Claiming the Hunter Read online

  Into the Paranormal World: To everything there is a season, including a time to lay down arms and to love.

  Jeremiah Tully lost his sister when a shifter attacked them while camping with friends. He blames himself... and rogues, believing they are a danger to society. When he finds a group of like-minded people who call themselves hunters, he joins up and spends three years helping them hunt, capture, and sometimes even kill shifters and vampires. Then a few new guys show up, telling tales of demons, and how they want help capturing some. Jeremiah doesn’t believe their tales, but when the demons attack, Jeremiah quickly turns into a believer. He flees the building, but then is chased down by one of the monsters when he crashes his dirt bike. When he wakes in some kind of clinic run by gargoyles, he thinks he’s a dead man. Instead, he learns that some humans live side by side with the gargoyles as mates, and one of the gargoyles, Grateman, is claiming him. While Jeremiah realizes he does have an odd attraction to Grateman, can a mating between a gargoyle and a hunter really work?

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  Claiming the Hunter

  Copyright © 2016 Charlie Richards

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-0616-5

  Cover art by Carmen Waters

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

  Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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  Claiming the Hunter

  A Paranormal’s Love: Book Fifteen

  By

  Charlie Richards

  Dedication

  To goals—set them, then don’t give up.

  Chapter One

  “Do you believe them?”

  Jeremiah Tully lifted his left brow at the other man as he bent to pick up a box. Grunting upon feeling the weight—he must have found a box full of canned goods, because it was fucking heavy—he turned away. As Jeremiah headed out of the box truck’s bed, he grumbled, “As if we need more to deal with than were-creatures and vampires.”

  “Come on, Jer,” Quinn called. “You must have some opinion.”

  Glancing over his shoulder, Jeremiah watched Quinn pick up a box and hustle after him. Judging from the fact that he stood six-foot-one and his fellow worker stood five-foot-ten, not to mention Jeremiah had thirty pounds, all muscle, on the man, he figured Quinn must have found a light box. His sort-of friend easily closed the distance between them.

  “Look,” Jeremiah stated, setting his box down and pulling his box cutter from his belt. “I don’t want to call anyone a liar, okay?”

  Jeremiah sliced through the tape holding the box’s flaps shut. Opening it, he reached in and pulled out a jar.

  Canned peaches. Yep. Food for the kitchen.

  “But you do think Paris is full of shit, right,” Quinn pressed, setting down his own box nearby, so he could check the contents.

  “In my opinion,” Jeremiah continued as he slid the cutter back onto the clip at his belt and turned to look at Quinn. “I think Paris and his buddies just got a little over excited while out hunting. They saw a bear shifter and a bird shifter too close together and jumped to conclusions.”

  Jeremiah reached for the box again as he scoffed. “Hell. Maybe one of the animals wasn’t even a shifter. Maybe it was just a regular animal caught in the guy’s line of sight.” He hefted the box into his arms and crossed to the pallet headed for the kitchens. “I’m just saying,” he continued gruffly. “I’ve never heard of anything like what they’re describing, and I’ve been at this for almost five years.”

  “Five years!” Quinn exclaimed, folding the flaps of his own box back down. “Shit, man. That’s a long time.”

  Nodding, Jeremiah silently agreed. It was a long time. Admittedly, he didn’t get a whole lot done that first year except acquire a few nasty scars. That had been what drew the attention of Roger and Bethany.

  Imagine Jeremiah’s surprise when a stranger slipped into his hospital room and told him he knew what had really caused the lacerations on his back, side, and chest... and it hadn’t been a bear attack while hiking.

  Jeremiah had learned that Roger and Bethany had lost both their children to a pack of coyote shifters. He’d then shared a similar story about losing his own sister to a cougar shifter. Roger had given him a card with their phone number and address and had told him to look him up once he was well.

  That had been almost three years before.

  Returning to the truck for the next box, Jeremiah stated, “Someone’s gotta make the world a safer place.”

  “I totally agree,” Quinn stated with way too much enthusiasm. “That’s why I joined last month.”

  “Taking a life, even a shifter, should never be taken lightly,” Jeremiah warned. “Some don’t go feral. It’s figuring out which ones keep the others in line that’s the real trick.”

  Quinn grabbed Jeremiah’s arm, drawing his attention. His eyes big in his face, betraying his shock, he whispered, “Are you saying you wouldn’t kill every shifter on the planet if given the chance?”

  Jeremiah clenched his jaw. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Would he? If he could flip a switch and snuff out every shifter in the world... would he do it?

  “No,” Jeremiah admitted. “I’m a hunter, not a murderer.” That was the biggest difference between his own values and the shit Roger spewed. Their leader would very happily throw that switch. “The shifter that gave me this—” as he spoke, he lifted his shirt, revealing the massive scarring on his side and back—“didn’t have to let me live, but she did. She was protecting her cubs.”

