Chapter Thirteen
The marquee bubbled with conversation, but all Hunter heard was the rush of blood in his veins. The second he’d seen Dawn walk in, looking spooked and angry — and spitting daggers at Jericho’s back — he knew something had happened.
He was going to kill Jericho. He would tear the man to pieces and throw them into the sea, repercussions be damned. That man had killed his parents and burned down his home. That monster had ripped everything he cherished out of his life. And now, Jericho had done something to spook Dawn. How could Hunter not exact revenge?
He’d exercised self-restraint the first time Jericho provoked him. There wouldn’t be a second time. He’d had enough.
“Wait, Hunter. Don’t,” Dawn urged, catching his arm.
He nearly pulled free, but just like before, her touch sent a soothing wave of goodness through him, and his rage ebbed away. Not far — the fury was still there, simmering beneath the surface — but at least it ceased pushing steam out of his ears.
“Hunter, listen to me. I have a better idea,” Dawn said.
A better idea implied that she’d considered killing Jericho, too, and that was enough to stop him in his tracks. Dawn — his Dawn — was capable of that much hate?
Her eyes met his, and he saw his fury mirrored. Fury and determination, along with the faint outlines of a plan.
And, hell. A smart woman’s plan was always better than a raging bear’s vague notions of revenge. So he followed Dawn to the side door and out into the fresh air.
Dawn shot a look back at Jericho as Hunter took her hands. They were shaking the slightest bit — from anger, not fear.
She’d make a great bear, his inner beast murmured.
He held back his Amen. Much as he liked the idea, the only thing more volatile than one vengeful bear was two, especially at a time like this.
“What happened?” He touched her hair, her shoulder. “Did he lay a hand on you? Did he hurt you?”
Dawn shook her head vehemently. “I swear that man would be rolling on the floor cradling his crushed balls if he’d tried.”
Hunter winced — and glowed with pride at the same time. His mate had come a long way since her high school days. But Jericho was a hybrid, and there was no way Dawn could fight Jericho off once he unleashed his full powers.
“He went at one of the maids. Toby stumbled across them, thank God.”
Hunter made a mental note to let the kid drive the Rolls around the resort grounds when things finally settled down — if things ever settled down. He had the sinking feeling it would be a hell of a night.
Kai! Cruz! he shouted across the mental connection they’d developed over the years. He needed backup, and soon. Jericho added a whole new level of danger to the situation — that, and the fact that they might have a Spirit Stone on their hands after all.
“I nearly booked Jericho, but I realized it would be better to do it quietly,” Dawn went on.
Hunter’s inner bear nodded vigorously. Quiet. Right. We drag Jericho out into the shadows and tear him apart where no one can see. Quietly. And then Dawn can book him.
“So I thought—”
A scream cut Dawn off, and they both snapped their heads toward the beach.
“No!” a woman cried.
“Now what?” he muttered.
Dawn sprinted toward the cry half a second before Hunter did. A few steps later, she stopped to pull off her shoes before running onward, barefoot.
“Dawn, wait!” he cried, following her. What the hell was happening now? Was another woman being attacked?
The cries continued, a whole barrage of words, protests, and — insults? — all coming from the beach. Past the yellow tape and the signs that said, Warning! High surf. Beach closed until further notice. Hunter crested the rise and slowed when he saw who it was.
Regina, throwing the mother of all hissy fits, and with good reason for a change.
“You little shit! You asshole!” she cried, kicking sand at a couple crouched in the sand.
“Regina, I can explain,” Ricky, the groom, protested.
Hunter almost felt for the guy. Almost, but not quite, because Ricky was naked, and so was the girl he was with. What kind of lowlife cheated on his fiancée on the eve of his own wedding?
“And you!” Regina screeched at the buxom blonde. “I thought you were my friend, you slut!”
Waves pounded the shoreline behind them — big, twenty-five-footers unusual for this leeward shore.
“We were just… Uh…” Ricky tried.
Hunter turned around and started walking back the way he’d come. He didn’t have time for this shit.
“You were just screwing my bridesmaid, you shit!”
