Tall, Dark & Apocalyptic (5 page)

The damnable woman smiled a mean little smile. “But you’ve heard rumors haven’t you?”

How the hell would she know that? “There are always rumors.”

Yeira nodded, looking down at her feet as she seemed to collect her thoughts. “I’m going to tell you something that will probably rock your world.”

“I’m listening.”

Yeira expelled a breath. “Despite what you hunters believe, not all of Edwige’s creations are evil and we’re most definitely not all the same.”

“And you’re telling me this, why?”

“Because I want you to understand that it’s possible Grimm is acting from a place of good intent. In fact I’d say there’s just as much a possibility of that, as there is that he’s a spy for Edwige.”

Audie stared at her for a moment as his stomach churned. If what she said was true, that meant he and the other hunters might have killed a lot of Grimms…and Yeiras…along the way. No. It couldn’t be. If it were true then his whole world view was skewed. Up was down and inside was out. Audie shook his head. “I’ll not go after Grimm.”

Yeira shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Why did he doubt she was even a quarter as unconcerned as she was trying to appear?

“So where do we start?” he asked her.

Yeira jerked her head toward a low rise of round-topped hills in the distance. “There are ten reborns in that hillside lair.”

Audie pulled his sword so quickly the woman’s bright blue gaze widened slightly with alarm. “Let’s go kill them.”

Instead of moving, Yeira just stared up at him, looking eminently disappointed.

When she didn’t move, Audie placed the tip of his sword in the dirt at his feet and leaned on it. “What?”

“Have you even been listening to me?”

He frowned. “Hanging on every word, why?”

“You remember the part about my goal? Wherein I don’t kill everything that moves but instead try to find Edwige?”

She sounded so much like his legal counsel Audie couldn’t help grinning. She certainly didn’t look like any lawyer he’d ever met. “Vaguely.”

She turned on her heel and strode away, her feet hitting the dry, scratchy-sounding grass much harder than they needed to.

Feeling just a tiny bit proud of himself for getting under her skin, Audie started after her. The good feeling didn’t last long.

As soon as he caught up she glanced at him and asked. “So how good are you at restrictive magics?”

Audie worked hard not to show his panic. “I’m much better at whacking things than restraining them.”

One corner of her delicious mouth curved upward. “You
do
have guide magic, right?”

“Of course!” He was deeply insulted by her question. Only the novice hunter walked around without a guide to call. “I didn’t say I couldn’t restrain them. I just said I was better at lopping off their heads.”

She sniffed but didn’t say anything and Audie’s temper flared. Suddenly he found it very important to prove himself to her. He stopped, but the woman kept walking. Watching her fine, heart-shaped behind sway away from him, he lifted one hand, palm up. With a thought he called the magic in their surroundings and sparking blue particles of energy filled the air, speeding toward him. The light caught and swirled in a power-whirlwind above his palm, waiting for his direction.

Smiling, Audie glanced at the woman, whose, curvy form had widened the distance between them by ten feet. With a thought he sent the swirling blue magic surging toward her, grinning as it wrapped her in a shimmering embrace and dragged her to a halt.

She gave a little squeal of alarm and Audie strode over, stopping to stare down at her. “It appears my restrictive magics work just fine.

She struggled against his magic web. “Good. Now let me go.”

Watching her fight the magic, her red hair flying around delicate shoulders as she struggled to get free, something broke inside Audie. Something that had been closed was wrenched open. And suddenly he couldn’t help wondering how her wine-colored lips would taste—pondering how they’d feel moving softly beneath his.

Once the thought was free he couldn’t call it back and Audie stepped closer.

She stopped struggling and looked up at him through those unfathomable blue eyes, the thick fringe of dark red lashes fluttering slightly as she seemed to consider whether he meant her harm. Audie reached out and touched her porcelain-colored cheek, and she flinched.

His finger scraped softly against the velvet surface and Audie turned it so the calluses on the tips wouldn’t abrade her delicate skin. “How is it possible that you’re so beautiful?” He murmured. It was meant to be a thought. One he’d wondered all too often to himself. But the words escaped his lips and she heard.

Yeira’s eyes widened in alarm. “Look, Hunter, I…”

He didn’t want to hear what she had to say. Couldn’t stand it if, in the moment when his cold heart had warmed slightly, she filled the heat-charged air between them with ugly words. So he did the only thing he could. He lowered his head and captured her lush, burgundy lips with his own.

And the thing that had blossomed inside his chest creaked open another inch as she responded with instinctive passion to his touch.

~
TD&A
~

The man was impossible! Yeira fought to hold her emotions in check as his lips and tongue performed a delicious invasion, teasing an unsettling amount of heat and responsiveness from her. She longed to step away…to run away…from the things he was doing to her body. Not just the building passion of the kiss they shared, but the warmth and tightness his touch was creating between her legs…the knot of need twisting inside her belly.

Worse, even as her mind told her she should get away from him, her traitorous body moved closer. Her breasts pressed against the broad planes of his chest, her nipples tender against the fabric of her shirt.

Her pussy clenched under the building heat, her magic-entrapped hands fought to reach him. Not to push him away, but to drag him closer. Suddenly the energy binding her arms loosened and she fell forward, her hands twining in the cool lapels of his leather coat, twisting there to pull him near.

Their kiss deepened, hunger raging as tongues lashed and teeth clashed. A low sound of lust throbbed at the base of Yeira’s throat. She was horrified by the sound but unable to stop it from escaping in a deep moan.

