Adam (24 page)

“When is the last time you saw the sun?” Harrier asked her.

She gave him a little smile. She didn’t even have to think about it.

“It was only a short while ago. A few years back. I saw a sunrise. I confess it is a beautiful thing, for all it hurts my eyes to see it.”

“There are many things that are both beautiful and deadly. It has been much longer for me. I have no desire to feel the touch of the sun or to see its questionable beauty. I find it difficult to see loveliness in something that renders me helpless.” He looked up at the nearly full moon. “I am very content with this silvery bright splendor.”

“Have you come to help the carpenters today?” Windsong asked.

“I find their songs fascinating,” he confessed. “The construction songs make such incredibly secure joints. It brings out such beauty in the woods they use.”

“I find them very similar to healing songs. In a sense they are repairing injury they have caused by cutting through the wood.”

“I had not looked at it like that. But it is no wonder that we Mistrals make homes last so very long and need so little repair to their frames, roofs, and foundations. Human structures are so shoddy in comparison.”

“They do what they can.” Windsong drew herself up from the grasses, standing over her friend as she shook out the folds of her skirt. “I am glad you are here. I wish to gather some wild herbs today and I do not like to leave Lyric and Izri alone these days.”

“You are not taking them with you?” He frowned. “You should not go alone.”

“I have worked them very hard this week with lessons. They should have some time to relax. Lyric tends to get overwhelmed if she does not get a break every few days. She remembers lyrics and pitches far better when she does not feel weighted down with work.”

Windsong reached down to pick up her deep willow basket. She would be able to gather hours’ worth of roots and herbs and not have to continually come back to the house to empty her basket and make room for more. This would very likely be her last chance to harvest before the snow fell and kept the ground covered for months. She hated trying to dig for roots in the snow.

“You did not address my concerns about
you
,” Harrier pressed her as she began to walk away from him. She gave him a smile and raised her brow.

“Did I not? Well, we shall talk about it when I return.”

“Wind—!”

Harrier huffed out a breath in frustration. Talking to her back would be no more effective than talking to her stubborn face.

Windsong was actually not very far from the cabin, as the crow flies. A half mile at most. But it was enough to isolate her from anyone else. She was kneeling, uncovering a rare and generously shaped truffle when she felt she was no longer alone. She felt the malevolence creeping up on her well before the stranger came within striking distance. One of the main characteristics that had always made her stand out from all other Mistrals, however, was that she was not easily frightened. She left her basket on the ground, tucking it behind some scrub to be retrieved later and, dusting the dirt from her hands, she moved carefully toward her cabin. She did not change into her alter ego of the mourning dove, recognizing that it was perhaps a far more vulnerable form than the one she was in at present.

The first Vampire appeared right in her path in a sudden, roiling cloud of smoke, the smell of sulfur indicative of a Mind Demon’s ability to teleport. It told Windsong that this Vampire had drunk the blood of that type of Nightwalker and gained this aspect from it. Very likely the Mind Demon had died in the process. Rogue Vampires were not known for being merciful when it came to their victims.

“Hello, little dove. Leaving so quickly?” the Vampire asked, his dark eyes almost indiscernible from the night around him. Almost as if he were part shadow, lengths of his body could not be separated from the darkness they stood in. The heavy shadows of the trees interfered with the bright moon, blocking its light.

The second Vampire appeared at her back, almost close enough to touch her. Windsong moved quickly out of reach. She would not allow them the opportunity to drink from her, if that was what they wished to do. But she also needed to bide her time a little. She needed something all the Nightwalkers needed.

Information.

Most rogues acted individually, or perhaps in small groups of two or three, but lately there had been larger bands, and they had seemed very well organized. Her last meeting with the other Nightwalker leaders had addressed this issue. They had told everyone to warn their people to be careful. Jasmine had requested they forward any intelligence on to her so she could rout out the source and destroy the nest once and for all.

“How clever you are to catch me alone,” she said to them.

