Hunter

by Jacquelyn Frank

  Hunter watched their guest far more closely than was appropriate, no doubt, but she was fascinating to observe as emotions and thoughts flew like birds over her features. She had locked gazes with him, so he could look even more deeply into her than when she’d kept her eyes busy elsewhere. There was something quite unusual going on in her thoughts, of that he was positive. What could she possibly be thinking while she stared so openly at him?

  Tatyana suddenly broke contact with him and released a strangled gasp a moment before her glass slipped out of her hands. Hunter had to resist the impulse to use a spell, an impulse that came from living for so many years with those who freely used magic. He was in the Western world now, and these things weren’t at all accepted as the norm. If he’d used telekinesis to keep the glass from falling, as instinct had dictated, he would no doubt have shocked the hell out of their guest. So he let the glass fall and shatter, though he did prevent the resulting shards from coming anywhere near her exposed legs. Annali reacted, jumping instantly to her feet, already uttering the usual things a hostess would say to put a guest at ease about an act of clumsiness, but Hunter didn’t hear her any more than Tatyana seemed to. Her large, pale-green eyes suddenly flew back to his, the growing emotion in them propelling him to the edge of his seat.

  Fear filled her gaze and her empty hands were shaking.

  “There’s something...” she whispered.

  And that was when Hunter felt the shadow that skimmed swift and dark over the house.

  Thunder snapped and rolled in the skies above Willow House, the force of it sending vibrations through the strong walls and deep down into the foundation. The storm that had been gathering over the moon finally broke and the room filled with the clackety sound of tiny pellets of icy rain bouncing onto the roof and tinkling and tapping against the glass of the windows.

  Hunter surged out of his chair and stepped across the room in two swift seconds. He snatched up Tatyana’s hand and swept her out of her seat and high into his arms until he’d stepped back over the spray of glass on the floor. He swung her back onto her feet nearly at the threshold of the door leading into the parlor and turned to the others in the room even as he was steadying her.

  “Annali, take her up to Gracelynne’s suite and remain there until either Ryce or I come for you. Don’t argue,” he emphasized before even knowing if she was going to do so. She wasn’t. She and Ryce had felt that oppressive shadow just as he had. “Where’s Nox?” he asked Ryce with sharp demand.

  “Upstairs.”

  “And Asher?” Hunter persisted.

  “I’ve no idea,” Ryce told him grimly.

  Annali swept like a breeze across the room and slid her arm through Tatyana’s, instantly guiding her into the grand hallway, heading for the sweeping staircases that would lead them to the upper stories.

  Tatyana resisted after a few moments of compliant shock, trying to turn back toward the men, who were leaving in the opposite direction, drawing open the main doors and plunging out into the dark and frigid weather. “No! They can’t go!” she protested. “It isn’t safe!”

  “They know,” Anna assured her while firmly keeping her going in the right direction. “Believe me, Tatyana, they can take very good care of themselves. As for you and I, we have someone we must protect if need be.”

  “Someone ... ?” she asked dumbly, letting Annali lead her once again.

  “Gracelynne. She lives here as well and is recovering from an accident. She is weak and we need to watch over hear.”

  “But what can we do?”

  “What all women do. Surprisingly more than is ever expected of us,” Anna said assuredly. “If it even comes to that. Ryce and Hunter will hardly allow a threat to come into the house.”

  Tatyana was trying to catch her breath, and it had nothing to do with the stairs she was climbing. Something was very wrong in this place. There was an oppressive presence outside. A presence she couldn’t define in any way except to know that it was terrible and dangerous.

  And Hunter was going to confront it.

  She knew this as well. And not just because Hunter and Ryce were currently outdoors. Because she’d seen it. She had felt and seen the shadow falling over Hunter’s handsome face, wrapping overpoweringly around his vital body, literally compressing the life from him. She saw it even now as she was being pulled in the wrong direction.