  “Fuck!” Quinn gasped, his jaw sagging open as his gaze fixed on Jeremiah’s ruined flesh. When Jeremiah lowered his shirt, Quinn yanked his hand away from his arm and ran that hand through his hair. Frowning, he asked, “How can you say you don’t want to kill the shifter that did that to you?”

  Shrugging one shoulder, Jeremiah returned to the task of unloading the truck. “Never go after cubs,” he warned. “You kill or steal a cub and leave any shifter in the pack alive, and you’ll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. Besides, you don’t mess with kids.” As he carried another box from the truck, this one much lighter, he grumbled, “Who the fuck packed this shit? Couldn’t they have labeled some of it?”

  Quinn groaned behind him. “No kidding.”

  Setting down his box, Jeremiah saw the way Quinn staggered under the weight of the box. He hustled over to his friend, lending a hand. Sharing the weight, he grunted softly.

  “Take it straight to the kitchen pallet,” Jeremiah urged. “It’s gotta be more canned goods.”

  After they set it down, Quinn straightened with a groan. He arched his back, stretching.

  Jeremiah ignored him, grabbed his cutter, and opened the
box. Inside, he found rows of stacked cans. He picked one up and read beef stew.

  Yum.

  Returning it to the box, Jeremiah folded the flaps together, closing the box. He rehung his cutter and turned to see Quinn checking the other box he’d carried. Just as Quinn lifted the box, Jeremiah turned back toward the truck.

  Something flashed in the dark beyond the open bay door.

  Pausing, Jeremiah squinted into the inky blackness. Had something moved out there? He strode to the edge of the cement bay that the truck was backed up to, peering through the narrow strip between the edge of the bay door and the side of the truck. When he didn’t spot anything, he rounded the truck to the man-sized door at the end of the bay and opened it.

  “Hey.” Quinn called from where he stood beside the short ramp stretching from the back of the truck to the dock. “What’s up?”

  “I don’t know,” Jeremiah murmured.

  Before the words were completely out of his throat, something big and red with black wings leaped through the crack between truck and wall. It landed in a crouch on the side of the truck, the screech of metal giving away where the beast’s claws tore through the metal to hold it in place. The creature’s red eyes seemed to glow where they peered out of a skeletal face.

  At that exact moment, an alarm klaxon blared. A female with a clearly electronic voice saying, “There has been a breach,” cut through the deafening sound. Another blare of the alarm sounded. “This is a Delta level evacuation.” A klaxon. “There has been a breach.”

  Jeremiah found himself frozen in place as the cycle of speaking and alarm continued. His heart pounded in his chest as sweat beaded his brow. Never in his thirty-four years had he seen anything like the creature peering around the loading dock.

  Quinn, evidently, didn’t have the same problem.

  Jeremiah saw Quinn pivot and sprint to the wall where they’d left their weapons. Even in the loading dock, they were supposed to be armed. However, it was tough to lift and move boxes while holding a gun.

  As soon as Quinn began running, the red creature moved. It leaped to the floor, changed directions, then lunged after Quinn. The pop-pop-pop of the weapon snapped Jeremiah out of the trance-like state that had taken a hold of him.

  Jeremiah sprinted across the loading dock, through a door, and into a garage. His movement took him in the opposite direction of Quinn, but that couldn’t be helped. There was no way he could get through the creature to his gun, so he needed to obey the evacuation order.

  Delta level indicated fleeing the building... by any means possible. That even meant no one should bother trying to take any shifters in holding with them. Delta was a ditch and run order, every man for himself, then whoever was left was supposed to regroup at a farmhouse thirty miles away.

  Jeremiah planned to do just that. As he swung his leg over a dirt bike used to chase down wounded shifters, he knew he had to try, at least, to help his buddy. Bringing the bike to life, he gunned the engine, swung the back tire around to change directions, and headed back toward the door to the loading dock.

  Keeping his knees in, Jeremiah shot through the doorway. He put down a foot and spun the bike again, this time toward the still-open man-door next to the truck. At the same time, he swept his gaze over the bay as he yelled, “Quinn? You still in here? We gotta go!”

  Just as Jeremiah finished speaking, he spotted his friend. Quinn lay sprawled on the floor near the wall. His gun lay a few feet away, bent beyond any hope of use. Blood covered Quinn’s face, his chest, and the wall... a whole lot of blood.

  Not only that, but a second creature was in the loading dock. It had a black-clawed hand on the red beast’s shoulder where the other creature crouched over Quinn’s fallen body. Both turned to peer at him at the sound of his vehicle’s engine and his words.

  To Jeremiah’s shock, the black creature spoke. “I got him.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Jeremiah ground out.

  Jeremiah gunned the bike’s engine. He shot across the floor, weaving between a couple of pallets. Shooting through the door, he bumped down the stairs. Cursing under his breath, he barely managed to keep from wiping out.

  Once Jeremiah found enough balance, he cranked the throttle and shot forward again. None-too-soon, too, for he heard a thud come from almost directly behind him. The sound of claws on dirt and the sweep of wings on air seemed loud, even over the whine of the dirt bike’s engine.

