Faith Hunter - Death's Rival

I hadn’t heard from Bruiser. Hadn’t heard from Rick, despite the numerous apologies I’d left on his voice mail. Either I’d hurt him so badly with my accusation and lack of trust that he’d just walked away—maybe forever—or he was already in the field again and hadn’t checked voice mail. I could hope it was something simple, though the more time passed, the less likely it was a voice mail problem. I had told him I loved him and then accused him of shooting me. Go, me.

My life was sublimely uncomplicated right now. Which could be a good thing. But was probably not.

I went that night to hunt, deep in bayou country. In the middle of the shift, as the place of the change took me over, and gray light sparkled with the energies of my magics, I discovered Beast’s secret. I found the chain that ran from Beast, across the floor of my soul house to the sleeping form of Leo in the corner of my mind.

As we stood in the silence of the magics of the change, both fully skinwalker and fully cat, I said, He bound you. Not me. He bound you. How . . . ? Oh, crap. It must have been because his blood was in your mouth, in my mouth when we shifted. Even caught in the magic, I felt my breath hitch. I had vampire blood in my mouth at the time of the shift into cat.

Beast was bound to Leo Pellissier. I stared at the silvered chain and cuff that encircled her foreleg.

Best huffed, amused. Leo will be good mate.

The pain of the shift slid into me. “Well, crap.”

Faith Hunterwas born in Louisiana and raised all over the South. She writes full-time and works full-time in a hospital lab (for the benefits), tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for travel, jewelry making, orchids, skulls, Class III white-water kayaking, and writing.

Many of the orchid pics on her Facebook fan page show skulls juxtaposed with orchid blooms; the bones are from roadkill prepared by taxidermists or a pal named Mud. In her collection are a fox skull, a cat skull, a dog skull, a goat skull (that is, unfortunately, falling apart), a cow skull, and the jawbone of an ass. She would love to have the thigh bone and skull of an African lion (one that died of old age, of course) and a mountain lion skull (ditto on the old-age death).

She and her husband own fourteen kayaks at last count, and love to RV, traveling with their dogs to white-water rivers all over the Southeast.

CONNECT ONLINE

www.faithhunter.net

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ALSO BY FAITH HUNTER

The Jane Yellowrock Novels

Skinwalker

Blood Cross

Mercy Blade

Cat Tales (a short story compilation)

Raven Cursed

Have Stakes Will Travel (a short story compilation)

The Rogue Mage Novels

Bloodring

Seraphs

Host