The Hero: Hunter Circles Series Book Four

by Jessica Gunn

  Riley nodded and walked back out the door, out of sight.

  “No!” I screamed, rocking the chair as I tried—and failed—to stand. “Riley!”

  Giyano’s fist slammed into my cheek again, rattling my teeth. Pain cracked up the side of my cheekbone. “Silence.”

  “Oh, fuck you—”

  Another punch, this time to my gut, twisting it further than it had been after seeing Riley’s demonic red eyes.

  “Enough, Ben. Tell me where they are and I’ll call Riley back in here.” Giyano stepped back. “A few simple words and you can finally have as much time with your son as you’ve wanted for so long now.”

  Not like this. I closed my eyes against the thought. I hated myself for it, for not just telling Giyano Shawn at least might still be at the house. That all he had to do was wait until whatever Shawn and Krystin had done to protect the house was down. Then he could do what he wanted.

  I hated Krystin, right? Or at the very least didn’t trust her enough to work with her anymore?

  But Rachel is there. And Nate. And they, and Shawn, didn’t deserve to be in the crossfire of whatever Giyano and Lady Azar had been planning.

  But Riley is here. He was right in front of me, alive and… well, not happy, but not in horrible shape or dead either. He was okay, relatively.

  “Hurry, Ben. Before the offer is off the table,” Giyano said as he paced before me.

  Blood dripped down my chin from my bleeding mouth. The droplets landed on the thighs of my jeans. “I don’t know where they are.”

  “We both know that’s a lie.”

  “I was sent here by Jaffrin right after we rescued Shawn and Nate from your house. I have no idea what happened at my team’s house after I left, or if they’ve left. But you won’t be able to get in there for a while. Which I suspect you already know since we’re having this conversation.”

  He would have already tried by now, that was for sure. So why, then, was Giyano here, questioning me?

  Giyano stopped pacing. “Jaffrin sent you here?”

  “Yes.” I saw no point in lying about it.

  “Alone.”

  “Yes.”

  Giyano turned to me. “For what reason?”

  “Recon, I thought. To see if Nate’s asanak had worn off Lady Azar’s magik yet, maybe. Or maybe to keep an eye on Tatiana Viynar’s old hideout.”

  Giyano’s expression hardened. “Or to rescue your son.” Then, more quietly, “He must know, too.”

  “Know what?”

  Giyano abruptly walked away toward the door. “Stay put, Ben. Remember that I do not wish to see you dead. Not unless you force my hand.”

  “What does Jaffrin know?” I shouted as he walked away. “And why the hell does it bother you so much?”

  But Giyano left me in silence, my thoughts my only company.

  Chapter 11

  Krystin

  The hot summer sun bore down on all four of us the second we landed in the clearing on the hill beside Tatiana Viynar’s old hideout. I walked to the edge of the hill as the rest of them collected their bearings. I didn’t care if any demons below saw us. If they’d captured Ben, then they had to know who he was by now and that his team would be coming for him.

  They had to be expecting us, and yet there wasn’t even a single demon outside guarding the place.

  “Invisible?” Nate asked as he came to stand beside me.

  I shrugged. “I’ve never heard of that before. Is that possible?”

  “Figured you would know.”

  Rachel rose to the crest of the hill, a hand cupped over her brow to block out the morning sun. “We should go in two-by-two. Flank the entrance like we tried to do last time. Break in, fight any resistance, and then once we find Ben, hightail it out. Minimal fighting. I don’t want us to die in there.”

  “Whatever you say, boss,” I said, still watching the house.

  How was it possible that a building that once belonged to a renowned Landshaft bounty hunter was now completely unguarded? This was the height of the Autumn Fire season. In under two weeks, All Hallows’ Eve aside, the biggest night for demonic transformations would occur, and the resulting energy from that large an exchange would propel Lady Azar all the way to Alzan—with Riley’s help.

  Rachel turned to me. “Boss?”

  I raised my hands. “Didn’t mean anything by it, I promise.” Sarcasm just happened to be my default language a good portion of the time. For better or worse.

