Hunt and Seek

by Zenina Masters

  “It is more serious than you can imagine. Even family is not allowed contact. They are truly alone in the world.”

  Roxanne checked her robe for barbeque sauce, and she shrugged. “It sounds fair. They made me alone in the world for four years. I know what kind of hell that is.”

  He blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean after they did that to me, I couldn’t tell my dispatcher, or she would stop giving me the important assignments. I couldn’t tell the guild because I am a basic shifter and don’t have a guild or clan to stand up for me. I couldn’t tell my mother. She was beginning her cancer therapy, and I needed to keep my guild position as a seeker or I would lose medical coverage for her.”

  She exhaled. “I couldn’t tell anyone, and I was always paired with fey teams, though yours was taken off my roster after the guys were caught gossiping about me.”

  “Why were you always paired with the fey?”

  “The shifters prefer to work in pairs, and no one was comfortable with me. I am too brittle, too tense, for anyone to get chummy with. It doesn’t make it hard to work, but it does create a tense environment.”

  Moriven got to his feet, and he reached out to her and then pulled his hand back. “I want to stay with you and hear more, but I can’t right now. This is coming as a shock.”

  She finally felt the stirring of pity for him. “Yes. You can go. Thank you for the food.”

  “Thank you for the honest answer. It explains a few mysteries that revolve in your orbit.”

  She smiled and got to her feet. “Thank you for coming by. I hope that you find what you are looking for.”

  He nodded. “I have. It is just going to be slightly more complicated than I anticipated, but I do enjoy a challenge.”

  He held out his hands, and she took them. He placed a careful kiss on her cheek as if she was made of glass. She was so stunned that she was standing in place when he left her.

  This was not how she had imagined her time at the Crossroads.

  Chapter Four

  Moriven took a direct path to the com center, and he paced in the hallway until the unit was available.

  Moriven made requests of the guild, not of his team or his dispatcher. He asked for a case to be constructed using truth seers. His men weren’t going to be able to laugh off what they did to a woman who had been classified as a child only thirteen months before their attack. His ego was sturdy. He had been delighted at Roxanne’s progress and competence. It gave him a challenge that he had been desperately craving.

  Learning that he had been used as an excuse for behaviour of the worst sort was nauseating. Finding out that Roxanne had been the target of it was infuriating. He needed to get outside and engage in some target practice.

  He spoke to Drak and was directed out the back door where he was shown to a long garden backing onto a distant field with a rock in the center.

  Moriven stepped a handful of steps away from the building, took the wristband he always wore, snapped it into a bow and began to form the arrows that he directed at the stone.

  They were the blazing bolts that had gained him his name as a teenager. He fired two dozen into the stone until it shattered in an upward arc of molten pieces. It did not relieve his rage.

  His parents had allowed him the privilege of a second child, and he had never been engaged, though his mother had told him to choose a strong woman. That was the only interference in his love life that had ever been introduced in their lifetimes. They had encouraged him and his brothers to find partners who would be just that. Partners.

  In Roxanne, he could see a woman who was developing into a formidable companion. Her age had kept him from pursuing her when she first arrived at the guild, and now, he was regretting his decision. He despised regrets.

  He snapped his bow back onto his wrist, the magic shrinking and compressing it into a cuff.

  Without anything else to do, he started to run for the woods. Losing himself in the greenspace would help him clear his head.

  * * * *

  Roxanne put her hands on her head and stared at the door for a solid twenty minutes while she tried to focus on what she had just learned. Her arch enemy wasn’t what she thought. He was just a fey who attracted rapey sycophants.

  She groaned and got out her second set of exercise gear. The first set was in the cleaning unit, and they would be ready when she needed to run that evening.

  “Might as well.”

  She pulled on her lycra and dropped a tank top over herself. She tied on her shoes and left her room, trotting down the steps.

  Drak saw her, and he paused. “Going for another run?”

  “Yeah. It has been a weird couple of hours.”

  “Have a nice time.” He smiled and bowed.

  “Thank you, Drak.” She headed for the front entryway.

  “You will run into fewer folk if you go out the back. There is a meadow with woods out there, too.”

  The thought of being undisturbed was too tempting. She headed for the rear of the Axion.

  She needed to run and needed to shift into her other form. Shifting with others watching her was never her favourite thing to do. When her parents had been able to shift with her and roam the farm at night together, she had enjoyed being herself. After her father died, that all changed.

  She left the hotel and looked around. Moriven had been here recently, and he had been firing his bow. The smouldering pile of rock in the distance indicated his target.

  She snorted and lifted her head, trying to find out which direction he had gone in. When she found that he had gone right, she went left.

  Her run was relaxing, and it let her clear her mind. Her beast loved it and enjoyed the loping pace that she set. When she was far enough from the Axion that she could slip into the woods, she removed her shoes and clothing before letting her beast take over. This was her hound’s time. She was owed a stress-free run.

