Stryker (Boys of Wynter Book 1)

  The short stretch to the kitchen felt like an eternity. My limbs felt hollow and my head felt heavy as if filled with cement. Something was not right. I hadn't expected to feel a hundred percent, but I couldn't figure out why I felt as if I'd been chewed up and spit out.

  I stopped at the kitchen entrance. Even in my quest to make amends to my hostess, I couldn't stop myself from first watching her curvy form as she leaned over the stove to stir the eggs. She'd pulled on jeans that hugged her bite-worthy ass like a glove. The rest of me felt like shit, but my cock was feeling like a million fucking bucks.

  "I'm sorry, Willow. I'm thankful for you pulling me out of my frozen grave and stitching me up." The sound of my voice startled her. I was equally startled by her blue eyes when she turned to look at me. But my startle was only caused by how stunning she looked, even standing in the tiny, smoke filled kitchen. Each time I saw her it was as if I was seeing her for the first time. And each time, her unsurpassed beauty affected me more. What a fucked up waste, a woman like her sheltered up out in the middle of nowhere.

  I rested my hand on the small counter separating the kitchen from the front room. It was the only way I could keep upright.

  Willow's brows were arched with worry as she slipped a glass of milk in front of me. "It's goat's milk. It will give you some strength. You look terrible."

  Even a nod took too much effort. "I'm feeling about as bad as I look. But I'll eat and get out of your way. You've done enough already."

  "No rush. Eat your breakfast and rest another day. Besides, a storm will blow through this afternoon. You'd never make it back to—"

  "Cliffmoor."

  "Yes, of course. Cliffmoor is a good ten miles from here. You'll never make it in your condition. One more day won't hurt."

  As she spoke, a deep shiver crept through me as if my veins had been filled with ice. I tried to concentrate on her words, but coherent thoughts were splintering off in every direction, quickly becoming the mixed up pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. The hand I used to hold the blanket around my waist shook and I lost grip on it and on the counter. I stumbled back and couldn't keep upright. It was as if gravity had increased ten-fold, and it pulled me to the ground.

  The last thing I heard was Willow crying out my name before everything went black.

  Chapter Seven

  Willow

  Somehow I'd managed to drag the naked, unconscious man to my bedroom. I was sure the wood floor of the hallway left him with plenty of splinters, but I needed to get him to bed. The couch was just not long enough, and I needed to get the entire length of him under the covers. Even with his eyes shut to the world, his entire, massively built body shook as if every nerve cell was being jolted by electricity. But it wasn't electricity, and after some reflection, I was sure I'd figured out why he'd fallen so ill.

  Exhausted, I dropped my hold on his arms too fast, and his head hit the floor with a thump. It jarred him awake just long enough for him to crawl up onto the bed. He collapsed face down on my cloud of faded quilts. His smooth tanned skin and the strong, sinewy muscles of his back and buttocks belied how sick he was. I had stitched him up, but the man on my bed, as magnificent and powerful as he looked, was dying, and his sickness was out of my control. Wraith poison needed an antidote, and I certainly had no need for that on the tundra. At least not until now.

  Stryker was so close to death that even his groans of pain had been silenced. With a great deal of effort, I managed to roll him onto his back and tuck my quilts in around him. They were hardly enough for the bone-deep chill that traveled through his body.

  I pressed my hand against his chest and yanked my palm away as it was burned by the glacial feel of his skin. His chiseled jaw, tightened and relaxed beneath his dark beard as he grimaced with the cold.

  I pushed the blanket down to check his wound. I lifted up the edges of gauze. I had gone through painstaking steps to prevent infection, but all the while, the wraith venom had been invading his flesh. His skin puckered pink around my careful stitches.

  Stryker's eyes opened to mere slits. The jade green of his eyes had washed away, and his gaze was pale and lifeless. "Am I dying?" he asked weakly.