  She gave me a weary look that said she didn’t trust me or my intentions to actually follow orders. I knew the look well—Ben had given me the same one on more than one occasion. “Good. Then let’s go. Shawn, you’re with me.”

  I took off with Nate toward the front entrance of the house, back to the area in which we’d seen Tatiana Viynar appear with her soldiers and their captured Ember witches months ago. It was hard to believe that it’d been less than a year since I’d joined this team, especially considering all that’d happened since then.

  Nate and I crept closer, keeping our knife hands ready and our eyes alert, but the closer we got to the house, the more I doubted anyone was actually inside.

  “Say Ben’s in there,” I whispered as we approached head-on, “what are the chances—”

  “Don’t,” Nate hissed. “He’s alive. He has to be.”

  “I wasn’t going to say they killed him.” Jeez. Did they all really think I was that pessimistic? “I’m saying it’s either a trap or nobody’s home. We’re fifteen feet from the door and no one’s come out to say hello.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re not wrong. It’s probably a trap. We’re going in anyway.”

  I nodded. “Obviously. I just wanted to point it out in case we get in there and all of Shadow Crest is waiting inside.”

  Nate didn’t bother looking over at me this time. Instead, he kept pace until we were at the door and then he braced himself against the wood. “We’d have aura sickness if that were true. If anyone’s inside, the party is small enough to take on without us dying. Probably.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes but didn’t. “Probably.” I leaned against the opposite side of the door frame and listened for any sounds. “Nothing.”

  “Wait for Rachel’s signal.”

  Except we hadn’t discussed what that be or when it’d happen, mostly because we all assumed there’d have been a fight the moment we’d arrive.

  The sound of a door splitting open echoed from the back of the house. Nate snapped to attention and called ether to his hands. He shoved the block of it against the wood.

  The door shattered under his attack and the two of us filed into the main hallway. I willed fire to my fingertips just in case the team’s magik wasn’t enough. Flames danced around my wrists, an attack in waiting, as we cleared one small room after another. The living room, the parlor. Kitchen. A bedroom. All empty. Eventually, we met up with Rachel and Shawn outside the door that led to a connected barn.

  “This is the last,” Shawn said, his eyes tight. “They must have gone.”

  “Still one more,” Rachel said as she readjusted the position of her water canister backpack. “Nate, can you get the door?”

  Nate nodded and formed a big block of solid white ether in front of him, then pushed it forward against the door. It splintered under the pressure. We filed in behind him, me last, as he walked forward into the room, quickly clearing it, too.

  “Ben!” Rachel shouted.

  I couldn’t see over her or Shawn, but as they rushed to his side, I finally caught a glimpse of Ben tied to a chair in the center of the small, dark room. Unconscious.

  “Ben,” Rachel said as she knelt in front of him, cupping his face. “Ben, are you alive?”

  Shawn moved behind him, a knife in hand. He cut the ropes keeping Ben bound to the chair.

  But I was too distracted to wait and see if Ben would respond. The second we entered the room my skin had broken out in goosebumps that rode up my arms and back. Dread and hopeless
ness, a deep darkness, settled over me, causing me to stumble as my eyes followed shadowy auras that whipped around the room.

  Aura sickness.

  “Rachel, he’s probably out cold,” I said. “Don’t you guys feel it?”

  She turned back to me. “Feel what?”

  “Aura sickness,” Shawn said. “I feel it too. I think we’re more sensitive to it because we’re witches. The demons have been long gone, but there must have been dozens of them here.”

  “More than have ever been at Hunter’s Guild with us at any rate,” Nate said.

  “And in Shadow Crest’s lair that one time.” I glanced down at Ben and frowned. “I don’t know how he made it.”

  “Help me,” Rachel said as she pulled Ben from the chair. But his dead weight was too much for her. Nate and Shawn each took one of Ben’s arms and threw them over their shoulders.

  “Let’s get him back home,” Rachel said.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” I said, peering around. Something felt off about this place and it wasn’t just the aura sickness. “I want to look around.”

