The Hunter's Vow (Monster Hunter Academy Book 4) Read online

  “No,” I growled at Niali, sounding as guttural as Grim ever had. I placed my hands on the wounds on her legs and growled again, “No.”

  Her legs beneath my palms went electric with heat, and I jolted, gasping as I felt twin jagged wounds open up on me. Niali, dazed, flapped her hands helplessly, her mouth working, but no sound came out.

  I ignored her and pressed on, taking on the wound in her side, the gouges in her shoulders. Even the jagged line that cut along the side of Niali’s beautiful face, splitting her temple above the ear.

  In all, the process took no more than thirty seconds, but I fell back, half landing on the bed, my lungs heaving as Niali finally rolled over and staggered unsteadily to her feet. When she straightened and took in the sight of my bloodied body, she shouted “No!” with such horror that I glanced around, wondering what else had happened.

  I wasn’t the only one who heard her cry. Within a few seconds, the heavy pounding of feet came skidding around the entry wall, two of the Akari in human form, followed by Grim.

  Niali pivoted, her hands up as she started babbling. “She went through the portal. She saw something, I don’t know what. I came in with food, and she was already half through. I chose the guise of a Karimba and went after her.

  “Smart,” Grim said, with one word absolving Niali of any guilt as he strode over to me and knelt down on one knee. His hand passed over my shoulders, and I gasped with pain.

  “This is the Hallowells’ poison,” he said roughly, and Niali nearly keened with misery.

  “She had some sort of trap that I sprang when I landed, which dropped me to the ground. I doubt she was expecting me. Then Nina…” Niali refocused on me. “You were amazing.” She swung back to Grim. “She pulled the spikes out of me. They weren’t jagged.”

  “They wouldn’t be,” Grim said. “The Hallowells learned a long time ago that ruining the meat of their kills resulted in lower prices paid. They came up with better ways to subdue their targets.”

  I made a face, but he moved his hands to my waist, and I gasped as his hands pressed against my skin, covering new wounds now layered over old.

  “Did she see you?”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but Niali beat me to it.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “She wasn’t expecting me. She may have been expecting Nina, but not the two of us together. She seemed genuinely shocked, and it all happened so fast.”

  “There will be cameras,” Grim said, and I nodded. There was no way Elaine Holloway wouldn’t figure out that I’d returned, if only briefly.

  I glanced back to the portal, panic lancing through me. “Can she find us here?”

  Grim frowned. “The bolts. Did you bring any of them back?”

  “No,” Niali confirmed. “Nina just kept pitching them at the witch, and they found their marks. Every time. It was like she’d been amped up, you know?”

  “Hmm,” Grim said.

  “But those stakes that hit Niali,” I put in. “We—that’s happened before. The Laram used something similar. If they had their poison on those stakes, she can track us with that. My hands—there was blood, Grim. There was a lot of blood.”

  Grim nodded. “There are several factions of the Laram indentured to the Hallowells. They likely have similar tracking devices,” he agreed, but I kept going.

  “If we’re poisoned, if they’re tracking us—that’s bad. That’s really bad. Liam used some sort of antidote to get the poison out of Zach and me, but I don’t have it, and I don’t know what he used.”

  I realized I was babbling, but I couldn’t help myself. I was dizzy with pain and nausea, the world flickering in and out of focus.

  “Grim, enough! You have to do something,” Niali blurted. “You have to finish what you’ve begun.”

  Grim roared something primal and harsh at Niali, and she snarled something back, equally vicious. But they were talking in a language I could no longer understand. A second later, Grim pulled me roughly into his arms and, angling toward another mirror, ducked his shoulder and bolted toward it. I braced myself for the impact of shattering glass or another round of Elaine Hallowell’s magic, but neither happened.

  Instead, we landed outside the stronghold, on an open forest floor, and Grim started running. He gripped me close, still in his human form, and a few seconds later, I realized why. We entered through the narrow gates of a wall that was barely discernible from the surrounding forest, and, after crossing a shallow courtyard, dashed up several steps into a building that seemed to be made from the forest itself, living trees growing up close together, wrapped tight with vines. Inside the building was a single room made up almost entirely of doors. Archways, I realized. All the archways were dark, and Grim made no move for them. Instead, he stopped short, knelt, and I vaguely realized there was a low bed in the room, covered with heavy blankets.

