Internationally acclaimed, New York Times and USA TODAY Bestselling author of Science Fiction, Urban Fantasy, and Paranormal Romance brings another action, adventure, and suspense-filled story to transport readers out of this world.
Far from home...
Alexandru Carson has a major problem and it isn't with the woman who captured him - it is the fact that he can't remember anything but his name. Confused by his inability to remember, he doesn't know where he is or how he ended up in the middle of a forest that feels bizarrely alien to him. If being lost wasn't bad enough, his fascination with and attraction to his captor is making the situation even more frustrating as he tries to unravel the mystery of what happened.
Ka'ya Stargazer is an outcast among her tribe. Born with the mark of the Huntress, she is feared for her ability as a warrior even while she is a prisoner to the tribe who shuns her. When she discovers an injured man on a scouting trip, she is forced to make a decision that will change her life forever.
Alexandru's kiss leaves Ka'ya craving for more than her life as a warrior. Yet, even as they grow closer, there are powerful forces threatening to rip them apart. Will Alexandru accept Ka'ya's claim on him, or will she lose him forever when he regains his memory and discovers he does not belong in her world?
Chapter 1
Alexandru Carson watched from
the shadows of a Juniper tree as two men approached his parents’ house. He had
been waiting for one of the men – the tall man with the blond hair and an
aristocratic air that clung to him. An aura of power and danger surrounded
Simon Drayton. It spoke of someone who had lived for a very long time.
If Alexandru had his way, that
life was about to come to a very painful end. A sardonic smile curved
Alexandru’s lips. Simon was so focused on his destination that the possibility
of walking into a trap was the furthest thing from his mind.
His gaze moved over the
dark-haired man walking beside Simon. Alexandru had spoken with Simon’s
personal bodyguard on many different occasions. Youssef Sharif was a quiet,
dark-skinned man, and Simon respected the man’s attention to detail. It was
obvious that Youssef was aware of what Simon was, yet he remained loyal to the
man. Alexandru hoped it would not be a loyalty that cost the younger man his
life. Youssef Sharif was human and of little threat to immortals like Simon and
him.
Alexandru’s
eyes narrowed when Simon stepped first onto the path near the front steps of
the house. On silent feet, Alexandru surged forward. He struck Simon hard in
the side, lifting him up into the air, before tossing him away from the steps.
If Simon had been human, the blow to his side would have broken several ribs –
but, Simon wasn’t human. Even as he twisted in the air, Simon shifted, the
beast inside him recognizing he was in danger.
Alexandru
circled around the enraged werewolf. Hatred burned through him when he thought
of what Simon had done to his little sister, Tory. The fire of his magic licked
through his veins. It grew more intense when Simon sniffed the air, searching
for Tory. Determined to pull Simon’s attention away from his sister, Alexandru
sent a powerful burst of electricity toward the werewolf. Simon jumped at the
last second, barely avoiding the stunning electrical surge.
“I knew you
would come,” Alexandru snarled. “I hope Youssef told you that I plan to kill
you. Youssef, I would stay out of this fight,” Alexandru added when he saw
Youssef start to take a step forward. “I have no desire to kill you.”
His gaze
flickered to the handgun in Youssef’s hand. With a snap of his fingers, the gun
disappeared. The clear threat drew a soft, menacing growl from Simon.
“She doesn’t
want to see you, Simon,” Alexandru continued. “I’m just going to make sure she
never has to worry about you coming near her – ever again.”
In the split
second before Simon charged, he saw the tension grow in the werewolf’s body.
Simon’s back paws kicked up bits of dark, red clay, grass, and rocks,
scattering them behind him. The nails of his front paws grew longer and cut
deep grooves into the soil.
Alexandru
braced himself. The second Simon lunged forward, Alexandru leaped to meet him
half way. The two figures collided. Simon knocked Alexandru back several feet,
but Alexandru was able to twist and wrap his hands around Simon’s throat.
