The Hunter's Vow (Monster Hunter Academy Book 4) Page 9

  “But you want me,” I said, my cheeks suddenly hot with my own aching need, every one of my butterflies pressed up against the glass of the shop window, desperately craving what lay on the other side…which, to be clear, was a huge, naked Grim.

  Not only because he was part of the collective either. Now, surrounded by Grim’s body, framed by his arms and held tight in his grasp, something bloomed inside me that was as close to a revelation as I was ever going to get. Grim was mine. This outcast, this rebel, this one-man walking sacrifice who’d given up his entire life to give his pack a chance to survive the greatest threat they’d ever faced—he’d had a plan. Crafted over a freaking century, vetted every which way to Sunday, he’d put an entire mastermind strategy in place to save his people while throwing his life away…and then, I showed up and shattered everything.

  I didn’t know how. I didn’t know why. I only knew that I planned to keep shattering everything, because I wanted Grim. The collective wouldn’t be complete without him. I wouldn’t be complete. And I needed him as much as I needed my next breath.

  “What I want doesn’t matter. It never has,” Grim said. His hips twitched again, the heat of him rolling through me, and I could practically feel my eyes dilating as he glared down at me, making every nerve quiver with need. “You’re the harbinger. You should be protected.”

  Sudden inspiration struck me. “I’m monster bait too, aren’t I?” I growled back, something deep and primal within me writhing in satisfaction as Grim flinched. “That’s what I am to you. You don’t actually want me, you’re just driven to attack me, to take me down. Whether it’s this stupid dress or whatever, all you care about is the hunt. That’s all you ever felt about me.”

  “No,” Grim retorted, and then it was his turn to flush, as if he’d revealed more with that one word than he’d ever expected or wanted to.

  I leaned up toward him, blanketed in his heat, my core practically melting into the ground beneath us. “Then what’s the problem?” I demanded. “I want you, Grim. I want all of—”

  “No!” With a rough snarl, Grim rolled off me, gracefully rising to his feet in one smooth movement. He blew out a hard, harsh breath, then extended a cold, impersonal hand to me. “We’re wasting time. That’s not why I brought you out here.”

  “So you keep saying.” I ignored his hand and got to my feet on my own. There was no freaking way that Grim didn’t want me. His body was still hard and ready, while I was practically panting with need. So why couldn’t I seal the deal? My heart fluttered and shimmied, my hands opening and shutting in reflexive need. Everything south of my navel was clenched tight, as if I might spontaneously ovulate and set the whole accursed process in motion again.

  “You do know you’d get leveled up, right?” I muttered, too angry to care how needy I sounded. “There’s like a tactical advantage to hooking up with me. For someone who’s all about your precious plan, it seems like you’re overlooking a really key asset.”

  “You don’t understand,” he muttered, and I turned on him.

  “Then why don’t you explain it to me, okay?” I couldn’t help myself, I shouted way too loudly. “In small words that my feeble human mind can understand, since clearly I can’t figure this out on my own.”

  For half a second, Grim looked like he was going to answer me, then he shook his head. “I need to show you something,” he said instead. “It’s only a little deeper in the forest.”

  “Fine.” I gestured for him to go ahead, grateful for the darkness and the quiet to gather my composure and soothe my shattered nerves. I pressed my hands down the length of the shimmery hot-pink dress. I wanted to hate the stupid thing, but I couldn’t. It had given me the opportunity to feel Grim’s body against mine, to feel the urgency of his kisses, the need, the desire. I wasn’t even ashamed that I had taken that from him unasked and unwanted. I wouldn’t do it again, but at least I had this memory seared into my mind. It was enough. It would have to be enough.

  My lips twisted into a mirthless smile.

  Who was I kidding? It would never be enough.

  I followed behind him, marveling at his speed, his grace, like I did every time I was near the guy. How long had he served as the absent warrior of the Akari? How much had he done to set up this coming battle like it was the fated destiny of the monster realm?

  I blinked with a sudden understanding, a truth so bitter, it took my breath away. “Grim?” I asked, the word hushed in the stillness. He stopped, his breath harsh and heavy in the shadows, but he didn’t glance my way.