  “You’ll be safe here,” he said.

  “Don’t leave me,” I roused myself enough to plead. I felt like the weakest fool, but I couldn’t bear to let him go again so soon. I shook my head hard, trying to steel my nerves. “No. I’m sorry. Go—you can go.”

  I gazed up at him, belatedly aware the tears were streaming down my face, and he lifted a hand to my temple to draw his fingers along the gash that I had taken on from Niali.

  “Nina,” he sighed, my name seeming dredged out from the depths of his being.

  “Grim,” I heard myself reply, and the word resonated with a strange energy, much like the word No had when I had growled it over Niali’s broken body, after she’d been skewered by Elaine Hallowell’s defense system.

  Grim felt it as well. He studied me, something dark and unholy glinting in his pale-gold eyes.

  “Nina…” he said again, and his word held more of a warning. I knew he was warning me against ordering him to do anything. I didn’t understand it, but I knew. This was my power now, this was at least part of how he’d leveled me up. Where the other guys had drawn me to them in ways even they didn’t understand, I could now draw Grim to me with the simplest commands. And I wanted him. God, how I wanted him. There was nothing he needed to do, no fight he needed to undertake that was more important than him being with me right here and right now. I knew that with every fiber of my being.

  I drew in a ragged breath and forced myself not to order him to stay beside me.

  “How do I heal?” I asked instead.

  The question was meant to move us off this square, but instead, he scowled even harder.

  “Time,” he gritted out, and I knew instantly that while his answer was accurate, it wasn’t the only answer. I let that slide.

  “So where are you going, then?” I asked the question without any force, willing myself not to compel him. Grim blinked, then relaxed a notch, peering at me more closely. He hesitated, then sat down beside me. All my butterflies sighed.

  “I owe you so much,” he muttered, glancing away. He lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “You sacrificed yourself for Niali.”

  I snorted a little wryly. “Well, I put Niali in harm’s way too. Let’s not forget that.”

  “But you didn’t know.” He shook his head, still focused on the wall of portals, not on me. “You couldn’t know. This isn’t your realm, your place. We aren’t your people. But having you here…it feels right. It feels true. It shouldn’t, but it does.”

  “Well…” I didn’t know what to say to that, I only wanted him to stay with me a minute longer, a second. As if time was ticking away too quickly, and if we didn’t take advantage of each precious moment, we’d lose it forever. “Maybe if I’m related to Cyrus, I’m half monster? Though I’d rather be a beautiful snow leopard than a sea scallop, I can tell you that right now.”

  Grim coughed a soft laugh, his gaze finally coming around to me. He lifted his hand to brush my hair out of my eyes. “You could be a snow leopard if you wanted to. You have illusion magic.”

  “But that’s not the same, is it?” I asked, forcing myself not to lean in
closer to him. “I mean, you’re actually a giant cat—fast, powerful, graceful. Like, that’s really what you are when you’re not roaming around on two legs. I couldn’t imagine how that would change me—to be something else entirely from what I am.”

  “Nina…” Grim sighed. He lifted his hand again, this time to tilt my face up toward him, one finger beneath my chin. “You’re the harbinger. And a monster hunter.”

  “And monster bait,” I agreed with a smile. “Can’t forget that.”

  A grin teased at the corner of his mouth too. “And monster bait. You’ve leveled up three powerful magicians, and leveled yourself up too. You’re shape-shifting so fast, it makes my head spin. So don’t tell me you don’t know what it’s like to be two things at once. You’re half a dozen, without even trying. Including…”

  He blinked, then shook his head, a faint blush scoring his cheeks. Once again, he seemed on the verge of saying something he might not be able to take back. I was going to let that slide too, when he whispered, “Including the first person I’ve ever wanted to touch—to hold. To kiss.”

