The Dark-Hunters (676 page)

Who knew Thorn was a pirate? Fang squelched that thought.
Avast
was simply an archaic word that, no offense to the swordsmith, he hadn’t used even when it’d been popular vernacular.

But he couldn’t cut all sarcasm from his demeanor. “And in your world, Captain Scary, that would mean?”

“You hit him three times and then you stop. It’s in English. Hell, it’s in
your
English. You were born then.”

Fang gestured toward the demon’s now decaying body. “That was my third hit.”

Thorn covered his left eye with his right hand as if he had a vicious migraine brewing. “I have a tumor. I know I have a tumor. I just wish I were mortal so that it could kill me.”

Frustrated, Fang rolled his eyes at Thorn’s anguish. “I still don’t understand what’s so wrong with what I…” His words died under a wave of excruciating pain.

“Wait for it, wolf.” Thorn gestured sarcastically at him. “You’re about to have enlightenment. It’s about to suck to be you,
mein freund.
”

Fang cried out as the most blinding shaft of agony imaginable ripped through his entire body. It felt as if he were being torn in two. He couldn’t breathe or move. “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re absorbing the demon’s powers.”

“Huh?”

Thorn nodded. “Yeah. And not just the powers. Your soul is merging with the dead demon’s essence. All that he was is now intruding onto what you are. Demons are immortal without souls. When they die, as it were, their life force jumps to the one who destroyed their body and it will try to take you over from now on.”

“So what are you saying? I need an exorcism?”

“No. There’s no body for him to return to. You’re stuck with him. Mazel tov!” Thorn said in an exaggerated voice of happiness. He sobered as his body returned to normal, except for his eyes. They were red with slitted yellow pupils that reminded Fang of a snake’s. “And it’s why we try real hard not to kill one. Not a pretty reality.”

Fang felt his vision changing. It became sharper. Clearer. The scent of blood permeated his head and he could hear it running not just in his veins, but Thorn’s.

“What’s happening to me?”

Thorn grabbed him by the shoulder and smiled cruelly. “That is the taste of evil flowing thick through your veins. Seductive and inviting, it will entice you from now on. And now you know why I’m a less than happy camper most days. There’s the battle I fight every second of every minute of my life. As I said, it now sucks to be you.”

Before Fang could stop himself, he vomited on the sidewalk. Gah, the indignity of that. Not to mention the pain of it as his insides felt alive—like they were writhing.

Thorn didn’t flinch in the least as he stepped back to give him space. “Don’t worry. Your guts aren’t coming out even though it feels like it. Your stomach will settle down eventually. However, that need you have for blood and death that is mounting inside you will never go away.”

Grimacing, Fang wrapped his arms around his stomach and leaned back against the wall to catch his breath. He tilted his head to look at Thorn. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Honestly, I didn’t think in your current frail condition that you could kill him. I figured three whacks with the sword and you’d either be dead or he’d be banished … let me go back to the part where this particular demon had taken out some of my best in the past. I should have evaluated your abilities a little more accurately. My bad.”

“I hate you, Thorn.”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “All creatures do and I really don’t care. By the way, your girlfriend is on her way back here to you. Try not to eat her even though the bloodlust is going to be hard to resist. You’ll most likely regret it if you do.” Then he was gone.

Fang slid down the wall, trying to get his stomach and nerves to settle. But it was hard. He still felt like he was being torn inside out.

Gods, what am I going to do?

Aimee appeared by his side a few minutes later as he leaned back with his head against the wall and his eyes closed.

“Fang?” Her hand was cool as she touched his forehead. “You’re burning up.”

His only response was to hold her hand against his cheek as the soft lavender scent of her wrist soothed him. But Thorn had been right, he could smell the blood in her veins and he wanted to rip her wrist open to taste it.

“Can you take me home?” he breathed, afraid to try his own powers right now.

“Absolutely.” She helped him to stand and it was only then that he realized the demon had disintegrated. There was nothing left except a vague black outline. Would that happen to him too if he died now?

