“Our Lady,” he whispered. “We have always known you will be the death of us.”
I could move again. I began to fall, but Rex and Aaz were there, holding me up—and Zee braced himself against my legs. “Don’t say that.”
“Now, or in a thousand years.” Oturu’s cloak flowed around me like wings. “We are one. We will not live without you.”
I touched my stomach. “You’ll live for her.”
His mouth softened, and those tendrils of hair grazed my shirt, sliding beneath the soft cotton to press against my skin.
“Another queen,” he murmured. “But she will not be you. You are the last.”
I swallowed hard. “Not the first time I’ve heard that. But I don’t believe it. I am not the last of this bloodline.”
The wide brim of his hat tilted forward. “It has already begun, Hunter.”
Then, before I could ask him what the hell that meant, he said, “She is warm. What ails you surrounds her.”
It was hard to find my voice. “Surrounds, or infects?”
“It wants to kill her.” Oturu bowed his head, as though listening. “That is all I know.”
I felt nauseated. Zee pointed at Oturu. “Too much fear you bring. We protect little light. We protect Maxine.”
Oturu pulled away from me. “You cannot protect her from everything.”
“I pick up my own slack,” I muttered, trying to sound tough, strong, as if that would make me feel better. “But if you’re going to take the risk of being near me, then I need your help. We’ve been attacked by the Aetar. I don’t know how many of their constructs are on this world, or who else is coming for us.”
“You wish us to hunt them.”
“Hunt and kill,” I said, and hesitated. “I’ll need Tracker, too.”
Oturu momentarily stilled, floating on the dagger tips of his feet—more than two feet, less than ten—some indeterminable number that was just as mysterious as his hidden face. He could have been a dancer—of the demonic variety—his grace utterly unmatched, even by the boys.
For a moment, deep within the drowning abyss of that living cloak, I saw a face press outward, contorted in agony. I almost stepped back, but then I recognized those features. My breath caught.
“Tracker,” I said. “What are you doing to him?”
“He has not yet learned to kneel before our Lady,” murmured Oturu. “Not in the deepest altar of his heart.”
“No one has to kneel to anyone, for any reason,” I said wearily. “Why do you still do this to him? Why won’t you give him his freedom?”
“We promised not to,” said Oturu. “We promised you.”
I blinked, startled. I saw, from the corner of my eye, Zee—looking away from us, as though embarrassed.
But before I could ask them what the hell that meant, Oturu’s cloak flared—wide as the hood of a cobra. I stumbled backward as Tracker fell from the abyss. Just behind him I glimpsed other faces pressing outward, as if trying to escape with him. Not all were human.
Raw and Aaz fell into the shadows around us, only their eyes visible: crimson, glowing. I heard their low growls. Dek and Mal coiled tighter around my throat. No purrs, no song—watching Tracker with all their deadly focus. Only Zee was relaxed, but that was deceptive. I wished I could be that smooth. My pulse was fast, and I felt nervous.
It had been six years, but Tracker still put me on edge, for reasons I could not explain. Maybe because he hated my guts. Maybe because he was part of a past that wasn’t mine but that belonged to my bloodline, all the way back to the beginning. He knew things about the women in my family that I could never imagine, and I was envious of that. Protective of it, too.
Tracker knelt, shuddering and breathing hard. He looked the same as when I’d last seen him: skin the color of a cat’s-eye, golden and tawny, his hair black and long, wild around his angular face. His nose was large, hooked, close to ugly—closer still to handsome.
He wore jeans, a black turtleneck; a belt buckle the size of my hand, silver and inlaid with lapis. A band of iron hid beneath his chin, peeking from the edge of his collar.
Looking at him inspired too much déjà vu—and not because we’d met before. This went deeper, part of some inherited genetic memory. Tracker was in the blood.
He tilted his head to look at me. Black eyes. Aggressive stare.
“Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”
“In the flesh,” I replied. “You need some water?”
“Water.” He laughed bitterly.
I glanced at Raw, who gave Tracker a dirty look. Still, he pulled a bottle of cold water from the shadows and tossed it at me. I unscrewed the top, and the man grabbed it from my hand. He drank like he was dying, water spilling down the sides of his mouth.