Hunter

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Stop that,” she scolded, wading through the water and standing between his dangling feet so she could fold her arms over his thighs and look up into his eyes. “It’s only human to think vicious thoughts now and then. Especially when sparked by ... well, I’m guessing it was jealousy. You know, that really keen kind you feel at the beginning of a relationship when things are so new, intense, and hungry, but you don’t know each other well enough yet to trust? There’s no faith in fidelity because you have no real understanding of the other person’s code of honor or morals. I mean, for all you know I’m nothing but a tramp, tramping my way up the Hudson River.”

  “For all you know, the women in this house are all my ex-lovers who I’m seeing again for the first time in ten years and I’m feeling some nostalgia.”

  “Exactly!”

  She smiled.

  The smile faded.

  She frowned.

  “You aren’t, are you?”

  Hunter chuckled, leaning forward to nudge her forehead with his. “No, silly. Annali was barely eighteen when I left, Kaia needs a man who will drop a small planet on her head in order to gain her full attention, and Gracelynne ... Gracie is ... hard to explain. Not without betraying certain confidences. Suffice it to say, she’s had a hard life and she’s going to need someone quite different from me as her mate.” He laughed softly, a fond smile on his lips. “We’re so compatible, all of us in this house, but not to the point of physical intimacy. It would be like bedding your sibling.” He shuddered at the taboo. “What about you?” He gave her a teasing grin. “Are you whoring your way up the Hudson River?”

  “Eww. I said tramping. Whoring sounds so much nastier.” Then she laughed at herself. “I say that like I’m taking it personally. No. I’m decidedly non-whorish. Non-trampy. Oh, you know what I mean!” She pinched him on his thigh when he snickered at her. “I was dating someone last month, but Sergei scared him off before I could consider anything serious. Lucky for me. Turned out he was married. God, I hate liars.” She shook her shoulders as if she was shedding a slimy creature from her back. “Before that, I’d been having a serious dry spell. Which actually could explain why I’m incredibly horny right now,” she added matter-of-factly.

  “Could it?” Hunter asked, his voice dropping low enough to hit his toes.

  Tatyana looked up with a half-smile on her lips. They were smoldering again. Those sapphire blue eyes that burned like a butane flame. When she looked into those eyes, sometimes Tatyana wanted to wriggle inside and see what it would be like to be burned by those flames.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s been a while since I’ve been to bed with anyone. About two years, I think. I’ve been working to make a name for myself. No time for extracurricular activities. What about you?”

  “You mean am I horny ... or how long since I’ve had sex?”

  “Well, both, I guess,” she chuckled, giving him a suggestive eyebrow wiggle that could prove to be his downfall.

  “Yes, and I’d have to say about four years.”

  “Four years? Sexy, gorgeous, yummy guy like you with the sensuality and appetite you have? You have to be pulling my leg.”

  “I was”—he cleared his throat—“living with Romany clans. There’s ... it wouldn’t be wise,” he finished lamely, unable to form coherent sentences under the onslaught of her very personal compliments. The feel of her nails absently traveling up and down the fabric of his slacks over his thigh wasn’t helping matters. Having this discussion while her head, for all intents and purposes, was in his lap ... well, that was just plain torture.

  “I see,” she said, an ‘aha’ tone to her voice.

  Those mischievous eyes were back and they were doing a number on him all over again. Every time she moved it was like silk underwater, slow and sensual with undeniable beauty. She moved to seduce, whether she was meaning to or not. At the moment, she was meaning to. Her hands both came to rest on his thighs, stroking them softly in a steady rhythm, up and down. It was incredibly suggestive. So was the slow way she licked the water from her lips.

  “Why don’t you come in here with me,” she invited silkily. “We can be cozy hot while the snow falls all around us.” Her hands slid up to his damp shirt, her fingers tugging the fabric. He reached out and covered her hands, staying her.

  “Tatyana, no ...” he protested very softly. “It’s safer the way we are, angel.”

