Not six Huntmen.
Seven.
—
Instinct kept Siri silent and still when she awoke. She was aware first of the midday sun burning down on her, and of the rock beneath her cutting into her arms where they were bound behind her back. The ropes were tight, cutting off her circulation, as were the ropes around her ankles, and she could feel the swollen uselessness of her hands and feet. Her head throbbed from the blow that had knocked her out, and judging by the bruised soreness of her body, she’d been dumped unceremoniously where she lay.
On hard, hot granite.
Behind closed eyes and an unaware face, her mind struggled with that fact. Granite. The ridge! The ridge by the gorge where she’d first found Hunter. At the narrow end of the valley where, she remembered desolately, there was no cover for Hunter to use in approaching unseen. No vegetation. No unevenness in the land itself.
No chance.
The Huntmen had chosen well.
Marshaling her strength, Siri reached out, desperately, for the one mind in the valley she so badly needed to touch. Nothing. Blankness. Not the emptiness of no life, but the blank solidness of a curtain she couldn’t part.
There was something at work here she had never encountered before. An astonishing mental power, capable of disguising its own presence in blankness and capable of blocking off her efforts to reach Hunter. And she wasn’t strong enough to fight it.
Desolation stabbed her, desolation and tearing fear. She couldn’t even warn Hunter or prepare him for what would come. Couldn’t explain that the cards had been right after all. Couldn’t apologize for an eventuality she had not been able to foresee.
Couldn’t even say good-bye.
She felt tears squeeze between her lashes and trickle down over sun-heated skin, but no sob escaped her. She lived many myths, but Siri knew better than to expect a miraculous saving from the situation. She had been born and raised to rely on her own abilities, her own skills. And for all her faith in Hunter’s abilities, she knew only too well that he could not, unseen by her captors, approach where she lay.
Her mind was curiously still and silent, her emotions numbing slowly. She regretted the loss of her life as any sentient being would regret death. She regretted that she would see no more Unicorns, no more Summers. She regretted that she had not told Hunter she loved him. And, more than anything else, she regretted that she had not said good-bye to him.
She had said good-bye to the Unicorns yesterday, but not to Hunter. And that hurt her more deeply than anything had ever hurt her in her life.
“Hello, princess.”
She felt the point of a knife beneath her chin and opened her eyes slowly to stare up at him, her mind suddenly whirling with confusing images. Friend…seducer…enemy…She saw nothing but blinding sunlight for a moment, then a head and massive shoulders blocked the light and she saw him.
And Siri shrank back in horror.
The right side of his face was classical perfection, the strong and handsome face of a mature angel. Dark-haired and green-eyed, he was beautiful. But the left side of his face, from brow to the base of his neck, wore the skin of a demon. Horribly blackened, hardened, his flesh was furrowed and pitted. The left corner of his mouth pulled downward in a permanent, grotesque sneer. And the green eye on that side was covered with a milky film, blinded.
And she remembered.
Smiling, Boran said, “I was going to let you remember only once I was inside you, princess, but this is better. You’ll know what’s happening to you, you’ll feel the pain and horror and disgust as I take your precious virginity.”
An animal cry of protest lost itself somewhere in her mind, and Siri felt a sudden raging bitterness. How desperately she had fought to resist her feelings for Hunter, never considering the possibility that some hideous Huntman would make a mockery of her “choice.” Everything that she was rebelled violently.
“Don’t you like my face, princess?” he asked softly, his voice deep and incongruously beautiful; it matched one side of his face but never the other side. White and even teeth showed in his twisted, triumphant smile. “I couldn’t let you see it before now, because I wanted your willing cooperation. And you did cooperate, princess. Do you remember?”
A bitter bile rose in her throat as Siri did indeed remember. She remembered his hands on her body, his lust in her mind. She remembered going to him like a trained animal called to heel, stripping off her clothes for him, lying down for him…
“Spreading your legs for me,” he murmured gently. “I’ve tasted your lovely body, princess. I’ve petted you like a favorite bitch fawning at my side. You went crazy for me, remember? You moaned and writhed, and begged me to pleasure you.”
Siri fought to swallow the sickness enough to speak, and though her voice was husky, it was clear. “No. That wasn’t me. That was some poor, mindless creature you trained to want you.”
His smile died, and even the angel side of his face hardened abruptly. “You, princess. Your body.”
“But not my mind.” She found a small, scornful smile somewhere and a tiny laugh. “You haven’t the courage to try and take me in my right mind.”
He was still for a moment, and then his smile reappeared. “In due time, princess. I want your would-be lover to watch. He knows we have you, of course, but I couldn’t let you warn him. A little trick I picked up on another world. I put a blanket of darkness around all of us as easily as I controlled your mind.”
“Hunter doesn’t know where the Unicorns are hidden.”
“So the Keeper can lie?” He laughed. “I’m disappointed in you, princess. Such a pitiful lie! He knows. Unfortunately, his knowledge of their hiding place is buried in his mind, and I can’t get at it. But he knows. And he’ll tell me. Or he’ll watch you die very slowly. I’ll take you first, of course. I want your virgin’s blood. And then my men will take you. If that doesn’t kill you—and it probably will—then I’ll allow them to finish you. They enjoy torture.”
