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

  “Oh, there—I can see you better now—nope, nope, now you’re gone,” Tyler broke in over my babbling. “Not surprising. The spell really shouldn’t even have set yet, not for a few more hours.” He sounded way too cheerful. Couldn’t he sense my panic? My need? Couldn’t he see I was about to lose it here?

  Clearly not, as he chuckled softly, and despite the patchy connection between us, I could feel the wave of his comforting emotion flow through my mind, over my shoulders, a warm tide to soothe my surging anxiety. “Babe, I can’t hear you. I can’t see you, not really. But I know you’re there,” Tyler said, his voice dropping to a throaty whisper. “And if you can hear me back, somehow, you need to know I’m here for you too. We all are—every one of us. You’re safe.”

  The tears leaked out despite my best efforts. No, I wanted to tell him. No, that was exactly the problem. I wasn’t safe. We had a traitor on the team, and he was screwing all of us. How could I make Tyler see that?

  “And you know what else?” Tyler asked. “You’ve changed us, Nina. Zach—he sleeps now. No more nightmares that he thought we didn’t know he suffered. You did that, babe. Only you. Liam is a totally new guy, bouncing around like Tigger but, like, there’s no hiding how much he wants to friggin’ fall down and cry at how incredible he feels. You did that. You’re amazing.”

  I kept my head down, willing my shoulders not to heave as the tears came faster now. What Tyler was saying should have made me the happiest girl alive. I had a place! A family of guys who valued me and believed in me and thought I was awesome. Yet all I could feel was that I had let them down in the worst possible way. How could I not have realized what was going on earlier?

  But Tyler only sighed happily. “As for me…I mean, shit. You made me see why we’re doing all this. You gave me a reason to lead beyond it just being what everyone expected me to do. All that—was you. Even Grim’s changed, though he’s too much of a hard guy to believe it. He watches you, sweetheart. And he’ll watch out for you, too.”

  “Oh my God, no, Tyler,” I moaned, practically shaking with suppressed panic. “Grim isn’t who you think he is. He’s th-the enemy.”

  “He probably loves you more than any of us, the poor son of a bitch.” Tyler chuckled. “He just—”

  Tyler’s voice abruptly cut off, and I froze, my hands still gripping my wrists, my head bent over my knees, tears running down my face and dripping off my chin. But he was gone—completely gone, I knew in an instant. The tiny beginning spark of the spell finally fizzled out.

  I was alone, and nobody knew the truth.

  I stayed wrapped around myself like that for a long time, until my tears dried and my breathing evened out. Then I curled over onto my side, pulling the sheets over me. I slept with my shoes on, dozing in and out, jerking awake whenever something shifted in the walls—the creaks, shudders, and sighs of the old building actually more of a comfort than a curse. They made this place feel like an actual basement of an actual home.

  If I was somewhere real, I could be found, right?

  I held on to that sliver of hope every time I was startled into consciousness, even though there was no knife at my ankle, no matter how often I reached for it. There was no iron in the room at all. Even my cot had been fashioned out of wood, with wooden slats beneath it, and wood was no kind of weapon against monsters. I kept trying to reestablish a connection with Tyler, but I knew in my heart it was useless. Three of Wellington Academy’s monster hunters might be ready to lay down their lives for me, but I was stuck with the fourth. And he was apparently content to let me rot.

  At one point, I woke with my arm across my body, my hand cupping the thick ridge of scar tissue that had hidden a device that Grim had cut out of me.

  In the absence of anything else to distract me, I latched on to the memory of that device, turning it over and over again in my mind. A long, slender strip of silver, ragged at both edges, it was now in my bedroom back at the academy, or at least, that’s where I thought it was. Shoved into one of the drawers, beneath my pitifully small collection of clothes. I’d meant to give it to Liam to analyze, but I hadn’t had time. What did it do? What was it for?

  How had I been walking around my whole life with a gadget inside me, without realizing it?

