The Immortal Huntress Read online

  The Immortal Huntress

  Book 1

  Kelly Hall

  Laurie Starkey

  Michael Anderle

  BrixBaxter Publishing

  Contents

  Description

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Continue the Saga

  Author Note

  About Seven Sons

  About The Author

  Copyright

  Description

  There has been unrest since the beginning of time.

  And there should be. Demons, Vampires, Wolves and Mages roam the earth.

  Commissioned thousands of years before, Rebecca, the Immortal Huntress was charged with maintaining peace and ridding the world of these unholy beings.

  But she’s weary and her views have changed over the years. With retirement finally in her grasp, she is ready to settle down into her antiquated castle in Ireland.

  But life never plays fair.

  Without warning, she’s urgently called back to the place she promised to always return and serve without hesitation.

  The Church.

  A murder has taken place, and it’s unexplainable and unordinary. Something about it reeks of dark magic and foul play from the wolf shifters who know too much freedom.

  Bound by her vows, she gathers a group of capable young hunters and a long-time Mage friend of hers and sets out to unravel a mystery that promises to swallow them all if not careful.

  An old prophecy over Rebecca’s life is threatened. If laid bare, it will began the darkest time the natural world has ever seen.

  One misstep could change everything, but that’s the way it’s always been.

  Prologue

  402 AD Ancient Rome

  Rebekah shivered inside the confessional booth, trying not to make a sound. Lightning flashed, sending a wicked glow of multicolored light through the cathedral’s stained-glass windows, as her father paced impatiently between the pews, waiting for his rendezvous.

  His private meetings were becoming more frequent. Rebekah had been secretly spying on these meetings for months. Now, with the situation growing more desperate, she had little choice but to intervene.

  As she peeked through the slats, a mouse crawled atop her foot, giving her a start. Jerking her foot back, she lost her balance in the confined space and fell against the wall. A loud thud filled the air, and her father lifted his head. She held her breath as he rose, but his attention wasn’t on her. He turned toward the door.

  Ethan, the Great Hunter, arrived and Rebekah’s heartbeat quickened as he walked up the aisle to greet her father.

  “Cornelius,” Ethan said. He was six-foot-two of solid muscle, with dirty blond hair which was always a mess and a tad longer than any man’s she knew.

  She’d seen him coming to the church at least once a moon for as long as she could remember. He had always intrigued her, as he was sheer power in its rawest, primal form. Even with his gritty appearance and mysterious persona, he had an air about him, a regal demeanor, that left her feeling as if she were standing in the presence of something majestic, otherworldly.

  Cornelius extended a hand. “It is ready. Ignis will be here shortly. He’s supposed to find a suitable volunteer so we can do the experiment tonight. No more waiting. The time has come.”

  Ethan gripped the priest’s hand and gave it a firm shake. Then, he turned his head and looked over her father’s shoulder, right in her direction. She covered her mouth with her hand, certain he would blow her cover. Instead, his attention turned to the left where footsteps sounded. The warrior hadn’t seen her, or had he? Either way, she breathed a sigh of relief. His attention was diverted for the time being.

  Rebekah didn’t have to see the source of the approaching footsteps to know it was Ignis. When he stepped into her line of sight, his red hair was disheveled, and his young face was covered with a myriad of emotions. The smirk on the side of his mouth was misplaced, but he was always up to something nefarious.

  If she didn’t know him, she would have placed him as a young squire of the church, a priest, or someone looking after church business. He was handsome in an ageless way.

  Ignis was a friend to her father but, unfortunately, another blemish on his holy reputation as well. The very idea of befriending a man of magic was only tolerated because her father was held in high regard. No one else knew Ignis was a mage. And they kept it that way.

  Ignis was a special companion and ally, one who had not only concealed her mother’s forbidden pregnancy but had kept her parents’ secret in exchange for sanctuary. Being the hidden love child of a Vestal Virgin and a Pontifex Priest made Rebekah’s existence not only blasphemous in the eyes of the Church, but a death sentence in the eyes of Roman law.

  The mage wore a black robe that made him look like a member of the priesthood and not the misfit mage who had come to the church seeking asylum two years before she was born.

  Ignis passed the confessional and announced, “I’ve had a problem with the volunteer.”

  Cornelius let out a breath of frustration and wiped his brow. “What sort of problem?”

  Ignis shook his head. “He escaped.”

  “Escaped?” Cornelius nudged the mage’s shoulder. “For the love of all that’s holy, you were supposed to find a volunteer, not a hostage.”

  “It’s all a matter of perception.” That smirk rose higher. “Besides, he owed me a gambling debt. I thought it was more than a fair trade. For me at least.”

  Ethan’s voice boomed as loud as thunder. “I don’t want some scoundrel. I need someone committed to the cause, fully committed.”

