The Dark-Hunters, page 589
She locked both her hands around his and hoped he wasn’t holding a grudge against her for anything. “Please don’t drop me.”
He actually winked at her. “Not on your life.” He pulled her up slowly, taking care not to scrape her against the jagged edges of the floor where pieces of wood waited to impale her.
In that moment, she could kiss him for his fast reflexes that had saved her life, and for the care he was taking to pull her up and not hurt her.
But her relief didn’t last long. As soon as her head popped through the hole, something grabbed her leg from below and yanked her hard enough to take her back through it.
Sundown’s eyes widened.
I’m going to die. She was sure of it as the pressure on her legs increased with a determination that said it wouldn’t relent until she was a stain on the floor below.
Yet somehow Sundown maintained his firm grip on her hands. He pulled her up again.
Again, something jerked her down. She kicked her legs and struck nothing. Yet there was no denying that some invisible force had her by her ankles.
If only she could look down to see what it was. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see anything. I just wish whatever it is that it’d let go.” His face turned bright red as he held on to her with a determination that said he really did care whether she lived or died.
Abigail blinked back tears from the pain of being the rope in a tug-of-war that would mean her life if Sundown lost.
He growled as the muscles in his arms bulged from the strain. She stared into his eyes, which were dark with conviction, and used those as her lifeline.
“Thank you,” she whispered to him.
Inclining his head to her, Jess felt his grip slipping. Whatever had her was increasing its pressure to the point where he knew it was only a matter of time before she fell from his hands.
He’d failed to keep his promise to her mother. The last thing he wanted was to see her die, too. I can’t let go.…
What choice did he have?
The answer came from somewhere deep inside him. A forgotten prayer his mother had taught him from the cradle to use whenever things were too hard and he wanted to give up.
Aike aniya trumuli gerou sunari.… Those words whispered through his mind. I am White Buffalo and I will not be stopped. Yeah, okay, so it sounded better in her language than in English. Still, it echoed and he felt an inner strength rising with every syllable as he continued silently chanting it. Our people never met an enemy they couldn’t defeat. Their blood flows inside of you, penyo. You are my pride and my gift to the Elders who watch over us. Listen to them when you’re weak and they will help you. Always. He heard his mother’s voice as clearly as if she sat beside him.
He saw the fear in Abigail’s eyes as she realized her hands were slipping.
“Aike aniya trumuli gerou sunari!”
Abigail gasped at his angry words and the bright flash of red that shone through his pupils an instant before he jerked her up through the floor so fast, she barely realized she’d moved. He gathered her in his arms and hugged her close, as if he was as thankful she was alive as she was.
Even though she hated him, she was too grateful to shove him away. Instead, she reveled in the sensation of his hard body pressing against hers. She clung to him while she shook from relief and tried to squelch the fear that the invisible force would grab her again and take her back into the hole. Her blood rushed thick through her veins as she buried her face in his neck and inhaled the warm scent of his skin.
He’d saved her. She was alive.
In that moment, with all the endorphins coursing through her, she felt as if she could fly.
Jess couldn’t move with her cradled against him as she breathed raggedly in his ear, sending chills down his arm. Every inch of her body was pressed against his. And deep inside, he felt something in him stir. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Before he could rethink his intentions, he nuzzled her neck. A low moan escaped her lips. He started to pull away, but she cupped his head, stopping him.
Then she did the most unexpected thing of all.
She kissed him.
For a full minute, he couldn’t breathe as he tasted her. Her lips were incredibly soft as she swept her tongue against his, teasing and warming him. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had kissed him with this much passion.
Abigail knew she shouldn’t be doing this. In the back of her mind was the voice that tried to remind her that she hated him. And yet he’d saved her life. More than that, he felt like heaven. Never had she experienced anything like this.
Like she belonged.
There was no explaining it. It was something deep within that welcomed him even while her mind called her all kinds of stupid.
But before she could examine that thought further, the floor started rumbling again.
They pushed themselves to their feet and then away from the hole as some unseen beast from below began a fierce howl. It sounded like a pack of hungry coyotes.…
Backing them up, Sundown put himself between her and the hole. He retrieved his gun from the floor.
An instant later, six men and one woman shot up from the opening. With dark hair and eyes, they curled their lips in a purely canine fashion as they stalked toward the two of them.