That Regina — she sure had a way with words. Hunter shook his head, then turned to see if Dawn was following — just in time to see Regina yank her engagement ring off her finger and wind her arm back for a throw.
“Wait,” Hunter shouted, rushing toward her. If the amethyst was what he thought it was…
“We’re over. You’re over, Ricky. I’ll have Daddy kill your career.”
“Regina, baby,” Ricky tried. But it was too late.
Regina’s arm snapped forward — a damn good throw, right down to the wrist snap; Hunter had to give her that — and the amethyst went flying. Time slowed as Hunter watched it arc through the air. A flashing purple line marked its path as it glittered in the moonlight — like a meteor, streaking across the night sky, glowing the whole way.
Make that, streaking toward the ocean where the waves gnashed their teeth.
“You crazy bitch!” Ricky yelled. “You know what that ring is worth?”
Hunter’s jaw swung open, his eyes glued to the supernatural glow. That ring was worth more than any human could imagine, because only a Spirit Stone glowed like that.
He reached into thin air as if to will it back. Holy shit. Kai was right — the diamond wasn’t a Spirit Stone. But the amethyst was. Hunter hadn’t been entirely sure before, but now he knew. The stone called to him like a magnet. He’d sensed its power when Regina had paraded her wedding ring around the tent.
Why hadn’t he sensed it earlier? Because the damn thing had been slumbering, he figured, until proximity to the diamond roused its powers.
Gems are like jealous women, Silas had once explained. At least, that’s what my grandfather used to say.
The amethyst emitted a last pulse of bright purple light then sliced into the raging sea and disappeared.
Hunter ran toward the pounding surf, then stopped short. An invisible wall went up in front of him, and a slew of ugly memories rushed through his head. Memories of rushing water, trying to drag him under as he fought desperately to stay with his mother. The sting of salt in his eyes and throat. The bash of boulders beneath the surface. The desperate clawing motion that got him nowhere through the rushing estuary where the river met the sea.
Mom, the cub in him cried. No. No. Please…
He stood, rooted to the spot, facing his single greatest fear.
Then something rushed by his side and splashed through the shallows. Dawn. His Dawn, rushing in after the Spirit Stone, totally unfazed.
“No!” he shouted. God, no. The stone wasn’t worth it. Not even a Spirit Stone. Not with a freak offshore storm kicking the surf to record heights and churning the water into lethal undercurrents.
But Dawn dove in with the grace of a native-born island girl who’d grown up with the Pacific as her playground.
“Dawn!” he yelled, yanking his jacket off.
How she planned to swim in that tight dress, he had no clue. And how he would ever force himself into the water given all the ghosts in his head — shit, he really had no clue. But he ripped off his shirt and plowed in after Dawn nonetheless.
Water. Bad water, something deep in his soul screamed as spray pelted his face.
Mate! Must help my mate! his bear roared even louder.
“Dawn!” he yelled, forcing himself forward in the brief lull between two waves. Didn’t Dawn know this was crazy? And, shit — she’d dived right under a breaking wave to swim out, but she hadn’t come up again.
Mate, his bear cried desperately. Mate.
He might as well have thrown open the door to a haunted house full of rotting, moaning zombies — it was that bad, that bone-achingly wrong. But his mate was in there. In danger. Alone.
Hunter took the deepest breath of his life and dove in, only to be tumbled back by a massive wave.
Panic rose in his veins. Dawn! Dawn!
He’d been in a dozen hellish situations in his active service days — certain death situations with deafening explosions that had rattled his bones and his faith in the world. And he’d kept a cool head every time. But this time, his mate’s life was at stake, and that shook him to the core.
It won’t help Dawn if you don’t keep a clear head, he yelled at his bear.
He timed his next attempt more carefully and dove under the wave instead of into it. The force of rushing water pulled at his pants, but the undercurrent sucked him out to sea instead of tossing him back onto the beach. He kicked forward, keeping his eyes wide despite the salty sting. Water flooded his ears and his mouth as he formed bubbly underwater shouts.
Dawn! Dawn!
An eternity later, he popped up for a breath of air — beyond the breakers, thank goodness — and looked around.
“Dawn!”
Nothing. An eerie, swirling nothing made all the more terrifying by the night.