  Hours were spent sniffing daisies, pouncing on butterflies, and rolling in the green grasses. Roxanne watched everything from behind the wide brown eyes of her beast, and she laughed at the joy that was roaming through every muscle and fiber of her hound.

  It had been so long since she had let her beast just run. It was such an important part of her health to keep her beast balanced, but everything had fallen apart over the last few years. Now, the question of a mate was dangling in front of them, and as she thought about it, her beast started wagging her tail and let out a baying bark. They were off and running a moment later.

  The mental image of a green fireball filled the hound’s thoughts, and Roxanne tried to gently change her mind. Please don’t seek him out. Please don’t look for him. Please don’t find him.

  There was no question of finding. Her beast had a clear sense on the trail of her mate, and she was running to him.

  Balls.

  Moriven was sitting on a rock in the woods, next to a stream. Her beast pulled up and splayed her front legs, lowering her head and making a low growl. Her butt was in the air with her tail madly wagging.

  “What? Roxanne?” He leaned down and carefully extended his hand.

  Her beast shoved her wide head under his hand, and then, she pulled back, woofing happily.

  Roxanne sighed and sat back. She was suddenly shoved into the light as her beast decided that it was time for her to have a conversation with her mate.

  Roxanne was sitting, naked, in front of Moriven, and far too close for her comfort. “Hello, Moriven. I do apologize. She will not be halted.”

  He raised his brows, looked, blushed, and removed his shirt to hand to her. “Here, put this on.”

  She chuckled. “So, even after working with the guild, you don’t know much about shifters.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  She dropped his shirt over her head and pushed her arms through the sleeves. “Honest and shift-related nudity is never something to be embarrassed for. We are more likely to blush w
hen it comes to putting on or removing clothing than simply being naked. Naked is just skin.”

  She was surrounded by his scent, and her hound was in heaven.

  “Why did you take the shirt?”

  “To be polite. Now, we are both half-naked. Even footing.”

  Moriven smiled and shook his head. “Please, have a seat.”

  He scooted to one side, and she took the empty space overlooking the brook.

  “I apologize for wrecking your solitude. My beast has a one-track mind.”

  “She is charming. When I heard that you had a black dog as your beast, I imagined something far more intimidating.”

  Roxanne sighed. “She is my inner child, so to speak. She is where I keep my happiness and joy. I take on her urge to hunt and kill.”

  “She looks like an adolescent.”

  “She acts like one, too. She saw you, introduced herself, and then, she shoved me out and left me sitting there.”

  His eyes widened in surprise. “They can do that?”

  “They can do that. She thought we had some unfinished business.”

  “I believe she was right.”

  She turned toward him and blinked at the marks crisscrossing his torso. “What happened to you?”

  “I get injured in the line of duty.”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “I am often ambushed.”

  “You go out with a team. How can that happen?”

  He shrugged. “I am not an excellent team leader.”

  She poked him in the arm. “You need to work on it. If they don’t pay attention, make them. It is your life at stake. I don’t have any marks on me. I don’t let the crazies land the punches, and I don’t go out with teams I can’t depend on.”

  “Very smart.”

  “I don’t know how long I am going to be on this earth, but one of my assignments is not going to take me out.”

  He nudged her gently with his arm. “Would you be on my team? I think that we could manage to get along, and I know that you could teach my team members a thing or two.”

  “Not if they don’t want to learn. Are you a member of a noble house or something?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess. They are not folk who are out to do a job. They want to be close to you and stay in your good graces. That makes for sloppy work habits.”

  “Fair enough. What would you recommend?”

  “If you have to go out with a team, go out with shifters and one transporter. All that the fey bring to the party is their ability to get themselves in and out.”

  “If I changed my team, would you join me?”

  “No.” She waited for a moment. “But I would let you join my team. You would have to handle transports.”

  He turned his head to look at her. “You would let me back you up?”

  “Why not? You have an excellent capture rate, you have a long-range weapon, and I only have my long knives and my Anubis form.”

  “Wait, what?”

  She grinned and shifted so that her black head took on a more angular expression, and the rest of her body was human except for the claws on her fingertips. She looked at him and spoke carefully through the canine jaws. “Anubis form. Family shape.”

  “I thought you were a standard hound.”

  “I am, but the in-between shapes is something that can be mastered by the pack alphas. I am the only member of my pack, ergo, I get the form.”

  “Isn’t there usually a more movie werewolf form?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t like it. I don’t like the hairy chest.” She quirked her lips and shrugged.

  “You are in quite a good mood right now. I thought you would still be furious at me.”

  “That is the joy of two things. One, the exercise gives me all kinds of endorphins, and two, women can process and compartmentalize. My rage is now directed away from you and firmly on your coworkers.”

  “Good, that is the same place I am currently at.” He nodded and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

  “Why?”

  “What?”

