Rogue Huntress: a new adult urban fantasy novel (Rogue Huntress Chronicles Book 1)

by Thea Atkinson

  I pushed my arms into the sleeves and wrapped the robe around me, tying it with the sash. He knew as well as I did that once I saw the bloody mess, I would want to shift into my wolf self as quickly as possible.

  Barefoot, I trod behind him through the hallway to my father's wing. I knew before we entered my dad's bedroom where we were going.

  "The escape route."

  He looked back at me over his shoulder and smiled. "They were in the crypt."

  For a second, I thought my heart stopped. In the crypt. They were so close when I had escaped, that I could have freed them if I had only taken that direction when I fled. The bile that rose to my throat tasted sour and burned my palate. I had to reach out to the wall to keep from swaying on my feet. The grief, the lust, the rage had all boiled down into a thick syrup coating my muscles and turning my mind into a viscous flood of emotion. Reason hard a hard time swimming to the surface of it all.

  It took only a few moments to reach the crypt, and while I had thought it would be cordoned off and guarded, if it was it was no longer so. The sprinklers filled with colloidal silver did not spray their load. Someone had turned them off. Strange, that. Jeb would have felt nothing from the spray. Caleb pulled open the doors and let me walk inside. The smell of putrefying blood coated my nostrils and prickled over my skin. I didn't need a flashlight to see how it coagulated on the cement floor, the way flesh clung to the wall. The stink of silver washed over me. If reason broke the surface, it sank again like a stone.

  "I'll kill him," I said.

  "That's my girl."

  I turned to him only to see his shoulders relax as he took in my rage. It buoyed him, obviously. Instilled confidence in our bond. I knew he would let me go even before he spoke.

  "You need to go before the connection is completely gone," he said. "Do you understand? Whatever there was between you, you have to use it to find him."

  I nodded, already feeling my beast prickle to the front. I let her come before I had untied the sash, and she was in full form by the time the robe fell to my feet. I sniffed the air, scenting for blood.

  I didn't need the fast and already fading connection to Jeb running through my system to know where he had gone. He would stop at Dara's to gather supplies because while he was such a prepared little soldier, he hadn't had a chance to pack for betrayal. Dara's commune would prove a perfect opportunity for him to ingratiate himself for a few hours, long enough to get the supplies he needed before he set back out to escape from me.

  I loped through the woods with only one thing running through my fevered brain. Kill. I could smell him everywhere. With every footstep, my paws took across the lawn and into the trees, his scent grew stronger. Licorice and Woods and old musk rode the waves of the breeze and carried with it something unfamiliar. A perfume of sorts. Laden with the smell of sweat and unwashed skin. Something deeper beneath that, as well. Rotting flesh. Old blood. No doubt he carried with him the body of his beloved sister, slung over his shoulder. It would slow him down. And I was fast. I'd always been fast. I thought of a dozen ways I would kill him when I leapt over fallen tree branches and barreled through the thicket. When I reached the ravine, I leapt over it easily. I had my old strength back. Recovered and healed. I could thank Dara for that kindness. I'd thank her by murdering the man who was responsible for the annihilation of almost half of her commune.

  I ran for what felt like hours, but in my wolf state I knew nothing but the fever to run. Scent grew stronger and I knew when I began to smell the rosemary and the sage on the breeze, that I was close to the commune. I couldn't imagine how so heavily laden with another body, that Jeb was able to get so far. I should have come upon him by now, burdened by his sister's body. Tired and spent. I was almost excited that I was so close to finishing, but there was a sort of melancholy in the thought that I would have so little challenge ahead of me. He would be exhausted. It would be a poor match at best. And then I remembered the blood inside the crypt and the tissues on the wall and I thought of my brothers and I didn't care whether it was a challenge to execute their killer or not. He just needed to die.

  I was envisioning the taste of his blood when I heard a rustle in the trees. It was muted, but deliberate. Almost as though a person was trying to make it through the thicket without making a sound. It might have been lost on human ears, but mine were trained for the sound of movement.

