The Lycan Hunter (The Gardinian World Series) (6 page)

The rogue mustered the last of his waning strength and raked his
claws
across her exposed throat
, showering arterial blood. Shayla
’
s body
collapsed across him, the blood slowing to shorter bursts of spray as her body bled out.

Kyran stepped from the seclusion of the trees and stood over the dying rogue.

“Go to Lelah in peace, Joey,” he said.

Referencing the Goddess of Life and Death seemed to ease the man,
who coughed out a blood spattered thank you. Death came on the heels
of his gratitude, dulling his metallic gray eyes. And like a dust cloud on
a graveled road, his soul traveled to the land of Gardas, home to the gods.

According to the Doctrine of Liflasir, the Gardinian holy book, Joey's
s
oul, as well
as Shayla
’
s
, would make the journey to Gardas. From there,
their souls would travel onto Gelfar, the ship that would usher their souls to Gronak or Imel – the resting places for evil and good souls, respectively.

Kyran gave Shayla a passing glance. She had died quickly, but he
couldn’t bring himself to offer her that same piece of solace. Though
he wished her soul no ill will, she had forfeited her life when she
’
d
lied to him.

From what he had gleaned of the argument, the local killings had
been a means to draw Shayla away from the pack, as well as draw the
attention of the Hunters. His mate had been killed by a Hunter, which
could make even the most docile of the Lycans go rogue, but Shayla had added to Joey’s perceived injury by protecting the Hunter.

He sent a prayer to Goddess Lelah so that she would collect their bodies, before he exhaled a sigh of relief. He could have been mated to a liar, but on the heels of the revelation was the telltale sound of a bullet being chambered.

***

Alexis had him in her line of sight. Keyword had. She should have
known he would be too fast with his already elevated speed and her
declining reaction time. Alexis looked around to find the Lycan stepping
from behind the tree to her right.

His hair was like a windblown shadow, its length and details lost to
the darkness of the forest around him. He stood tall and was cloaked in an
intimidating amount of muscle that lay rippling under sun-kissed
skin.

She struggled to lift her gun again, but her strength abandoned her,
fleeing from the advancing threat. Giving up, she reached for the locator
on her earring, but the Lycan, having reached her side, stopped her, his
hand holding her wrist in his unforgiving grasp.

“I won’t hurt you, Hunter.”

A nice Lycan. Yeah, right.

It went against nature, which seemed fitting considering their very
existence went against the natural order of things.

She must have said
something out loud,
because the Lycan laughed
.

“Go to sleep, Hunter. You’ll live to kill my kind another day.”

Alexis
found herself being pulled into the arms of darkness, knowing
that what the Lycan said wasn
’
t true. She wasn
’
t coming back to hunt
anyone.

KYRAN WALKED INTO HIS COMPOUND
where he continued past
the murmurs and gasps to the infirmary. He began triage in preparation
for the surgery to repair the heinous wound on her stomach.

“Mikko,” Ronan said. “What is she doing here?”

“Having surgery.”

Ronan snapped at the rest of the pack to leave before he turned
back to Kyran.

“Why would you risk the pack’s safety for her?”

“If you aren’t going to help, brother, then leave.”

Kyran spared Ronan a glance before he put on a scrub gown. He went over to the sink while his brother settled for wearing a track in
the tile floor. He finished scrubbing with the Betadine soap scrub brush
before Ronan began repeating his actions.

“I’ll help you, but I need to know why you risk our secrecy.”

“It will have to wait for later.”

Ronan grunted his understanding, and they both settled in for saving
the Hunter’s life.

Due to their elevated healing capabilities, Lycans usually didn
’
t
require surgery, but when it was necessary, it was good to have someone
capable on hand to handle the wounded. As they neared the end of
the three hour surgery, Kyran explained how he found her.

After
highlighting
the details of Shayla
’
s betrayal to both her brother
and ultimately the pack, he explained the reason for his risk.

“You know as well as I do that she won
’
t tell us anything, Kyran.”

“She will, because I will give her no choice.”

“What are you going to threaten her with? Her life? She will laugh
you right out of this cave.”

“I
’
m not dense enough to believe that she would give me anything
based on a threat. I’m going to offer her something else.”

“I can think of a lot of things I would do for intel on the Hunters, but sheathing myself inside their females isn’t one of them.”

“You're thinking with the wrong head.”

Kyran explained that his plan was to try and integrate the newest
Hunter into the process of fulfilling the prophecy. With the Hunter he
’
d
been working with missing, he figured the more Hunters he “came to
an accord” with the better chance he had at ending the war. Ronan
didn
’
t have much comment on his plan – only pointing out that unless
she was a top-rated Hunter, she wouldn
’
t be of much use to them.
Hunters didn
’
t give too much thought to their weaker members. They
thought even less about their females.

He cursed under his breath as he went about cleaning up the dirtied
medical equipment. Part of him hoped she was top-ranked, but he also
knew from the limited exchanges with his missing Hunter that if she was
a truly top-ranked female, the
Hunters wouldn
’
t
t
olerate
her
absenc
e long.

