House of Slide: Hunter Read online

  “What about my Axel? What bits of you that you didn’t like did you put into that? I have to admit to liking it very much.”

  He reached out and stroked my cheek. “That one is full of desire, urgent need tied in with death and Hunting. You had my soul. I never thought I’d want more than to lose myself in Hunting. That was before I met you.”

  “What do you want now?” I asked, leaning my face against his hand, closing my eyes as I felt the pulse in his palm.

  “You,” he whispered before he leaned forward and kissed me. His lips brushed mine while his hand slid around my neck, leaning over until with a lurch he fell over, grabbing my wrist so I fell with him, sprawling over his lean lines, while his heart pounded beneath mine.

  “I love you,” he said.

  For a moment I could have sworn that his eyes flickered gold. It must have been the sun. There was nothing else besides his arms, his eyes, his words. I felt like myself, loving Lewis with all of my heart and soul.

  I reached out to him instinctively, sinking into his skin as my soul sought his, aching to hold him tight, but like so long ago in the garage, the world came from far away, distant while his soul pulsed fainter and fainter, further from me the more I reached for him until I pulled back, bringing my soul back into me, rolling off of Lewis and tasting moss and dirt in my mouth.

  “That went better than last time,” I mumbled as I stared at my bad hand, missing nails, dirty and scarred.

  “Are you all right?” He didn’t reach for me, but he sounded worried.

  I laughed as I shook my bald head, finally raising my head to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d still have those blocks from the Cool lady. I must have broken them when I killed the trees.”

  He sighed as he brushed his fingers over my scarred hand, so lightly that I felt no pain. “You must be careful,” he murmured.

  “You touched my soul, didn’t you?”

  He frowned at me. “Did I?” he asked, sounding confused.

  I shrugged, rubbing my forehead uncertainly. It pounded from my unintentional leaning of Lewis. “You must still have some ability left from your awesome encounter with the Hollow One. Anyway. You’re right. I need training to control all the little Hollow bits that no one wants to admit I have.”

  “Hollow?” A lyrical voice with a peculiar accent drifted from the shadows around us.

  Lewis sighed and covered his eyes with his hand for a moment. The gesture was one of frustrated irritation.

  “Theo,” Lewis said in a sharp, low voice tinged in anger, not looking around like me.

  I searched the trees but saw nothing besides shadows and rustling leaves.

  “Axel,” the voice said, closer, so smooth and oily that it sent a shiver down my spine. “Won’t you introduce me to your friend? We can all celebrate your birthday together.”

  I saw Lewis clench his jaw before he inhaled and forced his breath out.

  “What sort of celebration did you have in mind?”

  Theo laughed, a horrific, fascinating sound that filled the air with multiple octaves.

  Lewis moved, grabbing me and spinning to the side the moment before a dagger thumped into the tree where he’d been.

  I felt his surge of anger that had me physically nauseous as he held me tightly against him, ducking through the shadows with the grace of a panther in spite of me.

  I saw a flash of orange and then black skin, white gleaming teeth, and eyes with cunning and something darker glowing inside of them.

  “He’s a demon man,” I whispered as I tried to think, to plan, to do something other than listen to my heart pound in my throat while I tried not to remember Samaliel.

  “Cool demon,” Lewis corrected me, dragging me behind a fallen tree.

  I winced when I tripped, ripping my slow healing side.

  Lewis muttered low under his breath as he began moving his hands in an elaborate pattern that brought green sparks to life. They flickered then sputtered out. I knew that pattern.

  I took over, weaving a protection ward around the two of us that very few things could penetrate.

  “Good,” he whispered in my hair.

  I felt like a genius.

  Theo came into sight, slowing down when he saw us standing there, getting his first clear view of me. His eyes widened, showing bluish whites as he took in my scars, my metal, my bald head, and Lewis, wrapped around me like he was a suit of armor instead of soft delicate flesh that took so long to heal.

  “What do you want?” I demanded, my voice coming out strong and compelling, almost like I had Cool blood.

