The Princess Protects Her Huntsman: A Nocturne Falls Universe Story Read online

  Chapter Three

  That went every which way south.

  Arrick rubbed a hand roughly over his face and leaned back in the booth of this biker joint called Howler’s Bar and Grill. He hadn’t taken much notice of the occupants. Their potent scents assaulted his nostrils, and that was enough. Everything from human to wolf and creatures in between mixed with the greasy aroma of pit food and alcohol. Raucous laughter and hoots came from the back, set up with pool tables and darts.

  Three beers later, his ears rang, his skin tingled and burned, and the subtle tug of his cursed leash began to draw him away from his target and back into the hands of his evil master.

  He fought her calling, hating that he had to abide by the witch’s will. He drank down another beer, wishing the alcohol could sever the spell lynched inside his mind. The curse that ripped into his human mind and released a deadly beast.

  Damn. He wished Rhyannon had been some prissy little stuck-up princess. It would make this all so much easier.

  Instead, the woman had been everything soft and sweet and kind. Not an ounce of bad marred her essence. He scented purity in her genuine nature, a gentleness, he realized within the first few seconds of intentionally walking into her, that he did not want to steal away from the world.

  There was enough evil in the shadows. And there were more shadows than light, most of the time.

  At least in his life.

  Rhyannon was light. A light he suddenly craved. But he could not have her.

  “One day, I’ll make you pay, witch,” he groused against the lip of his beer bottle. “You’ll pay good.”

  For now, he had to figure out a way to subvert the subliminal commands from the witch. He had to stay away from Rhyannon.

  He closed his eyes and took a swig of beer.

  Rhyannon’s beautiful, serene face filled his vision. Her stunning green eyes and the delicate brush of rose over her accented cheeks. A narrow nose, full lips, gentle sloping brows. Her ears were cute, the tapered tips peeking through thick red hair loosely braided to stretch halfway down her back. Her smile made his heart throb and his lungs seize.

  It had taken less than a minute after he concluded he could not harm her to realize his attraction to his intended target went beyond anything physical.

  It was downright visceral, and flat out complicated matters.

  Tremendously.

  He hadn’t realized he slammed his beer bottle on the table until the hairs along the nape of his neck tingled. A shaded scan of the immediate area showed dozens of eyes on him. The auburn-haired, golden-eyed werewolf behind the bar scrutinized him in such a way that he had to refrain from wriggling in his own skin.

  No one could know who he was. What he was.

  No one could know why he was in Nocturne Falls.

  “Piece of cake,” he muttered. Taking his hint from the curious and cautious crowd that cast him wary glances, Arrick pulled a couple twenties from his wallet, dropped them on the check, and took his leave.

  The entire walk out of the joint, he felt that scrutinizing glower lance him over and over between his shoulder blades.

  Frozen rain plinked off his jacket and caught in his hair as he stepped into the stormy evening. A layer of salt zigzagged across the sidewalk, keeping the walkways fairly safe. Not that it mattered. Only the crazies were out in this. He was bona fide crazy, that was for sure. The others camping out in the bar?

  “They don’t know crazy.”

  The familiar buzz of the seams along his human consciousness kicked up in its haunting tone, a precursor to the inevitable. Desperation kicked him into a jog. He’d need to find cover soon. It was only a matter of time before the beast took over, the promise of freedom dangled before his nose.

  Oh, but he knew the games. This wasn’t the first time freedom was promised to him for hunting prey. Oh, no. The difference between this hunt and the previous hunts was the witch had too much to lose if Arrick failed. She cinched the spell on him until it practically choked him. His leash was cut short to the point he scraped the ground with his claws because he was held so close to his wretched master.

  For the last three nights since he arrived, he felt the heavy weight of her evil presence keeping an eye on him. She’d come in the dead of the night, when he was forced into the beast form to track his prey. Every night, he failed to pick up his prey’s scent only to realize Rhyannon was protected by more than a friend. Someone had worked magic to protect her essence as well.

  Not even his inhuman tracking gift could trace where she was.

