Anxious to get to Hunter, she protested when Riker made them stop under the cover of a tangle of fallen trees.

“Why are we stopping?” She gripped the blade her brother had given her with white-knuckled tenacity, her only concern to find Hunter. “We need to find him.”

“He’ll be here,” Riker assured her.

As much as she liked Riker and respected his abilities as a warrior, she couldn’t help but snap, “You shouldn’t have left him! He could be injured. Or worse.”

Riker jammed his hand through his hair, leaving spiky grooves that somehow managed to look annoyed. “I know. But he gave an order.” He crouched low, his gaze fixed in the direction of the sounds of fighting. “Your safety is the priority, and only you can deal with the humans.”

Riker made sense, but it didn’t ease her worry. “Where are the humans?”

Gently, Takis palmed her shoulder and forced her behind a fallen log that was almost as thick as she was tall. “Baddon and Aiden are luring them this way.”

She cursed. “That could take forever, if it even works.” She slipped away from the two males before either of them could grab her. “I’m going to them.”

“The hell you are.”

Riker came after her, but she wasn’t going to sit around and do nothing when she could help. Their only shot at surviving a war on three fronts was for her to get closer to the humans before they wiped out every vampire in the forest.

“Aylin,” Riker said, as he and Takis flanked her. “Hunter will kill us for this.”

Her foot slipped on a patch of ice, and although she didn’t fall, the strain on her bad leg made her clench her teeth in agony. “I’ll accept full responsibility.”

“Great,” Takis muttered as he tugged his Seattle Seahawks baseball cap low on his forehead. “Then he’ll kill us knowing we’re not responsible. Either way, we’re dead.”

“Not if this works.” Sure, it was a big if, but they had no choice. If she could open a portal in the right place at the right time, she could turn the tide of the battle.

They moved as fast as they could, given Aylin’s reduced speed and the necessity of keeping well out of the thick of the fighting, but even so, Riker and Takis both took down a few human snipers who had concealed themselves on the outskirts.

As Riker finished off a burly human male, he froze, staring into the trees.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“Could have sworn I saw Myne.” He gestured beyond a forest-fire-thinned patch of scrub brush. “Over by those dead guys.”

Holy… shit. Not just dead guys but a lot of dead guys. Or, more accurately, a lot of parts of dead guys.

And all around, closing in fast, dozens of vampires were engaged in battle with hundreds of humans. On a level playing field, vampires were the superior beings, but here, dressed in military garb and helmets and carrying more weapons than she could count, let alone identify, the humans held the advantage, not only in weapons but in numbers.

Riker grabbed her and threw her to the ground just as a dozen men started their way. “Fuck. I think they saw us.”

Takis crouched next to them and raised his bow. Not that he had much hope against men armed with automatic weapons.

“No.” She grabbed his arm. “I got it.”

Breathing deeply, the way Riker had taught her to do during their practice sessions, she reached inside herself, to the place where her dove used to roost. Now it was filled with a new energy that writhed like a living thing as she called it forth. Before, she’d had to concentrate. This time, it shot out of her in a rush of wind that nearly blew Riker and Takis off their feet.

Quickly, she pictured a destination… and the portal shot open mere feet in front of the men coming toward them.

Six humans, their momentum carrying them forward too fast to reverse course, fell into the opening, trapped as she snapped the portal shut. A chorus of curses, shocked shouts, and confusion froze the remaining men in place, their inability to believe their own eyes giving Aylin a chance to throw open the portal again, this time on top of them. They disappeared as quickly as the others, and once again, she slammed it closed before they could escape.

“Jesus,” Takis breathed. “That’s f**king scary.” He turned to her, his usually tan skin a shade whiter. “Where are you sending them?”

Aylin grinned. “Someplace where they’ll get the fight they want.”

She opened up the portal again, this time right in the center of the massive group. When it flashed wide, she wondered if anyone else saw the arena on the other side of the vortex – Samnult’s arena in his realm, where vampires chanted from the stadium seats while others closed in on the panicked and terrified humans she’d sent there.

