Mirabeau and Tiny were among those up and about, helping the others. Decker, she saw, was crouched over Lucian. Obviously, the head of the North American council and unofficial leader of the rogue hunters hadn’t got out of the house before the explosion, but she presumed he’d been close enough to the door to be tossed out by the blast. Judging by the smoke wafting off him, he’d also caught fire, if only briefly, which suggested the bombs had been incendiary in nature.
Stephanie waited until she saw Lucian move before turning her gaze toward the woods in back of the house again. This time she didn’t have to work hard to hear the thoughts of the lone man. He was a calm mind amid the pained and upset hunters in the yard, and the chaos and agony of the panicked rogues trapped in the now-burning house. He was glued to the camera monitors, his focus now on her as he wondered how she had known there were bombs.
Her brain not yet firing on all cylinders after the shaking it had taken, Stephanie burst into a run toward the back of the property. Her only thought was to catch the bastard before he made his escape.
The woods behind the house were much deeper than those at the front, but there was something of a path through it. Just a dirt trail wide enough for a person to slip through the densely growing trees. Stephanie took it at a dead run, using all the speed her body could give her. It made the trip much faster than it would have been for a mortal, so fast that she was caught a little by surprise when she suddenly burst out of the woods into a clearing around a second house.
This yard was no better kept than the other. What had probably been a beautifully manicured lawn at one time was now overgrown with waist-high grass and weeds. Stephanie slowed as she approached, her gaze sliding over the light shining from the windows of the dilapidated old Victorian two-story house as she neared the dark wood door. It was solid, without a window to see inside. She was reaching for the door handle when the chaotic thoughts from the scene she’d just left faded enough for her to catch the thoughts of the man inside. He knew she was there. He was waiting.
Stephanie released the handle and retreated a couple steps as she reached around her back for the gun tucked into the waistband of her jeans. It was loaded with darts full of a drug that had been developed specifically for rogue hunters to use. It was the only thing that could take down a rogue immortal with any certainty.
“Steph?”
She jerked around in surprise to see Mirabeau sprinting out of the woods and hurrying toward her. The fact that she’d left the scene of the explosion rather than staying to help with the wounded had obviously not gone unnoticed. Neither was the fact that she now had her gun out. Mirabeau’s expression was both surprised and concerned as she focused on the weapon. Which was completely understandable, Stephanie supposed. She usually left the actual capturing of rogues to the others. Her presence at these hunts was generally to tell them how many rogues they had to deal with and where they were. She also helped with the questioning after, pulling the answers Lucian was looking for from the captured rogues’ minds like plucking cat hair off a sweater. But, despite her years of training alongside the hunters, she was always kept back from the actual takedowns.
“What—?” Mirabeau was halfway across the overgrown yard when she began to ask her question. The one word was all the woman managed to get out though before her gaze suddenly shifted past her. Mirabeau’s eyes went wide with alarm a heartbeat before she suddenly stumbled and fell.
Stephanie instinctively started to move toward the other woman, but then just as quickly whirled back to the house. The door was now open, and a man stood in the doorway, tall, blond and attractive. He had a gun aimed at her, and even as she recognized it as one the hunters used, one like the one she was holding, he pulled the trigger. She felt a sharp pain in her chest, and glanced down at the dart piercing the edge of her left breast just over her heart, then she too fell as a warm wave rushed through her and every muscle in her body suddenly abandoned her. Stephanie didn’t lose consciousness though, nor feeling, and would have winced if she could have as she slammed to the ground and her head bounced off the hard-packed dirt path.
She came to rest on her side with her eyes closed, but her mind still functioning. Stephanie heard movement and tried to open her eyes, but didn’t seem to be able to manage that. All she could do was listen to the sounds he made as he approached. He must have squatted next to her, or bent over to reach her, but whatever the case, she felt his hand on her shoulder and then was turned onto her back.
“You knew about the bombs. How did you know about the bombs?” her attacker muttered as he took the gun from her lax fingers and then tugged at her clothing, no doubt to check for any more weapons. “And how did you know there was a house back here? Or that I was in it?”
Stephanie didn’t even bother to try to answer. Not that she thought he expected her to. She suspected he was muttering to himself, and might not know she was even conscious. She shouldn’t be, and wasn’t exactly sure why she was. Like the gun he held, the dart had been easily recognizable as rogue hunter paraphernalia. That dart should have knocked her out. Yet she hadn’t lost consciousness and could feel a tingling in her fingers and toes that suggested the drug was already wearing off. This was unexpected.
“Steph.”
She was so startled that he’d used her name that her eyes shot open, and for a moment Stephanie was sufficiently distracted by the fact that they actually would open, that she forgot what he’d said.
“That’s what she called you, Steph.”
Stephanie peered at him to see that he was looking off toward Mirabeau and not at her. Even as she noted that, he turned his gaze back to her. His eyes immediately widened when he saw hers were open.
“You shouldn’t be awake,” he said, sounding nonplussed. “The dose in that dart would have knocked an immortal out cold for at least twenty minutes.”
Stephanie wanted to tell him to go to hell, but unlike her eyes, her mouth still wasn’t working. She wasn’t able to move her jaws, and her tongue was a useless thing in her mouth. Then he was suddenly leaning over her, his fingers forcing their way inside her mouth and pressing on her palate behind her canine teeth. Disgusted and furious, Stephanie tried to bite him then, but her mouth still wouldn’t work.
“You have metallic tinted eyes like immortals, but no fangs,” he muttered, retracting his fingers and eyeing her with fascination. “And if the drug from the dart is wearing off this quickly, you obviously have a stronger constitution than immortals. What are you?”
Unable to punch him in the face or claw his eyes out as she would have liked to do, Stephanie just glared back at him.
“This is fascinating. Perhaps I should take you with me,” he murmured thoughtfully, and glanced toward the open door to the house behind him as if considering the logistics of doing so.
“Beau? Steph?”
Stephanie instinctively tried to turn her head toward that shout in the distance, but unlike her eyelids, her neck muscles didn’t suddenly start working and she was unable to.
“Damn,” her attacker muttered with what sounded like frustration.
Shifting her gaze back to him, she saw him look briefly toward the woods and scowl in the direction the shout had come from. He then shook his head and stood. “It looks like I’ll have to leave you behind. But I sincerely hope we meet again, Steph whoever-you-are. I should like to get you on my table and find out what makes you tick.”