  His thoughts pulled him deep into an abyss. He barely realized he had arrived at the Gingerbread Inn. The Victorian bed-and-breakfast—a term used for all the bed-and-breakfasts in Nocturne Falls—was anything but ideal for him, which made it a perfect ruse. The colorful paint and gingerbread trim along the porch could pull guests in with the promise of fairytales and frills.

  What they didn’t know was a witch lurked nearby.

  A real, truly evil creature unlike the witches residing in Nocturne Falls.

  Arrick slipped into the bed-and-breakfast, twisting to avoid conversation with the owner, Cookie Featherstone, and headed straight up the stairs to his room tucked toward the back of the old home on the second floor. His sanctuary, for the time being. He would get only a couple hours’ reprieve before he was called upon.

  Spirits, he resented the thought.

  Casting his jacket on a chair, he raked his hands through his hair, shaking melted water droplets from the thick strands. He glanced down and sighed. Thin streams of water webbed out from his wet boots over the wooden floor. The hems of his jeans were saturated.

  “Well, at least I have a change of clothes that doesn’t include a fur coat.”

  Stripping off his clothing, he headed for a hot shower, then dropped into the full-sized bed in a pair of boxers. With the lights off, the curtains pulled, and nothing but the quiet chatter and footsteps throughout the converted house, he tried to dredge up the faint memories of his old life, the one before the witch.

  He had loved hunting from the time he was a boy. His grandfather taught him how to shoot rifles, shotguns, and revolvers. Target practice included old bottles on wooden stumps until he could hit each one without a moment’s hesitation. By the time he was ten, he was in the woods, hunting small game and often bringing home a feast.

  He had become a master of the hunt by the time he was in his twenties. Somewhere along the line, he had developed a sense for game. He believed he could hear animals move and smell them before he saw them—small things he chalked up to being very sensitive to his surroundings during a hunt.

  Until he crossed the witch’s path and learned a dark truth about himself.

  As Arrick stared up at the dark ceiling, Rhyannon’s beautiful face came to mind, as potent and striking as in real life. Her image had the same visceral effect, from the uptick of his heartbeat and the tightening of his lungs, to the heat that spread through every inch of his body.

  He closed his eyes. Heat stretched up into his face and wrenched a deep groan from his chest. He distinctly recalled how her small body felt pressed against his and how those full lips separated on soft, sweet laughter that could lure a man to his bachelor grave.

  He would be okay with that.

  “This is going to kill me.”

  With each minute that passed, he wasn’t sure that was a bad thing.

  * * *

  Rhy glanced at the clock on her beside table. 3:24 in the morning. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she sat up in bed and scanned the bedroom. Dalila had made Rhy welcome in her own home. Dark shadows swayed against the solemn gray night beyond the windows. The streetlights reflected off the ice and snow clinging to tree branches.

  For a long moment, she sat, arms draped loosely around her knees. Something urged her awake, but she couldn’t remember the dream or the reason for her sudden rise. A faint chill settled low between her shoulder blades, and heaviness weighed on her chest. The bare skin
on her arms tingled. The slightest whisper of air across her flesh put her on edge, as did the constant shift in the room’s shadows.

  Slowly, she realized she sensed another presence nearby.

  Rhy threw the covers back and darted across the room to her dresser. She pulled out the bottom drawer, felt along the back for the secret compartment Dalila had installed with a containment spell from one of Nocturne Falls’ witches, and unfastened the tiny latch. Blinded by darkness and her awkward position on the floor, she felt with her fingertips until she hit the object she kept hidden beneath powerful spells.

  Withdrawing the velvet pouch, she sat back on her heels, heart racing and hands trembling. It made no sense, these strange sensations. She’d once seen a human have what Dalila called a “panic attack.” She feared she was treading a dangerous ledge hovering over one of those attacks.

  “I feel you. You’re safe,” Rhy whispered to the bag. The contents weighed heavy in her palm and emanated a low-resonance vibration along her hand. The Heart of Andallayne was safe. She kissed the jewel through the fabric and returned it to the hideaway, but her relief was not complete.

