SeducingtheHuntress

by Mel Teshco

  With a frown she subsided back onto the branch, running her hands up and down her frozen arms. Had the crow been the flash of black she’d seen earlier? Had she wanted to believe the nightmix—Reuben—had followed her to stave off guilt?

  A thick lump formed in the base of her throat. Was Reuben even now lying on the floor of his cabin dead or dying? Tears slipped down her cheeks, mingling with the rain. She bent her head and swiped roughly at her eyes, only then noticing the neat little stitches on the puckered skin of her thigh.

  A surgeon couldn’t have done the job with any more care and attention. Gods, how had she ever thought Reuben evil? What she and her people did to him was little short of the witch hunts of old. He was the scapegoat, the man guilty of the crimes committed by another nightmix.

  Chapter Six

  Reuben paused, his chest heaving in and out as he dragged oxygen into his lungs. Pine trees loomed around him, distorted, large and monochromic in nightmix vision. He barely noticed. Right then his keen ability to scent was his biggest asset. His snout dropped to the ground and he sniffed in pungent smells of decomposed leaves, pine needles and rich, wet earth.

  Nothing human.

  Even with his superior senses the rain had drowned Isabella’s scent and made tracking her near impossible. He’d gotten only so far on a vague whiff of her on the various pine trunks she’d touched, a snatch of her sweet, feminine scent on a rock or two.

  I’ve lost her.

  The sharp pain in his chest had little to do with his deep knife wound.

  All he cared about right then was finding Isabella.

  He pushed back into a run, soaked pine needles and mud spraying from beneath his paw pads with every flex and shift of corded muscles.

  Speed was of the essence.

  Already darkness had chased away the light. He’d had no choice but to delay finding Bella to give his body time to heal. Shifting into a nightmix had helped—each change forced the body to rejuvenate, the cells to alter and reform—but full recovery was still some way off.

  Luckily the adrenaline pulsing through his body staved off much of the pain, which would no doubt be crippling once his hormone levels dropped.

  Guess he could only be glad the deer he’d brought home earlier had helped facilitate at least some of his recovery. He’d tried to follow Bella after she’d ran, but dizzying weakness from blood loss and excruciating pain had forced him to stop. All of which had gotten a whole lot worse once he’d pulled free the knife.

  Fighting for consciousness, he’d forced himself to eat a chunk of raw meat, and then another and another. Until he’d devoured the whole carcass and healing energy had begun to pour through him.

  But what about Isabella? Without food, clothes or weapons, and with no way of knowing which direction to go, she was all too vulnerable.

  He had to find her before it was too late.

  Fire burned through his veins. He couldn’t lose her. Not now. Besides which, if she’d really wanted to kill him he’d be dead now. Her well-practiced aim would have pushed the knife slightly to the left of his chest, straight into his heart. Instead she’d stabbed him closer to where her arrow had impaled his shoulder.

  She hadn’t wanted to kill him. If only she’d admit it to herself.

  But Isabella wasn’t alone in keeping things to herself. He hadn’t come to terms with his true feelings either. Shame it’d taken her leaving him to realize he couldn’t lose her. Ever.

  He loved her, plain and simple. Their short time together was irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things. She’d touched something inside him the first moment he’d seen her astride her spirited horse, her beautiful eyes glittering with fierce determination and her bow and arrow wielded effortlessly in her hands.

  No disguise could hide even an inch of her glorious femininity. Even in his panther form he’d experienced a jolt of need that’d nearly forced an involuntary change back to human.

  He shook his head, a throaty growl piercing the rain-thick air. There had to be a compromise, some way they could work things out.

  Yeah, she’ll be real impressed when she finds out who I really am. No doubt she’ll add “liar” to my long list of failings.

  How ironic that his whole life he’d had women fall all over themselves to be shown even a morsel of his royal favor. Yet the one woman he wanted above all others might never be his.

  A black shadow high in the sky caught his attention. A crow wheeled above the trees just ahead and to the right. Waiting for a death?