  Yes. Wrong. It was wrong for her to be moving away from Hunter. Rarely had she known something with such utter conviction. She had something, something important that Hunter needed, though she didn’t understand what. She didn’t even know what was out there in the night. Imagery and impressions like these could mean anything, but she was clear about one thing. She wasn’t the only one aware of the danger. Hunter, Ryce, and Annali had felt it just as keenly as she had. Had they seen something or heard a noise that she hadn’t? Had they seen the same shadow and thought there was a prowler on the grounds?

  It didn’t matter. Tatyana stopped short on the stairs, pitching all of her weight into ripping her arm free of Annali’s while she turned and fled at the same time. In her sneakers she quickly gained several seconds of advantage over Annali. She had almost reached the door before Annali’s protesting shouts reached her. She flung the heavy portal wide and cast herself out into the icy night.

  Chapter Six

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Hunter and Ryce stretched their arms out wide and reached for power. Hunter drew up his memories of the Romany, tapping into that vein of magic that he was now so familiar with. He spoke rapid, bold Romany and was suddenly launching himself from the ground and into the chill sky. He kept track of Ryce’s similar efforts as an afterthought, his concentration fully on the list of spells at his disposal. Romany poured from his lips and a shield of pearly gray light shimmered across his body. Then he was above the line of the roof and could look all around the house and property.

  And he could see the shadow.

  It was skimming fast over soil and brush, running away from the house.

  Toward the Blessing Tree.

  Hunter was in pursuit in a heartbeat, even though he knew it was a tactic meant to draw him out and mislead him. Corrupted witches hardly ever dared to target the source of a coven’s protective power. Mainly because these sources could protect themselves, and the willow had the potential to destroy her enemies in the process of guarding her life.

  Hunter felt Ryce approaching an instant before he tore past him, his greater power allowing him to outstrip the Sentinel in speed. Hunter spoke a Word and immediately he and Ryce were connected in their thoughts.

  Your plan? he demanded of his High Priest.

  To win, of course. Watch your back. Protect the house. Don’t let them lead you away, Ryce warned.

  Hunter pulled up short and understood the warning just as he saw the enormous shadow pull apart into five separate sections and run flying in all directions around them.

  Circling back to the house.

  Spitting out a curse, Hunter flung himself back the way he had come, vaulting the roof just as one of the menacing shades took form in the air above the eastern side. It may have been a while since he’d engaged a member of a dark coven, but there was no mistaking the look of one. Dressed in poetic black, with gothic accents of piercings and accessories, skin pale from corrupting magic for personal gain and personal power: these were key visual cues.

  Otherwise, he might have found the warlock beautiful. She was tall and shapely, her dramatic clothing whipped back into snapping banners by the turbulent weather. Her short cap of slick black hair lay in a crown of wet wisps that rested against her temples and nape. Her ruby and black painted lips looked unbelievably thick and ripe. The fact that she reeked of poisoned magic from the little marcasite cross piercing her left nostril to the black polish on her bare little toes, however, had a way of making even the more pleasant traits seem black and spoiled.

  Shifting from shadow to flesh while airborne was no small feat, so he knew
this was no neophyte he faced. She was an adept at the least.

  “So, little warlock,” he greeted her loudly through the rushing wash of icy rain, “think you that you are ready to face Willow Coven’s Sentinel? Tell me the name of your coven so I may politely send your body parts back for burial.”

  “Willow Coven has no Sentinel,” she retorted, her voice bursting with honest arrogance and confidence. She had conviction in her abilities. That made her a little more dangerous.

  “It does now,” he shot back, equally confident. Softly, beneath his breath, he drew out a string of Romany. She, too, began to whisper the words of a spell. Hunter finished first, throwing out his hands and letting lightning fly from his extended palms. The warlock was struck and went flying back over the chimneys, arcing down toward the ground. He didn’ t see where she went; however he did sense her striking the muddied ground with a bone-breaking impact.

