The Dark-Hunters (817 page)

But “baby”…

He’d never been anyone’s baby.

“Are you listening to me?”

You should probably say yes.
That would be the smartest thing to do. But for some stupid reason the truth came out before he could stop it. “Um … no.”

“Why are you tuning me out?” she snapped as fury lit up her eyes.

Ren moved his jaw, trying to explain, but no words would leave his lips as he stammered over the word
I. Why do I always do this shit when I least want to look like an idiot?

He expected her to be angry. Instead, she kissed him senseless. Every part of him went into overdrive as his cock hardened.

She pulled back. “What were you trying to say?”

Heat scalded his face. “I didn’t hear anything after you called me baby.”

Kateri laid her hand over his cheek at the anguish she saw on his face. Her heart lurched. Given what she’d seen of his life, she was willing to bet it was the first time anyone had ever used an endearment for him. While most people grew up being called “sugar” and “darling” by others, he never had, and he’d secluded himself to the point that he most likely hadn’t even been called that by a waitress, let alone someone who actually cared about him.

“I know that place deep down inside where it feels like no one cares. No one sees you. No one knows you. But I see you, Ren, and I do care. I know exactly how it feels to be alone in this world.” She laughed bitterly as she remembered something Fernando had said to her about one of the most influential innovators in the field of archaeology and anthropology. “Margaret Mead once said that one of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder when you are coming home at night.”

She smiled at him. “There’s nothing lonelier than an empty house when you’re going to bed. I’ve lost everyone I’ve ever loved, and I’m scared as hell at the thought of letting you or anyone else into my heart to hurt me like that again. Because every time I lose one of them, a part of me goes to the grave with them and I’m not sure how much of me is left anymore. But I’m willing to take that leap again …
for you.
”

Ren swallowed as he understood what had motivated her to burst into tears. No one had ever said anything kinder to him. Her words touched a place inside him he hadn’t known existed. A part of him that had never been touched before.

“I could never hurt you, sweetie,” she breathed.

In that single moment, he was completely lost to her.
I’m such an effing idiot.
He hadn’t even gotten laid first, this time, and he had no business letting her get close to him, yet somehow she was already there. He had no idea how it’d happened, but he’d basically been a goner the first moment she smiled at him.

“Are you going to say anything?”

Ren didn’t trust his voice. So instead, he kissed her slowly and tenderly, savoring every stroke of her tongue against his. Breathless, he laid her back against the ground and covered her with his body. Stars blinded him as an unbelievable pleasure tore through him.

Kateri smiled as Ren left her lips to trail hot kisses down her neck. Had she not understood why he didn’t speak, she’d be offended. But that wasn’t his way. He was a man of very few words. He spoke through his actions, not with his voice. In a way, she preferred it. There was no way to misinterpret his tenderness.

He slowly unbuttoned her shirt, then ran his hand over her breasts. Arching her back, she moaned at how good he felt. The hunger in his eyes was searing as he struggled with her bra.

She smiled at his confusion. “It snaps in the front.”

He still had no clue.

“I guess they didn’t have these back in the day, eh?”

“No. It’s like a puzzle box.”

Laughing, she took his hands and showed him how to undo it.

Ren sucked his breath in sharply at the sight of her bare breasts. He’d assumed some of their size was from padding, but that was definitely not true, and while he didn’t have a lot of experience in this department, he knew she was well endowed. “You’re so beautiful.”

She took his hand into hers and led it to her mouth so that she could kiss, then nip his knuckle. A shiver went over him. She returned his hand to her breast before pulling his head down to hers to nibble his lips. If he could, he’d die right now in this perfect moment of sensory overload.

Kateri felt the muscles in his jaw tighten as he clenched his teeth. Damn, he was the sexiest man she’d ever been near. The raw strength and power. The adorable vulnerable innocence that shouldn’t exist inside someone like him. It combined into the most irresistible package imaginable.

Wanting to please him, she pulled his shirt off, over his head, then rolled him onto his back. She paused as she saw the scars and injuries that riddled his body. But the scar that wrung her heart was in the center of his chest. Jagged and raw, it was bigger than her fist.

