Chapter 19
Nineteen
Hunter
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?!”
The scrawny man with the rat nose was sobbing, and Hunter hadn’t even done anything to him yet.
“What? You don’t like my friends here?” Hunter gestured to a nearby poker table, where he’d piled a pair of pliers, an electric screwdriver with a shiny drill bit on the end, and an enormous pair of hedge clippers. Warmth burst in his chest at his tools, so shiny and lovely. His friends.
Snot ran down the man’s nose as he struggled in the black folding chair. “What the hell?! It’s just a few bucks. Why do you have to be the only game in town?”
Hunter stalked toward the man, reaching down and wrapping his hand around his throat. “I am the only game in town, and you can tell your boss that when you see him again. If I let you go back to him.”
The man pulled against his bindings again before collapsing, letting out a yell of broken frustration.
“Fine.” His tone was soft and defeated. “I’ll tell him. No more gambling. Now just let me go.”
“Oh, not yet. I don’t think your boss will listen to your word alone. We should give him a gift as well. Something small and pretty. Maybe an ear?”
Hunter crossed to the poker table and hefted up the hedge clippers, opening and closing them as he tried to project the most manic serial killer vibes he could.
To be fair, manic wasn’t a terrible description of him, and he’d done a lot of killing in his long life. So it wasn’t really an act.
“Come on, man, there’s no need for that. I’ll make him understand. I promise.”
Grunting, Hunter didn’t stop his posturing. This was a poor substitute for stalking Father Roy, but he needed a creative outlet, and he wasn’t into bullet journaling or decoupage.
“Maybe a finger as well. And a toe? A nice trio of meats.”
“Oh fuck, man, don’t do that!”
The guy’s voice broke as Hunter brought the clippers up to his left ear, cradling it between the two blades.
“I just had this sharpened, too, so it won’t hurt much. A nice, clean cut. An ear is cartilage, after all. Not a single broken bone.”
“No no no—”
He screamed, his light tenor going raspy as Hunter brought the handles of the hedge clippers together. The man’s ear hit the carpet with a weird, muffled thump.
Now inconsolable, the underling was spouting incomprehensible nonsense as Hunter picked up the now-severed ear and placed it in a small gift box filled with ice.
The man was shaking now as Hunter came around behind him, running the cold, blood-covered blades of the clippers run down the man’s arm before reaching his hand.
“Please…please, not a finger. I can’t—”
Snapping the clippers shut, the man screamed, although the scream trailed off as his face contorted with the realization that Hunter had severed the ropes binding his hands together.
“Oh my God, you are fucking crazy—”
“I’ll send the ear along to your boss. Check in with him quickly. You never know. If he’s willing to give it back to you, you might get someone to sew it back on.”
The rat-nosed man’s eyes flitted around the room, as if looking for confirmation this was reality and not a shitty dream. Evidently, he didn’t find what he was looking for, because he jumped up, throwing his bindings to the side.
“You are insane. It’s Purgatory, for shit’s sake. Small-time bullshit. Who cares about a little gambling?”
Hunter shook his head. Hadn’t he made it clear? He cared.
He bent down, smiling a sharkish grin.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
Whatever he saw in Hunter was enough for the man. Turning and running, the swinging door nearly flew off its hinges as he hit it at a ridiculous clip. Hunter stared at where the guy had been and sighed.
“What an idiot.”
Turning back to the box with the ear, Hunter slipped on the cover. Maybe he’d gift-wrap this one. Something with pretty pink bows.
“He was only missing an ear. I expected more carnage.”
Hunter turned toward the voice, finding Tristan standing there with pursed lips.
“I got bored.” Hunter tucked the package under his arm. He’d have to go track down some wrapping paper. “He wasn’t any fun.”
“Not like your priest?”
Hunter glared at the mate of his pack leader. He wasn’t feeling charitable today, and although Tristan had the right personality to be the pack leader’s mate, that wasn’t always a good thing. The man could be a busybody.
Still, it was easier to talk to Tristan than to Ammon. Sometimes his pack leader was too impenetrable. Or too blunt.
“No,” Hunter answered. “But Nathan said he doesn’t want to see me, and I respect that.”
Tristan cocked his head. “Why?”
Grunting, Hunter walked out of the poker hall and into the tiny adjacent office, opening drawers in a quest for tape and some kind of wrapping paper. Tristan followed, standing in the doorway and staring at him.
What had Hunter done that he’d earned a babysitter? Nothing. But even as he fished out the gift-wrapping supplies, Tristan stayed in place, watching him like he was a shark in a tank, as though he might smash his head against the glass and flood the building.
He spread out the ridiculous Christmas paper he’d found tucked in the back of a file cabinet.
“I can sense him through the bond. It’s dull—he’s been able to block me out somewhat—but there’s no question about what he’s letting through. He wants to be left alone.”
“Mmm.” Tristan scratched absentmindedly at his cheek. “It just isn’t like you.”
“What isn’t?”
Before Tristan could answer, Hunter accidentally stuck a piece of tape to the end of the wrapping paper. He sighed and attempted to remove it, an effort which, although successful, resulted in a jagged tear.
