The Konig Cursebreakers

by Brenna Lyons

  Sarah didn’t wake immediately. Like the first dose, her medication wore off earlier than expected, and she was just a few hours into the oblivion of the next dose. Hunter set the tray aside and touched her arm.

  She smiled lazily as she opened her eyes. “How do you do that?” she slurred.

  “Do what?” he asked in confusion.

  “The longer I spend with you, the clearer your shimmer gets,” she mused.

  “Is the medication not working? I thought it suppressed your ability to see them.”

  “It does, but König shimmers are very strong — yours most of all. I can’t even see Erin’s right now, though it would make itself known if she touched me again.” Sarah grimaced.

  Even drugged, she complained that touching Erin was dangerous work. Kohl explained that her personal safeguards were impossible to engage when Sarah was overloaded. In short, she couldn’t shut it down, ever.

  Hunter nodded and helped her sit up. “Here. I’ll feed you and let you get your rest.”

  Sarah nodded, but she turned her eyes away. “That’s probably best,” she decided.

  “Do you need something?” Hunter wasn’t sure what gave him that idea, but he was suddenly sure it was true.

  “No,” she denied. “You do too much already.”

  “Just because no one has ever pampered you doesn’t mean you’re unworthy of it,” he ground out despite his attempt to control his annoyance.

  She laughed weakly. “On the contrary, every one pampers me. Haven’t you heard? I’m fragile, and I’m too important to lose.” Sarah was being sarcastic, but she seemed hurt by what she was saying.

  “Don’t give me that. I’ve seen the way Kohl treats you.”

  “He’s a bear in battle,” she admitted with a yawn, her eyes half shut. “If the beasts thought we were less than professional, less than detached, they would try to use us against each other.”

  “How is he otherwise?”

  “Solicitous, overprotective and bossy. He gets everything his own way, even when his own way is making me happy. I’ve only heard him beg once.”

  “Kohl?” Hunter asked in surprise, trying to imagine the man stooping to begging for anything. “When was that?”

  “The night he saved me. Kohl wanted so desperately for me to come to him and trust him — and for me to survive.”

  “You were injured?” Hunter realized it hurt to think of the beast hurting her, especially so young.

  “Not physically. Oh, I had cuts and bruises, but I wasn’t badly injured. The beast kicked in my senses, but I didn’t know how to turn them off again.”

  Hunter nodded. “I understand. Well, you should eat while it’s hot.”

  He started feeding her the meal: chicken, mashed potatoes, and salad. Hunter sighed. Obviously, no forethought had gone into the fact that he had to feed her by hand. He watched as she ate, his body tightening as she took the food from his fingertips.

  Sarah looked at him in a detached sort of understanding. “Maybe we should stop now,” she whispered.

  Hunter regarded her suspiciously. “You feel sick or you’re full?”

  She squirmed and looked away with a light blush.

  “Then, eat,” he ordered.

  “This isn’t right. It affects you too much.”

  “I can handle myself,” he growled.

  “You’re deluding yourself.”

  “So, you’re saying you feel nothing?” he asked archly.

  Sarah didn’t answer that.

  “What are you so afraid of?”

  “You printing on me,” she admitted.

  “Would that be so horrible?”

  “Yes. Don’t you see? I’m not—”

  “Not what? You were obviously affected when you invited my attentions. You were ready and willing. What changed? Why did you change your mind?”

  She met his eyes miserably and seemed to have trouble making herself answer. “I’m not the wife for you, Hunter. I realized that. Remembered that,” she corrected herself.

  “Really? I knew you read minds and saw your shimmers. Are you telling me you see the future as well?”

  Sarah darkened and looked away, hooking her hair behind her ear. She looked suddenly tired. “Everyone knows what your wife will be,” she decided. “Substituting me before you find her would foul up everything.”

  “You’re pushing me away because of a bunch of half-assed stories someone told you?”

  She flinched. “You’re supposed to have a wife like Anna and Jayde, a strong wife to give you strong sons,” she mumbled.

