Page 100 of His to Hunt

“Oh goddess,” I mutter, something I’ve sort of started saying a lot recently. “What do we need to do?”

“Nothing yet,” he says. “I’ll go back out tonight. Don’t open the door for anyone but me. If you’re in danger, I’ll sense it.”

“You will?” I ask, my eyes widening slightly.

“Yes, it’s part of the bond,” he growls. “I’m going to see if I can get one of them to follow me and if I can, I’ll find out what the fuck is going on.”

“How?” I ask hesitantly.

“I have my ways.” He walks over and sits down. “We may need to do the ritual somewhere else.”

“Okay, that’s fine,” I say, scooting over and snuggling close to him. “Please be careful. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I’ll be fine,” he rumbles. “Don’t worry about me.”

It’s not as comforting as he probably means it to be, but it’s all I get. I stay close to him until it’s time for him to go hunting, as he calls it. He slips out the door and vanishes into the night.

I’m all alone in Paris, for the moment, at least. If someone is following Victor, then that’s probably my fault. I pace the suite nervously for a while, then have a drink. Then two. I pace some more. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this anxious.

Something could happen to Victor. What would I do if I lost him? I don’t think I’d last very long if I’m the last druid and I don’t have a wolf to protect me. I also get the feeling I would find life without Victor lacking.

“No, he’ll be fine, he’ll be fine,” I mutter. “Please, goddess. Mother Fate? Mother Nature? Please.”

Finally, there’s a thud at the door. I exhale a pent up sigh and take a step closer, expecting it to swing open. But it doesn’t. There’s another thud and it’s louder. Then the next one tears the door open and I see several men holding what looks like a battering ram.

Suddenly, I wish we had gotten one of the suites in the city with more floors and private elevators. Like the one we had in Covington.

“Who the fuck are you?” I ask, looking around for some kind of weapon. Victor is the weapon. He doesn’t need any, so I dash toward the kitchen.

“Give us the book!” a man demands, stomping into the room.

They’re all olive-skinned and look identical. Same brown eyes. Same brown hair. They’re wearing some sort of leather armor that is covered by copper scales. Once they drop the battering ram, they pull copper swords from their waist.

Suddenly, everything around me freezes. I notice it mainly because I get to the kitchen and everything is still. The men aren’t chasing me. I peek around the corner and see them frozen, angry faces, swords drawn. They really want the book.

A few feet from them a sliver of light appears in midair and then parts like a zipper, showing nothingness until a man steps through. A very large man. The gold in his eyes makes me wonder if he’s a wolf shifter, but then I remember what Victor told me about the Witch Hunters.

“Are you Finn?” I call out.

“Yeah,” he responds in a deep, resonant voice, striding over to the men. “Who the hell are these guys? They’re not in the timeline at all.”

“I don’t know anything about that; they just broke down my door. They are after the book,” I say hurriedly, cautiously stepping into the room.

“Everyone’s after the fucking book. We’ve got most of that handled,” he snarls. “These guys… I don’t like this. Where is Victor?”

“He said some guys were following him, so he was trying to bait them,” I say. “Looks like I was the bait.”

“I’ll be right back,” he says, leaving the room.

A few seconds later, he returns with Victor rushing past him. He pauses for a half-second to snarl at the men in weird armor before hugging me.

“I shouldn’t have left. Fuck! I thought they would follow me,” he growls angrily. “I sensed it, but clearly I was too far away.”

“I still want to know who the hell they are,” Finn says.

“They’re fucking dead!” Victor roars, pulling away.

He moves faster than I realize he can, hands becoming claws as he tears into them. He cleaves them into pieces that stay hanging in the air like a threat of how much blood is going to be covering our suite when time is unfrozen.