by Faith Hunter
He toasted me with the beer and wiggled his toes at me in a drunken wave, which didn’t answer my question. The dark skin of both limbs was smooth and unscarred, the flesh of a shape-changer, forever untouched by damage, remade with every shift. Given a few hundred more shifts, my own skin would be as perfect again, assuming I stayed out of mortal danger. For reasons I didn’t know, scars from a lethal wound were hard to heal. “Jane Yellowrock, rogue hunter,” he said. “My alpha.” I had made Kem my beta and forced him to bring Rick here and care for him until he shifted into his big-cat. Kem wanted me to understand that he didn’t have to like it. “My alpha, who smells of catamount and Eurasian owl and dog.”
The last was a slur, and I let a hint of my grin out. “Kemnebi, of the Party of African Weres, my beta, who smells of black leopard and sweat and very strongly of beer.”
He lifted his hand, the bottle disappearing behind the hammock edge. I heard a slurping sound and the bottle reappeared, now half empty. “Good beer. Samuel Adams makes the most acceptable beer I have yet discovered in America. I have been tasting all of them. Extensively.” He sipped again. “There are more in the cooler.”
“No, thanks, I’m driving.” I dropped my jacket, plopped into a folding sling chair, which was far less comfortable than it looked, and lifted the cooler lid anyway. “I’ll take one of these, though.” I opened another Coke and sipped, wondering how much beer it took to keep a shape-shifter drunk. Our metabolisms are fast, and it had to be a lot of beer. With a toe, I lifted the lid of a large blue recycling pail. It was three-quarters full of broken beer bottles. Yeah. A lot of beer. After a companionable moment of silence I said, “How long ago did the grindy get here?”
“Safia’s pet arrived two weeks ago.” The words held no inflection, but were carefully, drunkenly enunciated. Interesting.
“It was a long swim, I take it.”
The hammock moved with what might have been a shrug, noncommittal. “He was most unhappy with me at first. But he forgave me.” There was a heavy dose of bitter irony in the words. I wasn’t really sure about the symbiotic relationship between the two races, but it would seem difficult to maintain, when one was always in danger from the other. I didn’t know what to say to that, but Kem was drunkenly loquacious and carried on the conversation without my contribution. “They are like pets until we err. Affectionate . . .” The words trailed off, then picked back up again. “He killed my mate. And then he came beneath my hand for caress. He . . . licked my hand.” Kem spaced the last words widely, and they were full of venom. “I forced him to leave, yet I still smell him on the wind. He watches.”
I wanted to say I was sorry, but that might have been offensive as well as disingenuous. I had a similar relationship with the vamps. I killed them when they got out of line, much like the grindy did the weres. Of course I didn’t lick Leo’s hand afterward. The thought’s accompanying mental picture made me grin, which I hid behind the Coke as I drank. My sense of humor was gonna get me killed one day. “How is he?” I asked from behind the can, changing the subject.
Kem raised his head at that one, his black eyes wide, showing above the hammock edge, trying to focus in my direction. His face was darker in the shadows beneath the trees, but his eyes were vibrant. “He is alive. He is unchanged. He is frightened about the full moon, which comes again soon. He is lonely. As lonely as I am.”
The he is lonely was directed at me for not coming to visit. Asheville is only sixty miles from Hartford. A nice ride. One I hadn’t made, even though I’d brought Kem and Rick here in the first place. I’d hoped the black were-leopard could ease Rick through his first shift, teach him something about being a were-cat. The International Association of Weres had agreed and insisted Kem help the newbie. For a lot of really good reasons, Kem had been less than enthusiastic. “Still no shift?”
“He will not try again until the full moon. His pain is too great.”
That got me. I’d seen Rick try to shift on his first full moon. It had been agonizing. Like watching a man try to turn himself inside out. “So where is he?”
“He likes to fish.”
I smiled at that one and stood. I rinsed the can and crushed it, tucking it in the sealed, bear-resistant recycle basket. “Tell him I said hi.” I turned and stopped. Dead. As still as a vamp.
“Tell him yourself,” Rick growled.
My breath caught. Kem chuckled. He’d seen Rick approach behind me, quiet as a cat. Rick was unshaven and shirtless, his jeans hanging low on his hips, chest hair sparse and straight and forming a line pointing into the top of the jeans. His black hair had grown, the ends curling at his nape and over his ears. His eyes were shadowed, black as night, steely, pinning me to the path. His torso and shoulders were a mass of scars from big-cats and werewolves, the scarring ripping through his tattoos, nearly obscuring the bobcat and the mountain lion. Except for the cats’ golden-amber eyes and the blood on their claws. There was something about that naked chest and the scars that begged to be touched. I curled my fingers under. Rick’s eyes dropped to them, then back up in a leisurely perusal that made me acutely aware of myself. My breath hitched slightly, and I tightened all over, warming from a lot more than the heat. Boyfriend? Oh my.
Rick LaFleur was a pretty boy when wearing city clothes. Half naked, in the wooded site, ungroomed and feral-looking, he was gorgeous. He smiled then, exposing white teeth, one bottom tooth slightly crooked, and I realized I’d said part of that aloud. Crap.