Jess braced himself for the attack he knew was coming. He’d never much cared for shape-shifters, and these were going to be brutal. “C’mon, punks,” he goaded. “You want to fight or sniff each other’s crotches?”
The leader ran at him. With a bright flash of yellow, he turned from a man into a coyote. Jess reversed his shotgun so that he was holding it by the barrel. Using the stock like a bat, he knocked the coyote into the wall, where it hit with a heavy thud.
The others changed form and came at him full force.
“Run!” he said over his shoulder to Abigail.
She didn’t listen. Rather, she ripped the tacky antlers off the wall that Andy had put there as a sick joke—that boy had never been right in the head—and held them to defend against their attackers.
It was a bold move, and he seriously hoped those antlers broke during the fight so he’d never have to look at them again.
Even though Jess had a feeling he was wasting his time, he went ahead and loaded his gun with the shells in his pocket, then opened fire on the coyotes. The first one he shot yelped, skidded sideways, rebounded off the wall, then kept coming.
Yeah, all it did was piss the coyote off and give him some target practice. But what the hell? He kept shooting until he was empty again while he and Abigail backed down the hallway.
Until she stopped moving.
He slammed up against her.
“You’re about to be in daylight.”
He glanced over his shoulder to see the truth of that. Had she not stood her ground, he’d have been in some serious pain right about now. “Much obliged.” With no choice and with their retreat cut off, he took a step forward to fight.
The coyotes launched themselves at the two of them.
Jess moved to hit one, but they never made contact.
The coyotes slammed into an invisible wall that magically appeared around him and Abigail. Yelping, the coyotes tried to attack again and again—they couldn’t.
Yee-haw on that. He just hoped whoever was shielding them was a friend.
Abigail moved to stand beside him. She reached out to touch it, and apparently there was nothing there. She waved her hand around but it contacted nothing. Meanwhile, the coyotes couldn’t touch them.
Interesting …
She frowned in confusion. “What is this?”
“Don’t know. But given everything else that’s happened so far, I’m not real sure it’s a good thing.” For all he knew, that magic wall might be protecting the coyotes from something ugly about to happen to the two of them.
As if on cue, an evil growl, low and deep, echoed around them.
The coyotes hesitated at the sound.
Abigail swallowed in fear. When the scariest of scary were wary, it was time to take note. She whipped out her mental notepad to wait on whatever evil was about to pounce.
She didn’t have to wait long before a huge wolf launched out of the walls to attack the coyotes.
That was unexpected on several levels. She turned toward Sundown. “Is that on our side?”
He squinted as if trying to look into the heart of this latest addition. “Looks like, but … hell, who knows at this point?”
Within seconds, the coyotes vanished into a mist. The wolf circled as if he was about to give chase. Until he turned into a man in the middle of the hallway.
Tall, blond, and extremely handsome, he still looked feral in his human form. There was a light in his eyes that said he wanted to taste blood.
She hoped it wasn’t theirs.
Abigail held her breath as he moved forward with a deadly glower.
Here we go again.…
The wolf flipped the gun out of Sundown’s hands. He cracked open the barrel to check its loaded status and shook his head. “Shells, cowboy? Really?”
Sundown shrugged. “Sometimes you just have to try even when it’s wasted energy.”
The wolf laughed, then handed it back. “I admire the tenacity, useless though it is.”
Abigail relaxed as she realized the wolf was at the very least a frenemy.
Sundown leaned the gun against the wall. “What are you doing here?”
“Zarek sent me in, just in case.”
Sundown scratched at the whiskers on his jaw. “’Cause shit rolls downhill.”
“Yeah, and what upsets Z gets my ass kicked. Have I ever told you how much it chafes me that Astrid gave that psycho bastard god powers? I swear I go to bed every night with the one desire to rip out his throat, and I don’t even live with them anymore. Sad, isn’t it?”
Sundown bristled as if the wolf had struck a nerve. “Now, that’s my boy you’re talking about, and I don’t want to get crossed up with you, Sasha. But you keep that tone and attitude about him, and we will.”
Sasha held his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. I forget you and Ash are weird enough to actually like him. No accounting for taste.” He turned that penetrating stare toward her. “And you must be the cause of this disaster.”
Abigail was offended. What? Was there some cosmic social media feed somewhere with her photo on it, announcing her as the cause of the apocalypse? “I didn’t do anything.”
