Hunting Season (The Gathering Book 1) Read online

  Hunting Season

  Shelly Laurenston

  Hunting Season Copyright 2010, 2017 Shelly Laurenston

  Published by Butterfly Kisses Press

  Cover by Deranged Doctor Design

  Dedication

  To my CPs. You helped me during a difficult transitional period and I will be forever grateful. Thanks for your continuing support, your faith in me, your feedback, and your invaluable time.

  To my Magnus Pack Groupies. As you read this book, you’ll realize what an inspiration you crazy females have been to me. Every day you make me laugh and keep me sane. Yeah, you’re all pains in my ass, but I wouldn’t have you any other way. This book is dedicated to each of you. Enjoy.

  Shel.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  About the Author

  Prologue

  “Find her!”

  They chased her into the woods. A dark beauty, with dark eyes and hair. Haakon and his men had plans for her, but as soon as they hit the clearing, she disappeared.

  He silenced his men with a slash of his hand. She probably hid right in front of them. Haakon smiled. He could already imagine her taste, her cries, her screams for mercy. Willing or otherwise, he’d have the tiny female. Then his men would have her.

  A noise behind them had the entire group turning.

  Haakon relaxed the hand on his sword and chuckled. “It’s just a raven, you fools.”

  “She’s a crow.”

  As one, they turned at the sound of the girl’s voice. She stood before them in worn, ripped clothes and dirty hair. Brown-skinned, she must be from one of the raided lands. Dragged here for breeding. Still, none of that could take from her beauty. Perhaps Haakon would keep this one. Perhaps he wouldn’t share her as he’d planned. He didn’t have to. Not with the power he now possessed.

  He held his hand out to her, feeling that power surge from the weapon he’d recently taken from the cave they’d discovered near the river. The power made him bold and confident. The power made him strong. “Come to me, little girl.”

  She stared at him and he no longer saw any fear from her. Perhaps she wanted him. Perhaps she realized what fun they could have together.

  “Look,” one of his men barked. But Haakon ignored him, too focused on the woman in front of him.

  “Look!” his second-in-command insisted. With a sigh, Haakon followed his men’s line of sight… to the trees. There were more birds there. More crows and maybe some ravens, hundreds of them, silently watching. He didn’t care.

  Still staring into the trees, Haakon snapped, “They’re just birds, you fool. Get hold of yourself.”

  He heard the men gasp and his gaze dropped to them and then to the woman. He took an involuntary step back as giant black wings slowly extended from her. Almost as big as her, they looked just like the wings of a crow.

  She grinned. “Don’t you still want me, sweet Haakon?” The girl knew his name. How did she know his name? He’d never seen her before this day.

  “Don’t toy with your prey.” Haakon and his men turned yet again at the sound of another female voice behind them. This time, however, they drew their weapons. It was a slightly older woman. Another set of wings. “It is… unseemly,” this woman chastised.

  “Why should we be fair?” the girl barked. “Do you think he would have been kind to me?”

  He wouldn’t have been. He could assure her of that.

  “Ach!” another one snapped, stepping out of the shadows of the trees. “You waste our time! Odin’s warriors arrive tonight and I have plans of much drinking and at least one of them warming my bed. So hurry up so we can go.”

  “Oooh!” another cheered, stepping into the clearing. “The Ravens are coming?”

  The females laughed. “If I have my way,” one of them promised.

  The old women of his village had warned him about this many days past. They’d ordered him to return the jeweled dagger to the cave where he’d found it. But he’d laughed at them. How could they expect him to give up something that had given him so much power, so much strength, and had given it all so quickly? Within days, he’d ruled his village and had plans to own the surrounding ones. “But they’ll come for you,” they whispered to him. “And when they do, no one will help you. For nothing comes between a Crow and her prey.”

  Like most of the men in his village, he’d never believed the old stories about a goddess’ brutal warriors. True, the bloodthirsty Valkyries were frightening, but they were the daughters of gods and fought on the side of the mighty Odin. Yet, according to legend, the females staring at him with such coldness were very much human, and they fought for a goddess with little patience for men and their ways.

  These… women, if you could call them that, were known as The Gathering, and they were the winged warriors for the goddess Skuld. Warriors who had already died once who Skuld returned to the living. They were still human, although slightly… changed.

  As he stared at their mighty wings, the small one he’d chased struck first, slamming her small fist into his face. Haakon quickly realized her tiny size hid a mighty strength as he grabbed his shattered nose. Before he could recover, she had him on the ground, her kicks and fists having much more impact than any male he’d fought.

  The dying screams of his men filled his ears, but he was unable to help them. Unable to stop The Gathering from ripping them apart.

  It didn’t take them long to wipe out his men. Hard men who’d fought many wars for many years. Some he even considered friends. And these relatively young women killed them all in mere seconds.

  Yet they kept him for last.

  The one he’d chased had her tiny bare foot shoved against his throat. One of them pulled the magically charged dagger from the sheath at his side. The dagger had given him so much power, but just as quickly, these females were snatching his power away. Now he was paying a mighty price for taking—and using—what belonged to Skuld.