  “Like thrown in the catacombs committed or something more in the vein of devotion for fighting monsters from hell in the dark of night? Cause we should have drilled down a little more on our understanding of the specifics and probably offered more than a partnership with you. Risk and reward, Ethan. Risk and reward.” Ignis lifted an eyebrow.

  Ethan ignored him. “Perhaps I should have taken on this task myself.” He raked his strong hand through his hair as his jaw clenched. While he was considering all the ways he’d like to beat the scrawny mage to a pulp, Rebekah was still hidden in the booth, knowing her opportunity had finally arrived. All she had to do now was wait for Ignis’s cue.

  Tonight, her life would change forever.

  She had overheard their conversations for months, along with the confessions that Ethan had shared with her father: talk of bloodthirsty monsters and shapeshifting beasts.

  All she had ever dreamt of was being a warrior, a part of the army like her lifelong friend, Atticus. But women were not allowed to fight. At least, not as a Roman soldier. Her stomach tightened and her eyes leaked thinking about her dear friend, her betrothed.

  She gripped her dagger’s handle at her hip where it was tied to her tunic. It was the last thing Atticus had forged, and he had made it for her.

  The blade, which he had named Stella, was made as a companion to his own dagger, a pugio he had created for battle—Luna. Luna had been lost in the war, taken by whoever had slai
n Atticus.

  Her life was as good as over, too. Being a woman of twenty, she was supposed to have married Atticus and started a family. Now, she would be expected to marry someone she didn’t know, someone she didn’t even care about like she had loved her lifelong friend. It was either that or give her vows to God. She may as well be locked away in a cell or cold in the catacombs.

  That was when she’d gone to Ignis and convinced him there was something more for her in the world; a war that needed her, a cause much greater than anything she had ever imagined and far more important than what Atticus had died for.

  Rebekah swallowed the hard lump in her throat, knowing she only had one way out, but first, she had to convince the others.

  It was now or never.

  She threw the confessional door open, and her father’s eyes bulged out of his head. She took a deep breath and proclaimed, “I will do it!”

  The other two men prepared for a fight. Ethan gripped his sword, ready for what he assumed was an attack, and Ignis held his hands in front of him, blue fire crackling at his fingertips.

  Cornelius stepped between the two men and his daughter. “Rebekah! What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been eavesdropping for months. I know of your cause. I’ve come to accept the challenge.”

  Ethan sheathed his sword. “I thought you said the place was secure from the staff at this time of night.” Ethan wasn’t sure of the girl’s place in the church, and her dress wasn’t that of the servant class. Whoever she was, she was either brave or bat shit crazy.

  “It usually is private at this hour.” Cornelius glowered at Rebekah.

  She knew she should be ashamed, but the desperation inside of her burned so fiercely that she had no room for useless emotions. She stood her ground, her chin held high.

  “Rebekah,” Cornelius said. “Go to your chamber at once. I will be in later to talk to you about this outburst.”

  “Cornelius, perhaps you should hear her out.” Ignis blew the flames from his fingers, leaving a trail of smoke swirling from the tips. He’d known she would arrive but had no idea she would pop out of the confessional and scare him half to death.

  Ignis took a quick breath. Good thing I didn’t shit my britches. Twas a high possibility.

  She turned to Ethan. “The Church has called on you to fight those beasts, the unnatural terrors that keep plaguing the land. I’ve heard your confessions to my father. I know of your plans to create a stronger army; your elite group of hunters. I know what you’ve asked of Ignis. How you need someone to test his spell. It will be my honor to do it.” Ethan shook his head, but she turned to her father. “Please, Papa. Please let me do this.”

  With the one endearment, the secret that had been kept from all but her parents and Ignis was out.

  Ethan’s eyes shifted to the priest. “Papa? This girl is your blooded daughter?” He grinned as he looked her up and down. He turned back to Cornelius. “You devil, you. I have to say, this is interesting. We all know that priests aren’t allowed to lay with women. To do so is a grave offense and punishable by death. You’re quite the risk taker, Father.”

  “I’m more than aware.” Her father’s shoulders stiffened as he glanced at Ethan, his brow pinched, his eyes slightly narrowed. “Some things are worth rebellion.”

  The girl stepped forward, keeping her chin raised in determination, her eyes level with the priest’s. “Please, Papa. You know I’ve nothing left, with Atticus dead. I’ve always wanted to be a soldier. This is my only chance!”

  Cornelius shook his head as he returned his attention to his daughter. “Your scuffles with Atticus when you were kids do not make you soldier material, Rebekah. You’re a woman, and women do not fight.” He tried to keep his voice down, but the anger burned his insides.