He jerked his
head back when Simon snapped at him. The heated breath and snapping jaws was a
powerful reminder that one bite could inflict serious or fatal damage. The
force of Simon pushing his massive back legs against the ground had both men
struggling for purchase where they grappled. Alexandru felt his grip loosening
on the werewolf, and he twisted, extending his canines and slashing his fangs
across Simon’s left ear.
“You are dead,
Simon. What you did to Tory.... The penalty is death,” Alexandru snapped in
fury, throwing Simon to the side.
“Mr. Carson,”
Youssef interjected from his position a safe distance from the fighting pair.
”Your sister returns Simon’s affections. She is his mate.”
“She was an
innocent,” Alexandru retorted.
“She loves
him,” Youssef insisted.
Rage engulfed
Alexandru and he attacked with deadly intent. He jumped at the last moment and
vaulted over Simon’s back. Reaching out, he wrapped his arms around the middle
of the werewolf. Simon struggled to throw him off, but Alexandru locked his
arms and began to squeeze. Simon fell backwards in an effort to dislodge
Alexandru’s grip, but Alexandru just applied more pressure.
Out of the
corner of his eye, Alexandru saw Youssef rush forward to help Simon. Drawing a
ball of energy in the palm of his hand, he gripped his left wrist with his
right hand and twisted his left arm until he could release the ball of energy
at the human. The powerful bolt struck Youssef on his left shoulder. The sound of
bones breaking and Youssef’s cry of pain mixed with another sound – Tory’s cry
of horror.
“Stop! Nonny!
Help! Alexandru, Simon, stop!” Tory cried.
Hearing the
voice of his sister sent a powerful surge of energy through Alexandru and he
squeezed hard enough to feel Simon’s rib crack under the pressure. Alexandru
released the werewolf and rolled away while Simon writhed in pain. His gaze
remained focused on the werewolf. In the background he heard his sister’s
panicked cry for help. Determined to finish the fight while he had the
advantage, he started forward.
Alexandru’s
eyes widened when a dark hole suddenly appeared in front of him. The sound of
Tory’s voice rising as she intoned a spell that he’d heard before. The swirling
colors of a magical portal and his forward momentum all added up to his having
a very, very bad feeling of how this was going to end.
Unable to stop
before he passed through the portal, Alexandru felt the magic surround him.
Tory’s magic was unpredictable when she knew what she was doing. It was chaotic
when she did it without realizing what she was saying. There was no telling
where – or in some cases when – he might find himself.
For a moment,
he thought his body was going to be pulled apart from the ferocious storm of
magic swirling through the long, wormlike tunnel. He tumbled head over heels
before being expelled out the other end. His feet landed on soft, uneven
ground. Unable to keep his balance, he tumbled down the slope. The downward
momentum seemed to continue forever before he felt a moment of weightlessness.
The next moment he landed with a heavy thud on a path at the bottom. He rolled
several times before he came to a stop, his head striking a rock.
Darkness swam
before his eyes, the world spun crazily, dizzily around him for a brief second
before everything faded to a peaceful black. The last thing that Alexandru
remembered before his eyes closed was that he didn’t remember there being such
a thick, lush forest near Magic, New Mexico. His head dropped down against the
cool, damp soil and his body relaxed, blissfully silencing the thundering
pounding that had begun to beat at his temple.
Ka’ya
Stargazer glanced away from the group of young men, all still in their teens,
who stood near the fountain. She placed her jug on the wide rim and propped her
bow against the side. Their voices faded to silence and she could feel their
wary gazes on her. Ignoring them, she picked up her jug and filled it before
retrieving her bow.
“Huntress,” a
voice called out from across the wide road.
Ka’ya turned
and watched as two of the tribal Elders approached her. Her lips tightened in
annoyance. They never approached her singly. Fear – it had a smell to it with
which she was all too familiar. At times, the fear of the tribe threatened to
choke her.
“Yes, Elder
Mayleaf,” Ka’ya greeted with a bow of her head.
