He sighed. “Well what’s done is done. Tell me what happened.”
Travis lifted his head. He almost couldn’t believe that was all. This had to be a trick, but when he looked into Chase’s silver eyes there wasn’t a trace of deceit. Quickly he rehashed the events, ending with his admission to Emma. “She – she took it well considering. And I trust her. She won’t tell anyone.”
Hmm. Chase thought. He would make sure of that. His cousin was too emotional involved to see any potential harm. There was no way he was going to let a little slip of girl endanger his family. Not while he was alive.
Burying the need to seek her out this instant, he focused his attention back to Travis. “What’s done is done. We just need to make sure that no finds out she knows. The less people involved the better chance we have at keeping everyone safe.”
“Agreed.” He paused, biting his lip. “Thanks for not going all ballistic.”
Chase’s eyes twinkled. “The night is still young.”
Then on cue they both heard the unmistakable sound of howling. It rang over the wintery night chilling Travis’s blood.
Hellhound.
Lord this night was going down the crapper, Chase thought to himself. At least his demon would be jumping for joy. All day it had be grinding on him to be free. Pesky bugger.
“You better get back and keep an eye on the house and Lexi,” Chase advised in his no-non-sense tone.
It wasn’t a bad idea. As much as he disliked leaving Chase to defend himself on his own, no matter that he preferred it that way, he had an undying itch to phone Emma. He needed to hear that she was okay.
“Fine, I’ll go. But you don’t always have to be the hero you know. Just once I’d like a shot,” Travis said, grinning.
Chase’s smirk was dark and dangerous. “And miss all the fun. Not a chance.”
After he sent Travis back to the house Chase picked up on the movements of hell’s beast. They might not be the most intellectual of minions but they were relentless. And headed right this way. He didn’t like them this close to home or this close to Lexi. Preferring to keep her out of as much as the dirty business as possible, he bolted off in the opposite direction. The plan was to lead them astray.
He heard the sicken call of the hunt when the beast picked up on his scent.
Game on. Time to ice this fool
Pivoting on the balls of his feet, he spun around the same time the mangy creature lunged in the air. He caught it by the vicious hound’s muzzle. Gripping the vile beast’s jaws with his hands, he held him at bay. The teeth on this sucker were like knives and dripped with some ungodly fowl and sticky substance.
Ugh. Try as hard as the creature could, he was unable to get his fangs latched on to any part of Chase. Another Divisa might not be so lucky, if you called his abilities luck. Chase begged to differ. There wasn’t anything good about what he was.
Blood-thirsty bastard. Its dark eyes burned with hungry.
As he stared into the hounds eyes no longer in the mood to play, his life suddenly felt empty. A shell.
Without further ado he tightened his hands on its neck, and with one good thrust the sound of a high-pitched yelp was followed by the snapping of bones. The mutts head lobbed to the side, hanging lifeless from its body. Chase tossed the dead form aside a moment before it erupted into dark dust spraying over the snow like muddy slush.
It was dirty work, but someone had to do it. Turning to head back the way he had come, he was startled by the whoosh of an arrow being released from its bow. A second later, that arrow whizz past his ear nicking the top of it before embedding itself into the trunk of a massive tree.
Touching to top of his ear, he wasn’t surprised to see blood on his hand.
Just goddamn peachy. Hunters.
Guess it was possible for this day to get more dreadful.
They must have picked up on the hellhounds, knowing that they would lead them to the common goal.
Hunt Divisa.
He was glad that he had insisted Travis stay home with Lexi. Lord only knows what kind of trouble Travis could have gotten them in. He wasn’t exactly the hunters biggest fan. Not that Chase was either, but he preferred more of an erase your memory method than to killing.
He knew when to fight and when to retreat.
There came to a point when you were tired of the blood on your hands.
Tired of the fighting.
Tired of hiding.
Scanning the direction the arrow had come from, his eyes lit up the dark woods until they landed on his shadowy target. There was something eerily familiar about this hunter. It ate at Chase, unable to pinpoint what it was.
From the outlined form he was male and in excellent physique. Chase wasn’t about to stick around like a sitting duck while he tried to figure it out. Taking off in warp speed, he decided to take a scenic route home just in case they had some device for tracking. If there was one thing the hunters were, it was creative in their methods.
Chapter 13