  She laughed uproariously at that, perplexing him for a minute. Then she slid her hand right between his legs, cupping the full length of his erection firmly. Her eyes fixed on his just before she leaned forward, deliberately stuck out her tongue, and touched it to the back of the hand pressed vertically along his rigid shaft. She licked leisurely up from the wrist, over the back of it on up the longest finger, right to the very tip, before finally flicking her tongue off.

  Enough said.

  After that morning, four years of celibacy, and the raw suggestiveness of what she’d just done, Hunter was shocked that he hadn’t come right then and there, just by watching that naughty pink tongue. Even so, he was throbbing with urgent need and it was taking every ounce of his willpower to keep himself sitting still at the edge of the tub. She was still touching him, so he suspected she could feel the pulsing twitches running through his cock in time to his racing heart. Did she know he’d never been as hard as he was now? Did the devilish little vixen know ... ?

  “Hunter,” she gasped, “you’re hurting me!”

  Hunter blinked. To his shock, his hands were wrapped in a vise-like grip around her upper arms, so tight that the skin bordering his fingers was turning purple. He instantly eased the touch, unwilling to let go completely for fear the bruises that were sure to appear would be visible already. She was looking up at him expectantly, her eyes so beautifully voluble.

  “Tatyana ...” he struggled to say, barely able to manage her name or an apology for hurting her.

  Her hands slid away at last, but there was no relief. Instead his nerves screamed with the loss. She moved to the steps that would lead her to him, Aphrodite ready to make her entrance into the world. He was shaking as he watched her mount those steps. He could do nothing to control it, his every nerve on overload. A sleek, wet cape of beautiful red hair, pale, freckle-dusted skin, and the body of a goddess. He was doomed. He knew it the minute she stepped with bare feet onto the stone and turned to extend a hand down to him, bending forward slightly, her breasts jiggling in a fetching manner beneath the wet transparency of her dress as she did so.

  “There’s no need for this, Hunter,” she said softly. “Why should we torture ourselves with resistance? Why waste what could be such a stunningly sensual experience? Hmm? It’s the perfect solution, you know. Lock me away with you, Hunter, and make love with me. We’ll protect the others with our absence, yet we’ll still be close to the coven in case you’re needed. We can exhaust each other into good behavior.”

  “That isn’t reason enough,” he argued hoarsely, even though every cell in his body was screaming an affirmative. “I don’t want to do anything you’ll come to regret. What happens a week from now, Tatyana, when discrimination returns? I need your trust and friendship in order to guide you. I’ll lose that if I allow this. No matter how badly I want to, angel, I can’t.” He tried to draw away from her. “Ask me again in a week. Then I’ll know it’s me you really want.

  “Two years of celibacy, Tatyana, tells me you’re as discriminating as I am when choosing partners. I’ve told you how dark witches use their familiars for sex. Even though they are compliant and even begging for it, it’s still rape because their natural will is subverted. If I do what you ask, I’ll be no better than Braen or any warlock. Please. Don’t do this. Don’t tempt me when it’s so painful to resist you.”

  “Well,” she said softly, a sharp contrast to the uneasy swallow and hollow laugh she released. It sounded flat and insincere; her eyes were filling with pride and pain. “I guess the master witch does have all of the control after all.”
<
br />   She stepped backward away from him, her arms coming up to cross over her breasts. She looked as if he’d just punched her in the stomach and then kicked her besides. Hunter surged to his feet, reaching out for her. Tatyana turned and ran, wet hair flying and bare, damp feet slapping on the floor at as fast a speed as she could manage while slipping on smooth surfaces.

  Hunter barked out a curse, the word echoing in the vast room over the sound of the waterfall and the bubbling hot tub. Hurt her now or hurt her later, Hunter thought, I’m damned either way. And either way it sucked. But this hurt, he tried to console himself, was temporary. A few days from now she would feel far better about it than she did now.

  He hoped.