  My mother hadn’t been a monster—not in the conventional sense of the word or any other. She wouldn’t have chipped me and never told me, not even for security’s sake. So how did that thing get implanted in me? It was shaped like some kind of hook, curved like a crescent moon, as wide as two fingers and so long, I’d barely been able to hide it in my hand.

  Why hadn’t I remembered to give it to Liam? And why in the hell had it been stuck inside me in the first place?

  That last question chilled me even more than the concrete at my back did. There were really only three options for my mother to have implanted a device in me. One, she could have been trying to suppress my innate magic, like Liam’s own father had done to him. Two, she could have been attempting to augment whatever small magic I had inside me—though what that magic might be, I had no idea. And three, she could have implanted it to track me.

  I frowned. There was another option, I supposed: She may have used it to hide me. To keep me safe. But if that were the case, and Grim had known about the device—and clearly he had—why had he decided to finally cut it out of me?

  The answer to that was obvious, even if it sucked. Evidently, the time had come for Grim to make his move, for him to take me and deliver me to his employers. Maybe he couldn’t do that while the device was still inside me. Maybe he’d known there was something foreign in me, protecting me, and he had to make sure that didn’t get in the way of his plans.

  A thread of fury snaked through me at this thought, making my stomach twist. What had I ever done to Grim? I barely knew the guy! Again, why had it been a reasonable choice for him to betray me, let alone the guys? Did the Hallowells have something over him?

  I searched my mind, trying to focus on what Elaine had said back in the limo. Grim had searched for me before, she’d said, but had not been able to find me…. Had she said twenty years ago? But how was that possible? Grim didn’t look a day over twenty-four at the most. Even with the best skin care regimen in the world, there was no way the guy was pushing forty. I shivered a little, trying to reconcile that possibility…trying to reconcile a lot of things.

  Grim was an old man, for God’s sake. And I’d thought he was hot.

  I’d also thought he wasn’t a douchebag, so that showed you how much I knew.

  My fingers played over the ridge of scars at my waist. A new thought, one too long in coming, occurred to me. What if Grim had found me all those years ago? Could he have attacked me? Could he be the one who’d caused these scars…maybe even implanted that device beneath them, for some screwed-up reason of his own?

  Even as I thought the idea, I rejected it. I would have been all of four or five years old at that point. Mouthy, sure, but no match for somebody like Grim. Even if I’d managed to ward off the monsters that’d attacked me when I’d been that young, Grim wouldn’t have had any problem protecting himself from a few flailing bits of iron clutched in my chubby little hands.

  Grim carried scars too. Slashes from nails and teeth. But they were big scars on his body, made by a creature far larger than I would ever be.

  I sunk my head deeper into the pillow. None of this made sense.

  When I awoke next, it was with the heart-pounding terror of knowing I wasn’t alone in my cell anymore. There was no knock on the door, it just slammed open, and I was halfway out of the bed and across the room before Grim stepped inside, his face hard and unforgiving.

  I didn’t mean to react the way I did. It certainly wasn’t a conscious choice. But before I could stop myself, I launched myself at him, my fists up, my lips stretched into a snarl. The anger that erupted in me was so immediate, so visceral, that no amount of rational intelligence could wedge its way into my brain.

  Grim wasn’t alo
ne, but the two black-clad, helmeted guards that bristled at his side were rendered immobile as he waved them off and grabbed me by the arms.

  He lifted me, half turning me, bracing his thighs as I kicked and flailed—was this what he’d done to me long ago, when I’d been a five-year-old kid? The idea rocketed through my mind, and I redoubled my fury, but then Grim’s hands tightened harshly on my upper arms and he shook me hard.

  My head snapped back, and I gasped at the coiled violence of his hands, his bulging arms. I met his cold, pale-eyed gaze.

