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

  “Well, that was a hell of an exit,” I managed. Grim stood.

  “Night has fallen. The Akari long for the night, the open air, the forest. Rock rooms and shelter are the province of humans, or the weak and recovering, not of warriors. But they’re right on one count. There’s more you need to know.”

  9

  Grim didn’t offer me his hand or wait for me, but moved around the table toward an opening carved into the wall near the dais. I pushed back from the table, then followed him. Some of the Akari had left in this direction, and I wasn’t surprised to find a curving corridor that led to a doorway, not unlike the entry to my own room. The corridor teed off in two directions, and I instinctively turned right, but Grim lifted a hand.

  “To the left,” he said. “The right-handed direction was a folly of the original builders. It leads to underground passageways, some of which take you into the forest, most of which take you to dead ends. If you’re not an Akari, you can get lost very easily. They did it as a joke.”

  I squinted at him as something else dropped into place in my mind. “You know all the passageways beneath Wellington Academy too, don’t you?”

  He shrugged as we moved through the silent corridor. “Eventually, after a generation in their service, the Hallowells trusted me. Though they couldn’t set foot on Wellington’s campus without an alarm going up, I knew how to hunt in the shadows. They allowed me to stalk the corridors of the academy, to learn what secrets I could. They knew of some of the passageways from when they used the school as their base of operations. I found others.”

  “A lot of others.” And then I pushed further, keeping my question as simple and direct as possible. “Were you the one who told Liam about the tuners in his body? We assumed it was Elaine, but her reaction at the Hallowells…”

  Grim’s eyes gleamed in the semidarkness as he took another left and glanced back at me. “One of the benefits of my Akari nature is my ability to know when something isn’t right. I can smell it.”

  I nodded, my mind flashing through what little experience I had with Grim. His ability to identify me and what I was upon meeting me. His willingness to stick his face into the remains of the demon that Zach had dispatched in Bellamy Chapel. The way he just knew things, let alone being able to find me wherever I went. It should have been creepy, but it was more Grim being Grim.

  He still hadn’t answered the question, though.

  “That was you on the speaker, wasn’t it?

  Grim waved a lazy hand. “Liam loves his toys, but he’s not the only one. Anywhere you go in Wellington Academy, you can find junk like that. Tools and devices meant to connect humans to their magic, when all it does is separate them.”

  “But how did you know he would be down there? How did you get there so quickly and then be gone again? I mean, everyone was fighting at Guild Hall, you included.”

  “We don’t have time to explore every facet of being an Akari,” Grim said gruffly. “It’s enough for you to know that we travel best at night and in the shadows, and that’s not only because we can see better. As I said, I also know the underground passages beneath Wellington Academy far better than Liam. You never made it to my rooms in Fowlers Hall. There’s a reason for that.”

  I flushed, now keenly disappointed that I hadn’t seen Grim’s rooms. Did he live in some sort of forested solarium, or a room surrounded by mirrors? Would I ever truly know him? I had the unmistakable feeling of time running out, and no matter how much of a whirlwind it had already been for me to meet Tyler, Liam, and Zach, Grim had always stood apart. I understood why now, but I couldn’t fight the sense of loss the knowledge brought.

  “There were doors into those passages from your rooms?” I answered, trying to ignore the sharp tug on my heart.

  “There were, and you would have found them. Or, maybe worse, something else would have come through those doors searching for you.”

  “Monster bait,” I said, before he could.

  He nodded. “The creatures of the monster realm are tied to you. Drawn to hunt you down. To them, you’re a beacon of the other, and so they recognize you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I would assume that all humans are ‘the other’ to them. I don’t know what makes me so special.”

  Grim didn’t answer that, and the corridor opened out onto a wide terrace. A stairway as broad as the terrace flowed down to a small pool of grass and then the forest beckoned beyond. Tiny lights hung illuminated in the trees, making the place seem even more fairy tale in appearance. Unnecessarily fairy tale, really. I slanted Grim a glance, and he groaned expressively.