“And you don’t?” she snapped, holding on to anger because she couldn’t let herself think of anything else.
He went still again, staring down at her. For an instant, something flickered in the clear green eye, and then it was gone. “No, I—” He shook his head abruptly. And smiled. “I enjoy pleasure. And I will find a great deal of pleasure in taking you while he watches.”
Siri had long since realized that there was more here than simple greed. This man wanted Hunter to suffer, that much was plain. It was also clear that he believed in the ancient legends about the power granted a man who took a Keeper’s virginity. But he also wanted the Unicorns.
“Hunter won’t break his word to me,” she said finally. “The Unicorns are safe from you.”
Boran chuckled. “Oh, he’ll talk. When he hears you scream in pain and watches me take you, he’ll talk.”
She swallowed dryly, feeling the knife’s point cut into her slightly. Could she thrust her body forward and upward, ending it now? She wanted to in order to spare Hunter, but there is that in even one resigned to death that resists until the last possible moment. And she wanted so badly to see Hunter one last time.
“He won’t talk,” she said tiredly. “His promise binds him.”
Boran shrugged. “Think what you like, princess. I know. When he hears your agony, he will talk. And then you’ll both die.”
“Why do you want him to suffer?” she asked suddenly.
But Boran was unwilling to part with his reasons. He put his knife aside and reached to begin fondling her breasts. “Such lovely breasts you have, princess. Has your would-be lover touched them as I have? Has he suckled the sweetness of them as I have? Has he seen them grow hard with wanting him as I have?”
Siri felt physically ill at his touch, her flesh crawling coldly and her stomach churning. The smooth mockery of his soft voice sickened her even more, as did his questions. But she tried not to think or feel, aware that he read her thoughts with pathetic ease. Instead, she nudged
her subconscious, desperate to find some weapon to fight his intentions.
It never occurred to her that because Keepers had to be virgins there would exist some final, extreme weapon. But it seemed the Guardians had planned well. Without her conscious volition, words welled up and escaped her tight throat.
“You cannot take me, Huntman.”
Boran went still, hearing in her voice something ancient and certain. And her eyes were unfocused, turned inward. He forced a laugh. “You can hardly stop me, princess.”
“I have stopped you. Be aware of your body.”
He pulled his hand away from her as though she had burned him, and then slowly reached down to cup himself protectively. But it was too late. The sexual arousal he had felt almost constantly was completely gone; his member was flaccid.
Boran had never felt such rage—or such fear. That she could steal his manhood with such ease was a stunning shock, and because his sexual organs were so often used as weapons, he felt as momentarily defenseless as an archer without his bow. And then rage overwhelmed all else.
Harshly, he said, “If I didn’t need you as bait, sorceress, I’d kill you now. But be assured, you will die slowly. And you won’t go to your death with your maidenhead intact. You may have stolen my manhood, but I will improvise.”
Siri’s surge of triumph faded, and she felt cold.
Very cold.
Chapter 10
(The beast was a tortured, mindless thing.)
Hunter was aware, in some distant, sane part of himself, that he kept moving. He combed the forest methodically, searching. And if Death had been on the wing when Siri had hunted, today Death wore the boots of a tortured man whose faint hope gradually disappeared.
They had her.
(The beast quivered, racked by unendurable pain.)
He kept going. He searched the base of The Reaper near the dragon’s cave and near where the Unicorns were hidden. He quartered the ground all around the Crystal Pool. He scanned the meadow without leaving the shelter of the trees. And when his footsteps turned toward the narrow end of the valley, his tormented mind worked in agony.
That was where they’d be, of course. The hard granite of that place had literally branded itself into his very flesh when he had fallen; he could remember in his earlier exploration of the valley that it was the perfect spot for an ambush.
Or for a merciless Huntman to wait with his captive.
Hunter wouldn’t let himself think about what would be demanded of him in return for Siri’s life. In all logic, the Huntmen could not afford to allow either of them to live no matter what happened. There was the faintest chance that Siri would live for a while longer, bait for Hunter, while they tortured her before his eyes.
(The beast crouched tensely.)
There was no crystallized realization in Hunter’s mind that he would not be able to bear seeing what they would do to her; there was only the sound of his very soul crying out in silent agony.
He heard his own voice suddenly in his mind.
“I’d prefer a clean death.”
And hers.
“So would I.”
And he heard the harsh rattle of his understanding like an animal trapped in his throat.
(The beast screamed fearfully.)
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill her himself to spare her torture. He would never have the strength for that. And the Huntmen would never allow him to get near enough, he told himself frantically, desperate to avoid facing the truth of her warning; she had known this might happen.
He pushed it out of his mind, knowing that the decision, were he given the time and opportunity for even that, would be made through instinct and not through intellect.
Hunter leaned against a tree for a brief moment, survival training causing him automatically to take stock. He had one spear, two knives, and a bow that was useless without arrows and wouldn’t have done him much good anyway; it was not a weapon he was skilled in. He tossed the bow aside, trying not to remember Siri’s bow lying splintered where she should have been.