  “You’re lucky I warned them you were going to do that,” Grim rumbled, sounding bored. “You should have spent more time learning how to fight when you had the chance. Not that it can help you anymore. But don’t do that again. These men are armed with stunners that are enhanced to cause people like you extraordinary pain. They’ve had a lot of time to perfect the formula.”

  “People like me?” I bit out, trying to shake him off. He didn’t move. “Monster bait, you mean? Or is it my harbinger thing that’s setting everyone off? Because I’m a little confused.”

  I was destined to remain confused, however, as Grim pivoted toward the door, not bothering to set me down.

  “If you can walk without trying to run, it will go easier for you. If you can’t walk without trying to run, you will be carried. And not by me.”

  I tried to come up with an appropriate response to that, but failed. He met my gaze, studying with flat disinterest until I was the one who glanced away.

  “I can walk,” I said bitterly.

  He grunted and lowered me to the floor, gesturing me forward. The two guards fell in behind us, and I recognized the need for Grim’s warning, as the first thing I wanted to do when I crossed the threshold of my cell was take off running. There was nowhere good to go, though. The corridor stretched in either direction, lined with more doors that I could only assume were additional cells. The place looked like it had been built to house an impressive number of prisoners for an extended stay.

  “What the hell is this place?” I grumbled as we headed up the corridor.

  To my surprise, Grim answered.

  “Exactly what you think it is. A stronghold on private land operated by a powerful organization which wasn’t planning on anyone learning what they were doing until they were ready. The Hallowells have owned this property for hundreds of years and have sold it many times over to outside parties to ensure they could never be traced here. When you’re willing to play the long game, you have a great deal more options.”

  “Okay, so what are you doing here?” I countered, but apparently, Grim was no longer feeling chatty. We continued on in silence for several minutes more, allowing me the time to imagine where he might be taking me. A throne room? A conference chamber with a long table filled with bad guys? Maybe a poolside cabana where Dr. No would be stroking a fluffy white cat?

  Okay, it was possible I was getting a little hysterical. Sue me. Eventually, we stopped in front of some sort of home library, with two guards flanking the open door.

  “Wait here,” Grim instructed them. He gestured to our escort, indicating they should follow us inside the room. We stepped through the door, and Grim drew nearer to me as I took in the richly paneled walls, huge windows, and floor-to-ceiling bookcases. When he spoke, his quiet words had far more urgency to them. “They’re determining whether or not they want to test you and how.”

  I rolled my eyes, trying to quell my surge of panic. “Test me for what?” I asked, flapping a hand at him. “I fight monsters, Grim. That’s all I do. There’s not much you need to test to figure that out.”

  He studied me impassively, but something flickered in his gaze for just a second, a fire that burned straight through me, then was gone. He took another step toward me, the move so aggressive, I backed up. But I was still close enough to hear his whispered words.

  “You don’t even know what you are,” he stated flatly, echoing one of the first lines he’d ever taunted me with. But he didn’t stop there. “Fortunately, neither do they.”

  2

  Grim left me then, but the guards didn’t depart with him. Two remained outside, while the ones who’d escorted us from my cell stood back against the wall of the lavishly decorated room that seemed strangely familiar to me. I frowned as I studied the barrister cabinets stacked high. The fireplace dominated one wall and was lit with a cheery fire despite the late-May day, and the rich upholstered furniture sat on the ornately woven rugs like preening guests at a fancy-dress party. A large, polished bar extended down one wall, and light streamed through the enormous windows. I’d been here before, I was sure of it.

  Before I could place it, though, somebody else entered the room. To my surprise, it wasn’t Elaine Hallowell, but the man I’d assumed was her father—tall, thin, and elegantly dressed in a steel-gray business suit only a few shades darker than his close-cropped hair. He was accompanied by a patrician-looking woman with a shock of silver hair that curled over her shoulders, somehow managing to make her appear timeless instead of merely old. Her hair also matched her gleaming silver eyes, which fixed on me with keen interest.

