Hi everyone!
So, Hunter's Heart reached over 500 reads this week! Thank you all so much for reading and supporting me :) I am so glad you are enjoying my work!
There is a LOT more to come for Quinn and Christian - tons of action and a growing of their relationship, so I really hope you all keep reading ...
A bit of a longer chapter with this post, as there was a lot that I felt HAD to be included, but it sets the ball rolling for a few events that will be coming up in the story.
Please remember to vote and leave a comment/advice! I would really love to know what you guys think of this story so far :)
Enjoy!
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"Do you think he knows?" Jonathan asked quietly so only Quinn could hear him. "The extreme risk you're taking by doing this?"
They stood in an armory just under the hatch that was the entrance to the Hunter facility known as the Tomb while they waited for the others to join them. In the corner of the room the four facility guards were slumped, having been subdued after Jonathan and Quinn had successfully bluffed their way through the 'front door'.
Quinn didn't have to ask what the Beta meant by his question. Christian had been switching between glaring daggers and scowling at her since they had set out from the mansion to go and rescue the kidnapped supernaturals several hours earlier.
"Perhaps," Quinn said softly, keeping her eye on the unconscious Hunters nearby in case they needed to be subdued again. Getting in had been surprisingly easy. One look at Alexandra Antanov and the men had practically tripped over themselves to let her and her companion in, even buying the bullshit transfer story Jonathan fed them.
"If he was certain," she added. "I would be back at the mansion and handcuffed to the desk in his office right now."
The meeting regarding the plan to get their kidnapped people back had gone reasonably well, considering the argument she and Christian had had just before it. Just as Quinn had feared, reports from Caine's people inside the Hunter camp had said the Hunters were holding their captives in the facility that had come to be known amongst Hunters as the Tomb. Captives went in, but they didn't come back out again – at least, not alive.
Christian had been perfectly fine with the plan until the suggestion that Quinn could play a role alongside Jonathan as they impersonated true Hunters to get through the front door had come up. Grayson and Liam had joined in with Christian's outright refusal to involve her that way, and while Quinn had found the overprotective reaction to the suggestion touching, she had also found it a little insulting. It was a complete about face from Christian's agreeing to let her go. Like Christian, the other two didn't seem to think she could look after herself in what had used to be her world.
It had taken a full hour of arguing with the three of them to get a grudging acceptance of Quinn's role in the plan. All Jonathan had had to do was remind them of the fact that she was still Alexandra Antanov and that just having her standing beside him in the Tomb would make those on duty more willing to believe whatever story they came up with.
While they made their way to the Tomb, Quinn could sense displeasure coming from Grayson, who thought he had some kind of debt to pay to her because she had saved his pack from slaughter, and Liam, who had always seemed to want to treat her like a little sister.
But that was nothing compared to what she was sensing from her Alpha.
Even when he was several feet away from her, above ground, she could tell he was livid. It was strong enough that it was a bit of work to avoid being drawn into his mind while they had traveled to the Tomb. She didn't think she could handle all of that rage on top of her growing nervousness of the fact that this cold underground facility could likely be her grave if things went south.
Does he know? Quinn wondered to herself as she heard heavy footfalls on the metal stairs that lead down from the entrance hatch above.
When she had told Christian about the scars on her back, she had left out the fact that the terms of her banishment encompassed not only her return to the Antanov clan and its territory, but also getting involved in anything remotely related to Hunter business. Entering one of their facilities definitely fell under the latter category.
If she was caught, she was as good as dead.
Perhaps that was why he was so pissed off with the idea of her being so hands on in the rescue attempt. Perhaps he had pieced it together while he had watched her getting more and more nervous on the way over.
"Where to?" Grayson asked when all the members of the rescue party had descended the stairs.
Quinn drew in a deep breath, pushing back the unpleasant memories of the Tomb she had from her previous visit.
"This way," she said and began leading them down into the Tomb. Thanks to Jonathan and his tech skills, the video feeds were down, so there was no danger of them being seen. However, any biometric locking system would immediately alert the Hunter Council that something was amiss.
They needed to do this quickly.
Quinn forced down the urge to throw up as she walked into the room where prisoners were questioned. There was a body strapped to an inclined metal slab against the right side wall, but it was almost unidentifiable. Several chunks of flesh had been cut away from the body. The face had been beaten so badly the skull was crushed in some places. All Quinn could discern from what was left was that it had been male.
"Gods!" Grayson swore as he took in the carnage.
"Sick bastards," Liam breathed, looking as if he were about to be sick.
As the werewolves came to grips with the scene in the room, Quinn wandered over to the computer console and keyed in the unlocking code she remembered from her previous visit, glad Viktor hadn't had the foresight to change it when he expelled her.
It was as much to try and use the data on the machine to find out anything that could help Christian in the war as it was to just give herself something to do other than focus on the ghoulish scene behind her.
As she scanned through the data, finding several files that were heavily encrypted, she jumped violently when she felt a hand placed on her shoulder. She spun around quickly, ready to lash out, only to see that it was Christian and not some enemy that had somehow managed to sneak up on her.
"Easy," he said, his ice blue eyes watching her carefully. "It's just me."
If he saw anything in her face that he didn't like, he chose to say nothing about it, although the hard line his lips became told her he did see something. Instead, he moved his gaze past her to the computer screen.
"Find anything interesting?" he asked.
Quinn swallowed and nodded. "Some heavily encrypted files."