Tristan didn’t help. Of course he didn’t.
“You’re less mature than Ammon is, a younger hellhound, and yet you seem to have more regard for Father Roy’s autonomy than Ammon ever did for me.”
Giving up on creating anything aesthetically pleasing, Hunter roughly folded the paper around the box and secured it with one long strip of tape running the entire circumference. He tossed the box down on Tristan’s desk.
“Because it’s too much to lose. Now that the bond is in place, I can’t risk it. It’s still early enough that if he wanted to, Nathan could break it. If he ran far enough away, it would fade with time. But…”
Hunter leaned over the desk, his palms resting on the nicked metal top, forcing breath into his body. He hated being pushed off-balance like this. He couldn’t recall a time anyone else had ever managed it.
Footsteps sounded on the linoleum as Tristan approached, and a light pressure manifested in the center of Hunter’s back. Tristan had placed his hand there and was rubbing gently, as if Hunter were a child.
“It settles me,” Hunter continued, not looking up from the desk, his eyes fixed on the abomination that was his wrapped present.
“The bond. Him. I’d gotten so used to the chaos.
I’d thought my place was at the center of the disorder.
It is, maybe. But with Nathan, there’s a stillness inside I’ve never known.
It’s like a gentle river flowing underneath his skin. I can’t lose it.”
Not going any further with his gesture, Tristan kept his hand resting on Hunter’s back.
“I didn’t know you needed that.”
Hunter nodded, still fixated on the desk.
“Neither did I.”
And he hadn’t. Introspection wasn’t a common trait in a hellhound. He’d been made for a purpose, and he’d fulfilled that purpose many times. His powers, his intellect—they were gifts so that he could track down and punish wielders of forbidden magic.
It hadn’t even occurred to him that more was possible.
“I’ve seen him.” Tristan spoke soft and low, almost as if Hunter were a feral animal he was taming. He had to admit the analogy wasn’t far off base. “I’ve watched him in your presence. No matter how much it may torture him, he is yours. I don’t have a doubt in my mind.”
Hunter nodded, not saying anything. He wasn’t sure if he believed that.
“To me, it seems silly,” Tristan continued, “for you to mope around, running poker tables and terrifying local street toughs, when you could be with him. I know from personal experience how horrible it is when you’re apart from your bonded mate.
Go after him. Once you’re there with him, he’ll change his mind. He won’t be able to help himself.”
Without saying a word, Hunter made a fist and brought it down on the desk with a loud bang. What was wrong with this human? He understood nothing. Hunter had found a beautiful thing he hadn’t even dreamt was possible, and Tristan wanted him to risk it?
“I can’t.”
The light pressure on his back disappeared, and he sensed Tristan step away from him. He continued to stare down at the desk. There was now a dent in the dark green metal.
Hunter was stuck in limbo, and who knew when his mate would end his exile. He didn’t dare hope for it.
Two days later, the lack of Nathan’s presence had grown into an unbearable itch, a roving need burrowing its way under his skin and scratching at the back of his brain. Which is why he stood in Ammon’s office, facing his pack leader with a ball of cold resolve in the pit of his stomach.
“What do you need?” Ammon glanced up from his mahogany desk for only a second before returning to the stack of papers sitting in front of him.
Hunter had always considered Ammon’s tastes sort of ridiculous. Subtlety wasn’t in his vocabulary. The desk was huge, dwarfing even the pack leader’s significant frame. The walls of the office featured several large portraits from the 17th and 18th centuries.
It was all so ostentatious, which was made sillier because Ammon didn’t even like that design style. H’d just chosen it to match the house. Ammon preferred more contemporary furnishings.
But it didn’t matter which style Ammon embraced; it was always the most ostentatious version of it.
“Send me somewhere else.”
His voice sounded pathetic to his own ears, despite the effort to project confidence. There was a hollowness Hunter couldn’t eradicate.
But he had little choice. The discomfort had become too great. He needed to get far enough from Nathan for their mate bond to calm down, at least a little. Not for so long that it would start to fade, but he needed a reprieve.
“No.” Ammon hadn’t even looked up from his stack of papers as he answered, the word thrown flippantly into the air between them.
“There has to be something I can do out of town for a few days. I can track down the bishop and see if he knows anything. Hell, send me on a corporate job, I don’t care. I can wear a suit for a week and schmooze with investors. I just can’t be in Purgatory anymore.”
The look that Ammon leveled at him was like a bucket of cold water.
“I’m not sending you away. Things will come to a head here soon enough. You should reconcile with your priest before that happens.”
Hunter couldn’t control the growl that ripped out of him, filled with frustration and anger at his inability to change his situation.
“You think because you are pack leader you can tell me what to do? Or that your mate can? I will not be ordered about by you two. You’re practically married. Your cute little romance doesn’t compare to the torture of this bond.”
“Hunter—”
Not willing to hear what came next, Hunter turned and strode out of the office. He needed to get out. To go somewhere else. Even if he was required to stay in Purgatory, he’d find some place where it wouldn’t hurt so much.
Someplace to hide.