“I’ve missed you too,” he said, amused. He moved past me, and only then did I catch the smell of fresh fish. Even the breeze had been hiding the man. He carried a bait bucket, two rods, a tackle box, and a string of fish. They looked like smallmouth bass, about eleven to sixteen inches long. One still flapped. Rick stowed his gear and carried a long curved knife and the fish to a board set up between two trees; there were traces of blood on the wood, and part of the dead-fish smell I had attributed to the grindy actually came from the fish-cleaning station.
Movements economical, almost graceful, Rick hung the fish chain from a nail and slid the hook from the gills of the top fish. It moved weakly when he sliced through below the gills and cut off its head. I wondered whether Rick thought I’d run at the sight of the casual cruelty, but Beast sometimes ate her food still kicking. I figured she could outdo him in the gross factor if I wanted. Of course Rick didn’t know about Beast. Rick didn’t know a lot of things. I hadn’t found a way to tell him most of them. Others were complicated.
Okay. I was lying. I was a coward—that’s why Rick didn’t know a lot of things.
The knife moving with swift, sure strokes, he scaled the fish, the iridescent scales flying everywhere. I thought fishermen scaled fish before they beheaded them, but I wasn’t a fisherman trying to gross out an old girlfriend.
“Beer,” Kem said from behind me. Rick stopped, wiped his hands on a towel hanging in the tree, and walked to the cooler. He took out a beer, opened the top, and handed it to Kem without meeting his eyes. It was the action of a submissive animal to an aggressive alpha. Beast hissed quietly inside, the hair of her pelt rising, stiff, the phantom reaction tight inside my skin.
Wordless, Rick returned to the fish. I narrowed my eyes, putting things together. I walked to the hammock, placing my feet without care so that Kem would know I was coming, if he wasn’t too drunk to notice. I stood over the hammock, seeing his body, lithe and fit, wearing baggy shorts and a sheen of sweat. He smelled of bug spray and old beer. He was watching me with savage glee on his face. Expectant. Eager. “You want a fight, don’t you. Fine.”
Drawing on Beast-speed, faster than he could see, faster than he could react, I flipped the hammock. Rode him down to the ground. He landed on his stomach. Face in the dirt. My knee in his back, pressing him down. I grabbed his short hair and yanked back. Bowing his spine, arching his neck. Shoved the stake I had found under his chin. The hammock spun and settled. The sound of fish scales flying stopped. The beer bottle landed, spilling in a frot
h. Everything stopped.
“I am your alpha,” I said. “Listen. Or I’ll make you my dead beta.” Kem growled softly but after a long moment relaxed into submission under my hands. “Two of the werewolves I fought in New Orleans got away because they were in jail when I helped kill the rest of the pack. A big guy and a little scrawny guy. They followed me here, looking for the same thing you want. A fight. To get my attention, they attacked and tried to turn a young woman and her boyfriend last night. They left this silver-tipped stake, my silver-tipped stake, for me to find.
“Your grindy knows about them and is hunting them. I’m hunting them. When I call you, you will get off your drunken ass, get sober, and hunt them too.” I dropped his head. His face bounced on the ground. I stood and walked away. I caught a glimpse of Rick’s face as I did. He was smiling slightly. His eyes were too warm to be remembering me making Kemnebi my beta, so maybe Rick was remembering the first time I took him down. It was our first date, walking along the Mississippi waterfront after a good meal—a great meal—in a New Orleans dive. Rick said something, I don’t remember what, and it ticked me off. I’d dropped him, but he’d been face up for it. I tilted my head on the way past, letting a half smile touch my lips.
“You fight dirty,” he murmured. “Like you do everything.”
I stopped. He was talking about sex. My face heated. He leaned across the fish-cleaning board, blood and fish and fish heads between us, and breathed in, his nose only inches from my neck. Beast reared up and took me over, faster than I could think. She sniffed, pressing her face, my face, into the soft tissue of his throat. His scent filled my nose, my head, and reached right into the center of me. I/we rubbed my jaw along his, whose bristles were far softer than they looked.
Pelt, Beast thought. Good mate. Mine.
I wrenched away. Moments later I was down the path and keying on Fang. And sooo outta there. Tears would have made the narrow road hard to follow, but I wasn’t crying. I was mad. And not sure why. Halfway down the park road, my cell vibrated in my pocket. I pulled onto the narrow shoulder and flipped it open, looked at the display. It was Rick’s number, with his picture in the small screen. I heaved a breath that hurt my throat. “Yeah?”
“The grindy smells weird,” Rick said, “and he’s not hanging around much.”
“Maybe the grindylow is tired of Kemnebi’s drunken anger.”
Rick laughed softly. “The grindy and I would agree on that one.”
I thought about how I might get the little green-golem-Yoda to partner with me. Beast rumbled, Would taste like dead fish. Good eating. Big meal for winter food. I pushed her away as Rick spoke again.