  “It’s not just the collective bond that we’re dealing with, are we? You’re supposed to have sex with me because I’m the harbinger. It’s part of this whole plan of yours. That’s what Sheori and Niali were so amped about, that…that we were going to hook up, only instead of it being a wham -bam-thanks-for-the power-ma’am to help in this battle that’s coming, you…I mean, they think you actually like me and stuff.”

  Grim’s shoulders slumped, a clear indication that I’d guessed correctly.

  “When I joined the collective at Wellington, you weren’t a part of that group of hunters. The idea of bonding wasn’t an issue. I never planned on it becoming an issue,” he said roughly. The air around us had gone chilly. “When you joined the collective, I told myself nothing had changed. I decided then and there that this particular ancient prophecy of the harbinger—that she bonds with the Asante of the Akari clan and leads them successfully into war—could be sidestepped.”

  “But why would you want to—”

  “Because you die, Nina.” Grim’s words were harsh and unrelenting. “That’s also part of the prophecy. The Asante—that’s me—dies. The harbinger dies. When I made the plan, I didn’t expect to find a harbinger. When I discovered you as a five-year-old, I felt our connection and knew your strength was, as you say, a strategic advantage. And then…you showed up almost twenty years later. And you were nothing like I expected. I… The plan had to change.”

  “Can’t the plan change in a different way?” I asked quietly. Grim exhaled an even heavier sigh, his body rippling with an emotion I couldn’t identify. “Maybe skipping the part where we die and all that, and focusing on the part that meant you could kiss me again?”

  I was more grateful than ever for the cover of trees and shadow, because my cheeks were flaming with embarrassment even as my voice dropped further, barely reaching my own ears. “Um…maybe harder this time, maybe to see what happens?”

  Grim was silent for so long that I wondered if maybe I hadn’t spoken at all. Maybe I was imagining all this and it was some sort of fever dream. That he wasn’t here at all, that I was still in my bed in the Hallowells’ basement fast asleep, that I—

  “Yes.” Grim moved so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to blink before he was on me, taking us both down to the forest floor. Straddling me, he cupped his hands behind my neck, lifting my head toward him as he bent into me. While before he’d explored my face, my throat, this time he devoured me, his breathing harsh and strangled, his heart thudding so loudly, mine began hammering in perfect rhythm.

  He pushed against my mouth with his tongue. When my lips parted, he plundered my mouth, dropping one hand to splay against my backside and angle me up against him. My dress hiked up high while the heat of his shaft seared through the thin cloth of my underwear, practically melting me to him. He didn’t touch me any more intimately, and certainly didn’t rip off what was left of my clothes and take me right there on the forest floor—which I desperately wanted him to do—but my body didn’t care. I was too far gone just with the power of his kiss. I bucked and writhed in Grim’s embrace, climbing higher and higher as he rocked against me until I reached a crescendo of orgasm, shattering into a kaleidoscope of sensations, my reaction pure and visceral and deeply, unbearably true.

  “Yes,” Grim pulled back from me as if he were breaking the surface of a rough ocean, his mouth caught in a wild and primal grimace, half snarl, half triumphant grin. Then his gaze s
napped back to mine, and all we could do was gape at each other.

  Slowly, carefully, I licked my abraded lips, still stinging from the scrape of his skin and teeth against them. “Wow,” I managed.

  Grim closed his eyes, shuddering slightly as he dropped his forehead to mine. “I didn’t hurt you,” he said, and though it was a statement, I knew there was a question in there as well. It was all I could do not to cry out Oh, hell, no, but I contented myself with a soft shake of my head. He sighed again, as if he were trying to re-shoulder the weight of the world, and stood, pulling me up with him.

  I blinked down at my dress, which once again dropped to just above my knees, nothing torn, nothing even wrinkled, whereas moments before, it had been practically wrapped around my ears. Maybe it was a magic dress after all.