  The chill between her shoulder blades slithered up to coil around the top of her spine and breath ice along her neck. She suppressed a shudder as she pressed to her feet, rubbing her arms.

  “Must be my imagination.”

  If only her imagination would conjure up pleasant images of Arrick. A smile tugged the corners of her mouth with the memory of the handsome man. Yes, thoughts of Arrick were far better than the chill or the unsettled air hanging on her shoulders.

  Speaking of chill.

  Rhy paused at the bedside, her gaze lifting to the windows. The house wasn’t old next to the Victorians on Shadows Drive, but it wasn’t as new as the ones going up in Pumpkin Point. Still, on occasion, a draft sifted through the cracks around the windows.

  “Would explain the chill.”

  Holding on to the mental image of Arrick—oh, she prayed the spirits would let them cross paths again—she rounded her bed and stepped up to the windows. She did a quick check of the locks and rested her hand close to the sill, feeling for a draft.

  Nothing.

  Her gaze lifted to the shimmering, snow-and-ice covered woods across the street. These Georgia snowfalls were breathtaking, a true treasure her own homeland never experienced. She would miss them when the time came to return home. Yes, she would return. No degree of danger or threat could run her from her home permanently.

  She just had to…figure out a plan.

  First, she needed to discover the identity of the sorceress who cursed her family and her people. Then, she had to devise a reasonable method to capture and punish the woman.

  Dalila was no help. She claimed not to know. Either that, or her lips were sealed as tight as the windows, which no draft slipped through. Rhy couldn’t imagine Dalila deceiving her. She trusted her friend with her life, and the well-being of all of Andallayne.

  Rhy was about to turn away when something caught her attention. A darker shadow reached out from the trees. Instinctively, she stepped to the side so she was half-hidden behind the curtains. Curiosity and apprehension rooted her where she stood.

  The thump of her heartbeat grew loud in her ears. She held still and refused to blink as a large figure separated from the shadows.

  A sharp breath fled her lips. Her stomach twisted until she wrapped an arm around herself.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” she whispered, shaking her head. She stepped back, not realizing her fingers had fisted the edge of the curtain until the rod creaked. “This cannot be.”

  The big black wolf blended almost seamlessly with the shadows. It didn’t move from the very edge of the trees, a fluid extension of the unknown and the known.

  It lifted its big head toward her. Glowing red eyes pinned her through the window. She gasped and spun away, her entire body shaking. Fear swelled. That wolf. She had seen that wolf before. Right before she jumped through the veil.

  The wolf. The sorceress.

  She didn’t know if they were one and the same, but the wolf came in the fog created by her enemy.

  Body tight with fear, she slowly turned back to the window.

  The wolf was gone.

  “Oh no.” Rhy pressed close to the glass pane, looking across the lawn, the street, any area she could see from her room. No wolf. She bolted from the bedroom and went room-to-room, peeking outside the windows before checking every lock and pulling every curtain. She was glad Dalila was out enjoying her date instead of here, risking potential danger from a threat Rhy may have brought to her door. By the time she returned to her bedroom, she couldn’t find the wolf anywhere.

  Had she imagined it?

  The last curtains she pulled were in her bedroom. As she did, she met the wolf’s glowing red glower before it slunk back into the wooded shadows, a hunter that hunted her.

  Chapter Four

  Arrick patted himself on the back over the next two days as he kept to a busy façade of scheduled house previews with Pandora Williams. When he wasn’t out scouting potential homes with her, he paced in his room at the Gingerbread Inn. The latter earned him quizzical looks from Cookie when he did emerge. He could only imagine how suspicious he appeared, slinking in and out of the bed-and-breakfast, purposely avoiding eye contact and conversation with anyone.

  Well, he wasn’t in Nocturne Falls to make friends. He kept his distance from the main throughway of the quaint little town so he wouldn’t bump into Rhyannon. Thoughts of the woodland fairy haunted his every waking moment and tormented him in his sleep. He’d wake up in a tangled mess of sheets and bed covers, mud on his hands and feet, the essence of the beast creating a senses-riddled map of what had happened during the night.

