Fellowship of the Hunters Read online

Michael’s lips pulled in a tight line, and while he wanted to hate the woman, he couldn’t. There was just something about her. Her beauty, however imperfect next to his own kind, was something to be marveled. “So, your story is not changing, I see?” His voice was strong, despite the twitch of his lip where he fought so hard not to smile.

  “No, it is not. I stand behind my earlier statements.” She’d talked to him in her office and told the truth then and now. “Nothing has changed. All that happened was true. And I might be so bold to say this, but I believe it was divine intervention that caused his light to pour out the way it did. If it hadn’t, things would have ended much differently for everyone.”

  “I agree,” said the archangel.

  Elder Wick gasped. “I beg your pardon, Michael, but you can’t seriously be taking her word for it. Your angel is wounded, and she’s the one who put him in grave danger.”

  Michael turned and looked down his nose at Elder John. “I’d thank you not to tell me the condition of my angel, which I reported to you if you don’t remember.”

  Ignis smiled, but he managed to hold back his laughter. It was good to see the stiffs at the church getting theirs from someone they admired.

  Michael closed the distance between himself and the huntress. “Her story has not varied, and it matches Aziel’s. I have no choice but to pardon the Immortal Huntress.” He turned to Elder Wick. “I believe your witch hunt is over.” He turned to face Rebekah, his expression barely giving way to the smile he’d tried so hard to hold back. “I wish you Godspeed on your mission, Huntress.”

  “Thank you, Michael. I’d love for Aziel to join me again. I really feel he belongs at the academy, and he is always welcomed there, as are you, of course.” She bowed her head and with respect, met his eyes.

  Michael cracked a half-smile and disappeared before she earned the other half.

  Rebekah glared at Elder Wick. “Well, you heard him. Are we done?”

  “Not just yet. Your consorting with mages and magic folk is a problem, and I’m afraid that we’re going to have to detain Mr. Fatuus for further questioning.” A pair of guards stepped forward from near the wall and took Ignis by the arms, a mistake they regretted as soon as Ignis’s magic shocked them both. They stepped back and drew their weapons on him as if they could keep him contained.

  Rebekah had Stella unsheathed so fast, none of them saw it until she had one of the Elders by the throat, the blade tickling his flesh as he gulped for air.

  “How dare you draw those weapons in God’s house!” said Elder Wick.

  “In case you have forgotten, I never go anywhere without my mage and my daggers. And in case you don’t remember your history, Ignis is no ordinary mage. He is the reason we’re able to make more hunters, the reason I was made, and the reason there is a cause at all. Now, unless you want hell to pay, I demand you back off, or I shall remove your friend’s head from his body.” She hadn’t expected to be in a standoff with anyone, but no one tried to take Ignis. No. One.

  The guards backed away, and Ignis brushed off his coat.

  Rebekah threw the man to the floor, and the guards picked him up. Elder Wick stood to his feet a moment too late to call off his men. “Let them go. There is no cause for violence. The Immortal Huntress says that there is a problem in her academy, so we’ll look into it.”

  “Yes, and I’d look into that original agreement. You’ll see that Ignis is non-negotiable.” She took Ignis by the hand, and the two walked down the long aisle side by side without looking back.

  “You could have stabbed me a piece of that cheese,” said Ignis as they made it to the large doors that opened up to another long hallway. “Those monks make the very best.”

  “I’ll buy you dinner, but only once we’ve gotten out of Italy.” She didn’t like to be in her homeland too long. Too many memories.

  “You never want to take me anywhere nice. I’m beginning to think this relationship is on the rocks.”

  He’d always teased her about how they reminded him of an old married couple at times, which was strange because they were more like brother and sister than anything else. “Stop being dramatic. I will give you my peanuts on the plane.”

  “I’d rather have your bourbon.” He walked out into the sun, thankful that he had a friend like her, one who would offend God himself to take care of him.