Sundown grinned. “She’s in denial.”
“Cool. We can feed her to the coyotes then, and I can go back to Sanctuary and continue scoping out this amazing brunette who keeps coming in with her friends.”
She wasn’t amused by that.
At all.
Sundown ignored her ire. “Speaking of friends … why did our new coyote buddies run from you?”
Sasha swaggered like a strutting peacock. “I’m that badass.”
Sundown snorted. “Seriously.”
“O ye of little faith. You doubt my rep? My skills?”
“And your brains.”
Sasha tsked. “Fine. I’ll be honest.… Absolutely no idea. They had me outnumbered. I should have been easy for them to rip into. Not that I wanted to be their early-morning snack, but—”
“The wolf has always been a most natural enemy to the coyote. Wolves are one of the few predators known to hunt them when the season is right. And because of this, the coyote are wary of them by nature. Especially one from an unknown pantheon whose powers they can only guess at. No doubt, they thought retreat was the best course of action. As Sun Tzu would say, if ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.”
Abigail turned at the voice of what sounded like an ancient Englishman standing behind them.
He wasn’t English. Or anything like what she’d expected from his proper, thickly accented speech.
Barely taller than her, he wore a tan suede jacket with fringed sleeves and heavy Native American beadwork and carved bone all over it. His silver hair was parted into two braids that framed his withered face. However, age hadn’t dulled the sharpness of his hazel gold eyes, which stared at her with an accusation that cut her all the way to her soul.
She had a sudden desire to take a step back, but she refused to be a coward. So she stood her ground and put on the bravest face she could manage.
Sundown inclined his head respectfully to the man. “Choo Co La Tah, what are you doing here?”
Choo Co La Tah turned that frightening gaze from her to Sundown. “The Unfolding has started, and so I knew I couldn’t wait, no matter Ren’s protestations. As the Dineh would say, Coyote is always out there waiting, and Coyote is always hungry. I knew they would be after the woman as soon as they caught her scent. If they kill her before we reach the Valley, there will be no one to stop them. Hence my appearance here and now. The two of you must be protected, no matter what happens.” He opened his jacket to show a crow that had been resting under his right arm. He pulled it out and, with a grace and dexterity that contradicted his apparent age, set it on the floor.
Letting out a caw, the bird flapped its wings, then manifested into a man. This one appeared to be in his early twenties with jet hair and eyes. Dressed all in black, he was stunningly sexy and even scarier than the coyotes had been.
He was also fanged.
And now all the men were staring at her, making her extremely uncomfortable and self-conscious. She felt like a mouse surrounded by hungry cats who were taking odds on who would be the first to pounce.
“Do you comprehend the gravity of your situation, my dear?” Choo Co La Tah asked her.
She did. But that didn’t stop one cold, hard fact. “I don’t want to die.”
There was no sympathy in the old man’s gaze. “As the Duwamish would say, there is no death, only a change of worlds.”
“I like this world.”
“Then you should have thought of that before you took the life of Old Bear. I can assure you, even at his advanced age, he didn’t want to change realms, either. And he’s only one of many you have killed who never once harmed you.”
Her anger snapped at that. How dare he patronize her—something that was made even more pronounced by his accent and proper tone.
She hadn’t stalked innocent people like some deranged serial killer. She was an avenger who was tallying a sickening score started by the true villains in all of this. “The Dark-Hunters have hunted my people for centuries.”
“Your people, madam, are human … most of them qualify for that term, anyway. They are the ones the Dark-Hunters strive to protect.”
“Yeah, right. They…” Her words broke off as images flashed in her mind. She heard countless humans begging for mercy as they were attacked.
Not by Dark-Hunters.
By Apollites who’d killed them so that they could take their human souls and feed on them and live past their twenty-seventh birthday—just as Sundown had told her. The horror of it slapped her hard as their screams resonated through her skull.
It couldn’t be.
She shook her head in denial. “You planted those images in my head. They’re not real.”
Choo Co La Tah sighed. “My people have a saying. Kirha tahanahna ditari sukenah. To deny the presence of the sun doesn’t escape its blister. I admire your loyalty. But sometimes you have to face the truth, even when it hurts.”
No, she didn’t. Because if he was right, if those images were the truth, then she was wrong on a level so profound that it made her sick. It would mean she’d done horrendous things to people who didn’t deserve it.