Jonathan heard this and strode over to them, getting to work on copying the files onto a device he had brought with him. She knew he wouldn't try to decrypt them while they were still in the Tomb. Any mistake he made would most likely trigger a lockdown.
"We should move on," Grayson said stiffly, getting them all back to the matter at hand and Quinn nodded her agreement. Lingering in this place would not be a good idea.
Leaving Jonathan to do his work, Quinn led the way out of the grisly room and down a corridor that led to the holding cells, glad to be away from the proof of the Hunters' utter brutality. Before long, she began to sense emotions that were not her own, faint at first but getting stronger with every step.
Pain and misery and hopelessness washed through her and the closer they got, the harder it was to try and block out.
At least they're alive, she thought to herself.
The prisoners were kept in cells with glass doors that were controlled by a biometric panel beside the entrance. When she led the rescue party into the holding area, she saw that there were ten prisoners in all. Vampires, werewolves and elementals, each beaten and broken and looking utterly hopeless.
"Can you open them?"
Christian's voice snapped Quinn out of the growing urge to run from the room and she swallowed before nodding.
"Yes," she replied. "But the pad scans handprints. The moment I place my hand on it, the Council will be alerted to the fact that I have just broken into a Hunter facility I was banned from. They'll be sending reinforcements mete out the penalty for entering Hunter territory."
Christian went so tense at this that he could have been made of marble. If he hadn't known about the risk she was taking before, he definitely knew it now. Meanwhile Grayson frowned.
"What penalty?" he asked.
"Death," Christian said before she could, his tone flat and empty. "She was expelled from the Hunters under pain of death."
He turned to her then, his ice blue eyes unreadable. "Do it."
With trepidation warring with the emotions of the prisoners battering her mind, Quinn placed her hand on the scanner and the glass doors slid open. As if a floodgate had opened with the doors, she was hit with a wave of concentrated emotions that was strong enough to have her overbalance slightly.
And as happy as she was to see the rescue party helping prisoners from their cells, that she was able to do something really meaningful for her Alpha and his pack, each new wave of misery and pain was like a physical blow and Quinn backed out of the holding area, unable to stand it much longer.
As she waited for the prisoners to be extracted from their cells, Quinn placed a hand on the wall as she tried to steady herself and fought down the urge to panic. Even outside of the room, the emotional blows kept coming until she was drowning in the emotions that didn't belong to her.
She leaned her back against the wall, closing her eyes and bringing her hands to the sides of her head, as if it would somehow ward off the emotions assaulting her. Her blood rushed in her ears making her feel like she was underwater. The voices coming from the other room were muffled. Her skull began to feel like it was being split apart from the inside and she began to see flash images of a whole manner of abuse that the prisoners had suffered.
Vaguely, she heard something that sounded like her name being called, but she was too caught up in what she was feeling to focus on it. The images in her head shifted so that faceless Hunter torturers became her and it was if she were the one dealing out the torture.
If she had fought against the desire to save lives that night two years ago, was this what she would have become? The very thought made her sick.
And still, the pain and misery kept coming, her skull kept feeling as if it was about to split, and the images kept flashing in her mind.
"Quinn."
That voice again, trying to pull her from the darkness.
"Look at me, Little Hunter."
A large hand came to rest on the top of her head, the unexpected contact snapping her out of it. She slowly lifted her head to see who it was and was mortified to see it was Christian, who was watching her with such pity in his usually cold eyes that she felt ashamed that she didn't have enough control over a gift that was starting to become a curse.
She watched as he crouched down in front of her and then he was taking her hands away from her own head.
"I know this is difficult," he said patiently. "But I need you to try and focus and calm down."
When his hands reached forward and curled themselves around her face, the thumbs stroking her cheeks, it was only then that Quinn realized she had been crying and he was wiping the tears away.
"Can you do that?" Christian asked. "For me?"
And then she was suddenly angry with herself for looking so weak in front of her Alpha. She was Alexandra Quinn Antanov, one of the most feared Hunters in her clan, and she had broken down like a child.
She turned her face away from Christian's gentle touch and forced herself to stand. They had freed the prisoners from their cells, but they were not out of danger. The longer they stayed, the more time they gave the Hunter Council to send reinforcements.
"We need to get moving," she said. "Jonathan should have set the charges by now. It's time this place was blown off the face of the earth."
Twenty minutes later, they were breathing the free air again and trying to get as far away as a huge plume of black smoke rose from what had once been the Tomb. Jonathan had indeed set charges in strategic places around the facility while the others had seen to the prisoners and had blown them as soon as they were a safe distance away.
It was slow going with the injured prisoners and Quinn knew they would have to pick up the pace if they wanted to avoid being tracked by the reinforcements sent by the Council. At the rate they were going, especially now that they had a beacon that could be seen for miles around behind them, they would be caught up with soon.
While she and Christian brought up the rear, she sensed he was hovering. Every now and then, he made as if he was going to say something, almost reaching out to touch her, only to seem to think better of it and fall silent and lower his hand again.
"Look out!"
Quinn didn't have time to register what was happening. She was roughly shoved aside as a rain of metal shafts came from the trees above and was sent sprawling. Someone must have activated a perimeter trap laid by the Hunters.
Quinn's eyes widened in horror as she lifted her head from the ground and her gaze landed on one of the elemental women they had just freed, who was lying a little way away with a metal shaft protruding from her chest.
"No!" Quinn's scream echoed around the clearing they were in. "NO!"
Not again! she thought desperately as she scrambled to the woman's side.