Page 162 of Huntress

He read it, then blinked heavily, and rubbed his eyes before reading it again. He stumbled in place, his knees gone too weak to hold him any longer. She supported his weight, safely guiding him to the ground.

“No.” His voice was a hoarse, choked thing. “No, this can’t be right. They were all dead, I was sure of it.”

“They didn’t give you time to confirm anything.”

His eyes found Elsie’s, searching for a denial, begging her to make the horror of that short, scribbled note go away. She couldn’t.

“He had them in that place for over a year?!” Saint’s voice cracked. His fist closed over the paper, crumpling it into a ball. “This happened recently!”

“I know.”

“I should have been there! I should have known they were still alive, we would have gotten there sooner. We might have saved them. I didn’t–I didn’t know.” Raising his face to the sky, he screamed, the agony so raw Elsie could hardly stand it.

“No, never blame yourself for their deaths. This was Cornick, and those underneath him. The blame is theirs, and theirs alone, we don’t keep blame that doesn’t belong to us, remember? You didn’t stop us from getting there sooner, Cornick did, with his drawn-out games while we came to terms ahead of our arrival. Even if we’d gotten there on time, we’d have been in the same damned facility as them and never known.”

“They were alive, Elsie. All this time they suffered at that madman’s hand.” The heat of his anger washed over her. He stood, turning to glare back the way they’d come. “I’ll see him dead one day soon, I swear it. I don’t even care which of us does the job, as long as he doesn’t go easy. I want that scum’s death to linger and creep in while he’s suffocated by its inevitability.”

“I believe you. I can’t promise when, but it will happen.”

Not in any particular hurry, they traveled for a week. Each night they slept under the stars, and each day their feet brought them another step closer to Saint’s home.

He’d gone silent during their journey, but refused to let her out of his sight, and continually sought out her touch at every opportunity. He held her hand, wrapped an arm around her waist, and sat her on his lap, cuddling her close whenever they rested. He needed the reassurance that she wasn’t going anywhere.

Elsie accepted it, knowing their bond was growing with each passing day. He wouldn’t let her out of his sight, but she didn’t want him to. She could no more leave him alone than decide to stop breathing.

The landscape changed. Dense vegetation brought the air in close, while taller, thicker trees cast them in shadows; the cooler temperatures were a welcome relief. Moss dripped from their branches, cloaked like a wealthy woman in a shawl.

The ground was softer, thick with centuries of decaying compost, creating layer after layer of nutrient-rich topsoil. Elsie breathed in air that smelled of ferns, gardens, and honey locust.

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly, loath to disturb the sanctity of this place.

“It’s home,” Saint replied, his first words in days. “My brother and I played here when we were kids.”

A large boulder jutted out of the ground, and as they came around it, Elsie gasped.

Below them stood a cottage with a working waterwheel. The bottom half of the white cob walls was green with moss, and the terracotta roof curved and sloped like a mushroom, the grooves an intentional water-catchment system. A small pond graced the front, and gardens were integrated through the trees. They’d planted what they needed intentionally, planning ahead to seamlessly blend their food sources without destroying the surrounding forest.

Saint’s whole body tensed, but watching his mate’s reaction to the place he’d lived almost the entirety of his life settled his nerves a tiny bit. He led her down the path, pointing out roots and stones his body knew from memory.

Elsie’s eyes were wide, observing everything while watching out for the spirits bearing witness to Saint’s return with a woman belonging to the people who’d violently taken their lives. Their presence was heavy, judgmental, and angry, but a handful of individuals ached with regret and sadness to see him once more.

They came around the front, and he growled. The cottage windows were smashed out, and the beautifully carved front door had been ripped from its hinges. The garden was overgrown, wilderness creeping in, evidence of a massive tragedy so significant that no one came home, until now.

“This is where the watcher lived. He had the best nose of any of us, and he’d sound the alarm if anything was amiss. I never heard his howl that night. No one did. We were taken completely unawares when they came.” Saint kept walking without looking back. “His mate and their two pups lived there with him.”

More houses came and went, each unique to its owner’s taste, but all abided by the same code of blending into the world around them. Some of the fruit trees were ripe, ready to be picked and eaten, but there was no one to enjoy them except the wildlife.

There was no press of houses placed closer together as they reached the pack’s heart. Wolfhounds liked their space.

A wide-open circle formed the center; the grasses and shrubs that had taken over were up to Elsie’s waist. It was the only area the demons had cleared of trees, and among the grasses lay dozens of skeletal remains of Saint’s people. All but a few had died in their hound forms.

“We made our stand here. Any one of us could have protected this place from local demons, or even a squad of hunters, but they came like a swarm. The scent of blood and the sound of their screams as they died overtook everything.” Saint gazed across the clearing with unseeing eyes.

“I saw one of them drive a spear through my niece’s body, right over there.” He pointed to a space between two trees a short way off. “Emily was a young pup. I only remember flashes of it after hearing her dying screams. I wasn’t a warrior. By the traditions of my people, I’m still not. My father hadn’t finished teaching me to refine my magic. Until the hunters came, I’d never killed anyone. I killed so many that day.”

Saint raised his hands, staring at them as if the blood still dripped down his elbows. His brow knit, lines forming on his forehead. “I do remember thinking they weren’t natural. Too strong, too fast, too many magics, and they fought until their dying breath.”

He looked up at Elsie, horror etched across his face. “They had demons with them, but they didn’t attack the hunters. You were right. The hunters fought alongside demons, but there was something wrong with them. They couldn’t be reasoned with because they’d been turned into mindless killers.”