Page 62 of His to Hunt

“They’re preparing their weapons already,” Finn says. “They never intended to let you walk out. I’ll handle them.”

“No reason for you to have all the fun,” I grin. “Give me a minute. I don’t want to tear up my clothes again.”

Finn waits until I put everything away, toss the backpack into the SUV, and shift. He doesn’t call his wolf. Maybe he can’t do his time tricks if he’s in wolf form. Either way, I’m a little giddy, because I need to rip something apart after getting humbled by this fucking emissary of Mother Fate. Maybe I should have known fighting a shifter who works for a goddess would be biting off more than I could chew.

Well, now he’s on my side. No harm, no foul.

The fear I smelled from the Hunters earlier is gone. Now the warehouse reeks of anticipation. Ambush scent. Men waiting to spring a trap.

I crash through a window, fangs bared. The Witch Hunters were expecting me to walk through the front door in human form. They scramble to reposition their weapons as I charge across the open space, hurling myself toward the kid. They said he was gifted. He dies first.

The kid nearly stabs me, but suddenly his dagger is gone and he’s just plunging nothing into my belly. It tickles as I clamp down on his throat and rip it out clean to his spine.

I spin around and the others are all looking around in a panic. Their weapons are gone. I guess the time trickster took care of that. Well, now this is sort of unfair. I feel a tiny twinge of remorse before they start running, but it doesn’t keep me from finishing them all off, one scream at a time.

The Witch Hunter problem is permanently solved. I shift and wipe blood off my mouth as I rise to my feet.

“Neat tricks,” I say. “Where did all their weapons go?”

“Far away from here,” he chuckles. “You wanted to have fun, so I just made it easier. Did you have fun?”

“I’ve had worse days,” I smirk, looking around. “Now that we’ve dealt with them, tell me what this is about. Why does Taryn need to do seven rituals or whatever.”

“When Ishtar was slain by Gilgamesh, she did more than shield one of her druids with a fate-block. She also created a spell divided into seven rituals,” he begins.

“You said it wasn’t a book of spells,” I interject.

“It isn’t, but when all seven rituals are completed, it will cast one. A reincarnation spell,” he continues. “Mother Nature will be reborn.”

My head snaps back slightly. “What the fuck? Reborn?”

“It’s taken a long time for the spell to find a druid. Even longer for that druid to finally understand enough to rattle the fate-block,” he says.

“Mother Fate couldn’t find one druid in the entire world, even if they were fate-blocked?” I ask, narrowing my eyes suspiciously. “That seems hard to believe.”

“Believe it or don’t. It’s the truth. Fate-blocks are designed that way and Ishtar used powerful magic to create the one that shielded her last living druid,” he says. “She needed it to last long enough that she wouldn’t have Gilgamesh breathing down her neck the moment she came back to life.”

“What happened to Gilgamesh anyway?” I ask. “Didn’t he take Mother Nature’s power?”

“No. He tried, but he wasn’t strong enough. No human or shifter is strong enough to contain the power of immortality. Only a god or goddess has that kind of strength,” he answers. “Gilgamesh died alone and miserable. Mother Fate refused to take his life. She just made sure he never found a mate. He wanted to be a shifter so much… she thought it was only fair he should suffer like she knew many would with Ishtar gone.”

I process it all, trying to decide what the right move is. This is way bigger than me, but it involves my mate, so I will have to be bigger than I am.

“Will these rituals harm my mate in any way?” I question.

“No, they will not. She is a druid and with the fate-block broken, her magic should begin to bloom. Eventually, her druid sight will be good enough to see through the cipher,” he assures me. “It’s not really a cipher, just a disguise to make the right person curious enough to investigate it further.”

“Right now, we’re in the middle of a mating bond, as I’m sure you and Mother Fate both know,” I counter. “We’re not really in a position to do rituals.”

“Mother Fate does not wish to disturb that. The rituals can be done after the frenzy,” he says. “I’m only here to make sure you don’t give the book away. It needs to stay with Taryn until she can perform the rituals.”

“What would have happened if I’d given them the book?” I ask, gesturing to the Witch Hunters. “I assume you’ve already seen that possibility if you could see the attacks I was still thinking about.”

“They were planning to ambush you. They expected you to have Saul with you,” he replies. “They would have won if you went in there alone. The kid was more gifted than they let on.”

“Fucking hell,” I swear with enthusiasm, glancing at the kid’s corpse. “Well, he’s not gifted anymore.”

“No, he’s not,” he quips dryly.