Huntress and the Thorn Court: An Urban Fantasy Shifter Romance (The World of the Hunter Order Book 1) Read online

  Huntress and the Thorn Court

  The World of the Hunter Order

  D.C. Gambel

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Support an Author

  Also by D.C. Gambel

  About the Author

  Huntress and the Thorn Court © 2021 D.C. Gambel

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author except where permitted by law.

  Published by D.C. Gambel

  Edited by SKG Author Services

  Cover by Harvest Moon Designs

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  1

  “We’re pulling in now.” I removed the earpiece and tossed it onto the dash not waiting for a reply. The device was uncomfortable the way it dug into my ear, but it was a necessary evil. I needed my hands free to load my magazines with rounds of silver. Even if the moon wasn’t a beacon in the sky, after the call I’d received, I’d have suspected the peak in the lunar cycle.

  Eric, my second in command, drove us with haste while the rest of our squad stayed on assignment. Breaking away from our regular routine had us heading to Washington Park. The objective was to prevent a turf war between the werewolves and vampires. They’d been at each other’s throats long before I was born, and the Hunter Order was the only thing preventing a battle that would no doubt spill onto the streets of the human world. If humans became aware of the preternatural world, it needed to be on better terms, not because of the body count piling up in the streets. The silver bullets were just a precautionary measure. Werewolves tended to be a bit hot tempered, not that the vampires were much better. They just tended to be more devious in their behavior. It was just luck that a silver bullet worked on both species.

  While there were other preternatural forces in the world, from witches to Fae, which we hunters were rumored to descend from giving us the supernatural ability to handle ourselves against all the others, no one really gave the Order much trouble outside of the vampires and wolves.

  Pulling into the parking lot, the streetlights glinted off the windows. The almost full moon assisted the lamps in their job to brighten the unoccupied park. Stepping out of the car, I slapped my magazine and chambered a round before holstering my gun. The cool night air licked at my skin. My boots crunched against the gravel adding to the nighttime melody of the cicadas. The soft scent of pine was a heavenly aroma. I spent so much time in the city, that I relished the fresh air. The park was all but abandoned this time of night, which was good for us. It meant less prying human eyes.

  Vacant benches formed a circle around the playground where, during the day, parents might sit and watch their children play. Cobbled paths wrapped around the park for the occasional cyclist or mother pushing her baby’s stroller. Glancing around for those who had summoned me, I came up empty. Their cars were parked alongside ours, but they were deserted too. Tracks on the ground made a path that vanished into the tree line.

  Careful of where I stepped, I moved with a graceful precision that I had acquired over my years of training. Branches reached out like arms, while roots protruded out of the ground in hopes of tripping me. Fallen leaves crunched under my feet covering the ground like a blanket. I could just make out a clearing up ahead. Hushed tones reached me as I strode into the open space. Lush green grass grew thick from the ground here. Two of my fellow hunters were huddled in a whispered conversation, while several others were scattered throughout the area guarding our transgressors.

  “Blake,” I spoke to the higher-ranking hunter. “What do we have?” I flexed my hand trying to adjust my new bracers. They were too stiff. Once broken in, everything moved with my body like a second skin. My leather corset and matching pants made me look more like a dominatrix, especially with all my weaponry. I needed my clothing to be light and flexible. My corset wasn’t the traditional type, but a special one that had been spelled by a high priestess from our local coven. I saved her daughter’s life and my payment was all my leather attire to be supernaturally impenetrable. She also added a second spell to make it light as a feather. It had taken awhile to adjust to feeling like I wore nothing.

  “It’s Malcolm.”

  With a sigh, I glanced over my shoulder. Eric stood there like I knew he would and yet I never heard him follow me from the car. He was instinctual like that and had honed stealth that I would kill for. I teased that it was imbedded into his DNA as a samurai descendant. His ebony hair was tousled. Doe brown eyes shaped like almonds bore into me, awaiting my orders.

  “Take the vampires. I’ll speak with Malcolm.”

  With a curt nod, he did as I requested. It was one of the reasons he maintained his position as my second. Eric held his tongue and did as ordered but still had a mind of his own. He’d speak up when necessary.

  Malcolm had been a problem over the years and I’d been called out to deal with him more than once. He was low ranking in his pack, but not because he lacked the dominance. His temper had gotten him into more than enough trouble. He insisted on dealing only with higher-ranking hunters. So, it tended to fall on me.

  There was a peace treaty between the two species and it was our job to be sure it remained intact. Blake did well before I arrived, having separated the two groups, putting as much distance between them as he could manage while still keeping them in the same vicinity.

