The Hunter's Heart (Wilde Creek Book Seven)

by R. E. Butler

  He got out of the car, leaving the engine running. Inhaling deeply, he took in all the old scents of his youth, from the dark woods to the crisp air. It was home but not home, a place full of memories he’d purposely put aside.

  The front door opened and a large male stepped out, shotgun hanging loosely at his side. Lucian knew that the male could fire the gun in a heartbeat; that although he appeared casual, he was anything but, like a cobra that stopped hissing just before it struck.

  Lucian stared at the male. He wanted to say about a hundred things, but all he could think about was Mia’s pain-filled voice calling out for him.

  “I need your help.”

  His brows rose. “Lucian?”

  He swallowed against the lump in his throat and nodded. “I…they took my mate and I can’t get her on my own.”

  His father pushed the door open wider and said, “Come in.”

  Lucian walked in, stepping over the threshold and trying not to look around and see what had changed in the last two decades. He didn’t care about this house anymore. He didn’t care about the male who shared his DNA. He cared about Mia, and her alone.

  “Tell me how I can help.”

  “You’re not going to give me grief?” Lucian asked, facing him. He looked the same, just twenty years older. Broad-shouldered, muscular, a few days’ worth of stubble on his cheeks. And those blue eyes that stared at Lucian every morning in the mirror.

  “I don’t think you came here for tea and a chat. You came to me for help, so it must be serious. What do you need?”

  Lucian told his father about the hunters, the ravens, and sweet Mia.

  “I thought I could keep her safe by staying away. If I hadn’t gone back to Wilde Creek, they wouldn’t have ever found anything to use against me.”

  “There’s no use whining about something you can’t change.”

  “I know.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “I want you to come with me to the nest’s stronghold. I need someone strong enough to keep me from hurting Mia if things go sideways.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Kill them all.”

  Lucian stripped out of his weapons and clothing, until he was standing in his father’s family room in his shorts.

  “What the ever-loving hell?” his father said as he looked at him.

  “They’re magical,” Lucian said. “When I felt the beast stirring as a teenager, I went to a magical tattoo shop and had a witch put one on. I have to add one each year, and sometimes get the older ones redone.”

  He shook his head. “Why do you hate it so much?”

  “What? It’s a monster. There’s a fucking monster inside me, and it needs to be locked down. I’m letting it free tonight to save Mia, but I’m fucking putting it back down the moment she’s safe. This is a one-time thing.”

  “The berserker isn’t a monster, Luc. You have to learn how to use it. People you love won’t be in danger from it.”

  Fury edged his vision. “Don’t talk to me about hurting people you love.”

  His father put his hands up. “Okay, fine. But later, you and me need to chat.”

  Lucian knelt and removed a blade from a sheath on his belt. He turned the handle toward his father and said, “I need you to cut through the tatts.”

  “What?”

  “Each one has an outline in dark gray. That’s where the magic is. You have to cut the line, and that will break the spell. I’ll leave the ones on my arms uncut until we reach the stronghold.”

  His father looked down at the blade, opened his mouth, and then closed it again with his lips pressed in a firm line. Lucian turned away so his father could reach the tattoos on his back. He felt the cold tip of the blade and then a whisper of pain as it slid through the boundary of the magic. The power felt like sand pouring down his skin as it drained out. With each broken tattoo, he felt the creature inside him grow stronger.

  Berserker.

  He’d never even uttered that word. It had been nothing but a death sentence for his mother. Her family had been afraid of Lucian as he aged, but once he started getting tattoos to keep his nature under control, they weren’t scared of him anymore. The tattoos worked so well that he basically became human. Just a whisper of the creature writhing inside him. He knew, though, that the monster was more active when he was in Wilde Creek, and he was entirely sure it was because of Mia.