Her hand shaking, she placed it over his heart to finger that scar. The moment she did, a brutal vision came to her with a clarity so clear, it stunned her.… Ren and Coyote were in a grand dining hall where they were fighting over the corpse of a man who’d been beaten so badly that she couldn’t tell who it was.

His entire body coated in blood, Coyote sneered at Ren, who gaped in horror at what his brother had done. “This is all
your
fault,” Coyote sneered. “You and your petty jealousy. Why couldn’t you have been happy for me? Just once in your miserable life. Why? Had you left us alone, none of this would have happened. There would have been no Grizzly Spirit. No need for Guardians and he”—Coyote gestured to the floor with a knife—“would never have come here to claim her.”

Ren didn’t respond. His gaze was fastened to the red on Coyote’s hands. It went from there to the floor where …

Buffalo lay dead in a pool of blood. She only knew the man’s identity because Ren knew.

He winced as unmitigated grief tore through him. “How could you do this? He was a Guardian.”
And my best friend in the world.
The one and only person who’d stood by him without question.

Even when evil had claimed possession of his body and he’d served it willingly, Buffalo had stayed with him. Protecting him.

Now he lay slain by Ren’s own brother.

My cruelty drove him mad.…

His brother had been pure and decent until Ren had tortured him.
It’s all my fault. All of it.

Coyote spit on Buffalo’s body. “He was a bastard and he stole her heart from me.”

Ren shook his head slowly as guilt and sorrow ripped him apart. “Hearts can never be stolen. They can only be given.”

Coyote sneered at him. “You’re wrong! That’s your jealousy speaking.”

But it wasn’t. Ren had learned to banish that. He no longer felt anything except guilt and remorse.

Now it was too late. He’d destroyed everything that was good in his life.

Everything.

Sick to his stomach, he went to Buffalo and knelt beside him to whisper a small prayer over his body.

A shrill scream echoed through the room.

Looking up, Ren saw Butterfly as she ran to her Buffalo. She sobbed hysterically, throwing herself down on top of him. She paid no attention whatsoever as his blood soaked into her clothes and left her covered in it.

Her features twisted by rage and accusatory grief, she glared at Coyote. “Why? Why? Why would you hurt me so?”

Coyote curled his lip. “You tore my heart out.”

“And you killed mine.” She laid herself over Buffalo and wept with shrill screams that raised the hair on Kateri’s arms.

Ren stood up and left her there to grieve while he confronted his brother.

That was his mistake. He didn’t think about what would happen if Butterfly was allowed to cry her misery out to the gods and spirits. To wail and shriek for her lost Buffalo.

But it was too late now. The doors of the room blew open. A howling wind came screaming through, dancing around their white-buckskin-covered bodies. Those winds joined together to form two trumpeters who blew their horns to announce the most feared creature of all.

The Avenging Spirit. Something that could only be summoned by the cries of a wronged woman who wanted vengeance against the ones who’d hurt her.

Nebulous in form, he was bathed all in white. His hair, the translucent skin that covered his skeletal features. His feathers and buckskin. The only break from the color was the dark blue beadwork along his neckline.

“Why was I called forth?” he demanded.

Butterfly looked up. Her beautiful face contorted by grief, she appeared old and haggard now. Her hair blew around her body as she leveled a furious stare at them.

She pointed her finger at Ren’s brother. “The Coyote killed my heart. So I want his as payment for what he unjustly took.”

The Avenging Spirit bowed to her. Then he turned toward the men. His face changed from that of an old gaunt man with stringy hair to the face of ultimate evil. He opened his mouth and it dropped to the floor, contorting and elongating his features. The sight left Kateri horrified. Forget Hollywood, this was scarier than anything ever conceived by Wes Craven.…

Out of his mouth flew a giant eagle with a lone ghostly warrior on its back. The warrior lifted his spear.

Ren stepped back, away from Coyote, and braced himself to fight.

With a discordant cry of vengeance that shook the very fabric of Mother Earth’s gown, the warrior let fly his spear at Coyote’s heart.