  I saw him well before he saw me. Emerging from the brush in his full camouflage T shirt and khakis. Looking exactly the way he had when I'd left him, except there was a large smear of blood over his chest that soaked into the material and had already began to dry in hard folds.

  I leapt at him before I could think. I fully expected to feel his throat beneath my teeth. It was a shock to feel instead his hand around my foreleg, of him twirling me backwards and in a circle, flinging me through the air sideways. It left me thudding to the ground against a tree and knocking the wind from my lungs. I rolled onto my belly, snout extended and lips curled back. I snarled at him, warning him not to take a step closer. That I would lunge at him if he did. And I would not fail to kill him the next time.

  "Shana," he said, not quite crouching, but putting his hands palms downward as though to tell a dog to lie. "Shana, it's me."

  Had I been a woman, I might've laughed at the obviousness of his comment.

  "I couldn't do anything about it," he said. Placating. How like him. I crawled forward an inch, thinking to coil my legs behind me and spring at him.

  I told him with a low growl exactly how I would kill him. I let the threat roll across the breeze like thunder.

  "Easy," he said the way a man might to a rabid dog. I was rabid all right. But I was no simple dog. I was a wolf, dammit and I would tear his throat out.

  The next time I lunged for him, I would aim for his belly and not his throat. He wouldn't be expecting that, and he wouldn't use the force of my own momentum against me. He was trained, yes, I could see that now. But no man is trained to face a wolf.

  My hind feet scrabbled behind me and in seconds I was flying at him again, my head lowered, aiming straight for his belly. I expected him to twist sideways or jump out of the way, and I was already digging into the dirt, ready to lunge with him, but instead the full force of his weight came down as he thudded downward with his fists against my spine. The thrust brought me to the forest floor. His weight fell on me then, pinning me there like a bug and I had to scrabble wildly to dig myself from beneath him. I was a foot away, considering going for his face and hoping he would see in my eyes that very intent.

  "Please, Shana," he said. "I don't want to hurt you."

  Somewhere beyond my own reason, I heard a snarling and breathing. It was all around me, then. The fever of bloodlust, the desire to kill him. All of it came out through my throat and I didn't even realize it was me until I flew at him again, this time aiming for his arm, thinking that I could crunch down through his tender bones and use the full weight of my body to pull him downward.

  He wasn't expecting it and I managed exactly that. I tore through his flesh with a shake of my head, growling at the tasted of his blood. Somewhere in the back of my Wolf's mind was a whimpering thing that hated what she had become. Even so, the fury of my brother's death and of my captivity and torture, of the bond I had made with Caleb, all of those things raced to the front of my mind, fueling the fever.

  I had him on his knees now, and all I had to do was twist sideways and aim my snout for his throat. And it was only as I was doing so I realized why he hadn't been ready when I bit his forearm, the reason why I had managed to dig into it at all.

  He had pulled a knife from the holster on his leg and had sliced across my ribcage. I screamed in fury and it came out as a horrific howl that made the birds lift from the trees around us. Silver. So prepared, this one.

  No matter. I was used to the pain by now. And his throat was ever so close. I could smell the licorice on him. Smell the sweat of exertion. I wanted it. I wanted to taste that blood and
feel the skin tear beneath my teeth. But he somehow managed to thwart me in that as well, throwing me sideways and leaving me scrambling in the detritus back to my feet. And I couldn't. One of my legs had gone lame. I collapsed again, feeling my snout plant into the forest floor. I tried to yell at him again, but it came out as a whimper. I watched him shuffling toward me, crouching down low just a few feet away.

  "I know you're in there somewhere, Shana," he said. "And I don't know why you're like this, but he's okay. I got him out."

  I crawled toward him, pushing my back feet to burrow through the moss and leaves toward him.

  I was almost there. Inches away. He thought he had tamed me. No man could tame me. Wolf, perhaps, but not a man. Especially not the man who had killed my brothers. Betrayal. It was a hard knot in my belly.

  He reached out to me the way a man does an unfamiliar dog, waiting for me to sniff his fingers and grow docile in the face of his friendly and nonthreatening demeanour.

