Hunter Deceived

by Nancy Corrigan

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  Harley tugged her hood up against the chilly October wind and pressed her frame into the slight indentation made by the recessed metal door. Chin tucked, she scanned the narrow road between her apartment building and the bar next to it. The flickering bulb a few feet from where she stood cast a strobe effect over the darkened alley. The chaotic aspect of it appealed to her darker nature. The fact bothered her, yet she couldn’t deny it, not when the taint she carried flared in response to it.

  She ignored the urge to embrace that side of her persona and continued her inspection. Caution and awareness had kept her alive in the face of a lifetime of danger. She refused to take chances. Lives depended on it—hers and those around her.

  The Dumpster and the discarded stack of cardboard next to it looked no different than they had before she’d made her hurried trek to the corner drugstore. The curtains in the windows above her remained drawn. Music blared from the tenants on the third floor, and the lovers on the second level still argued about who should do the dishes. Harley cocked her head and listened for other clues, drawing on her nonhuman side to feed her details.

  Rats skittered along the ground and around the overflowing, rancid garbage. The small animals didn’t bother her nor did the cockroaches that infested the shithole building she called home. What did were the monsters she knew walked among the humans, feeding off their fear, pain and deaths. Those were the ones who caused her to wake up screaming in terror and kept her constantly on guard. They wanted her too, but for a different reason. She could give them power. Make them unstoppable.

  Over my dead body. She clenched her jaw.

  A shadow loomed at the mouth of the alleyway. She held her breath and tightened her grip on the six-inch blade she held against her thigh. A heartbeat passed before a rattly cough reached her ears along with the drag of her elderly neighbor’s cane over the macadam. A smaller shape joined the looming one inching its way across the entrance. Both shadows danced in the light flickering over the ground, distorting their images until they reflected the hunched shape of a sluagh, the foot soldiers of the fairies.

  Not real. It’s not real. Just my fears haunting me.

  The words helped alleviate the trembling in her body. Still, she waited for the man and his poodle to continue on their nightly path before easing away from the hidey-hole she’d occupied.

  Forty-five minutes, that was all she’d been gone. She normally didn’t wander outside at night as there was more of a chance to stumble over a redcap, but Bea’s pain medicine had run out. Harley hated to make her wheelchair-bound neighbor wait until the store opened on Monday. Besides, Harley hadn’t lived here long enough for the fairies’ creatures to pick up on her trail. The iron in the buildings helped mask her presence, and in the morning, she was skipping town.

  Her older brother, Ian, was getting married. He’d begged her to come home and share in his happiness. The idea of going back to the house where the rest of their family died chilled her. For Ian, she’d do it. He was all she had left. Besides, she had a promise to keep. Two promises, actually. She wanted to fulfill them before it was too late.

  One more sweep of the area, and she darted toward the front of her building. She hopped the couple of steps, reached for the door and froze with her hand on the tarnished knob. The dark taint living inside her pulsed with life. The flare announced the presence of her kind, a warning system she’d come to rely on.

  She glanced over her shoulder. The black eyes of a redcap, a human who’d sold his soul to a fairy in exchange for power and immortality, stared back at her. Good-looking and tall with a linebacker’s build, Raul could’ve passed for any number of twentysomethings wandering the town, but he wasn’t merely an attractive guy. He was the stuff of nightmares.

  Then again, so am I. She shrugged off the thought and focused on him, looking for a weakness to exploit and finding none.

  While she fought temptation, he embraced it. If the flush to his cheeks was any indication, he’d recently soaked the gauze-like material he had wrapped around his skull, his tie to his fairy master, with the life force of his latest victim. She couldn’t tell for certain, though. A black baseball cap infused with fairy magic hid the blood-soaked cloth.

  A smile tugged at his mouth. He leaned his big body against the lamppost and slipped his thumbs in his front pockets. His nonchalant stance quickened her breath. She faced him and twisted her hand to reveal the obsidian blade she carried.