Something splashed to his left, and he whipped around. “Dawn!”
She came up ten strokes away and immediately dove again, too quickly to hear his anguished cry.
Dive, he ordered himself. Go.
He might as well have told an arachnophobe to stick a hand in a jar of hairy tarantulas, and yet Hunter dove. Not for the damn gem. For Dawn. For his mate.
The water rolled and roiled, tugging him downward, spinning him around. Little streaks of bioluminescence flashed merrily, as if this were all a game. He kicked with all his might, finding nothing, then popped up again.
Panting, he found himself a good fifty yards from where he had entered the water — the current was that strong. He had to get Dawn and get the hell out of the water before it sapped their last reserves.
“We have to get back,” he yelled, seeing Dawn come up sputtering a few yards away.
She shook her head vehemently and clawed at her shoulders as if peeling a clingy octopus away.
Her dress, he realized. She was ripping her dress off to free her arms and legs.
“You said it’s important, right?” she growled, wrestling with the fabric.
Hunter paddled closer, wondering if he dared lie. Um, no. I made a mistake. It’s not the Spirit Stone, so let’s just swim back to shore and forget about it, okay?
“You said in the hands of the enemy it could be used for harm. Right?” She went on.
This pep talk, he didn’t need. Not with wave after wave lifting and dropping them both before rolling onward.
“And since Jericho is the enemy…” she added, looking fiercer than ever.
Hunter wanted to scream. Jericho was his enemy, not Dawn’s. How had he ever dragged her into all this?
“It’s the amethyst, not the diamond. Right?” she yelled.
Dawn didn’t wait for an answer, but his expression must have given it away. She dove, graceful as a dolphin, the moonlight kissing her bare skin.
Hunter stared for a moment, dying to protest. Your aumakua is an owl, not a dolphin, so let’s get the hell out of here.
“Damn it.” He gulped a lungful of air and followed as Dawn plunged into the inky depths.
It was eerie as hell, what with the water dampening all noise and darkness closing in — the soul-sucking darkness of the sea at midnight. Moonlight only pierced a few feet beyond the frothy surface. Everything beyond it an abyss.
“This is nuts,” he yelled the next time they surfaced, already calculating how to grab Dawn and tow her back to land, with or without her consent.
“I saw the ring! The current has been pushing it along, but it’s right there. It’s so close!” Her eyes shone and, with a nimble splash of the feet, she dove again.
Dawn dove like a seabird; Hunter submerged with all the grace of a rusty submarine. Red alarms buzzed through every nerve in his body. A-woo-ga! A-woo-ga!
He was never, ever going to touch salt water again. He might just swear off showers, too, if he and Dawn somehow survived this nightmare. They’d been swept out even farther, and the sea was choppy and raw. How could she possibly have seen the amethyst?
He kicked into the depths, following the pale flash of her feet. Frustrated as hell and, yes — scared, too. But then something flashed, catching his eye.
A purple flash from the indigo depths. The Spirit Stone?
Of course it’s the Spirit Stone, his bear retorted. Grab it and get this over with.
He kicked deeper, chasing the stone — and Dawn. The pressure in his ears doubled until he thought his head would explode. Dawn was a full body length deeper than him. How the hell did she do it?
The amethyst called to him as the current tumbled it along.
Follow me. Come to me. You need my help, the purple glow seemed to say.
Hunter gritted his teeth. He didn’t need a goddamn stone. He needed his mate.
You need me to protect her. The purple light wobbled through the underwater eddies.
He snorted and immediately choked on salt water. How the hell was the amethyst — the Earthstone — going to protect his mate out in the sea? On the contrary, it was endangering her, luring her into treacherous waters.
The purple light pulsed. You need me.
Hunter kicked back to the surface and sputtered for air, looking around desperately for Dawn.
A moment later, she breached out of the sea like a porpoise showing off its next trick.
“I nearly had it!”
He grabbed for her hand but missed. “Leave it, Dawn. We have to leave it.”
“I can get it! I’m sure I can.”
Famous last words, he was sure of it.