  When the last of the tattoos on Lucian’s back, legs, and chest were cut, he rolled his neck and let out a growling sigh. The cuts were already mostly healed, but the tattoos would have to be redone in order to be effective again. He dressed swiftly, strapping his weapons on, and then looked at his father, who had appeared from the back of the house. He was now wearing black pants and a long-sleeved black shirt, and had strapped a hunting knife to each thigh.

  “I’m ready when you are, son.”

  “It’s a two-hour drive, but we have to make it in less than eighty-five minutes or they’ll dose Mia again.”

  “Then let’s get on the road.”

  With his father at his back, he left the house, jumped behind the wheel and put the car into gear. In minutes they were out of town and on their way to the ravens. He kept one eye on the road and one on the clock.

  “The berserker nature,” his father said.

  “No. I just want to get Mia to safety. Don’t distract me.”

  “Fine. But you promise me that you’ll give me time to say my piece when she’s safe.”

  “I swear.”

  He could feel the berserker rolling under his skin. The fury was there, anger at Mia’s harm and those who had caused it. He’d never embraced his nature; he’d always pushed it away. It gave him strength and speed and faster healing, but that was all that he’d allowed. The tatts had kept it at bay, and now that it was nearly free, he could feel it pulsing under his skin.

  Fucking don’t hurt Mia, he told the beast.

  * * *

  Mia licked her dry lips and forced her body to remain still. The bed had been moderately comfortable, but after the second dose of the mating-heat drug, it had become increasingly intolerable. Her skin was pressed up against sharp nails and tacks, not a thin sheet. Her skin was crawling with hyper-sensitivity. She was sweating but felt chilled, and every joint in her body ached.

  Already, she was as turned on as she’d ever been during a heat-cycle. She craved skin-to-skin contact with a male, but didn’t dare voice her thoughts. There were ravens just outside the room. Although the door was shut, she could hear them talking, but not clearly enough to know what they were saying.

  When Dario had dosed her the second time, she’d already been on edge with arousal. She hadn’t wanted to, but she’d begged Lucian to help. She’d heard his voice, the panic and the rage buried in the promise that he’d save her, but she wasn’t sure if she believed that would happen. There wasn’t any hope in this room.

  A bolt of pleasure shivered through her, making her stomach clench and her pussy throb. Her breasts tingled, her nipples so hard she was sure they’d turned to stone by this point. She gritted her teeth against the moan that bubbled up in her throat. Her toes curled, and she jerked on the restraints. She could smell fresh blood, and saw that she’d cut another furrow into her wrists from the bindings.

  The door opened with a soft creak, and she squeezed her eyes shut and thought of the only thing that had kept her moderately sane: Lucian. Part of her hated him. Hated that he’d pushed her away, that whatever shadow games he was playing with his work life and his private life had bled over onto her. But her wolf, as faint as she felt right now, still believed that he was her mate, and Mia knew in her heart that was true. Some females were very lucky with their mates – they were kind and loving – but some weren’t, and Mia seemed to have fallen into the category of the female who had a lousy mate.

  No matter how much she felt physically attracted to him, or how much her wolf craved him, she couldn’t stop thinking about the words h
e’d said to her in the woods outside Mal’s home. That she was of no consequence to him.

  Who the hell said something like that?

  “Time’s running out,” Dario said. He moved silently, appearing at the foot of the bed. She didn’t have to lift her head to know that he was staring at her body on full display. She was tied up spread-eagle on a bed, entirely at the mercy of a group of shifters who at best were scientists and at worst were nutcases.

  A warm hand slid over the arch of her foot, and in spite of her desire to not show an ounce of arousal to him or anyone else, she couldn’t control her hips, which wiggled against the bed. She curled her fingers into fists and let out a soft gasp.

  “It’s fascinating,” he murmured. “I didn’t find you attractive at all before, but now I can’t get you out of my head.”

  She wanted to jerk her foot away. To curse him and scream for him to leave her alone. But she didn’t. After how many hours? A little touching felt nice. Better than nice, actually; it felt like heaven.