  She let out a long, cleansing sigh. “After this meeting, you’ll have to get your own.”

  “But you don’t even like to drink.” He chuckled as she gave him a sidelong look.

  “I might have to start.” She thought about something she’d meant to ask him as they got to the car which would bring them immediately back to the private jet. “You said the church should check into 381AD, and I couldn’t help but notice that date was so close to the year of my birth.”

  “Yes, it was.” Ignis stood holding the door while Rebekah got into the car, sliding across the seat so he could join her.

  “You said my father knew the stigmatic. Does that mean you knew them too?”

  “I know what you want to ask me, Bex, and I think there are some things you don’t really want to know in life. This is one of them.” He had always told her the same thing throughout her life when it was something her father had not wanted Ignis to share with her.

  Ignis shut the car door, and the car pulled away from the cathedral.

  “I think you should let me make my own mind up about that. It’s not fair that you keep things from me, Ignis. I’m not a child.”

  “Fine. Her name was Livia Hortensius.”

  Rebekah was ready to argue a bit longer and hadn’t expected him to just blurt it out like he had. “Wait. What?”

  “That’s your mother’s name, in case you didn’t remember.” Ignis knew she’d never forget the woman who gave her life, as he wouldn’t. Rebekah was the spitting image of her mother. Though oftentimes, she would give him a look that made him think she was more her father, the priest’s daughter.

  “That’s not funny.” Surely, he would have told her this by now. What with the mage and his powers mimicking the stigmata that threatened the Prophecy of Hope.

  “It’s not a joke, Bexy. You wanted to know, you think you can handle these things, and it always makes you crazy that you couldn’t do something more about it a thousand-something years ago, but the truth is, your father handled it.”

  “And you didn’t think this mage attack was significant?”

  “Before you get too pissed off at me, yes, I knew it was significant, and I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you. Which was only when I had to. Knowing that about your mother wouldn’t have made a damned bit of difference.”

  Ignis was right about that, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

  There had to be a reason her father didn’t want her to know. “Is that how they met?”

  “I heard they knew each other before that, but yes, I think you were conceived during your mother’s convalescence. Your father said he had loved her since the moment he met her, and she the same, as if some kind of magic was pulling them together.”

  Perhaps it was, thought Rebekah. She’d seen magic do many things in her life. She’d always believe that some larger force, maybe even God himself, had known all along what she was to become. “Even though it was forbidden.” She wasn’t asking a question as much as making a statement, but Ignis answered all the same.

  “Sometimes the best loves are forbidden.” He was talking about him and Talia, but she thought about her and Kayne. She didn’t love him, did she? Maybe the kind of love she had was familiarity, the kind a hostage has for her captor. He’d been in her life for so long, telling her they should be together, that she was starting to believe it. Great, she thought. I think I have Stockholm syndrome. It was ridiculous; the two made even less sense than Ignis and his naiad lover who lived in the swamps and had fins beneath the water.

  Talia’s kind was hunted by Ignis’s, so the similarities were there. Mages hunted down nai
ads in the water for sport and because their blood was a powerful aphrodisiac that gave their kind vitality. Lucky for Ignis, there was a little something else that being intimate with a naiad could do, and because of that love, she’d always have her best friend beside her, looking as young and handsome as the day she met him.

  “Do you think either had any regrets?” She had often wondered that about her parents and their decisions.

  “Only that they couldn’t raise you together. That, I know for sure. Your mother told me the very same day she asked me to keep an eye on you.” Rebekah had always asked the same question, and even though he was going to forever give her the same answer, he did so as if it was the first time. And not because she’d forgotten. No, Rebekah’s memory was like a steel trap, but even someone as strong as her needed reassurance now and then.

  “Did she tell you that when I became a hunter?” She knew Ignis had been the one to tell her.