  Laughter shook his chest. She fought the trembling in her hand at his dismissal of the only weapon that would kill him and waited for him to make a move.

  They’d acted the same scene out for years, ever since he’d killed her mother. Only once in all that time had he ever captured Harley. Most of their encounters mimicked a cat-and-mouse game where he always let her get away. One day he wouldn’t. She knew it in her soul. Her time was running out, in more ways than one.

  He glanced from her face to the window above her. His grin widened into a sneer, showing off a mouthful of pointy, razor-sharp teeth. Her heart skipped a beat before pounding wildly.

  No, please no.

  Not needing the confirmation but unable to stop herself, she inhaled and caught the stench of death seeping out from under the door behind her. A tremor racked her frame. No hiding it this time. Raul’s uncontained amusement in response to her shaking drowned out the sounds spilling from the bar next door.

  Hatred grew and stirred the taint she carried. The desire to give in to it warred with the knowledge that doing so was exactly what Raul wanted. Each time she embraced her rage, it opened her up to the chaotic power of the world around her and fed the living evil attached to her soul. The dark stain grew, ate away at her insides and sickened her. It was slowly turning her into a monster, forcing her to embrace her heritage.

  Making her Unseelie.

  But not today. I won’t let it happen.

  She locked her knees and met his mocking gaze with a derisive one of her own. Minutes passed while she held herself in check, but a scream from somewhere inside her apartment building broke their silent battle.

  Raul winked at her and ambled away as if he didn’t have a care in the world. No chase. She didn’t know if she should be glad with the turn of events or wary. She tracked his lumbering frame with her gaze until he turned the corner.

  Hand still tightened around the knob, she twisted it and flung the door open. The small entryway split into a narrow stairwell and an equally cramped hallway. She rushed up the stairs, following the anguished cries. More screams added to the mix. She skidded around the corner and pushed against the shoulder of the college kid from the floor above. He stumbled into the wall with her shove but flung out an arm, stopping her from getting past him.

  “Stay back, Harley.” He swallowed hard. “Ms. Erville was murdered. Bastard freaking mutilated her. It’s not something you want to see.”

  She nodded in acknowledgment of his warning, but scooted under his arm and ran the last few feet. The open door revealed a sight she’d seen too many times over her life. Her gut rolled. She choked on the bile burning her esophagus. No matter how many times she’d seen Raul’s handiwork, it always affected her the same way.

  She cupped her hand over her mouth to block out the worst of the stench and swept her gaze over the scene. Blood coated everything. The walls, ceiling and furniture were dotted in red, but most of the liquid soaked the tan carpet around the tipped wheelchair. Harley forced her gaze from the dark stain spreading out from the chair to the body slumped over the armrest.

  Bea’s tongueless mouth hung open, and the pinkie of her right hand was gone. A gash cut across her thick throat while more slashes decorated her arms and legs. Eyes wide, she stared vacantly, but Harley felt the weight of her empty gaze. The accusation in it cut at her, left her with yet another sin to carry and another memory to haunt her dreams. Sh
e accepted it, exactly as she had the last time she’d seen a similar corpse and the one before that. Each and every murder Raul committed was her fault.

  He followed and tormented her by killing those close to her—friends, neighbors, people who’d said hello to her.

  She hated the fact that she endangered everyone around her, hated the bastards who sought her and hated herself. She’d welcome death, but she couldn’t embrace it.

  Words had power, and she’d promised to live—no matter what.

  Chapter Two

  “Wake up, lady.”

  Someone shook her. Harley stifled a scream and automatically reached for her blade. She froze with her fingers wrapped around the hilt and blinked hard against the bright sun. Confused brown eyes focused on her. Awareness returned. The cabbie. She slid the dagger back into her boot.

  “Hey, sorry to startle you, but we’re here.”

  “Yes, yes, thank you.” She glanced out the window. The Callahan estate loomed before her, the place where her living hell had begun and the one she’d avoided for nine years.

