Kate Quinn - The Huntress

Title Page Copyright Praise for The Huntress Dedication Prologue Part I Chapter 1: Jordan Chapter 2: Ian Chapter 3: Nina Chapter 4: Jordan Chapter 5: Ian Chapter 6: Nina Chapter 7: Jordan Chapter 8: Ian Chapter 9: Nina Chapter 10: Jordan Chapter 11: Ian Chapter 12: Nina Chapter 13: Jordan Chapter 14: Ian Chapter 15: Nina Chapter 16: Jordan Chapter 17: Ian Chapter 18: Nina Chapter 19: Jordan Chapter 20: Ian Part II Chapter 21: Nina Chapter 22: Jordan Chapter 23: Ian Chapter 24: Nina Chapter 25: Jordan Chapter 26: Ian Chapter 27: Nina Chapter 28: Jordan Chapter 29: Ian Chapter 30: Nina Chapter 31: Jordan Chapter 32: Ian Chapter 33: Jordan Chapter 34: Nina Chapter 35: Ian Chapter 36: Jordan Chapter 37: Ian Chapter 38: Nina Chapter 39: Jordan Chapter 40: Ian Chapter 41: Nina Chapter 42: Jordan Chapter 43: Ian Chapter 44: Nina Chapter 45: Jordan Chapter 46: Ian Chapter 47: Jordan Chapter 48: Ian Part III Chapter 49: Jordan Chapter 50: Ian Chapter 51: Jordan Chapter 52: Ian Chapter 53: Nina Chapter 54: Ian Chapter 55: Jordan Chapter 56: Nina Chapter 57: Ian Chapter 58: Jordan Chapter 59: Ian Epilogue: Nina Author’s Note Reading Group Questions Further Reading About the Author Also by Kate Quinn About the Publisher

For my father—

How I miss you!

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for The Huntress

Dedication

Prologue

Part I

Chapter 1: Jordan

Chapter 2: Ian

Chapter 3: Nina

Chapter 4: Jordan

Chapter 5: Ian

Chapter 6: Nina

Chapter 7: Jordan

Chapter 8: Ian

Chapter 9: Nina

Chapter 10: Jordan

Chapter 11: Ian

Chapter 12: Nina

Chapter 13: Jordan

Chapter 14: Ian

Chapter 15: Nina

Chapter 16: Jordan

Chapter 17: Ian

Chapter 18: Nina

Chapter 19: Jordan

Chapter 20: Ian

Part II

Chapter 21: Nina

Chapter 22: Jordan

Chapter 23: Ian

Chapter 24: Nina

Chapter 25: Jordan

Chapter 26: Ian

Chapter 27: Nina

Chapter 28: Jordan

Chapter 29: Ian

Chapter 30: Nina

Chapter 31: Jordan

Chapter 32: Ian

Chapter 33: Jordan

Chapter 34: Nina

Chapter 35: Ian

Chapter 36: Jordan

Chapter 37: Ian

Chapter 38: Nina

Chapter 39: Jordan

Chapter 40: Ian

Chapter 41: Nina

Chapter 42: Jordan

Chapter 43: Ian

Chapter 44: Nina

Chapter 45: Jordan

Chapter 46: Ian

Chapter 47: Jordan

Chapter 48: Ian

Part III

Chapter 49: Jordan

Chapter 50: Ian

Chapter 51: Jordan

Chapter 52: Ian

Chapter 53: Nina

Chapter 54: Ian

Chapter 55: Jordan

Chapter 56: Nina

Chapter 57: Ian

Chapter 58: Jordan

Chapter 59: Ian

Epilogue: Nina

Author’s Note

Reading Group Questions

Further Reading

About the Author

Also by Kate Quinn

About the Publisher

Autumn 1945

Altaussee, Austria

She was not used to being hunted.

The lake stretched slate blue, glittering. The woman gazed over it, hands lying loose in her lap. A folded newspaper sat beside her on the bench. The headlines all trumpeted arrests, deaths, forthcoming trials. The trials would be held in Nuremberg, it seemed. She had never been to Nuremberg, but she knew the men who would be tried there. Some she knew by name only, others had touched champagne flutes to hers in friendship. They were all doomed. Crimes against peace. Crimes against humanity. War crimes.

By what law? she wanted to scream, beating her fists against the injustice of it. By what right? But the war was over, and the victors had won the right to decide what was a crime and what was not. What was humanity, and what was not.

It was humanity , she thought, what I did. It was mercy. But the victors would never accept that. They would pass judgment at Nuremberg and forever after, decreeing what acts committed in a lawful past would put a man’s head in a noose.

Or a woman’s.

She touched her own throat.

Run , she thought. If they find you, if they realize what you’ve done, they will lay a rope around your neck.

But where was there to go in this world that had taken everything she loved? This world of hunting wolves. She used to be the hunter, and now she was the prey.

So hide , she thought. Hide in the shadows until they pass you by.

She rose, walking aimlessly along the lake. It reminded her painfully of Lake Rusalka, her haven in Poland, now ruined and lost to her. She made herself keep moving, putting one foot after the other. She did not know where she was going, only that she refused to huddle here paralyzed by fear until she was scooped onto the scales of their false justice. Step by step the resolve hardened inside her.

Run.

Hide.

Or die.

THE HUNTRESS

BY IAN GRAHAM

APRIL 1946

SIX SHOTS.

She fired six times on the shore of Lake Rusalka, not attempting to hide what she did. Why would she? Hitler’s dream of empire had yet to crumble and send her fleeing for the shadows. That night under a Polish moon, she could do whatever she wanted—and she murdered six souls in cold blood.

Six shots, six bullets, six bodies falling into the dark water of the lake.

They had been hiding by the water, shivering, eyes huge with fear—escapees from one of the eastbound trains, perhaps, or survivors fleeing one of the region’s periodic purges. The dark-haired woman found them, comforted them, told them they were safe. She took them into her house by the lake and fed them a meal, smiling.

Then she led them back outside—and killed them.

Perhaps she lingered there, admiring the moon on the water, smelling gun smoke.

That nighttime slaughter of six at the height of the war was only one of her crimes. There were others. The hunting of Polish laborers through dense woods as a party game. The murder, near the war’s end, of a young English prisoner of war escaped from his stalag. Who knows what other crimes lie on her conscience?

They called her die Jägerin —the Huntress. She was the young mistress of an SS officer in German-occupied Poland, the hostess of grand parties on the lake, a keen shot. Perhaps she was the rusalka the lake was named for—a lethal, malevolent water spirit.

I think of her as I sit among the ranks of journalists in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, watching the war crimes trials grind on. The wheel of justice turns; the gray-faced men in the defendants’ box will fall beneath it. But what about the smaller fish, who escape into the shadows as we aim our brilliant lights on this courtroom? What about the Huntress? She vanished at the war’s end. She was not worth pursuing—a woman with the blood of only a dozen or so on her hands, when there were the murderers of millions to be found. There were many like her—small fish, not worth catching.

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