  There was no sorrow or fear in his tone. I'd always heard shocking tales of the harsh training the Boys of Wynter endured, even as young boys. It made them hardened to the horrors of the underworld. It made them fearless, even in the face of death, and it seemed I was seeing a result of that training now. And somehow, the resigned, deep tone of his voice, brought tears to my eyes.

  I ignored the icy feel of his skin and stroked the hair off his forehead. "The yellow substance—" My throat tightened as I spoke. "It was venom from the wraith you killed. It entered your body through the gash."

  His lip curled up. "So the ugly little fucker got me anyhow."

  An unexpected sob rolled off my lips. I covered the sound too late. Stryker's head moved slowly to the side, and his glazed eyes peered up at me. He lifted his trembling arm and hand and brushed an icy finger along my cheek. My tear froze instantly at his touch.

  "No crying, my guardian angel. I can die happy if yours is the last face I see."

  The tears flowed faster now. I swiped at them and quickly chastised myself for sinking so quickly into defeat.

  "You're not going to die." I pushed off the bed. "I've got an idea." I hurried out of the room and out to the front room. I rummaged through my kitchen drawer for my notepaper and pen. Sabre would choke and sputter with anger once she discovered what I'd done, but I needed her help. I would worry about her wrath later. I had an underworld warrior to save.

  I quickly scribbled a note explaining that I urgently needed the antidote for wraith venom and that I'd explain why later. With any luck, Sabre would assume an animal had been attacked by a wraith and she'd send the venom on without question.

  I hurried out onto the porch and let out three long whistles, then I waited, with my note in hand. Seconds later, the gray speckled gyrfalcon coasted over the trees, its wings outspread like an elegant kite. Griffen coasted down to the porch and landed on the railing. The bird had suffered a terrible wing break when it was a youngster, but I had nursed it back to health. Now he was as fast as he was beautiful.

  I pulled the band out of my pocket and attached the note to its leg. "Take this to Sabre right away. And wait. I'm expecting her to send you back with a vial of medicine."

  Griffen didn't wait to be waved away. He lifted his tufted wings and took off, disappearing quickly into the gray clouds that rested on the mountain peaks. It would take the bird at least two hours to return. I only hoped that Stryker had that long.

  Chapter Eight

  Stryker

  Willow lifted the hot beverage to my mouth, but it took too much effort to swallow. I choked and coughed it back up. She quickly wiped it off my beard. There was nothing I hated more than weakness. I wished that death would already grip me, so I could be done with the humiliation.

  My highly attentive nurse refused to tell me her plan, mostly, she'd confessed, because she was far from sure it would work. All I knew was that death was close. I'd spent enough time around it to know when it was edging toward me. We'd been taught to never fear death, but it was hard not to be mad as fucking hell at the notion that one, putrid little wraith had brought me to the end. I had been trained to face down the worst dangers the underworld had to offer, and it was pure humiliation leaving the mortal world a victim of wraith poison. What was even harder to accept was that I was leaving behind a woman who I was certain could possess my heart with just a flick of her smile.

  Willow placed the cup of tea on the nightstand and climbed onto the bed next to me. She was still wearing the powder blue sweater that set off the nearly iridescent tone of her eyes. And she still smelled like heaven, or at least what I thought heaven should smell like. It was hard to think about never breathing in such an intoxicating scent and never looking into those rare gemstone eyes again.

  Willow tucked the blankets in tight aro
und me, but there was little she could do to warm me other than throw me into a molten pot of lava. With death so near, the violent trembling had stopped.

  "Talk to me, my beautiful angel. I want to hear your voice as I leave this place. I've only ever heard rumors about women who were half angel and half nymph, but after meeting you, I can see why they are considered so unique. Tell me about your parents."

  Willow rested her arm across the pillow and stroked my forehead. She no doubt thought she provided a small comfort, but to me it was a gesture that relieved some of the pain coursing through me.

