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

I no longer feel my body moving. The fight has moved to the realm of the mind and the fact that Xin is still here means he is alive on the outside.

A wind kicks up inside my thoughts. I direct it at Nephil and try to force him through the open door. But it flows through him like he’s not there. Ull charges at me, arms outstretched, fingers hooked. He means to distract me while Nephil finishes taking control.

Xin meets him half way.

The combat between hunter and tracker is intense and brutal, but this is in my mind and no blood spills. The pain is all in the mind, and as Xin lands a solid kick to Ull’s gut, I feel the pain as well.

How am I supposed to force Nephil back, when the person helping me is also hurting me? Then I remember, this is my mind. The physics of this world are mine to control, like the environment on the outside.

Xin, I think, come back to me!

After quickly striking Ull, which dazes me, too, Xin dives back, rolls and regains his feet by my side.

What do you intend to—

I don’t give Xin time to finish his query because by the time he does, Nephil and Ull will have figured it out, too. I don’t need to force Nephil back into the old door. I just need to make a new one. Raising my hands out to either side, the walls of my mind stretch out, wrapping around Nephil and Ull.

The blackness of Nephil swoops through the air, heading straight for me with a roar. Ull charges beside him, teeth gritted with anger, but eyes filled with fear. He realizes what’s about to happen and it actually frightens him.

An open door, four feet wide and eight tall, is the only space left open.

Nephil is nearly upon me, but just moments before he passes the threshold, a door appears and slams shut. Unlike the old dungeon door I had conjured up before, this is a bank vault. The locks clank in place.

Nephil is contained.

Thanks to Xin. I look toward my mental projection of him and find him lying down. His face is twisted in pain. Flowing red blood from several wounds catches my attention. It’s only then that I realize we are no longer in my mind and what I’m seeing is real.

Xin is dying at my feet.

“Go,” he says with his mouth, not his mind. “Before it—”

He fades before finishing. I kneel down beside him and place my fingers to his throat. He is alive.

A new mental battle begins. I am faced once more with an enemy in need. But this time, Ull is not attracted to the enemy. In fact, the voice of Ull has been completely silenced, locked away with Nephil, behind a door that will not open again until I want it to. Of course, the spirit of Nephil I now contain is but a tiny fraction, carried over to me when I consumed his physical body. I have no doubt that the full spirit of Nephil, locked away in Tartarus, would have no trouble overwhelming me. But that is a challenge I hope to avoid indefinitely.

Xin, on the other hand, nearly killed me. If not for his mental prying I would have surely been captured. If he regains consciousness, who’s to say he won’t take control of me again? I feel more prepared for a mental attack now, but it’s a risk. I also don’t know much about his physiology. The Nephilim heal from wounds in seconds and Xin is half-Nephilim.

But perhaps that’s just on the outside? I wonder. His blood is red.

I think about what I saw while reliving his past. The mocking and taunting. A lack of purpose. A craving for affection. For acceptance. He is an outcast, a pariah among his own kind. We are more alike than either of us would have ever admitted. But maybe now, after we’ve shared our minds, and experienced each other’s pasts, desires and fears, he will see that we have much in common.

And if not? Will I kill him?

I wait for Ull to chime in with a resounding, yes! But his voice does not rise. And the matter is put to rest in record time. Xin is only half-human, but that’s human enough for me. I cannot kill him. Of course, if he gives me trouble I won’t have any problem knocking him unconscious and leaving him to fend for himself. A part of me knows that’s what I should do now, but Xin believes my greatest weakness is my compassion.

I intend to prove him wrong.

I just hope it doesn’t get me killed.





8



Carrying Xin’s limp, seven foot tall body saps my energy. His wiry build holds more muscle than I would have guessed. By the time I get him to a tall mound of oversized bones, my legs burn. I slide him gently off my back and feel a slick ooze of blood left behind. I’ll have to scrub hard to get his scent off of me. Of course, it might also come in handy in concealing my own scent.