  “Niali letting us know her talents.” He raised his voice. “Particularly her talents in being a pain in the ass.”

  The lights winked out.

  Grim huffed a laugh.

  “Well, it’s still beautiful,” I said, as the moonlight took precedence now that the fairy lights had dimmed, blanketing the space in ethereal gloom. I wondered…

  My enthusiasm carried me forward a few steps, and Grim coughed, sounding startled. I glanced back toward him.

  “The dress,” he said, a new depth in his tone making my butterflies perk up. “Both Merry and Niali were right. It’s…it has an effect on me. Likely on any member of the realm, but especially me.”

  “Oh?” I asked, all innocence. I smoothed a hand down my torso, not missing the set of Grim’s jaw as he tracked the movement. “Why?”

  He released a tight relieved sigh, clearly willing to focus on the dress, not his response to it. “The fabric comes from one of the hidden realms, one that Twyst Academy has access to, but that you can get to from our land as well. It’s a form of lure, you could say, woven from a hunter’s skein. A challenge to chase, to take, to claim—especially given the bond we have, because of the collective. Don’t run off, in other words. I’ll be bound to catch you if you do, and that…wouldn’t go well. It’s in the Akari nature to hunt, and we’re bonded on top of that. Throw in fabric like that… It complicates things.”

  I blinked. Complicates things as in…he’d chase me down and make mad, passionate love to me? I shouldn’t be thinking anything like that. I wouldn’t think anything like that, dammit. But while I was marshaling my thoughts into tight compliance, all my butterflies formed a kick line.

  “Ah…what do you mean, exactly?” I asked, as one-two-three-four! rang in my mind, smiles and jazz hands all around.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Grim shook his head, defying the opinion of the Rockettes in my stomach who were pretty sure it mattered a whole hell of a lot. “You need to focus on what’s important—what’s coming next.”

  Grim’s assessment of my needs were drastically off the mark, but I couldn’t deny my own curiosity as my butterflies went through their leg exercises. “A battle, right? Between the monsters and the Hallowells—and, what, their little Hallowell army?”

  “That’s one possibility. Another is that we’ll face Tyler, Liam, and Zach in entrenched war. There’s no way for them to be warned that it’s us until it’s too late.”

  I arched a brow, but now was not the time to mention my half-spelled connection with Tyler or my almost conversation with Liam. “You underestimate how connected we all are.”

  He slanted a sharp glance at me, and my butterflies accelerated their warm-up. Grim and I weren’t so connected, of course. We’d never formed the intimate bond that was a requirement of the collective to level him up.

  Or, um, had we? Was that what was going on here, with the weird heat between us, my suddenly pounding heart, and the waves of heat rolling over my skin? Was I imagining how he studied me now, his gaze hot and hungry, maybe even a little desperate?

  I flushed, but hurried on.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “I bet the guys know something is wrong already, and I bet they’re trying to figure it out right now.”

  “They won’t have enough time. The Hallowells aren’t just exceptional magicians, they’re masters of illusion. It’s been their strongest skill,
and it’s only improved with their exploration of the monster realm. They’re not the only illusionists ever to walk this plane either. And they’ve exploited every opportunity they could to expand their power. Wellington Academy fights by rules that the Hallowells no longer acknowledge. Traditional hunters won’t be able to survive their tactics.”

  I understood what he was saying, but I still thought he was wrong. “So what’s your plan?”

  “What it’s always been since I experienced the human realm and realized their inherent weakness despite their ingenuity and will. The battle that’s to come can’t be fought in your world, Nina. Even though it’s brought by your own magicians. It’s got to be fought either solely on academy grounds or here, where the land heals faster and more completely—and where there are wards that can’t be broken.”

  “So you’re willing to sacrifice your land? To a fight that we’re bringing to you? Why?”

