“What about you?”
“He blames me for my mother’s death.” She snorted. “You know how followers of the Raven think. Second twin has an evil soul. And then, when I was born with a birth defect, it was a double whammy.”
“Maybe,” Hunter said from behind her, “that’s proof that he loves you. Followers of the Raven destroy the second twin and any child born with a defect. The fact that he didn’t—”
“Means nothing. He loved my mother, and before she died, she begged him to spare me. That’s the only reason I’m alive.” She turned back to Hunter, whose gaze burned hot, locked on her like a predator in the night. It was enough to steal her breath. To make her go liquid inside. To almost make her forget she had a sister who was waiting for him.
“I think there’s more to it.” Hunter stood, the magnificent muscles in his chest and abs flexing under skin that glowed in the light of the fire. “He risked a clan rebellion by sparing your life.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t risk a rebellion for the female you loved?”
“I’d risk everything for the female I loved.” Hunter moved toward her, mesmerizing her with the beauty of his form. He stopped a mere foot away, close enough for her to smell the smoke and sweat on his skin. Close enough to make her mouth water with the desire to taste him. “Everything. Which is why I can’t fall in love.”
“Can’t,” she whispered hoarsely, “or won’t?”
For a long moment, he said nothing, but she saw a battle raging in his eyes, and she wondered if he was thinking about Rasha. It made her gut hurt. Just as she thought he wasn’t going to answer at all, he turned away and started for the pool, his thick hair swishing across his broad back as he walked.
“Does it really matter?” he asked. “The clan is my priority. Period.”
“But that doesn’t mean you can’t be happy.”
Halting in his tracks, he shook his head. “How could you have grown up at ShadowSpawn and still be so naive?”
“How could I grow up in ShadowSpawn and not hope and dream for something better?” Fantasies and wishes were what had kept her sane. Without hopes and dreams of a better life, she’d have died of despair a long time ago.
“Are you still hoping for something better?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, digging in. No one could take her dreams away from her. “Yes.”
“Then I hope you get it, Aylin. I truly do. But I learned a long time ago that hoping for something is a waste of time. I hoped for children. I hoped to mate with someone I loved. Now I just hope to survive the day tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes.” He worked on his belt, and she turned away as he dropped his clothing to the ground. “Get some rest. Maybe your wishes will work out better than mine.”
She doubted it, since she wished Hunter could be hers.
HUNTER WOKE TO the sound of something dying. He sprang from the blanket he’d shared with Aylin and bolted to the cave entrance. Again, he was careful not to step outside, but he didn’t need to go out to know what was happening. He could see the carnage very clearly from where he stood.
The weird thing was that the desert setting was gone, replaced by a lush jungle that could have been taken from the Amazon rain forest.
“What is it?” At any other time, Aylin’s drowsy morning voice would have made him hard as a rock. Right now, it only highlighted how very vulnerable they were going to be once they left the safety of the cave.
“I don’t know. But something really fucking big tore apart something else that’s really fucking big.”
She joined him, inhaling sharply when she saw the remains of a furry animal that had, when it was alive, probably resembled a carnivorous wooly mammoth. Its head sat on the forest floor, its blood dripping off broad leaves, its eyes glazed over but seeming to stare right at them.
Hunter turned to Aylin, wanting to shield her from the ugliness, but she sidestepped him and faced the blood and gore head-on.
“You don’t need to protect me, Hunter. I’m tougher than I look.”
He swept his admiring gaze over her. “Yes, you are.” She was so much tougher than he would have guessed when they’d first met.
Oh, sure, before the journey to this hellhole of a realm, he’d known she was strong, but her quiet strength came from her heart. She’d transformed since arriving, and even though her healed leg probably accounted for some of it, there was more to it than that.
Last night, she’d lanced the festering wound that life at ShadowSpawn had given her. She’d said she never got angry, but the shattered water bottle might argue differently. Hunter had a feeling that she’d held in a lot of anger over the years and that for the first time ever, she felt empowered enough to let it out.
