Hunter's Fall

by Shiloh Walker

  “Nessa!”

  She lifted her head and stared across the distance separating them. They use ropes, Elias. You think I cannot get rid of a few paltry ropes? Run into the forest—to our cave. I will meet you there. And these simpletons can rot. We wasted months protecting them.

  His dark brown eyes stared into hers with fury and desperation. Do not let him touch you, Nessa. I do not trust him.

  She just shook her head. She would not risk Elias. She would not. She walked arrogantly toward William, holding her wrists out in front of her. He just smiled benevolently and gestured to one of his men.

  “I shall deal with your husband,” William said, his voice quiet and dignified. His eyes gleamed though, with something she did not like, not one bit. He would deal with her husband? Lower himself to free him? Instead of ordering his men . . . ?

  Her ears pricked at those words. Her instincts screamed.

  Rough rope bit into her wrists but she barely even noticed as she watched William walk over the uneven ground to where his men were cutting Elias free.

  Elias shrugged away from them and started toward Nessa. She shook her head at him and she could see the argument in his eyes. Run, she said into his mind. Now.

  She heard the argument in his head. Felt his refusal.

  And then there was nothing but icy, sharp pain. She felt the brutal echo of it in her own heart.

  They were soul mates—meant for each other even before birth. It would have been better if that blade had killed her as well as Elias.

  “No!” she screamed out. She shoved at the sheriff’s man, pushing away from him as though he was naught more than a child.

  “Grab her—cover her eyes,” one of the men bellowed.

  All around her people shouted—although some screamed in horror as they realized what one of William’s men had done.

  She barely even heard them. She was aware of nothing.

  Nothing but the screams . . . and the blood.

  It was Elias’s blood, dripping from the dagger of a treacherous snake.

  Without even looking at her wrists, she gave in to the rage and used her magic to set fire to the ropes, and they fell to the ground still flaming. Nessa didn’t remember closing the distance between her and Elias, just catching him as he sagged to the ground.

  William stood behind him, his thin mouth curved up in a smile. In his hand, he held a jeweled dagger and the blade dripped with dark, dark red blood.

  “You will be mine now, Agnes.”

  “Not even in hell,” she whispered hotly, lifting her eyes from Elias’s face for one second. “And hell awaits you.”

  William fell back a step as he looked at her. Behind her, she heard people moving up. Power exploded through her and then heat surrounded her. Fire now wrapped a deadly ring around the three of them, Elias, William and Agnes. He paled, his eyes widening as the fire seemed to reach out and grab him.

  “Help me!”

  Elias laughed, the sound choked and full of pain. “Listen to him scream for help, love. You came and answered their cries. And this is what they have done.”

  Nessa looked down at Elias, pressing her fingers to his lips. “Hush,” she whispered, forcing the words past the tears that were threatening to choke her.

  Then she looked back at William. “Filthy swine—there is no help for you. Murderer, filthy, evil murderer. Rot in hell.”

  William shrieked, the stench of his burning flesh heavy in the air. All around people screamed, and then they scattered. Their fear was ripe—she should have been choking on it, but she didn’t care.

  Nothing mattered.

  Nothing but the sight of Elias lying so still in her arms, his face growing more and more pale as his blood flowed so hotly from his body.

  She reached under Elias, pressing her hand to the wound. It was too close to his heart, though. “Elias . . . God, please,” she sobbed, hugging him to her. His breath rattled in and out of his chest. “Do not leave me!”

  “Hush.”

  “Do not tell me to hush, you fool!” she shrieked. Magic sparked out of her and she tried to focus it. Witches could heal. Damn it, she could heal him. She had not yet learned that magic, but she had to try.

  She couldn’t focus it, though, not to save her life.

  Or his, it seemed. More and more blood drained from him as she tried to use her wild magic to heal that nasty, jagged wound. “You cannot leave me, Elias,” she whispered. “You cannot leave me. You are my life.”

