to his chosen people or whatever. Hunter had decided to remain in the world doing what he damn well pleased, trying to ease the ache that never truly left him.

  Tain was the youngest brother, the peacemaker, the healer. Hunter, closest to him in age, had loved teasing him. Had Tain lost someone he loved? The brief five years Hunter had been with Kayla, starting a family, had been the happiest of his existence. The deaths of Kayla and his children had ripped away a part of him that had never healed from that day to this. Hunter remembered screaming in agony for days, unaware of anything but his pain.

  If Tain had gone through a similar emotional ordeal, then Hunter understood what his little brother felt. But Hunter hadn’t wanted to unmake the world to stop his pain, he’d only wanted to lie facedown in the grass and not move. When he’d at last come to his senses, he’d gone on a quest to hunt down demons and slaughter them indiscriminately.

  “To stop him,” Kali had continued. “You will be called to make a sacrifice.”

  That got his attention. “Sacrifice?” Hunter asked sharply. He sensed Leda in the shadows of the house, watching. “Not her.” A sudden sharp pain squeezed his heart. “Not Leda.”

  “That path is yet to come, that choice to be made. In the end you must decide or die.”

  The Undine had said much the same thing. Two paths, one choice.
/>   “Protect her, Kali,” Hunter said quickly. “I invoke your protection. Let her be safe.”

  “This you must do yourself.” The wind whirled about him, sand stinging Hunter’s bare skin. He felt her touch and a faint press of lips on his. “Be well, my son.”

  Kali flowed away from him, straight toward Leda. She swirled once around the startled young woman then disappeared.

  Now Leda stood before Hunter, wanting explanations.

  Hunter cupped her shoulders, loving the warmth of her skin beneath her thin shirt. “She told me many things. All bad. I still don’t understand everything, but it’s bad.”

  “Hunter, I’m sorry I got mad at you earlier. I know you have a different way of looking at things, and I know you’re trying to protect me. But I really can help.”

  “Leda.” Hunter rested his forehead against hers, words eluding him. He wanted more than anything to stay with her, in this place removed from troubles. He could strengthen the shield and keep her here with him, send the demon woman and the Institute people away and make love to Leda until both of them forgot the world existed.

  Leda rose on her tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss to Hunter’s lips. A kiss of apology, though she had nothing to apologize for. Hunter groaned into it, unable to stop himself slanting his mouth across hers.

  Every part of her delighted him—the way her back curved under his palms, the way her lips moved beneath his, the honey-cherry taste of her mouth. He liked the noise she made in her throat as the kiss deepened.

  Her hands twined around his neck, her body lifting to his. Hunter transferred his touch to the waistband of her shorts, sliding one finger inside it.

  Leda’s eyes were heavy as she broke the kiss. “We can’t. Not with Samantha here.”

  “Shh.” Hunter wanted to make love to her again, needed the mindless joy of being inside her. Last time, he’d done it to heal her; this time, he simply wanted to. “How about we try your boat?”