  “It’s the mating heat,” Dahlia said as she walked into the room. “It’s a lure. A female in heat puts out pheromones. If she’s not attended to by a male, those pheromones get stronger and stronger, calling any and every male.”

  “I didn’t think I’d be affected by them, but I can’t deny she smells amazing.”

  She chuckled. “I’ll be sure to put this side effect in the notes.”

  Lucian’s face flashed in Mia’s mind and she recognized it as her wolf’s way of trying to keep her true to her mate, as absurd as that sounded to her.

  “S-S-Stop,” she stuttered.

  She opened her eyes and tears stung them, blurring her vision.

  Dahlia hummed and Dario stopped touching her foot, which Mia both hated and appreciated.

  Dario loomed over her, leaning over the bed. “I think you wouldn’t mind if I took you. Ravens don’t believe in condoms, so of course in your wolfy mind we’d be mates. But we also don’t believe in mating for life with other species of shifters.”

  He pressed his hand between her breasts, and her brain fogged over. Her stomach clenched so tightly that she let out a groan.

  He chuckled. “You’re giving me quite an ego, even if it is the drug.”

  “We’ll test it on humans next,” Dahlia said. “You don’t have to worry about human females wanting to mate for life.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if she wanted to mate for life, since she’s not a raven,” Dario said.

  He walked his fingers down her sweat-soaked stomach, making every nerve ending in her body light up. She would have given anything in that moment to be able to shift and claw the hell out of him, but she couldn’t. Her wolf was still a faint outline in her mind. A whisper of a beast, silently begging to be let free.

  Dario pressed his palm to her lower abdomen, just inches from her throbbing pussy. She clenched her teeth so hard that she tasted blood, the pain a welcome distraction from the arousal she couldn’t control.

  Dario whispered in her ear, “If you beg, I’ll let you come.”

  Mia knew that a climax would ease some of the painful arousal, but she didn’t dare give in. She didn’t want anyone’s hands on her but Lucian’s. If she couldn’t have him, then she’d suffer.

  “No,” she said, her voice a bare whisper from thirst.

  Dario snarled. “Now you’ve pissed me off, little wolf.”

  He snapped his fingers and Dahlia said, “It’s early.”

  “Only by a half hour. She thinks she’s in control; I’ll show her she’s not.”

  Mia’s vision hazed as she lifted her head and looked at the lab-coated male who strode in with another needle.

  “If you want her, just take her,” Dahlia said.

  “No. I want her begging. I want that hunter to know that she begged to be used. He had no business messing with our family, and I want him to remember that.” Dario spit the words out, his face turning red.

  The alcohol swab felt like ice on her arm, and then the needle pushed in, followed by the searing heat as the drug made its way into her system. She screamed, her vision fading as a powerful wave of arousal shot through her. Her body quaked and the bed creaked as she writhed, unable to stop herself.

  Dario fisted her hair and shook her until she looked at him through bleary eyes.

  “I warned you. This is my house. You’ll be begging for cock in minutes, and I’ll be filming every second of it.”

  He shook her once more and released his hold on her, stomping from the room with a curse. The others left, the door slamming and locking. Mia knew she was being watched, but she didn’t care.

  With every ounce of strength she could muster, she screamed the only word that mattered to her in that moment.

  “Lucian!”

  Chapter 6

  Lucian was damn curious about his father’s words, but he didn’t dare open that Pandora’s box, not right now. He needed to concentrate on Mia, but thoughts about what his father meant about the berserker kept worming their way into his consciousness. To keep from asking any follow-up questions, he kept his teeth firmly together and his jaw locked tight.

  His phone chimed, and he glanced at the screen and saw that Dario was calling. Most likely to taunt him.

  Lucian pulled over to the side of the road and pressed the button to answer the call. Someone had Mia’s phone pointed into a room through a window, and he could see Dario touching her. Lucian snarled, his beast humming under his skin as the fury built inside him.

