by Kelly Hall
Rebekah hoped that Tori didn’t still pine for Jarreth. Talia’s boy-crazy sisters were a force to be reckoned with. “He’s with his girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” Tori stomped her foot. “I wanted the blond.”
Tula smiled and spun around to lean on Aziel’s arm. She held up his wrist. “I love your tattoo. Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Thank you,” Aziel said. “Sort of. It’s complicated.” Tula was gorgeous and wickedly beautiful, although he’d never seen anyone with pale pink hair and eyes before, and he wasn’t sure that was his type.
“I think we should get going,” said Rebekah, not knowing now if the loss of Stella was the only cause for the nagging pain she was feeling.
“I agree,” said Ignis. He took out his keys, which had barely had time to warm in his pocket, and led the three naiads outside.
Rebekah noticed how Aziel tilted his head and watched them go. “Try not to be distracted by their beauty. It could get you hurt if you’re not careful. The naiads are made to lure, and while Talia has a lot of control, her sisters don’t.”
“Don’t worry. I may look, but I’ll be okay. Besides, there’s a certain angel in the nearby academy who still has my heart.” He hoped everything would be okay with him and Cleo, and maybe one day, they’d be able to pursue more.
Rebekah and Aziel joined the others, and after piling in the car and heading out, Rebekah turned to Ignis. “Okay, where did the 2Ks say the nearest rogue shifter camp was?”
“Just this side of Slidell, unless they’ve moved in the past two days. They had eyes on them in an abandoned farm. They said to call if we need help, but with the girls coming along, I’m thinking that would be a bad idea.”
“I agree,” said Rebekah. There had already been one war started. She didn’t need another one because the naiad sisters took out a few rogue hunters. “Let’s head down and pay a little visit. With any luck, we’ll intercept them before they get there.”
“Assuming that’s where they are,” said Ignis. “They might not be a part of that pack.”
Rebekah was willing to take that chance. She set the GPS, and Ignis had already started off in the right direction.
The drive was shorter than Rebekah expected, and soon, they came to a roadside park where Ignis pulled to stop, keeping away from the other cars. “The camp is that way, about a mile down that next road, but I’m not too sure we should drive in. They’ll see us coming.”
“I agree,” she said. “We’ll leave the car here and walk the rest of the way.”
Ignis hated to leave another car, but he knew it had to be done. So, he looked across the lot, searching for a spot to park amongst the other vehicles. That was when he spotted it. “There’s the car that ran me off the road.” He pointed to the shifters’ beat-up car.
“Then they are close,” said Talia with a sly smile.
“Let’s get going. Everyone stick together. With any luck, Stella has taken out a few of them already.” She wasn’t sure if they’d been dumb enough to pass her around, but she’d seen it done before. Back ages ago when some vamps had been bold enough to try and take her weapons. After that, the legends started. The shifters who had taken her had been smart enough not to touch it but used a stick to nudge it into their knapsack.
They got out of the van, and while Tori remained in a poor mood, Tula was beaming at Aziel who seemed flattered by her interest.
“Head in the game, girls,” said Talia. “I don’t want to lose one of you over some moonstruck angel.” She glared at Aziel.
They took the walk through the woods until they came to the road they had been instructed led back to the house. That was when they split up, Rebekah and Aziel going one way with Tula in tow, and Talia and Ignis heading the other way with Tori.
As they got closer, Rebekah saw movement in the trees and stepped forward, ducking behind a tree for a better look. Aziel stayed close, and Tula took the opportunity to stay close to him.
There at the farmhouse, two shifters sat on the porch in human form. Rebekah didn’t recognize either of them, not even when one got up and walked over to the nearest tree to take a leak. He was close enough that he could have seen them if he had been looking for them, but they all stood still as corpses.
When he went back to join the other one, they walked inside.
“I don’t see anyone else.” She looked over and saw Ignis and the others creeping along the tree line.
Ignis signaled across to her, giving the all-clear. Then he held up a hand for her to stay put and turned to blue mist before her eyes. Though the sun was high, Ignis’s blue mist was still visible to Rebekah, and she watched as it crept quickly across the ground and through the keyhole.