  Shawn and Nate exchanged glances, but it was Shawn who stepped forward. “I’ll stay with you.”

  “No, you won’t. Go; help Ben. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “And if they come back?” Rachel asked.

  I shrugged as I paced back toward the door. What was off here? I couldn’t place my finger on it. “You all hate me anyway, right? They’ll just off or capture me. I’ll be fine.”

  “What do you sense?” Nate asked.

  “I’m not sure.” But something was grabbing on to my magik and my mind, begging me to recognize the feeling. “Something familiar.”

  “Uh, Krystin?” Shawn asked.

  I turned to him. “Yeah?”

  He pointed down to my hand, which was glowing with Giyano’s mark. The rest of the demonic auras in the room must have blocked his out for once.

  “Well, there you go,” I said.

  “Let’s get out of here before they come back.”

  But even as Rachel used teleportante to bring us all back to the house, I had to wonder why Giyano would have just left Ben there without killing him or taking him with them when Shadow Crest had left.

  A shiver ran up my spine, twisting and crawling. It whispered that maybe I didn’t want to know.

  Chapter 12

  Ben

  My head pounded as though I were in the middle of a concert filled with drums and heavy bass beats. As soon as the throbbing cleared for a single second, awareness returned to me.

  The Landshaft hideout. Giyano. Riley.

  My eyes snapped open and I shot right up, teetering sideways. I caught myself as I rolled, off-balance, over the side of the couch.

  “Ben! Careful,” Rachel said as she appeared to my side, a hand holding me steady. “You’ve been out for at least an hour with us, probably longer.”

  I blinked, looking up at her. She had the same blue eyes Riley once had, that vibrant cobalt we both shared with him and the rest of our family. “Riley. Did you get Riley too?”

  Her brow furrowed. “No, he—”

  I jumped up off the couch, searching the room. Nate sat on the bottom of the stairs, Shawn in the recliner in the corner. Rachel hadn’t moved from her perch on the coffee table. And Krystin… I glanced over to her; she was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “You didn’t save Riley?”

  Krystin’s gaze fell. “He wasn’t there, Ben.”

  “Yes, he was. All of them were, and you just walked away?” Before I could continue, Rachel reached a hand out for me, but I sidestepped her. “Stop. You don’t understand. We need to go back.”

  “No one was inside or around the house when we found you, Ben,” she said, her voice low and calm. A hell of a lot calmer than it should but since her nephew, my son, had been within feet of me and—and—

  “He’s a demon,” I said. “They changed him. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “We know that,” Nate said. “That nurse told you that. And Shadow Crest after that to Krystin.”

  Krystin’s brow furrowed. “What nurse?”

  “I didn’t believe her,” I said. “Couldn’t. I mean—there’s no way the rest of her story is true.” A rebel Darkness faction. Demons opposed to not only Aloysius, but also to what Darkness stood for. That was impossible. Evil had been programmed into each of their souls the day they’d been transformed into demons.

  My heart stopped. Riley had been programmed by evil too now. My son.

  My gaze snapped up to my cousin. “We have to go back. He was there, Rachel. Giyano too. He brought Riley to me like he was Riley’s father.” Bile coated my tongue and throat at the very thought. Of Riley telling me I’d hurt his friends. Heat lapped at my neck, a cold sweat breaking out on my brow as my vision narrowed. I’d been so close to getting him back and couldn’t. Or didn’t.

  Rachel reached out again. This time I let her hold me. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. “Please sit back down, Ben. You had aura sickness. When we found you, you were barely breathing.”

  I shook my head as more memories filtered through. “That’s why I couldn’t do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Fight off Giyano and save Riley.”

  Rachel frowned. “There’s nothing you can do about aura sickness. If they had that many demons in one place… no Hunter can combat that. As far as we know not even the Powers can.”

  “You don’t understand.” They never would. Not until any of them had children. Not that I’d been given a ton of time to get used to the idea. But the primal need to protect Riley at any costs, to fight whatever stood in my way, to do anything to get to him—I’d almost begged Giyano to take down the magiks keeping my own power away. The only thing that kept me from doing so was the knowledge that even with those magiks, I’d felt the aura sickness.