  Grim smiled. He didn’t do that very often, and I fought my desire to sigh at the sheer beauty of the man. I might have my issues, but there was no denying that he was one mighty, gorgeous monster. “Let’s just say if we bring the fight to our turf, and we succeed, which we will, we can right the wrongs that were done to us. And rewrite the story of the experience in such a way that it’s never attempted again.”

  I considered that. It wasn’t a bad strategy, even though it was based on the egotistical belief that the Akari would be able to take out the Hallowells and anyone else they recruited to fight.

  “You’re not worried?”

  “I don’t have the luxury of worry. Before Wellington’s magicians entered our lands, we lived in our own form of peace for millennia. Mortal magicians have been a part of our world for barely over a hundred and fifty of your years, and yet we’re already on the verge of losing everything that matters to us. Far better for us to have this fight and know that we’ve done everything we could than to let the chance pass us by and be forced to fight again when the odds aren’t so favorable.”

  “Then where do I come in?”

  “You don’t,” he informed me harshly, and irritation spiked through me.

  “Oh, bullshit. I don’t fight? I don’t stand up? What was the point of bringing me here if you weren’t going to use me?”

  “We’re going to use you, just not in battle. You’re a figurehead, and figureheads are important. But you definitely will not be asked to serve as general for a joint group of monsters you’ve spent your entire life trying to kill.”

  “Hey, those monsters were trying to eat me.”

  “They were. Make no mistake. As many monsters as would wish to join together to fight, there are more who consider humans as nothing more than food. Dangerous food, but food. There’s no convincing them that your kind, at least the magical portion of your kind, could spell the end of everything for us.”

  “So they don’t worry about us. Even if they should.”

  “Exactly. But there are ways to convince them to fight. The old books, the ancient lore. Even the most stubborn of races acknowledge central truths, and one of those truths is that when the harbinger calls, all must rise. They’ll join our ranks long enough for us to make our move, flush with an army that wouldn’t ordinarily band together. That’s all we need. In their arrogance, the Hallowells haven’t learned those tales, and they don’t speak Akari. Working together, we’ll overrun any forces they send against us. The battle will be brief, bloody, and final.”

  I grimaced. “What happens to Wellington Academy?”

  “If the Hallowells are smart, they’ll put the monster hunters of the academy front and center, forcing us to fight against true hunters like Zach, Liam, and Tyler. I’ve worked hard to keep that from happening, but if they’ve caught on to my involvement, it won’t go well. I can’t fail.”

  “The guys won’t let you fail,” I assured him. “There’s always a workaround, especially when Liam is involved.”

  Grim studied me, his expression dark and unexpectedly sad. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you know that there are certain truths that are inviolate. One of those truths is that you never get everything you want.”

  Those words hung in the air for a long moment before I pushed them away. “Okay, well, we can agree to disagree on that for the moment. So what do you want me to do?”

  “I needed to get you on this side of the portal without the Hallowells guessing my role until the last possible moment. I also needed you as strong as possible. The elders of the Akari believe in the old tales of the harbinger who will come to unite the monster realm in war. You’re their figurehead. Especially since you survived your first day in the realm.”

  “But that’s good, right? Why aren’t you happier?”

  He grimaced, his expression turning dark. “Because the harbinger also dies as part of this little tale, at the hands of the very hunters she’s bonded to. That’s why.”

  Unbidden, the words my mother had shared with me all those years ago when she was delirious with pain came flooding back through my mind. “They’ll—they’ll hurt you. Destroy you. Worse than monsters ever could. If you ever see them—you run.”

  I hadn’t run, though. I wasn’t planning on running now.

  “So we defeat the Hallowells…”

  Grim scowled. “Not ‘we.’ It’s not your fight,” he said sternly.

  “But if we defeat the Hallowells,” I said again, “your realm is safe, right? You’ll make it so humans can’t hurt you again?”

  His jaw tightened. Irritation flowed off him but there was something more too. Something rough and proud and…protective? He wanted to protect me? How did that make any sense? “It’s not your fight, Nina,” he repeated. “It won’t become your fight.”