Then he straightened, positioned his knives more firmly—one in its sheath, the other in his belt—and took a more balanced grip on the spear; if the opportunity arose to use it, he wanted to be ready. He began walking, moving through the trees fringing the forest out into the meadow. There was no other way. No way to cross the gorge and get behind them. No cover to use in approaching unseen.
He thought like a warrior and knew where they’d be. On the ridge. To his possible advantage, there was only a rather large boulder some little distance from the ridge, he remembered. He wouldn’t be able to throw his spear far enough to reach the ridge, but at least…At least what?
At least that final run won’t be so long.
It gave him little comfort to know that he would kill as many of the Huntmen as he could. No matter what happened, no matter how many arrows or spears or whatever did reach him, he would feel at least one Huntman’s dying throat in his hands.
He walked slowly, steadily, making for the boulder he could only now see. Unhurried, appearing calm. His green eyes focused on a point beyond the boulder and a crumpled, bound figure lying on the ridge, growing plainer as the distance between them closed. There was a knife at her throat, a Huntman crouching behind to use her as shield as well as bait.
(The beast lunged mindlessly.)
And other Huntmen nearby. He noticed in passing that there were four of them almost hidden behind the rocks.
(The beast growled hungrily.)
His mind toying absently with that extra enemy, Hunter walked on. So there had been seven, not six. Had that seventh one been the wrongness Siri had sensed? Not that it mattered now.
Not that it could ever matter now.
(The beast paced its cage.)
He didn’t even think about the fact that he had four to kill now. That didn’t matter either.
The Huntman holding Siri allowed him to reach the boulder. A mistake, Hunter thought, detached. Something rippled across the surface of his mind, but he was detached from that, too, and barely noticed. His inner gaze was frozen, his outer gaze fastened on to black eyes that looked at him with a calm that was agony. She was bruised, her clothing disarranged, and blood trickled from the knife’s point at her throat.
(The beast howled in mortal anguish.)
Hunter firmly closed the door against that inner beast, leaving it caged, crouched and ready to spring. But not yet. Not just yet.
“No nearer, Morgan!” The one holding the knife at Siri’s throat shouted hoarsely, but it was the hoarseness of greed about to be realized, not fear.
Hunter stopped, the boulder between them. His eyes measured the distance he would have to cross to reach them, and he knew that even wings lent him by sympathetic gods couldn’t close that distance in time to save Siri.
(The beast growled and lunged in its cage, desperate to be loosed.)
Not yet.
He didn’t want to hear what the Huntman would say, knew what he would say but didn’t want to know. And had to hear. Had to hear what he would give his life not to hear, never to hear.
“Make your choice, Morgan! Tell me where the unicorns are hidden or I’ll cut her throat!”
(The beast screamed…shrieked…bellowed…its silent anguish rising in a crescendo of raw torment.)
The man’s words went through Hunter like a flaming knife, cutting in agony and then cauterizing, leaving numbness. But beneath the surface numbness the beast howled in mindless despair and grief and misery, its anguish very nearly destroying the cage holding it captive.
Very nearly.
Hunter wasn’t ready for the choice, could never be ready. Siri had spoken of the agony of being forced to choose between the flesh of her flesh and the flesh of a living myth. Now, in a stark, torturing reality, Hunter was being forced to choose between the flesh of a living myth…and Siri. Not the flesh of his flesh, but the heart of his heart and the soul of his soul.
Had he apologize
d to her for his harsh words of yesterday? No. And he wished he had. He wished now he had.
There was always a chance, a faint, almost vanishing chance, that the Huntmen would free Siri if they were given the Unicorns. It was that chance, that dim possibility, that tormented Hunter. But he knew with an awful, tearing certainty that there was a third price he could not pay for more time with Siri.
The lives of the Unicorns.
—
There was something Siri was trying to remember. There was, she thought vaguely, something wrong with this. The Huntman crouching behind her with the knife. There had been another, hadn’t there? Half angel, half devil? No. No, it was gone now. And it couldn’t have been important, or she would have remembered.
She pushed that puzzle aside as Hunter came closer. She could feel the tension of the Huntman as he waited for his answer, but she had eyes only for Hunter. His lean face was a battlefield, she realized, a battlefield frozen in time. Armies fought there blindly, viciously, endlessly. Opposing sides of rage and fear warred brutally.
She was dead no matter which he chose. Did he realize that? She reached out desperately to touch his mind, fear lending her the strength to break through the strange blankness she sensed like a curtain between them. And black, screaming agony washed over her, drowning the warning she would have sent.
The cards’ prophecy!
It had never been her agony she had seen, her choice to make, but Hunter’s. This very scene had been intended. If only she had known that! If only she had been able to see! They could have prevented this somehow. But it was too late now, and she could only try to reach out to Hunter and ease his pain, voice agreement and understanding for his choice. He was too intelligent and too loyal, she knew, to make the choice the Huntmen wanted.
She reached out to him, but Hunter’s own violent emotions now curtained his mind in blackness.