The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

I follow her beyond the mark. “For what?”


“You are my adopted brother,” she explains. “As is Luca. I didn’t mean to imply that our bond is less than that of blood. I’m proud to call you brother.”

I laugh as the tunnel opens up into a grand hall. Pillars carved with the faces of Norse gods stretch down either side. They serve little function other than decoration and intimidation. When I see Ull’s face, my stomach turns. The intimidation factor works. But I’m Ull now. So I wipe the growing fear from my face and try to project confidence.

The hall is devoid of life, so I still speak freely. “Em, are there any…customs, any rules about marriage that I should know about?”

Her telltale gasp springs from her mouth. She immediately stops and takes a step back so that she’s behind me. “Wives are subservient to husbands,” she says. “Not in battle. Then we’re all equal. Hunters do not see sexes. But here, in Asgard, and in the other cities, wives must follow close behind their husbands, eyes to the ground.”

“What about wedding rings?” I ask.

“Wedding rings?”

“Forget it,” I say. Nothing here could be so romantic. Marriage in the underworld is about territory, alliances, spawn and other human needs. But not love. There is no place for love here.

As the pat of bare feet slapping the floor approaches from the branching hallway ahead of us, I realize my last minute lesson in Nephilim marital culture was just in time. He enters the grand hall dressed for the hunt, in skins. His red hair is long, but trimmed, and poufy in a way that reminds me of Kevin Bacon. A chain wrapped around his waist holds two spiked metal balls. I recognize the weapon as a meteor hammer from Justin’s ninja books. They were a rare, but deadly weapon used in feudal Japan. Apparently they found a home in the Antarctic underworld as well.

He’s still some distance away but walks straight toward us.

“Do you know him?” I whisper.

If Em knows this man and he sees her tattoo, it could cause problems if he realizes the details surrounding her birth are a lie. Actually, she’s a fugitive, so there’s that, too.

“No,” she says. “He must be from one of the other kingdoms. His hair looks Olympian.”

At first I think it’s strange that she doesn’t know him, but Antarctica is as vast as the United States and has several cities spread out across, and beneath it. I never estimated the total population of the underworld. There could be millions.

The thought fills me with dread and I have to work hard not to show it on my face as we approach the stranger.

I meet his eyes, knowing that to do otherwise would be a sign of weakness, something Ull would never do. The man squints at me as we pass, and then he sees Em, head bowed, tattoo exposed.

The man laughs under his breath.

I stop in my tracks and while thinking a panicked, what are you doing?! I say, “You find something funny?”

Ull would have never let the laugh pass. I can’t, either.

The man turns toward me. He’s nearly twice my size and appears to be forty years old, which could mean he’s been here for twice that time. A grin forms on his clean shaven face. “When I first saw you I thought it strange that a pup like you could have claimed a wife,” the man says. “Then I saw the mark on her forehead.” He shakes his head in disgust. “You lower yourself too far, pup.”

What would Ull do? “If you call me, “pup,” one more time—”

“Pup,” the man says.

The attack comes immediately, but it’s not from me, or the stranger. Em leaps out from behind me, knives in hand. She lets two fly. The first finds the man’s thigh, burying two inches deep into his flesh. He grunts, and dodges the second knife, moving quickly.

In a flash, he’s got the meteor hammer spinning like a helicopter blade. It deflects Em’s next two knives.

She won’t be able to penetrate his defense.

Ull, however, would have no trouble.

I yank Whipsnap from my belt. The weapon springs to life in my hand. I approach the man with a spin that makes it look like I’m going to strike from the side, but instead I thrust the mace end of Whipsnap into the spinning chain. The meteor hammer’s chain wraps around Whipsnap’s shaft and with a yank, I disarm the man and toss his weapon across the hall.

The action has stumbled the man and his back slaps against one of the hall’s columns. Before he can pull himself from it and consider a counter attack, Whipsnap’s blade is against his neck. I knick his skin, letting the blood run down the blade so he can see it.

“Do you know who I am, pup?” I say with a growl.

He looks me up and down. He has no idea. And he still doesn’t care. I see nothing but hatred in his eyes.

Ull might have killed the man by now, but there is only so far I am willing to take this act. “Why are you here, Olympian?”