“My father is going to swallow his tongue when he hears that I accompanied you on this challenge, and he’ll swallow it again when he sees me walk without a limp,” she said. “I hope he chokes on it.”
“I hope so, too.” Hunter really hoped so. Kars’s death would solve a lot of problems. He gestured to the stores of food and water. “We should eat something.” Very soon they’d have to go outside and face whatever challenge Samnult had arranged for them. Hunter wanted to stall, wanted to hang out until they ran out of food, because even if they passed the test, the hell wouldn’t end.
He’d have to say good-bye to Aylin eventually.
When they’d eaten the pemmican bars, half the jerky, and the rest of the human blood, Aylin sighed. “We should get started.”
“I know.”
She shoved to her feet. “No time like the present, I guess.”
“Aylin, wait.” Standing, he swiped the hatchet off the ground, leaving the machete. A crack in the blade made it useless. “Take this.”
She shook her head. “You’re stronger and faster, and you have more fighting experience. You can do far more with it than I can.”
Maybe, but that was exactly why she needed it more than he did. “I won’t argue about this,” he growled.
“Good. Because I’m not arguing, either.” Smiling brightly, she shoved the hatchet away when he tried to press it into her hands. “I’ll take the pocketknife.”
A pocketknife was not an adequate weapon. “Dammit, Aylin—”
“Trust me, I’m good with a small blade.” If she was half as good with a knife as she was with a hatchet, she could still kick half his warriors’ asses, but he didn’t like it. “Best in the clan. Pisses my father off when I win throwing competitions. He’s learned never to let me compete unless it’s against another clan.” She snared the pocketknife from the blanket and flipped it open. “Can’t have me showing up ShadowSpawn males, now, can we?” She grinned. “But he always uses me as a secret weapon against other clans. I once humiliated NightShade by knocking competitors’ arrows out of the air with nothing more than a butter knife. Tseeveyo was so pissed that he executed one of his warriors right then and there.”
Bringing up Tseeveyo’s name made Hunter’s rage meter hit the red zone. “Tseeveyo makes your father look like an angel,” he said. “Sick bastard. I pity his harem of mates.”
“Most of them don’t have a choice,” Aylin said, tucking the blade into her boot.
Too many females in the world were in that same boat. “He’s willing to take pretty much any young female other clans don’t want. The younger, the better.” He cursed. “Those poor females would be better off dead.”
The line of her mouth tightened, as if she was trying to decide what to say. “I suppose that’s an option.” She started toward the exit, and panic bubbled up in his chest.
“Wait.” Rushing over to her, he grabbed her by the elbow and swung her around.
He wasn’t ready to give up this moment with her yet. Wasn’t ready to end their time together. This was the last chance they’d have to be alone, without the complications of clan life, Rasha, or some gia
nt monster that wanted to eat them.
Aylin looked up at him, her sapphire eyes aglow with vitality. She truly had come into her own in the last couple of days, and if he’d been drawn to her before, now he felt like he couldn’t escape her pull. She was a beautiful rose that had grown thorns, and he’d gladly let her draw blood.
“Please don’t drag this out,” she said. “Unless you’re going to tell me that you’ll break the deal with my father and mate with me instead of Rasha, don’t say anything.”
Pain jabbed him in the heart. He wanted to, Great Spirit above, he wanted to, but he’d signed a contract, in his own blood, stating that he’d mate Rasha. Unless she committed a grievous crime or ShadowSpawn was destroyed by humans or another clan, he was stuck.
“I can’t tell you that.” His voice sounded as if it had been scraped over sandpaper. “But you need to know that, as a clan chief, I’ve never met a female I wanted to take as a mate. Until you.”
Her eyes flashed with outrage. “I told you not to say anything. Was that supposed to make me feel better at night, when I know you’re in bed with Rasha instead of me? Am I supposed to be comforted by the fact that while you’re screwing her, you’ll wish I was the one wrapping my legs around your waist? Well, lucky you, because Rasha and I share a face. At least you can pretend.”