  Another flare of irritation licked through me. Yet the energy between Grim and me was also so intense it made my heart pound, my hands damp and hot. He made me nervous, flat out. But he wasn’t unaffected by it either. There was something between us, even if he didn’t want there to be.

  “What is this thing between us, anyway?” I asked quietly. “What is it you’re not telling me—what Sheori and Niali had thought you’d explained, but didn’t?”

  He exhaled slowly, but I could sense his bullshit answer before he even opened his mouth. “They’re wrong. There are things you need to know, and things you don’t. And I’m the one who chooses how and when you learn the arcane lore of our people, for your own safety.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. Wrong answer, buddy.

  I pivoted on my heel and took off for the forest.

  10

  “Nina!”

  Grim’s shout was a mix of surprise, outrage, and pure visceral need, so intense it reached out and rushed along with my skin, tangling in my hair. Still I ran.

  For a long moment, there was no movement behind me, and I imagined him glaring at me in absolute outrage, his jaw clenched, his hands gripped into fists, his fury boiling over.

  That fury didn’t stay rooted in place for long.

  I was halfway across the wide apron of grass when I heard feet hit the ground behind me at the base of the stairs. Not just feet, but heavy paws, and I redoubled my speed with a spurt of my own fear as Grim pounded after me in animal form. I could imagine his awesome beauty for a brief second as I breached the trees, and then I ran even faster.

  He needed no more than twenty feet before he caught up to me. He leapt, and I had the sense of heavy paws crashing down over my shoulders, my body covered in a long sinewy length of fur and muscle. And then I was flattened on the forest floor, pinned beneath him.

  A rush of cold air swept across the ground. A second later, large heavy hands gripped my shoulders, and a thick muscular body lay on top of me, covered in clothes, not fur. Still, Grim didn’t move for a long second, his breathing harsh and strained, every muscle in his body rock solid, and there was no hiding the heavy pressure of his shaft as it pressed into the curve of my backside. He shuddered, and when he spoke, his words were low, angry, almost pan
icked.

  “I told you,” he growled, sounding more beast than man. “You’re wearing a spelled garment and you’re monster bait. Don’t run from me, Nina. Don’t ever run from me unless I tell you to. I won’t be able to control myself as well a second time.”

  I shifted, and he lifted up enough for me to roll over beneath him, a movement I would never have been able to manage without his express permission. Heat poured off him, and I studied his hard, beautiful face, his jaw clenched tight, while he glared down at me, his eyes wide. Once again, he searched my face almost desperately, though I didn’t know what answers he wanted—needed. I only knew I wanted to give him those answers. I wanted it more than anything.

  “What if I don’t want you to control yourself?” I whispered, lifting my hands to grip his shoulders. “What if I want you to kiss me? Would that be so wrong? Have you never even wondered what that might be like? Just once?”

  He hissed out a furious breath. “Nina…” he began, but I didn’t give him a chance to finish. Braced as he was, his fists planted on the ground on either side of my shoulders, he couldn’t easily stop me when I shifted my hands forward and pulled his face to mine. He jerked back instinctively, but I kept stretching up, not stopping until I pressed my lips to his.

  Grim growled against my mouth in incoherent need, and then his arms were around me, and he pressed me back to the soft earth, his mouth plundering mine, his lips harsh and searching as he licked and tasted and ravished my face with kisses, then moved down to my neck, my shoulder where the dress had laid bare the skin. He drew his tongue along the tiny scars still raised along my collarbone, and I shivered and arched beneath him, desperately wanting more. I tried to move, but in a breathlessly swift act, he pinned my wrists aboe my head and pulled my hands high, manacling them to the ground. He lay sprawled atop me, his hips arching into me, his gaze dripping fury as he glared down at me.

  “You went through the Run. You bonded to me through the collective,” he growled. “But you—we cannot join.”