The Last Trace (The Chosen Novellas Book 1) Page 8

  Don’t know if you’d fit in my new life, horse. You’d probably end up like that deer.

  The snow crunched beneath his moccasins as he crossed the meadow and headed up the trail to his rock cave, not having anywhere else to go. He stopped at the hole under the boulder and looked at the robe in his hand, realizing he hadn’t really noticed the wintery temperatures the past couple days, that he’d been wearing it out of habit.

  Bet my skin’s as cold as hers now.

  He grimaced and stuffed the robe into the cave.

  Trace adjusted the bow slung over his shoulder and set out across the mountain, not sure where he was headed. But he couldn’t sit still—that much he knew.

  Images of the woman haunted him as he fought back the loneliness that seemed to dog his every step. He longed to call out for her, but held back, knowing she’d find him when she was ready.

  If she comes for me at all.

  The thought that she might not filled him with a sense of impending doom he couldn’t explain. Though the deer’s blood had satisfied his hunger, his body cried out for her, for her body—and for her blood.

  Trace stopped in his tracks, suddenly fearful that if she did not come for him, he could die. He wondered if that was what happened to the others.

  He’d never lost his awareness of the weakness lurking inside him since her first attack. Sometimes faint, sometimes robbing him of his ability to stand or walk steadily, it grew day by day, and he only just now realized that it seemed tied to her visits.

  That it only faded when he drank her blood.

  A chill ran through him.

  Sweet Jesus. She’s bound me to her.

  As much as his craving for her left him miserable and lonely, the thought that he might be doomed to spend the remainder of his life by her side—however long that might be—horrified him. Her rapid shifts between attentive lover and savage predator left him unbalanced and on edge, fearing either vicious attack or abandonment at any moment.

  Then it struck him. She was just playing with him, wearing him down.

  She . . . she’s unmanning me.

  Rage swept through him and erupted from his throat to echo off the mountainsides. His tortured cry faded in the distance, raw and inhuman to his ears.

  He took a deep breath and started walking again.

  ~ ~ ~

  Trace had just crested a small rise not too far from the cabin when he felt it. Felt her. Calling him, pulling him to her.

  His blood answered, infusing him with a fresh vigor. Excitement and anticipation raced through his veins as her urgency increased, and he took off running down the snow-covered slope.

  Trace ducked branches and wove through the brush, leaping over rocks and fallen limbs. He felt her anxiety intensify, laced with fear, and his own quickened in response.

  His sense of her grew stronger. Caution ignited in his veins, and he slowed, then slipped into the stealthy tread of the hunter.

  The sound of male voices, broken with cruel laughter, reached Trace’s ears. A primal anger reared up within him and he choked back a snarl. He eased through the brush, his eyes fastened on a brightness ahead that soon revealed itself to be a campfire in a small clearing.

  Five Blackfoot warriors were gathered about a slender golden-haired form standing tied to a tree.

  Angelique was naked. Her white skin nearly glowed against the surrounding darkness, her face painted in fear and her red eyes wild. She hissed as one of the Blackfoot brutally twisted a pale pink nipple.

  Trace nearly roared aloud. Trembling with fury, he quietly slipped his bow from his shoulder and stuck several arrows in the snow beside him. He fit one to the bow and steadied himself.

  A thickset warrior stepped up to her and placed a broad blade to her throat as his other hand reached down to his loincloth.

  Trace loosed the arrow. His target, a young brave standing close to the campfire, grunted as the shaft sunk into his back.

  Before the Blackfoot hit the ground, Trace had the next arrow nocked. It took a tall, thin warrior through the throat and his scream gurgled through a spray of blood.

  The other three spun around, then dove in different directions for their weapons. Trace’s next shot buried itself in the belly of a young man grabbing a bow.

  The bark on the tree beside Trace shattered above his head, and he ducked down as another bullet tore through the bush on his other side. He plunged into the underbrush as several more ripped past him.