  “Malcolm?” Approaching the werewolf I recognized, I knew immediately he was furious. It radiated off him, like an invisible cloud of toxic energy. My hand brushed against the gun at my side in a nonthreatening way. It’s why I chose a thigh holster. In a seemingly relaxed state with my hands at my side, my gun sat just under my palm. To any onlooker I would appear unguarded, but the truth was I was always vigilant. “What’s going on? Blake says you had a bit of a tiff?”

  “Don’t patronize me, Isabel!” He spat, pacing like a caged animal. My hands went up apologetically, attempting to pacify him with nonthreatening body language. Malcolm was close to losing it. “It’s those bloodsuckers’ faults. They know better than to be here. This is our territory.”

  “Now Malcolm. You know this is neutral territory.” I heard the patronizing tone that time, but this information wasn’t new. The land where we now stood had once belonged to the local pack, but Gideon, the Alpha, and would be king of the United States werewolves, had given up the rights to it, making it neutral in order to secure a larger parcel near h
is home base.

  “It’s ours and they just want to spite us by prancing around all over it.”

  His eyes flashed amber, the first warning that his wolf was close to the surface. “I don’t mean to sound condescending, Malcolm, but you need to calm down. You know you cannot change here. Humans are too close by.” While the park was empty, the suburb nearby might notice a humanoid wolf walking around their streets. My words did little to soothe him, not that I had expected them too. A younger wolf stood a few feet from Malcolm’s left appearing desperately helpless. “What’s your name, kid?”

  The boy seemed surprised I’d spoken to him. “Uh…Cyrus.”

  I smiled sweetly trying to deliver an air of calm. “Cyrus,” I said testing his name on my tongue. “I need you to help me calm Malcolm down. If he shifts out here where humans might see, we have orders to put him down.”

  His eyes widened with fear. “Uncle Malcolm,” Uncle? “Do what she says. Calm down.”

  Malcolm’s bones began popping and breaking, his body was transforming. Removing my gun from its holster, I readied myself, as he approached the no return point. I’d shoot him before he got there. “Bring it back, Malcolm,” I demanded stepping back taking my stance. “You have until three. One…” I took aim pointing my gun at his liver. It wouldn’t kill him but a bullet there would pump enough silver into him to stop the transition. “Two…” Sliding my finger between the trigger guard, I watched his teeth elongate. Taking a deep breath, I squeezed the trigger. “Three.”

  The gun went off and the world slowed. Cyrus leapt in front of his uncle just as I pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshot hadn’t even registered when the bullet hit. Cyrus slammed onto the ground with a thump. My eyes went wide taking in the crimson blooming, soaking his shirt just over his heart. How had I not seen him move?

  Malcolm was beside Cyrus in an instant, taking the boy into his arms. His transformation had completely rescinded. “You stupid boy. She was never going to kill me.”

  Cyrus’s mouth opened and closed like he was trying to speak, but no words came out. Blood gurgled in his throat in a sickening way until he went silent. It was deafening. Even the cicadas ceased their song.

  Shocked, gaping, and frozen, I stood there unsure what to do. I’d taken a life before, but this felt wrong. The boy was innocent. Malcolm lifted his icy blue eyes aiming them at me. “He was my nephew.”

  “It was an accident.” I spoke with as much confidence as I could muster, even though I was faking it. I could break down later, but here and now I had a job to do.

  “This was my fault.”

  “He was trying to protect you,” I all but whispered feeling the guilt of the boy’s life weigh heavily on me. Later, I reminded myself.

  Petting Cyrus’s hair away from his face, Malcolm lowered the body to the ground. “I can’t return and tell my brother that I’m responsible for his son’s death because I couldn’t control my temper.”

  “Malcolm,” I warned. The werewolf stood slowly, but alarms were going off in my head causing me to take a preemptive step back. The grip on my gun tightened.

  His eyes flashed amber. “It’s you or me Isabel. Either I don’t make it home or I return having avenged Cyrus.” With a roar, he pushed his change attempting to make it happen faster. It would be incredibly painful, but he didn’t have time to wait.

  “Tranq!” I yelled. Four different hunters charged through the trees to the awaiting vehicles. I could do nothing but watch Malcolm’s bones pop and reform. “Don’t do this,” I begged, but he either didn’t hear me over his own body shifting or ignored me.

  Taking aim, hoping to delay his transformation long enough for the hunters to return with the tranquilizer, I clipped him in the arm. The bullet merely grazed him fueling his anger.

  Changing tactics, I aimed for his leg hoping to immobilize him, he was covering his center too well for me to hit him somewhere to halt his transition completely. The bullet struck his thigh causing his leg to buckle. Malcolm roared but the gunshot seemed to have the opposite effect and he began shifting faster.

