by Kaye Draper
Contents
title page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
About the Author
(Wendigo Girl Book 4)
Kaye Draper
Copyright 2017
Chapter 1
I stood at the edge of the forest, looking out at the smoldering remains of my cabin. The place that had been my refuge nestled on the Lake Huron shore, right up against the Huron-Manistee national forest. My shelter from life when the pain of living had become too much. My sanctuary. Gone.
My steps faltered for a moment. It was as if my brain wasn't quite sure whether we should run to the hot, golden-haired witch who stood there, calling up his power...or run far, far away.
Cal, Tommy's long-lost brother, my lover...my betrayer. Funny how lover and betrayer seemed to mean the same thing for me lately.
I grabbed Cloud's arm and yanked her backward toward the forest, unable to keep my claws from digging into her skin even through her leather jacket. Witch magic rose up around us, suffocating, suppressing, shutting out sensation and sound. Except for Cal's last words.
The wendigo bitch is dead.
I might as well be. No home. No friends. No fucking idea how to save the creatures behind me, who cowered with fear or bristled with frustrated anger. I pulled on Cloud's arm again. She wanted to stand and fight. I could feel it in every line of her tight, muscular body. She would lose. We all would.
Cal's own people treated him with wary respect. He was powerful even among witches. Cloud’s own hunter magic was nothing compared to this.
I yanked harder, unable to speak with the crushing, painful weight of Cal's magic bearing down on me. I backed away some more, into the woods, pulling Cloud along. She finally stopped resisting and turned to run with me, gliding silently as only a hunter can. I felt my creatures around us. Some ran. Some stayed to fight.
I couldn't stop them. Though I knew they would die.
I felt them. Their surprise and pain as they winked out of existence when they came up against hunters and witch magic combined. The beast inside me roared a battle cry, but I ignored it, left it to claw at my insides. We had to get out of here. I pushed at the edges of the magic, like an insect trapped by the walls of a glass jar.
Cal was behind us, powerful and terrifying. The magic pressed in from behind. Above. To the right. To the left. But this way...there was a weakness in one of the magic walls and I ran toward it, wondering even then if it was a trap.
We were being herded in the direction he wanted us to go.
I could feel hunters behind us. And Cal's magic.
But I could no longer sense the witch himself. Shit, shit, and shit.
Cloud's head whipped from side to side. She darted a glance above, clearly feeling what I felt. But what else could we do, except rush toward the trap.
Fucking hunters. Fucking witches. Fucking magic.
Ahanu flew overhead, oddly silent. No caws of outrage. No bossy birdy commands. He seemed to have lost his boy form, but still, even as a bird he was usually more opinionated. Even Death did nothing to stop my oncoming demise.
My heart thumped and thudded dully in my chest. Why, Cal?
We slithered to a halt in the sand and rocks at the Lake Huron shore. Cal stood there, all beautiful golden danger, wrapped in a skin-tight black uniform. I snarled and yanked Cloud back when she would have stepped between us. Not her damned fight.
She grunted and barely kept her feet. I may have been a little too angry for gentleness.
Okay, so maybe I was still pissed at her too.
"Stand down, Tess," Cal said, holding out a glowing hand in warning. Those same hands had slid over my skin like fire only hours before, bringing pleasure and comfort.
And now they were going to kill me.
Ahanu glided in to land on a boulder near Cal. I narrowed my eyes at the bird. That was Ahanu, wasn't it? Not some stupid decoy. The bird clucked at me as if it sensed my mistrust.
"Why are you trying to kill me?" Again. Goddamn it my life was a shit-fest. I thought we were over the whole I-must-murder-you-to-save-my-child thing.
I shivered. The last time I had seen Cal, he was walking away with his dead sister in his arms. Maybe I should stop asking why.
He glanced over my shoulder when one of my creatures gave a warbling cry and died at the hand of a hunter somewhere in the woods. "They think they're cleansing the area."
I growled, my chest rumbling. "And you are letting them, you fucking back-stabbing asshole."
He sighed, and the press of his magic behind us intensified. "The hunters think I work for them," he said tiredly. "But they're wrong. Very wrong."
I laughed, high and brittle. "Just like I thought you were helping me? I was wrong too."
He let his outstretched hand drop, the glow fading just a bit. "I'm helping you now, Tess. Your home is gone. Your creatures are being destroyed—the ones who weren’t smart enough to run. I will leave behind a magical crater that defies all investigation."
Cloud shifted at my side, straightening out of her defensive position. "He's making them think he killed you."
I flexed my claws. "Think?"
Cal nodded. "It won't last forever. They'll find you again, eventually. Your power signature is too strong to stay hidden. But it will buy you some time."
I showed him my fangs. "My little black wendigo heart just glows with appreciation," I said, imagining all the ways I would kill him, feast on him. Show him how much I had held back when I was playing nice.
Cloud grabbed my upper arm and squeezed. "Tess, take the opportunities you are given."
I glared at her, then let all of my bitterness melt into a snide smile. "What do you think I've been doing the last day or so?"
She didn't react to my nastiness, at the implication that she was just an opportunity. She simply withdrew her hand and turned to Cal. "I'll get her out of here and we’ll lay low. But what will you do? They'll know you betrayed them, eventually."