“The current is too strong.” He waved at the shoreline. Soon, they’d be swept around the corner and then — dashed against rocks? Dragged out to the open sea? Drowned by the undertow swirling around his ankles?
“Trust me,” she said, diving again.
Hunter stared at the splash in her wake. She wanted him to trust her with something as crazy as this?
“Wait—” he started, then stopped cold.
Trust me.
He’d asked her to take a much bigger leap of faith in trusting him — the man she’d witnessed transforming out of grizzly form. He treaded water for one stunned moment then took a deep breath and dove. Although instinct told him to grab Dawn’s ankle and abandon the amethyst, he followed his mate. Quick as a fish, Dawn swam down, kicking smoothly against the current. The Spirit Stone glowed from the depths, calling to him.
You need me. She needs me.
Hunter’s head spun, but down he went. For Dawn, not for the jewel. Only for his mate.
Trust me, the gem murmured. Or were those Dawn’s words echoing in his cloudy mind?
The water pressure pounded inside his head. He squinted, trying to keep the world in focus when it was blurring rapidly. One second, the Spirit Stone was there, winking at him, and the next, it was gone.
Hunter contorted through a spin. Damn it. He’d been so close. Dawn had been, too. Where the hell was the stone?
The invisible hand of the sea spun him around and around until he couldn’t tell up from down any more. His lungs ached as he clawed wildly.
Drowning. He was drowning.
But he couldn’t drown. Not until he got Dawn to safety, at least.
He searched desperately for some underwater landmark or the glow of the Earthstone, but there was nothing. Just a watery abyss. His vision dimmed, and he started imagining things. Like a mermaid swimming by and grabbing his hand. He pushed the mermaid away. Where was Dawn?
Hunter, her voice sounded faintly in his mind as bubbles streamed out of the mermaid’s mouth.
He blinked his raw eyes. Whoa. That wasn’t a mermaid. It was Dawn, and she was motioning to him. A second later, they both shot upward and broke through the surface, gasping for air.
“I got it!” she cried, holding up a tightly curled fist. Between her fingers, purple light glowed, reflecting in her eyes and her radiant face. “I got the ring!”
Hunter took hold of her arm. This time, he was not letting her go. Between gasps, he yelled. “You are crazy, you know that?”
She laughed. “Crazier than a guy who can turn into a bear?”
“Definitely crazier.”
And in spite of everything, his bear sighed dreamily. Definitely mine.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, pointing — not to the beach, but to the rocky promontory that stretched into the sea.
Hunter looked at her askance. Had she swallowed too much salt water? Or maybe she really was a mermaid…
“If we go back, we fight the current. If we go that way, we can ride it.”
“Sure. Ride it right out to Lanai,” he warned, indicating the island ten miles away.
She shook her head, treading water lightly. “We just have to break out at the right moment when we get around the turn. Come on, Hunter. Where we you all the times we kids went swimming around Sandy Point?”
He’d been cowering somewhere with his tail between his legs, thinking of his mother, damn it.
“It’s exactly the same,” Dawn said. “Trust me.”
There it was again — trust. Five little letters that were at the crux of the issues that divided him and his mate. It wasn’t so much about shifters and humans, or the divide between women and men. It all came down to trust. If he wanted her to trust him, he had to trust her.
Hunter paddled closer to her side and forced himself to nod. “Okay.”
Dawn had made it sound easy, but her facial muscles tightened when they swept out and around the point where the surf crashed high against the rocks. They bobbed along just outside the frothy strip, waiting for their chance.
“Now?” he asked — nearly begged — as the first sliver of beach appeared on the other side of the point.
“Not yet,” she murmured, judging some unseen factors Hunter couldn’t begin to fathom. A good thing his island beauty had been a water baby all her life.
“Now?” he tried again, eyeing the rocks they swept past.
She shook her head, but a second later, she yelped and swam hard. “Now!”
Hunter rushed after her, kicking to break free of the strangling undercurrent. Water swirled around his shoulders and legs, trying to convince him to stay out and play.
To stay out and die was more like it. He swam onward until he nearly collided with Dawn, who had paused.
“Now what?” he panted.
“Now we just ride the surf in,” she said.