“We were told
you had returned from the caves. You were successful in killing the beast that
attacked the outer farms?” Elder Mayleaf asked.
Ka’ya’s mouth
tightened and she bit back the words that threatened to escape from her lips.
The ‘beast’ had turned out to be two Cybear cubs whose mother had been killed
by a farmer. The cubs were starving and had ventured into the fields looking
for food. Ka’ya had spent half a day gathering berries and leading the
creatures through a mountain pass to where a large supply of fresh berries,
insects, and edible flowers grew. She suspected the mother Cybear had been
crossing back to its summer residence after birthing the cubs at a higher elevation.
Ka’ya masked
her true opinion of the situation and gave the elder a brief nod, tightening
her grip on the jug of water. “Is there anything else, Elders? It is time to
break my fast. I have not eaten since yesterday morn.”
“Eat if you
must, but make it quick. Raiders were spotted on the high trail to the north.
We need you to see if they have moved on,” Elder Direwolf instructed.
Ka’ya frowned.
There had been no raids against the village in almost four years. She had come
across a lone raider only a few times since then. There were tales that a new
leader had taken control of the Vikar and was making changes. She had seen some
of those changes when she visited the city of Perth almost a year ago.
“Huntress, did
you hear Elder Direwolf?” Elder Mayleaf asked, breaking into her reverie.
“Yes, Elder. I
will leave at first light,” Ka’ya replied.
“Why can you
not leave before dark?” Elder Mayleaf asked in a trembling voice. “The raiders
could come while we sleep.”
Ka’ya shook her
head. “That is why we have the boundary. The lines are secure. I checked them
before I came for water,” she said impatiently.
“You will
leave tonight,” Elder Direwolf ordered.
Ka’ya was
about to argue, but bit back her frustrated retort when she saw the expression
in Elder Direwolf’s eyes. His gaze swept the open area of the village, pausing
on a young boy playing with a stick and pebble outside one of the huts. She
stepped to the left, cutting off his view of the boy.
“I will leave
immediately,” she quietly replied with another bow of her head.
Neither Elder
spoke again. They simply turned and walked away from her. Ka’ya stared blindly
at the ground until she knew they were far enough away that it was safe for her
to turn to look at the boy again. Her expression softened when an older woman
came out from the small hut to get him. For a fraction of a second, Ka’ya’s
gaze locked with the woman’s – her mother – before her brother said something,
pulling her mother’s attention away.
“Protect us,
Huntress,” one of the young men by the fountain mocked, waving his hands in the
air while his friends laughed.
“Off into the
night with you, Huntress,” another teen taunted.
“Be careful
how you mock me, peasants. While you cower in your huts, I live as a shadow in
the dark,” Ka’ya said, turning to give the boys a cold, steady look. “All the
lights in your hut cannot brighten the darkest corners. You never know when I
might be in one of them, waiting for you to close your eyes.”
The boys remained
frozen, but she saw the way they shrank back from her, their shoulders raising
defensively when she took a step toward them. They parted, watching her with a
wariness that spoke of their fear of her when she walked between them. Ka’ya
kept her head held high. She had made a promise to herself when she was younger
to never let the opinions of the others in her village affect the way she felt
about herself. Doubting herself would leave her vulnerable to the jagged spears
of animosity.
Her gaze swept
to the hut where her mother and young brother had disappeared inside. It was
dangerous to approach them too often. It was better if she acted as if she
didn’t care. The Elders’ unspoken threat against her family lurked with
malignant intent under every order she was given and she had no desire to give
them more incentive to use her mother and brother against her.
Her father had
already paid the ultimate price to protect her. They had banished him from the
village nearly ten years ago when her brother was but a babe and she was
twelve. All because of the mark she was born with – the mark of the Huntress.
The
superstitions of the tribe were deeply rooted, and one man, Jorge, the
spiritual leader of her people, used those superstitions with the same deadly
accuracy as she did her bow or blade. Her mother had told her Jorge had the ear
of the old chief and the other Elders long before she was born.