  If he’d dropped the binding magiks, if the full force of that aura sickness had hit me, I’d have died within minutes, maybe less. And that wouldn’t have been enough time to kill Giyano and save Riley.

  Assuming Riley didn’t use the Power on you. My eyes closed with that thought, with the resignation. “They’ve brainwashed Riley. He thinks they’re his family. I don’t know if I’ll ever get that close again.”

  Rachel pulled me into an embrace. I hugged her back. She’d been my anchor for the last three and a half years. If anything or anyone was going to keep me grounded right now, it was her. Or… I glanced over her shoulder to Krystin standing stone-faced in the doorway.

  When Rachel let me go, I asked Krystin, “Why would Giyano be working for Shadow Crest again?”

  “I thought we agreed he didn’t need a reason,” Shawn said from his recliner.

  “He seeks power, Ben,” Nate said as he stood and made his way over to us. “Lady Azar must have promised him some magik powerful enough to sway him.”

  “It wasn’t magik,” Krystin said, her stare on me. “Giyano doesn’t give a fuck about magik or Lady Azar.”

  “Then why?” I asked. If what Krystin said was true, then the only reason left, according to her own words, was Riley. But Riley was now a demon and Giyano seemed happy about it, not worried. Not a single part of our exchange gave me the impression he was the least bit stressed about the fact that Lady Azar and Shadow Crest planned to march on Alzan in ten days.

  “I don’t know, Ben,” Krystin said, her tone even. “But it’s not magik or power or prestige. It’s not a place at her side. I thought I knew him.” She shook her head and shifted her stance so she was now leaning against the doorway with one shoulder. “Clearly, I don’t. He’s playing the longest of long games, and I’m no longer a pawn or a student he needs.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Hearing Krystin call herself his student twisted my gut in an off way. Like maybe there might have been more to it than that. But I shook off the feeling. I knew Krystin, or at least I thought I did. She might ally herself with Giyano, but she’d never do anything else wi
th him.

  Or maybe that was just jealousy talking. Because clearly he’d known her better, or at least on a more intimate, magik-based level. And most days, it seemed that was all Krystin cared about.

  Rachel sighed loudly, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Well, at least we got you back safely. Though it appeared the danger was gone.”

  “They wanted me for something,” I said, looking back to her. “That’s why Giyano kept me there instead of killing me or letting me go.”

  “Lady Azar wanted you out of the way of her Alzan plan,” said Shawn. “Same as the attack the other night.”

  “And the bounty hunters that went after me,” Krystin said.

  I shook my head. “No. It was something else.” Something Giyano was afraid of. “Does Jaffrin know you rescued me?”

  Rachel glanced over at Krystin, who shrugged, before she tugged her phone out of her pocket. “No. I wanted to talk to you first. Make sure you were okay before whatever interrogations Jaffrin might want to run.”

  “Don’t tell him.”

  The others looked at me like I’d grown six heads, except for Krystin. Her expression remained nearly stoic.

  “What?” Nate asked.

  Shawn stood. “Why?”

  I ran my hand through my hair, which was longer now than I usually let it grow. There was a part of me that trusted Jaffrin the way I’d trusted my old football coach. I might not have always agreed with Coach’s calls, but in the end, I knew he’d lead us to victory. And he had.

  Working with Jaffrin, under him as a Hunter, had become the same sort of relationship. I’d led enough games—or demon fights—to know the enemy, to know when something was off. And though Jaffrin and I had definitely butted heads over the years, he was the Leader of the Fire Circle. My boss. My new coach.

  There was only so much I was willingly to cross him over, especially after I’d gone to Dacher, Jaffrin’s second-in-command, with my concerns six months ago. But when all that crap with Krystin had happened, Jaffrin had changed. And until last night, he’d been the Leader that’d inspired me to get my shit together and join the Fire Circle to get Riley back.