  She glanced away before the sight of the mansion sent her into a panic attack. In an effort to delay the inevitable, she adjusted the beanie she wore, shoving the strands of her hair that had slipped free back under the knit fabric. More spilled out. She cursed, yanked the cap off and dropped it in her lap. With trembling hands, she twisted the length of her hair and carefully stretched the hat over her piled tresses, hiding the platinum curls that always drew looks from men and women alike.

  Unable to linger longer, she clutched her backpack, grabbed the bag of food she’d picked up in town and slipped out of the cab. Her gaze drifted to the butterfly garden. How many hours had she spent in the spot reading as a teenager or playing as a child without her blue-eyed ghost man appearing to her?

  Couldn’t he have clued her in on her tainted heritage earlier? She could’ve run away and saved her family or committed suicide and saved herself. No. He’d waited until Hell had reigned in her backyard before confirming what her mom had told her all along—she was a monster.

  And someday I’ll surround myself with sluaghs and redcaps, exactly like the ones who slaughtered my family.

  Memories from the horrid night pushed at her. She shook her head to dislodge them.

  Coming here was a mistake. She only had in an effort to find some sort of closure. She wanted to sit in front of her mom’s portrait and tell her she’d done her best to remain Seelie before she actually lost the battle for her soul and broke her promise.

  But I don’t need to stay in the house to do that. I can say my piece, then leave. And my ghost man? Well, I’m here, so I’d say that settles the score.

  Her thoughts eased the churning in her gut. She turned to tell the cabbie to wait for her, but the cab peeled away, kicking dust in her face, before she could get a word out. She choked on the gritty air and faced the vacant mansion that stood as a tribute to her fallen family members. Neither she nor Ian, who’d escaped death by being away at college, had been able to bring themselves to sell it.

  “Guess I’m staying.”

  She made her way to the entrance and slipped the key into the lock. The click resounded in her ears, and a screech accompanied her push of the heavy oak door. Dust and stale air whooshed around her. She blinked rapidly to clear her blurry vision and swept her gaze over the entryway. Empty. She let her nonhuman senses flare. Only the sounds of scurrying mice reached her ears. A sigh of relief escaped. She shuffled inside and headed toward the living room.

  The chiming of the grandfather clock stopped her. Noon. The memories she’d hoped to keep buried rushed back with the clang, ding, clang of the pendulum.

  A slideshow of monsters and death flashed through her mind. The screams of her family mixed with the roars and grunts of the sluaghs who’d killed them.

  Harley tugged at her hair, dislodging her cap. “No, dammit, no!”

  “You’re alive.”

  She froze. The low, gravelly voice of her ghost man caressed her as tangibly as it had all those years ago. She dropped her hands. Hovering inches away were the eyes she’d seen in her dreams every night since.

  “Oh God.” She scrambled back and tripped over her bag, landing on her ass.

  “Be calm. You’re safe.”

  Peace settled over her as if he’d taken her anxiety away with those words. Still, she inched away from his disembodied eyes. Caution had kept her alive in the face of a lifetime of evil. It didn’t matter if she’d felt as if she’d known him for ages. She’d learned years ago, nothing was as it seemed. Those with the ability to use glamour could create illusions out of thin air.

  She settled on bent legs and studied the apparition for a clue as to whether he was a figment of her imagination or not. The oval surrounding the spectral display showed tan skin, ridiculously long lashes and dark eyebrows. Her pulse kicked up. Excitement, desire, fear—she wasn’t sure what caused it. She only knew she couldn’t look away.

  “You.” She swallowed hard. She still couldn’t believe her eyes. Couldn’t deny the sight either. “It’s you.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  A long moment passed where they held each other’s gazes. So many times, she’d fantasized about what she would say or do if she ever reconnected with him. None of the scenarios fit the pregnant silence stretching between them. She let them slip through her fingers and asked the first question that came to her mind.

