Heart and Soul Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Soul of a Hunter

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Heart of a Hunter

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

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  This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2007 by Shiloh Walker, Inc.

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  eISBN : 978-1-440-67952-0

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  Soul of a Hunter

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Your pretty hide is what the lady wants, not your death . . .”

  Blood splashed hot on her hand.

  Leandra tossed on the mattress, her hair tangling around her upper body, sweat gleaming on dark flesh as she struggled with the nightmare . . . with the memories.

  “We shall have to cull Leandra.” Those words were heartbreaking, and the bitter sense of betrayal would have made her cry—but it was dangerous here. There was no time for tears. She had to get out.

  Had to get the girl out.

  Your fault . . . the voice echoed through her mind, and she muttered in her sleep, voicing her agreement. “My fault. Mine.” If she had just looked. Just once, if she had truly looked . . .

  Blackness—all around. Then them. The Hunters—they wanted her blood. Many of them wanted her dead. But then there was Jonathan—“She saved the life of my mate. I’ll destroy any person who thinks to harm her . . .”

  Humiliation. Bitter and thick, it nearly choked her. Then another voice, deep and accented, Mal said, “Her heart is a good one. Misled as bloody hell, but true as the sunrise.” He looked at her with sympathy and understanding, his dark eyes trying to assure her everything would be okay.

  No. Nothing would be okay. The sympathy was nearly as painful as the humiliation, almost worse than the knowledge of just how wrong she had been.

  Mike . . . there was Mike, staring at her with unreadable gray eyes, golden brown hair falling into his eyes as he murmured, “Go on, witch. I won’t ask for your life.”

  But before she could go . . . blood filled her vision. Mike’s blood. Seeping from the wound in his side, a wound she had put there.

  The gun—Leandra screamed as she saw herself holding it again, aimed at Mike’s unprotected body. And even as she tried to throw it away, she was squeezing the trigger.

  LEANDRA AWOKE WITH A SOB, JERKING UPRIGHT IN her bed and staring sightlessly at the wall in front of her.

  Over—it was all over. More than five years had passed.

  Five years since that day when she had been so horribly, painfully awakened.

  She’d been sent out to do a job, sent to kidnap a child to use as bait, but part of her had felt like she had been rescuing Erica. Part of her had known something was wrong. Looking into Mike’s eyes as she pulled the trigger, it had felt like a betrayal. Not to him—she didn’t even know him. But to herself. She’d lived by certain rules. She didn’t kill innocent people. She didn’t kill decent people.

  But shooting him, killing his friend—it had felt wrong. They couldn’t be innocent. Hunters were not innocent. She’d led her entire life with a clear purpose. The Hunters were evil. They had to die.

  It had been devastating, painful, having the blinders she’d lived with her whole life ripped away. And ever since she had lived with the knowledge that she’d live the rest of her life trying to fix the wrongs she had unwittingly done.

  It would be a damned long life, too. Reaching up, she touched her fingers to the ridged scar of flesh at her neck. It had long since healed over, but the mark was there, and she’d live with it. Most vampires didn’t have such an ugly physical reminder of the bite that Changed them, but the man who had bitten her hadn’t been worried about bringing her over.

  He’d just wanted to feed. And he’d torn a nasty, gaping hole in her neck. In the short span of time between Pierre ripping her neck open and then Malachi feeding her, Leandra had nearly bled out.

  Sometimes she wished the ancient vampire had just let her die instead of forcing his blood down her throat. So low on blood, that was all it had taken for the Change to start, the grueling transformation from mortal to vampire.

  Hell, she should have died. Leandra was a born witch. Witches had stronger defenses against many paranormal creatures, but the vampire’s bite was just as deadly to a witch as it was to a mortal. Most witches didn’t survive the Change. Leandra really wished she hadn’t.

  Lately, it seemed she was wishing that a lot.

  Five years ago, death wasn’t something she would have longed for.

  But a lot of things had changed in five years, and not just her becoming a vampire.

  Five years ago, she would have looked at the people she now called comrade, and all she would have seen was enemy. Threat. She’d lived her life thinking the Hunters were nothing more than cold-blooded killers. Bitterness flooded her, lingering on her tongue like acid.

  How long would she have continued to believe that lie if she hadn’t been forced to see the truth?

  Her entire life, possibly. Leandra had been raised by the Scythe, a group of people that were little more than a cult, and the Scythe had committed too many wrongs.

