The Hunter and the Hunted: Two Stories of the Otherworld
Read The Hunter and the Hunted: Two Stories of the Otherworld Online
Authors: Kelley Armstrong
T
HE
H
UNTER
AND
THE
H
UNTED
Books by Kelley Armstrong
The Otherworld Series
Bitten
Stolen
Dime Store Magic
Industrial Magic
Haunted
Broken
No Humans Involved
Personal Demon
Living with the Dead
Frostbitten
Waking the Witch
Spell Bound
Thirteen
The Nadia Stafford Series
Exit Strategy
Made to Be Broken
The Darkest Powers Trilogy
The Summoning
The Awakening
The Reckoning
The Darkness Rising Trilogy
The Gathering
The Calling
Collections
Men of the Otherworld
Tales of the Otherworld
The Hunter and the Hunted
Two Stories of the Otherworld
An eSpecial from Dutton
Kelley Armstrong
Dutton
DUTTON
Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First eSpecial printing, June 2012
Copyright © 2012 by KLA Fricke, Inc.
Excerpt from
Thirteen
copyright
© 2012 by KLA Fricke, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
ISBN: 978-1-101-59342-4
Printed in the United States of America
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Other Books by Kelley Armstrong
A
UTHOR’S
N
OTE
When my publishers asked if I’d consider writing an Otherworld short story for a pre-
Thirteen
eSpecial, I jumped at the chance. I knew exactly which character I wanted to write about: Eve Levine.
When Eve was first introduced in the Otherworld series in
Stolen
, she didn’t actually appear in the book—she’d died before the story began. Eve was only important for the role she’d played in the life of her young daughter, Savannah, and for the problems her reputation and past would bring for Savannah’s new guardian, Paige.
Yet as Eve developed, she became a fully-fledged character, itching for her time on stage. She got that chance in the fourth book of the series,
Industrial Magic
, when Paige winds up in the afterlife and Eve makes a fateful bargain to get her out.
That bargain played out in the next book,
Haunted
, where Eve got her own story. She hasn’t been an easy character to work into the other books, though. Being in the afterlife, she exists in a separate world and can overlap with other characters’ stories only as a ghost. That limits her potential, which makes me thrilled for any chance to give her a story, as I do here, in
Off-Duty Angel
.
Another Otherworld character who doesn’t get to narrate very often is Clayton Danvers. None of my guys do. When
Bitten
launched the series, the official title was Women of the Otherworld . . . and I was so happy to have an actual series that I didn’t stop to think that it meant my protagonists would all be women. So I quickly began “cheating” by letting the guys narrate short stories and novellas. One of the first of these stories was
Stalked
, which returns to my werewolves, Elena Michaels and Clayton Danvers, from
Bitten
.
Stalked
was originally published in the anthology
My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon
almost five years ago, which means most readers have missed it. I’ve been wanting to reprint it for a while, and this was my chance.
As the Otherworld series draws to a close, it seems fitting to celebrate it with a return to Clay and Elena in
Stalked
. And
Off-Duty Angel
makes the perfect segue into
Thirteen
, where Eve will . . . Well, you’ll have to check out the excerpt for that.
Happy reading!
I had to get rid of the mutt.
Killing him would be easiest but, unfortunately, it was out of the question. If Elena found out, I’d still be hearing about it ten years from now: “Clay couldn’t even get through our honeymoon without killing someone.”
She’d laugh when she said it . . . in ten years. Right now, she’d be furious.
She’d argue that there were better ways to handle the situation. I disagreed. The mutt knew we were in St. Louis and that by sticking around he was taking his life into his hands. If he’d skittered into the shadows and stayed out of our way, I’d have said, “Fuck it” and pretended not to notice. After all, it was our honeymoon.
Even if he’d just stood his ground and refused to hide, I wouldn’t have made a big deal out of it. Beaten the crap out of him, yes. Had to. The Law was the Law, even if a mutt’s instinct to protect his territory was as strong as any Pack wolf’s. Let one mutt break the rules and next thing you knew, they’d be camping out back at Stonehaven, knocking on the door, asking if they could use the facilities.
But this mutt wasn’t hiding or defending his territory. He was stalking Elena. He’d been following us all morning and was now sitting across the restaurant, gaze glued to Elena’s ass as she bent over the buffet table.
When your mate is the only female werewolf, you get used to mutts sniffing around. I’d spent the last eighteen years dealing with it or, more often, watching her deal with it. With Elena, interference is not appreciated. She can fight her own battles, and she gets snippy if I rob her of the chance. But this was our honeymoon, and damned if I was going to let this mutt spoil it. He had to be dealt with before Elena realized he was stalking her. The question was how.
When Elena walked back to our table, the mutt had the sense to busy himself gnawing on a sparerib.
“You okay?” she asked as she slid into her seat. “You’ve been quiet since the Arch.”
The mutt had started following us at the Gateway Arch.
“Just hungry. I’m fine now.”
“I should hope so. After three plates.” She buttered her bread, then studied me. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I don’t know . . .” I shrugged and pretended to ease back in my chair, then I lunged and snagged bacon from her plate. I folded it into my mouth. “Nope, still hungry.”
She brandished her fork. “Then get your own or—”
I snatched another slice, too slow this time, and she stabbed the back of my hand. I yelped.
“I warned you,” she laughed.
The women at the next table stared in horror. Elena glanced their way. Five years ago, she would have blushed. Ten years ago, she would have found an excuse to leave. Today, she just murmured a rueful “Whoops” and dug into her potatoes.
I went over and got another plate of food, avoiding the temptation to pass the mutt’s table. He’d made a point of staying downwind outside and now sat partially obscured by a pillar, too far away for his scent to carry. For now, I’d let him think he was safe, undetected.
When I came back, Elena said, “I think I have an outing idea for us. Someone behind me in line was talking about a state park. Could be fun.” Her blue eyes glittered. “Of course, we shouldn’t go during the day when there are people around.”
“Nope, we shouldn’t.” I speared a ham slab. “This afternoon then?”
She grinned. “Perfect.”
• • •
When you resort to everyday activities on your honeymoon, you know it’s not going well. Planning our second run already meant Elena was bored and trying very hard not to let me know it.
The first couple of days had been great. With two-year-old twins at home, the only time we normally got away was when our Alpha, Jeremy, sent us to track down a misbehaving mutt. Being on a mission doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves. There’s nothing like celebrating a successful hunt with sex. Or working out the frustration of a failed hunt with sex. Or dulling that edge of pre-hunt excitement with sex.