  She lifted a hand, but not in greeting. Instead, it was almost as if she was testing the air. I felt the push of magic, which frankly surprised me, and she sharpened her gaze on me. “Interesting,” she murmured. “And unexpected. Who was protecting her?”

  My experience with keeping Zach out of my mind these past couple of weeks served me well, as I felt a new pressure exactly like his questing mind when he was trying to read my thoughts. The woman frowned at my continued resistance, though she didn’t seem concerned.

  “Ms. Cross, you have presented us with an unexpected challenge, and it’s been quite some time since we could say that about anything,” the elder Mr. Hallowell began. I didn’t remember his name, though I’d seen him at Guild Hall during the monster hunter presentation with Tyler, Liam, Zach, and Grim a few short days ago. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d ever been told his name. “It is right that we are finally meeting. However events unfold from here, you should know we had no idea you existed. That may well have served to your benefit, given Elaine’s desire to protect the family from any external threats, no matter how benign. Nevertheless, no child of the Hallowells should live without understanding her birthright. And to have reached your majority without having any knowledge of the family is unconscionable. We’ll remedy that now.”

  I squinted at him, trying to understand the point. Were they going to tell me everything I needed to know about the family in order to feel good about killing me? It didn’t seem reasonable that they would let me go after sharing that kind of information, the same way it hadn’t felt reasonable for my mother to write a letter she’d added to throughout my lifetime and yet never send it.

  I’d found the letter mere days after she’d died, addressed to a fake PO Box in Boston. I’d thought, what the heck? Maybe I should go up to Boston, see the sights, maybe shake loose a few apples on my family tree. I thought it’d be a fun adventure.

  It had become far more than that, but at least now I finally understood Mom’s hesitation in sending that letter. Her family were illusion-throwing megalomaniacs—and quite possibly murderers.

  Still, I was willing to play along with Mr. Hallowell’s game, if only to stay alive for a bit longer. “How much do you know about me?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Or do I need to bring you up to speed?”

  He offered me a short nod, evidently pleased by my response. “We have made up for lost time as much as we were able. Elaine shared the letter with us from your mother—at least the portion of it that she had. The rest we were able to read upon your arrival at the estate.”

  I smirked. Elaine had officially told me she’d burned the letter, but I got the feeling that Elaine said pretty much anything that came to mind, as long as it benefited her.

  Mr. Hallowell continued. “It appears that your mother did as well by you as she could. Your skills were certainly unique for a small
town in North Carolina, and had we known to monitor the unusual monster activity in your area, we might well have figured it out on our own. We had trackers searching for her, but not for you. And that was our mistake.

  “She didn’t let anyone know she was pregnant,” I said, knowing in my heart this had to be the case. “She kept me a secret.”

  Mr. Hallowell grimaced. “It goes beyond that. Your mother should never have been able to get pregnant. A certain deficiency in the bloodline, carefully engineered to prevent the birth of harbingers. You could say that you even being on this earth is something of a miracle. And as a result, something we should explore.”

  While he spoke, Mrs. Hallowell had continued regarding me, and although she clearly wasn’t a fan, I got the impression she was intrigued. “There’s far too much we don’t know about you,” she agreed. “The final two pages of your mother’s letter proved to be the most intriguing. That’s why I appreciate you carrying them so close to your person. It saved us the trouble of going through your bags.”

  A spurt of irritation zipped through me, and it must have shown on my face as the old woman lifted a brow. “There’s no point in your anger,” she assured me. “This is business. Family business, but still business. You won’t—”

  As Mrs. Hallowell spoke, Elaine Hallowell swept into the room with such an oversized presence that I was surprised she didn’t have a cloud of fire-belching dragonflies swarming around her. “What? You all threw a party and didn’t invite me? How rude.” She nodded with the most minor levels of deference to her parents—or the people I assumed were her parents—then fixed her gaze on me.

  “Please tell me you haven’t gone over the fascinating final pages of your mother’s letter? I’d hate to have to make you repeat yourself. It was such entertaining reading.”