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

I shout again, lunging, but he dodges every attack, bending his body, slipping out of my grasp. “Stand and fight!” I shout.

Very well, Xin says. His body bends to the side as I strike with Whipsnap. The blade is just inches from his ribs. Before I can withdraw my weapon and strike again, he sweeps his leg around and knocks me on my back. The hard stone floor knocks the wind out of me, but I’ve suffered worse. I leap back to my feet.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that this is a losing battle, so I decide to use my other skills. Wind howls through the giant chamber.

Xin steps back, looking around us. He’s confused. Unsure.

I focus on a nearby bone. A blunt femur from an unknown species. I will the wind to wrap around it. Carry it up. Strike Xin in the back of the head. The bone flies.

Xin tilts his head to the side. The motion is subtle, but causes the bone to miss. I turn my focus to the other bones lying around. He won’t be able to dodge them all. But before I can lift the bones from the ground, I am struck in the face, which is confusing because Xin is still out of reach.

I glance down and see the femur resting at my feet.

I don’t understand. The bone should have fallen when I turned my attention away from it. Whack! I’m struck again. A second bone clatters to the floor.

Such wasted potential, Xin thinks.

Not only does he know about my abilities, he’s using them against me!

A cyclone builds around me, lifting me off the ground. Whipsnap flies from my grasp. The air is sucked from my lungs. I am trapped. A prisoner of my own abilities. Despite the whipping wind roaring in my ears, I can still hear Xin’s voice as though he were speaking directly into my ear.

Your mind is different than others I’ve tasted. More complex. Layered. Ull is so like the other hunters. Primal. Arrogant. Strong willed. But then there is Solomon. You are weak and lack courage, but are so…full of information. Mathematical equations. Every sight and smell for each of your years. You have read and retained the words of Einstein, Shakespeare and…who’s this? Dr. Merrill Clark.

He’s close, I think.

And he hears my fear.

Close to what?

I fill my thoughts with images of Polaroid camera manuals. Page after page fills my thoughts. But then a conversation emerges. I’m in the car with my parents. With Mira. They’re talking about Polaroid cameras and suddenly Mira is ribbing me with her elbow, asking me what I think. I focus on something else, but Xin has latched onto the memory. He plays it forward. Mira’s head is on my shoulder. My heart pounds in my chest. She raises her camera and snaps a picture.

The picture.

He steps forward and reaches out a long, white scaly arm. He undoes the pouch where I hold the photo.

“Stop!” I shout. For a moment, the wind ebbs and my body lowered.

Ahh, he thinks. Here is your strength.

He reasserts his dominance over my mind and I’m lifted higher.

He laughs again. How can this young thing mean so much to you? A hunter. The vessel of Nephil. And yet your connection to this girl, to this image, is far more intense.

He’s truly confused by my feelings for Mira. I can feel him sorting it out. Reliving my time with her. The intensity of my emotions overwhelms him. He steps back, shakes his head and contorts his face like he’s just tasted something foul. The photo falls from his hand and he turns his full attention back to peeling back the layers of my mind.

He digs deeper than before, violating my most sacred thoughts. But none of them hold his interest like the two mental doors I have put in place. He knows these are my two deepest darkest secrets. They are the things that will unhinge me. Perhaps even break me. He knows this as surely as I do, but he can’t see beyond my barricades.

He tests the first and senses my panic. No, no, no, I think.

But he doesn’t fight. He moves to the second door and gives it a shove.

“NO!” I scream, panic sweeping through my body like a physical force.

This time he laughs aloud. I feel him pull his influence out of the rest of my mind and focus on that single mental barricade.

The wind falls away and I drop to the ground, clutching my head. “Don’t,” I say. “Please!”

The barricade weakens.

“Don’t let him out!”

Xin has no intention of stopping. The idea of breaking me is too enticing. If he accomplished something the infamous Ninnis failed to do, he would be accepted. He would be exalted. Praised!