  He reached up, touching his hand to her face. Nessa gave up trying to hold the jagged edges of the wound together and caught his hand, pressing it to her cheek. “Ah, Nessa . . . my beautiful, foolish, wonderful girl. I love you so much. I will come back . . . I will find you again.”

  He coughed and a sob wracked her body as she saw the blood trickle from his lips. “Promise me!” she choked. “You promise me! Promise me you’ll come back.”

  “Only God Himself could keep me from you, love,” Elias whispered. He sighed and his entire body trembled. She could feel the pain tearing through him and she forced herself in between, using her power to separate him from the pain as she filtered it away. She could not heal him, could not save him—but she could damn well stop him from hurting.

  The tension eased from his body and he breathed a little easier.

  “Elias . . .” she moaned, wrapping her arms around him.

  “Just hold me, Nessa,” he murmured. His voice was weaker. Lifting her head, she stared down at him, brushing his hair back from his battered face. “I do wish I had listened to you, my beautiful witch.”

  Closing her eyes, she whispered, “Just come back, Elias.”

  “My Nessa.”

  CHAPTER 1

  PRESENT DAY

  THERE was smoke.

  And there was blood.

  The air was thick, and he was going to choke on all the blood. Even if he didn’t have it pooling in his throat, he wouldn’t have been able to take a breath.

  The pain wouldn’t let him.

  It stole through him, turning everything to ice.

  She was crying. He could hear her. She cried and wept and pleaded with him not to leave her. But he had no choice. Death was coming, coming to rip him away from the one person who mattered.

  Even though he slept, he felt the sting of tears. Felt them well up under his eyes, felt them burn their way down his cheeks. He wanted to wipe them away. Wanted to wake from this awful dream.

  But he was helpless, locked in his slumber.

  Ah, Nessa . . . my beautiful, foolish, wonderful girl. I love you so much. I will come back . . . I will find you again . . .

  BROWNING, IDAHO

  “You’re too pretty.”

  “Am I?” he asked, a grin tugging at his lips. It was a mouth made for kissing.

  “Yes.”

  She was dreaming. Nessa knew she was dreaming. If she had any sense, she would lie back and just enjoy it.

  Well, I already did that. And she had—three, no, four times over.

  There was no way any red-blooded, straight woman could lie in bed with this man, dream or no dream, and not enjoy it. Not enjoy him.

  His eyes were dark, rich as melted chocolate, framed by thick, curly eyelashes. His skin gleamed a soft, mellow gold. In the sun, she imagined that smooth, sleek skin would deepen to a darker gold. His hair was black, blacker than onyx, and thick. It had just the slightest curl to it and when she ran her hands through it, the jet strands twined her fingers.

  She knew that from experience—she’d spent half the night with her hands buried in his hair.

  They hadn’t spent much time standing up, but she guessed he was about five ten. He had a long, lean build, and she sensed strength inside him. Massive strength, but when he touched her, he did it with gentleness. Reverence.

  As well a dream lover should, she supposed.

  He reached up and traced the line of her mouth with his fingertip. She shivered under that light touch and felt heat flicker throu
gh her. Catching his finger in her mouth, she bit lightly.

  Hunger blazed in his eyes.

  She felt a response and leaned forward, pressing her lips to his. “Well, if I had to dream you, I must say, it turned out rather well,” she mused.

  He laughed against her mouth and asked, “How do you know I’m not the one who dreamed you up?”

  “Oh, believe me, I’m the one who is dreaming. There is no man out there pining for me.”

  No man waiting. No man longing. No man searching. No matter what was promised.

  I will come back . . . I will find you again . . .

  “You’re so sad,” he whispered. “Why are you so sad?”

  Nessa forced a smile. “Of course I’m not . . . well, I won’t be for long. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  “I WILL find you. No matter where you go. No matter how far.”

  With a snort, Nessa looked away from the TV and focused on Mei-Lin’s hair. The teenager grinned up at her. “It’s romantic, Nessa. You can’t snort like that when Daniel Day-Lewis is on the screen saying a line like that.” With a sigh, the girl rested a hand on her heart and gazed at the TV with rapt eyes.