One moment Ren was standing out of the way. In the next, he was across the room where Coyote had been a heartbeat earlier, and Coyote was in his place. Before he could gather his wits and move, the spear flew through the center of his chest, piercing his heart. The force of it lifted him off his feet and pinned him to the wall.

Pain exploded through his body as he gasped for breath. The taste of blood filled his mouth. His eyesight dimmed. He was dying. After all the battles, all the fights …

He would die by treacherous trickery.

By his brother’s viciousness.

The warrior turned his eagle around and flew back into the Avenging Spirit’s mouth. As quickly as they’d come, they were gone.

His breathing labored, Ren stared at his brother. “I would have given you my life had you asked for it.”

“You taught me to take what I wanted.” Coyote crossed the room and snatched the bone necklace from Ren’s throat that held his Guardian seal—a turquoise thunderbird. He untied the pouch from Ren’s belt where he kept his strongest magic and stones. “And I want your Guardianship.”

Blood trickled from the corner of Ren’s lips. In all his life, the Guardianship had been the only thing good that Ren had been chosen for. The only thing that had ever given him an ounce of pride, and made him feel worth something more than disdain and contempt. “You weren’t chosen.”

“And neither were you. Not really. The Guardian gave it to you out of pity.” Coyote raked a sneer over him, and clenched Ren’s necklace tightly in his fist. “You were never worthy of this.” He seized the spear and drove it in even deeper, then laughed in triumph as Ren choked on his own blood.

With one last agony-filled gasp, Ren fell silent.

The pride on Coyote’s face was sickening as he turned his attention to Butterfly. “I’m a Guardian now. You can love me again.”

She curled her lip in repugnance. “I could never love you after what you’ve done. You’re a monster.”

He snatched her up by her arm. “You are mine and I will
never
share you. Make yourself ready for our wedding.”

“Never.”

He slapped her across the face. “You do not argue with me, woman. You obey.” He let go of her so fast that she fell back across Buffalo’s body, where she wept until she had no more tears.

She was still there when the maidens came and dressed her for Coyote.

At sundown, he returned for her. But before they could begin the ceremony that would join them together, the First Guardian … Kateri’s father … appeared in the middle of the room. His dark eyes radiated fury as he glared his hatred at them both.

“I am here to claim the life of the one responsible for killing two Guardians.”

Coyote gasped in terror. His mind whirled as he tried to think of some trick that could save his life. And while Ren’s magic was powerful and had allowed his brother to battle the Guardian for a year and a day, it wasn’t
Coyote’s
magic. And it wouldn’t be enough for him to save his own life.

Kateri’s father crossed the room in a determined stride that promised retribution. From his belt, he drew the sacred Dagger of Justice, and without hesitating, plunged it straight into the heart of the one who’d caused such turmoil and misery.

Butterfly staggered back as blood saturated her dress and ran across her braids. Instead of showing pain, she sighed in relief. Blood ran from her lips as she turned to Coyote. “I will be with my love now. Forever in his arms.” She sank to the floor, where she died with the most blissful of smiles on her face.

His features contorted by his confusion, Coyote shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

Her father shrugged. “You were the tool who killed Buffalo. But Butterfly was the cause. Had she not been born, you wouldn’t have taken the Guardian’s life. She is the one responsible for his death, and for that of Makah’Alay.”

“No, no, no, no. This isn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.” Raking his hands through his hair, Coyote went to his true love and cradled her in his arms one last time. She was so tiny and light. Her blood stained his wedding clothes and he wept at the loss of her.

And it was his loss.

She wouldn’t be waiting for him on the other side. The pain of that knowledge tore him apart. She would greet that bastard Buffalo. A man who had caused him infinite grief and tried to alienate him from his father and from their people.

No … it wasn’t right that bastard would have her. Not after Coyote had endured torture and pain to come back to her and take her as his wife.

Damn you all!

Throwing his head back, he screamed in outrage. It wouldn’t end like this. He’d been a good man. Obedient. All his life. And one by one, all of them had killed that.