  “Why are you enraged at your coworkers?” She cocked her head.

  “May I be frank?”

  “Please. It is the only way we will get anywhere.”

  “When I first saw you on your first day, you were in the workout area, and I felt my blood come alive for the first time in decades. You were young, and I wanted to stay away until you had settled into your situation, the new work.”

  She turned her normal human head to look at him in surprise. “Even then? Wow. Yeah, I would have jumped into your arms and lost myself. I was desperate for someone, anyone to act like a protector then. You made a good call. I would never have become what I am today if you had swooped in to save me.”

  “You don’t sound angry about it.”

  “I am genuinely not. I focused on my work, I had to deal with blinding fury and vulnerability, and I came out the other side. I mean, I still want to get them alone, untracked with me having my long knives, but that isn’t going to happen. I was a child, but I am not one any longer.”

  She patted him on the knee, kissed him on the cheek, and dropped his tunic into his lap. She walked away and resumed her beast after four steps. The sprint through the woods and back to her clothing was strange. She felt so much lighter, and her beast was smug. She had forced her into that conversation, but the result had been impressive. The last bits of resentment she had felt disappeared when she saw the pain he was in and the reason for it. The weird urge to soothe his guilt had kicked in, and she knew that his instinct had been spot on. She might not have suffered the trauma, but she also wouldn’t have learned to stand on her own feet if he had been at her side all day, every day. Now, she was a master seeker, and he was a master hunter. They were on equal footing. That would never have happened if she had given herself over to him. She would have lost herself with him and never wanted to come out again. She knew that is what she would have wanted because it was what she wanted right now.

  Chapter Five

  Roxanne climbed back into her running gear and made sure to release the grasshopper from her shoe before putting it on.

  Dressed and lighter of spirit than she had been in ages, she walked back to the Axion and headed to her room to change. It was time for a few rounds of solitaire.

  She put on a little black dress with short sleeves and headed for the Crossed Star. She was going to be hungry soon, but she needed to reset her thought patterns first. That was the point of card games in her life. She dealt the cards, there were a finite number of possibilities, and she could either act impulsively or think things out, but chance was always going to be the winner. It put her in her place. She could seek out any number of fugitives, but it was chance that let the wind blow and her senses focus. It was always chance that let her find the trail. She honoured chance by reminding herself that it was everywhere. Even in a little deck of paper cards.

  She skipped down the steps and was almost to the door when she heard someone yell, “Roxanne! Wait!”

  She turned, and Drak came toward her with a note page in his hand. “Roxanne, there has been an urgent summons for you. The guild has need of you.”

  She looked down and shrugged. “Of course, it is on a night I look particularly good.”

  She took the page from him, and she paused. “This came in when?”

  “Four minutes.”

  “Is there one for Moriven?”

  “Yes.”

  “Find him quick. His friends’ lives are at stake if they run from a formal court inquiry. They are as good as dead unless we bring them back tonight.”

  She lifted her head. “He’s taking a shower in his quarters.”

  “I will get the message to him right away. The guardians are waiting to do the transport.”

  “If I get there first, he is on his own. I need to find them before their lives are forfeit.”

/>   She nodded and left the Axion, sprinting down the gravelled road in her sandals, thankful that she never wore heels.

  She skidded to a halt at the Meditation Centre and extended the writ to Tony. “I have to take leave from the festivities to do my job.”

  Tony took a look at the writ, and he nodded. “Come this way. We will set up the portal to get you back to the guild.”

  She nodded and followed the orders of the two guardians until she was standing in the guild landing area under heavy guard. She smiled and said, “Roxanne, Master Seeker First Class. Here on special assignment.”

  The crossbows came down, and she was free to head to her locker and, from there, to her dispatcher. She needed to know the last place those men had been sighted, and she needed a fey teleporter to help her get from place to place.

  Moriven burst into her dispatcher’s office right after she got the briefing, and he nodded to her. “I am your transporter and your backup.”

  She nodded. “You know them best. Why did they run?”

  “They were threatened with a truth seer involving an incident four or five years ago. They chose to run rather than try and explain their actions. We are going to have to find out why. In fact, if they are so proud of what happened, why didn’t they tell anyone? Let’s end the mystery tonight. Dispatcher, do you have a truth seer on hand?”

  “I will keep one on duty.”

  “Excellent. Well then, Roxanne, are you ready?” He gave her a bland look, all business.

  She was wearing her work tunic, leggings, belts, and blades. “I am ready.”

  He wrapped his arm around her, and he transported them to the place he thought his friends would run.

  She blinked at the brightness, and she looked around to get her bearings. They were on a beach, and the sun was burning down.

  “This is where they would go to hide?”

  “It is. We are not in the domain of Larion now. KekoRoma rules this land. She can have us banished or worse in a minute.”

  Roxanne exhaled softly. “Right. So, find them and grab them and get them out.”