He removed the female Hunter
’
s earrings, which doubled as a
locator. The Hunter he
’
d been working with had given him as little
information as possible, but that was what happened when building
trust between two warring factions. While it wasn
’
t much, knowing
that all Hunters came equipped with a final way of alerting their
headquarters to their location helped Kyran keep his pack relatively safe from discovery.

Ronan came to stand opposite of him and stared down at the
sedated Hunter. His brother seemed to take notice of the many
scars
that decorated the Hunter's arms and torso as he traced his hand down
her left arm to secure it in the restraints. He leaned over her and repeated
the motion
on her other arm. Kyran watched while his fingers t
hreatened
to break the small hoop he had taken from the Hunter’s ear.

“She
’
s pretty enough,” Ronan said as he stared down into her face.
“A little small for my taste.”

“Ew,” a graveled female voice said.

Eyes that reminded Kyran vaguely of a prancing doe glared up at
them. He looked down at the Hunter and smiled.

“Here,” he held a cup with a straw to her lips, which she took a
cautionary sip from. “It
’
s just water. I wouldn
’
t waste stitches on someone
I was going to poison.”

“Why?” Her voice was still like sandpaper against polished mahogany.

“Why what?” He waved Ronan out of the room. She didn’t need two Lycans standing over her helpless body.

“Why did you save me? I’m not going to tell you anything.”

“Did I ask you anything?” He met her brilliant glare with a radiant
smile. “I’m a doctor. Saving people is part of the job.”

“Don’t expect me to be grateful.”

“You would rather I had let you die? In the woods, like an anim
al no less?”

She rolled her eyes. “What’s your deal, wolf?”

He laughed. “You have something against nice people?”

“You aren’t people. You may walk like a human on occasion, but you aren’t people.”

“If you say so.”

“Know so. Now tell me, wolf, how is this going to work?”

He blinked down at her, unused to tiny people, especially those
strapped down, being so abrasive when clearly at a disadvantage.

“Work?” he asked.

“I know you guys aren’t complete idiots, so what’s the plan?”

“You heal and then leave.”

She narrowed her almond shaped eyes at him. “You tagged me,
didn
’
t you? That
’
s why it
’
s so easy for you to let me just leave. You want
me to lead you to our headquarters. ”

Kyran laughed and sat on the counter adjacent the sink. Most Lycans
already knew where the Hunters were located. Unlike the Hunters,
Lycans just hadn
’
t felt the need to eliminate those who generally kept
the rogues under control. The risk to the larger population was often
minimal so long as the Lycans acted with caution and an ounce of sense.

“I had you on the table for three hours. That
’
s enough time to find
and fix the few bleeders you had and stitch you up,” he said.

“Yeah right. Where’s the chip?”

“I can do an ultrasound if it will make you happy, but there isn’t a chip in you. I didn’t tag you like a dog.”

“Do it.”

“In an hour.”

“Why wait? Do it now.”

“You may feel stronger than you really are, but you just woke up from surgery.” He motioned to her miniature frame. “Your
My Little
Pony
version of aggression might work against most, but you can’t bully
me on this. Rest and wait an hour.”

“I’ll only keep asking.”

“Ask away. I won’t be here to listen to you.”

Kyran leapt from the counter and walked out of the room. He closed
the door just as she began spewing various descriptions of how he was
dead when she got loose. Laughing to himself, he ventured through the underground tunnels towards Ronan’s room.

The only thing that Kyran and Ronan shared was the bulk of muscles
that they inherited from their father. Ronan got the facial features of
their Alpha female mother – soft, rounded cheekbones in an oval-shaped
face, made harder by small but prominent scars that decorated his face
.
Kyran, on the other hand, shared the features of their Alpha male father –
strong angular jawline, straight nose, and hypnotic blue eyes.

In no way was it a degradation that Ronan was like his mother, in
looks or personality. Alpha females were hard to come by, but when
found, their aggression eclipsed that of their male counterparts. Females
like their mother often held their own pack, complete with the male
version of a Harem.

The only reason that Erma, the Mikkoyi of the Keowee pack, even
considered Arik as a father to her children was because she viewed
having a Soul’s Mate as a weakness. It helped that Arik was like-minded
and was
willing
to procreate, given they came
to terms
with his conditions.

The main condition was that every other offspring would be raised
by the other parent. Arik fostered the first born, Kyran, and Ronan,
being the second born, was brought up by their mother. The arrangement
had worked out fine, and the brothers had grown up close, despite
the physical distance between them.

Kyran knocked on Ronan’s door and waited.

“Enter…”

He opened the door to find Ronan stretched across his orgy-sized
bed, not that it was used for that. Ronan preferred the arduous task of
waiting for his one true mate, the female whose soul he would See.
Ronan
’
s conviction of remaining pure for his Soul
’
s Mate was the only
thing stopping him from turning his sheets into a sweaty mess.

“Is there a reason you sound like a D-rated vamp flick?”

“There
’
s one on TV.” He motioned for Kyran to sit in his overstuffed
recliner. “What’s going on with the Hunter?”

“Other than the fact that she thinks we chipped her and she has
very imaginative ways of causing my death?”