The Lycan Hunter (The Gardinian World Series) (11 page)

“What’s changed in the last thirty minutes?”

Alexis leaned against the headboard. Of course he couldn’t just kill her and get it over with. No,
he
needed viable reasons.

Where was a rogue when you needed one?

“What’s your name?”

“Why?”

“I need the name of the person I’m going to put a bullet in.”

“Kyran.” He smiled at her, but it wasn
’
t friendly. “See, now you can
stop doing shit to piss me off. They won’t kill you if you keep talking
like that.” He turned and headed for the door but shot her a glance
over his shoulder. “
Just do me a favor. Don
’
t be a coward. Shoot me in
the chest.”

Alexis rested her head on her knees and watched the door close
behind Kyran. She needed him in a true rage. He had been mad, but
blinding rage – the kind where good judgment vanished into the ether –
was the only way she could get him to kill her. She had less than a day
to change his mind about keeping her alive.

God must hate me.

It had been less than a month since her brother, Torin, had come
home, and by the end of that month, he was dead. Now she
was repeating
his footsteps, probably an exact carbon copy considering Suches had
been Torin
’
s last post. More to the point, she was seeing what he
’
d meant
by not all Lycans were bad.

When Torin returned to headquarters, he kept telling her things
she had assumed were nothing more than the fantastical ravings of
someone who should take a long vacation. He kept up his speeches
to his family about how Lycans weren’t all bad and how one of them
had even helped him. Their parents never said anything to the contrary
,
just politely nodded and pretended nothing was wrong. At least that
’
s
what she thought they did, but she should have known better considering
that they were both Elders.

The Elder
’
s Council was the true heart of the Hunter organization
.
Made up of retired members of the Edict Council, the Elders were
responsible for training Hunter initiates, children born of two Hunter
parents. However, their true duties were drafting the laws that governed
the Hunters and prosecuting those that broke them.

The Elders only concerned themselves with two laws: dereliction
of duty and treason. Anyone found guilty of breaking those laws didn
’
t
live long after the trial.

Torin
’
s next assignment – eliminating a pride of Alesers in Florida –
had resulted in his death. There were only six members of the pride, but all of them turned out to be rogue. The backup he was supposed to have never showed, but they weren’t supposed to.

Alexis didn’t want to die that way. She knew her death would be
imminent, but having to swallow the knowledge that her parents had
sentenced her to death wasn
’
t something she could tolerate. Especially
considering the likely type of “assignment” they seemed to choose when
discharging a Hunter from service.

If only I could stay here.

Musing about the impossible wouldn
’
t change anything, so she
did what she could. She stripped out of her hospital gown, grabbed
some clothes, and went to take a shower. Maybe the hot water would
help her draft a plausible plan to infuriate a wolf.

KYRAN PACED IN HIS ROOM,
noting the way his brother’’s face
remained blank as he sat in one of the overstuffed recliners at the
opposite side of the room.

“What do you want me to do, Mikko?”

He only gave Ronan a glance, but he didn
’
t pause. Fear propelled
him to keep moving, because if he stopped, he would likely do something
regrettable.

Why didn
’
t I warn her about the camera?

He was sitting at his desk fuming and trying to come up with a
plausible reason for the Hunter to ask him to kill her when she stripped
in full view of the camera. Granted, he
’
d seen her naked before, but the
previous sighting didn
’
t count. He had been too focused on saving her
life to admire what had him staring at the monitor long after she
’
d
left the frame.

Now the image of her pink tipped breasts framed by her obsidian
hair, the subtle ridges of muscle of her torso, and the one place he
wanted to bury himself inside was seared into his memory.

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck…Exactly.

“I can’t fight. I’m too far gone. I’ll end up killing somebody.”

“Do you think one of the Harem will help?”

Kyran stopped mid-stride. The one female who had even caught his
attention was dead, and the remaining Harem didn
’
t do it for him. Well
there was one, Jillian, but even she somehow felt like a wrong choice.

“No, forget the Harem. What is she doing now?”

“She’s in bed, looks like she’s asleep.”

“Come on. We
’
re taking her back tonight. Then I'm going for a
long run.”

“As Tala?”

For Lycans, being referred to by the name of their animal form was
an insult. Calling a Tala a wolf implied that they possessed no higher
reasoning skills than that of an animal – that they were something
less than what they actually were.

“Yeah.”

Ronan nodded, but they both knew that when Kyran went for a run
he was more likely to repeat the human bed-hopping solution. His
absence would be more of an inconvenience than an issue.

They stepped into the Hunter’s room. Kyran carried a blindfold, while Ronan held onto her bag of weapons. The thing was massive
and completely out of proportion to the clothes bag she had or her
physical stature.

Kyran stood at the edge of the bed and took a deep calming breath
. Instead, he caught the lavender scented body wash he had given her and something sweet.

Arousal?
–
Fuck me, really?

“Hunter, I need you to get up.”

She mumbled something unintelligible.

“Hunter, come with me.”

She rolled onto her side and curled into a ball. “I
’
m close,” she said,
her voice trembled.