  "My father is an archangel, or so I'm told. His identity has never been revealed. Sabre said it was to save his reputation. Apparently fathering an illegitimate nymph's child is frowned upon in the angel's realm," she said wryly.

  "And your mother? I can't imagine an archangel would find any pleasure in bedding one of the castoffs Feenix uses for his entertainment. And you—well, you have the skills of a prominent nymph."

  Her fingers continued their comforting caress. "My mother is Odessa, nymph of the forest creatures."

  "Odessa? That explains why you are so stunning to look at and so talented a healer. But why does Sabre have you hidden so far away?"

  "She says it is for my own safety, but I figured it was for the sake of my father's reputation. I'm sure he, whoever he is, asked her to send his disgraceful mistake far away."

  "Those archangels are always self-important jerks."

  She laughed softly at my comment. It was the first time I'd heard the sound, and I tried instantly to record it in my head to take with me to the dark place I was heading.

  A noise out on the porch caused Willow to jump from the bed. "Oh please, please, please," she muttered to herself as she raced out of the room.

  A few minutes later I opened my heavy lids to her pretty, hopeful face staring down at me. She had a syringe in her hand.

  "Is that something to finish me off? Just in time." My eyes drifted shut again.

  "You're not getting out of this that easily. I put some of my best suture work into that wound, and I'm not letting you check out on a technicality. Namely, wraith venom."

  A sharp pain struck my arm.

  "My gosh, it's like poking a needle through steel," she mumbled as she jammed the needle into my muscle.

  A burning sensation followed but I was too weak to react.

  She withdrew the needle. I looked up at her, waiting for an explanation.

  "I sent a falcon to fetch some antidote from Sabre."

  "An antidote from Sabre?" I asked. "Will I grow a silver pair of angel wings?"

  She leaned over me and brought her lips close enough that I could almost taste a kiss. "Now what makes you think you deserve a pair of angel wings? And besides, I hear they are highly overrated."

  She straightened and crossed her arms with confidence.

  "So now what?" I asked.

  "Now, we wait. Oh, and just a warning, Sabre sent a note with the antidote. Apparently you're going to feel a lot worse before you feel better."

  "Worse than feeling like a giant ogre ate me for lunch and then puked me out? Sounds like it's going to be a long night."

  Chapter Nine

  Willow

  I squinted my eyes to shield them from the heat of the fire as I reached the tongs in and pulled out the hot stones. I dropped them into the burlap sack. The leftover crumbs of milled wheat sizzled and filled the air with the scent of burnt toast. The stones were only a short-lived solution, but they at least provided my fevered patient with some degree of comfort. An hour after I'd given the antidote, Stryker developed a fever that made his body shake so hard it vibrated the entire cabin.

  I carried the bag of hot stones down the short hall to my bedroom. Stryker's head shifted from side to side on the pillow in a restless sleep. His handsome features were distorted by intense pain. And I stood there helpless, armed only with a bag of hot stones. His discomfort was so palpable, it made every bone in my own body ache.

  Sabre had not been exaggerating. The note wrapped around the vial of antidote came with the bleak old saying that sometimes the cure was worse than the disease. She'd also added that whatever creature was dying from the toxin might very well be too weak to recover.

  I walked to the bed and lifted the covers. The fever was not the usual rise in body temperature that came with a cold or flu. This fever seemed to come in undulating waves of extreme hot and severe cold. I shoved the bag of stones beneath the quilts. The extreme ice of his skin would soon cool down the stones, but they would provide temporary comfort.

  I tucked the quilts in around Stryker, and his face relaxed some at the feel of the warm stones. Occasionally, when he rested peacefully and his lashes relaxed over his eyes, I caught a glimpse of the youth that was still there beneath the hardened surface of a man who had seen every horror. It made my chest tighten to think that he'd been taken at such a young age and with so much life to still live.

  I shook the dreary thoughts from my head. He was strong. He'd pull through. He had to pull through.