  “But I could fight this battle, Papa. I know it’s not like any other war. I’ve heard of the beasts, the monsters this warrior fights.” She nodded toward Ethan. “I’ve been listening to you long enough that I know what I’m stepping up for. I’ve been training my whole life growing up with Atticus. I even bested him a time or two.”

  Cornelius groaned. “When he was a scrawny young man, maybe, but this is different.”

  She turned to Ignis. Her father would never listen. “Would this spell not make me stronger, more powerful?” She wouldn’t throw Ignis under the bus by revealing him as her accomplice.

  Ignis rolled his eyes. “You have been listening.” He scratched his short-cropped hair that looked something like burning embers.

  He couldn’t appear to have known Rebekah was sneaking around, or that he’d known she would step up to the task. He’d watched her grow, seen her fight, and knew of her strengths. She deserved better than the hand she’d been dealt, and he was going to see to it that she got it.

  Cornelius’s blood pumped quickly through his veins, so fast that he thought his heart might explode. Rebekah was his secret miracle, and also his shame, but he loved her more than anything in the world. He could not bear to send her to a certain death. “I will not entertain this madness. If you don’t want to marry, you will give your vows to the church, Rebekah, like your mother. You will live a long, safe, and happy life.”

  Rebekah had been pushed to the edge, and it was time to jump. And even though she hadn’t wanted it to come to extremes, desperation overwhelmed her. She pulled the dagger from beneath her tunic and held it to her chest. “I’ll die before I give myself up to that life.”

  She couldn’t see herself marrying some ogre soldier, one who would be a perfect cover for her father’s missteps and suitable for a girl who was supposed to be no more than a ward of the church. She sure as hell wasn’t going to grow old and wither away in the same church where she was born.

  There’s a great big world out there, and I’m damn sure going to see it.

  Cornelius gasped and stepped forward, but she held the dagger steady to her heart. “Child.”

  Her voice trembled. “Let me have this one mercy, Father. I will choose my own path, one way or another.”

  “The girl has spirit, Cornelius.” Ethan moved around her, prowling like a cat who regarded her as a sizeable treat, and oh boy, could he feast. She was tall for a woman, which Ethan liked. He imagined how nicely they would fit together once horizontal. Under her flowing tunic, which was tied and cinched in all the right places, he could see the swell of her ample breasts and the graceful lines of her long legs. Her features were as sharp as her dagger, her eyes the same color as its steel. Sexier still, they looked like ice in contrast to her long, black hair. “I’d assume she has the heart of a true warrior, as well.”

  “Everyone dies, but warriors race after it, Rebecca,” Cornelius said. “I cannot be responsible for sending my daughter to slaughter. You cannot ask this of me.”

  Ignis paced the floor. The heavy robe he wore rustled around his feet. “It would seem that death is inevitable, my friend. I think we should allow it. Better she dies for a cause than for spite.”

  Cornelius looked to Ethan, who he noticed hadn’t stopped staring at his daughter since she stepped out of the confessional. And he didn’t think it was solely because the girl was holding that damned dagger to her heart with a death grip and a look of determination that he’d never seen before. No, he was lusting after her, so much that the Hunter had even wiped the corner of his mouth.

  Cornelius had protected her since the day she took her first breath, keeping her as a ward of the Church, all the while allowing her to know her true self. But perhaps in that task, he hadn’t taken the time to truly know her, to understand her passion and spirit for the fight. He also hadn’t been honest about preferring she mate a man and not God. God couldn’t protect her bloodlines by giving her children.

  “I shall allow it on one condition. Would you have her, Ethan?”

  Ethan thought of at least six ways he would have her, but none of them were appropriate for her father’s ears. He was sure that wasn’t what the priest had in mind. “I have no
problems letting a woman fight, if that’s what you’re asking, but I can’t promise it will be an easy life for her.”

  “No, take her to hunt, yes, but I’m asking you to take her as your wife. She is of noble blood, blood that is mentioned in an ancient prophecy.”

  Ethan jerked his head around, regarding the priest. “Whoa, you want me to marry her? You are aware that I don’t live under the same laws, nor live the same lifestyle, as men. I was the first. The only. I am the original.” His voice never wavered.

  Tied down? To one woman? Fuck.

  He was used to roaming the earth from one camp to another, country to country, wherever the battle took him. The idea of settling down made his skin crawl.

  “She must bear children and keep her mother’s bloodlines strong,” the priest pleaded sternly.

  “What is this prophecy?” Ethan needed to know what he was getting into.

  “On her maternal grandfather’s deathbed, he confessed to me that an ancient prophecy, The Prophecy of Hope, states that when the last of his family bloodline is vanquished, it will mark the beginning of the end—the end of all hope as we know it.”

  “The silly ramblings of a dying man are not enough to get me to marry any woman. Not even a beautiful one like this.” Ethan turned to Rebekah. “But I have no problems taking her as my concubine, which would keep her honor intact.”