“Are you sure those men turn into dogs?” asked Tula, sniffing the air.
“No, but I’m certain that wolves turned into those men,” Rebekah said to the naiad. “So, your song won’t work on them like it does the others.” It would be no more annoying than a dog whistle. “But you know what your blood will do to them, do you not?”
“Oh,” said Tula with a grin. “I’m well aware.”
Suddenly, the blue mist appeared again, coming from the backyard this time. It took off into the woods, and just when Rebekah was about to move forward, the two shifters came back out onto the porch, both with a puzzled look on their faces. They turned and went back inside.
Ignis appeared next to Aziel, giving him a start. “Damn the Devil! Give an angel some kind of warning, would you?”
“Sorry. I just thought you’d want to know that there are seven more in the house. They are at the dinner table holding some kind of meeting, and Stella and Luna are sitting on the table. I recognized two of the men from the restaurant the other day. They tried to get in, but the hostess wouldn’t let them. No dogs allowed, I suppose.”
Rebekah nodded. “They know better than to touch them, then. They also must be wondering if I’m coming for them. Good thing they don’t know when.” She walked out into the clearing and headed straight for the house.
Inside, Dip stared at the star on the scabbard of the dagger as he spoke to Larry, the pack’s leader. “He just burned to a crisp. Turned to a pile of ash.”
“Oz was an asshole, true,” said Larry. “But Snoot deserved better. Are you sure you didn’t have any idea at all what kind of creature those women were?”
“No, but they smelled tempting enough,” said Duhon. “I’d imagine that’s what happened to Snoot. He was lured in and probably got aggressive. They are very beautiful creatures.”
“Wouldn’t this leave the Immortal Huntress vulnerable?” asked Larry.
“She’s an immortal being,” said Peter, who had been outside for most of the conversation. “How fucking vulnerable can she be?”
Larry the leader turned around to give Peter a dirty look. “You need to get your ass back out there and keep an eye peeled.”
Peter turned to the door, and that was when it burst open, and Rebekah stood on the porch, looking at the house full of shifters.
Peter jumped back. “Bitch!”
“Just who the fuck do you think you are, little girl?” said Larry as he rose from the table.
“I’ve come for my blades.” She walked backward as they approached, and her goal to get them out onto the porch was soon a reality, and even better, some followed her down into the yard.
They drew their weapons, and while most had guns, she knew they’d take their orders from their leader. He stepped forward, looking her up and down. “And who are you, sweetheart?”
Dip looked over to see others walking out from the wood line, and his heart skipped a beat when the enticing scent of the ones who killed Snoot entered his nose. “That’s the smell. They killed Snoot.”
Rebekah rolled her eyes. “I think you already know who I am, but just in case you’re a little slower than most of your kind, let me tell you. I’m the Immortal Huntress. I’ve come to fetch my weapons which were stolen from my friend, Ignis, after some
of your men ran him off the road.”
“Yeah? And why should we give them to you? When they killed a friend of ours.” He looked over her head toward the three naiads. “One of your friends also killed one of our members. From what I hear, they really did a number on him.”
“Not to my knowledge.” Rebekah shrugged, but then she realized as soon as Talia hissed that they had meant Tia. The dead shifter must have run into her in the city.
The naiad’s teeth and nails elongated and were razor sharp, and while Talia moved forward, Tula and Tori spread out, surrounding the shifters as they hissed wickedly. Their pointed tongues flickered like serpents, and their eyes glowed. Rebekah knew if they’d been underwater, they’d be scaly, serpentine creatures, and the wolves wouldn’t stand a chance.
As it was, the pack prepared to fight.
Larry growled. “Tell your friends to back off, Huntress.”
“I do not control them,” she said. “And I can’t stop them from tearing you apart.”
Ignis glanced at Talia and prepared to have her back. He couldn’t control her either and had never tried. She was a force to be reckoned with in more ways than one.
