Page 44 of Bounty Hunter

“If you hurt me, she dies.” She says it so sweetly and with an air of flippancy that you’d never expect she was speaking of murder.

The other three women surround me. Their nails lengthening into razor-sharp claws, though they don’t touch me.

His face is expressionless, and he doesn’t move. The woman laughs that tinkling, irritating laugh again, and I watch as she stops right before him, pushes his blade to the side with her hand, and steps a hand’s width from his chest. I begin to worry that she’s entrapped his mind somehow—why did he let her so close? Did we miss a step with the mate bond? My heart begins to beat erratically.

“We don’t often get such a… handsome package.” She’s practically purring. She steps closer, inhaling and running a caressing hand from his left shoulder down to his chest. I see a muscle in his jaw tick. She leans in close, and I barely hear her whisper. “You know you never needed that mate bond?”

I don’t have time to think about why that might be and what her words mean, so I tuck it away for later.

A long, graceful finger continues its way down, tracing down his shirt, over his muscled chest and torso. “We’ve been waiting for centuries for the right man to father our children, but havingyouhere is above my every expectation,” she whispers again, her words only for him, as her finger drops lower and slides slowly along the top edge of his leatherbelt.

Rage ignites inside me. If Ikar is feeling hesitant to use that sword, I’ll do it for him—with pleasure.

Ikar slowly goes from expressionless to smiling in that charming way of his as he deftly scoops her hand away from his belt and into his and brings it to his perfect lips for a sultry kiss. My heart drops. This is just fantastic. We’ve been entrapped by lusty flower women bent on killing me and stealing my criminal, and apparently, they’ve overtaken his reason.

“You are a vision, my lady.” He looks into her eyes. What kind of power do these everwisps have? What was the mate bond for if not for this? A scream is waiting to erupt from my throat.

She smiles, her golden eyes glowing warmly at his appreciation, and she steps in a little closer.

Then his expression drops to a soft look of apology. “I apologize for the inconvenience, but you will need to find another…” he clears his throat, “donor… for your offspring.”

The golden glow in her eyes flickers darkly, and the smile drops from her lips, but he continues.

“I am honored by your invitation, but, unfortunately, I cannot father children.” A sadness darkens his eyes, and I wonder if he is for real. If not, he’s good.Reallygood, because I feel actual sorrow at his statement. And relief. A lot of relief. He’s not wrapped in whatever spell their presence apparently weaves.

A feral smile lights her lips, the hiss that escapes her mouth could rival a cat’s. “That’s a lie. I picked up the scent of your virility a mile away.” She laughs again. “Most men are more than pleased withmybeauty, but perhaps you have different tastes?” Her golden eyes give me a once over, and her lips purse like she sucks on something sour as she thinks about what she’ll have to do next.

Ikar begins to speak, “It’s reall?—”

Two vines shoot out of somewhere in this creepy garden cave, faster than I can track, one wraps around Ikar’s sword, and it’s yanked from his grasp and rolled up against the ceiling. The other whips in my direction, and hot pain slices through my forearm. I cry out in surprise as blood spreads across a clean cut that reaches three inches down my arm, soaks through the sleeve of my shirt, and begins dribbling down my fingers. I watch as drops begin to hit the moss at my feet and soak into it like it’s dropped onto a wet sponge. My ears buzz with pain and shock, so I don’t hear what Ikar shouts at the everwisp. I’m too busy wondering what the blazes I did to deserve being attacked.

I look up with fiery words to say, but I forget it all when my eyes meet my own face. I do a double take and shake my head in denial, then step back, forgetting, until I bump into the everwisp behind me. She hisses in my ear and I remember I’m still surrounded. The one before me, who stoleme, wears the same white dress… but the body, the light spatter of freckles across her nose, the flyaway hair. It’s allme. For a moment, I appreciate how I could look if I felt the urge to update my wardrobe, but then I realize that, apparently, this mossy substance is somehowher,and she literally took my blood to copy me. I’m standing on it and getting more grossed out by the second. While I’m battling a combination of disgust at that realization, along with a bout of dizziness, she turns with a commanding look over her shoulder at Ikar and heads toward the inky blackness of the garden tunnel ahead of us. Hips swinging like mine never have. It’s odd, feeling jealous of yourself.