And her speaking voice, the most powerful of her kind, instantly lulled the pair of them. They both relaxed, the shadowy Vampire becoming suddenly solid, his lean and handsome features going suddenly soft with a smile.

“We planned it that way,” he said proudly. “But we’re not going to hurt you right off.”

“No? How kind you are,” she said, meaning it. Sarcasm would spoil the spell she was weaving. She had to be sincere. And she did feel sincere. She found their misguided actions to be so unfortunate. So sad. So many people had died so unnecessarily. She wondered if perhaps it was like black magic, or like drugs, an addiction that, once started, became nearly impossible to break. Yes, selfishness and hunger for power might have compelled them in the beginning, but what if they became addicted to the high they got from victimizing others and could not keep themselves from chasing that feeling again and again, whether they wanted the power any longer or not?

She had put forth the idea at the last meeting and met with a lot of disapproving resistance, and this even though a natural-born Witch was sitting amongst them. A Witch who had first come to them many months back and told them that humans who used black magic were redeemable. That she was one who had been led astray because no other option had been put in front of her once she realized she had been born to create magic. She had not realized there were magics that could and could not harm her. That there was even a difference. And by the time she had realized it, she was well into an addiction that had been almost impossible for her to break. It had taken everything she had to rip free of it. It had taken frightening experimentations to learn what was good magic, and what was not.

What if it was the same for these Vampires?

Windsong was willing to risk her life to test her theory.

“We’re going to take you away with us,” the second Vampire explained.

“How lovely. I am so pleased you are inviting me on this trip,” Windsong said. “Where will we be going?”

“Not far. The Demon has need of you. We don’t know why.”

The Demon?

Suddenly Windsong lost a bit of her calm. She took a breath, trying to regain it.

“You mean Ruth?” she asked.

“Yes, Ruth,” a third voice growled from behind her. He grabbed hold of the Siren, yanking her back into his body. Windsong’s knee-jerk response was to cry out a single, stunning note, her voice rising wildly into the clear, cool forest.

The Vampire’s grip on her went lax almost instantly, allowing her to stumble free of his grasp. She lost all interest in prying information from them. Vampires were one thing, Ruth entirely another. Windsong was not so arrogant as to think she would fare better with the demented Demon than others who had come away brutalized and viciously damaged, if they came away at all. She knew she was strong and powerful, but she wasn’t willing to test that strength against someone so corrupted. A wildcard that no one truly understood. And when one didn’t completely grasp one’s enemy, it was all but impossible to find their weaknesses and mount a proper defense.

Suddenly she was struggling to keep her fear under control. It was imperative that she do so. She could only control her attackers if she controlled herself. The Vampires were getting bolder. She could sense it on them, sense their mental strength. Had she been any other Mistral, they might have already had her captive.

She began to sing, no words, only clear, sharp notes, laying the groundwork to hold their minds and the minds of any others within hearing range. Her voice was powerful and resonant, cutting through the forest for unexpected distances. She doubted they would suspect she was capable of reaching so far. In moments her voice would burst into the cabin clearing where Harrier and the others were.

That was when a sudden, sharp sensation punched into the side of her neck. Startled, Windsong fell silent, her hand jerking up to the dart protruding from her throat. She looked numbly into the eyes of a Demon whose deeply tanned skin set her apart from the Vampires she accompanied. As the powerful sedative flooded quickly into Windsong’s blood, she swayed a little. The pretty black-and-gray-haired Demon tugged at a string near her ear, popping free the earplug in it, one of a pair in bright, obscene orange.

“They thought they were strong enough to resist you,” she said as she came closer. “I thought it was better to be safe than sorry.” She methodically reloaded the dart gun and took aim at Windsong.

“Wait ... please ...” Windsong rasped weakly, holding up a hand as she felt her vocal cords go numb along with the entire inside of her throat. The world swayed and weakness bled through her body.