People who’d been protecting the innocent from predators.
And if that was the case, she wasn’t sure she could live with herself.
I’m not a predator. I’m a protector.
Choo Co La Tah’s eyes were filled with compassion. “I feel your pain, child. But you should have studied Confucius.”
She frowned at his words. “How so?”
“Had you taken the time to learn his wisdom instead of war, you would have known that before you start down the road to revenge, dig two graves.”
She bristled at that. “You don’t understand.”
“There you are quite wrong. Shamefully, all of us have wanted revenge on someone at some point for something. I’ve lived since before man and buffalo roamed this small planet. I have survived the beginning, bloom, and death of countless enemies, civilizations, and people. And the one truth I have learned most during all of these centuries is the old Japanese proverb. If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.”
That made her temper boil over. He made it sound so simple. But he was wrong, and she knew it. “Even if he’s immortal?”
“Especially then. To quote the Tsalagi, you should never allow your yesterday to use up too much of today. The past is gone and tomorrow is at best a maybe. Live for this moment because it may be all you’ll ever have.”
She curled her lip in disgust. His pithy phrases were easy to spout, but living with her amount of pain was another story. And seeing your parents slaughtered was something no one got over. Ever. “What are you? A fortune cookie writer?”
The Native American Dark-Hunter started forward, but Choo Co La Tah stopped him before he could reach her. There was laughter in his tone as he spoke. “Respect must be earned, Ren. Not demanded. A questioning mind is the most cherished resource man has and the rarest. I admire her tenacity and her misplaced loyalty.”
Those words embarrassed her, and somehow they made her feel like she was being childish.
“And I don’t.” Deep and resonant, Ren’s voice rolled like thunder.
Choo Co La Tah placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “All feelings are valid, and I do not discount yours, Abigail. Our true journey will begin in a handful of hours after the sun sets. In the meantime, all of you need to rest and conserve your strength. Sasha and I will guard you while you slumber.” He glanced to Sundown. “And I will notify Andy and make sure he, too, is safe.”
Sasha arched a brow. “Why is the wolf always the one who’s drafted?”
Choo Co La Tah smiled. “The wolf is the one who is most rested.”
He actually winked at her. “Not on your life.” He pulled her up slowly, taking care not to scrape her against the jagged edges of the floor where pieces of wood waited to impale her.
In that moment, she could kiss him for his fast reflexes that had saved her life, and for the care he was taking to pull her up and not hurt her.
But her relief didn’t last long. As soon as her head popped through the hole, something grabbed her leg from below and yanked her hard enough to take her back through it.
Sundown’s eyes widened.
I’m going to die. She was sure of it as the pressure on her legs increased with a determination that said it wouldn’t relent until she was a stain on the floor below.
Yet somehow Sundown maintained his firm grip on her hands. He pulled her up again.
Again, something jerked her down. She kicked her legs and struck nothing. Yet there was no denying that some invisible force had her by her ankles.
If only she could look down to see what it was. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see anything. I just wish whatever it is that it’d let go.” His face turned bright red as he held on to her with a determination that said he really did care whether she lived or died.
Abigail blinked back tears from the pain of being the rope in a tug-of-war that would mean her life if Sundown lost.
He growled as the muscles in his arms bulged from the strain. She stared into his eyes, which were dark with conviction, and used those as her lifeline.
“Thank you,” she whispered to him.
Inclining his head to her, Jess felt his grip slipping. Whatever had her was increasing its pressure to the point where he knew it was only a matter of time before she fell from his hands.
He’d failed to keep his promise to her mother. The last thing he wanted was to see her die, too. I can’t let go.…
What choice did he have?
The answer came from somewhere deep inside him. A forgotten prayer his mother had taught him from the cradle to use whenever things were too hard and he wanted to give up.
Aike aniya trumuli gerou sunari.… Those words whispered through his mind. I am White Buffalo and I will not be stopped. Yeah, okay, so it sounded better in her language than in English. Still, it echoed and he felt an inner strength rising with every syllable as he continued silently chanting it. Our people never met an enemy they couldn’t defeat. Their blood flows inside of you, penyo. You are my pride and my gift to the Elders who watch over us. Listen to them when you’re weak and they will help you. Always. He heard his mother’s voice as clearly as if she sat beside him.