Ikar stands for a moment. I can’t call it indecision on his face, he’s too decisive for that. Calculated choosing is what it is—which is sometimes scarier. His enchanted weapon is stillwrapped up in vines, and he glances at me surrounded by the other three everwisps. I realize the situation isn’t great. They’ve got me surrounded to force him to do their bidding, and he knows if I die, his magic is gone. But there’s no way he’ll go with her, right? He has other weapons. I know it, I’ve seen him remove them, though never all at once, of course. And none of those other weapons will kill an everwisp as quickly as an enchanted one, but still. I look at him with a question in my eyes. He takes a step forward. Whether he’s stepping forward to follow or fight her, I don’t know. But I do know there is no way I’m letting him go without a fight.Because I like him.No. Because I need the money. And I want that vile woman’s hands away from him. Forever. I ever so slowly slip my knife from my right hand to my now weakened left hand, forcing my grip to hold even while it’s slick with blood.

Our eyes hold for a second, then we move at the same time. I lose sight of him when, with all the strength I can muster, I wrench my elbow up and back—fast and hard—into the throat of the unsuspecting everwisp hovering behind me, while thrusting my knife through the everwisp that stands at my right side. The stabbed one collapses to the ground, and the rosy color of her skin and rich color of her hair leech out, leaving her with a bruised tinge. I grimace as I step forward and pull my knife from her, then she bursts with light and is gone. I don’t have time to see if she actually died or just disappeared because the nails of the one I throat punched are apparently stuck in the back of my jacket, and she pulls me back as she stumbles, coughing and hacking in way that doesn’t match her unearthly beauty from my throat hit. I switch my knife to my stronger hand. I could definitely overthink this moment, but I can’t. So, while I have the chance, I thrust it into her, too. She screams out in rage before all the color in her hair and skin drains out ina horrifying way that matches her sister, her face slack and lifeless as she falls to the ground before glowing brightly and disappearing. A wilted gray flower lies in her place. I hope that means she’s dead.

I look over my shoulder as I grab my sword off the weird moss floor to see Ikar standing off with the brown haired leader. She flashes away in a snarl and whirl of skirts, revealing a bit more of my skin than I’m comfortable with. Curse her. At her retreat, the other everwisp takes her place. She flickers in and out of sight, glowing extra bright in surges that burn my eyes, then darkening and leaving me blind. Appearing and disappearing in different parts of the garden, she messes with my vision, leaving bright imprints that are difficult to see through when they intentionally darken the room. Ikar appears unfazed and watches closely. He pauses a moment when one flickers out, like a pinched flame. Then she appears to his left, her razor nails at the ready. She’s just out of reach, so he expertly spins the knife in his hand and throws it. It lands in her chest right as she begins to flicker again, but instead of disappearing, she falls to the ground in solid form with a spongey thud. Her form glows brightly like the ones I witnessed just before, then disappears, and the knife lays on the ground again. I watch him unsheathe another when I begin to feel movement beneath my feet. Vines circle around me, and the moss seems to have grown spongier. I quick step and begin to scramble with a yelp, trying to avoid the vines but they continue their circling until both my feet and lower legs are caught up in their ever-tightening grip.

I forgot for a moment that she wants him alive—it’s me they don’t care about.

I look down at my own feet. My vision begins to blur a bit, and I almost fall over. I notice there’s blood staining the moss all around me now, and the vines are climbing higher, already upto my mid-thighs. They’re probably the reason I haven’t toppled over from blood loss, but I’d still prefer they get off me. I begin chopping at them with my sword, careful to avoid my legs, but it seems as soon as I get a cut in, another vine sprouts from the opening and makes it worse. They travel up, wrapping around my hips now, and I begin breathing too fast. The last everwisp, dressed in my body and face, her swaying hips and dangerous golden eyes, makes her way toward Ikar.

I see his shoulders bunch as he readies for the fight and stalks forward to meet her. Gone is the well-mannered gentleman with the handsome, charming smiles. Now he is darkness and power and predator. Very much like the man who almost strangled me that night by the river when I arrested him. Glad I’m not on the receiving end of his anger this time.

“Ah-ah-ah,” the demon woman says with a smile.

Before he gets too close, a vine snakes around his wrists, around and around and around. They wrap so tight that his hands smash together, and his knife clatters to the ground. The vines wrap around my midsection, and I begin to see spots. The everwisp, somewhere between wisp and solid form, flies around him and appears again in front of him.

“You are immune to my draw.” She chuckles and leans in to his ear. “I know what you are, and it only makes me want you more,” she whispers to him, her finger now trailing up over the shoulder that pains him sometimes and down the back of his shoulder blade again. That mask of ice forms over his face. Her words carry and seem to slam into the solid stone walls of our prison, falling heavily around us.She knows what he is? A criminal? Something else?

“Should I tell her, or is it our little secret?” She laughs.

“There is no secret,” he says flatly, but I can see the small tick in his jaw. There is most definitely a secret.

Chapter 30

Ikar

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