  He laughed. “No, when you became a toddler. It was about the same time she transferred out of the church and went to travel with the other Vestals. I remember telling her yes, while the whole time I was screaming inside that this wasn’t what I’d signed up for. But then, you looked up at me with those big, gray eyes, which still had a little hint of blue in them from birth, and I knew I was right where I belonged. With me and Talia not able to have any children, I knew my chances of nurturing a child were nonexistent, and you were a chance to do just that.”

  “I’m glad you saw things that way, but I wish you and me both could have families of our own.”

  “Sometimes families are not born of love, but constructed through circumstance, just like you and me. I think we’re the best kind of family because we’ve always had a choice but managed to stay together.”

  “You’re going to make me cry if you keep on with the sappy sentimental talk.”

  “Oh, and big bad huntresses don’t cry, right?” He’d seen her cry many times.

  “Never.” She balled her fist and shook it at him playfully.

  “Would you have really stabbed that man for me? Right in the cathedral in front of God and all the Elder’s Council?” Now Ignis was asking questions he already knew the answers to.

  “They’d be mopping the blood off the floors as we speak.” Rebekah’s laughter echoed around the cab. “You know I was hoping I wouldn’t have to.”

  “Yes, I know.” He turned to look out the window, thinking of all the years in their past. “You know they aren’t going to stop, Rebekah.” The Church had been trying to overthrow her authority for hundreds of years, ever since all of the original council had gone to their graves. What neither one had managed to address, simply because the topic left a bad taste in their mouths, was that the Church was already attempting another shot at her.

  “I know.” Rebekah shook her head. “They’re so afraid of someone else being in charge as they hide behind God. Meanwhile, we’re the ones fighting and doing all the dirty work, not to mention that the entire race of hunters wouldn’t be shit without you and me. What are they going to do, get Ethan to serenade the enemy to death? What a fucking joke.” She tried to take a calming breath, but the very idea of her ex, the Great Hunter Ethan, made her want to kill something.

  “They’re lucky he has had a change of heart and occupation over the years, because otherwise, he’d have heads rolling.”

  That brought her head around. “Are you saying I’m too gentle? Compared to Mister I want to be a Rockstar?”

  “Not at all, but you know how brutal Ethan was in his day, and let’s face it, him being a man, they wouldn’t think they could walk over him in the first place. They see you as weak.”

  She still couldn’t believe how she’d acted back at the meeting. “I’m pretty sure they’re rethinking that idea at the moment.”

  “You should have slit his throat and left him lying on the floor. Then they’d still be thinking about it. No, they’re talking about how to get rid of you, mark my words, and me as well, of course.”

  “They need us. They will always need my blood and your magic.”

  “Ah, yes, but we’ve given them those things, haven’t we?”

  “You’re talking about the spelled daggers used in the marking ceremony,” she said, meeting his eyes. Ignis had infused special daggers to be placed in every academy so he and Rebekah wouldn’t have to be in a hundred places at once.

  “Bingo. I’m sure they already thought of that, which is why I thought ahead too. The magic that makes all of my Church sanctioned magic possible is bound by a spell, so until they have that, at least they can’t use any of it.”

  She pulled out Luna and held the dagger in her hand, running her fingertips along the cool steel. “I don’t know why they see me as a threat. I’ve stuck to the rules of their stupid agreement for hundreds of years.”

  “You know why; you just can’t believe they’re so asinine. They know that if we ever wanted, we could turn the entire army against the Church, and even if they managed to take some of the Fellowship, we’d be able to make more.”

  “And in all this time, we’ve never tried. The Fellowship of the Hunters has done all it can to protect not only humanity, but the Church as well.”

  Ignis shrugged. “Maybe it’s time we come up with our plan, something to ensure that when that other shoe falls, we’ve got a head start.”

  “Considering that all of the hunters pledge themselves to me, I’d say we already do.”

  “I mean you making a stronger front in the academies. Let the hunters see you leading. Let them know that their leader is ready and willing to fight not only with them, but for them.”

