The Dark-Hunters (881 page)

Val frowned at him. “Don’t be so fatalistic.”

“I’m not, Dark-Hunter. She was claimed by her mate. They bonded their life forces. Had she not been pregnant and carrying new life when he died, she would have died with him. As soon as the puppies are born, she will be off to join him on the other side.”

Ash’s stomach drew tight in sympathetic grief as he heard the pain in Vane’s voice. He knew how much Anya meant to both of her brothers. He also knew what was about to happen and though he wanted to change it, he also knew he couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Vane.”

“Thanks.” Vane brushed his hand through his sister’s white coat.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a horde of Daimons attacked.

Vane shot to his feet to confront them. “I don’t know how to birth the puppies,” he told Ash. “You stay with her and I’ll fight.”

Ash nodded and stayed crouched by Anya as she snapped and whined.

Fang transformed into a wolf, his stronger form, to fight, but Vane remained human.

Ash heard the Daimons scream as they found the alligators lying in wait for them.

Anya began thrashing as the fight broke out. Ash kept his attention focused on the she-wolf and only looked up to make sure the Daimons weren’t making their way any closer to Anya.

Fang was doing a remarkable job keeping them off in wolf form while Valerius and Vane fought them with knife and sword. The bad thing though was that the brothers couldn’t use their magic any more than Ash could. Any random shot of their energy could accidently hit Anya and her pups and kill them instantly.

“Vane!”

Ash started at the human noise from the she-wolf. He looked up to see a Daimon about to attack Vane’s back. Forewarned, the Katagari saw the Daimon and whirled around in time to stab the Daimon through the heart and kill him.

Anya lay back.

Ash held her still as the first of her puppies crested. “That’s it,” he said to her in a calm, soothing voice. “We’re almost there.”

A Daimon came up through the hedges beside them. Ash sprang to his feet and whirled to defend Anya as Vane caught the Daimon and knocked him away from them.

“Take care of my sister,” Vane said between clenched teeth.

Ash quickly returned to Anya.

With the Daimons so close now, he was having to watch the baby, Anya, and the Daimons. It wasn’t easy.

“Push,” he said to Anya. “Just a little bit more.”

The next few seconds happened rapidly, and yet they seemed to move slowly through time.

Two Daimons rose up from their fight with Fang. One of them shot Fang with a Taser gun, immediately turning him human. Fang let out a howl as his body convulsed uncontrollably back and forth between wolf and human.

Vane went after the second one at the same moment the first one aimed the Taser at Vane, who dove at the ground. The Daimon pressed the button and the Taser blast missed Vane by a fraction of an inch.

It struck Anya instead.

Ash cursed in anger as Anya was transformed from a wolf to a woman and back again. Her screams echoed in the trees and then she fell eerily silent.

Back in her wolf form, she didn’t move at all.

Vane ran to her, but it was too late.

She was dead.

Ash let out his battle cry and rushed the Daimon who had killed her. He punched the Daimon hard in the jaw, then used his bare hands to finish him off.

Now that he could use his powers without restriction, Ash made short work of the remaining Daimons.

Fang’s transformations had slowed down, but he was still alternating between human and wolf forms as he dragged himself slowly toward his sister’s body.

Vane walked stonily toward Anya and sank down beside her. He gathered her wolf’s body up into his arms and cradled her as if she were a baby. Tears streamed down his face as he rocked back and forth with her and whispered in wolf to her.

Fang let out a fierce howl and turned into a man. His body bare, he laid his head down on Anya’s back and held onto her too.

Ash would never forget the sight of the three of them huddled there in their grief. It would haunt him forever.

All too well, he remembered the past.…

Pain like that never fully healed. He knew it for a fact.

His face grim, Ash took a step toward them. “Do you need me to—”

“Get away,” Vane snarled, his voice feral and cold. “Just leave us alone.”

“There might be more Daimons coming,” Val reminded Vane.

“And I will kill them,” he growled. “I will kill them all.”

There was nothing more to be done to help them and Ash hated that most of all. The brothers needed time to grieve.

Disintegrating his staff he turned toward Val, who watched the brothers with a troubled gaze.