  Reuben turned in the direction of the black bird. His stride lengthened, snarls erupting with every exhalation. Then a snatch of Isabella’s scent filled his nose. He skidded to a stop, breathing deep of her intoxicating smell. She was close. Really close. His tail lashed with excitement as he slowly turned to get a bearing of her whereabouts, his snout lifting as he followed the scent.

  He blinked, but his eyes didn’t fail him. She was hiding in a pine tree. But she wasn’t moving, wasn’t showing any signs of life. A deep, rumbling growl sounded low in his chest. She’d be half frozen. She wouldn’t be going anywhere. Hell, he’d probably be unable to rouse her.

  If he didn’t shift shape and physically go and get her, she’d be dead come morning. Except he knew even before his cells altered that his body would balk at yet another shift so soon after the last one. Too many changes were dangerous. And forcing a shift was deadly. It could trigger a fallout, a flash hit of agony that could happen minutes or even hours after he’d shifted shape.

  He had no choice. He had to get her down and warm as soon as possible.

  With his body protesting every step of the way, he tried not to rush through the shift. He gritted his fangs…then teeth, riding through the agony. Deep down he hoped the extra care meant his fallout didn’t happen, or was at least substantially reduced.

  Minutes later he was fully human again. Ignoring still-screaming muscles and sinew, he scrambled for the tree, feeling sick knowing that the chance—or not—of having a fallout was a huge gamble. It meant time was doubly precious. If he succumbed before he got Isabella home to shelter and warmth…he didn’t want to think about it.

  Grasping the rough branches, he pulled himself up, grimacing at the pain lancing through his chest. The shift had managed to heal a little more of his wound, but not enough. Not nearly enough. If climbing the tree was this agonizing, how in hell was he going to descend with Isabella in his arms?

  Determination surged. He wouldn’t fail. No matter what he’d bring her home alive.

  Hauling his protesting body to the branch where she half-sat, half-lay, he bent to touch her bare, pale skin that was tinged faintly with blue. His palm burned at the contact and something inside his chest squeezed as though held by a fist.

  “Oh no you don’t,” he rasped. “You don’t get to die on me.”

  Wedging his feet wide apart on the too-slippery branch, he gathered her in his arms and lifted her with a pained grunt. He knew without looking that his wound had wrenched open. A warm wetness ran down his cold chest, white-hot pain piercing through him. He sucked a breath in between clenched teeth, momentarily seeing stars. No amount of adrenaline could stave off this kind of agony.

  Guess he could only be thankful his pain threshold was high thanks to regularly shifting shape.

  Isabella was small and light, she probably weighed less than half his own weight. But she could have been as hefty as the horse she’d rode for how physically demanding it was to carry her with one arm wrapped around her, the other clutching random branches and counterbalancing.

  Sweat mingled with his blood. His lungs burned right along with every one of his muscles. He felt faint even after he’d dropped to the ground with bent knees, his calves screaming as they absorbed his weight.

  But there was no possible way he could carry her all the way home. He laid her on the pine-needle-strewn ground, which would have been prickly and uncomfortable had she been conscious, but at least the mud and icy wet was minimal. />
  He worked quickly and methodically to find and gather the materials needed for a makeshift stretcher. Taking a breath, he focused on a part-shift that might well push his body to its limits and over the edge into fallout. He gritted his jaw, his teeth retracting and sharp canines cutting through his gums.

  It took all his concentration to keep from shifting further while not cutting his own tongue on his over-large canines. They were sharper than any knife, perfect for tearing apart a karrawarren vine. Without tools or weapons, cutting or ripping the vine was near impossible as human. Next he found two long branches and four much shorter branches in which to make up the stretcher.

  He stripped them of their leaves and twigs before laying the long branches—poles—out side by side. Then lashing together the smaller branches into two crosses, he tied them to either end of the poles. Working fast, he laced the remainder of the vine in a crisscross manner going up the poles before knotting off.

  He had no time to be pedantic.