  Grim leaned forward and gathered my face tenderly with his cupped palms. I didn’t have enough energy to do anything but sigh as he nestled me in his hands and dropped his mouth over mine. The moment our lips kissed, a rush of warmth flowed through me. Not the chaos of Tyler’s kiss, or the otherworldly time displacement of Zach’s, or even the electrical fire of Liam’s. This was dark and earthy and true. The images of rushing pristine waters under a broad canopy of stars and the sweeping vistas of a primeval forest crashed through my mind as my body practically levitated to get closer to him. Grim’s kiss was long and searching and full, and it asked for nothing. It only gave.

  And then, too quickly, it was over. Grim leaned back from me, his face softening to a point I’d never seen before, his gaze roaming my face.

  “I have to go,” he said. “I have to meet with the families, let them know what’s coming. I have to tell them that the Hallowells will strike again, but we have the harbinger, and…”

  “And that she’s ready to fight for the monster realm,” I finished for him. “Even if you don’t want me to.”

  “Yes,” he sighed heavily. As if he couldn’t help himself, he leaned in again, kissing me swiftly on the lips. “I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

  Then he was up again and striding for the door. At the last minute, he stopped. He swung back toward me, his expression suddenly intense enough that all my butterflies stroked out.

  “Screw it,” he said.

  15

  Grim took three long strides back toward me, and my heart leapt into my throat, my fingers spasming against the coverlets. This did not look like a guy who was about to go off to fight. This looked like a guy who had decided to spend his time in an entirely different manner.

  Nevertheless, when he drew within three feet of me again, he stopped short, his head tilting as he inhaled—a hunter who had caught exactly the wrong scent.

  “The poison,” he said, and I nearly vibrated with dismay as he changed trajectory.

  “No,” I blurted before I could stop myself, but he only grinned at me.

  “Thirty seconds,” he promised. And he dove through one of the doorways of the room, a flare of light slipping across it as he breached the portal. I got a sense of shelves stacked full of books, jutting out into a room with a gleaming wooden floor, and a desk crammed up against the far wall. Then Grim disappeared entirely, and I blinked. Was that Liam’s room back at Fowlers Hall?

  A mere twenty seconds later, Grim was back, but not empty-handed. Gripped in his meaty grasp was Liam’s backpack. He flung it at me as if it might bite him.

  “Can you get into it?” he asked, and I leaned over toward the pack slowly, unsure of my reception. The pack didn’t appear to be bothered by me, and when I reached for the opening to tug back the zipper, it peeled apart easily. I stuck my hand inside, trying to recall the exact shape of the vial of antidote Liam had used when Zach and I had been attacked by the Laram—and a long, slender cylinder slipped into my hand. I pulled the vial free, recognizing it.

  “This is it,” I said. “It took two of us to hold Zach down, though, and he got the worst of the poison. So this may not be pretty.”

  Grim moved over to me, dropping one knee to the bed and keeping his other foot planted on the floor as he took the vial from me. “Did he just pour it on the wounds?”

  I frowned. “He used a cloth, maybe?” My words were choked off as Grim paused only long enough to pull his shirt over his shoulders.

  I blinked, then regretted having my vision interrupted even for a second as I stared at Grim’s body. Seeing him naked from the waist up went about halfway toward curing me of whatever ailed me all on its own. Grim’s chest was thick, heavy, and rippling with equal parts muscle and scars. I noticed for the first time how many of those scars were deep puncture wounds, not unlike those I had stripped off Niali.

  But there were other scars too, rough and jagged, the scars of animal teeth ripping and gnashing. It was so obvious now that I knew what I was looking at.

  Paying no attention to my scrutiny, Grim balled up his shirt and dumped about a quarter of the contents of the vial onto it. The sharp tang of the antidote filled the room, and he refocused on me.

  “I’ve got you,” he said. And then he bent forward to his task.

  The first scream was the worst for both of us, the shock of pain quickly blending together for me with the realization that Grim needed to do what he was doing. My acceptance apparently gave him the strength to carry on. The leg wounds stung like fire, the shoulder gashes not as badly, but the wound in my side nearly made me pass out.