  I headed back to the kitchen to make myself a cup of hot tea. Gunner met me for a treat. I gave him a piece of jerky, and he skittered back to his rug with his prey.

  I stood staring out the window of the kitchen, watching the powdered snow swirl up like a white tornado as the wind hurdled over the mountainside. It was going to be a stormy night. I needed to close the storm shutters or risk losing windows. And the last thing my patient needed was a cabin with a blustery wind sweeping through it.

  The wood on the stove was taking its sweet time heating the water in the kettle. I decided to head out and close the shutters before the storm got worse. I grabbed my cape and scarf and wrapped myself in a wool cocoon.

  The door nearly pushed me on my bottom as the wind threw it against me. I'd been so busy caring for Stryker, I'd forgotten about the incoming storm. I hoped I could get the shutters closed.

  The nearly gale force winds pelted me with ice and sharp, cold air as I hunched over and tromped toward the back of the house. I would shut the bedroom window storm shutters first and then work my way to the front.

  I curled my fingers around the edge of the shutter and yanked it over the window. I did the same with the second side and then latched them shut.

  As I swept around to head to the kitchen side of the cabin, I saw a large moving shadow out on the snow. I squinted into the wind to get a better view and stumbled back, smacking my head on the side of the cabin. I froze there, badly wanting to rub the growing lump on my head but not daring to move an inch.

  Three pairs of glowing white eyes were watching me as if I was a delectable piece of cake. Wolves. That was the first thought that flashed through my mind. But even through the blurred white haze of the wind driven snow, I quickly calculated that the three animals were too big to be regular wolves.

  Puffs of condensation came from their nostrils as the three beasts stared at me. While I had felt scared at first, I quickly came to understand that they were not there to harm me. They were there for Stryker. Somewhere in the flurry of stories and facts I had in my mind, I remembered hearing that once they were successfully trained, the Boys of Wynter were injected with werewolf saliva, giving them the ability to shift into wolf form. It gave them more power as hunters in the impossible underworld landscape. The three animals standing out on the tundra were Stryker's pack mates.

  I stepped out of the shadows of the cabin and stood there, still as a statue, staring back at them as they stared at me. One wolf was the color of straw. It stood a half foot taller than the others. One had a rough, short black coat and the third had fur the color of rust.

  The long fringed ends of my scarf swirled around me like the long arms of a red woolen monster. After a few moments of strained tension, the largest wolf, a beast with shoulders as wide as any I'd ever seen, dropped his large head and turned away. The others followed. The rust colored one at the rear limped as if one leg had been injured, but it
kept up with the others. They knew now where their pack mate was and that he was in good hands. And that seemed to be enough. I only hoped I could live up to the trust and responsibility they'd just handed me.

  I raced to the side of the cabin to finish shuttering the windows. I pulled hard at the wood, squeezing my fingers around it tight enough that splinters lodged in my fingertips. The wind battered my tiny home with the force of a thousand giant fists. I'd waited too long. I was no longer strong enough to close the shutters. With any luck, my window panes would hold up against the brutal onslaught of wind and snow.

  I hurried back inside, nearly losing the front door from the turbulent bursts of glacial air. I used both hands to push the door shut. As I locked it, I was startled by the sound of another door slamming shut. My gaze shot toward the kitchen window. It hadn't been a door at all. Someone had locked the storm shutters over the window. In a quick succession, the other shutters were closed tight.

  I raced down the hall to the bathroom and glanced out just in time to see white glowing eyes in the pane before the shutter closed off my view. I couldn't hold back a smile as I thought about powerful, menacing beasts outside my cabin making sure I was safe for the night.

  I stepped into the bedroom. The lantern cast a warm glow on the face poking out from the mountain of quilts. Unfortunately, there was nothing warm or glowing about the man in the bed. He was still writhing in chilled pain.

  Outside, through the howls of the wind, a stronger, more mournful set of howls pierced the air. Stryker's eyes opened for a moment at the sound, then he drifted back off into an agitated sleep.