“There was nothing more you could do,” Valerius said to Vane. “Don’t blame yourself.”

Vane let out an inhuman snarl.

Ash pulled Val’s arm and led him away from the scene before Vane attacked out of sorrow.

“The innocent should never have to suffer from the battles of others,” Val breathed as he followed Ash.

“I know,” Ash said, his heart heavy. “But it seems to always be the case.”

Val nodded.
“A furore infra, libera nos.”

Ash paused at the Latin quote. Spare us from the fury within. “You know, Valerius, there are times when I think you might actually be human after all.”

Valerius scoffed at that. “Trust me, Acheron, whatever human part of me that ever existed was killed a long, long time ago.”

Deleted Scene #2 from
Night Embrace

This is one of the epilogues pulled from the back of the book.

New Orleans, three hours later

“Did he eat?”

Vane swallowed at Mama Bear Peltier’s question and shook his head no. Fang hadn’t eaten a bite since the bears had taken them in.

His brother was dying, and just like with Anya, there was nothing Vane could do to save him.

Impotent rage filled him and he wanted blood for what had happened that night. Most of all, he wanted Talon’s heart in his fist.

Mama Bear brushed a kind hand over his shoulder. “If you need anything, ask.”

Vane forced himself not to growl at her.

What he needed was his brother to be whole again. But the Daimon attack had left Fang without any will to survive. They had taken more than his brother’s blood, they had taken his dignity and his heart.

Vane doubted if his brother would ever be normal again.

Mama turned into her bear form and ambled off. Vane was only vaguely aware of Justin padding by outside in his panther form, followed by a tiger and two hawks. All were headed for their rooms where they could spend the day in their true animal bodies, safely locked away from the unsuspecting world.

“It’s a zoo, isn’t it?”

He looked up at Colt’s voice coming from the doorway. Standing six foot four, Colt was one of the members of the Howlers. Like Mama and her clan, Colt was a bear, but unlike them, he was also an Arcadian.

Vane was amazed the bears had tolerated one in their midst. Most Katagaria packs killed any Arcadian on sight.

He would have.

But then, Mama and Papa Bear weren’t the usual bunch.

“What do you want?” Vane asked.

Colt shifted uneasily. “I was thinking … you know it would be a lot safer for everyone at Sanctuary if there were two Sentinels protecting the Peltiers.”

Vane sneered at that. “Since when does a Sentinel protect a Katagaria clan?”

Colt gave him a droll stare. “That from a Sentinel who is stroking a Katagari wolf’s fur?”

Rage darkened Vane’s sight and if it wasn’t for the fact that he needed to stay here for Fang’s welfare, he’d be lunging for Colt’s throat. “I’m not a Sentinel and I’m not Arcadian.”

“You can’t hide from me, Vane. Like me, you have chosen to hide your facial markings, but it doesn’t change what you are. We
are
Sentinels.”

Vane cursed him. “I will never be a Sentinel. I refuse that birthright. I won’t hunt and kill my own kind.”

“Haven’t you already done that?” Colt asked with an arched brow. “How many Sentinels have you slain for your birth pack?”

Vane didn’t want to think about that. That had been different. They had threatened Anya and Fang.

“Look,” Colt said. “I’m not here to pass judgment on you. I’m just thinking it would be easier to—”

“I’m not staying,” Vane said. “Wolves don’t mix with others. Once I’m strong enough to protect Fang again, we’re out of here.”

Colt took a deep breath and shook his head. “Whatever.” He turned around and left.

Vane’s heart ached as he left the room long enough to take Fang’s uneaten food to the kitchen.

If his brother didn’t snap back soon, he didn’t know what he’d do. They were both under a death sentence.

It wouldn’t be long before their father would send scouts back to determine their fate. Once they found out that both of them had survived, assassins would be coming for them. He needed Fang mobile.

He could fight alone, but carting Fang’s catatonic ass around with him wasn’t going to be easy and it wasn’t something he looked forward to doing when all he wanted was to lie down and lick his wounds too.

Damn Fang for being so selfish.

When Vane returned to his room upstairs, he found Wren just inside the door and Aimée Peltier on the bed beside Fang.