So touching how the woman who had loved me then abandoned me was now worried about the man who had loved me and tried to kill me. Fuck them all. I whirled around and made for the far side of the beach, where the magic was less intense. Let the hunters they had each betrayed to be with me kill them both for all I cared.
Cloud caught up to me. I whirled to snarl an insult at her, but was stopped when a deafening boom shook place. The ground beneath my feet shook, the air blasted us with percussive force.
I turned, almost falling, to see Cal on his knees before a giant crater that now stood between the shore and the forest near where my home had once been. He was panting with the force of the energy he had just expended.
And I could feel the hunters rushing toward us.
I suddenly decided to take Cloud's advice and not look a gift horse in the mouth. The monster in me might want to stay and devour as many of the fuckers as I could before I died. But my ghoul was out there somewhere, and he couldn't live without me.
And... I swallowed the lump that rose in my throat. Surely if Cal had been telling the truth, if someone had taken his little girl and was using her to make him hunt me...well, he was powerful enough to fix that on his own, right?
Not my fucking problem. I shook my head and followed Cloud deeper into the national forest, away from my home. Away from the hunters who hopefully believed I was dead. Away from the damaged witch who had maybe just fucked himself over to let me g
o.
The creatures who had not stayed to fight gathered around us, and their fear, their need for comfort and safety lent me power when the sun threatened to sap what was left of my wits. We had to keep moving. They had to get as far away as they could. "Keep out of sight," I whispered to them. "Spread yourselves. Go to ground. Don't let them sense you. Stay hidden until dark."
I didn't know if they could hear me, or if I was simply that in tune with them now. They scattered, disappearing from my senses.
My head began to throb. My eyes watered and my throat ached as we trudged on through the forest. The sun was like a lead weight around my neck, dragging me down with more and more force the higher the awful orb climbed in the sky.
Cloud slipped an arm around my waist, drawing my arm over her shoulders to lend me support when I stumbled and almost fell. "Just a bit further," she whispered, her husky alto voice rough with emotion and exertion. "The motel I've been staying in is warded. We just have to make it to town."
I wanted to push her away. Wanted to tell her to fuck off because I didn't need the help of a hunter who may or may not have betrayed me, left me, killed a young girl... I'm sure there were more suspicions on that list, but my mind was too fuzzy to think of them all.
I was too tired to push away. Her energy felt right against my own. My jaws ached from clenching them so hard. I wanted to taste her.
I wanted to throw her away as far as I could and never see her again.
I needed to find a dark spot to shelter until the fucking sun went away. Then I could worry about how to get Tommy back and who I was going to kill first.
Cloud heaved a sigh. "I know," she said.
And from the tension in her, she probably did know just how I felt. "But we've got bigger problems right now, Tess."
I rumbled agreement and we slogged on.
Chapter 2
I woke well into the night. I was normally wide awake the moment the sun sank below the horizon but the last few days had just been too much. I rolled over on the bleach-scented sheets and gazed up at the unfamiliar ceiling.
Motel. Right. The crappy motel we'd arrived at mid-day. The place tingled with low-level magic and reeked of dust and mold. I also smelled smoky incense and leather, and a hint of something like the dried grass in fall. I turned my head and stared at Cloud. She was staring back at me, but her eyes were slightly unfocused, and her face was more open than usual. She must have just woken up herself.
I peered into those pretty, honey-brown eyes as they slowly grew more alert. I watched her softness fade to wariness and hard-won, battle-scarred strength. "Good evening, hunter."
She blinked then drew a deep breath, long black lashes hiding her eyes from me for a moment. When she looked back up at me, I couldn't read her at all. It pissed me off. I wanted to shake her until she showed some emotion. "Hello, wendigo," she said in her husky alto, mocking my own greeting.
I watched as she stretched and stood, all hyper-muscled and ready to kick ass. "You have a giant hole in your shirt," I observed. Not that I minded the glimpse of her perfect, round breast that I got when she lifted her arms above her head like that.
She lowered her arms and glanced at me, cold and unconcerned. "It wasn't in the best shape before you ruined it."
And we were so not going to talk about just how I had ruined her clothes. Because I wasn't even sure it had happened.
Yeah. That was what I was going with. Maybe it had all been a nightmare. Tommy was alive. Tommy’s little sister, Rose, was alive. My house was still standing. And I had not fucked the bitchy hunter on the snow-frosted forest floor beside the ashes of my past.
Nope.
Cloud heaved a sigh, her face saying that she had noticed I was going to go with denial on this one. She knew me so well.
"I have a bit of money left," she said as she went to rummage around in a beat-up, army-green duffel bag by the end of the bed. "We can get some clothes and necessities." She stood, a wallet clenched in her hand. I wondered if she had other means of getting money, cause the hunters sure as shit weren’t going to be providing for her anymore. "We won't be able to stay here forever...even if money wasn't an issue."
I sighed, but nodded in agreement. Who knew when we would run into a witch or a hunter or someone who knew I was supposed to be dead and Cloud had defected to the monster camp.