  Placing her carefully onto the stretcher, he picked up the poles at one end and began to drag her, one laborious step after the other.

  Isabella smiled, luxuriating in the warmth of her parents’ indoor fire. She’d been cold…bitterly cold. Hadn’t she?

  The thought disintegrated at the chatter around her. She focused, confused for a moment, before she cast a quick glance at her mother, who looked so much better today after almost two weeks of fitful coughing.

  Isabella’s smile widened and her shoulders relaxed. Even her dad looked happy. She’d sensed his helplessness when the only doctor for miles around had been busy treating seriously ill patients suffering from desert fever. Secretly she wondered if her dad hadn’t worried that his wife had become one of the unfortunate people who’d contracted the fatal disease. Little wonder he looked so untroubled now. The dark cloud that had dampened his spirits had finally lifted.

  “Benj and Bella, blow out the candles,” her dad said heartily, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his teeth glinting behind his short, dark beard.

  “Okay, Daddy,” they said in unison. Isabella closed her eyes and took a big breath.

  “Don’t forget to make a wish,” Benj chimed in from beside her.

  I want to marry my own Prince Charming.

  She opened her eyes and glanced at her brother. Together they blew hard. All six candles spluttered, then flickered out.

  Her family clapped and cheered. Then her brother leaned in and said confidently, “Your wish is gonna come true now, wait and see.”

  She glowed, filled with absolute certainty. She’d listened avidly to the old village storyteller, who’d overflowed with tales about princes on their white steeds, charging in to save the day. She lived for those stories and couldn’t wait for her own prince to sweep her off her feet!

  A ringing in her ears had her eyes widen with alarm. What was going on? She looked around wildly when everyone abruptly blurred then disappeared. A nanosecond later she found herself standing at her parents’ door.

  Time had skipped forward, she knew that at the back of her mind even as she somehow knew that her father had ridden off during the night to demand the doctor’s services. Her mother had worsened since the party, though she’d retired to bed earlier than usual. Isabella had been kept awake, utterly miserable and frightened as she’d listened to her mother’s relentless coughing through the night.

  Why hadn’t I wished to make Mummy better?

  A lump set in her throat. Her mother had overdone things trying to make their birthday extra special.

  As if under compulsion she raised a fist and knocked, though dread pulled at her insides.

  “Who is it?”

  She swallowed at the hoarse, breathy voice. “It’s me, Mummy. May I come in?”

  Silence lingered. Then, “Yes.”

  She opened the door with her breath stalling in her throat. The weak dawn light didn’t take away the fact that almost overnight her mother’s complexion had become pasty, her cheeks sunken in and eyes dull.

  “I heard you coughing,” she whispered.

  Her mother nodded. “I’m sick, sweetheart.” Another fitful round of coughs had her reach for a cloth—speckled with blood. When Isabella stepped inside, wanting to hug and comfort her, she put a hand up to stop her. “Don’t come too close. It…It’s probably contagious.”

  “What do you mean?” Isabella asked, eyes going wide and nausea a lump growing in her belly.

  Her mother’s eyes grew wet as she retrieved a darfe from beside her bed of cushions. Tying the cloth around her mouth and nose, she sat and murmured, “This should make me safe.”

  When she moved into her mother’s arms and was pulled close, for a moment she felt good. Secure. But then she noticed how frail her mother’s arms were, how scratchy her breathing. “I’m scared,” she admitted in a little voice. “I don’t want you to die.”

  She woke with a start, disoriented and confused until the familiar log walls of Reuben’s cabin came into sharp focus.

  How the hell did I get back here?

  She sat, the blankets she’d been swaddled in falling off her and baring her breasts. It didn’t matter. A blazing fire crackled and spat, generating so much heat a fine sheen of sweat moistened her exposed skin.

  Reuben was out. But he’d left a jug of water beside the cushions. She brought the jug to her mouth, the blessedly cool liquid sliding past her cracked lips and down her dry throat until she’d slaked her thirst.