  “New wound over old,” Grim gritted out. “Poison over poison.” I couldn’t follow his words exactly, but I sighed in real relief when he moved the cloth to my temple, pressing down on the long gash there. It was shallow, and even though it stung, I knew I was nearly at the end of this painful road. I could handle a little bit more.

  Still, I hissed with surprise as the cloth touched my skin, and locked gazes with Grim. His gaze searched mine, though, as usual, I had no idea what he sought. I no longer cared. It was enough to have him here with me, holding me, healing me. Tangling his touch and his soul with mine.

  Grim straightened only long enough to cap the vial and drop it back into Liam’s pack, huffing with the unexpected weight of the thing as he moved it from the bed to the floor, and then, changing his mind, shifting it all the way over to one of the portals, out of view of the bed.

  I watched him almost woozily, unable to stop my smile.

  “You really don’t like that pack, do you?”

  “I trust its owner too much,” Grim said, then in two quick steps, he was back to me. He knelt with one knee on the bed again, his face coming even with mine.

  “You spiked a fever,” he murmured, and I blinked down at my clothes, seeing the sheen of sweat on my hands and arms, the dark stains on my beautiful silver tunic.

  I made a face. “Aw, man,” I muttered in complaint as Grim reached for the hem of my tunic, drawing it easily over my head. Now I was as half naked as he was, but his gaze moved to my waist, his hand dropping lightly to the thick ridges of scar tissue, the newest wound closing up.

  “You took all these from Niali,” he whispered. “Selflessly. Automatically.”

  I prayed he would assume that the peaking of my nipples was just a reaction to the antidote, but Grim remained focused on my waist.

  “Well, what else was I going to do?” I asked. “She was stuck full of bolts. It was my fault she was even there. I should have known that Liam wasn’t the only one who might possibly be waiting for me on the other side of the portal.”

  Grim’s gaze lifted to mine, though I noted it did stop briefly on my chest before he dragged his focus up farther.

  “Liam? You saw him?”

  “I thought I did. I saw both him and Tyler, shouting, waving like they were trying to get my attention. It
was only after I breached the portal that I realized that it was an illusion, and only Elaine Hallowell waited for me on the other side.”

  “That would be a disappointment for anyone,” he murmured, and somehow, he had shifted closer to me. He lifted a hand to brush my hair back from my face, drifting soft fingers over the scar above my ear.

  “Is it bad?” I asked, if only to quell the nerves of him being so close to my cheek.

  “Not even a little bit,” he murmured, then he leaned forward the final few inches, and drifted his lips along it, sending a jolt of excitement through my body, warming me to my toes.

  “It’s a lot better now,” I agreed, my whisper throaty with need.

  “You don’t need to do this with me, Nina,” Grim murmured, though he’d refocused on my chest again. My breath hissed over my teeth as he took my breast in his palm, his rough hand surprisingly gentle against my burning skin. “You’ve already leveled up.”

  “Well, yeah. But maybe I’m greedy,” I pointed out.

  His jaw tightened, a smile curving his lips. “Maybe I am too.”

  I nearly swallowed my tongue as his hands drifted down my rib cage to my waist, spanning the width of it between his thumbs and fingers. Then his thumbs dropped down yet further, dipping beneath the waistband of my pants. My entire body clenched as he shimmied the silky fabric down, then leaned over to drop a trail of kisses along my skin. I was dizzy with excitement and anticipation, my body quivering as his mouth reached my waist and pressed his lips against my hipbone, his teeth grazing the skin, the gesture so unexpected that I arched beneath him, practically whimpering.

  “Monster bait,” he said, his tone at once so bemused and resigned that I nearly burst out laughing.

  “Hey, I’m no longer wearing the sex dress,” I protested. “If you can’t control yourself around me, that’s got more to do with you than me. I’m not gonna go down for that.”

  “Well, one of us should,” he said, following that statement up with a smooth shift south, until his mouth hovered over the vee between my legs, his hot breath doing nothing to cool my overheated skin. He pressed against me, his intimate kiss making me arch all over again, and then his hands gripped my hips, and his mouth moved over me, exploring, tasting, claiming, soft and wet and warm and—I couldn’t bear to wait another minute.