Duhon stepped back. “They killed our friend, Huntress. Turned him into a lump of skin and teeth. He looked like his entire innards had been liquified.”
“Your mutt friend must have bitten my sister,” Talia said through clenched teeth, her fangs scraping into her bottom lip, causing shiny green blood the color of antifreeze to ooze from her lips.
“If he did, the bitch had it coming.”
“Tell us where she is,” said Talia. “Tell me where I can find her, and I’ll spare your miserable lives.”
Larry laughed. “We’re not telling you shit, and if you think we’re afraid of whatever the fuck you are, you’re mistaken.”
But Dip and Duhon were afraid. They had seen what Snoot had looked like. They exchanged a look. Dip stepped forward and cleared his throat. “We saw her in the French Quarter at a bar called Candies. Our friend lured her outside.”
“Shut up, you sack of piss,” said Larry, reaching out to punch Dip in the arm.
Dip turned and punched Larry in the mouth, the man taking the hit like it was no more than a bee sting. Dip didn’t give a shit about the other men. He and Duhon had left for a reason, and now that the Huntress was in the picture, he wasn’t about to get killed over some fucking daggers and turned into the blob that his friend had become.
Duhon thought he needed to help. He wanted a shot at a pardon as well and wasn’t sure leaving the pack had been the right thing to do in the first place. He could live to fight another day. “Yeah, our friend ran the ginger man off of the road and then took the daggers.”
When Talia realized the man was involved in nearly killing her mage, she hissed, leaping on Duhon and scratching out his eyes. At the very same moment, her sisters took two others down, leaping on them before even Rebekah realized.
Aziel stood stunned at the sight of the naiads in action and pulled his sword, holding back one of the shifters. He wasn’t sure he was prepared to kill the creature, but he was prepared to follow Rebekah’s lead.
Larry’s eyes changed, and his lips peeled back, revealing sharp teeth as he lunged to help his friends, while another one sprang at Rebekah. Her sword caught him in the torso, spearing him like an olive with a toothpick. She pulled the sword free, and he dropped at her feet. She hadn’t fought with anything other than Stella and Luna in a while, but she had never lost her touch with any weapon. She prepared to strike the next as Tori squeaked out in pain, the loud noise so piercing it rattled Rebekah’s eardrums.
It certainly got the other shifters’ attention, but the fight continued.
Ignis held back the other shifters with his magic, his hands up, a swirling blue light from his fingertips. He couldn’t let them make their move for Talia, but his head snapped up when he heard her sister’s cries.
Tori pulled back her bleeding arm to take another swipe, reaching out with her long claws. The needlelike talons ripped through the shifter’s neck. He had a good taste of her blood with the bite he’d taken and stumbled away. He’d also managed to get in a good swipe with his long nails, ripping Tori’s neck and chest open with three ugly gashes.
As Tori winced in pain, she saw her poisonous blood on his teeth and smiled, knowing his fate.
Shaking all over, the shifter fell to his knees as his insides burned and turned putrid and dissolved. His flesh bubbled, and soon, he was dissolving into a puddle of juicy flesh, melting like an ice cream cone on a summer’s day right before their eyes until all that was left was a large pile of flesh, hair, and blood. It brought the melee to a halt.
The others backed away, and Talia and Tula went to aid their sister.
Rebekah still held her sword on Dip and Larry, who were both riled up, growling helplessly at the fate of their pack mate. Duhon lay dead at Dip’s feet.
Larry was the first to speak. “We don’t want any more trouble,” he said with a look of horror in his eyes. None of the others looked like they wanted to meet the same fate as their friend. “What are they, Huntress, your new secret weapon?”
“How many of them are there?” asked Dip, mumbling the words to himself, not expecting an answer.
“I want my weapons.”
“Your dagger turned our friend to ashes,” said Dip.
Ignis stepped forward. “Then you realize they are no good to you, wolf.”
Larry turned to one of the other two shifters, who looked petrified. “Let her pass.” He gave Rebekah a hard look. “You can get your weapons, but you know what this is going to mean, Huntress.”