  Like all their emotions, the pain of rejection must be highly intensified. How must that be feeling to her right now? Hunter’s heart tripped a strange beat at the idea. Worse yet was the knowledge that he was the cause of it. He’d give her some time, but he had to eventually go and ease her way somehow. He couldn’t just leave it like this.

  In the meantime, he had to speak with Annali.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tatyana ran through the house and, in the span of a few minutes, managed to get completely turned around and lost. She lost track of floors, stairs, and even how many turns she’d made. She began to find strange rooms she’d never seen before, for the first time coming to understand how enormous the house was. Becoming cold again and feeling like a foolish drowned rat that couldn’t even find a decent place to privately sulk, she felt tears begin to run down her cheeks. Her heart had become so chill with pain, but ironically, her tears were hot. Swiping at her face and fearing she would run into Hunter, Tatyana ducked into the next room she found, slamming the door shut behind her, venting a little of her furious hurt.

  Jerk. Rat. Bastard. Rat bastard, she added, trying combinations now as she looked around herself wildly. She was in some kind of strange room without a central floor. She was standing on an oval balcony that ran the circumference of an oval room. Above her a fresco in bright pastel wound around an enormous oval skylight that was trimmed in gold and pretty plaster fairies. The rest of the ceiling was a white plaster trimmed in gold, but it looked as though it had been woven like one of those child’s potholder kits she’d had as a young girl, only the ceiling was far neater than any weave she’d ever managed.

  The balcony was a sturdy wooden balustrade at waist height with spindle posts set so close together they could barely be seen through. The curving walls all around were painted in a mural that had no start and no end that she could see, only a perfect continuity of figures in more pastels and brilliant primary colors that turned out to be a depiction of ...

  Alice in Wonderland.

  Of all the things in the world, why would someone paint a balcony with scenes from Alice in Wonderland? How odd she should end up here. It was almost as if someone were sending her a message, or having a very good joke at her expense. Brushing that self-pitying idea aside, Tatyana approached the banister so she could look over it and down into the room that was below her.

  She certainly hadn’t expected to see beautiful cribs of sparkling white, carefully arranged dressers and changing tables. Little beds just the right size for a child just out of its crib tucked up with plain white sheets for now, but which would no doubt bear bedding that was the child’s preference when the time came. There were toys still in their packages to keep the dust off of them; others were laid out at the ready. Play blankets, swings, bundles of fresh clothing zipped and tucked in clear plastic. Cedar toy chests, little blackboards, easels and paint simply waiting.

  Everything a child could want. Everything a baby could need.

  Waiting.

  And this balcony so parents could come and sneak peeks all day long with the children none the wiser, making it easier for their nanny if it was a bad time to disrupt routine or disturb a nap.

  Tatyana felt her heart leap out of her chest. It lodged tightly in her throat and new tears filled her eyes. Suddenly everything she’d seen, done, and felt shifted, spun, and changed. All because of what she saw when she looked down into that empty, echoing room.

  Hope.

  And for the first time since she had learned their secret, she suddenly saw the witches once again as merely people. People who one day hoped to fill all those cribs and beds. Who planned to live their entire lives together, sharing their magic, but even more, sharing their families and the futures of their children. Loyalty, dedication, and total commitment. So much commitment that the room stood empty still. What must it take, she realized, for a witch to find love. Find love and reveal what they were and what it meant to be a witch. To share that meaning and then hope that the other person would come to care for the coven. Care enough for the coven to want to live among them, inseparably, for always. To live among them with their dangers and their blessings and consider giving birth to a family.

  Oh, the odds of all the things that would have to come to pass perfectly in order for those hopes to be achieved. Tatyana felt her heart pounding madly, still stuck in her throat no matter how she tried to swallow past her tears of lonely empathy. What manner of man or woman could ever be selfless enough to accept so many conditions? What manner of being did one have to be to ever be brave enough to risk asking?

