L. BANKS - Cursed To Death

Bear Shadow nodded and started his engine.

Fisher jumped out of the backseat of the third jeep and headed toward the jeep Hunter had been driving. “I’ve got you covered, man. Leave it here and you’ll get towed for sure. Throw me your keys.”

Hunter never answered, just dug in his pocket and threw his keys in the direction of Fisher’s voice.

“No, no, no!” Sasha yelled, pure humiliation burning her cheeks. “This isn’t what it looks like!”

Hunter stared at her. “ Yes, it is.”

It all happened so quickly that it seemed like a blur. One moment Hunter was staring at her, his eyes transformed to betray his inner wolf, the next second he’d spied the shadow cast by the lamppost, pulling them both into it to tumble into the shadow lands.

He’d landed them in the twilight place, the shadow lands where spirits walked and Shadow Wolves traveled, but that fact seemed completely lost on Hunter. Wide, hot palms covered her backside, pulling her in close as he aggressively sought her mouth with a moan. No matter how fantastic what he was doing felt, his entire demeanor was incongruent with what was going on. Two women had died, they had just been standing over the first victim’s body… and that turned him on? Not a good sign.

“Stop!” Sasha said with a snarl and yanked away from Hunter’s grasp. She lowered her head in wolf attack mode, feeling her ears begin to flatten against her skull. “It’s dangerous in the shadow lands to be caught unaware. You of all people know that. How many battles have we fought in here? How many predators have we run from, coming through the zones? Once you start making love, you won’t hear a thing. Never that in here.”

She watched him back up and begin to rub the nape of his neck as though blood flow was returning to the thinking part of his body. Pointing toward the mist in a hard snap, she leveled her gaze at Hunter. “Two women just died, we just examined the bodies… now I want you to tell me real slowly and clearly why that just sent you into a mating frenzy.”

“I haven’t a fucking clue,” Hunter said quietly in a far-off voice. His tone was bewildered, as though he’d come out of a bad dream. There was no anger or judgment in his response, only what seemed like pure disbelief. He looked down at his hands, studying them intently as they trembled, and then finally looked up at Sasha. “If one of my own men had gotten out of the jeep, I would have battled him for being too close to my mate while in season… but you’re not.”

“No… I’m not,” Sasha said more softly, glad that the old Hunter she knew was beginning to return.

“I don’t understand… I thought my system had beaten the contagion.”

They stared at each other for what felt like a long time.

“This can’t be the contagion,” she finally said, now wrapping her arms around herself. “You beat it; Doc said you beat it-Silver Hawk saw you beat it in a vision.”

“Then what was this!” Hunter began to walk in a circle, dragging his fingers through his disheveled hair, tearing the leather thong away from his ponytail to fling it on the mist-covered cavern floor. “It’s come back before, lain dormant in my system for years, then erupted… I’m going back to our pack’s north territory in the Uncompahgre. I need to be as far away from New Orleans as possible. Right now I can’t risk an outbreak that could jeopardize you, my pack brothers, your human team, or even my blood brother Shogun again. He is on his way here; Sir Rodney is counting on us, and I’m unstable?”

He turned to leave and she caught his arm.

“We beat it before down here at Tulane Hospital… me, you, Doc, and Silver Hawk. The PCU’s top biochemical expert, ’Rissa, is here-and she and Doc make a solid team. The core clan leadership is here in New Orleans. No one is back home, Max.”

She hated that her voice had become so panicked, but if Hunter left, anything could go wrong, and that simply wasn’t an option.

“Ethan’s wife Margaret even helped sway the critical human physicians that we needed on our side at Tulane.” Sasha bodily blocked Hunter as he shrugged out of her hold. “Max Hunter, listen to me for two seconds-you owe me that much. Think about it. If you’ve got the virus spiking in your system, all of your best enforcers are here-which means innocent women and children from the pack will be at your mercy up north. Do you honestly want that on your conscience? You could spread it up there, where no contagion currently exists, if that’s what it even is. Plus, you’ve also got me and your brother down here, along with Bear and Crow. Alone up there, who can hunt you but us, if you have to be put down?”

It was insane logic, but her argument was what he’d needed to hear. She could feel it as his body relaxed and his eyes held uncertainty. Every fiber of her being knew the last thing that Hunter would be willing to risk would be an outbreak among the innocent, practically defenseless, members of the remaining Shadow Wolf pack.

“And what happens a few nights from now, when the moon waxes full… and it’s your birthday, and we’re out at Sir Rodney’s ball? What happens if we are called upon for battle, and I may be an enemy within that you hadn’t anticipated?” Hunter chuckled sadly and stalked away from her. “When are you going to just give up on me, Sasha, and finally put that silver bullet in my temple?”

“No time soon,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and willing the quaver out of her voice. “Answer me this… When did you start feeling like you were losing it?”

Hunter let out a long, frustrated breath, keeping his back toward Sasha, and then jammed his hands into his fatigue pants’ pockets. “I don’t know. It just hit me all of a sudden.”

“Think, man! Tell me when you felt the shift!”

“When we went back to Ethan’s, all right!” He spun on her, eyes beginning to glow amber around the edges of his irises.

“Good. Now we’re getting somewhere.” She walked closer to Hunter, holding his gaze. When Hunter shut his eyes and swallowed hard, she stopped speaking.

“I never heard a word the staff was saying this second time we went in there-all I saw was you.”

She hugged herself and turned away. This was definitely worse than she’d thought.

“Couldn’t take my eyes off of you,” he admitted in a deep rasp. “I could only focus on the way each pore leaked the smallest bead of perspiration… until your shirt clung… every shallow breath you took, trying not to breathe, but your breasts rose and fell. I had to walk away… had to go deeper into the room you interviewed them in to find a cool, dark place to stand, away from you. Every now and then the conversations you were having would fade… I’d simply hear the tone of your voice, Ethan’s voice-the way a wolf would… without understanding the words, simply relying on the tone, then speech would return to me. At points I felt like I was blacking out. Then the pain came.”

“Pain?” Sasha murmured, going to him.

Hunter nodded. “I’ve wanted you before, but never like I felt in there-no offense, just truth. I told you before I was no liar. But standing apart from you felt like an ache that twisted my gut into knots as a blade stabbed… Suffice to say, it hurt.”

“It wasn’t like that when you had the demon-infected Werewolf virus… was it?”

“No,” Hunter said in a quiet rumble. “There was rage, there was hunt hunger, there was the painful transition and the increased desire, but wanting you was never a physical ache that hurt worse than a gunshot wound.”

“A Phoenix flamed in that cellar in a totally weird way. Ethan can’t hold his Fae glamour, albeit he was terribly upset… but still. Then you-and you weren’t all right until we got outside of the normal dimension. Even outside on the street-”