The engine cranked over as she turned the key. Exhaust puffed out in a white cloud in the cold air. But on the off chance that he was running for her, she wouldn’t be here when he broke through the woods.
***
Chapter Three
Khost paused in the parking lot, his chest tight. Her leather jacket dangled from one hand as he scanned the black top for the semi she’d gotten her coat out of in the first place. Nothing. Where the fuck had she gone? He blew out a frustrated breath, his nerves cranked over on high and he wanted nothing more than to toss his head back and bay until his lungs burst.
Frustration made him want to pace, scream. He swatted her jacket against a tree and growled. What the hell? He slapped the leather against the tree harder this time. What kind of game was that? A test? Herne save him, but if his god had sent him down here for a test he was fucked, because damn it all, he wanted her.
His nostrils flared wide as he blew out a sharp blast of air. At first, all he’d wanted to do was run, he hadn’t even really wanted to catch her, just pelt through the woods, flat out. Then the stars had started to call to him and like a siren’s song, he’d wanted so damn bad to leap up there and answer the call. To let these two legs fade into four, trade skin for fur, man for dog, and run to catch the pack tonight.
Khost closed his eyes. Nah, that hadn’t been the siren’s call. So what, he’d have left the necklace. It wasn’t his tail on the line for that. It was Cissy’s and she was old enough she could handle a few whips and the more he thought about it, the more he knew he needed to give up and head home.
Except, he didn’t want to go back and that there was the deadly lure, every bit as powerful as a call to death in the middle of the fucking ocean. His teeth ground together as his breath whistled out between his teeth. Only foolish men would let themselves be lured, would let themselves fall.
Khost knew the rules. To run with the Hunt, every Hound had to be loyal to their master. They could live and run forever that way, wild and free. Such freedom and immortality, running through the skies, it was a drug he couldn’t imagine living without. So why was he standing here, swaying on the pavement willing her to come back?
“Shit,” Khost breathed out and slumped back against a tree. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t follow her. If he found her, Khost knew he’d never go home again. He’d never know the wild press of his pack running with him, never feel the magic again. He couldn’t lose that.
He lifted her jacket to his face and inhaled the rich scent of her. Fresh, like citrus and lemons, and then he let it fall. Cissy could get the damned horn back by herself. It was time for him to go. Before he did something he’d regret...like follow that damned truck.
Khost spun on his heels and bolted back into the forest, waiting for the magic to pick him up and carry him home. Far, far away from Nalla.
***
Nalla groaned into her pillow, stretched out over the bunk in the back of the semi cab. She’d left him. Her first taste of the Wild Hunt again and she’d just left him standing in the woods, when damn it, she could have broken him. But then what? This was the real world—there weren’t any happily-ever-afters. That had been crystal clear the day Herne had killed the man she thought she’d loved.
Her heart gave a reminiscent painful twinge at the memory.
She had loved Malek.
And Khost... Nalla grunted and rolled to her side, stuffing one hand under her pillow. Her flannel pajama pants rode up one knee as she curled into a ball. She couldn’t decide what she’d felt for him. Fascination? Sure. Want, lust, need...yes. But if she wanted sex, she could have gone to a bar rather than a rest stop and spent the night with someone there, rather than out here.
But she didn’t, so she hadn’t. So why couldn’t she sleep?
She knew the air outside would be cool against her skin, forever a lure and a reminder of everything she’d lost. Nalla squeezed her eyes shut, one hand going for the golden chain looped her neck, and the hunter’s horn that dangled from it. She’d seen it in Herne’s hands so many times, when he’d blown over it and the instrument had grown to something of beauty. Of size. Something he could press against his great lips and thunder over the sky, a calling to all his Hounds. A calling to the earth under the sky. The Hounds were coming.
He only needed it on the Great Hunts so he’d be needing it soon, but he’d yet to come for it. She’d hoped when she’d stolen it that she could spite him for killing Malek. Then later, she’d hoped to bargain her return to the sky. Now, she didn’t even know why she bothered to keep it. She missed running, but she’d given up hope on ever going home.