Damn you, Thorn, for not telling me everything.

Aimee flashed them back to Fang’s bed and then helped him to lie down. “I’m going to get Carson.”

He grabbed her hand and held her by his side. “Don’t. There’s nothing he can do.”

“But, Fang—”

“Aimee, trust me. I just need to rest alone for a little bit, okay?”

He could see the debate in her eyes as he tightened his grip on her hand.

After a few seconds, she nodded. “You need me at all.…”

“I will call you. I promise.”

She patted his hand before she removed it. “All right. Rest well.”

Fang didn’t relax until she was out of the room. Only then did he lay back and give in to the conflicting emotions that lacerated him. He wanted to kill something.

Anything.

But he knew he couldn’t.

The only thing was, he didn’t know how long he’d be able to hold the demon in him at bay. By the feel of it, he was going to turn Slayer.
True
Slayer.

And that, in their world, carried a death sentence.

CHAPTER 18

Fang lay in his bed as a wolf, his mind trapped by the demon powers that were warring inside him as they converted his body even more. He was only vaguely aware of the sounds of the outside world.

He now saw things in infrared while he slept. Every tiny insect in his room. Every creature that walked past his room in the hallway. He was aware of everything on a level he’d never imagined, but unable to respond. He was like an outside viewer who couldn’t break through the glass case no matter how hard he struck it.

“Fang?”

Vane.
He’d know that deep baritone anywhere. But in Fang’s mind, Vane was nothing more than a reddish outline standing beside his bed. There was a woman with him. One who smelled sweet and all human. She stood so close to Vane that she appeared tucked in there.

Fang tried to reach out to his brother, but couldn’t. It was almost like he was back in the Nether Realm where only voices could reach him. Only now he couldn’t understand the words his brother was saying to him. They were jumbled and malformed as he and the woman said things.

Hanging his head, Fang sighed wearily.

“Aw, what’s wrong, little wolfie? Can’t you get up?”

Fang went ramrod stiff as he heard the raspy voice of a demon. “Alastor.” He didn’t know how he knew the creature’s name, yet he did.

His body went straight into the demeanor of a lethal predator. Fang lowered his head and watched the demon closely with his peripheral, ready to strike him down with deadly precision when the time came.

Small and wiry, the demon was ugly and gray-skinned. Worse, he stank of sulphur and blood. His hook nose and bald head made him look like a gargoyle. In the darkness of his dream, something silver flashed.

Fang reacted on instinct. He caught the demon’s hand to see a dagger held there. Laughing at the audacity, or more to the point the stupidity, he wrapped his other hand around the demon’s throat and lifted him from his feet.

The moment he did, he saw Alastor’s thoughts in his mind. Heard his own mother telling the demon to kidnap Vane’s mate and bring her to his mother’s pack so that Bride couldn’t complete the mating ritual with Vane. It was a pact his mother had made with the demon to capture all of their mates to prevent them from having even a small chance of happiness.

Or more to the point, to keep them from procreating and spreading their animal natures that his mother despised so much.

Raw fury exploded inside him.

“You rotten bastard,” he snarled as his demon’s bloodlust ripped through him and the demon inside him roared to life. It wanted him to rip the demon’s head off with his bare hands and feast on his entrails. Never had he experienced anything like this.

“I was just doing as I was told.” The whine in the demon’s voice was like a chair scraping across a floor. It made the hair on the back of his neck rise and did nothing to curb his blood fever.

Before Fang even realized what he was doing, he sank his teeth into the demon’s throat so that he could taste his blood.

Stop!

The sound of his conscience succeeded in reaching him. Choking on the thick liquid that tasted like warm metal, he forced himself to step back. Alastor slid to the ground, holding his neck as he pathetically begged for his life.

Part of Fang demanded he kill the sniveling beast at his feet. It was what he deserved. But the part of him that was wolf refused to kill for pleasure.

Katagaria only killed to protect or to defend. They never killed for amusement.

At least not often.