“It’s not up to me,” the Demon said with a shrug. “What Ruth wants, Ruth gets. But trust me, my way of going about it is very much the better way.”

She shot Windsong again, this time hitting her in a less vital area. The first drug was a paralytic, the second a sedative. Windsong collapsed onto the ground, unable to do anything to protect herself or escape.

The Demon popped out the second earplug and rolled her eyes at the Vampires, who were just breaking free of the Siren’s spell.

“What a bunch of idiots,” she said.

But it was the other Vampires, the ones who were coming toward them, threading through the trees to look down on the unconscious Mistral, who had been the real danger.

Yes. Her way was very much the safer way.

Adam had tracked more than his share of Demons over the years, but he had always had that little sense inside him to help him pinpoint their location. The absence of Ruth’s presence on his internal grid made him just about useless when it came to hunting her. Or so he felt as he watched the Vampire track her from the caverns beneath the surface. Jasmine’s senses and skills as a huntress were utterly remarkable to him. Mind Demons were difficult to track, what with their ability to teleport with a thought from one spot to the next, but if one knew what to look for, it was not impossible. Jasmine impressed him as she quickly traced the Demon’s movements.

He had to confess to himself that watching her hunt was an incredible turn-on. His ineffectiveness left him with nothing to do but to watch her. Study her. Familiarize himself with every beautiful line of her features, the graceful length of her neck, and the curving arch of her back on into her rear end as she crouched down to study the signs she found and formulate her next plan of action.

“Must you stare at me so?” she asked with a put-upon sigh after a few hours of this.

Adam only smiled, unable to feel apologetic for being caught in the act. Too large a part of him wanted her to know he found her captivating.

“Cease being so fascinating and I will cease to stare,” he offered.

Jasmine couldn’t help smiling at that, looking up at him from her position close to the ground. He was standing there with his powerful legs braced hard apart and his thick arms folded across his chest. He looked as though he were the master of his universe, in spite of the fact that he had currently lost his definition within it. She found that to be impressive and intriguing. He could have floundered around, waiting for others to help him define himself.

But not Adam. Somewhere along the way he had come to grips with the fact that his world had changed, that he needed to face facts and adapt or find himself hopelessly lost. Perhaps it was the act of the hunt that had helped it happen. He was in his element, the process familiar to him. He was hardly as useless as he thought he was, his well-trained senses and his experience lending significant guidance. But he was used to taking the lead in these things, used to being the solitary hunter. He wasn’t used to following someone with better skills.

For the moment anyway. Had it been any other Demon they were hunting, Jasmine was certain Adam would have left her in the dust, but Jasmine had hunted Ruth before—knew what to look for, what she smelled like and what her tricks were. She supposed she could have enlightened him, taught him.

However, she was having far too much fun being ahead of him and leaving him with a great deal of time to simply watch her. There was something to be said for his regard. It was as if his eyes conveyed a physical touch. She felt them on her, felt exactly where they touched her at any given moment. She gave in to the temptation to bask in it. Unfortunately it was proving a huge distraction. A certain amount of heat came with his gaze, creating a steady sort of sizzle under her skin. It made her crave the time to do other things besides hunt the target she was seeking.

It was too much of a distraction. It had to stop.

Maybe.

“I have little else to do,” he said absently, continuing to contemplate the curve of her ass rather shamelessly. “And I have had worse pastimes.”

Jasmine stood up, smoothing her hands down her thighs and moving with a slow and sensual turn. She couldn’t help the urge she had to tempt him, always tempt him, step after step—always one inch farther than before. She knew she was inviting trouble, that it was a bad idea all around considering her own unexpected reactions to him thus far, but still she couldn’t seem to help herself.

He smiled, his knowing look telling her he was very aware of the purposeful way she toyed with him, and that he knew she did so in spite of her better judgment. He moved a little closer to her, close enough to touch, and even though he didn’t reach out for her, it was as though he was doing so with every fiber of his being.