From the other side, a familiar blond male raised his hand, and although Aylin couldn’t hear him, she could read his lips.

Well done, my sister. Well done.

Hunter cut through Tseeveyo’s guards with an ease that would have astonished him had he taken the time to give a shit. But as he neared the NightShade chief’s camp, his mind clouded with only one thought.

Kill.

All around him, the screams of the injured and the moans of the dying – humans and vampires – rose up, filling him with power. This was what he’d both feared and craved, the berserker-like strength, speed, and insanity that came with being a second-generation vampire whose DNA was forged from demonic energy.

His father had reveled in it. Hunter had denied it. Now, as he focused on Tseeveyo, who was driving the sharp end of a hatchet between a human male’s shoulder blades, Hunter embraced it.

“Tseeveyo.”

The other chief spun around, his native clothing dripping with blood and gore, his fangs coated in crimson, his black eyes burning with bloodlust.

He, too, was in the grip of the ancestral vampire savagery, and with a grin that revealed a mouthful of sharper-than-normal teeth, he came at Hunter.

They met with the force of two bulls, the shock wave rocking the earth around them. Tseeveyo struck Hunter first, his fist smashing into his jaw, but the pain was fleeting. Hell, it was welcome.

Spurred by the throbbing, Hunter laid the bastard out with two rapid strikes to the face, another to the throat, and another to the gut. Tseeveyo hit the ground with a grunt, but he was up again in a flash, hand curled around a machete he must have pulled from his ass, because it hadn’t been there a moment before.

The older male spun in a blur, whipping the blade low for a deep strike into Hunter’s hip. Agony wrenched through him as his leg folded beneath him. A flash of silver was his only warning as the machete arced downward once more, striking him a couple of inches below the first gash. Blood sprayed across the snow, the trees, the dead leaves clinging to dying branches.

Groaning, Hunter rolled to the side as Tseeveyo abandoned the blade to kick the ever-living f**k out of him. Tseeveyo’s boot crunched into his ribs, his shoulder, his neck.

Shit, this bastard was strong, and his extra two centuries of experience showed in every blow. But Hunter wasn’t going to give up easily, not when he had a clan to run and a female to protect. Even now, the raven feather on his hand burned, a reminder that he had more to live for than he could ever have dreamed possible.

Fuck. This.

As the sole of Tseeveyo’s boot filled Hunter’s vision, a death blow that would have crushed his skull, Hunter rolled. He snapped his hand out, catching Tseeveyo’s ankle with a tug that brought the son of a bitch down into the snow, which had grown slushy with their mixed blood.

But as Hunter shoved to his knees, his injured leg buckled again under his weight, the ice beneath his knee sending him sliding down a gully with NightShade’s chief scrambling after him. Tseeveyo’s hand clamped around Hunter’s throat as he pinned him to the icy ground.

“You f**king whelp!” Tseeveyo snarled. “I knew Bear Roar. He was powerful. Strong.” His fist slammed into Hunter’s skull so hard he saw stars and heard bells. “He would be ashamed of you.”

Invoking Hunter’s father’s name was like summoning a demon, and deep inside Hunter’s chest, an evil shadow flickered to life. Even as Tseeveyo lifted Hunter to his feet by his throat, he smiled, feeling an ice storm gathering overhead.

Suddenly, they were wrapped in a tornadic blizzard so fierce that frost formed on the other male’s eyebrows, his lashes, even his lips, which turned pale blue as he tried to squeeze the breath from Hunter’s body.

“My father’s… shame… makes me… proud.”

Summoning his last, desperate breath and taking a page straight from his father’s book of dirty tricks, Hunter whipped a blade from the sheath at his back and drove it deep into Tseeveyo’s groin.

Tseeveyo screamed, then screamed again when Hunter yanked the knife upward, slicing through the bastard’s balls as if coring an apple.

“That’s for every one of your child-brides,” Hunter snarled.