  Dimitre. Her very own brother was that brave. He dared to love in this difficult setting, to take risks no future husband or father would want to take for his family, just so he could be there for Annali ... and for his new coven.

  She had an overwhelming urge to find Hunter, her entire body pounding with the pulse of her need. She forgot her stung pride in an instant, this need was so strong. Then it wasn’t just Hunter. It was Annali, Ryce, Lennox, and Gracelynne. Who were all these people? What was the witch like in each of them? Hunter had said they all specialized in something that called to them. Outside of the witch, what lay within the person? Was there any separation between the witch and the human? Had there ever been?

  So many questions that her head was spinning.

  Suddenly she knew how she would be spending the next week after all.

  “We need to talk.”

  “We need to do much more than that,” Hunter said grimly. He sat back in his seat, a glass of neat vodka dangling between his fingers. Ryce entered the firelit parlor and both men glanced anxiously at the darkening windows. “Have you heard from them?”

  “No. Dimitre and Kaia’s cells are both going straight to voicemail. We’re just going to have to wait this out.”

  “I hope that’s what they did. I hope they pulled over and just decided to wait the storm out.” Hunter took a swallow of his drink. “But I guess that’s wishful thinking. They would have grabbed a land line and called us, right?”

  “What we need is a good Weather witch,” Ryce said as he crossed to pour himself some whiskey. “We also need to figure out what we’re going to do about Braen and the Belladonna coven. I don’t like the idea of sitting here waiting for them to make their next move.”

  “How long have you had Dimitre and Kaia spying on them?”

  Ryce laughed, moving to sit next to Hunter. “You’re the second person to figure that out. How did you know?”

  “Because you’d never let our Healer go off just to give lectures when you felt the coven was in such dire threat. Especially not a threat that causes you to call me home after ten years. You kept the big guns close to the house and snuck the two weaker witches out under the radar. I figured after you told me about Dimitre’s power, you were counting on him using it to get them out of harm’s way if things turned sour.”

  “Right. He has the defense, and Kaia has the knowledge. She knows what she is looking at when she spies on a coven. It’s a bit of a learning experience for him as well. Made him feel like he was contributing essentially to the coven.”

  Hunter nodded, understanding how it must be difficult to be the awkward novice while also being a man in his thirties who was used to having a measure of control ove
r his life.

  “So how long?” he repeated.

  “A week. Enough to get some fair intel, from what Kaia said to me.”

  “I should wait for that information before I think about what manner of message to send to my brother,” Hunter said, his animosity apparent. “What were you thinking of? Fire and brimstone? Or would you prefer just pissing him off and making him act before he is ready?”

  “Oh, no,” Ryce said, his tone low and cold. “I no longer have a message to send. I’m going to throw the whole damn dissertation at him. That warlock bastard stepped foot onto my lands. Twice! He attacked me on my home soil. He put my house and my loved ones under threat.”

  Hunter didn’t need for Ryce to finish the picture he was painting. He understood the man’s fury perfectly, just as he understood that the retaliation for this offense would be total and obliterating.

  “Then we wait for the others to return. We gather our information and we make a plan.” Hunter grinned a little wickedly. “Something different. Something they won’t be expecting. Braen knows you well, Ryce. He’ll know you’re pissed off and will expect you to take swift action in response.”

  “Yeah, well, he knows you, too. But we’re not going to act right away, and that’s what is going to keep him guessing. While we’re figuring all of this out, I want to concentrate our magical energy into strengthening the house defenses. No one should leave the grounds, especially not alone. We have to be wary of lures and traps. He’s going to try to draw us out.”

  “One at a time. He’s trying to pick us off like ducks in a gallery.” Hunter lifted a quizzical brow when he spied Ryce’s expression of dark contemplation. “Something else on your mind, Ryce?”

  “Actually, you are,” Ryce returned. “This is a hell of a time for you to have an apprentice splitting your resources and attention. I don’t know what the hell is going on with this blood bond you’ve made. Annie told me what happened. She’s really worried and so am I.”