The hunter responded by spreading his hand over her buttocks, pressing her closer, until she couldn’t ignore the huge, hard ridge beneath his leather battle pants. His heated breath fanned her face, his taste pure ambrosia on her tongue. She inhaled his addictive scent—a mix of clean sweat and leather—and her pussy pulsed with exquisite expectation.

She wanted him.

Needed him.

She’d denied it to herself from the very beginning—ignored the way his presence pulled at her and the way his sexy gaze raked her with fire. They were enemies, opponents in an epic war, but when they shared the same space lust exploded between them, an impossible-to-resist attraction wrapping her in a fiery embrace.

Slowly, as his hands found the bottom of her shirt and slipped underneath, skimming gently calloused heat over her nerve-drenched skin, Yeira felt the first stirrings of fear.

They couldn’t do what they were doing!
She
couldn’t do it. Their path was ugly, the war they were about to engage in dangerous and difficult. If they had feelings for each other—

Yeira shoved against his chest, pushing him back just enough to break the kiss and not much more.

He held her lower half against a solid erection, his big hands a warm wall against her back, and frowned down at her. “What is it, Yeira?”

She dragged a hand over her swollen lips. Her breath heaved in and out of her chest. The place between her legs where she wanted him most throbbed with desire. She shook her head, pushing backward.

He finally released her but the inferno of his dark blue gaze held her, like a moth to flame, compelling her to answer.

“I can’t do this. We…can’t do this.”

The hunter scrubbed a hand over his jaw, looking angry. She wasn’t sure if he was mad at her or himself. “You’re right. I apologize. It won’t happen again.” He turned away and stalked toward the distant line of hills.

Yeira stood rooted to the spot, watching him go. Regret was a sour taste in her mouth. She’d done the right thing. She knew she had.

But that didn’t make the loss of his addictive touch any easier to take.

Audie smelled the devastation before he saw it. His senses still thrumming from the life-altering kiss, he didn’t notice the stench until they were shimmying along the narrow ledge to the large, chiseled opening in the face of the hill.

The opening was about thirty feet above ground and impossible to approach without being observed. But nobody had sounded an alarm as he and Yeira scaled the lower half and then pulled themselves up onto the ledge to navigate the remainder.

The rocky ledge had been worn smooth, its chipped surface dry and dusty from being baked in a blinding sun. There were no trees near the bottom of the rocky foothills. No vegetation of any sort. The ground was black and parched, as if a great fire had passed through or a battle had been fought there.

Any trees that might have once provided much-needed shade were dead, their bent and broken branches like gnarled skeletons baking in the bright sun.

Audie wiped the back of his arm over his brow and scowled at the woman sliding gracefully along the ledge behind him. “Why would anybody have a nest here? This heat is brutal.”

Yeira shook her head. “That’s exactly why they’re here. This area was ground zero during the great wars. Nobody ever comes here because the air is still saturated with poisonous gases and stuff.”

Audie stopped moving, turned, and lifted an eyebrow. “Seriously?
Now
you tell me.”

Her lush lips curved upward. “I’m sorry. Would you like to bop back home and fix yourself a cup of herbal tea while I finish this up?”

The second eyebrow shot upward to join the first. “Hilarious, zom…erm…reborn. I just would have liked to know I was entering death valley. Maybe I could have taken some precautions.”

“Like what, exactly? Maybe a little tin foil on your head?”

Audie snorted. “Let’s just get this done and get the hell out of here.”

She lifted her hand to indicate that he should start moving again and Audie happily obliged. The sooner they finished their task the sooner he could go home and shower the poison off his skin. Since she’d told him where they were, his skin had started to itch and burn.

It was probably just his imagination.

Maybe.

A heated breeze wafted past and Audie reared back from the stench it carried. “Something’s dead.”

She frowned, pulling a strange little weapon from a sheath at her hip. Audie wondered where she’d gotten it. He’d thought he’d disarmed her back at headquarters.

A sharp, ugly cry sounded high above their heads, pushing the question from his mind.

“Marauding vultures,” Yeira said. Her tone was filled with disgust and fear.

A soft click and a low whirring sound told him she’d engaged her weapon. Audie glanced back, taking care to avoid the shimmering green blade of the laser-type knife. He’d seen the damage the thing could do to zombies.

Audie pulled his sword from its sheath and held it before him as he moved more quickly along the ledge. “Those things would just as soon attack us as something dead,” he told her unnecessarily. It was obvious by her reaction that she was well aware how dangerous they were. “Keep your voice down and don’t make any noise—” He kicked a large rock with his boot and it rolled off the narrow ledge slamming into a larger rock below with a sound that reverberated through the stark valley, echoing all around them.

Behind him, Yeira sighed. “You mean like that?”

Audie flushed with embarrassment.

The nasty creatures circling overhead screeched, their long, black and yellow heads swiveling toward the two humans far below them. With a blood-chilling scream that ended in a choked gurgle, they swung around and dove toward the ground.

The predators attacked in pairs, one diving beak first and the other coming in with its razor-sharp claws leading the way.

The vultures were enormous. One marauder easily outweighed Yeira and it had the added weight of momentum to give it that extra edge. She swung her ionic sword, the shimmering green blade slicing the air just below the shrieking carrion-eater’s enormous foot.

The vulture slashed downward with its claws, scoring her forearm and drawing blood before pounding the air with its ten-foot-wide wings and lifting beyond her reach.

She swore, trying to maneuver on the narrow ledge as the hunter ducked and slashed at the second bird. He bumped her hip as she lunged and her foot slipped over the edge. Off balance and desperate for a handhold, Yeira’s fingers scrabbled for the hunter and missed. He swung around and reached out, clasping her hand just before she fell.