Page 35 of A Hunter Cursed
Honestly, she was too grateful to complain about his high-handed tactics. He could cover ground much faster than her, and getting to Jeremiah was all that mattered, her pride be damned.
He slowed when they reached a cabin set back from the others, and settled her on her feet. The door was slightly open, which seemed odd to Keegan, but she could hear the shower running, so that was a good sign. Jeremiah had probably opened the door to try and catch a cool breeze after the heat of the day.
Archer went first, calling out to his second as he pushed the door all the way open and then quietly cursed. Following him in, Keegan felt like cursing as well. Instead, she simply stared with her mouth open while the alpha raced to the bathroom.
A broken lamp lay on the floor, the table that had most likely held it, sitting askew. An area-rug was bunched up on one side and there was a large, visible dent in the wall like something had hit it. Something large. Something like a body.
The shower abruptly shut off and Keegan held her breath, waiting for Jeremiah to emerge with Archer, perhaps a sheepish look on his handsome face for not calling and causing her to worry.
Her hopes fell, as did her stomach when Archer came out shaking his head. “He’s not here.” He pinned her with a look that was ferocious enough to have Keegan taking a step back in self-preservation. “What did you see?” he demanded. “Tell me everything.”
Keegan filled him in on what she’d seen in her waking vision, what she’d felt, and Archer let out a snarled expletive. “A dark road?” He bit out, pacing rapidly around the living room. “Christ, he could be anywhere.” Shaking his head, he pinned her with a look. “Was there anything else? Anything that would narrow down the search? A mile marker or a landmark.”
She tried to recall, tried to remember. Had there been anything on the edges that she’d seen? Something familiar? A rock formation or a sign maybe? But she came up blank. She’d been too horrified by the sight of Jeremiah to have noticed anything else.
Grimacing, she shook her head and Archer nodded before telling her, “Cover your ears.”
Doing so, she watched as the alpha raised his head and let out a howl that was still loud despite her hands over her ears. As soon as he was finished he motioned that it was now safe before he told her with a determined glint in his eyes, “I’ll get my best trackers on it. We’ll find him.”
He strode from the cabin but Keegan didn’t follow, probably wouldn’t have been able to follow even if she had wanted to. Her abused body had had enough and she sank slowly to the floor as a sob broke free. Why hadn’t she ignored the call from Destin? He had plenty of witches with him to help contain the situation, he hadn’t needed her. If she had come straight here, she might have gotten to Jeremiah in time. Now he was lost.
Everyone she cared about ended up lost. The angel may have told her she wasn’t cursed, her memories may have shown her proof that she wasn’t, but here she was yet again, losing someone she loved.
Scrubbing at the tears on her face, Keegan clenched her jaw and bit out a sharp “No.” Not this time. She refused. Pulling herself back to her feet with gritted teeth, she looked around the cabin. She needed a map, but fifteen minutes of searching yielded no results. “It doesn’t matter,” she murmured as an idea took hold.
Ripping a sheet of paper out of a notebook she’d spotted during her search, Keegan set it on the small kitchen table and pulled out her phone. She opened a browser to pull up a map of the area for reference, touched the paper, and transformed it into the map she needed. “Ha! Take that universe.”
This would have been easier at her place where she had all the ingredients for a locator spell, but beggars couldn’t be choosy and luckily, she knew a quick and dirty workaround. She laid some of Jeremiah’s hair pulled from his hairbrush onto the map and cut the heel of her hand with a sharp knife she’d pulled from one of the drawers in his kitchen. Letting her blood drip onto the map, Keegan spoke the incantation and watched, her heart practically in her throat, as the red liquid began to move, and finally pooled together giving her Jeremiah’s location.
With hope burning in her chest, she grabbed up the map and left the cabin, moving as fast as she could toward her car. Full dark had long since fallen, and the bayou was eerily quiet, the wolves on a mission to track one of their own. She would have let them know what she had found if she’d seen anyone or had a phone number to call, but the only pack member’s number she had was Jeremiah’s, whose phone she had seen in his cabin. Instead, she called Destin. He would have a number for Archer she was sure, but she was forced to leave a message when he didn’t answer.
She had no idea what she’d find when she reached her destination, and some backup would have been nice but she didn’t have time to wait. Jeremiah needed her and that was the only thing that mattered.
She found him walking on a dark stretch of road in the Northshore area of Lake Pontchartrain. Stopping her car, Keegan left the headlights on to provide some illumination and quickly got out. He’d stopped walking, his back to her just like it had been in her vision and Keegan’s mouth went dry. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she said his name. He didn’t turn, nor did he resume his walk, he simply stood there. Taking a few hesitant steps forward, she reached out to him and tried again, louder this time, “Jeremiah?”
He turned so fast, Keegan gasped and then nearly screamed as he seemed to move with inhuman speed. He was suddenly right in front of her, gripping her upper arms and yanking her closer. A sadistic smile stretched his lips and his eyes were swimming with an oily blackness. “Jeremiah’s not here right now.”
This time, she was unable to hold back her scream.
Chapter Twenty
Someone was calling his name. Jeremiah looked up toward where he had heard the sound. The sky in this nightmare consisted of a thick, dark gray cloud cover, roiling, and sparking with the threat of lightning, but the sound had definitely come from up there. There it was again, his name, and this time, he heard the voice more clearly. It was Keegan. Keegan was calling out to him. The scream that followed spurred him into motion. He leaped for the cliff ledge as he’d seen that creature do earlier, his fingers and toes clawing for grips in the craggy surface. Despite not being able to feel what he was gripping, he scrambled higher and higher as fast as he could. He needed to get to her, needed to help her. His mate was in danger.
“Keegan!” he called out. “Keegan, I’m coming!”
He was so close to the top, just a few more feet and he’d be there, but the rock face shuddered, his left hand and foot losing their grip and he swung out from the wall. As he struggled to regain his hold the surface suddenly turned slick, dripping with black slime and Jeremiah slid down several feet before he was able to dig his fingertips in once more.
Despair gripped him hard as he eyed the remaining distance but he couldn’t give up. Keegan needed him and he needed her. If anyone could pull him out of this nightmare, it was she. She was his flame in the dark, his tether to reality, his north star guiding him home.
Slow and steady, he told himself, firming his resolve. Sliding his fingers through the slime, he searched for a higher handhold to pull himself up once more. One hold at a time. He could do this. He would make it. No other outcome was acceptable.
∞∞∞
Keegan cringed as the thing wearing Jeremiah’s face leaned in close and smelled her with a loud inhale through his nose. His tongue snaked out and licked the side of her face from jaw to temple and despite her best efforts to escape, his grip on her upper arms was too tight.
Leaning back, he grinned at her again. Jeremiah’s beautiful smile, perverted by this thing, this monster. The sight was enough to have bile rising in her throat.
His hands suddenly snaked down to snatch hers and he swung her into a dance, her feet stumbling and tripping across the pavement. She lost a flip-flop as he dragged her around like a ragdoll while he blissfully hummed a tune. As abruptly as he’d begun the dance, he halted, causing Keegan to collide into his chest so that he could wrap his arms around her in a punishing mockery of a hug. Rocking her side to side, he raised one hand and tapped his temple with a finger. “It’s all here,” he said, letting out a tsking sound before he dropped that hand to wrap his arm back around her. “Poor little cursed witch,” he crooned. “You killed them all, didn’t you? Your parents, that boy, the man in your bed, and now poor, poor Jeremiah. It must be such a heavy burden to carry.”