  “You don’t think you’re strong?” he asked in disbelief. “You’re a human who walks into battles.”

  “Not willingly, and I don’t fight. I’m a glorified traffic cop that ducks a lot. Look at me, Hunter! Do you want sons who have my frailty? Do you want children who shatter when a beast touches them?”

  “You can’t know that would happen,” he countered.

  “You can’t take that chance. I can’t let you. I’d only screw up the master plan.”

  Hunter ground his teeth and forced down his rage. “I think— I think you’re too exhausted to have this discussion. You’re obviously not able to separate fact from fiction.”

  She glared at him, and he bit back a smile. Sarah couldn’t even focus on him, but her look promised pain and suffering. She must have honed that look on her four older brothers over years.

  “You’re a fighter, all right. I’ll leave you with two thoughts, Sarah. The first is that the Warriors’ history is full of bullshit stories, fabrications, and re-written facts. We’ve discovered that, over and over. Never believe what even the house histories say – especially your own.”

  “And the other?” she whispered.

  Hunter smiled a tight smile as he collected up the tray. “The stone doesn’t let anyone interfere with its plans. If it didn’t want this, we wouldn’t feel it. The stone always gets what it wants eventually, even if it has to take the long way around. Think about it.”

  He left without waiting for her reaction. Hunter wound his way to the kitchen and set the tray next to the sink.

  “Did she eat?” Kohl asked from the table.

  “Some. Enough.”

  “Too tired?” he guessed.

  “You know your daughter very well, Lord Kaufmann.”

  Hunter grabbed his coat from the hook by the door, black leather lined with fleece for the winter months. He shouldered it on, studiously avoiding looking at his adversary. He could feel the other Warriors tense from across the room.

  “Where are you going?” Talon asked.

  “Out. You are not my house lord anymore,” Hunter reminded him.

  “What if Sarah needs you?” Damien asked quietly.

  “She won’t,” he snapped. “But you knew that. Your house stacked the deck, after all.”

  “Hunter?” Jayde cut in. “What’s wrong?”

  “Not a damn thing I wasn’t born to.” Hunter pulled on his gloves then stilled when he realized Erin was suiting up beside him. “Don’t,” he warned her.

  “Hey, this is my kind of party.”

  “No, Erin,” Talon ordered. “I am still your house lord.”

  “Mom?” she asked simply, not slowing in pulling on her knit cap and gloves.

  “Go on, Erin. No, Talon! Trust me on this one,” she replied brusquely.

  Hunter glared at her. “I can’t hunt with Erin,” he reminded her.

  “You’re right. Figure it out.”

  Cursing fluently, he stormed out with Erin jogging to keep up with him. “If I’m not hunting, I’m training,” he warned her.

  “Is that a threat?” she teased. “You think I can’t handle you?”

  “I’m not playing around, Erin.”

  “Neither am I. I need a good workout.”

  “If you end up bedridden—”

  “I’ll heal,” she finished for him. Erin sobered slightly. “I’m actually counting on talking you down a little on the way
.”

  “I don’t want to discuss it.”

  “Too bad. Being upset with what you were born to is my thing. You’re poaching on my range without my leave, and you need to explain yourself to me as lady of this range.”

  She said it so seriously that Hunter couldn’t help but to laugh. Erin didn’t join him. She didn’t look at him. She kept walking with her jaw set angrily and her eyes faraway and sad. Erin had been sad a lot since she came to Cross this trip. Her fists were shoved in her pockets, and she kicked at the frozen ground with her steel-toed hiking boots.

  Hunter sighed. “I want Sarah. Not just for release. I don’t want to ever let her go.”

  “She doesn’t want you?”

  “Oh, she wants me but she refuses me anyway,” he spat. “I mean, she refuses me adamantly and absolutely.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m the König prince,” he growled in frustration.