  It seemed like yesterday, and at the same time, it was like a whole other life. The memories of what she had done still tormented her. The wrongs she had committed.

  The blood she’d shed out of blindnes
s.

  Very little bothered her as much as feeling like a fool, but she could have taken that. If only she hadn’t caused so much pain because of it.

  Guilt could choke the life out of a person and usually, Leandra handled it a little bit better.

  But being back at Eli’s, surrounded by people who remembered her, who knew what she had done, only made it harder. Being so close to Mike made it almost unbearable. Her hand shook a little as she wiped the tears from her face. “I have to get away from this place,” she whispered.

  Leandra had run away from home nearly twenty years ago, but the rich, musical accent of Jamaica hadn’t faded. She barely heard it herself, unless she was talking to others.

  Right now, it was her own voice that she heard, along with the erratic beat of her heart. She was alone. At least as alone as she could get when she was living in one of the Hunters’ strongholds. Elijah Crawford, the Master of this territory, had allowed her into his lands, welcomed her into his house, but she wished desperately he hadn’t.

  Leandra would give damn near anything to do her training elsewhere.

  Training . . . closing her eyes, she drew her knees to her chest and pressed her face against her legs. “Training.” Once more, Leandra was pupil to a more powerful creature than herself. Not for the magick, though. She’d long since passed the need to have somebody help her master the power that made her a witch.

  No. Now she needed a trainer to teach her to control the bloodlust. It sounded so simple—learning how to resist the call of blood. It was anything but simple. Four years had passed since she had been Changed but instead of getting a little easier, it got a little harder. The bloodlust that came on a newly Changed vampire could easily rage out of control.

  Leandra had thought it was getting better, though. Then that bastard Malachi had brought her here. He could choose any place in the world to finish her training and he chose the one place guaranteed to put her on edge.

  It had been six months since Mal had brought her here and it was hell. Surrounded by Hunters, men and women who watched every move she made, judged every little thing she did. People who knew what she had done and hated her for it. People who didn’t understand this drastic shift in her life. Leandra didn’t understand it herself.

  From serving the Scythe to being a Hunter. “It’s no wonder I feel like I’m going mad,” she muttered.

  It would help, though, if she didn’t have to be here.

  Here. All because her trainer, the damnable Malachi, had ordered her here.

  Of all the places he could have taken her, he chose to bring her back here, back to where she had come face-to-face with her own stupidity, where she would be face-to-face with her demons.

  Blowing out a breath, she climbed from the bed and moved to the bathroom. She wouldn’t be getting any more sleep. Might as well take a shower.

  MICHAEL PRESCOTT CAME AWAKE, BITING BACK A groan of pain. Instinctively, he clapped a hand over the long-healed scar in his side.

  He’d been dreaming again.

  Dreams of Leandra weren’t unusual, but he didn’t generally dream about the day she’d shot him full of silver and poison. At least not until recently.

  At first, when she’d come to Eli Crawford’s, he’d known only a hot anticipation. He watched her, he waited—and she ignored him. When she saw him coming, she turned around and went the other way. If he entered a room where she was, Leandra left.

  It was enough to drive him insane.

  Hell, some people would think he was already insane. He was dying of lust over a woman who had fired a bullet into him five years earlier. That could easily make him certifiable, he supposed.

  Most guys would probably want revenge.

  Mike, though, all he wanted was to get close to her—close enough to touch her, close enough to kiss her, close enough to strip her naked and mount her.

  But of course, Leandra was determined to stay away from him. He’d almost say she ran from him.

  And Leandra wasn’t exactly the type to run from anything.

  Of course, she sure as hell knew how to avoid something. The more she avoided him, the more he needed to get close to her. And the more often he had that damned dream. The dream where she shot him, and then turned the gun on herself.

  In his dream, he was helpless, forced to watch as she bled to death in front of him. Dying. Hell, Leandra was dying inside and had been for years.

  Nobody seemed to see it, though. Or maybe some of them did, and just didn’t care.

  Mike knew that a lot of them didn’t. It didn’t seem like Leandra did, either.

  Leandra went out of her way to hold herself apart from the others. Like now. She had the night off. No patrol, no training, but instead of spending time with fellow Hunters, she was leaving alone.

  She did have a few friends here, or people who called her friend, but she avoided even them. Leandra was solitary. Unless she was training or otherwise forced to spend time with the Hunters, Leandra remained aloof and alone.