  The Last of the Mohicans was the girl’s favorite movie. They usually watched it once a month.

  Unless Nessa could see a way out. Today was Mei-Lin’s seventeenth birthday, though, and she’d wanted to watch the silly film before she went out with some friends.

  Weaving the girl’s silky hair into a tight braid, Nessa glanced at the screen. Spectacular scenery. Strong, sexy men with big guns, innocent-looking girls with simpering eyes. Romantic bits like, I will find you.

  It stuck a knife in her heart.

  Although it had been five hundred years, she could still hear Elias’s voice.

  I will come back . . . I will find you again . . .

  Only God Himself could keep me from you, love.

  And God Himself had spent the last five centuries doing just that. Nessa couldn’t watch this damn film without reliving her memories. A time when she was torn away from her husband.

  Not by pissed off Natives, but by death.

  By God.

  He had taken her lover from her, and had kept her from joining him.

  She was alone, and empty. So empty inside. Not even her dream lover could ease that ache. At least not for long.

  She blew out a sigh and used an elastic band to keep Mei-Lin’s braid from unraveling. Rising from the couch, she gathered up the ice-cream cartons from the floor and carted them into the kitchen to dump them in the trash.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Mei-Lin and despite herself, she had to smile.

  This girl had pulled Nessa back from the edge of madness, despair.

  Even as she tried to draw her mind away from the memories, she found herself caught in them again. It had been a few years since her life had been turned upside down.

  One last battle . . . she’d been so sure when she went to face the young witch that it would be her last.

  And after more than five hundred years, she was so very, very tired. So empty inside, but she’d become accustomed to that. The exhaustion, though, weighed on her more and more, with each and every year.

  The thought of just being done had been such a . . . sweet relief. She’d yearned for it, ached for it. Longed for it. She’d gone to battle with a young woman who used her magic to steal life and power from others—Morgan Wakefield. She had practiced blood magic, and it was addictive. Once a witch gave in to that lure, it became a hunger, a need. Fighting it was almost impossible, and Morgan hadn’t wanted to.

  The only way to keep her from killing was to end her life—a sad, sorry fact, but one Nessa had been prepared to handle. She’d been prepared for all likely outcomes—including her own death.

  She hadn’t been prepared to live. She certainly hadn’t been prepared to live like this.

  Absently, she glanced at the ornamental mirror hanging over the sofa and studied her face.

  Morgan’s face.

  No. She hadn’t been prepared for this. She’d fought the young, deceptive, blood-thirsty witch, and as she’d expected, her body hadn’t survived the battle. But somehow, her spirit had. She hadn’t planned for it—hadn’t done a damn thing to make this happen—at least not consciously. Nessa had wanted death, craved it. Craved it the way Morgan had craved blood. The way a drug addict craved their next fix. She’d needed it.

  But instead of the sweet relief of death, she lived. In Morgan’s body.

  For so long after it had happened, Nessa had been lost—trapped in a muddle of depression, despair, memories and madness. Even as she began to emerge from that fog, she’d hated it—she’d yearned for the sweet, oblivious cloud where she’d lived.

  Until Mei-Lin.

  They had met just a few months ago, but already, this girl had settled inside Nessa’s heart, forged a place there. Given Nessa a reason to believe again. A reason to hope. A reason to live.

  She looked at Mei-Lin and saw the echo of her own youth. Kindred spirits, she supposed. That was why she’d felt so drawn to the girl, why she’d taken Mei-Lin under her wing instead of shipping her off to Excelsior.

  Almost a year earlier, Mei-Lin’s mother had died and the girl had ended up in foster care, only to run away after one of the other foster kids had tried to molest her.

  The night they met, Nessa had been walking through the dark streets, looking for a fight, a drink, both . . . anything to occupy her mind.

  What she found was Mei-Lin. Or rather, Mei-Lin found her. The girl had quick hands—she might not have even noticed the theft if the girl hadn’t unconsciously used her magic as well.

