Page 51 of Hunted in the Shadows
“Jon?” I laughed.
Comparing the two hunters, I found it difficult to believe Cliff hadn’t been the one to scare her straight. With his commanding voice and readiness to act without hesitation—shoot first and ask questions later—seemed far more likely to scare Gwen straight.
But maybe she had seen straight through all that from the start.
Gwen’s face darkened, watching me with a renewed scrutiny. “You’ve seen him hunt, haven’t you?”
Yes—with more fascination than I cared to admit. Goosebumps rose on my arms at the mere memory of the feral look in his eyes the moment before a kill.
He was pure lightning.Strike, strike, strike.
“You’ve been face to face with literal nightmares,” I said slowly. “I find it hard to believe another hunter has you in knots like this.”
The flicker in her gaze roared into a fire, and her effort to douse it only amplified the goosebumps running up my arms. My goading smile dropped away, replaced by a growing chill.
“What did he do?” I asked, brow knitting as I tried to read past her expression.
Gwen’s gaze darted to the ground, then back up, her ruby lips pressed in a thin line. Wind swept through the woods, tousling my hair and making me flex my wings to maintain balance. Her tension put me on edge. I struggled to reconcile Jon’s gentle, curious smile with whatever visage had clearly shaken another hunter to her core. Every piece of history I’d drawn out of Jon had felt like a victory up until now. I was struck by the awareness that I’d only scratched the surface, and the gaps in Jon’s history suddenly seemed like dark, gaping maws.
“Let’s just say he’s not as noble as you’re trying to paint him,” she gritted out.
“You have no idea how much he tortures himself,” I snapped. “He doesn’t need someone like you around to drag him down further.”
“You don’t know shit about him.”
“Enlighten me, then.” I kept my tone cool, but my wings gave an involuntary twitch. I was grateful Gwen didn’t seem to note the indication of the tension coiling inside me.
She let out a sharp laugh—though I didn’t miss the way her breath caught and turned shallow.“I’m not spilling my guts to a fucking fairy,” she bit out.
The wordfairylanded like a slap. Outrage bubbled to life inside me like claws raking beneath my skin.
“Fine. Keep your festering wound to yourself,” I said, venom seeping into my tone. “Don’t expect me to beg to hear whatever moral high ground you think you have.”
Gwen’s jaw tightened, her free hand flexing and curling into a fist as though resisting the urge to reach for her weapons, to lash out.
“He killed Luke!” she snarled, her voice splintering.
I flinched, the name hitting me hard. I pushed myself up, sitting straight. “Luke?”
Gwen dragged a hand through her pulled-back hair. “My friend. Nowak used him—a fellow hunter—like a fucking worm on a hook to lure at a shapeshifter on the Pacific Coast.” She prowled closer to my branch, eyes wet as she jabbed a finger in my direction. “He’d do the same to me to finish a job. To anyone—even you.”
Shock rippled through me, cold and vicious. I couldn’t picture it—Iwouldn’t. Jon was a warrior, not a mindless killer. He was gentle and kind in ways that still astonished me day after day.
“I don’t believe you,” I said, hating the betrayal of my thready voice.
“Ask him yourself since he’s got such a soft spot for you,” Gwen shot back. “Or better yet, corner him in a no-win situation and see what he does.”
“Here’s another idea.” I leaned my arms on my knees. “We leave you here and you can walk back to your shop.”
She gave a dark chuckle, rolling her eyes. Some of her hackles lowered, but I didn’t miss the odd touch of worry that sat behind her irritation. “You can think I’m a bitch. Frankly, I don’t give a shit. You seem like a decent person—wings and all—and I’m just trying to save you some grief. Maybe your life. Jon Nowak isdangerous,and I can’t think of a single time that mixing humans and non-humans didn’t end in disaster.”
“You’ve heard of others?” I seized the chance to change the subject, pushing off the dark images that crept into my mind—Jon, binding another man as a living sacrifice.
“It’s more common than people think,” Gwen said, sighing heavily. “Hunters fall for ghosts they’re supposed to send off. Vamps convince regular civilians that they can have a star-crossed romance. You can imagine how that ends.”
No need to imagine. One of the nightmares in my rotation included a vivid image of Nolan opening his arms to a monstrous Lily, only to have his throat ripped out, blood spurting across a lupine muzzle.
“As thoughhumansare any less messy on their own.” I raised my eyebrows accusingly at her. “I’m shocked, frankly, that you and Cliff haven’t strangled each other yet. Hard to picture you together.”
