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

“I’m sorry,” someone says.

I turn toward the voice as the madness reclaims my body once more. In the moment before my vision fades I catch a glimpse of Em. She looks...sad, but determined.

Then I see the knife in her hand.

She snaps her wrist forward, throwing the knife.

I feel a jolt.

My head turns down.

The knife is in my chest, buried to the hilt.





19



Pain explodes from my chest like my heart is the catalyst for an atom bomb. I can’t scream. In fact, my senses are so immediately overwhelmed that I just fall, crumpling to my side.

But I haven’t lost consciousness.

And the madness has been turned back.

I suppose it has no power in death.

But I’m not dead.

I manage to turn my eyes down and look at the blade. Yeah, it’s there. An expert shot. The sideways blade slipped between my ribs and punctured my heart. I’m sure of it because I can’t feel it beating.

Any second now, my mind will fade, deprived of oxygen.

But it doesn’t.

Instead, my body convulses. The pain in my chest flares with each electric jolt, before I’m slammed back on the ground.

Through the shaking and pain, and the tears in my eyes, I see Em stand above me. She lifts a foot and places it on my chest, holding me down. “I’m sorry,” she says again, sounding as wounded as I feel.

I want to tell her it’s okay; that I understand. She had to do it or I would have killed them all, been lost to the madness and eventually captured by Nephil who would use me against the whole planet. Killing me and preventing all that makes sense. The human race stands a far better chance of defeating the Nephilim if I am not under their control. The odds are still not good, but last time Nephil controlled my body, just for a few seconds, he managed to kill billions of people.

She reaches down and takes the knife handle in her hand. I try to tell her to leave it, not because I want to die, but because I know it’s going to hurt. A lot. Take it out when I’m dead!

She tugs.

I feel the metal sliding out of my body. The sting is intense, and it’s followed by a wicked itch and a radiating pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

That’s not true.

I have felt this before...

As the blade comes up into view, a slick of red blood slips down the polished blade toward the tip. But there is something wrong with the blood near the hilt. It’s tinged...purple.

My eyes widen with the realization that Em just stabbed me in the heart with a knife laced with Nephilim blood. For a moment, it feels like a vile invasion, but then I remember the blood’s ability to heal the human body when used in low doses. I used Nephilim blood to save Kainda’s life not long ago. Sure, stabbing me in the heart was a bit extreme, but she knew it wouldn’t kill me. She just needed to stop me from killing the others, which it seems I was on a path to do.

I clench my eyes against the pain wracking my body. It will end soon, I tell myself. You’ll be okay. You’ll live.

But will the madness return?

I try to get a sense of my mind. I feel like myself. I can remember everything. Literally, everything. I’m in control. I can’t even feel it at the fringe of my mind. The Nephilim blood destroyed the plague. Odd that the blood of something so vile could be the cure for a madness created by a Nephilim. In fact, I recognize the blade as Mira’s. It’s the knife she used to slash Ares’s knee. Ares was the source of the madness, and the cure for it. Part of me wishes he was still alive to hear this.

“Solomon,” Em says. I can’t see her. My eyes are still shut, but her voice is above me.

I’m about to reply when an intense energy blooms in my chest and spreads through my body.

“Something is happening,” I say quickly. “Move back!”

An intense pressure covers my body. Wind tugs at my hair. Then a sound like thunder explodes all around me.

As quickly as it began, it stops.

I’m not sure what just happened, but a steady wind is circling me, and I can no longer feel the ground. I open my eyes slowly, prepared to find myself airborne, but I’m not remotely ready for what I find.

“Whoa!” I say, panicking and dropping a good fifty feet before catching myself and leveling out. I’m at least two miles above the ground. And I covered the distance in seconds. That boom, I think. I broke the sound barrier!

I look down and see nothing but jungle, but there is a little black hole in the green canopy directly beneath me. That must be where I came from, but it looks like I kind of exploded out of the trees. I feel no pain on my body. At all. In fact, I’ve never felt better.

I’m tempted to enjoy this moment, but then I remember my friends on the ground. Kainda, Mira and Kat were hurt, maybe badly. And Em just stabbed her brother in the chest and had him take off like a missile. That’s probably not easy to deal with. I’m about to head down, but a shift of movement pulls my eyes to the west.