  Blood dripped from his forearm onto the forest floor. It made little bit pitpat sounds as it streamed from his arm. I had done damage. Enough damage that would slow him down. I snarled my hatred, unable to stop it from bubbling to the surface. I pushed myself up, the lame leg trembling but holding. One deep breath and one burst of energy and I could explode onto him.

  I only had time to read the expression of regret on his face as he pulled his pistol from the holster and pointed it flat at my face. I could leap, but couldn't I get to him faster than the discharge of a bullet.

  With my brother's dead, and bonded to a man I loathed, I didn't care what the consequences were. I was about to lunge anyway when the safety clicked off and he swallowed loudly enough that it made me pause.

  "I know you're in there," he said.

  I growled deep in my throat. His hesitation befuddled me. The smell of licorice sent a flash of skin and pleasure skittering across my mind, making my hackles raise.

  I watched him take a deep breath and then he placed the pistol sideways on the forest floor next to him. He raised his arms in the air in surrender.

  "See," he said. "I can't do it. I love you, Shana," he said. "I hope that's enough to reach you. Because it's true. I'm sorry. I could only save one of them. I failed."

  When I did leap for him, even I was surprised that I had shifted into a woman long before my feet left the ground. Naked and fevered, I tore at his clothes with my fingers, and in response, those weathered hands of his roamed my back, pulling me toward him.

  Going Upwind

  This time the sex wouldn't be languid and sleepy. I was in a fever to mate, too blinded by thwarted blood lust. I raked at his chest as I crawled over him, pulling him closer, desperate to have him inside of me. I pinned him by the throat with my left hand, squeezing until he gasped and gave in. I peered down at him through shuttered lids, not caring what face met mine, only that it was breathing and ready. I watched the lust ride his features with an almost grim satisfaction. He wanted me that was obvious. Even through the material of his khakis, I could feel how hard he was. His hips strained for mine. Beneath my palm, the pulse in his neck throbbed in time with my own.

  I leaned forward, inhaling his smell, letting it wash over me and crest my spine like a tsunami, pulling me under, taking my breath. The smell of licorice and musk made the base of my spine tingle. There was something else beneath that as well. A faint smell of wolf in his blood. I lay my mouth against his skin. His flesh burned against my lips. Infection. My infection already setting in and beginning its courtship of his white blood cells, racing through and breaking down each barrier little by little. A flutter moved through my belly, trying to call out to the pieces of myself in his tissues. Every part of me strained to reconnect.

  I grazed my teeth against the gooseflesh that lifted to meet me as I dragged one canine up behind his ear. He smelled divine. He smelled familiar. Like my own blood. Something in the back of my mind resisted, sending fires of warning to the synapses. He wasn't mine; I wasn't his, and this shouldn't be happening. But I needed to sate this desire. I was drenched with it.

  I heard his breath catch and cocked my head sideways, expecting to hear a protest. None came. Instead his fingers gripped my chin, pulled my mouth to meet his lips. The low growl that came from me as my mouth met his was not a questioning one, but one of demand. He would give me what I needed or I would take it and ride him till the fire inside me had been extinguished. I couldn't bear the heat anymore. It flared in explosive bursts that made me writhe over his hips, squirming to find his cock, slip over it with delirious abandon. I tasted him like a starving woman would savour spiced and juicy meat. Reason abandoned me; all that was left was the drive to glut myself on his taste, fill myself with him.

  I was already riding him, my breasts brushing against his chest as I tried to sate the fire. I was too drunk, too gone to stop by then. He had to push his hands beneath my bottom to work at his pants. The feel of his fingers as they whispered against my sex made me groan out loud.

  "Get them off," I said. "Now."

  I was dizzy with it all. Bloodlust, desire for this human man, the strange calling I felt deeper still in my belly that called out to a wolf hundreds of yards away that couldn't be slaked. I couldn't process it. My mind refused to move through the rational thought, it knew only the primal desire to connect, to join and through it all through my blood pounding in my ears smothering any other sound except for his breath and my own heart.