  She scanned the cabin. Her eyes widened. Reuben had left a hip-bath beside the fire. She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the weakness assailing her as she investigated.

  The bath was half full. And on a corner lip was a bar of soap. She reached out a hand. The water was warm, evidently kept that temperature from the heat of the fire. She climbed in and slid into the silken warmth with a blissful sigh before going right under and wetting her hair.

  Coming back up for air, she massaged the soap through her hair before dipping back under and washing out the suds. Wringing her hair dry as best she could, she leaned back and let out a grateful sigh, feeling extraordinarily clean for the first time in days.

  Her fingers moved back and forth through the soapy water as she became lost in thought. The last thing she remembered was hiding out in a pine tree, going half-mad from the cold but utterly unable to move.

  Reuben must have found her and brought her back. It was the only thing that made any kind of sense. Breath shuddered from her lungs. He’d survived his stab wound and come after her. How else would she have woken in his cabin?

  But where was he now?

  It was dark outside, though a faint tinge of dawn touched the far reaches of sky. Had she slept the whole night away?

  She’d obviously been dreaming about her past just before she’d woken. But everything after crouching on the pine tree and being freezing cold…was blank.

  Her belly gurgled, hunger pains sharp in her midriff. It hadn’t been that long since she’d eaten, had it? She’d devoured all of Reuben’s stew before she’d run away…before she’d sunk a knife into his chest.

  She jerked upright and water sloshed, her breath sawing in and out of her lungs. Oh god, was he even now planning his retribution? Had he planned to get her relaxed and warm in the bath before bursting through the door in his nightmix form to slay her?

  She swiped a hand over her face, no longer warm but chilled to the bone knowing that she really didn’t blame him if that was his intention. She deserved nothing less.

  From the very start he’d done nothing but look after her. He’d stitched and dressed her wound. He’d fed her and kept her warm. Her heart picked up speed. He’d made her a woman.

  And knifing him had been her thanks?

  “I’m so sorry, Reuben,” she whispered.

  But nothing answered her except the cold soughing of the wind outside, the chirping of a frog that was undoubtedly soaking up the last of the rain that’d saturated the ground.

  The
bath suddenly having no more appeal, she climbed out and bent for a towel that was folded beside the tub on the floor. She wrapped herself in the slightly scratchy material, standing before the flames in contemplation.

  How was she going to explain her actions to Reuben? She sighed. She couldn’t. Not really. There was no excuse for what she’d done to him.

  The hiss and pop of the fire seemed somehow to exacerbate the isolation of the cabin. She closed her eyes. How the hell had Reuben even survived such a wound, let alone found the strength to rescue her?

  Rescue? Don’t you mean kidnap?

  She pressed the palm of her hand to her brow. She didn’t know much about anything anymore, but the one thing she did comprehend was that Reuben was no killer. Her teeth bit into her lower lip. No, it was she who had tried to kill someone innocent. She was as much a murderer as the nightmix that’d killed her brother.

  She swung away from the fire, the flames making her feel as if she was someone damned. If Reuben still felt any compassion toward her, she didn’t deserve it. Not one bit.

  Chapter Seven

  A sob wedged in her throat even as a mirror on the opposite wall caught her stare.

  It was akin to looking at a stranger for the very first time.

  She’d always been fine-boned, but now she verged on gaunt. She’d clearly lost a lot of blood, or she’d been indoors for too long, because her normally sun-kissed skin was alabaster white. Her short blonde hair clumped out in the worst kind of bed hair and the eyes that peered back at her were red-rimmed and smudged underneath with dark shadows.

  She touched her hair. Until recently, she’d always worn it long. Not that it mattered. The bedtime ritual of her mother brushing her hair in long, gentle strokes while they talked about their day had long ago become a faded memory.

  She pressed outspread hands to her face, fighting back tears and losing. Revenge had built impenetrable walls around her emotions, but now that those walls were crumbling, her emotions were left open and exposed. And she wasn’t equipped to deal with them, had never really dealt with them.