  A terrified shriek split the night, followed by a second, more guttural scream. Trace paused at a break in the brush and readied another arrow.

  But when he peered through the branches into the clearing, he lowered his bow and straightened.

  The she-demon crouched like a great white spider on the chest of the stocky Blackfoot who’d threatened her with the knife. His body was laced with deep gashes, and there was a large, bloody wound in his side. The other warrior, still clutching a rifle, lay next to them, his throat torn out and his blood soaking into the trampled snow.

  She turned and looked at Trace, her red eyes blazing with a hellish fire, and smiled. The man beneath her groaned and her head whipped around. She snarled at him, her fangs nearly touching his cheek. He whimpered and the dirty snow underneath him turned yellow.

  Trace walked into the clearing, glancing around to be sure there were no further threats. His battle tension began to fade, only to violently resurface as the coppery scent of spilled blood hit him. His gut twisted, the fiery hunger exploding within it.

  Alarm and revulsion surged through him. But the demand of the thing in his belly was stronger.

  His mouth flooded with saliva and his pulse sped up. Trace stopped, his breath held tight as he tried to cope with both his horror and the burning need. He was so fixated on the torn throat and the blood of the corpse at his feet that he barely registered the soft caresses of the woman now pressed up against him.

  He startled as she gently grabbed his crotch and, tearing his gaze away from the blood, he looked down at her. She smiled and poked bloody fingers into his mouth.

  Passion swirled through his veins at the taste of the blood.

  Her blood. He felt himself harden.

  Sweet Jesus, I’m lost again.

  “Oh, mon chéri, I’ve missed you so much.” Her breathy voice excited him only further and he tore at the laces on his breeches. She stripped off his buckskin shirt, but when he tried to embrace her naked body, she wriggled free and grabbed his hand.

  She tugged him forward several steps, then pulled him to the ground beside the wounded Blackfoot. He hesitated, his eyes meeting the terrified gaze of the warrior. The brief spark of pity for his enemy withered when she pressed her bloody breast against his lips.

  Her demonic laughter was the last thing Trace was aware of as he drove himself into her.

  ~ ~ ~

  He became conscious sometime later, his body still entangled with hers. Trace opened his eyes to find her watching him. Her lips curved upward, then she quietly laughed.

  He smiled, enjoying the warm glow of blood and sex. Her fingers touched his lips, then forced themselves inside. The blood on them didn’t surprise him. What surprised him was that it wasn’t hers.

  Trace frowned and she laughed again. He pushed away from her, and as he did so, his gaze fell on the Blackfoot lying next to them. Shock swept through him when the man’s eyelids fluttered.

  He’s still alive?

  “You didn’t kill him.”

  “No, mon chéri. Why would I want to do that?”

  “But—”

  “Shh, mon amour. He is ours to enjoy for a little while longer.”

  Trace frowned, sat up, and glared at her.

  “What do you mean, he’s ours?”

  “Don’t tell me you do not remember, mon chéri.”

  Trace looked over at the man again. In addition to the gashes, bite marks covered his body. Most were the twin punctures from her fangs, but others . . . others were the marks f
rom a human mouth.

  Oh, God.

  The taste of blood rose in his throat as Trace pushed himself to a stand. His stomach heaved, and he vomited its red contents into the bushes.

  “You made me do this, you demon-bitch,” he said, wiping his mouth.

  Her laughter rang through the dark forest.

  “Yes, I did. But I didn’t have to do much to encourage you. You seemed quite anxious to join me whenever I needed a little refreshment during our lovemaking.”

  He tried to sort through his hazy memories, not sure it happened the way she claimed. The man at his feet whimpered like a sick, wounded animal. Pity and self-disgust choked Trace, even as the hunger rose at the sight of the blood oozing from the mangled body.

  He bent over the warrior and picked up the knife lying a few feet away. Grimacing, Trace slit the man’s throat while the woman beside him hissed her displeasure. He straightened and spun on his heel, then walked across the clearing and flung the bloody knife into the brush. He kept walking.

