Riven (Mirus 2)
She blinked and dropped the hand she’d reached out toward the lion. Because she was completely insane.
“He won’t hurt me.” The words fell from her mouth, every bit as irrational as the desire to touch him. But the certainty of it beat through her. The lion’s ears swiveled, listening, and he relaxed his posture, laying down to drape over the shelf of rock.
“Let’s not test that theory, shall we?”
“Keep facing the cat and back away slowly.” The new voice was level, calm, coming from somewhere behind them, and with it came the fear she hadn’t felt for the lion.
Heart tripping in her chest, Marley did as she was told. The cougar kept his attention on her, and she wondered why he didn’t react to the newcomer. Not a threat? Or was the cat simply too fascinated with her to care? Even as she thought it, the animal rose and gave her one long look before melting away, silent as a ghost.
“You’re late.”
Marley glanced back and gasped. “You were in Gatlinburg!”
Between one breath and the next, she found herself blocked by Ian’s body. He vibrated with tension.
The man with the scarred face made a brief bow and smiled. “Observant and good at thinking on your feet. We appreciate seeing a Hunter bested. And it was handy we didn’t have to intervene in such a public place. It could be done, but the cleanup would’ve been a bitch.”
“And exactly who are you to intervene at all?” demanded Ian.
“We’ll get to that in good time.” Scarface smirked at the gun aimed at his chest. “Might as well not waste your bullets, Shadow Walker. There’s nothing here to hit.”
“Fucking shaman,” muttered Ian. “Too much a coward to come in person?”
“We’ve got reason to know you’re more likely to attack first and ask questions…well, never.”
“I’m asking now. What do you want with Marley?”
“Well, if you hadn’t been intent on knocking me unconscious, we could’ve explained that in Washington.” The tattooed warlock stepped out from between two trees, his hands lifted in truce. “Don’t shoot me.”
“I’m not in the habit of giving strange warlocks the chance to cast.”
The warlock angled his head in acknowledgment. “Fair enough. The fact is, picking up Marley was supposed to be a simple retrieval. We weren’t expecting you. Nor were we expecting a cross-country trek.”
“Well you’ve got me,” said Ian, “so you damned well better explain yourselves. Who the hell are you?”
“People who want to help her,” said the warlock. “To keep her out of the Council’s hands.”
“Hunters don’t habitually take their targets back to the Council.”
“Their targets aren’t usually potential leverage,” added Scarface.
A suspicion floated through Marley’s mind, a terrible, terrible fear, and she was pretty damned certain this was one of those answers she definitely wasn’t going to like.
“Leverage for what? Who are you?”
They were talking about her as if she wasn’t even there, but she couldn’t manage to interject. Her skin began to prickle again and she caught a glimpse of something in her periphery. Not the gold of the lion, something darker. Shadows, flanking them on two sides.
“Fudge—”
A chorus of metallic clicks made it perfectly clear their luck had just run out.
Chapter 11
“Nobody move!”
“Ah, shit,” said Scarface.
Marley expected Matthias to step out of the shadows, to show his true colors. But it wasn’t the ops commander who emerged. The newcomer was younger, dressed in black BDUs and body armor. He was thick-necked, with slanting reptilian eyes that darted over the group while he trained an automatic rifle at Ian’s head.