  “What’s your name?” It had always bothered her not having one.

  “I am Calan. Yours?”

  Calan. She let his name settle over her heart. “Mine is Harley.”

  “Harley.” Her name spoken in his deep voice sounded sexy, something she never thought her unusual name could be.

  Finally, he released a shaky breath she felt skim over her cheek. She pressed her palm to the sensitive skin to hold the warmth close.

  “You never returned to me, Harley.”

  Raul’s words that night had confused and scared her. She hadn’t known what to believe. Or who.

  “I ran just like you told me to.”

  “I also told you to come back.”

  She’d tried. Raul had followed her. Attacked her. She glanced at her hands that had once been covered in blood. Raul’s blood. She lowered her gaze and prayed Calan didn’t see the elation in her eyes the memory brought. It had felt good to hurt Raul. That had scared her most of all, and it was the reason she’d stayed away.

  “Yes.” She turned her head, unable to look into his eyes. “You did.”

  “Why didn’t you return to me? You promised.”

  She glared at him. “And you promised to save me. Why didn’t you? You left me.”

  She was being childish. She knew it but couldn’t help it. Watching bubbles form in Raul’s blood while he struggled to breathe had been one of the darkest yet most exciting moments of her life. Temptation had held her in its grip, and she’d fought it alone.

  “I saved you the only way I could.” The featherlight stroke of his fingertips along her cheek wiped away the memory of her encounter with Raul, but not the shame she’d experienced. “Do you not remember the knowledge I shared with you?”

  She remembered. Calan had forced information into her brain she hadn’t known what to do with. Within one heartbeat and the next, she’d learned everything she’d needed to know about how to avoid falling victim to the redcaps and sluaghs. He’d also implanted a compulsion to have an obsidian blade made that became her constant accessory. She never left the house without it. It was the only thing that could kill the fairies’ creatures.

  She forced herself to nod. “Yeah. I remember.”

  “I thank the gods for that, Harley. I was right about you. You are the one I’ve sought.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You will be the one who will unlock me from my prison
and allow the Wild Hunt to ride again.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then licked her suddenly dry lips. “The Wild Hunt?”

  The trembling in her voice betrayed her fear. She couldn’t help it. Over the past nine years, her thoughts had often drifted to the man who’d saved her. She kept coming up with the same question: why had he? It had never made sense, despite his explanation about breaking a promise and wanting to make it right by helping her. She was his enemy. Or she would be once she embraced her heritage and allowed the evil lurking inside her to take her over completely.

  She’d been right all along to question his motives. He might’ve hunted the Unseelie Court, but he wasn’t a hero. Not by a long shot. He was evil too, even if he stood on the righteous side of Hell.

  And this is the man I could never stop thinking about. She groaned. Or longing for.

  That was the worst part of her fascination. She desired him. No. Even that didn’t come close to the fascination that plagued her. She craved him—a demented creature from Hell. She’d read enough stories of the Wild Hunt to be afraid of him. Except…it didn’t destroy the urge to wrap him around her and hold him close. It only made her feel guilty for it.

  “Why are you afraid?”

  She stared into the disembodied eyes that had haunted her dreams, and curled her fingers so she didn’t reach for him. “You’re kidding, right? An imaginary man tells me he wants me to release the Wild Hunt, and you ask why I’m afraid.”

  “Trust me, I’m very real.” He chuckled.

  The sound of his laugh skipped through her and left heat behind. Her lower belly quivered. She ignored the response. “You said that you’re real, just not here. Is this why? Because you’re a rider in the Wild Hunt?”

  “Yes. I am the leader of the Hunt. Now explain to me your fear of it.”

  “Are we talking about the same one? The spectral procession of hounds and horses riding across the night sky?”

  “Yes, that’s the one.”

  “Then the answer’s no way, Calan. I’m not releasing another hellish entity to torture the world. There’s enough here already.”