Tseeveyo threw himself backward, gripping his crotch as blood spurted between his fingers. Eyes wide with pain and horror, he scrambled, stumbling, away from Hunter. The bastard could try to get away, but Hunter was the predator now, and he’d tasted his prey’s blood. His fear.

And he could smell death coming.

The knife was slippery with blood, but Hunter gripped it like a lover he would never let go.

Like Aylin.

With every step closer to Tseeveyo, he relished the male’s terror. He knew he should be horrified at his own bloodlust, but Tseeveyo was a monster who deserved to die a far worse death than Hunter was going to give him.

The male stumbled over a broken branch and fell awkwardly to the ground, his skin growing ashen as blood loss took its toll.

All around, humans and vampires were fighting, but Hunter ignored it all, allowing only a tiny portion of his senses to alert him to anyone who came too close as he crouched over the fallen chief.

Something flashed in the corner of his eye. One of Tseeveyo’s mates, a girl with a black eye and a swollen cheek, peered at them from behind a tent flap, her gaze filled with hatred for the bastard on the ground.

For a moment, Hunter watched her, waiting to see if she was going to fight for her mate, but her eyes caught his, and in them he saw encouragement and victory.

“I’d like to cut off your dick and shove it down your throat, you sick f**k,” Hunter growled, “but that’s what my father would do, and I’m nothing like him.” With that, he brought his blade swiftly across Tseeveyo’s throat, opening it from ear to ear.

Behind the tent flap, the female acknowledged Hunter with a solemn nod.

Leg throbbing, head aching, ribs screaming, Hunter stood. The wind around him died down, and vaguely, he heard someone call out his name.

“Hunter… chief… Hunter.” A MoonBound warrior, a female named Trish, jogged toward him, flanked by another female and a young male who had only graduated from battle training a month ago.

“The humans are fleeing,” she said through split lips and a swollen jaw. “ShadowSpawn is broken.” She broke off to fire an arrow to her right, and he heard a grunt and the thud of a body hitting the ground.

“Aylin,” he breathed. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I saw Riker to the south.”

Gathering his weapons, he limped toward them. “Take care of NightShade’s females and children. They’re not to be harmed.” With one final look at Tseeveyo, whose last dying breaths were whispering over his lips, Hunter headed south.

The monster was dead.

And now, Hunter knew, so was the monster inside him. His father was gone, and would never again have a hold on him.

39

Hunter was in a panic. He’d made his way to the designated meeting spot, but Aylin wasn’t there. He could feel her, but he’d been badly wounded, and through his own pain, he couldn’t sense Aylin’s. If she was hurting, he had no way of knowing.

Inhaling deeply, he caught her scent. She was with Riker and Takis, but there were so many other odors in the air that tracking them led to a lot of wrong turns.

He moved as quickly as his wounds would allow, but that wasn’t nearly fast enough. Not when he saw vampires rushing through the forest, completely ignoring him when they should have been trying to kill him. The humans had to be right on their tails.

Pain lanced him with every step and every breath as he negotiated the uneven ground. But as he came around a hill, the reason the vampires had been running for their lives was swirling in a huge circle between two trees. And as he watched, the shimmering portal moved. It actually f**king chased the humans bolting away from it. The thing was like a giant vacuum, swallowing people up as it went.

Finally, it collapsed. Except for the cries of the wounded and the stray sounds of an occasional skirmish, the woods were quiet.

“Hunter!” Aylin’s beautiful voice came from thirty yards away. He loped toward her as fast as he could and caught her in his arms. “We did it,” she breathed. “I can’t believe it.”

“I never doubted.” He looked out over the devastation left by the battle. So many had died, and more had been wounded. They’d won, but the price was never easy to pay.

Scowling, she pulled back from him. “You’re hurt. We have to get you to Nicole.”

“Not until I’ve located all of my warriors and we’ve secured all of NightShade’s females and children.” He nodded his thanks to Riker and Takis, who had started scouring the battlefield for fallen MoonBound members. Surviving humans would become blood donors, and enemy clan members who survived would be given a choice. They could join MoonBound or die. Simple as that. “I want to get you back to the clan, though.”