Her mother
told her that Jorge was a stranger who appeared a few years before her mother
met her father. He had spoken in an unusual tongue, but had been accepted when
he saved the life of the village chief from a pack of wolfhounds. Her mother
shared how Jorge had come with strange and mysterious things that he said came
from the Goddess. The old chief had believed Jorge and proclaimed him their
Spiritual Leader.
When the old
chief died, Jorge proclaimed that he would guide the village along with the old
chief’s son. By the time this happened, her father had arrived and tried to
warn the son of the old chief of the dangers of allowing Jorge such power. She
remembered the expression on her mother’s face – the fear – when she quietly
told Ka’ya how the new chief and the Elder council had threatened to banish her
mother’s entire family if her father did not cease his resistance to Jorge.
Ka’ya
understood how difficult it must have been for her father. He had still been
considered an outsider – much as she was – up until the day he had finally
pushed Jorge too far. Shortly after her father’s banishment, the new chief
mysteriously died and Jorge had rapidly replaced the Elders who stepped down
with those in the village who supported his beliefs. Since then, Jorge had
ruled the village with a ruthlessness that bordered on insanity. Jorge had
become more reclusive in recent years, but he had also become more powerful.
Unfortunately
for Ka’ya, Jorge both feared and desired her. It mattered not to him that she
was still a child. He believed if he possessed her, it would give him the power
of the Huntress.
A smile curved
Ka’ya’s lips when she remembered her father’s response to Jorge’s demands that
her family hand her over to the Spiritual Leader. Her father believed slicing
Jorge’s blackened heart out of his chest would be the better alternative. The
smile faded when she remembered the price her family had paid for defying
Jorge’s demands. Days after her father’s banishment for threatening to kill the
Spiritual Leader, the Elders of the village had dragged her before the cruel,
horrid man.
*.*.*
Ten years
before:
Ka’ya stiffly
stood between the two Elders who had brought her to the spiritual leader’s hut.
Her nose wrinkled at the foul smell of burning spices. The smoke from it burned
her eyes, but she refused to rub them. The woman on her right smothered a cough
while the man to her left raised a hand and wiped at the corner of his eye.
She stared at
the room with distaste. The dim interior was depressing. It was nothing like
the brightly lit interior of her home. The ceiling was covered in soot and made
the little light that streamed down through the ceiling look gray and dirty.
The bones of
dead animals lay scattered across a long table and on the floor. Bottles of
liquids lined several shelves against a wall. Everything looked dirty and
unkempt. Ka’ya did not understand how this man could declare himself better
than her father. He knew nothing of what it meant to understand the spirit of
the land and animals.
“She is here,
Spiritual Leader,” the woman called.
Ka’ya watched
as Jorge appeared from another room. He was a thin man with beady, almost black
eyes. Dark shadows under them made the sockets around his eyes appear larger
than they were in reality. His alabaster skin was streaked with smudges of soot
from his dirty fingers and made him look older than his thirty years. He wore a
dirty, off-white tunic over dark brown pants and boots. His hair was thin on
top, with just a few strands of fine hair that made a line and was swept to the
side.
He silently
returned Ka’ya’s stare, as if willing her to look away first. Instead, she
lifted her chin. Her light green eyes bore into his. She could see the circle
of light from the open door surrounding the brown irises of each eye, giving
them a malevolent glow. In the center, she could see her reflection. Even when
he took a step forward and ran his dirty fingers down along her cheek, she
didn’t turn away. His eyes narrowed and he gripped her chin hard.
“Do you think
to defy me, girl?” he demanded in a reedy voice.
Ka’ya pulled
her chin free and glared at him. “Yes,” she replied, biting her tongue to keep
from saying anything else.
Jorge gazed
down at her. She silently returned his stare. She didn’t flinch when he raised
his hand to strike her. The blow never came – thanks to the sounding of the
alarms. Jorge glanced up at the man standing next to her and jerked his head
toward the door.