“Kem says he smelled wolf last night. He’ll hunt with you when you call.” His voice dropped an octave, soft as the pelt on a big-cat’s stomach, “So will I.” I laughed, the sound hoarse in my aching throat. “I’ve been given the rest of the day off,” he said. “Wanna do lunch?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Not raw fish.”
“Wait for me at the crossroads. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
About the author
Faith Hunter writes dark urban fantasy. Her Skinwalker series features Jane Yellowrock, a hunter of rogue-vampires, in Skinwalker, Blood Cross, Mercy Blade, and Raven Cursed, coming in 2012. Her Rogue Mage novels, a dark urban fantasy trilogy—Bloodring, Seraphs, and Host—feature Thorn St. Croix, a stone mage in a postapocalyptic alternate reality.
Faith Hunter writes full-time, works full-time in a hospital lab, tries to keep house, and is a self-admitted workaholic. She gave up cooking for Lent one year, and the oven hasn’t been turned on since. Okay—that one is a joke. She does still remember how to make cold cereal and sandwiches. Occasionally she remembers to sleep. And if she stops and thinks, she can remember how to use the vacuum cleaner!
Faith researches everything she writes about in great detail, and makes it a point to try all the things her characters do. It is research that led her to her life’s passions—jewelry making, orchids, bones, travel, white-water kayaking, and writing.
Jewelry making was the occupation of two of her characters: Thorn St. Croix of the Rogue Mage series and the main character of Bloodstone, written under Faith’s pen name, Gwen Hunter. She fell in love with it! The jewelry Faith makes and wears is often given as promo items to fans who come to her signings, and is used as prizes in contests. Some can be seen on her Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/official.faith.hunter. Other pieces she wears to cons and events where she meets fans, or gives to her editor and people in her writing life. She especially likes working with stones and pearls, but does sometimes work in crystal or glass, and she wire-wraps many of her larger undrilled focal stones. Labradorite, amazonite, apatite, aquamarine, and prehnite are some of her favorite stones to wear. She spends way too much money on supplies and now needs a larger place to store the stones and beads and gems.
Faith also likes to work with orchids, and owns upward of twenty of them. Her favorite time of year is anytime several are blooming. Pictures can be seen at the Facebook page above. Oh—and, yes, she collects bones and skulls. Many of the orchid pictures show skulls juxtaposed with the blooms in the shots. The bones come from roadkill and are prepared by taxidermists. In her collection are a fox skull, a cat skull, a dog skull, a goat skull (which is, unfortunately, falling apart), and the jawbone of an ass. Faith is lusting after a cow skull and would love to have the thighbone and skull of a lion. (One that died of old age in the savannahs of Africa!)
She and her husband love to RV, traveling with their rescued Pomeranians, Tommy and Tuffy, to white-water rivers all over the Southeast. (The Poms don’t white-water. The pampered dogs stay in the RV in lazy, air-conditioned comfort!) The Poms were the pets of a blind lady and her husband in Louisiana; the owner’s health forced them to relocate the dogs to a private shelter. Sadly, the lady who owned the shelter became ill right after that. While the dogs were vetted, fed, and let out in the sun daily, they spent twenty-three hours a day in pens for nearly two years, so their health was not the best when Faith and her hubby found and adopted them. Now Tommy and Tuffy are in much better health (but missing a lot of teeth). They love to travel in the RV, take long walks, and get groomed. Seriously. They love their groomer!
And that leads Faith to kayaking—her very favorite sport. Faith discovered white-water paddling when she was researching her mystery book Rapid Descent (under her pen name, Gwen Hunter). She took a lesson and discovered that, though she has been on water as a boater and water-skier and swimmer all her life, being turned upside down while strapped into a plastic boat gave her panic attacks. Quite bad ones, actually. Determined to overcome the night terrors about drowning, she used lucid dreaming techniques and meditation to conquer the fear, and six months later took a second class from the same patient teacher, David Crawford, at Rapid Expeditions (www.rapidexpeditions.com) on the Pigeon River in Tennessee. This time she fell in love with the sport, with the adrenaline rush of facing fear, and with playing (in her boat) in icy water. Being out in the wild, alone with rock formations and wild animals and nature in all her seasons, has been the best thing in Faith’s life.
Perhaps Faith’s most enduring passions are writing and reading. Along with eight other writers, Faith is a weekly participant in MagicalWords, a writing forum at www.magicalwords.net geared to helping writers of fantasy and other genres. Faith works with three writers, helping them hone their skills and (knock on wood) find their way into print. And she is a voracious reader.
Under other pen names, notably Gwen Hunter, Faith writes action-adventure, mysteries, and thrillers. As Gwen, she is a winner of the WH Smith Award for Fresh Talent in 1995 in the U.K., and won a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award in 2008. Mercy Blade, written under the name Faith Hunter, debuted at #24 on the New York Times Bestseller list in February 2011. Under all her pen names, Faith has twenty-two books in print in twenty-seven countries.
For more, including a list of her books, see www.faithhunter.net, www.gwenh
unter.com, and www.magicalwords.net. To keep with her daily notes and the latest on her books, join her fan page at Facebook: www.facebook.com/official.faith.hunter