  Trace was still scrubbing his skin with sand from the creek a half-mile away when she found him. He ignored her, stepped out of the icy water, and climbed up the stream bank.

  “I’m just like you now, you hell-bitch,” he growled.

  Her laughter echoed the stream’s trickling song.

  “No, mon chéri, not quite. Almost, but not quite.” She grinned, exposing her fangs.

  Trace fought a sudden desire to wrap his hands around her pale throat and choke the life from her. His mouth twisting in anger, he strode past her and headed back to the camp.

  He’d just finished lacing up his breeches when she padded into the clearing. Trace shrugged into his buckskin shirt, slipped his moccasins on, and gathered his arrows from the corpses of the warriors he’d killed defending her.

  Defending a demon from hell. I should’ve let them kill her. Then maybe I’d be free.

  He picked up his bow and, without another word, left the bloody camp and headed toward his own.

  He did not feel even a twinge of loneliness when she didn’t stop him.

  ~ ~ ~

  She allowed him his rebellion, knowing it wouldn’t last. He was now hers, truly hers, and he’d have no choice but to give in to her every whim, just like she’d had to with Gilles. She smiled, and as she looked over the campsite littered with corpses, her laughter rang out, wild and filled with madness.

  ~ Day 9 ~

  Something was wrong.

  Something was horribly wrong. Trace snapped his eyes open and peered out the cave entrance to the fading light of late dusk. Anxiety twisted in his belly and up his spine, sending tendrils of fear crawling across his scalp.

  He threw off his robe and scrambled from the safety of his shelter, his knife in his hand. His heart pounded so hard he felt like his ribs might break. He glanced wildly around at the encircling forest, but there was no sign of a threat.

  As his breathing slowed, he worked his jaw and swallowed some much needed moisture. He straightened and continued to peer through the trees, trying to figure out what had alarmed him.

  Coherent thought slowly returned and, with it, memory.

  Red. Everything was red, and then it was white. Bright, blinding white.

  A dream. He’d had a dream. Someone in it died. Someone he’d killed.

  Sweet Jesus.

  He sorted through the images, images of him drinking blood. Blood from a human throat. Flashes of the dying Blackfoot warrior became mixed up with the memory, until he was no longer sure what was real and what was dream.

  And with the dream that might not have been a dream, came a burning hunger deep within that quickly spread its fire out into his veins.

  I’m cursed. No . . . I’m in Hell.

  Trace worked back through his recollection of the night before.

  He remembered feeling her call, her panic, and running to her. She was tied to the tree. He shot the three Blackfoot. Then she wasn’t tied to the tree and the other two were dead or dying.

  How did she get free?

  And she took them out so fast, in the blink of an eye.

  He recalled her impossible strength, her speed, her viciousness each time she’d attacked him. And realized the five Blackfoot warriors had never stood a chance against her. It was as if the whole thing had been staged.

  And I blindly followed her into her frenzy of sex and blood.

  Human blood.

  As the memory of its smell and taste resurfaced, the thing in his belly screamed out its need once again.

  He would have to hunt before returning to the cabin.

  And with the thought of the cabin, and those within it, the anxiety hit him like a storm-driven gust of mountain wind.

  She said my blood was no good to her anymore . . . Oh, God, no!

  Trace grabbed his bow and ran.

  His mind raced as well.

  I’ll send ’em on to Flathead while I stay here to keep her busy. As soon as I wake tomorrow night, I’ll hightail it for the Oregon coast, try to outrun her. If I can make it onto a ship, I’m free.

  He was halfway to the cabin when he felt her calling for him through his blood. Her pull was strong, demanding, undeniable.

  It was coming from the direction in which he was headed.

  Fear clutched at his throat, and he ran faster.

  The wagon was still out front, a little more full that it had been the night before. Smoke curled from the chimney into the cold night air.

  Nothing looked out of the ordinary.

  A tiny flame of hope sparked within him and he slowed to a walk.

  Please—God, Jesus, whoever might be listening—let ’em be safe.