  “Here.” The woman expertly flipped the blade over so the girl could grasp the handle. “Make it quick. Make it clean. Then Hella can deal with him and we can spend our night teaching Odin’s Ravens how to beg.”

  The girl nodded. “As you wish.” She straddled him, lowering her body until she sat on his chest. She was warm and naked under her clothes. He could smell her lust but it wasn’t for him… it was for the kill.

  “You should have listened to the old women in your village, Haakon—and returned the blade to our goddess. Now you must pay the price.”

  “No Valhalla for you,” another one of them sneered, already heading toward the village and the Ravens they all spoke fondly of. She acted as if the loss of his place at Odin’s table in Asgaard meant nothing to a warrior such as himself, adding, “No Valkyries to take you home.”

  The girl shook her head sadly. “No. There’ll be no Valhalla for you.”

  Then she slashed his throat.

  Chapter One

  New Jersey

  One thousand years later…

/>   Glass shattered as a grown man threw himself out of a fifth-story window. Will Yager closed his eyes and turned his head to protect himself from the spray of glass. He knew the man threw himself out that window because that’s what any sane person would do in a similar situation.

  “You can run, David,” a female voice from the man’s apartment taunted as the man landed hard at Yager’s feet. “But we’ll find you.”

  “Don’t leave, sweetness! I wasn’t nearly done!” another female voice laughingly added.

  The man at his feet—“David”, Yager guessed—struggled to crawl away. The only reason the man’s back hadn’t snapped like a twig when he landed was due to the little item he’d recently stolen. Which was the only reason Yager and his team were even here on a Saturday night.

  Why people insisted on stealing from gods, Yager would never know.

  Reaching down, he grabbed David by the neck and lifted him to his feet. “Where exactly are you crawling away to, little man?”

  “Trust me.” Yager’s protégé, Mike, chuckled behind him. “We’re much nicer than the women you just ran from.”

  That was true. The Gathering didn’t do rescue missions or help those in need or involve themselves in the politics of gods. In fact, The Gathering only answered to one god. A Fate called Skuld, the Veiled One. A goddess who once rode with the Valkyries when she got bored, Skuld knew the future, could bring the dead back to life, and believed in wisdom. She’d created The Gathering more than a thousand years ago when Yager’s people still raided monasteries for sport. Like Odin, she wanted her own warriors, but unlike Odin, Skuld didn’t choose from the finest Nordic stock. Instead she chose from the descendents of the girls his people had stolen. Girls thrown over warriors’ shoulders and carried away to a cold and foreign land they knew nothing about. Mike probably put it best when he observed of the two groups, “The Ravens look like an ad for Hitler Youth while the Crows look like a big box of crayons.”

  In the early days, when Skuld rode with the Valkyries, she would choose among the slain who would go to Valhalla. And now that she chose her own warriors, nothing had changed. For those who wanted to commit their lives to her service and to The Gathering… they had to be taking their last breath.

  “Give it up, little man,” Yager ordered as he took firm hold of David’s hair and held him in place like he used to hold his childhood teddy bear. Yager hated chasing anybody. “With us you’ll get a quick death. But I can promise you won’t get that from them.”

  David shook his head but didn’t speak.

  “I’m not even going to ask why you’re here, Yager,” a female voice calmly stated.

  David squealed as strong female hands gripped the man’s shoulders and yanked him away from the dubious safety of Yager’s men. Of the Ravens.

  Yager winced in sympathy when he realized David definitely lost hair and some of his scalp in that little transfer.

  “This one is ours, Yager.”

  Odin help him. The delectable Neecy Lawrence. Second-in-command to the Jersey Crows, Neecy was lethal with a blade and her talons. She was also stubborn, tough, brutally honest, and the hottest piece of ass on the East Coast. Neecy also made his life a living hell because she wouldn’t admit the truth—they were perfect together.

  “I didn’t say he wasn’t yours, Neecy. We’re just here to help… and to get Odin’s rune. Which I believe is somewhere on him.” Yager snatched David back.

  “We’re not doing this again,” Neecy promised.

  As always, she and her team wore the requisite Crow fighting gear: black jeans, black steel-toe boots, white racerback tanks so their wings were unencumbered, and the brand of their goddess burned deep and black onto their necks. And because it was the middle of January, tightly fitted wool sleeves that went from the palms of their hands to their upper biceps.

  The Ravens’ fighting clothes were similar except for the sleeves. Viking males just had to deal with the freezing Northeast coast cold. Otherwise the Elder Ravens called them pussies.

  “Besides, he’s already used the rune and given a sacrifice,” Neecy continued. “His tongue specifically. And you know the rules—once they use it, the prey belongs to us. And Skuld gave me orders to bring that rune to her, so I guess you’re shit out of luck, huh?” She again yanked the man to her.

  “Actually you are, baby.” Yager grabbed hold of David by the neck and pulled him back. “I don’t care if he’s already used the damn rune. I’m returning it to Odin. You can have the carcass for all I care.”