  Beneath Hunter there was a sudden flare of light as the front door was thrown open. Then darkness again as it slammed shut. He knew who had come out, simply by virtue of the fact that he couldn’t sense any of his brethren witches below him.

  Tatyana.

  The distraction was ill timed. A second shadow had come over the roof and taken the form of a warlock, this one a male of significant power and sneering confidence as he caught his target unawares. The blow of the enormous ball of fire blindsided Hunter. The projectile exploded against him, throwing flames and molten lava across his body. Only the shield he’d erected saved him from being viciously burned. What he couldn’t counteract, however, was the propulsion from the force of the strike. He arced through the air and flew toward the ground rushing up to greet him.

  Chapter Seven

  Tatyana had run into the rain blindly and was swiping ice off of her face in an attempt to see. She heard a strange sound, like the sharpest rushing of air, and something flew over her head and crashed into the ground, plowing up a furrow of soil and mud until it stopped in a smoldering heap.

  And rolled over with a groan.

  “Hunter!” Tatyana gasped, shocked and horrified as she whipped around to look over her shoulder, trying to figure out where he’d fallen from. She fell to her knees and used cold, clumsy hands to turn him from his facedown position in the smothering mud. “Hunter!”

  His eyes flew open in his mud-smeared face, the hue of them so vibrant and dramatic in the grim darkness that her breath caught with a stunned choke. His irises were literally glowing, a radioactive sapphire. But Tatyana had no time in which to digest this development. Hunter’s muscular arm shot out and whipped around her trim waist. He jerked her down onto his wet, muddy body and rolled her over onto her back in the sludge of ice and dirt until she was fully beneath him. He was muttering an unintelligible string of words as his thighs and ankles locked down her legs and the weight of his hips and torso crushed her. Tatyana gasped for breath as her lung capacity was compromised in the compression between an amazingly solid male body and the unforgiving press of the earth.

  “Get off of me!” Tatyana yelled, her hands pushing against his stone-hard chest. She might as well have not even been moving for all the good her struggles were achieving. She couldn’t breathe, though, so she cursed sharply in Russian and tried to kick her way out.

  The impulse froze on its way from her brain, however, as those eerie eyes bore down into her with their unbelievable luminosity, just before a sheeting red aura limned his entire body in a ripple from his head on down until it reached his toes.

  Not a half second later Hunter was struck full in the back by an explosive force. Tatyana screamed as fire and showering sparks burst wildly around them. She felt the fierce impact drive into his body and radiate hard into her own, pushing her deeper into the mud beneath her. In spite of the force and fire, nothing burned her. Hunter covered her protectively from head to toe, even his head lowering until his nose and lips almost touched hers, his wet hair falling against her forehead, and his arms wrapped protectively around her head. Tatyana gasped at the sheer brunt of the brutal force he absorbed, but he was whispering a soft assurance in her ear a moment afterward. He was fine and he was there to protect her.

  Hunter pulled back after the rain of fiery pellets had stopped and his comforting demeanor vanished completely as he looked down at her sharply, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look into his commanding eyes. His rain-slicked hair hung in long, gleaming black spikes over his forehead, just touching the tops of his lashes and dripping water onto her face and throat. Rising up as he was, backed by the roiling violence of the black and green storm clouds in the night sky behind him, he was all at once glorious and elemental, dangerous and untamed. Lightning flashed, blazing across the harsh planes of his incredible features, making him look like the mythological god of a turbulent world of tempests and fiery rain spit from a consecrated forge.

  “Tatyana! When I get up, you run for the house and, damn it, you stay there with Annali, do you hear me?”

  She wanted to. More than anything she didn’t want to be here, where impossible happenings were assaulting her senses in ways she wasn’t equipped to comprehend. Self-preservation was tearing her soul in half. Her logical, practical mind told Tatyana to obey him and run for her very life.

  But the other half of her mind was screaming that just as essential to her survival was being here in this moment and doing anything she possibly could to see to the continued existence of this man. It was just as real to her as holding a rock in her hand, just as solid and inescapable a reality.

