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

“Vincent,” I say. “I know. I’m—” I stop. Trying to convince him is pointless. Even if he believed me, it wouldn’t change anything. I take his hand and recite a random sentence, spoken by my father in the past. “Summer in Antarctica begins in about seven weeks.”


He looks at me, dumbfounded. “Isn’t it always summer in Antarctica now?”

It didn’t work.

I had two fears about this trip. The first is that it wouldn’t work here. That I’d have to somehow get my parents to Antarctica to restore their memories. My second fear is that it wouldn’t work at all, no matter where we were. Xin gave me that ability to restore memories erased by the Nephilim, but maybe that gift only extended to the Clark family.

While my father is still impressed enough by my celebrity to not be worried about my strangeness, I say, “Mr. Vincent, can you have your wife join us? I’d like to ask you both something.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” He heads for the kitchen.

While I’m waiting, I turn around and look at the painting again.

The painting!

I rush over to it, and pull the painting from the wall, revealing a safe. The same safe!

I turn the dial left and right, entering the combination: 7-21-38.

“Hey,” my father says, more confused than angry. “You can’t open that. It needs a combin—”

The safe door swings open silencing my father.

“Mark, what is he doing?” my mom asks.

The others have gathered around them. Nearly losing my mind, I rifle through the safe, spilling its contents on the floor until I find it. The pouch. Immediately, I know that something is different. There had been a photo inside, of my parents and the Clarks. It was inscribed with a note from Merrill, congratulating my parents on my birth. The Nephilim who erased me from history were thorough.

But the small, hard lump remains. I shake the stone out of the pouch. When it hits my hands, I feel a surge of power, not unlike the first time I held this stone, this fragment of Antarctica.

“Are...you okay?” my father asks.

Regaining my composure, I hold the stone up. “This is a part of Antarktos, a part of me.” I walk to my dumbstruck parents. The King of Antarktos has just broken into their safe and retrieved a small chunk of granite. “Just as the both of you are.”

Holding the stone beneath one thumb, I hold my hands out to both of them. “Take my hands.”

They look at each other, confused by the request, but Mira encourages them, saying, “It’s okay.”

They tentatively take my hands. I swallow, take a deep breath and then speak the words my parents said to me exactly seven thousand five hundred and thirty one times during the thirteen years I was with them, “I love you.”





Epilogue 2



Belgrave Ninnis stepped into the chilly darkness. His skin rose with goose bumps, and his bare limbs shivered. It had been a long time since he felt the biting chill of the underground. But it was not yet entirely foreign to him. A hunter never forgets these things. Of course, Ninnis wasn’t just a hunter. He was a husband. A father. And a man of honor.

He was also old, a fact that he was reminded of with every step of his upward journey. He walked without stopping, spurred onward by anticipation. Remembering his own training, he pushed through the pain until at last, he felt warm sunlight on his face. He stepped from the cave and found himself surrounded by lush green in every direction.

Without a location in mind, he set out, eating fruit from the land and drinking greedily from the clear flowing waters that he seemed to find whenever he grew thirsty. He walked for days like this until he found a stone path winding through the jungle. He looked in both directions, unsure of which direction to follow.

A distant thrumming grew louder. He recognized the sound and searched for a place to hide. But it was upon him too quickly. He turned to face the predatory dinosaur, but there was no need to fight. The dinosaur had a rider—a man with thick dark hair. The man gave a nod and removed his dark tinted sunglasses.

“You’re pretty far from anywhere useful,” the man said. “You want a ride?”

“On that?” Ninnis said.

“Are you new to Antarktos?” the man asked. “Are you lost?”

“No, but I’m afraid, yes.”

Accepting the man’s offer, Ninnis climbed onto the dinosaur’s back, finding a vacant second saddle waiting for him. They rode in silence for a long time, and Ninnis admired the jungle, the lushness of it, and the life. It reminded him of the place that had been his home for the past year.

As the sun began to set, the man finally said, “I never asked you where you were going?”

After a pause, Ninnis said, “To see the King.”

“You’re in luck, then,” the man said. “So am I.”