But the wolf in him also couldn’t let the demon go while Alastor posed even the hint of a threat to his family—
that
wolves killed over without remorse. “You hunt any of us or those we love again and so help me, I won’t stop until I’ve pulled you into so many pieces, you’ll think you’ve been through a grinder.”

Alastor bowed low to the ground as he thanked him for his mercy. “I will never hunt again, master. I swear it.” He vanished instantly.

Fang wiped at his lips that were still coated in the foul demon’s blood. He cursed at what he’d done. But worse was the desire still in him to cause pain and to kill.

The demon was strong within him and it was hard to resist.

“I won’t do it,” he snarled at himself.

Ever.

He was a Were-Hunter, not a demon, and he wouldn’t cede himself to this hell. He wouldn’t become one of them. Not for anything. No matter the temptation or hunger. He would stand strong.

Wake up!

He couldn’t. Cold panic consumed him as he staggered through the darkness that had no form or substance, seeking something to return him to his room. Had Thorn relegated him back to hell after all?

No, this was worse than the Nether Realm. There were no caves or anything else here. This reminded him of walking an endless desert that had no sides or borders. The landscape was obsidian and there was no respite.

“Fang?”

He heard Aimee calling to him, yet he couldn’t find her in the oppressive black. That was even more terrifying to him than being locked in here. “Aimee?”

“Fang? Wake up, sweetie.” That precious, siren voice …

If only she could find him again.

“Aimee!” he shouted until his throat was raw, but she didn’t seem to hear him this time.

What was going on? How could this have happened to him again?

Something struck him hard in the back of his head.

One moment he was lost in the dark, and in the next he was in his bed with Aimee leaning over him, her features contorted by her fear and worry.

Aimee started to pull away as Fang shifted from wolf to human, but the panic in his eyes riveted her. His breathing ragged, he held on to her hands as if they were a lifeline for him that he was afraid she’d remove.

It made her ache for him. “Are you all right?”

He grabbed her and pulled her into his arms where he held her in a crushing embrace.

She frowned as she realized he was shaking all over. Scared for him, she wrapped her arms around his body to help as best she could. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

But she knew better. Something had happened to him again. Something he didn’t want to share.

Fang held her close, letting her scent and arms anchor him back in the world of the living. Closing his eyes, he tried to settle his nerves and his breathing. He felt like an idiot for acting like this.…

But the trauma of the Nether Realm was still raw and biting. He never wanted to go there again. He never wanted to go to sleep without having a way to come back.

Shell-shocked and weak, he wanted to feel safe again. But he seemed to have no control over himself anymore. No control over anything.

It was a feeling he hated.

Aimee pulled away to look at him. She placed her hand to his cheek as she searched his eyes with her gaze. “You’ve been asleep for two days. I was beginning to worry that you were lost again.”

He stared at her in disbelief. Two days? Had it really been that long. “What?”

She nodded. “Today is Thanksgiving and you’ve already slept through most of it.”

Fang shook his head as those words sank in. How had that much time passed and he not known it? It seemed like he’d only just lay down to rest.

Aimee scowled. “Did you not hear when Vane and his mate came in to talk to you a little while ago?”

“No,” he lied, not wanting to admit to her how close he’d come to slipping back into the comatose state he’d been in before. “Are they still here?”

Both of her brows shot up as she cocked her head suspiciously. “You didn’t hear the commotion in the connecting room a few minutes ago?”

“What commotion?”

She gestured toward the wall where a giant mirror was mounted—strange how he’d never seen through that in his sleep; only through the door. “Vane’s mate, Bride, beat your mother down in the next room when Bryani came here to kill you. Bride actually caged her during the fight … did you really sleep through all that?”

He was aghast at what Aimee described. His mother had come for him?

Was that why he’d seen Alastor?

But the most incredible part was that a human had defeated their mother … that took courage and strength. And a giant boatload of stupidity.

“I guess I did.”

She shook her head. “I’ve heard of heavy sleepers before, but dang, wolf. You’re special.” She stepped back. “Vane and Bride are still downstairs if you’d like to see them before they leave.”