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

Before I can answer, I feel him enter my mind. Before he was simply listening to my conscious thoughts. Now he’s digging through my memories. And he doesn’t have to dig far. The events that led me here are still fresh in my mind. I feel myself transported back. I’m standing before the gates of Tartarus, facing the black spirit of Nephil as he enters my body.

I fall to my knees, screaming, reliving the most horrible experience of my life. And as I feel Nephil’s darkness take control of my body and reach out for the world, the weight of Tartarus constricts me with pain beyond description. But the experience is different this time. I’m not just seeing things from my perspective. I’m in Nephil’s head, too. And in that moment, I feel exactly what he did when his power merged with my own. The Earth’s crust rotated, quickly, causing tidal waves, volcanoes, flash freezing. Catastrophe on a global scale. Billions. Billions dead. And it was just the beginning of Ophion’s vengeance. The memory concludes with my rejection of Nephil and his subsequent bonding with Ninnis.

I fall back on the floor as though flung by a powerful force. My body convulses several times and I dry-heave. I wish I could erase the memory, now complete with Nephil’s perspective, from my mind. I clutch my eyes shut, willing it away, but it’s not until I hear, and feel, Cronus’s heavy feet pounding toward me that I can think of anything else. When I open my eyes to see Cronus above me, what I see is nearly as bad. A long segmented tail, like a scorpion’s, slides out from behind the giant. It is tipped with a curved, blade-like stinger that looks like a sickle.

Cronus’s sickle.

The tail rises above me, poised to strike.





8



The strike comes so fast and sudden that my eyes don’t even register the movement. One second the tail is wavering above me with menacing intent. The next, it’s stopped, just inches from my face. A bead of liquid forms at the tip of Cronus’s sickle-like tail. It’s a stinger, I realize. And I have no doubt the effects of being stung will make me wish I could die.

“Wait!” I shout. “We’re on the same side!”

Cronus stomps his foot. The impact shakes the floor beneath me. “You gave yourself to him!”

“And I rejected him!” Cronus saw this in the memory, but he might have been so distracted by the rest that he failed to register why Nephil left my body.

“You set him free!”

This, unfortunately, is the truth. Without me present, Nephil would have remained bound to Tartarus forever. “I had no choice!”

The tail pulls back a few feet so Cronus can look at me. His yellow eyes burn into me, searching for deception. “There is always a choice.”

“You understand what it means to surrender something important to save the ones you love,” I say. “You did the same thing for humanity. You left and came to Tartarus, but the Nephilim escaped. You tried to do the right thing, but there was a negative consequence.”

Cronus says nothing. He’s listening.

“I did the same thing,” I say. “Nephil needed me to leave Tartarus. It’s true. And I willingly offered myself to him. That is also true.”

Cronus tenses, so I speak fast. “But I never intended to let him survive. I thought he would cease to exist once I forced him out. I didn’t know he would find another vessel. I didn’t realize how strong Ninnis was. You have to believe me. Search my memories again. Go back further.”

And he does.

Since I’m a willing participant this time, the experience is far less disturbing. We watch my life in reverse: my recent merging with Ull, the battle with Nephil outside the gates of Tartarus, Luca—the reason for me being there. Cronus pauses.

“You were there for the boy?”

“Yes.”

“He is innocent.”

“He is.”

“He is…you.”

I don’t answer. Cronus finds it in my memories of Luca. He understands. But then he goes back further. To my time as a hunter. The awful things I did. My training under Ninnis. My breaking. My kidnapping.

Further now. The trip to Antarctica. Mira. Aimee. Merrill. My parents, my birthday and Justin. My childhood. He slows the rewind around age six. My hair is cut in a ridiculous bowl cut, but I’m otherwise identical to Luca. The rest of my life in reverse plays back in a flash, ending with Aimee’s smiling face. He lingers here, sensing the significance of this moment. But it’s not Aimee’s smile or the love radiating from her that has caught his attention.

It’s something else.

Something I never noticed before.

The memory starts over at the beginning. The very beginning.

I am warm. And then…cold. The darkness breaks and blurry light stabs my eyes. I’ve never seen light before. The pain makes me squirm. But I can’t cry out. My lungs are filled with fluid. But I’m not in danger. I can feel the life giving pulse at my stomach. I didn’t know what it was back then, only that it gave me life, but now I realize it was my umbilical cord. The pulse slows, and then, it’s gone, separated from my body. I try to scream now, but the liquid in my lungs prevents it. Everything feels wrong.

My tiny mouth is pushed open and something enters my throat. The pressure in my chest disappears. Instinctually, I take a breath.

And that’s when it happens. A wave of energy ripples through my newborn body.