  Erin laughed bitterly. “What I wouldn’t give to have men avoid me for that reason.” She glanced at him sadly. “Yours is worse,” she admitted, “but only because you want her. Wanting something you can never have isn’t a good thing.”

  Hunter nodded. “What a pair we are. You have every Warrior at your feet, and you hate it. I want one woman desperately, and I can’t have her.” He stopped walking. “I don’t want to fight you. I want to beat the Kaufmanns to a pulp for filling her head with this crap,” he decided wearily.

  “Don’t bother. Damien’s not much of a challenge. I doubt Kohl is much better.”

  “Then, why didn’t you destroy him?”

  Erin shrugged, changed direction, and started walking again.

  Hunter loped after her and matched her pace. “No. I’m serious. Why didn’t you? He expected it. You know that. You certainly have the reputation for it. Why did you hold back like that?”

  “He had the common sense to treat me like a Warrior in battle,” she offered.

  “Versus what? I mean, you’re facing him down with a blade. What choice does he have?”

  “Plenty. I don’t like destroying them.”

  “Could’ve fooled me,” he decided acidly.

  “Don’t talk about things you have no knowledge of! I don’t like destroying them. I never did.”

  “Then, why do you do it?”

  “I’m tired of being baited, Hunter. I’m tired of Warriors treating me like a protected woman or child — or worse, like a damn piece of meat to be won and used. I’m not here to be leered at. It doesn’t do anything for me. Honestly... Never mind,” she grumbled.

  “Have you explained this to Mom and Dad?”

  “That makes the Warriors think of me as a protected child. I’m a Warrior, Hunter. I’ve been a better Warrior than most of them since I was thirteen. I need to reinforce that personally. That’s the only way I get respect.”

  Hunter looked around suddenly. “Where are we going?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Ice cream. My treat,” she offered. “I need something sweet.”

  “Oh no. You’re looking for a fight, and you think I’ll let you find it.”

  Her eyes glittered over a wide smile. “No, Hunter. I want ice cream,” she countered in mock innocence. “If a beast or two are stupid enough to interrupt that...”

  He smiled against his better judgment. Erin was damned devious, and she always had been. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You just want your blood seal,” he accused.

  “I’ve driven an elder to ground, and no one will let me fight another beast, even a low-level. How can I build skills that way?”

  “Mom and Dad will kill me,” he mused.

  “For buying your baby sister ice cream?” she teased.

  “I thought you were buying?” Hunter bit back laughter.

  “I have money. You have keys?”

  Hunter released her and pulled open the garage door. “Get in the damn car before I change my mind.”

  Erin kissed his cheek and bolted for the passenger door. “Thanks, Hunter.”

  “For what? You’re buying the ice cream, remember? I’m just driving.”

  The beasts didn’t decide to attack until after they retired to a park off the main road to eat their ice cream. Erin smiled as she set her Blizzard on the picnic table. She surveyed the five approaching beasts with an almost feral glee.

  “This won’t take long,” she decided. “My ice cream won’t even melt.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” Hunter chided her, pulling off his gloves for a better grip on his blades.

  “Never.”

  “Name yourselves,” he demanded as he unsheathed his weapons.

  One stepped forward, identifying itself as the highest ranked among them. He leered at Erin. “Good evening, Blutjagdfrau,” he purred. “My name is Sharpe, and my associates are DeCarlo, Lambert, Piccosi, and Beale. We are your escorts to your mate, lady.”

  She smiled. “Your master sends you to die — or maybe to test me? Is he afraid I’ll plant my blades in him again?”

  “Lorian fears nothing, and our reward for delivering you,” he scanned his eyes up and down her body, licking his lips in sexual excitement, “will be most enjoyable.”

  Hunter felt his bloodlust burn, while Erin faced the beast cold.

  “He’s mine,” she informed him.

  “He’s the high-level,” Hunter protested.

  “Which means two things. He’ll come for me himself, and you can handle the other four easily while I take him on.”

  “Erin, you’re not even lit,” he argued.