  I didn’t take my eyes off him as he transformed, nor did I release the hold on my gun. He shook off his fur setting his sights on me. With a single howl, he leapt and I squeezed the trigger without even realizing I’d taken aim.

  2

  A roar echoed through headquarters unlike any I’d ever heard, causing the hair to rise on the back of my neck and a chill to run down my spine.

  “What’s that?” asked Eric who was trailing me like a shadow as we entered the building, the other hunters from the park coming up the rear.

  “That’s a pissed Alpha.” The others tensed at my disclosure, but none made a move to retreat as we headed into the assembly chamber. We needed to be debriefed on what had transpired. The fact that a werewolf now occupied the space changed nothing.

  Malcolm was dead with a bullet wound to the head. Eric had broken through the tree line, tranquilizer in hand just as the werewolf had hit the ground. My day just kept getting worse.

  “I require retribution!” The words were bellowed with such force that they rang through the hall echoing off the stone. The double doors were wide open. A well-dressed man stood seething before my father, who leaned against a table as hunters busily pretended to ignore the exchange. “An innocent wolf was unjustly killed by one of yours and I demand to know who was responsible!”

  “How does he know?” one of the hunters whispered as we took position near the door as to not disturb what was transpiring.

  “Either the vampires tattled,” which didn’t seem likely, “or someone else was there in the woods.” It was the only way that word could have reached the Alpha before we’d even had a chance to return to base. It had been half an hour since we left the park after handling the clean-up. I doubted my father had even heard the news before the werewolf arrived on our door like an avenging angel for those I killed.

  One half of the room was lined with stainless steel rectangular tables with three chairs all facing the same direction. The room’s purpose was for presentations. As it was, we tended to use it more for hunters returning from duty that waited to be debriefed or dismissed, depending on their night. Many of the tables housed hunters going over reports while they waited. Shuffling paper or clicking of keys normally accompanied moderate chatter, but tonight no one even attempted conversation.

  “Gideon.” My father shoved away from the table. He held the type of presence that could not be ignored; yet beside Gideon, who was a king in his own right, my father, with his salt and pepper hair and wrinkling face, dressed in black cargo pants and a white t-shirt, appeared small. “You must give us time to investigate your claims. The squad has only just returned. They need to be debriefed, inquiries made.”

  Gideon’s thunderous roar blared once more. It was deafening but not a single hunter flinched. I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time my father had stated these terms to the Alpha. The repetitive explanation only infuriated him more. Rage rolled off him in waves enveloping the room. His golden brown hair was shaggy, curling around his ears, in need of cutting. Green eyes glittered with a touch of amber. His wolf was present but the man himself was in control. There was a scar that ran down the left side of his face over his eye. It was rare to see a werewolf with scars. It meant he’d had a close brush with death as there were few items that could cause a werewolf permanent damage. They could heal almost anything unless you pumped them full of enough silver. His body was muscular, and it surprised me that he covered it with an expensive black suit. He appeared more like a businessman who just left work, with the collar on his white dress shirt undone and tie missing. Perhaps that was prejudice of me to assume that just because he was a werewolf, he wouldn’t dress in three thousand dollar suits.

  “You mean you need time to come up with lies and hide those responsible.”

  “We wouldn’t do that,” my father bristled under the accusation.

  “Then I don’t see the problem i
n my being a part of the recount.” Gideon met my father’s stare, refusing to relent. His gaze was domineering and I wondered how my father wasn’t buckling under its piercing focus. “I want to know who was responsible for killing mine.”

  My father opened his mouth preparing to repeat his edict when I stepped forward. My feet moved on their own accord.

  “It was me,” I pronounced. As one, all eyes turned and were glued to me. I stood taller refusing to recoil under the ferocity of their gazes. They’d just keep going round and round with both refusing to give the other an inch, and after the night I had, I was ready for it to be over.

  “Isabel,” my father warned, obviously not pleased by my interruption. He’d seen me enter, knew I was watching the exchange. He wanted the rules followed and that meant debriefing with the proper authorities, which did not include the aggrieving werewolf. Still he didn’t understand that sometimes rules needed to be broken. The Alpha had just lost two of his wolves and I wouldn’t shy away from the burden of their deaths. After all, I killed them, and their deaths could have easily been avoided if only I had seen Cyrus move.

  “Your daughter?” Gideon narrowed his gaze at me. My father’s only response was to grit his teeth as he shot a glare in my direction. “And now it makes perfect sense. Of course you’d want to protect her.”

  My father wrapped his arms over his chest. Even from here I could see his flesh turning white under his fingers that clung to his arm. “I assure you I did not know she was the responsible party. Regardless, my answer would have been the same even if it was the lowest ranking hunter among us.”