In his early thirties, Wren looked much younger. He wore his dark blond hair in dreadlocks and had yet to speak a word to Vane.

Mama Bear had told him that Wren had been left for dead a few years back and brought to Sanctuary. No one knew anything about Wren other than the fact that Mama didn’t like or trust him.

Aimée Peltier was a beautiful blonde—that was if a man liked his women extremely skinny and Vane didn’t. She was the pride and joy of the Peltier clan and from what he had seen she was one of the few truly kindhearted bears.

Vane frowned as Aimée leaned over and whispered something to Fang.

To his amazement, Fang licked her hand.

Aimée patted Fang’s fur, then rose from the bed. She froze as she caught sight of Vane.

“What did you say to him?” Vane asked.

“I told him you were both welcome here. That no one would ever hurt him again.”

Vane glanced at his brother, who had returned to his unmoving wolf state.

“We’re not staying here,” Vane reiterated.

Wren gave him a wry smile. “Funny. That’s what I said ten years ago.”

Deleted Scene #3 from
Night Embrace

This was a scene in which I wanted to show why Talon lived in the swamp. My editor thought it was unnecessary, so it, too, was cut.

Acheron placed a hand on his shoulder. The touch was electrifying, sizzling. It burned without pain and it shot him straight into the past.

Talon couldn’t move as he saw himself more than two hundred years ago. He was in his old plantation home that he’d built before he’d gone into the swamp. It had been just after midnight when he and Acheron had returned from hunting to find a small bundle on his doorstep.

At first he had thought it nothing until he heard the soft whine of an infant. The moment he had seen the abandoned baby girl, his emotions had overwhelmed him.

“I will keep this child.”

“Talon,” Acheron snapped. “Are you mad? Dark-Hunters don’t have children. She’s a foundling and you need to find her a family.”

“Nae, I willna do it, Acheron. She was given to me by the gods to care for. Besides, other Dark-Hunters have children around them,”

“But they are the children of their Squires.”

“Then send me a Squire to tend her.”

Acheron had balked, but in the end, he had given in and found Talon someone to help raise the baby.

Talon’s thoughts tumbled with images as he saw his adopted daughter grow in his mind. Sirona as a toddler taking her first steps and laughing as she reached up for him. Sirona as a little girl running in to hug him before bed. Sirona saying her prayers each night before he tucked her in and left her to hunt Daimons.

She’d been the most beautiful girl he’d ever beheld. Her laughing blue eyes and golden hair had reminded him much of Nynia and at times he would imagine that she was their daughter.

He’d protected and cared for her as a father, giving her anything and everything she wanted.

He’d told her that he was her uncle and that her parents had died and left her to his care. No one had ever questioned it. Only his Squire had known the truth.

“How do I look, Uncle?”

Talon’s breath caught as he saw Sirona leaving the dressing room at the tailor’s shop in town. It was two hours after dark and he’d paid a fortune for the tailor to accommodate his odd schedule. But it was worth every penny, he decided, as he saw the happiness on Sirona’s face.

Her wedding gown was a pale blue that made her sky-colored eyes sparkle. Her blond hair was pulled up in a matching ribbon.

He’d smiled at her. “Thomas is a lucky man who had best take care of you.”

She laughed and pressed her lips to his cheek, then rushed back inside to try on the rest of her wedding trousseau.

A few minutes later, the seamstress’s assistant had run out to him. “She’s fainted!”

Terrified, Talon had rushed to her and carried her home. He’d sent for a doctor only to be told no one knew what ailed her, but that she wouldn’t live out the night.

He’d spent hours by her side, holding her in his arms, listening to her struggling to breathe.

Her young body had been racked with pain and she was covered in sweat.

“I will never marry Thomas now,” she whispered. “I shall never be a mother.” She looked up at him as tears seeped from the corners of her eyes. “There will be no one left to care for you, Uncle.”

And she had died there in his arms, her hand on his cheek.

Talon had been inconsolable. He’d foolishly believed that the curse had been lifted and that she’d been a blessing. In the end, he’d learned that Camulus was once more toying with him.

He would never be able to love without loss.