The Dark-Hunters (801 page)

“Help me, child!”

Hoping to put more distance between herself and the things after her, Kateri pressed her back against the cold stone wall and took another step away from the opening.

Someone tsked in her ear. “Where are you going, tidbit? You’re not trying to leave us so soon, are you?”

Her vision dimmed as a bony hand sank like a claw into her shoulder, piercing it with pain. Unlike the other things in the cave, she knew this one. It was a raven mocker.

Suddenly, a deep masculine voice thundered, speaking a language she didn’t know.

But the raven mocker knew it. She could tell by its sharp, angry intake of breath. Releasing her, it lunged at the voice and shrieked so loudly that it made her ears ring.

The moment it struck the man, light bathed the small shaft with an orange glow. A glow that came from the man’s skin …

Kateri wanted to run while they fought, but she couldn’t. She felt as frozen as Enrique had been in her lab. Her entire body tense, she watched closely, praying the newcomer was friend and not foe.

She was so over her foe quota for the day, and it was barely noon.…

As she watched, her gaze went from the twisted, hideous raven mocker to the man it fought. Swathed head to toe in black, he was even larger than the raven mocker. Because of the eerie glow he was giving off, she couldn’t make out his features clearly, but his long black hair was loose, falling to the middle of his back as he turned and dodged, then attacked the raven mocker with movements so graceful they reminded her of a dancer’s.

The raven mocker slashed at his throat.

In an elegant, quick move, the man jerked back.

Instead of the raven mocker cutting his throat, it caught his bone-and-turquoise necklace, and snatched it free. It flew through the darkness to land on the ground at her feet.

Kateri picked it up, then froze as her gaze focused on the silver circle that held the imprint of a thunderbird.

From the east, the Thunderbird will fly into the direction of the death lands. Beware the Thunderbird, child. For in his path, all will perish. None can stand against him.

Not even you.

Her grandmother’s words had barely whispered through her head before the warrior caught the raven mocker a blow that caused it to explode into bright, flickering flames.

The man turned toward her.

In that instant, her heart stopped beating as she clearly saw his entire body. His eyes were as black as his hair and clothes. Every line on his handsome face sculpted to perfection, he held the expression of a merciless fighter who was more used to taking lives than saving them.

And as he focused that cold, dark gaze on her, she felt the hand of death brush her cheek.

For all time
 …

This was the man who always killed her in her dreams.

CHAPTER 5

Ren froze as his gaze locked with the woman’s. When Cabeza had called and told him the Ixkib, or ghighau as she was known in his language, had been found and then lost, he’d envisioned her as an elder woman. It was what she’d always been in the past.

But never had he foreseen
this.…

Or anticipated
her
 …

Her presence slammed into him like an unexpected fist in his gut.
This
was the woman in yellow who’d killed him in his visions. Time and again. The one whose gentle touch always paralyzed him for her lethal blow.

One she’d never failed to deliver to him with a smile on her lips.
“I’m here for you.”
That voice haunted him as his head reeled from a reality he didn’t want to face.

By her hand, I will die.
And he couldn’t deny it. His precogs were never wrong.

Never.

And in the flesh, she was even more beautiful. More compelling, she had her long, dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. Strands that had come loose during her capture and escape curled around her face in an attractive mess that begged him to sink his hand into it and see if it was as soft as it appeared. And even though she was well muscled for a woman, she was tiny. The top of her head barely reached the middle of his chest.

Just like in my dreams.

Still, even knowing that she would eventually kill him, he couldn’t bring himself to harm her. Not while her sweet scent filled his head. There was something about her that appeared soft and delicate. Fragile.

Or so he thought until she narrowed those dark eyes and lunged at him with an object in her hand.

Reacting on pure instinct, he fell back, allowing her to unbalance herself when she didn’t make contact with his body. He clamped down on her wrist with enough pressure to control her attack, but not enough to harm her. And as he held her immobile, he realized she was hurt and bleeding.

Badly.

He would have admired her bravery and spirit even if she wasn’t wounded. The fact that she fought when others would be on the ground, crying, said a lot about her character and resolve.

“I’m not going to let you kill me,” she snarled in his face.

He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could draw a single breath, her eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out.

Ren barely caught her before she collapsed. Swinging her up in his arms, he debated what to do. He’d ventured here in his crow form. It’d been so long since he’d last tried to teleport someone from one realm to another that he wasn’t sure if his powers would work or not. And then there was the small matter that it was a lot harder to teleport dead weight than someone whose conscious energy he could use for a power source. Not to mention, his brother had drained a good portion of Ren’s strength to summon the Na’ha Ala to pull the woman from the human realm into this one.

I hate you, Coyote.

But it wasn’t productive to focus on something so negative. Especially not while another Na’ha was entering their small haven … and it wasn’t alone.

A large group of hairy, smelly friends had decided to join it.

Like it or not, Ren didn’t have a choice.

Either he tried …

Or they died.

Hoping for the best, he summoned every bit of power he could and forced himself to take a very rare leap of faith. His head buzzed as he felt the surge.

Light flashed and he felt his body shift, but not how he wanted it to.

Shit
 …

He didn’t go far. In fact, he went
toward
them instead of away.

Only I have this kind of luck.
Thank the Spirits that the woman was unconscious and couldn’t see his incompetence. It was bad enough
he
was awake to witness it. All he needed was for her to laugh at him.

You’re worthless, Makah’Alay. I weep for the day you were brought into this world to be a hindrance to us all.…

He flinched as he heard his father’s acerbic voice across the centuries.
Would you die already, you bastard? I had enough of you while you lived.

But sometimes dead just wasn’t dead enough.

Pushing those thoughts away and forcing himself to concentrate on only the positive, Ren tightened his grip on the woman.