Just and surf were two words that combined about as well as fun and explosives, at least as far as Hunter was concerned. Especially with the surf this high. Dawn treaded water with one hand closed tight around the Spirit Stone and studied the waves the way a surfer did.
“Next one’s ours.”
From the looks of it, getting out of the water would be as hard as getting in had been, given the way the waves pounded into the shore.
“Here we go,” Dawn muttered, paddling slowly forward. She accelerated as the wave rose, lifting them higher.
Hunter did his best to clear his mind and followed. All he had to do was endure this one last part. Then he — and more importantly, Dawn — would be home free.
The water lifted him, building into a massive wave. There was a certain rush to it, a handing-over-of-control to the elements. But the water rose higher and higher, taking him with it until he was peering down the lip of a towering cliff. The water gurgled, rushed, and then roared as the wave broke.
Hunter went from riding the crest to plummeting into an abyss, where he was sucked under. He tumbled around and around, clawing at the water like a man in a spin cycle, desperate to find the way out.
The earsplitting roar became a quieter hiss, and just like that, he ground against the shallows. He stood just in time to be bowled over by the next wave. It tugged at his feet, trying to pull him back to the sea. But he was in now, and Dawn was, too — beaching herself just the way kids did. He stumbled over and found her panting and wild-eyed.
“Okay,” she murmured, accepting a hand up. “That was exciting.”
Exciting? Hunter hauled her up a safe distance from the waves and trapped her in a giant hug. Exciting was early spring in Alaska, when the meadows came alive with wildflowers, bees, and sunshine. Exciting was the way his heart rate tripled every time he looked at Dawn. Exciting was the idea of her hugging him without the slightest sense of reservation, as if she believed as firmly in destined mates as he did.
Just as she did right then.
Heaven. Hunter found himself transported from sheer hell to heaven. He touched her back, her waist, her hair, assuring himself she was all right. He breathed her in along with the scent of strawberry guava, wafting over from shore.
“Hunter,” she murmured.
He didn’t move. He couldn’t move.
“Hunter.” She tapped his back.
“Hmm?” he mumbled into her hair.
“Don’t you want to see the gem?” Dawn asked, her voice muffled at his shoulder.
He blinked, confused. Oh, right. The Spirit Stone.
Nah, his bear breathed, and his human side agreed.
“Need another second with you,” he murmured. A flat-out lie because he’d need at least a week to catch his breath after what had just happened. Preferably, a week spent this close to his mate.
“Hey,” she whispered. “I’m okay.”
He sure as hell wasn’t. Not yet, anyway.
Other than the sound of the surf hammering the shore, the beach was peaceful. No screaming brides, no blaring music, no crowds. Just him and his mate under a thousand twinkling stars. Alive. They’d come ashore on the far side of the resort, and no one was around.
He pulled back at last and held her by the shoulders.
“Nice, huh?” she whispered, holding up the amethyst.
He kept his eyes glued on hers. “Gorgeous.” Slowly, his eyes drifted over her soaked bra and panties, and all the skin in between.
There was a painting he’d seen in an art book at some point — a painting of Venus coming out of the water. It was supposed to embody feminine beauty, but Hunter knew better. Dawn had that goddess beat, easy.
She looked at the amethyst. “So, a Spirit Stone. Is that why it glows?”
He nodded. Not that he was an expert on the jewels — hell, even Silas, who’d researched every scrap of dragon lore for information on the Spirit Stones, didn’t know the whole story — but, yeah. Normal jewels didn’t glow like that. That much, he knew.
She tipped the amethyst from her hands into his. “Here, you take it.”
He tipped it right back. “No, you.”
A twig snapped behind them, and a deep voice snickered. “How about I take it?”
Hunter whirled, pushing Dawn behind his body.
“Jericho,” he spat, shaking with fury.
“So good of you to retrieve the Spirit Stone for me. And I see you’ve brought me a further gift.” Jericho smirked, letting his eyes run over Dawn’s near-naked body.
Six hulking figures crept up to flank Jericho. Hunter flexed his fingers, letting his claws push painfully close to the surface.
“Over my dead body,” he growled.
Jericho chuckled. “Yes. That’s exactly my plan.”