Ronan tried to silence a laugh, while Kyran settled for cursing.

“Hunter, wake up. You need to come with me.”

She sat up, seemingly startled, and blinked at him. “Kyran?”

“Yes.”

“What’s going on?” She glanced at Ronan. “Is that my bag?”

“You
’
re leaving tonight. You
’
ll get it when you get back to the cabin.”

“Wait, what happened to leaving tomorrow?”

Kyran narrowed his eyes. “Why are you trying to stay here?”

“I thought you said – ”

“Yeah and I changed my mind. Get dressed or you can wear that.
It doesn’t matter.”

Alexis dressed, but her thoughts were fully focused on finding a way to get more time to pull together her plan.

“Quit stalling. I’m not in the mood.”

She watched Kyran, who was normally mellow for a Lycan anyway,
stalk to the security panel. Her gaze drifted to Ronan who looked solemn.
Kyran took the weapon bag from his brother, and Ronan approached her with the blindfold he had been given.

The hiss of the doors sounded, and she turned towards them, the blindfold firmly in place.

“I have your bags, and Ronan is going to carry you. Don
’
t try
anything stupid.”

Alexis
was scooped into what she could only guess was the reluctant
grip of Ronan. She had tried to rest her hands in her lap, but she ended
up grabbing a fist full of his shirt.

“Why are you touching me?” he whispered.

“Because you
’
re holding me like you
’
ll catch something if our skin
touches. I don’t want to fall.”

“I won
’
t drop you.” A slight agitation slashed through Ronan
’
s
tone. “Just let go, please.”

She dropped her hands back into her lap when a growl drifted back
from who she could only assume was Kyran.

“I’m sorry, Mikko.”

“
Forget it
. Hunter, for my brother
’
s sake, keep your hands to yourself
.”

In the absence of her sight, Alexis focused on using her other senses
for intel gathering.

While she was carried through the twists and turns of the Lycan
compound, she expected to experience the overwhelming smell of
stagnant
water, stale air, and the tell-tale aroma of guano. Instead she heard the faint sounds of children playing, the smell of fresh baked bread, and the hum of light fixtures above her.

A faint breeze brushed against the uncovered portions of her face,
bringing her out of her pondering about how they’d made a home in a cave. The nearly constant snapping and crunching of dry branches told her they were surrounded by trees, and from the scent in the air, they couldn’t be far from the cabin.

Not too close. She didn
’
t take Kyran or Lycans in general to be
complete morons.

A
series of doors
opened, and she was placed in a
seat
and belted in.

“I’ll take the blindfold off when we get close to the cabin,” Kyran said from the seat next to her.

She sat in silence, trying to accept her fate, but hope lingered in the
back of her head. Ideas that ranged from the amusing to the absurd
danced through her head as she tried to decide just how she could
elevate Kyran’s simmering anger.

Her sight was restored shortly after they came to the outskirts of
Suches,
roughly five miles from the cabin. Alexis looked over to see Kyran
gripping the thick strap of fabric like it was a lifeline to his sanity.

Kyran reached forward and tapped Ronan on the shoulder. “Park
about a mile away. We
’
ll walk the
rest in case
someone else is at the cabin.”

Ronan nodded but remained silent.

After they had parked, they began the hike from the car only for Ronan to split off halfway to the cabin. Kyran held her bags, but she managed to convince him to give her one of her knives.

At the
bottom
of the hill,
leading
to the cabin,
she spotted
the cabin
’
s
front porch bathed in the soft orange glow of a solar powered light.
Whenever a Hunter was at a location, headquarters would set the lights
to a timer. Since the light was on, she figured they had no idea that she
hadn’t been in the house for the last two days.

They reached the cabin
’
s front porch without incident, but Ronan
was nowhere to be found. Alexis turned the handle of the door and
paused, a feeling of being watched making her search the darkness.

Kyran focused on her. “What’s wrong, Hunter?”

She opened the door and shoved him inside just as a gun fired two
shots in quick succession.

One of the
modified
darts buried i
tself
into the wood of the d
oorjamb
,
the other in the soft flesh of her left breast.

She groaned in the direction of the dart, which was more of a cross
between a dart and bullet. She knew the road that it paved to her death
was a long and painful one.

A couple of grunts sounded as
Ronan
drug the cursing body of the
shooter into the light.

“Theo?”

“What the fuck, Lexi?” He gave her an irate glare. “You don
’
t know
a fucking Lycan when you see one?”

She sighed and leaned into the doorjamb, only to find herself against
Kyran
’
s rock hard chest. She glanced up at his face and jumped at the
morphed look of his eyes.

If anger had physical presence, it was in his pale blue eyes. Silver orb
s – acting like eyeshine – appeared over his pupils. Those silver moons
were the only physical marker that would identify him as a Lycan.

She turned her attention back to her fellow Hunter. “What are you
doing here, Theo?”

“
You
’
ve gotta
be
fucking
kidding me.” He tried to struggle in Ronan
’
s
hold but gained no ground. “
Please
tell me you
aren’t
on Torin
’
s Lycan
sympathy train?”