Though...come to think of it, I still wasn't sure that was what had happened here...Cloud had never said that was why she came back.
"Why are you here, anyway?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and willing my claws and teeth to stay on this side of her supple hunter skin.
Cloud looked...tired. "A lifetime of lies," she said in an emotionless voice. "That's why I'm here."
She turned toward the door and I knew that meant conversation was over for now. The thing was, I didn't particularly care. I wasn't afraid of her anymore. We had proved we were pretty evenly matched the last time she tried to kill me. "Not good enough," I said, speeding to her side with wendigo reflexes and slamming a palm on the door to keep her from pulling it open. "Try again, Cloud."
She glared down at me. "Not everything I once believed is true. You were right. I was wrong. Are you happy about that, Tess?"
I inhaled slowly. My beast wasn't sure if we should kiss her or kill her. I was leaning toward both. "Oh, I'm thrilled," I growled. "Told you so, and all that. You think I'm going to do a little happy dance? I was right all along, Cloud. And you fucking abandoned me and promised to kill me." You were supposed to protect me, a weak part of me insisted.
She was silent for a moment, and I watched her battling her emotions. "You don't know anything," she finally said.
I opened my mouth to argue with that bullshit, but she shoved at my shoulders while she swept my legs out from under me, and I fell on my ass with a grunt. "Stay here, wendigo. I'll be back with supplies. You aren't exactly unremarkable."
I glared up at her. Okay, sure, so the antlers and fangs were kind of a giveaway. And I had a suspicion that my eyes glowed sometimes. "I'm not your fucking pet anymore, Cloud," I reminded her. "I don't sit and stay whenever you tell me to."
She rolled her eyes and the tiniest twitch of a smile tugged at one corner of her mouth before she caught it. "You never have done what I told you. Even when you were a pet." Her expression hardened. "Stay here, Tess. I have a feeling we don't know the half of what is going on out there. I have ways of getting more information. After we have food and clothing, and enough supplies to survive when they flush us out. Which they will do. Soon."
I heaved a sigh and stayed on the floor like a petulant toddler. "Get liver."
She shook her head and opened the door.
"And coffee," I demanded. "I need coffee, or I might eat the front desk clerk.
"Believe me," she said, voice wry. "I remember."
The door closed, and I roused myself to go lock up. Not that a lock would stop the people who were hunting my ass. But hope springs eternal. The last thing I needed was to eat a maid or a would-be robber and get us kicked out of our nice little flea-bed here.
I prowled about the room, taking in the smell of motel carpet and dampness. I caught a whiff of myself and decided a shower might not be a bad idea. God only knew when I'd get the chance again.
Cloud hadn't said it outright, but I had a feeling we might be roughing it for a very long time.
If we survived.
When Cloud returned, I was sitting on the bed combing out my long, damp hair with my claws. The cheap motel shampoo hadn't done it any favors and it was tangled as hell—but at least I didn't smell like blood and smoke anymore.
I let Cloud in and took the shopping bags she carried, sniffing out the one I wanted. Sitting down at the linoleum-covered table that occupied one corner of the small room, I tore open the package of liver and took out a dark, saturated piece of meat. I ate it in a few bites, then licked my fingers. Only then did I notice the paper coffee cup from Beans, the local coffee shop. Cloud must have s
et it down without my noticing. I heard the shower come on as I sipped my syrupy-sweet coffee.
Some part of me really didn't want to have to hate Cloud. She was caring, in her own prickly way. And beautiful. Strong. And more than able to put up with a raving monster now and then.
I gulped coffee and threw away the empty meat package, reminding myself that she killed monsters like me for a living. That I had no idea what she'd been up to the last couple of months. Then there was the mess with Tommy's sister. What did I expect, a happy ever after? My cold, stoic, bitchy Cloud surrounded by a white picket fence and dripping babies? Please. I wasn't that fucking stupid.
Hopefully.
Cloud stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a thin, white hotel towel and I growled.
She glanced at me and raised a dark eyebrow as she reached for the grocery bag that held our new clothing. "Indigestion, Tess?"
I narrowed my eyes at her, taking in her long, leanly muscled limbs, her full breasts barely contained by the towel. My eyes traced the long line of her neck and I wanted to sink my hands into her wet hair and own her.
"Heartburn," I muttered, stalking over to take another sip of my coffee. Fucking hunters.
There was a shifting of plastic and cloth behind me, but I didn't look back. If I watched her get dressed, I would do something really damned stupid. Like beg her to run away somewhere with me where we could feast on each other all day and pretend that the rest of the world didn't exist. I curled my clawed hands into my palm, letting the sharp sting of punctured flesh remind me that I was being a moron.
I rubbed my chest. I missed my ghoul. I had somehow grown attached to the undead idiot. He would keep me distracted from my stupidity with Cloud. He had helped me survive when I was falling apart. Damn it. The moron was right when he said we were family. And I had to stop thinking that some attachment to Cloud would fill that void.
Irritated with my deep psychoanalysis, I turned and started rummaging through the remaining shopping bags to see what kinds of things Cloud thought we'd be needing. I paused when I saw what was sticking out of the last bag, running my fingers over the sharp, scalloped blade.