She jerked away from him, but he caught her before she could take a single step. “I won’t be pretending,” he swore. “And you don’t share a face. Twin or no, she’s as ugly as you are beautiful.”
For several heartbeats, he couldn’t read her. Aylin, whose emotions seemed to play across her face like a neon sign, was as blank as a sheet of paper. And then her eyes iced over so completely he felt a blast of chilly air blow across his skin.
“Can we go now?” She turned away, putting her back to him and shutting him out. “I’m ready to leave last night behind us.”
Yes, her thorns could definitely draw blood.
AYLIN FELT LIKE such a bitch as she strode through the cave’s exit. Clearly, she and Rasha shared more than just looks.
But maybe it was time that she stood up for herself more than she had in the past . . . a past in which her way of fighting back had been subtle and behind the scenes. Something had happened to her since she’d arrived in this strange realm; a newfound confidence had risen up and given her a voice she’d always kept chained. Last night had been amazing, but this morning, reality had risen along with the sun. She and Hunter would never be together again, and the pain of that fact was so raw that her emotions felt abraded, stinging every time she so much as looked at him. It wouldn’t have mattered what he’d said, she would have lost her shit.
It was about fucking time.
Too bad she was probably going to die in the next few minutes. That actuality tempered the residual anger enough for her to turn back around to Hunter when he murmured her name.
“What?” she asked tiredly. And damn him for looking every inch the warrior, as if nothing she’d said had bothered him at all. Then again, if he couldn’t put aside his personal troubles when his life was on the line, he wouldn’t make a very good warrior, let alone leader, would he?
“Let’s make our way to the closest hill. The trees should give us some cover until we find a good vantage point and figure out what to do next.”
Since she didn’t have a better idea, she nodded in agreement, and they exited the cave. Instantly, as if they had passed through an atmospheric veil, they stepped into hot, humid air that nearly choked Aylin with each draw into her lungs. They picked their way across a spongy forest floor, walking carefully to avoid pools of blood and spattered fleshy bits of the animal that had been torn apart.
Strange screeches filtered down from the canopy overhead, but every time Aylin looked up, the creatures above went silent, leaving only the sounds of water dripping from leaves. As they stepped across a shallow gully, Hunter kneeled, hatchet in hand, to study a footprint that appeared to have been made by a cross between a bear and, as far as Aylin could tell, a pterodactyl.
“Damn, this thing is huge.” He said something under his breath that sounded like “Fucking Samnult,” but she couldn’t be sure.
Mainly because right when he said it, something roared. Something close.
“What the hell?” Hunter rose fluidly to his feet as Aylin palmed the pocketknife. “Where is it? I don’t see anything.”
Aylin didn’t see it, either, but she heard it. The unmistakable flap of wings. She looked up just as the pterodactyl-bear thing crashed through the thick green canopy, sending smaller creatures scattering and splintered branches and leaves raining down.
The size of a passenger jet, the creature had brown fur on its body, but glossy black wings that could lift a 747 into the air sprouted from its back. Red eyes focused like lasers on Aylin, and she swore its beak, lined with wicked teeth, turned up in a smile.
It was a flying death machine.
In her chest, her dove fluttered, ready for action. She’d never released it to communicate with something that looked like it wanted to make lunch out of her, but the thing coming at them, its massive maw gaping, its machete-sized talons outstretched, persuaded her to give it a try.
She released the dove just as Hunter slammed her to the ground. They rolled, him landing on top of her. She heard a screech, a tear, and Hunter’s grunt, followed by the sharp tang of blood in the air.
“Fuck!” Hunter hissed. “The dinobear got me.”
She scrambled out from under him as the dinobear, as he’d called it, shot upward, blood dripping from one talon. Hunter lurched to his feet, one arm wrapped around his rib cage. A nasty, deep gash stretched from beneath his armpit to his spine, exposing muscle and bone.