  “I want to perform the killing stroke,” he replied, as though that were perfectly reasonable and rational. “Otherwise, all that power will be lost.” He raised his forearm, showing a thick scar across the black skin. “We are bound. His death belongs to me.”

  I glared at him, wrapping my arms around Lewis. “You want to absorb his abilities now that he’s close to death? You think that you can defeat the great Lewis, Axel Nialls even in his vulnerability? You won’t. You can’t. You’re weaker than he’ll ever be. Go crawling back to your mistress while you still have breath in your body.”

  He grinned at me, eyes flickering with darkness as he drew on the trees around him, drawing their strength, their life force. I mimicked him, drawing strength more quickly and more easily than I’d ever done before.

  He struck us with a force of pure energy and crackling darkness that made me gasp and fall to my knees. I fed the runes with all the energy I had, keeping them up in spite of my inexperience. I bit my lip as I concentrated, rebuilding the runes in a complicated swirl, cemented by the energy, the life from the woods around us.

  I couldn’t do what he did, throwing balls of Cool energy around. That must have been a gift from the demons. I snarled at the creature who dared threaten my beloved.

  The air crackled between us. I fed that energy, the movement until with a sharp indrawn breath Theo lifted his hand, probing the air with his fingers. The tips blurred as I watched until he backed away, looking at me with newfound respect in his eyes.

  “You can disrupt the natural flow of matter? I thought your abilities were limited to the technical,” he said, tucking his fingers under his arm.

  “I have no idea what I can do, but believe me when I say that you will not enjoy finding out.”

  Theo looked up, sniffing the air like an animal. There was something inhumanly beautiful about him, beautiful and horrific. “You insist on his death being wasted. Very well.” He looked at me, studying my features with unnecessary intensity. “We will meet again. Axel,” he said, focusing past me and giving Lewis a short bow. “May you journey well to that distant shore. Happy Birthday.”

  Lewis felt that rush of rage again that twisted my vulnerable insides, but it quickly passed as Theo faded into the underbrush.

  The adrenaline left me in a sudden rush and my legs gave out, leaving me on the muddy ground with green sparks flickering around us as I lost my focus.

  “We need to move,” Lewis said, sniffing the air like Theo had done.

  “What do you smell?” I demanded.

  “Bad hygiene,” Lewis said with a slight smile as he helped me shakily rise to my feet on the loose stone and moist soil.

  “Is it really your birthday?” I asked as we stumbled through the woods, my weight and clumsiness throwing off Lewis’s usual grace.

  “Not today,” he said grimly.

  Chapter 2

  Lewis whistled, sharp and piercing. Through the mists, plunging and steaming came our own monstrous transportation.

  “Lewis,” I began with so much to say and no time to say it. We hadn’t had enough time between the strange Cool demon man and this new threat.

  “They’re coming,” he whispered, warm eyes concerned as he gazed down at me, cupping my bald metal embedded head in his hand before he brushed my lips with his. Fire flared through me at the contact before he hoisted me onto Pisces’ back.

  I clun
g to the strands of mane in my fingers and sat up as straight as I could. The sky began to darken as Lewis wrapped his arms around me, barely holding me in time before Pisces reared then lunged into the dark woods. I wasn’t sure if the gathering darkness was mists from Pisces of something much worse.

  “This is interesting,” he murmured while I felt a rush of anger and worry from his emotions.

  “Who is coming?” I asked, twisting back so that I could see his face.

  He kissed me, pulling me against him with a flare of desire that made me forget everything besides his desperate need that brought my body to life.

  Without a warning, Pisces screamed and fell, throwing us through the air, still holding onto each other. After flashes of green and black, I grazed a tree, tumbling through green leaves and moss until we hit the sodden earth.

  “Lewis,” I said, smelling the cool fresh dirt as I rolled over, brushing his skin I could barely see in the dim, shifting light. Wind rocked the tree above us, branches creaking and swinging ominously, like a crazy bark covered head-banger, moss whipping through the air.