With a savage hiss, the Na’ha came at him, fangs bared, claws gleaming in the dim light.

Ren twisted at the waist so that the creature would hit his spine and not the woman. Then, he tried to at least teleport them back to where they’d been a moment ago. The Na’ha’s hot breath scorched his neck as it clamped a clawed hand onto his biceps.

That pain boosted his powers as he cried out and rage took hold of him.

This time, with that boost, it worked.

One second they were in the cave, the next he was in his living room.…

With the Na’ha’s hand still attached to his arm.

Curling his lip at the grisly sight, he moved to lay the woman on his couch so that he could tear it free and throw it into his fireplace where he’d left a fire burning. While his journey had seemed to last only a few minutes, time here passed differently than it did there.

Here, it was already night and his small house was silent and empty. Except for the sound of the fire popping and destroying the physical remains of something he’d hoped would never be able to breach the gate to this world. Things he’d hoped to never face again.

Thanks, Coyote.

Bastard. Rat. Asshole.

Son of a belly-licking rodent’s backside.

Ren cringed at the smell of burning demon flesh, which triggered memories he’d spent eternity trying to forget. But some wounds went far deeper than the bones. Some went all the way to the soul, and they stung even after he’d sold that same soul for peace.

Or, more to the point, war.

Trying not to think about it, he returned to the woman and lifted her shirt so that he could see her injury. Yet all he really saw at first was her smooth, tanned skin. Skin that looked as soft as the hair he really wanted to bury his face into so that he could inhale her delicate scent.

God, it’d been so long since he’d last slept with a woman. Felt her breath and hands on his skin as he lost himself to absolute pleasure.

For many reasons, he’d done his best to stay away from women as much as possible. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them.

He didn’t trust himself.

After enslaving himself to the last woman he’d been with and allowing her to completely and utterly control him against all sanity, he had no desire to surrender his will or body again to any female. Not even long enough to scratch a base urge.

It wasn’t worth it.

And that succeeded in reminding him why he didn’t need to think of this one as an attractive woman in the least. She was just another stranger who would be out of his life in a matter of days.

No more. No less.

In the back of his mind, he saw an image of her stabbing him. But that, too, he pushed aside. He knew to watch out for it. So long as he kept his guard up, there was no chance of her harming him. He was too lethal a warrior for that. He wasn’t the same man who’d allowed Windseer to take control of his hatred.

I am the Thunderbird.
The fiercest of all legends. The deadliest of predators.

The only thing that had ever defeated Thunderbird was the Thunderbird when he’d allowed himself to be tricked by Raven.

And that will not happen to me.

Never again.

His thoughts finally where they should be, he narrowed his gaze on the deep gash that ran along her rib cage. It looked painful and terrible. Having received more than his fair share of wounds, he knew how much such a thing stung. It amazed him that she’d lasted as long as she had before passing out.

Heaven knew, Coyote had never been so strong.

Tasting the bitterness on his tongue brought up by that particular memory, he pulled his T-shirt off, over his head, and used it to apply pressure with one hand while he called Talon with the other to let his friend know that he’d found their target.

Talon didn’t answer.

Frowning, Ren tried Choo Co La Tah next. When Choo didn’t pick up … that made him nervous.
Don’t panic. They’re not back in this realm yet. That’s all it is. Hard to get cell phone service when you’re beyond the reach of cell towers.

It could be true. They’d each gone to different realms where the woman could have been taken. Since his friends didn’t know he had her, they would keep searching for a while.

Which meant he was stuck with her until their return.

Alone.

It’s not the same as before. He
wasn’t the same.

And she definitely was not Windseer.

Yeah, but look what that got you.
A quick kick in the teeth and crotch,
and
a gelding would have been far superior to Windseer’s treachery and abandonment.

It was why he didn’t want to be alone with this woman.

I can resist anything except temptation.
But at least he knew that about himself and he accepted it. He now understood what to guard against. It was why he was a recluse to the worst extent of that word. Why he, unlike the majority of other Dark-Hunters, didn’t have a human servant to look after his affairs.

The fewer people around him, the better. For centuries only Choo Co La Tah had been trusted as his friend. And a hundred years ago, after Buffalo had been reincarnated and then slain, Ren had taken his one true friend under his wing to protect him.

He didn’t need anyone else in his life.

But as he tended her side and the warmth of her skin caressed his, he remembered a time when he’d wanted so much more than this barren existence. A time when he’d craved being a part of the world. Having friends and family to share his fire with.

Why? He had no idea. The world had never welcomed him. His family damn sure hadn’t.

Prove to me that you’re at least worth the grain it takes to feed you. Protect your brother. At all cost. Even if it means your own life.
That had been his only use to any of them.

Bleed for others.

And it was still his sole reason for living.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Grinding his teeth, Ren pushed all those thoughts back to the place of darkness where they belonged.

If only they would stay there.

Angry at himself for a weakness that shouldn’t exist, he finished cleaning and binding her wound, then got up to put away his bloody shirt and get a fresh one.

As he stepped away, lightning flashed brightly and was followed by a clash of thunder so loud, it jarred his entire home.

At midnight, the Reset would officially begin. A ten-day festival of counting down to the opening of the gates. The first day of fun would be violent storming. Followed by tornadoes, floods, and hail so severe only a fool would venture into it. And with the dawning of every day, Windseer would be one step closer to release.

Once she was out, then she would set free the Grizzly Spirit.

And then, they would come for him.

Ren ground his teeth as he remembered the day Windseer had taken him before her master. At first, Grizzly had appeared old and withered. It’d only been when their gazes met that Ren understood the power of the immortal bastard. What it would take to restore the ancient being to health.