“Hunter!” She rushed toward him, but he shouted a warning, and she spun in time to see the dinobear swoop at them again.
This time, it had her mourning dove in its beak. Oh, shit . . . she hadn’t thought spirit animals could die, but as she watched, the beast tore the little bird in half. Tiny gray feathers and droplets of blood rained down.
“No!” she screamed. “No!” Pain, as if someone had ripped one of her organs from her body, left her reeling. But as the dinobear came at her, shock and hurt yielded to rage. In a single, fluid motion, she flipped open the knife, took aim, and launched it.
The blade sank deep into the bird-bear’s eye. The thing screamed and tumbled off course, careening off half a dozen tree trunks and flipping head-over-heels across the damp earth. Fur and feathers exploded into the air, and for a few heart-stopping seconds, Aylin held her breath, hoping like hell that the creature was finished.
And then, like the phoenix rising from the ashes, the monster shot upward and caught a draft. Wings spread, it rolled and came back at them in a smooth dive.
“Run!” Hunter yelled. “Toward the bushes!”
He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when the thing put on a burst of speed and struck out with its feet. But Hunter was fast, and he swung the hatchet at the same time the bird-bear hit him. The weapon sank deep into its furry gullet, spraying blood across the thick foliage like a fire hose. It plummeted to the ground, bouncing and rolling in a bloody ball of fur and feathers until it came to rest against a bus-sized stone.
“You did it!” Aylin’s voice was hoarse, her knees wobbly, but victory sang through her like a ceremonial chant.
She turned . . . and her heart skidded to a halt in her chest.
Hunter was lying motionless on a bed of moss in a puddle of his own blood. His chest had been laid wide open, his organs spilling from the gash that ran from his navel to his throat.
“Hunter!” She scrambled over to him. “No!” she screamed. “No, no, no!”
Lifeless eyes stared into the sky as she reached his motionless body and threw herself down. “Don’t you die, you bastard! Hunter!”
Clumsily she gathered
him into her arms. He was heavy, his limbs flopping, his skin ashen, as Aylin’s gut told her what her brain didn’t want to acknowledge.
Hunter was dead.
It couldn’t be. Not after all they’d gone through. Not after she’d yelled at him for not choosing her over her sister, even though she knew there could have been no other choice. What if her anger had thrown him off his game? What if he was dead because of her?
Sobbing, she held him close, rocking his lifeless form as tears streamed down her face.
“He fought well.” Samnult took form a few feet away, this time appearing as human as Aylin had ever seen him, dressed in a casual business suit, as if staged battles to the death were just another day at the office.
“Help him,” she begged. “Please.”
Samnult’s expression was oddly tender, his voice mild. “Only you can help him now, Aylin.”
Hunter was already growing cold . . . even in this heat, he was somehow losing precious warmth. “How?” she rasped. “I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?” the demon asked ominously. Gone was the compassion, and in its place was ruthlessness she chose to ignore. If she could help Hunter, she would, no matter what the cost. “Are you certain of that?”
Why was he asking such stupid questions and wasting time? Tucking Hunter’s face against her chest, she cradled him as close as possible, as if her wildly beating heart could transfer life directly to him. “Yes.”
Samnult bared his teeth, which included two vampire fangs as large as her thumb. “I want your dreams.”
She blinked. “My . . . dreams?” That didn’t sound too bad. Weird, maybe, but so what if she got a full night’s sleep without dreaming?
“Your dreams of being normal. Of not being considered a curse and a freak.” He cast a glance at her leg. “You will be crippled again.”
Her gut twisted. He wasn’t talking about dreams . . . he was talking about nightmares. She’d been given a glimpse into what it was like to be healthy and whole, and for twenty-four hours, she’d seen herself living a life of her own choosing. Even if that meant living in the sewers of Seattle and eating rats for dinner, at least she would have been free of the chains that bound her to her father’s will.