  I put my hand on the trunk, trying to soothe it, to stabilize it while I watched Lewis sit up, taking his time, staring past me into the shadows where I heard a muffled snort.

  “Pisces?” I whispered.

  “We’re too far from your Trainer’s. We’re not going to make it,” Lewis said matter-of-factly as he rolled to his feet.

  I wouldn’t have been able to hear his low voice under the roaring of the wind before my enhancements. He moved, ducking beneath the branches easily while I followed, slowly, leaves and branches swirling around me.

  I gasped when I saw Pisces. A silver bar as thick as my wrist went through his dark fur where his leg joined his body. He didn’t thrash like an ordinary animal; he waited as Lewis braced himself, scarred hand firmly against the velvet-covered muscles. Lewis whispered something that made Pisces snort and shake his muzzle before Lewis pulled, straining suddenly, jerking out the metal rod with a spear end and spirals engraved down the length of it.

  I smelled Nether mist as Pisces stood with a lunge and a scream, half falling when his leg gave out.

  Lewis spoke in that language that sounded like ice and silver, his words flowing over Pisces until with a nod and a snort, Pisces limped towards the shadows, away from us.

  Lewis wrapped an arm around my shoulder as he tugged me into the woods, ignoring the whipping wind that seared my metal runes.

  “Will he be okay?” I asked, seeing the dark streaks that stained the silver bar Lewis still carried.

  “Yes,” Lewis said. “We’re on our own with a hundred miles to go.”

  We scrambled over a fallen log while the wind keened. He couldn’t possibly know where we were headed, but I could feel the slight tug that drew me south, towards my Trainer’s House, a place he’d imprinted on me what seemed an eternity before.

  I struggled through Lewis’s rising panic and anger. He’d said that we weren’t going to make it. We weren’t going to make it? Were we going to die? I gripped his hand tight, trying to fuse our skin together. In that moment it seemed less of a tragedy. We were together, bound in life and in death. No one could hurt us there. We’d die together.

  He pressed a kiss to my hand before he vaulted over a mossy outcropping, hauling me over it when I moved too slowly.

  “Are we really going to try and run a hundred miles?” I whispered.

  “You think that we should fight here?” he asked, turning to me, pulling me against him as he brushed my lips with his.

  A shock of awareness rushed through me that melted away fear and resignation. He couldn’t die. He was too alive, too capable and powerful for anyone to ever defeat. And me, I was his soulmate, his half, someone who could stand on my own beside him, at least potentially.

  I began weaving runes around us, but he stilled my hand as he shook his head.

  “These are Wilds,” he whispered. “You won’t be able to hold up runes against them.”

  “Wilds? Like the ones who came to the Hybrid camp?”

  He shook his head. “Like the ones who are working with the demon mistress. They don’t smell like Wilds should, like disinfectant or nothing. They smell tainted. I can taste it in the air surrounding us.”

  I leaned my forehead against his chest while he wrapped his arms around me, blocking out the wind and the fear.

  “I should have let Theo have me,” he muttered, making me pull back, staring at the hard lines of his face.

  I glared at him. “Well, I can kill you right now if you like. I can drain you and absorb all your abilities.”

  He gave me a half smile like I’d said something adorable. “No, you couldn’t, any more than I could kill you. There’s only so much that rational thinking can make one do.”

  I kissed him, pulling down his head and sliding my fingers through his soft hair while I tried to memorize his taste, his darkness, his love.

  He broke away too quickly, turning to face the half dozen men who walked towards us out of the darkness. During our kiss the wind had died down. None of their long black coats fluttered as they spread out, a formidable line while every one of them oozed power.

  If Lewis hadn’t said that they were tainted, I would have thought that they were Heads of Houses with their perfect postures and the arrogant tilt of their chins. Lewis gripped the spear as they moved forward strangely silent in the still air.

  I picked up a branch. Lewis would fight off a half-dozen demon men with a spear and his knife. I had complete confidence in his ability, but I couldn’t fight beside him with my bare hands.