“I’m not worried,” she said as she breezed past the mutt and into the house. Stella and Luna were on the table, and she picked them up and strapped them on.
Outside, there was a commotion, and when Rebekah turned around, Talia and Tula were finishing off two more of the shifters.
Shit.
She stormed out onto the porch. “What the hell happened?”
Aziel’s eyes were wide. He’d seen battle, knew that war and fighting were ugly and sometimes dishonorable. But the pure, animalistic nature of the three women who were covered with blood, their eyes glowing like some kind of demon, left him in shock. Mostly because they seemed so sweet and harmless before.
Talia shrugged, her pale hands and face covered with blood. “We can’t let these assholes live, Rebekah. They are of no use to us now, and the way we’ve survived this long is by killing our enemies, not giving them chances to wage war against us.”
Rebekah understood. The naiads couldn’t have anyone knowing about them, much less hunting them.
Dip stared up at the Huntress from where Ignis had him bound by magic. He couldn’t even move to put up a fight, and now Larry and the last of his pack lay dead around him with the others after the two women, the two monsters, had ripped out their hearts with their razorlike teeth and claws. “I won’t tell a soul,” he cried. “I’ll help you find your sister.”
That got Talia’s attention. She walked closer and told Ignis to free him from the magic bindings that held him in place. “Why should I believe you now? You said you didn’t know where my sister was, that you’d only last seen her at that bar.”
“I know the area. I can ask around.”
Talia smiled. “That’s a lovely offer, but no thank you.” Then she punched her tiny fist into his chest and ripped out his heart. He stood there heartless and stunned, his eyes wide as his brain seemed to slowly process what had happened. She bit into the bleeding heart like an apple and spat it back in his face. “Liar.”
Aziel blinked so many times he couldn’t count, but the image still surprised him. He turned to Ignis. “I wouldn’t ever lie to her, and I’m pretty sure she can’t kill me.”
Tula looked up from where Tori lay. “Could you carry her back to the car, angel? I’d be most grateful.” The tone of her voice had him thinking she just might offer sex for the favor,
and he was more than certain he understood what Rebekah had meant about being careful with the woman. Ignis was even crazier than he thought. Having dated Talia all of those years and somehow surviving? There had to be a long, twisted past between them.
“Of course,” Aziel said. How can I refuse? He reached down and picked up Tori, who panted like a dog, her pain was so excruciating.
“We have to get her to the water,” said Talia. “We crossed a bridge on the way. It was just up the road. We should get her there to revive a little before we try to take her back to our home.”
“It’s just through the woods,” said Ignis, who had taken out his phone and pulled up a satellite image. “This way.”
“I’ll stay behind and burn the bodies,” said Rebekah. “If anyone sees them like this, it will only cause more problems.” With one man nothing but a pile of putrid flesh and another with his heart ripped out and half-eaten, it was best to set the whole damned place on fire.
“Don’t be long,” said Ignis. “We’ve been apart too long already.” With that, he and the others hurried off to get Tori to the nearest freshwater source.
Ignis narrowed his eyes, looking down at the phone as they ran. “Shit. It’s supposed to be here somewhere.”
“It’s a dry branch,” said Talia with frustration in her tone. “I know there was water beneath the bridge.” She put her nose up in the air and closed her eyes. “It’s close. I can smell it in the breeze.” She turned around and ran down the dry branch. The others followed, Tula staying close to Aziel who held her sister.
Talia ran ahead of the others, leading the way her instincts told her. Finally, she could see the sunlight brighter through the trees and knew a clearing was up ahead. “Here!” She waved the others on.
Aziel caught up with her no problem, and as soon as he hit the bank, he kept walking, wading out knee deep to lay Tori down in the water.
“I’ve got her,” said Talia, who had already stripped naked. Tula did the same, wading out and cradling Tori between them as they loosened her garments and pulled them off, tossing them to the bank.
Aziel was prepared to stay knee deep in the water until he looked around, noticing the water bubbling around him. Suddenly a snake, long and black, swam closer, so he hurried out to stand with Ignis.