  Mia said ‘no’ to whatever Dario had said, and that pissed him off. Lucian watched the lab-coated male come into the room, and alarms went off in his head.

  “It’s too early,” he said.

  There was a dark chuckle and a male that Lucian recognized as one of Dario’s cousins said, “She’s trying to be oh-so-good for her male. She smells good, hunter. Pretty soon she’ll be begging for relief, and we’re just the males to give it to her.”

  “If you touch her,” Lucian said, his voice rasping as the beast pushed at his skin, “I’ll skin you alive.”

  “Better hurry, hunter,” he taunted.

  The last thing Lucian saw was Mia screaming his name. Her voice, full of pain and need, swept right through the phone and grabbed his heart. The call ended and he squeezed the phone so tightly that if his father hadn’t pried his fingers from it, he would’ve destroyed it.

  “If you don’t kill them all, I will,” his father said. “What they’re doing is pure evil.”

  Lucian put the car into gear and jerked back onto the road, flooring it. “Don’t worry. By sunrise, the ravens will be nothing but a bad memory.”

  For a moment, he thought about calling Malachi. It had crossed his mind many times since Mia had been taken, but he hadn’t wanted to take the time to call her brother. He knew that Mal would’ve wanted to help rescue his sister, but despite being a highly ranked pack member, Mal wasn’t equipped to go up against the ravens. Lucian, on the other hand, was made for war.

  He would set Mia free, then take her to Mal’s so she could see the pack doctor. Then he’d get his tattoos redone. Once he was safe to be around again, then he’d go to Mia and beg her forgiveness. He didn’t really care if Mal forgave him for endangering her life, he only cared that Mia would. He’d thought staying away from her was the safest thing, but now that he’d seen what could happen when he kept his distance, he knew that denying the mating call between them was nothing but foolish.

  He slowed as he passed into the ravens’ town. Although the town was mostly human, the ravens definitely ran things. How they’d been allowed to come into power he didn’t know, but he figured they’d muscled their way in and kept things the way they liked them through terror and intimidation. Although he wasn’t afraid of the ravens, they were fierce fighters, and only other shifters or supernatural creatures would be able to stand against them.

  Turning left, he followed the main road through the center of town. His beast rolled under his skin, and he
didn’t know if it was simply worry for Mia that was driving him so crazy, or if he was lusting for the coming bloodbath.

  Maybe both.

  Lucian pulled off the main road and parked behind an abandoned grocery. He turned off the engine and pulled the key from the ignition. After placing the key in the visor for safekeeping, Lucian said, “You swear you’ll make sure I don’t hurt Mia?”

  “We’ve just sat in the damn car for almost two hours in total silence. If you’d given me a chance to talk, you wouldn’t have these worries.”

  His gums throbbed as his fangs itched to descend.

  “And?”

  “And, I promise I won’t let you hurt her. But you don’t need to worry about it.”

  “I’ve worried about it ever since I met her.”

  His grandparents had lived in Wilde Creek for years. After his mother’s death, he’d moved in with them and met Malachi and Mia. Maybe he’d known even back then that she was his, but after what happened to his mother, he’d sworn not only to never let the beast out, but also to never take a mate. Mia had been a sweet temptation, but he’d never indulged. Not even in something as simple as a kiss. He knew that one taste of her and he’d be done for. So he’d adopted an outward appearance of aloofness, and clearly it had worked. She’d believed him when he said he didn’t care about her.

  Even thinking those words cut him to the core.

  Shaking his thoughts from the past, he said, “Let’s go get my mate.”

  Lucian got out of the car and walked to the trunk, where he popped the latch. Antonio wasn’t looking quite as smug as he had before Lucian broke his nose.

  Lucian said, “The raven stronghold is a mile up that hill. On the surface is a house that’s well-guarded. But underground is an enormous lab, a city block in size.”