  “And Odin can go to hell for all I care. And stop calling me baby.” Neecy took David back, ignoring the whimpering sound he made.

  “Why do you always have to be so difficult?” he asked, because really… couldn’t they just get married and work the rest of it out in bed?

  Neecy gave that tight smile of hers. The one that told him she was losing her patience. “You haven’t seen difficult, Yager. But trust me when I say I can get difficult.” She wasn’t bragging or uselessly threatening either. Neecy Lawrence didn’t need to. Her reputation preceded her.

  She’d come to Skuld early. Only sixteen when she woke up at the Bird House, the name for the Jersey safe house many of the Crows called home. She woke up from dying. The last thing she probably remembered was her drug-dealer boyfriend pulling the trigger. Six bullets to the chest—a gift for warning two undercover cops they’d been made.

  Fifteen years later and she ruled the Jersey Crows. In fact, only one woman stood between Neecy and Skuld. Didi handled the politics while Neecy handled everything else. Always so serious, always so determined, Neecy never took her oath to her goddess lightly and she demanded the best from all the Crows. A ball-buster she may be, but a fair one.

  He took a step toward her. “Neecy.”

  “Back off, Yager.” Her wings, glistening blue-black from the streetlight, spread dangerously away from her body even as she remained outwardly calm.

  Man, he’d never known a woman more beautiful than Neecy. Short, short straight black hair she’d lately let grow long in the front. So long, her bangs nearly covered her gorgeous black eyes. Neecy was brown-skinned and tall, but no one really knew what she was. Even Neecy. Rumor was someone found her in a Dumpster when she was barely a day old. She could be black, Brazilian, Cuban, or a mix of all three or a mix of something completely different. Yager didn’t know or care. He only cared about one thing when it came to Neecy Lawrence. Making her his.

  Sighing, he said, “I don’t want to fight you.”

  “I know, Yager,” she responded softly. “I know.” Then she punched him in the face.

  Dammit! He should have seen it coming. The calmer she got, the worse the damage. She only managed to snap his head to one side, but that gave her enough time to use her wings to lift her body into the air so she could slam both her feet into his chest, sending him slamming into his men. The momentum of her attack sent her body flipping back in midair. But when she landed, she did it silently and firmly on two feet.

  “Katie,” she barked.

  “Got him.” Katie Clark. A vicious little redhead, who’d died when she’d tried to stop a knife fight between two friends, took firm hold of poor, growing-balder-by-the-moment David. Talons burst from Katie’s hand and she ripped his side open with one swipe. Then she dug her hand into his open flesh, snorting at his unintelligible screams of pain.

  “Oh, quit whining, ya big baby,” she snapped. “You brought this shit on yourself.”

  She pulled her hand out of his body, the rune he’d given up parts of himself for held tightly in her bloody fist. Katie dropped him to the ground like old garbage. Now that the rune was gone, Yager knew that David felt every ache, every pain… he felt it all.

  “Got it!” Katie cheered.

  “Good,” Neecy barked. “Go!”

  Katie spread her wings and her feet left the ground. But Mike charged past all of them, grabbed her around the legs, and slammed her back down.

  A second of stunned
silence followed. Yager never expected him to do that. Actually, none of the Ravens expected Mike to do that. They watched as he reached down and snatched the rune from Katie’s hand. Mike shrugged. “What did you expect me to do?”

  Quick to recover, Katie slammed her foot into his knee. She didn’t use her heel—a six-inch metal spike—so Yager could only guess she didn’t want to permanently damage him. Mike still dropped to one knee, though, with an angry grunt of pain.

  Katie rolled back and out of his way, quickly coming to her feet.

  “You’re going to get your ass kicked, little boy,” she growled.

  “Oooh. A chick threat,” Mike mocked, still kneeling in front of her. “I love those.” The kid never knew when not to push it, did he?

  Mike waited for Katie to make her move and that was his mistake. He didn’t see Connie Vega, who’d died when a drunk driver hit her bicycle, standing behind him. She kicked him between his shoulder blades, slamming his big body to the ground. She put her knee against his back while she wrapped a chain around his neck and pulled.

  Mike gritted his teeth and tossed the rune to Yager, who caught it easily and stared down at Neecy.

  She held her hand out. “Give it, Yager.”

  “Nope.”

  “I’ll let Connie have fun with him if you don’t give it to me now.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t hurt Mike and we both know it.” Believe it or not, the Ravens and the Crows were on the same side.

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I wouldn’t kill Mike, but I wouldn’t think twice about hurting him.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. Mike drove everyone crazy, but the Crows still treated the twenty-seven-year-old like their baby brother. “Neecy, come on…”

  “Exactly how many times do you think I’ve had that conversation with one of my young sisters, explaining to her that the reason Mike didn’t call was because he’d already fucked her and was done?”

  Yager winced. Goddamn horny Mike. Out of principal, he should leave Mike Molinski to the not-so-tender mercies of the Crows.