  The beast was under the witch’s control. His thoughts during that time were hers. He was granted nothing more than flashes of images that made no sense.

  It was maddening.

  Had he tracked Rhyannon to where she lived? Had he led the witch straight to the woman he had become set on protecting as a man while the beast thirsted for her demise?

  His heart sank with the very thought of harm befalling the fairy princess. His gut was a knotted mess that left him with no appetite and less ability to concentrate.

  Pulling on a clean pair of jeans he had purchased at a store outside the town limits—he wasn’t chancing a run-in with Rhyannon, even for new clothing, and fronted the exorbitant cost of a cab—and a long-sleeved ribbed shirt, he draped his jacket over his arm and left his room. His cell phone buzzed in his pocket as he hustled down the stairs, a not-so-suspicious interruption to keep his attention so he didn’t have to acknowledge the presence of the inn’s other guests. He answered it when he recognized the number.

  “Good morning, Arrick. I hope I caught you before you left,” Pandora said. The woman had such a high-spirited disposition he wondered if she ever suffered fatigue.

  “Actually, I was just walking out the front door. What’s up?”

  “Well, the sellers at our nine-o’clock had an emergency and asked to reschedule for tomorrow. Since there is time to kill, if you’d like to meet me at Hallowed Bean down on the corner of Black Cat Boulevard, we can go over a couple of the new models that we were going to review this afternoon.”

  Arrick came up short on the front porch and rubbed the back of his neck. Did he really want to go into town? It was a Monday. Most people worked. What were the chances that, of all the places in Nocturne Falls, he’d run into Rhyannon at the coffee shop during working business hours?

  Slim.

  His quick calculation left him feeling subtly bereft. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to see her again. Spirits, all he wanted to do was see her again.

  “Okay. That sounds like a plan. I could use a cup of coffee.” Wasn’t that the truth. “I’ll meet you there in fifteen.”

  “Wonderful. Oh, and if you haven’t had breakfast, pick up a muffin or pastry. They have pretty amazing confe
ctions.”

  He chuckled. “Will do.”

  Arrick slipped into his jacket and headed toward Main Street. He hadn’t taken much time to appreciate the aesthetics of the town. Maybe when he figured out a way to cut his leash and destroy the witch, he would take the time he couldn’t afford now to enjoy the crazy architecture and the smaller details.

  He had implemented a quick self-education on the politics of Nocturne Falls before coming to the town. An ancient vampire family pretty much owned and ran the town. The sheriff was the alpha of the local werewolf pack, a mental note he kept tucked away. He’d have to avoid law enforcement like the plague. All he needed was a wolf sniffing his scruff and unloading silver-lined questions as to his makeup. Heck, he didn’t even know the answers to most of his own questions, and he was the beast. The witch refused to answer his questions. Maintaining a tight grip on his family fortune and resources, she kept him every bit as leashed with ignorance and financial dependence as she did with her magic.

  He was living a nightmare with no escape.

  Arrick arrived at Hallowed Bean a few minutes ahead of time and got in the short line to place his order. A strange and familiar scent teased his nostrils through the strong aroma of coffee and sweets. A wave of warmth flooded him from head to toe, shaking his vision for a second. Licking his lips, he resisted the urge to seek the source of that subtle floral scent, a mixture of warm summer sun and grass and jasmine.

  Well, you sucked at numbers in the schoolroom. Apparently you still suck at probability and statistics.

  What luck.

  Thankfully, the woman in front of him finished her order and he stepped up to the counter. The young barista smiled brightly.

  “Welcome to Hallowed Bean. What can I start for you today?”

  “A large dark roast coffee with an extra shot of espresso.” Damn, that tingling along his neck and the warmth that thickened like honey in his gut succeeded in making his voice deepen and rasp. He cleared his throat, glancing at the display of cakes and pastries. “And an apple cinnamon muffin.”