  “If I need it, I will be,” she assured him.

  “I’m not comfortable with this.”

  “Too late. They’re circling. Get to my back and let them.”

  “Guess I don’t have a choice.”

  “Nope. Let’s go.”

  Hunter had two down, while Erin was still toying with her high-level. She was toying. She trained harder than she was fighting him.

  “Finish him,” Hunter ordered.

  “When I’m ready.”

  Hunter took out the beast to his right, noting motion on the last low-level behind him. Erin lit, a quick snap of Blutjagd, as if someone had flipped a switch. He wheeled around and gasped. The high-level had been taken down by two blows in quick succession, heart and throat with her left blade. At the same time, she took the last low-level that had been charging at Hunter’s back through the heart with a perfectly aimed throw. Before he could finish his assessment, her Blutjagd was gone without a trace.

  Erin nodded and retrieved her blade from the low-level, wiping both blades on the grass and sheathing them. Hunter watched as she grabbed her ice cream. “See? Not even melted.”

  “Well, it is below freezing out here,” he noted. “Get over here.”

  Erin took a bite of her Blizzard and knelt next to him. Hunter painted her blood seals in the high-level’s blood reverently and smiled at her. “No one can claim you’re not a Warrior now.”

  “Thanks, Hunter.” She got back to her feet and swallowed another mouthful of her ice cream. “We should get back. I lit. Mom and Dad are probably worried sick.”

  “That concerns you?” he asked in surprise.

  “Their worry? Of course, it does. Their coddling? You know the answer to that one.”

  The drive back took only a few minutes, but the older Warriors were pacing at the garage, waiting for them. Hunter pulled in with a groan.

  “Don’t worry, Hunter,” she breathed, staring into the Blizzard. “Just follow my lead.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  “Trust me. I had this part planned.”

  “Good. I’m glad you planned something.”

  Talon practically dragged Hunter out of the car, when he opened the door. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded, slamming his son onto the hood of the car.

  “Give him a break, Dad,” Erin shot back before Hunter could reply. “He was doing a great job of keeping me out of it, until those two came at his back. I
ignored Hunter’s orders and took them out, while he finished the last of the three he handled.”

  Hunter turned his head and gaped at her. “Erin...” It was warning, a plea. She had to stop. If she lied to them, the penalty was much worse.

  She took a bite of her ice cream and furrowed her brow. “What? You expected me to let you take the rap for me? It was my idea to go for ice cream. It was my idea to stop somewhere and talk rather than coming straight back here,” Erin looked at Talon in challenge, “so we couldn’t be ghosted on. They could see when I let bloodlust take over. I figured they’d understand what happened. You can’t really lie about a thing like that, you know.

  “I didn’t follow your orders, Hunter. You have the right to take me to trial. All my house Warriors do. I accept your judgment. I deserve that much.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. She let it take over? Erin stifled it to give him this cover. “No. You disobeyed, but you did it to save me. If you hadn’t, you might – just might have had to face them alone. Unlikely, but it was a possibility. I won’t take you to trial for it.”

  Jayde crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you injured?” she demanded. “Are either of you?”

  “Not a claw,” Hunter breathed as Talon released his grip and pulled him back to his feet. “They never got a chance. It was four low-levels and a high. You felt how fast it was over, and we bagged pretty quick before reinforcements could be sent.”

  “You’re saying Erin took out two low-levels on her first night?” Kohl asked in awe.

  Erin laughed. “No, I drove an elder to ground first night, if you really want to get technical about it.”

  “You disobeyed that night, too,” Talon noted.

  Hunter looked at his father in dismay. The decision was going against Erin. He had the sinking suspicion that she knew it would and was letting it slide on purpose.

  “Actually, she took out the high-level and a low tonight,” Hunter interjected, hoping to sway the vote a little.

  Erin shrugged and took the last bite of her ice cream. There was a slight tremor in her hand, and he realized she was using the ice cream as something to keep her focus.