  Grim pivoted, but he didn’t let go of my hand for another few seconds, and I reveled in his touch, trying to decide if I’d somehow leveled up even if we hadn’t technically had sex. This would be the kind of question Liam would be all over. I coughed a small, private laugh, happy just to consider the possibility for the time being.

  “Stay close,” Grim murmured, dropping my hand to clear away some brush that blocked our path. In the euphoric haze I was rocking, I didn’t mind. My butterflies twirled drunkenly around my stomach, oblivious to the world.

  We continued through the forest another solid fifteen minutes. The trees gathered around us like an inky curtain, shafts of moonlight breaking up the monotony but also serving to give the forest a quicksilver feeling, as if it wasn’t quite real. I caught flashes of light that didn’t last when I fixed on them, and pockets of absolute darkness so impenetrable that it was as if a hole had opened up in the air before me or beside me, and I was one errant step from disappearing forever.

  “Is the monster realm riddled with portals?” I asked, the question loud and jangly in the stillness.

  Grim grunted what sounded like an affirmative, then said, “Here especially. Get closer. You’re too far behind me.”

  I ordered my hands not to wander and edged closer to Grim while he waited, the heat still rolling off his body serving as a potent aphrodisiac that I absolutely did not need, then we set off again. Eventually, however, the trees grew sparser, and we came out on an open field that seemed…oddly incomplete. I peered into the gloom, but the night hung heavily here.

  “Is that a cliff ahead of us?”

  “It is,” Grim confirmed. “The water below is Lake Bashai. It’s fed by mountain streams and runs off into several smaller rivers that flow through the realm. It’s considered the western border of Akari land. The forest we just navigated is impenetrable to humans without a guide. This is where we negotiated terms with the academy a hundred and fifty years ago, and this is where the Hallowells broke those treaties a hundred years ago.”

  Bashai, I thought. He’d mentioned the lake before, but…when? “Were you at both those conversations?”

  “Neither. My opportunity to serve came a generation later, during the wars against my people that took us from the high mountains and into the forest you traveled through. The Hallowells slaughtered us, but that wasn’t their eventual goal. They wanted to use us, and they…were convincing. I offered myself as tribute to help them do that.”

  I studied his stark profile. “They had no idea that you were joining their ranks as some sort of spy? Or at the very least a double agent?”

  He shrugged, his tunic tightening across his broad shoulders. “Maybe at first. But magicians’ pride eventually trumped their better judgment. They thought I was theirs, through and through. The twenty-five human years of torture also didn’t hurt.”

  “The scars you bear.”

  He glanced my way again, heat rolling off him. “No. Those came later.”

  Something in his manner was darkly intimate, and a weird sort of heat flashed through me—it was wrong to feel flushed, talking about Grim ruthlessly hunting me—nearly killing me…and yet, once again, I couldn’t help myself. After that kiss, there was nothing about him I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to experience to the fullest.

  It seemed like as good a time as any to address the elephant on my body.

  “Did you attack me when I was a little girl?” I asked, far more steadily than I would have expected. “Were you the one who mauled me and gave me my scars?”

  The question hung between us for a long moment, and finally, Grim spoke.

  “Yes. I wasn’t the only tracker sent to find you by the Hallowells. The others never completed their missions, but I knew they wouldn’t stop coming. Especially once I understood what you were. You needed to be protected.”

  I lifted my brows. “Protected, how?”

  Grim exhaled heavily, then shifted his attention from the far-off lake to the grass beneath us. He walked a few short steps, then leaned down. When he stood again, he tossed something toward me, bright and silvery in the moonlight. I caught it, my fingers closing around a thick broken curved talon—ragged on one end, sharply pointed on the other.

  I was keenly aware of the necklace of claws around my neck—apparently, these were a fast fashion accessory for the Akari. “You guys seriously need to get a better nail tech.”

  Grim chuckled. “The claws of the Akari grow strong, but they break off with enough force, and they have protective powers to those who wear them.” He gestured to my necklace. “Wards of safety, but also claiming. I left that claw in you as a ward to protect you from the others who would come, then departed the fight before you could best me entirely.”