  “I can’t!” She gasped out the denial even as she shook with terror and the frigid cold. “I have to stay or you could die! I know things sometimes. I saw it. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel this. I know I have to stay. Please believe me!”

  He had no time to respond before another fireball crashed into his back. Hunter was slammed down onto her once more, even as the sucking mud was forced to accept and give way to the additional weight of their combined bodies under impact. Even if he did get up now, Tatyana could never extricate herself from the adhesive mud trap on her own.

  Hunter was bearing the painful brunt of the strikes. Even though the newer shield was designed to repel heat and flame, it wasn’t nearly as effective against force. But it was the only shield he had that he could extend over another person, and he had to protect Tatyana. She was an innocent being, and for a white witch like he was, that made her life precious, to be protected above all other things. While Hunter was focusing on holding the power of his shield, he had to comprehend what Tatyana was saying to him.

  I know things... I saw it.

  Images flashed like a rapid slideshow in his consciousness. He remembered the glass and the expression on her face just as she dropped it. He remembered what she had said just as the shadow had threatened the coven.

  “You’re a psychic,” he said, the statement calm and keen as he looked down at her once more.

  Tatyana had been acting on impulse up until then, but it was something else entirely to admit to a stranger what her bizarre ability was. A combination of shock and bad experience made her hesitate even though instinct warned her now wasn’t the time to hold back. In the end it was the calmness of his tone that made her treat the admission just as matter-of-factly.

  “Yes. And I’m never wrong about what I see,” she told him firmly.

  Hunter nodded once resolutely and quickly reached down toward his ankle. There was a flash of silver metal in the dark as he straightened just in time for the next fireball. He cursed as it broke over them, coughing under the impact a moment before the woman crushed beneath him squeaked out a grunt from her compressed lungs. Her hands were clutching his shirt between their bodies, her knuckles pressing into his flesh as she shuddered with emotion and cold.

  Ryce! I’m pinned down! he called to the High Priest.

  I’m engaged with two warlocks. I can’t help you, I’m sorry!

  Hunter cursed again, as he tried to think.

  Yo
u are losing your touch, Sentinel. The wry voice connecting to the open channel was Nox’s, and Hunter had never been so relieved to hear his friend’s blithe cockney accent in all of his life. I’m about to engage and draw fire. Better get ready to move, the other witch warned.

  Hunter surged half up on his knees and grabbed Tatyana’s hand. The blade of a knife gleamed in his other hand and Tatyana could see a distorted image of herself in the polished surface as he held it poised over her. Her heart was pounding madly as she met riveting azure eyes filled with eerie light and magic.

  “Trust me?” he asked shortly, time too vital and short for him to pretty it up with reassurances and arguments in his favor.

  Trust him? A virtual stranger who had thrown himself over her and blocked an outpouring of hellfire from incinerating her? “Hell yes!” she cried as if he were crazy for even asking.

  And just like that the blade sang through the air and bit into the skin of her hand as he held it palm up. Then with a flip he tossed the blade over and caught the sharp dual edges in his palm, squeezing until they pierced through his skin. In a flash he snatched her bloodied hand up with his, clasping their bleeding palms together so the blood mixed.

  “Oh God, I hope you’ve had all your shots,” she blurted out. It was a crazy, ludicrous thing to say in such a wildly perilous moment. He smiled down at her, though, before he lurched to his feet and, using their still joined hands, yanked her up out of the mud. He pulled until she slammed into his huge body, wet sticking to wet, the soaked silk of her dress completely useless and rendering her practically naked as it clung to every chilled curve of her body, outlining the shaped satin and lace of her bra and panties as she shivered like a drowned rat against him.

  He held her hands between their bodies, their mingling blood running wet with the icy water and the mud sluicing down their forearms. His opposite arm, still bearing the blade in hand, wrapped around her waist and drew her very tightly against him.