He saw the fear in Abigail’s eyes as she realized her hands were slipping.
“Aike aniya trumuli gerou sunari!”
Abigail gasped at his angry words and the bright flash of red that shone through his pupils an instant before he jerked her up through the floor so fast, she barely realized she’d moved. He gathered her in his arms and hugged her close, as if he was as thankful she was alive as she was.
Even though she hated him, she was too grateful to shove him away. Instead, she reveled in the sensation of his hard body pressing against hers. She clung to him while she shook from relief and tried to squelch the fear that the invisible force would grab her again and take her back into the hole. Her blood rushed thick through her veins as she buried her face in his neck and inhaled the warm scent of his skin.
He’d saved her. She was alive.
In that moment, with all the endorphins coursing through her, she felt as if she could fly.
Jess couldn’t move with her cradled against him as she breathed raggedly in his ear, sending chills down his arm. Every inch of her body was pressed against his. And deep inside, he felt something in him stir. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Before he could rethink his intentions, he nuzzled her neck. A low moan escaped her lips. He started to pull away, but she cupped his head, stopping him.
Then she did the most unexpected thing of all.
She kissed him.
For a full minute, he couldn’t breathe as he tasted her. Her lips were incredibly soft as she swept her tongue against his, teasing and warming him. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had kissed him with this much passion.
Abigail knew she shouldn’t be doing this. In the back of her mind was the voice that tried to remind her that she hated him. And yet he’d saved her life. More than that, he felt like heaven. Never had she experienced anything like this.
Like she belonged.
There was no explaining it. It was something deep within that welcomed him even while her mind called her all kinds of stupid.
But before she could examine that thought further, the floor started rumbling again.
They pushed themselves to their feet and then away from the hole as some unseen beast from below began a fierce howl. It sounded like a pack of hungry coyotes.…
Backing them up, Sundown put himself between her and the hole. He retrieved his gun from the floor.
An instant later, six men and one woman shot up from the opening. With dark hair and eyes, they curled their lips in a purely canine fashion as they stalked toward the two of them.
Jess braced himself for the attack he knew was coming. He’d never much cared for shape-shifters, and these were going to be brutal. “C’mon, punks,” he goaded. “You want to fight or sniff each other’s crotches?”
The leader ran at him. With a bright flash of yellow, he turned from a man into a coyote. Jess reversed his shotgun so that he was holding it by the barrel. Using the stock like a bat, he knocked the coyote into the wall, where it hit with a heavy thud.
The others changed form and came at him full force.
“Run!” he said over his shoulder to Abigail.
She didn’t listen. Rather, she ripped the tacky antlers off the wall that Andy had put there as a sick joke—that boy had never been right in the head—and held them to defend against their attackers.
It was a bold move, and he seriously hoped those antlers broke during the fight so he’d never have to look at them again.
Even though Jess had a feeling he was wasting his time, he went ahead and loaded his gun with the shells in his pocket, then opened fire on the coyotes. The first one he shot yelped, skidded sideways, rebounded off the wall, then kept coming.
Yeah, all it did was piss the coyote off and give him some target practice. But what the hell? He kept shooting until he was empty again while he and Abigail backed down the hallway.
Until she stopped moving.
He slammed up against her.
“You’re about to be in daylight.”
He glanced over his shoulder to see the truth of that. Had she not stood her ground, he’d have been in some serious pain right about now. “Much obliged.” With no choice and with their retreat cut off, he took a step forward to fight.
The coyotes launched themselves at the two of them.
Jess moved to hit one, but they never made contact.
The coyotes slammed into an invisible wall that magically appeared around him and Abigail. Yelping, the coyotes tried to attack again and again—they couldn’t.
Yee-haw on that. He just hoped whoever was shielding them was a friend.
Abigail moved to stand beside him. She reached out to touch it, and apparently there was nothing there. She waved her hand around but it contacted nothing. Meanwhile, the coyotes couldn’t touch them.
Interesting …
She frowned in confusion. “What is this?”
“Don’t know. But given everything else that’s happened so far, I’m not real sure it’s a good thing.” For all he knew, that magic wall might be protecting the coyotes from something ugly about to happen to the two of them.
As if on cue, an evil growl, low and deep, echoed around them.
The coyotes hesitated at the sound.