  Roaring away from the barn converted into a compound, Jeremiah zipped down the driveway. He thought he saw shapes in the trees, but they were there and gone. Then, he was clear of them and he chanced a glance over his shoulder.

  Jeremiah had never been the greatest on the bikes. Maneuvering the damn things always seemed to pull at his scars, making it hard to balance. Still, he managed.

  Unfortunately, at that same second, the black form of the flying... well, demon, since Jeremiah didn’t have another name for the beasts that had attacked them, swooped past him.

  “Stop the bike,” it roared. It actually kept pace with him, flying through the air. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jeremiah muttered, glancing over at it.

  Jeremiah swept his gaze over the clear road, then at the flying beast. It was obvious it had plenty of room to follow and seemed to have no trouble keeping up with him, even on the bike. He glanced toward the trees, a plan forming.

  Braking, Jeremiah lowered his left foot and swung the bike in a one-eighty. Hitting the throttle, he searched the darkness for what he knew was there. He spotted the single-track path used for training just as he heard the distinctive sound of wing-beats. Aiming for it, he imagined he could feel the creature’s hot breath on his neck.

  Zipping between the trees, Jeremiah tried to remember the several different turn offs. He knew a couple of the branches on the dirt path led to the main road. If he could get there, maybe he could find traffic. Surely, the beast wouldn’t follow him into traffic.

  With that plan in mind, Jeremiah took a chance and glanced around again. He spotted his pursuer a ways behind him. It seemed that it had had to slow down, since it couldn’t spread its wings as wide.

  Jeremiah refocused on the track he followed. Going as fast as he dared, he jumped over ditches, ducked under branches, and tore around trees. Sweat beaded on his face and he clenched his jaw as he concentrated.

  “No, stop!”

  Hearing the deep-throated cry just as Jeremiah leaped a ditch, he glanced up. He realized his mistake too late. His front wheel landed in mud, sliding out of control. Pitching sideway, Jeremiah tumbled away from the bike.

  Slamming into what had to be a tree, Jeremiah saw stars. Pain flared through his left arm and shoulder. His head rang and he suddenly found it hard to breathe.

  Gasping, he forced his eyes open. He glanced around, but could hardly make out anything through the gray haze over his vision... or was that just because it was dark and he no longer had the benefit of the dirt bike’s headlight?

  “Damn it,” a deep voice rumbled. “You foolish little human. I didn’t want to see you hurt.”

  Jeremiah scoffed upon hearing the ridiculous notion. Somehow, he just knew the beast that had been chasing him was the one who’d spoken. Blinking slowly, he realized the creature crouched in front of him.

  Oddly enough, Jeremiah didn’t think the beast’s expression appeared all that fierce. He actually looked... concerned. Still, when the animal reached out and pulled him away from where he’d fallen, agony spiked through his torso, shoulder, and arm.

  He could no longer keep the darkness at bay.

  Chapter Two

  Grateman watched the human’s eyes roll into the back of his head as he passed out. Grimacing, he eased him the rest of the way off the tree, cringing as he heard the sick sound of wood sliding through flesh. Immediately, blood began to ooze from where a broken tree branch had been embedded in the human’s left, upper arm.

  Groaning at th
e exquisite scent of the human’s blood, Grateman tried to ignore the throbbing of his shaft. As soon as he’d flown into the loading dock, he’d smelled the man. He’d known his mate was in there somewhere.

  He’d crossed to where Vane had been kneeling over a downed human, hoping and praying that the bloodied man wasn’t the one. It hadn’t been. Unfortunately, chasing him down and watching him tumble ass over teakettle into a tree, seeing a branch skewer his arm, he thought this was so much worse.

  Grateman knew he had to get the human to one of their doctors. Then, of course, he needed to speak with Chieftain Maelgwn. While he knew his clutch’s leader would understand why he’d left the fight, that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be repercussions.

  Like how the hell am I going to win over a hunter for a mate? And if I manage that, how will my clutch-mates accept him? How many of our kind has he killed or captured?

  Lifting the human into his arms, Grateman tried to ignore the way the male groaned. He grimaced, knowing his lust was completely inappropriate, but he couldn’t help his body’s response. This man was his mate... and he’d been looking for him for a long, damn time.

  Now, I just gotta save him.

  Spreading his wings and bending his knees, Grateman peered skyward. He leaped into the air and flew swiftly back the way he’d come. His people were to take over the place, not destroy it. They needed to scour it for information... provided the hunters didn’t destroy it themselves just for spite.

  Grateman paused and tipped his body, so he could lift his hand to the ear bud in his ear. He’d been listening to the others as they moved through the facility, giving occasional reports. They’d already cleared out the couple of dozen hunters.

  At the moment, Grateman knew the clutch’s gargoyle second, Tobias, was in the process of searching for explosives, along with the tracker Treatise. Their techies, the gargoyles Raymond and Vane, were hacking their computers. Vane was checking for explosives via computer records while Raymond checked the status of electronic files.