  "Fuck," he said as my sex met his shaft. He groaned the way a beast might as I impaled myself on him and drove the tip deep.

  I dug into whatever bit of skin presented itself. Bit down on whatever came near my mouth. He met each thrust, driving me to a frenzy that I might have been ashamed of in my rational mind.

  "Sweet Jesus," he gasped out once, when I gripped his hands and pulled them to my breasts, making them squeeze until the nipples ached and I cried out in pleasure and pain. "It's too much. I can't hold back."

  I ground into him then, desperate to feel my release, so driven to taste him at the same time that I pulled him toward me, pressing his mouth to my shoulder.

  "Bite me," I gasped. "Break the skin."

  "I can't," he said. "I can't hurt you."

  I had visions of Caleb in that moment, of feeling the drive to pierce his flesh and take my revenge while he had taken my submission from me and ended up joining us together in the old way. This was different. I could smell the change in Jeb. The full moon was coming and his change might not be peaked enough to transform, but he was mine in that moment. Two wolves taking their pleasure the way nature drove us to do. It was all a confusing muddle because I should be well bonded to Caleb, but the desire, the lust, it was so fierce, I thought I might have taken release with any man who came near. Rather than feel shame, the thought flooded me with renewed lust.

  "Just do it," I said, pressing his mouth to my skin. I moaned as it touched me, and when his teeth grazed my flesh and pinched the tissue, I couldn't stop the climax that shot through me, igniting fresh flames up through my core. I bit down on his shoulder hard enough, I tasted blood.

  I came to a shuddering end. We both collapsed into limp rags on the forest floor.

  Sated and bleeding, I propped myself up after several minutes. This time when I looked down at him, exhaustion colored him differently. I felt guilty.

  "What's wrong," he said, reaching for my face, his fingers probing beneath the curtain of platinum hair that veiled my eyes from his.

  I pulled away. "We shouldn't have--"

  He laughed. "The hell we shouldn't." He tried to pull me closer and although I felt the residual pull of some deep desire, the guilt prickled the back of my neck.

  "Don't," I said. I reached for his t-shirt and pulled it over my head. Covered, I felt better. I pushed myself to my feet and regarded his bloody and bruised chest. Scratches crisscrossed his chest and raised in weals that looked angry and painful. I couldn't look at them without my throat aching.

  He sighe
d and pulled his pants over his hips. "Alright," he said. "I get it." His voice went sour.

  "I don't think you do."

  "Then tell me," he said.

  "I'm not me. I'm lost somewhere. A deep hole I can't see out of."

  "Because you've bonded with him," he said and there was a note in his voice of regret. "I should never have let you return to him."

  I found a large stone to sit on and crossed my arms over my knees as I regarded him.

  "It's done," I said. "And now all that remains is to kill you." I felt a shudder wrack my core.

  "Kill me?" He leapt to his feet. "After that?" he pointed to the ground at his feet.

  I pushed my knees into a straight line and started to peel the shirt from my belly. I'd take him as a wolf so I wouldn't balk when the time came.

  "What are you doing?" he said.

  "Transforming."

  "I told you," he said, backing away and I noted that his steps as he shuffled toward the backpack. "I did my best. One of them was already dead before I got there."

  I paused. "Caleb told me you killed them. Both of them."

  He shook his head. "I got there just in time to save one of them. His man had already shot one of them." His brows scuttled down in confusion. "I made him go ahead because I didn't want him behind me. That's when I heard the shot. He must've had some difficulty getting to the other boy--maybe he fought or something-- because the next shot didn't come."

  That didn't make sense. "But Caleb told me you –"

  "No," he shook his head. "It was Caleb. His men obviously had orders to get rid of every liability when you returned--including me. He must have been pretty confident that he had you."

  I couldn't help feeling the bitterness and it came out in my voice. "He might not have been so damned confident if I hadn't believed you had turned on me."

  "He's cunning, Shanna," he said. "I couldn't give him any reason to doubt my disinterest to you."