  “Yeah, right.” I shook my head. “I was five years old, dude. I may have been a tough cookie compared to most five-year-olds, but I was still a little girl. I don’t remember fighting you. I couldn’t have fought you.”

  “Yet, you did. You attacked me, and when you cut, your knife went far deeper than it should have. When you rained your fists upon me, I felt the blows all the way to my bones. You were a force to be reckoned with at five. Monsters have hunted you since you were even smaller, and you fought them off. What would make me any different?”

  “Because it was you?” I retorted with a heavy dose of duh. “Great big giant cat? With super pointy teeth and claws? I couldn’t have taken you then. I don’t know if I could take you now.”

  “Why don’t you try?”

  The question had a curious weight to it, as if it were the completion of a circuit that Grim had put in motion seventeen steps earlier, a chess master maneuvering me into position. I peered around, but there was nobody else on this desolate cliff.

  “Why here? What’s going on that I don’t understand?”

  He snorted. “That would take all night. But a test is coming for you. You’ve proven that the water of this realm doesn’t harm you, but the Akari leadership won’t stop at that.” He moved then, almost lazily, strolling through the tall grass like a hunter playing with his prey. “You wanted to kiss me—we kissed. Your energy spiked within you—you felt it, I felt it. But what does it mean?”

  I pivoted as I watched him. “Why do I get the idea that you know the answer to that question?”

  He reached out, testing the night air, at home in this wild place in a way I knew instinctively I would never be. His smile was soft and sly and sent a chill racing down my spine. “The old texts must be reconciled, the ancient prophecies honored. If you are what they believe you to be, a harbinger capable of drawing together the great races to fight united, the first step to determine that will be whether you can best one of our kind—such as me.”

  Um…what? “Okay…but I’m still waiting for the catch. What am I missing?”

  He refocused on me, his eyes alight with interest. If he hadn’t leveled up right now, he certainly did a good job faking it.

  “Humans can no longer defeat the Akari. They could once—they did. We suffered and died. But in the eighty or so of your years since those attacks, we adapted. We found the ancient texts, performed the rituals, rose above. We did this all in secret so as not t
o alert the Hallowells that their edge—at least with the Akari—was diminishing. They had proof positive of their control, after all. They had me.”

  I made a face. “You were the sacrifice. You let them take you. Train you.”

  “Torture me,” he agreed. “After I’d seen them do far worse to the Akari they’d taken to break us. But, after they took me, the attempts on other Akari stopped. We weren’t favored by the old families who commissioned the Hallowells to create their hunts, and we learned how to avoid being taken. Unlike many in the realm—we adapted. Improved our magic, strengthened our wards. As a result, humans can’t kill us so easily anymore.”

  “Okay…so let’s say I go along with that idea. So now I can’t kill you, hooray. What would be the point of me trying to fight you?”

  “Because you’re the harbinger. And, if Sheori is to be believed, you’re unlike any human that the magical families have produced.”

  “Well, I could have told you that already, because I don’t come from the magical families. I mean…” I hesitated, gazing out over the shadowy lake. Had my mother truly been a Hallowell, some distant relation? Did she maybe have throwback genes that had resulted in my abilities as a monster hunter? “I mean, my mom was awesome, but she wasn’t some sort of closet magician. She loved me, she protected me, but she never fought anything. In my heart of hearts, I really doubt she had much magic of her own.”

  Grim chuckled darkly. “It’s not your mother I’m worried about.”

  11

  Any subsequent questions fled as Grim turned to face me, his face stern and impassive in the moonlight. “We fight,” he said.

  I took an involuntary step backward. “Um, exactly how is that supposed to work? I don’t have any weapons, unless you want me to use this fancy necklace you gave me. These claws are silver, right? You said the Akari are higher-level monsters, not as susceptible to iron.”

  “Iron cuts us, but it’s not as effective as weapons made of silver. And no, the claws of the Akari can’t harm us, ordinarily. But it won’t be your choice of weapon that will win this battle. You must rely on the magic that’s deep within you, the magic that’s your birthright as a harbinger.”