The Hunter (20 page)
Authors: Theresa Meyers
Chapter 17
“Are you sure he’ll make it up into the hills and back?” Lilly asked, her mouth just beneath Colt’s ear as she rode behind him on Tempus. She hadn’t wanted to get on the mechanical monstrosity, but walking all the way was out of the question, and she didn’t have a clue where they were going and therefore couldn’t transport herself there. The only thing that made it bearable was being this physically close to Colt.
Colt chuckled. It vibrated through his back, causing his shirt to rasp against her breasts. “Just because he looks ancient doesn’t mean he ain’t tough as nails, sweetheart.”
Pete, the guide he’d hired, truly did look older than the rocks around them. His weathered face was a leather brown that blended in with the color of the landscape and was deeply etched with lines, just like the mountains in the area were crisscrossed with rich veins of copper, silver, and gold. Clearly he needed the work. His clothing was so thin and worn it clung to his bony frame, and his hat was frayed at the rim. The guide didn’t talk much, even when she’d tried to charm him. He just sat on his gray mule far enough ahead that they could see him, but not so far as to be out of earshot.
Lilly shifted behind Colt, a strange tingling sensation fizzing in the back of her skull. “I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about the man that makes me uneasy.” She sniffed the air but detected no scent of sulfur or of anything else. This actually turned out to be a blessing in her estimation, since they were actually upwind from the old man and he stank to high heaven of rotgut whiskey and a body gone unwashed since his clothes were likely new.
“Afraid I can’t protect you from one harmless old man?” he said, teasing her.
Lilly twisted, peering over her shoulder. The sun was sinking in the sky, almost touching the hills on the horizon. “We aren’t going to make it into the mountains before dark, are we?”
“Not at this rate. We’ll stop and make camp in the next hour,” Colt replied.
Up ahead of them the jagged peaks of the Superstition Mountains turned purple in the dusky light. Heat still shimmered up from the desert floor. Her skin seemed to shrink to her bones. She was a demon, far better able to handle the heat than either of the men. She could only imagine how Colt or the old guide felt. ’Course, the old man had probably done a lot of hard living out here, judging by the look of him, and was probably used to it.
Even beneath the covering of cowhide, the metal of Tempus’s body still seared in the ambient heat of the air, the clockwork within turning with a rhythmic hum. Riding Tempus double was exhausting.
“How are you holding up?” Colt asked.
“All I can taste in my mouth is dust. There’s not even enough moisture in there to make it mud.”
Colt chuckled. “Yeah, I’m surprised Tempus is holding up so well. I’ll have to wind and oil him once we make camp.”
Lilly shifted again. She wished she could say the same. Her bustle was shifting back and forth as they rode, making her distinctly uncomfortable. And her thin cotton drawers were hardly adequate padding against the constantly thumping motion of her thighs against the hard metal of the horse. She could only imagine what Colt might suggest to soothe the soreness, which made her heat with a blush from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes.
She wriggled at the thought.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s this bustle. Riding astride, two to a horse, it’s a nuisance.”
“I can take it off you if you like,” he teased.
Lilly didn’t dare answer him, considering what she’d actually been thinking of.
“Just think, somewhere in those rocky crags rests our best hope for defeating Rathe,” he added. “We find it, we win.”
Lilly sighed as she leaned forward to peer over his shoulder. “That’s if we find it before our guide gives out.”
“Oh, we’ll find it, all right.”
She didn’t doubt it. Colt was tenacious enough to do whatever it took to find his father’s portion of the Book. She sucked in a breath and held it, her breasts pressing in a most distracting manner against his back as she hesitated.
“What? Just say it, woman.”
She let out her pent-up breath in a slow steady stream. “Isn’t our bigger problem finding all three? I mean, you said we can’t close the Gates of Nyx with your father’s portion of the Book alone, can we?” She pressed her cheek to his warm, broad back. Beneath his shirt the muscles shifted in rhythm to Tempus’s movements. She inhaled the scent of leather and the outdoors, which clung to him, enjoying it. He was so solid, so strong, so very human.
“Nope. But you just leave that worry to Remy and Winn,” he replied, the deep timbre of his voice resonating through his back. “If we get this piece, we can at least slow it down. If we can’t close it all the way, then Rathe can’t open it all the way either.”
Lilly hoped it was the truth. She hugged Colt fiercely about the waist.
He grunted in response. “You can stop worrying. We’re almost there.”
She gave a mirthless little laugh. “If only it were that easy.”
He turned. She looked up and he gave her a wide, heart-stopping smile that for a moment made her believe that anything, even this, was possible. “Why shouldn’t it be? I’m here, aren’t I?”
She sighed. She shook her head. “Because you know as well as I do that nothing is that easy.” He had bravado in spades, but they were up against more than finding all three parts of the Book. Ultimately they were up against Rathe and his legions of Darkin.
“Yeah, but it can’t be any worse than being on the edge of Hell, swimming in a lake filled with killer naiads, can it?”
“Don’t tempt fate,” Lilly suggested, “you never know.”
Close to the base of the mountains the guide stopped his swayback jenny and twisted around to wait for them, his face covered in evening shadows. He tipped back his battered hat and pointed to a pinnacle of rock that peeped over a deep V between the darkening slopes of the mountains.
“Just between those two hills there is the military trail that’ll take us to the Eye of the Needle,” he said, both his manner and his voice dust dry.
“We’ll make camp here tonight,” Colt ordered. The guide gave a single nod and swung himself off his mule with far more grace than Colt would have expected.
Behind him Lilly sighed with relief. She had to be sore from the ride. Riding double on Tempus meant she sat either in his lap in front of him or on a blanket roll behind his saddle.