  “You mean the steps I’m already taking in the academy. Letting them see that I’m the one with their best interest at heart.”

  Ignis met her stare with wide eyes. “Bingo.”

  She had never thought the day would come when she had to live openly in the spotlight, and she cursed Ethan’s name once more for leaving her to it.

  Chapter 3

  Drills had started early like any other day at the Fellowship of the Hunters Nevada Training Academy, and by midday, it was already catching up with Jarreth. He yawned as he stretched and flexed his way through his final workout and wished there was a Starbucks nearby. There wasn’t anything nearby though, not when the only hunter’s academy was in the Nevada desert just below a mountain range. “Why couldn’t they have built this thing a little closer to the city?”

  “I think if we were any closer to Sin City, the Church wouldn’t have approved funding.” Delilah dropped to the floor to do pushups, following along to Canter’s lead.

  “Maybe we are too close, and that’s why our funding is shit.” Jarreth bent his strong arms, touching his nose to the floor as he pumped his body up and down.

  Delilah tried not to get too distracted as she turned her head his way, but it was no use. She took in the sight of him like it was feeding her soul, and then she turned her face back down to the floor before she lost her rhythm.

  “Focus!” snapped Canter, who was still counting their movements.

  Jarreth deliberately ignored Canter, who had been a real pain in the ass ever since the battle. He’d blamed Jarreth for Katie’s injury, but Jarreth couldn’t help it. Luckily, Delilah had been there and helped him out with the other girl, but Canter saw it as abandonment. Or perhaps he was just scared and needed someone to blame. Being Canter’s leaning post wasn’t anything new, and the two had been there for one another in some capacity since the first day of academy, so what else was new? Jarreth decided if he needed to be the guy’s punching bag for a bit, so be it. That was what best buddies were for, right? At least, until it became as annoying as fuck.

  Jarreth lowered his voice as he spoke to Delilah. “Do you think Rebekah’s coming back?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I hope they let her. I hope they let Aziel, too.”

  Jarreth turned his head from the floor and glanced at her. “I wouldn’t hold my breath. He’s pro
bably gone for good.” At least, he hoped so. He didn’t like the way Delilah had been doting over the angel lately, and now, to make things worse, she missed him.

  As Canter counted down the last of the reps, his voice grew louder, and finally after the last push up, he rolled over and sat up. The others did the same, some slouching to the floor in various positions, a few standing to stretch. He looked at Delilah and Jarreth, both lounging on the floor beside him. “If you two could stop talking during my counts, that would be great.” Canter hadn’t seen a good mood ever since Katie had been injured. Okay, so maybe it was before that. He’d been kicking himself ever since he’d told the young woman that he couldn’t be with her.

  He looked across the mat where she would usually be. Katie hadn’t been released to work out, but with the quick healing of the hunters, it would only be another day and she’d be as good as new. Fast healing didn’t mean miracles, there was still a little bit of recovery for each wound, be it two minutes to two days, but it really depended on the injury.

  Layne was going to take a lot longer, and since he had been near death, they weren’t taking any unnecessary chances.

  The entire group was out of sorts, and not only because of the battle, but because Rebekah and Ignis had been summoned to go before The Church and the Elder’s Council, where they would be held accountable for the unsanctioned mission.

  He turned his eyes to scan the mats where they had gathered, and while Katie’s spot was empty, along with Layne’s, the ones that were filled seemed a little empty too. Layne’s best friend Chris stared at the empty place and put his head down, and Canter noticed that Cooper was acting strangely too.

  “Do you think they’ll send them to Arcadius?” asked Delilah.

  “I don’t think there’s a prison that can hold the Immortal Huntress,” said Canter. “Especially one of her making.” He turned his attention to Cooper, who was stretched out flat on his back, staring at the ceiling with a faraway look in his eyes. “What do you think, Cooper?” Canter had noticed the guy was a bit standoffish lately, and he needed to make sure the fellow hunter was okay.