  Mike watched her as she slid out of the house in silence. Although there were people on the porch and more lingering here and there, enjoying the peaceful night, not one person spoke to her. And Leandra didn’t so much as look at them.

  It was no surprise. He hadn’t ever seen her approach anybody. Not once, in all the weeks she had been here. He ought to know; he’d spent most of those weeks watching her.

  She didn’t want to be here. If Malachi hadn’t forced it on her, Leandra would likely have stayed away from the Enclave in West Virginia entirely. Only her honor and stubbornness kept her from leaving, training or no.

  It was written in those deep amber eyes how very little she wanted to be here, and Mike really couldn’t blame her.

  As proud as he was to serve as a Hunter of the Council, some of his fellow Hunters were completely blind. They couldn’t look at Leandra without hatred and resentment. She wasn’t a poster child for the Hunters. Well, not their idea of one, anyway.

  Mike hadn’t ever met a person more deserving of the honor.

  She’d been lied to, abused, and manipulated most of her life, and still she had fought her way past that to look for the truth. When she had discovered it, she hadn’t just been sorry, she’d been willing to give up her life to atone for the wrongs she had done.

  Leandra had all the honor and bravery that was required of a Hunter. And the heart. That was part of the reason he was so damned fascinated with her. Part. But not all.

  He knew he would have been enthralled with her even if he had just walked past her on the street in Charleston.

  Leaning against the windowsill, he watched as she threw one leg over the motorcycle she preferred to ride, and he had to still a ridiculous spurt of jealousy. Jealous of seeing her wrap those long, sleek legs around a bike instead of him.

  He wanted her to ride him, not that damned Harley. Wanted to stare up into her exotic face and see passion light her eyes instead of the sadness that darkened them.

  “You’ve got it bad,” he muttered as she rode away. Pushing away from the wall, he padded to his closet and tugged out the dark clothes he wore on patrol.

  Leandra had the night off and there was no telling where she was heading. Mike had to work. It was a perfect night for it, too. The moon was nearly full. Although Mike wasn’t a werewolf, a natural-born shapeshifter felt the call of the moon as well. He didn’t have to shift, and probably wouldn’t tonight.

  But he did have an urge to Hunt.

  THE SHIFTER WASN’T THE ONLY ONE WATCHING LEANDRA as she slipped away.

  “Your trainee isn’t very happy about being here.”

  The redheaded giant stood at the window, staring out into the night. Leandra had long since disappeared from sight, although Malachi could still hear the roar of the bike. The sound of the motorcycle grew fainter as he sipped from the brandy Elijah Crawford had poured for the two of them. At Eli’s droll tone, Mal smiled a little. “Can’t imagine why. Your people are so welcoming.”


  At that, the Master sighed. Eli set his brandy down and stood, driving a hand through his wavy, golden hair. His mouth tightened with a scowl. “I can’t change how they think. She came from the enemy, Mal. And whether we like that or not, my people aren’t going to easily forget it. Bugger, she doesn’t do a thing to help them forget it. Why doesn’t she get rid of that damned tattoo?”

  The tattoo was black, sickle-shaped, and just outside the corner of her right eye. It was a mark that was worn by the enemy, a gathering of feral werewolves, vamps, and witches that called themselves the Scythe.

  She’d fought with them once. Taken in by the Scythe when she was barely a teenager, the young, susceptible witch had been brainwashed, made to believe that the Hunters were out to destroy anyone who didn’t yield to their bloodthirsty control.

  The bitter irony was, she’d been told the truth. But it had been the Scythe who were out to destroy any fool that stood in their way. Learning that she had been aiding the enemy had damn near broken her.

  It had taken years for her to come out of the depression that had followed her painful enlightening. But she’d been doing better.

  Until he’d brought her here, Mal mused as he glanced at Eli. With a halfhearted shrug, he said, “I think she keeps the bloody thing to torture herself.” He rarely saw the mark himself. He didn’t see an enemy when he looked at Leandra. He saw a friend. And Mal didn’t count too many as friends.

  The small, black, sickle-shaped tattoo near Leandra’s eye was just a part of her, as far as Mal was concerned. Just like her dark, tortured past was a part of her. She had been doing a fine job moving past it; he’d thought she was ready to return here, to face down the rest of her demons.

  He’d thought she was ready to accept what happened and move on. He’d been wrong. He shouldn’t have brought her here, Mal acknowledged. But now that they were here, he needed to do something to rectify the problem. If they just left, he worried that she’d carry too much of the hatred she saw here inside of her.