He helped her down from the horse and settled her on a blanket while he and the guide went about the business of setting up camp for the night. In a half hour’s time he had a respectable fire, a hot pot of coffee, and a start on a dinner of beans and biscuits. He’d oiled and wound Tempus and had laid out their bedrolls for the night. Not bad, he thought. The air was cooling off quickly, and over the mountains a waning moon silvered the landscape.
Their guide sat on the ground leaning against the side of his mule, who’d bedded down for the night, just outside the rim of firelight. The old man stared out into the night sky.
That was just fine by Colt. He was more interested in watching how the firelight played over Lilly’s delicate features and created flaming highlights that danced in her hair. Her eyelids drooped, her long dark lashes fluttering against the smooth skin of her cheek as she tried hard to stay awake.
She looked delicate and vulnerable, not at all like some vicious demon determined to strip away his soul. His chest tightened. How in the hell did he think he’d free her from Rathe? Rathe would want the Book, he knew that already. But he’d probably want something more. No demon lord was going to settle for an even trade. He’d want a better deal, or no deal.
He sat down beside her, tucking her into his side so she could rest her head on his chest. It wasn’t purely out of good manners, Colt admitted to himself. He liked how the warmth of her soft curves pressed into him, made him think of exactly how she’d felt pressed up against him when he cornered her at Marley’s. Lord, the girl could kiss.
He’d done his damnedest to avoid something similar since. The realization that he might actually be falling for her had been a sobering one. She was just too much temptation, and while their bargain didn’t involve his soul, Colt was wise enough to know that he wasn’t too far off from willingly surrendering it, or anything else she asked for.
She sighed and in her sleep wrapped her legs over his, snuggling deeper into his chest, brushing against the hard length of his shaft. He blew out a rattling breath, and the next inhale he took was scented with Lilly’s distinctive perfume. Damn. “Shoulda known better than to call on a succubus,” he muttered to himself as he concentrated on the firelight.
Sometime in the night he finally drifted off to sleep, Lilly’s supple body still curved against his, his arm about her holding her tight.
In his dreams they were back at the cabin of his childhood, the last place he’d thought of as home before his identity had gone from being just plain Colt Jackson to being a Hunter. He toyed with the hot red silk of her hair, letting it slip between his fingers as she smiled up at him, eyes luminous with desire, her lips partially parted, waiting for a kiss.
Hunger tore through him. He kissed her hard, putting everything into the kiss. She moaned, arching into him. The soft curves of her breasts pressed against his chest as she wrapped her arms fiercely around his neck and slid her leg up and around his hip, cradling him against her damp heat.
Then the dream changed. Instead of being entwined in Lilly’s arms, feeling the warm heated silk of her against him, he was on the outside looking in. Lilly’s body was wrapped around his brother, Remington. Her skirts were bunched about her hips as he leaned in against her, her back to the wall of their old cabin, her long, bare leg twined about his thigh like a snake.
Colt choked and sputtered, unable to breathe. Red exploded across his vision.
He leapt to his feet, the distance across the dry prairie grass seeming to grow farther and farther no matter how hard he ran. And then, suddenly, as in all dream worlds, he was there. He gripped his brother’s shoulder, spun him about, and held nothing back as he let his fist fly, landing a solid right hook to Remington’s jaw.
In slow motion Remy’s head snapped back. Colt hit him again and again, until Remington began to block him, beat him back, his eyes gleaming with raw fury. Colt fought harder, drawing blood. “She’s mine, Rem. Mine, you hear?”
Remington laughed, but it sounded wrong, dark and vile. Evil. “Wake up, Colt. You’re a fool. It’s just the succubus’s spell. You can’t trust her. You’ll never be able to trust her.” Then Remington’s face melted and shifted into the pale face of the demon who’d tried to drown him. The demon launched himself at Colt, slamming them both to the ground, and shook him hard.
Colt woke to find himself being shaken for real, the back of his head bumping against the ground. “Colt! Colt, wake up!” Lilly hissed in his ear.
“Whoa. Hold up there. I’m awake.” He sat up on his elbows, blinking at the pale red glow of the embers of their campfire, trying to get his eyes to adjust so he could clearly see her face. “What’s wrong?”
“You were having a nightmare, thrashing around and grunting like you were on fire or something. It woke me. When I looked around I didn’t see Pete.”
It was dark, and the light of the moon etched the landscape in a stark interplay of light and shadow. “He’s probably just gone off to take care of necessities.”
“With his mule?”
That got Colt’s attention. He got to his feet and stoked the fire, making it leap to life once more from the glowing coals. The orange glow lit a wide arc around them, but beyond the reach of the fire’s light, the desert was still velvet night caressed with silver.
She was right, of course. Their guide and his mule had left nothing behind them but prints in the dirt.
Lilly huddled close against him. “What if something got him?”
Colt patted her back gently. “Maybe he’s just gone on ahead. Makes more sense to travel at night out in the desert.”
Lilly shivered and changed the subject. “What kind of nightmare were you having, anyway?”
Colt stiffened. “Just old memories. Nothing for you to worry yourself over. Try to go back to sleep.”
She snuggled back in beside him. Colt watched the fire die down and become nothing more than glowing coals that eerily reminded him of the eyes of those Scoria soldiers he’d encountered in the mine. There was no use in trying to sleep, because he knew he wouldn’t. The dream had been too intense, too real, and his emotions were too tangled up. Since when had a girl ever come between him and his brothers? Never. That’s when.
What bothered him more was that he recognized that he wasn’t just jealous in his dreams. Back at Remy’s offices, he’d felt a flash of something and mistaken it for annoyance, wanting Remy to stop gawking at Lilly and get to business. But here, in the silent desert night, there were no illusions to hide behind. He’d been jealous, pure and simple. And no female had ever done that to him before.
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