Twenty-seven
Hunter was lying somewhere warm, soft, and familiar. He was comfortable, so he stayed as he was while his mind caught up. Images of an army and a battle flashed behind his eyes, and somewhere the knowledge that he should be dead. Was he?
He was breathing, he could feel his heavy limbs, but not much more. He finally opened his eyes, squinting against the daylight. It looked like his bedroom in the Manor. He sighed, that wasn’t his idea of heaven.
There was the sound of someone else in the room, alerted to his consciousness by the sigh.
“Hunter, you’re awake. Thank god.” The familiar voice was accompanied by a familiar figure hovering over him.
“James, you look terrible.” Hunter said, his voice rough.
James grimaced, his face still bore the signs of torture at the hands of the witches. “Thanks mate, nice to see you too. Thought you were never gonna wake up.”
“How long have I been out?”
“A couple of days.” James replied.
Hunter frowned, then struggled to sit up, noticing the thick bandaging around his midriff and the odd, pain-free, sensation-free feeling. Which he guessed had plenty to do with copious amounts of morphine. Sitting up probably wasn’t a good idea.
“What happened?” Hunter asked.
“Sophie stabbed you. You‘re lucky to be alive.”
“I know that.” Hunter grimaced. “But what happened in the fight? Sophie, was she…” killed? He couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
“Sophie’s gone. Not dead, as much as we tried. She ran and vanished. As for the rest, we’d eradicated most of the witches by the time you were attacked. Then there was nowhere for them to go, they were all eliminated, with surprisingly few casualties on our side.” James filled in dutifully, still buoyed up on success.
Hunter sat quietly, taking it all in. They’d won, they had slaughtered their enemies. Never had Hunter been upset by the death of witches. So what had changed; was it because he was one? No matter how you phrased it he possessed magic. Or was it because… because he had loved one.
James, sensing that Hunter had a lot on his mind, made a weak excuse and left. Hunter hardly noticed him go, his thoughts were now on Sophie.
With no proof or reason, he had believed Bev when she said that Sophie could not kill him. Yet she had tried, she had meant to, it was only luck that had kept him alive.
Hunter remembered how pale Sophie had looked in that last moment, as if she were sharing his pain. Then she’d fled.
What came next was anyone’s guess. Hunter could predict that he and Sophie would be the most hunted people by opposing parties. And neither could exist without seeking to destroy the other.
The future was dark and definitely interesting, and wholly full of possibilities.
And then the truth niggled away in a quiet corner of Hunter’s thoughts and heart. He was in love with the woman that would kill him, and she was carrying his child.