  Untrained witches—they were a danger to themselves. Nessa had planned to dump the girl back at Excelsior. She needed training, that was for certain, and she also needed to finish high school. She could do both at Excelsior. Kelsey and the other Hunters would see to it that Mei-Lin was trained and care for.

  But in the end, it was Nessa who took the girl in. It hadn’t taken but a few hours to realize she needed the girl as much as the girl needed her. Perhaps more.

  The two of them, they were both lost, lonely souls.

  Meeting the girl had pulled Nessa back from the brink—she’d reminded Nessa of who she was.

  She’d reminded Nessa of what she was.

  She might be a lonely witch still pining over her lost lover, but she was also a fighter.

  Nessa was a Hunter—a warrior, a witch. She’d devoted her life to protecting the innocent from the monsters in the world. She’d never given up in her whole damned life.

  Mei-Lin helped her remember that about herself.

  She owed the girl.

  More, she loved her.

  Leaning against the counter that separated the kitchen and the living room, she tucked her hair behind one ear and watched as the teen finished watching the movie. As the credits started to roll, Mei-Lin patted her heart and said, “If you’re still wanting to find me another birthday present, I want that. Gimme a man like that.”

  “I looked but they’d already sold out at the mall.” Nessa rolled her eyes. “Darling, you are seventeen. You have plenty of time to find a man.”

  “They do still make them like that, right?” She wrinkled her nose and said, “I want a real man, not one who spends more time messing with his hair than I do. I don’t want some dumb boy, either. Real men still exist, right?”

  Nessa grinned and thought of some of the men she knew. Chortling, she tried to picture Malachi messing with his hair. The vampire had seen millennia come and go, and while he was a vain bastard, he wasn’t one to primp.

  Images of other men, other friends—Hunters she’d worked with over the years—flashed through her mind. Would they stand in front of a mirror and primp? Tobias, Declan, Vax . . . no. Not a one of them.

  Eli, perhaps, but he had always been a peacock.

  She had a quick flash of her dream lover. That thick, silken hair, tousled by her han
ds. He wouldn’t spend his time studying his reflection, either, she knew.

  Of course he wouldn’t . . . he isn’t real. He was just her dream lover, a man her imagination created to help with the emptiness inside her, to help wile away the long, lonely nights.

  A dream lover . . . and he belongs in those dreams, only those dreams, so for the love of all things holy, stop thinking about him during the day.

  She shoved off the counter and went to turn off the television. “Yes, Mei-Lin. I promise, there are plenty of men who are less than enamored with their pretty reflections.”

  Outside, Nessa heard footsteps and she tugged on one of Mei-Lin’s braids. “Your friends are here.”

  “How can you hear them?” she asked, cocking her head. She squinted her eyes as though it might help her hear better.

  “Practice.” Nessa shrugged a shoulder. “You’ll get there.”

  The doorbell rang and Mei-Lin moved to answer it. As a gaggle of giggling girls entered the small house, Nessa tidied up the living room. Living with a teenage girl, she was constantly picking up, straightening up, doing laundry.

  She didn’t mind, oddly enough.

  Other than Mei-Lin’s training, this was the closest to normal Nessa had ever known.

  Mei-Lin reappeared in the door, surrounded by her friends.

  “Hi, Ms. Chandler!”

  Nessa managed not to make a face. Ms. Chandler was only one of the many names she’d used during her life—she’d much rather be called Agnes or Nessa than anything Ms. Made her feel as old as she truly was. Ancient.

  Giving them a smile, she said, “How are you this evening, Kim?”

  “Oh, you know.” She rolled eyes heavily made up with black liner and said, “I’m sort of on probation. Brought home a C on my final and Mom said if it happened again, I’d lose the car until I brought home something better.”

  “You could have a better grade if you wanted.” Nessa knew the line she should use and she did. Mei-Lin’s friends, the teachers, all the people they knew thought Nessa was Mei-Lin’s stepsister. They even had legal papers to document it. “Your mother just wants you to do your best.”