“Find out what
is happening,” he ordered.
Ka’ya turned
slightly when the Elder opened the door. There was a thud that reverberated
through her and the Elder stumbled back. In the center of the elder’s chest the
long shaft of an arrow protruded. The woman at her side screamed when several
more arrows flew through the door. Jorge and the woman fell to the ground.
Ka’ya took advantage of the open door and bolted.
Emerging
outside, she could see more than two dozen Vikar swarming through the village
setting fire to carts of hay and slicing through the men who charged them. Her
gaze moved to one of the raiders. He was dragging her mother out of their home.
Her mother was holding her newborn brother protectively in her arms.
Ka’ya started
forward. Her gaze fixed on her mother and brother; she bent near the body of a
fallen guard and pulled the bloody sword from his body. The moment her hand
wound around the handle, power exploded through her body and a flood of
knowledge swept through her mind. It was as if she had lived through thousands
of battles, had hunted the greatest beasts, and knew what needed to be done.
She gripped the sword with a strength that belied her tender years, twirled,
and sliced through one of the attackers as he reached for her.
As she neared
her family’s hut, the raider who had her mother’s arm, lifted the long shaft of
his spear to strike her mother dead. Ka’ya pulled her arm back and threw the
sword. The blade sank deep in the raider’s chest, driving him back against the
stone wall of the hut. Racing forward, Ka’ya knelt and helped her mother to her
feet.
“Inside,” she
said in a soft urgent tone.
“Ka’ya,” her
mother whispered, reaching out to run a trembling hand down her daughter’s
face.
Ka’ya smiled.
“Go inside. I will protect you,” she said.
Mayli looked
worriedly back at her daughter, but hurried inside. Her brother whimpered, but
her mother quickly soothed him. Ka’ya followed her mother into the bright hut.
She could feel her mother’s gaze on her when she reached for her father’s bow
and arrows.
“Ka’ya, don’t
go,” Mayli begged when Ka’ya turned back to the door.
Ka’ya glanced
at her mother. In the background the sounds of screams and fighting continued.
Her face tightened and once again she felt the surge of power rush through her.
She knew that if the raiders were not defeated or driven off, there would be
nothing left of the village – including her family.
“I have to,”
Ka’ya replied, turning and drawing back an arrow when the door opened.
She released
the arrow. The raider standing in the doorway looked down in surprise before he
fell forward. Ka’ya pulled another arrow from her quiver and walked toward the
door. Stepping over the body of the dead raider, she released three more arrows
in rapid succession before disappearing outside.
Ten arrows –
ten raiders dead by her bow. By her sword, she killed another five before the
raiders began to target her en masse. Ka’ya knew she was in trouble, but she
never gave up. She pulled on the power flowing through her and used the
knowledge to strike one deadly blow after another. Ka’ya’s desperate need to
protect her mother and infant brother gave her the willpower to continue
fighting. Revived by the dwindling number of raiders, the villagers began
fighting beside her until the remaining raiders retreated in defeat.
Ka’ya turned
in a slow circle as the remaining villagers who had sought to hide slowly
emerged from their huts and gathered around her. She could feel their gazes on
her and she smiled. Jorge stepped out of his hut where he had been hiding, and
she eyed him with contempt. Gripping a bloody sword in her right hand, she
reached up with her left and pushed her thin tunic to the side to reveal her
shoulder and the mark of the Huntress.
“I am Ka’ya
Stargazer. I am the Huntress,” she said in a clear voice. Ka’ya could hear the
soft gasps of the villagers. Her light green eyes glowed with supernatural fire
as she stared Jorge down. She slowly lifted the blood-coated blade in her hand
to point it at him. “You will never possess my powers.”
The mark
that her parents had tried to hide, the one that Jorge had somehow found out
about and decided to use for his own purpose, was now clear for all to see. She
would not hide any longer. No one would control her.
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