  “This is the worst possible idea,” Lewis informed them, his low voice cutting through the silence.

  “Give us the girl and we’ll let you die quickly,” one of them hissed, his voice sending shivers down my spine. He had power, an insane amount of power flavored with insanity.

  “In all honesty, I never really wanted to die quickly,” Lewis answered, thumping the spear against the ground as though testing its solidity. “What do you want with the girl? I personally find her worth a thousand suns, but you aren’t attracted to lightness and beauty.”

  “She’s the Hollow Lure,” a man on the left growled, baring his teeth at me. “She belongs to Wilds.”

  “Is that what you are? You don’t smell like it,” Lewis said mildly. “If you want her for a Hollow lure, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. Souls don’t stay very pristine after nearly dying in plane wrecks. I think it gives her even rarer beauty, but after the Hollow One turns, he’ll need something else to lure him.”

  The one on the left laughed, a cruel twisted laugh that made my stomach hurt. A slippery breeze glided around my cheek, tickling my runes in a revolting way. He controlled the wind I realized and shuddered, moving closer to Lewis. I had Wild gifts. I took strength from the world around me, like the Cool demon had shown me, and built a buzzing force just past us, a wall of energy that blocked out the Wild’s breeze.

  I felt a flare of pride in my work as I checked them for bursts and flares that would show technology that I could blow up. They had nothing but simple weapons of steal and whatever skills they’d brought with them, enhanced past the point of sanity by the taint they’d taken.

  “Come with us,” the one in the center said to me, his dark eyes and accent reminding me of Raoul. “We will keep you alive.”

  “Stop talking,” I ordered, feeling the force of my words. I had to lean them, to make them do what I wanted.

  “But they have to talk to us while their friends circle around to come at us from behind. I believe that they want you alive,” Lewis said, his beautiful face impassive. “But alive is sometimes worse than dead.”

  I turned to search the shadows, but I couldn’t see anything until I closed my eyes and looked for the shimmering lines of their souls, at least a dozen holding back but clearly in position, blocking us from Matthew’s House. More than eighteen tainted Wilds. I couldn’t even comprehend that. How
could anyone stand up against so many? I blinked Lewis back into focus, seeing the tautness of his jaw as he stood, unmoving, waiting for the attack that would end us both. They wanted me alive. I felt sick and couldn’t breathe around sudden panic.

  Lewis turned his head and smiled at me, the look in his eyes full of love that filled me, his emotions irrationally positive and irresistibly optimistic.

  “Dance with me,” he whispered, with a sparkle in his eyes before the world erupted into violence.

  When Lewis moved, I expanded the blur of energy to go with him.

  Lewis brought up the spear, moving with beauty and grace that made my breath catch. His skin glistened in the light, his soul a beacon even as it flickered beneath his flesh, calling me, promising me beauty, safety, love. The spear shifted into nothing as the emptiness, the dark mists crawled over his skin and spread through the metal. The Wilds flinched back for a moment, but then with a flash of green, they raised a wall of runes. I followed too slowly to keep up with him then fell to the ground when the force of my makeshift force field impacted the runes. I’d never seen the runes they wove. They hit like a ten-pound truck.

  I struggled to my feet, using the stick to hold my weight.

  Lewis moved among the Wilds, only four left standing. The spear whirled, silver and shadow, dissolving the neck of a Wild, leaving the head to fall to the ground while the body stumbled around.

  I tried not to gag as the smell of taint and blood filled the air. Lewis moved tirelessly, dodging, slashing, only flinching away when a Wild with light blond hair stabbed him.

  I felt a lurch of horror and focused on the blond Wild, pointing my stick at him while I focused on drawing strength out of the woods around me. The end of my stick bubbled up, a green shoot bursting out towards the Wild who struggled with Lewis, snagging his wrist and pulling him off balance while I dug in my heels and tried to be rooted like a tree.

  Lewis and the blond Wild looked at me in surprise.

  I felt a welling of pride as Lewis smiled at me before he pulled the knife out of his side and decapitated the Wild with his own blade.