Abigail swallowed in fear. When the scariest of scary were wary, it was time to take note. She whipped out her mental notepad to wait on whatever evil was about to pounce.
She didn’t have to wait long before a huge wolf launched out of the walls to attack the coyotes.
That was unexpected on several levels. She turned toward Sundown. “Is that on our side?”
He squinted as if trying to look into the heart of this latest addition. “Looks like, but … hell, who knows at this point?”
Within seconds, the coyotes vanished into a mist. The wolf circled as if he was about to give chase. Until he turned into a man in the middle of the hallway.
Tall, blond, and extremely handsome, he still looked feral in his human form. There was a light in his eyes that said he wanted to taste blood.
She hoped it wasn’t theirs.
Abigail held her breath as he moved forward with a deadly glower.
Here we go again.…
The wolf flipped the gun out of Sundown’s hands. He cracked open the barrel to check its loaded status and shook his head. “Shells, cowboy? Really?”
Sundown shrugged. “Sometimes you just have to try even when it’s wasted energy.”
The wolf laughed, then handed it back. “I admire the tenacity, useless though it is.”
Abigail relaxed as she realized the wolf was at the very least a frenemy.
Sundown leaned the gun against the wall. “What are you doing here?”
“Zarek sent me in, just in case.”
Sundown scratched at the whiskers on his jaw. “’Cause shit rolls downhill.”
“Yeah, and what upsets Z gets my ass kicked. Have I ever told you how much it chafes me that Astrid gave that psycho bastard god powers? I swear I go to bed every night with the one desire to rip out his throat, and I don’t even live with them anymore. Sad, isn’t it?”
Sundown bristled as if the wolf had struck a nerve. “Now, that’s my boy you’re talking about, and I don’t want to get crossed up with you, Sasha. But you keep that tone and attitude about him, and we will.”
Sasha held his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. I forget you and Ash are weird enough to actually like him. No accounting for taste.” He turned that penetrating stare toward her. “And you must be the cause of this disaster.”
Abigail was offended. What? Was there some cosmic social media feed somewhere with her photo on it, announcing her as the cause of the apocalypse? “I didn’t do anything.”
Sundown grinned. “She’s in denial.”
“Cool. We can feed her to the coyotes then, and I can go back to Sanctuary and continue scoping out this amazing brunette who keeps coming in with her friends.”
She wasn’t amused by that.
At all.
Sundown ignored her ire. “Speaking of friends … why did our new coyote buddies run from you?”
Sasha swaggered like a strutting peacock. “I’m that badass.”
Sundown snorted. “Seriously.”
“O ye of little faith. You doubt my rep? My skills?”
“And your brains.”
Sasha tsked. “Fine. I’ll be honest.… Absolutely no idea. They had me outnumbered. I should have been easy for them to rip into. Not that I wanted to be their early-morning snack, but—”
“The wolf has always been a most natural enemy to the coyote. Wolves are one of the few predators known to hunt them when the season is right. And because of this, the coyote are wary of them by nature. Especially one from an unknown pantheon whose powers they can only guess at. No doubt, they thought retreat was the best course of action. As Sun Tzu would say, if ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.”
Abigail turned at the voice of what sounded like an ancient Englishman standing behind them.
He wasn’t English. Or anything like what she’d expected from his proper, thickly accented speech.
Barely taller than her, he wore a tan suede jacket with fringed sleeves and heavy Native American beadwork and carved bone all over it. His silver hair was parted into two braids that framed his withered face. However, age hadn’t dulled the sharpness of his hazel gold eyes, which stared at her with an accusation that cut her all the way to her soul.
She had a sudden desire to take a step back, but she refused to be a coward. So she stood her ground and put on the bravest face she could manage.
Sundown inclined his head respectfully to the man. “Choo Co La Tah, what are you doing here?”
Choo Co La Tah turned that frightening gaze from her to Sundown. “The Unfolding has started, and so I knew I couldn’t wait, no matter Ren’s protestations. As the Dineh would say, Coyote is always out there waiting, and Coyote is always hungry. I knew they would be after the woman as soon as they caught her scent. If they kill her before we reach the Valley, there will be no one to stop them. Hence my appearance here and now. The two of you must be protected, no matter what happens.” He opened his jacket to show a crow that had been resting under his right arm. He pulled it out and, with a grace and dexterity that contradicted his apparent age, set it on the floor.