  Trembling, he stepped up on the porch, opened the door, and walked in.

  The smell of blood saturated the air in the tiny cabin. A horror deeper than anything he’d ever felt lanced his very soul.

  His mother lay on the floor before the hearth. Her crumpled form was not moving, not breathing.

  Mother . . .

  He froze, unable to move. She’d been standing right there the last time he saw her, leaning over the stewpot, where she always was. Emptiness now stood in her place.

  A groan broke his trance. It came from his father’s chair, and Trace slowly turned around.

  Angelique lay curled next to his father, her fingers playing with his thick beard. His father’s body was limp, a pale hand dangling, lifeless. Blood stained his sickly white chest, exposed beneath his torn shirt. His light brown eyes were glazed over, but a flicker of life sprang into them as they fixed on Trace.

  “Son . . .” he croaked. “Help me.”

  The she-demon smiled.

  “Mon chéri, I’ve saved the last for you. There’s no sweeter taste than that of vengeance.”

  Trace convulsed with rage, and unleashing an anguished yowl, he launched. As he flew over the chair, he reached down and grabbed her by the hair, then spun around, landing on his feet. He wrenched her out of the chair and yanked his knife from its sheath at his hip.

  He slashed her across the throat. Blood gushed from the gaping wound and poured down her breast.

  She smiled.

  Her taloned hands streaked out, straight into his eyes.

  Blinded, he let her go and stumbled backward, his palms pressed against the blood and the pain. Claws seized his throat and she slammed him into the wall.

  “You will never attack me again. Is that clear, mon chéri?”

  Deep within him, a strange compulsion drained him of all his fight, all his anger, all his will.

  He nodded.

  “Now. You will finish this.”

  His eyes tingled, like something was crawling within them. The blood streaming down his face slowed and his vision began to return.

  She glared up at him, and he watched in dismay as the gash in her throat stopped bleeding and sealed completely shut. Her lip curled, baring her fangs, and with a snarl, she released him.

  He staggered away from the wall. Massaging
his throat, he looked at her, then at his father.

  The disbelief and terror on his father’s face only mirrored what Trace felt inside. Trace searched the light brown eyes, seeking some sign that, deep down inside, his father truly cared for him.

  His father looked at the woman. She moved next to Trace and her hand reached up to stroke the scar on his cheek, then trailed down to rub first his arm, and then his crotch.

  When his father’s gaze shifted back to Trace, his expression hardened.

  “Nothin’ more than a damn savage. Always knew it. You’ve made yer bed with the Devil, an’ yer gonna be layin’ in it for a long time.”

  He closed his eyes, but not before Trace saw sympathy creep into them.

  “Come, mon amour, your destiny awaits.” She tugged on his sleeve. His legs felt wooden as he approached the chair.

  Trace looked down at the big man who seemed to have shrunk overnight. Memories assaulted him, memories of their brief times together, just the two of them, when his father would tell him of his adventures on the fur-trapping runs. And when Trace was twelve, his father took him to his first rendezvous without his mother, and Trace felt like a man among all the other men, listening to campfire stories of Indian battles, disasters on the trail, and survival against all odds.

  He looked over at his mother’s body, her blood staining the blue dress he’d given her. The one person in the whole world who truly cared about him, who loved him and gave him life . . . was gone. He remembered her smile, her laughter, her hugs, and the long winter nights when she’d tell him of her people, his people, and where they came from, and how they lived. And the patient way she taught him the bow when there was no one else to do so, and how to skin a beaver and butcher a deer. The things he should have learned from his father.

  Angelique hissed and picked up his father’s limp arm. The thick fingers twitched.

  No . . .

  Her hand tightened around Trace’s bicep, then when he made no movement, her talons sunk deep into his flesh. He stood still, resolute in his refusal.

  Hunger erupted in him. The craving inched its way along his veins and his gaze drifted against his will to the blood painted on his father’s chest. He resisted the siren call, closing his eyes.