Letting out a caw, the bird flapped its wings, then manifested into a man. This one appeared to be in his early twenties with jet hair and eyes. Dressed all in black, he was stunningly sexy and even scarier than the coyotes had been.
He was also fanged.
And now all the men were staring at her, making her extremely uncomfortable and self-conscious. She felt like a mouse surrounded by hungry cats who were taking odds on who would be the first to pounce.
“Do you comprehend the gravity of your situation, my dear?” Choo Co La Tah asked her.
She did. But that didn’t stop one cold, hard fact. “I don’t want to die.”
There was no sympathy in the old man’s gaze. “As the Duwamish would say, there is no death, only a change of worlds.”
“I like this world.”
“Then you should have thought of that before you took the life of Old Bear. I can assure you, even at his advanced age, he didn’t want to change realms, either. And he’s only one of many you have killed who never once harmed you.”
Her anger snapped at that. How dare he patronize her—something that was made even more pronounced by his accent and proper tone.
She hadn’t stalked innocent people like some deranged serial killer. She was an avenger who was tallying a sickening score started by the true villains in all of this. “The Dark-Hunters have hunted my people for centuries.”
“Your people, madam, are human … most of them qualify for that term, anyway. They are the ones the Dark-Hunters strive to protect.”
“Yeah, right. They…” Her words broke off as images flashed in her mind. She heard countless humans begging for mercy as they were attacked.
Not by Dark-Hunters.
By Apollites who’d killed them so that they could take their human souls and feed on them and live past their twenty-seventh birthday—just as Sundown had told her. The horror of it slapped her hard as their screams resonated through her skull.
It couldn’t be.
She shook her head in denial. “You planted those images in my head. They’re not real.”
Choo Co La Tah sighed. “My people have a saying. Kirha tahanahna ditari sukenah. To deny the presence of the sun doesn’t escape its blister. I admire your loyalty. But sometimes you have to face the truth, even when it hurts.”
No, she didn’t. Because if he was right, if those images were the truth, then she was wrong on a level so profound that it made her sick. It would mean she’d done horrendous things to people who didn’t deserve it.
People who’d been protecting the innocent from predators.
And if that was the case, she wasn’t sure she could live with herself.
I’m not a predator. I’m a protector.
Choo Co La Tah’s eyes were filled with compassion. “I feel your pain, child. But you should have studied Confucius.”
She frowned at his words. “How so?”
“Had you taken the time to learn his wisdom instead of war, you would have known that before you start down the road to revenge, dig two graves.”
She bristled at that. “You don’t understand.”
“There you are quite wrong. Shamefully, all of us have wanted revenge on someone at some point for something. I’ve lived since before man and buffalo roamed this small planet. I have survived the beginning, bloom, and death of countless enemies, civilizations, and people. And the one truth I have learned most during all of these centuries is the old Japanese proverb. If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.”
That made her temper boil over. He made it sound so simple. But he was wrong, and she knew it. “Even if he’s immortal?”
“Especially then. To quote the Tsalagi, you should never allow your yesterday to use up too much of today. The past is gone and tomorrow is at best a maybe. Live for this moment because it may be all you’ll ever have.”
She curled her lip in disgust. His pithy phrases were easy to spout, but living with her amount of pain was another story. And seeing your parents slaughtered was something no one got over. Ever. “What are you? A fortune cookie writer?”
The Native American Dark-Hunter started forward, but Choo Co La Tah stopped him before he could reach her. There was laughter in his tone as he spoke. “Respect must be earned, Ren. Not demanded. A questioning mind is the most cherished resource man has and the rarest. I admire her tenacity and her misplaced loyalty.”
Those words embarrassed her, and somehow they made her feel like she was being childish.
“And I don’t.” Deep and resonant, Ren’s voice rolled like thunder.
Choo Co La Tah placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “All feelings are valid, and I do not discount yours, Abigail. Our true journey will begin in a handful of hours after the sun sets. In the meantime, all of you need to rest and conserve your strength. Sasha and I will guard you while you slumber.” He glanced to Sundown. “And I will notify Andy and make sure he, too, is safe.”
Sasha arched a brow. “Why is the wolf always the one who’s drafted?”
Choo Co La Tah smiled. “The wolf is the one who is most rested.”
