The Wolf's Bounty Read online

  Raleigh strode across the yard and pulled them loose. When she turned around to return to her place, she spotted Dax watching her from the gate. She smiled at him. “What are you doing hiding back there?”

  He didn’t smile. “I wish I could do that.”

  She waved the bow at him. “Give it a try. You might be better than you think.”

  He kicked a clod of dirt and shook his head. “I couldn’t. Bishop would get mad.”

  “Forget Bishop,” she snapped. “I’m ordering you to come over here and take a shot at that pumpkin.”

  He bit back a smile. “No, really. I couldn’t. Do you know what he would do if he found out?”

  “No. What would he do?”

  “He wouldn’t let me work for him anymore. That would be the worst thing he could possibly do to me.”

  Raleigh studied him. “You really admire him, don’t you?”

  His eyes widened. “Admire him! Admire doesn’t even cover it. He’s....well, you know what he is.”

  She nudged him with her elbow. “You could be as good as he is. You just need training. Give it a try. You would probably be really good at it.”

  He cast a quick glance at her bow. “Do you really think I could?”

  She hefted the weapon in her hand. “Well, if you really want to practice, you should probably get a different bow out of the armory. This one would be too small for you, but I can show you a few things with the blade if you want.”

  His eyes brightened. “Would you really?”

  “Sure. Watch this.”

  She marched down the garden and turned the pumpkin ninety degrees so the bolt holes pointed to one side. She pulled the blade from her belt, spun around, and sent it winging through the air. Its spinning blades whistled, and it cleaved the pumpkin in half. The two orange pieces tumbled off the fence post on either side, and the blade sailed on to embed its point in the fence behind.

  Dax stared at it wide-eyed. “Wow. That was amazing.”

  Raleigh yanked the blade out of the fence. “It’s only amazing because you don’t know how to do it. Now you try.”

  She selected another pumpkin from the garden and set it up. She put the blade in Dax’s hand and stepped back. He gazed down at the weapon lying flat against his palm. “How do I do it?”

  She came to his side. She took hold of his wrist and drew it back over his shoulder. “Like this. No, plant your front foot like this, and step back with your other foot. No, no, no, not like that. Here. Give me that.”

  She took the blade out of his hand and put it back in its loop at her belt. She put her arms around Dax’s torso and positioned him where she wanted him.

  “Put this arm out in front of you like this. Bend your knee. Farther. That’s right. Now step out with your other leg like this. Let your chest rotate and whip your arm around like this. Let the blade pull your arm forward, and when you feel your elbow straightened, let the blade fly. That’s right. Now you try.”

  He blushed up at her with her arms embracing him, and she couldn’t help but smile back. He really was a sweet boy. He got all flustered and embarrassed when she put her arms around him. She handed him the blade and moved out of the way.

  He turned his back on her and eyed the pumpkin. He hefted the blade in his hand. While he stood there in silent contemplation, a curious change came over him. His shoulders spread, and his whole body seemed to sprout out of his legs. He almost doubled in size. He flung his arm behind his head, his left leg shot out behind him exactly the way Raleigh showed him, and the blade zinged out of his hand. It whistled through the air and landed with a resounding thunk in the fence post just below the pumpkin.

  Raleigh let out a whoop. “That was great! Wow! That was perfect! Well done!”

  She had to tug extra hard to free the blade. She turned around and strode toward him. “That was amazing. I knew you would be good at this.”

  He beamed at her. A crimson blush spread all over his cheeks. “I didn’t hit it.”

  “You came pretty darn close, though, didn’t you? A little more practice, and you’ll have it. That was truly impressive. I’m amazed.”

  He dug his toe into the ground, but he couldn’t stop beaming. “Thanks.”

  She held out the blade to him when a deep voice cleared its throat behind them. Raleigh spun around to see Mrs. Mitchell standing in the kitchen doorway with her beefy arms propped on her hips. Dax shrank down even smaller than he was before. “Bishop is asking to see you, Miss Douglas.”

  Raleigh wiped the grin off her face. “Thank you, Mrs. Mitchell. I’ll be right there.” She placed the blade in Dax’s hands. “Keep practicing. You’re gonna be great.”

  He pushed it back at her. “No. I couldn’t.”

  She tucked it into her belt. “Maybe another time.”

  Chapter 9

  Raleigh hurried upstairs and made her way down the long hall to Bishop’s office. Would he be there, or would he still be convalescing in bed somewhere? She didn’t want to enter his bedroom. She didn’t want to see him injured and vulnerable and weak. She would rather leave without seeing him at all.

  Why did she even consider that? Did she really want to preserve him in her memory as the great Knox Bishop, bounty hunter and monster slayer? What did those names really mean to her, anyway?

  She found only one door open with the lights burning, and that was the office. She tapped the door and peeked in. Bishop sat at his desk in a perfect new frock coat. He didn’t look up or turn around when she entered. He kept his back turned, and pen scratched on the desktop in front of him.

  She waited, but he didn’t acknowledge her. She tiptoed around the desk to see what he was doing. He held a small notebook open with his left hand and copied notes from it into another notebook with his right hand. He frowned at the contents.

  “You asked to see me?” she ventured.

  He didn’t reply. He finished what he was doing and set down his pen. He bound up the righthand notebook and set it away. He took up the left-hand notebook, leaned back in his chair, and studied it at close range.

  She tried again. “What are you doing?”

  He startled her by answering. “This was my father’s notebook. He kept notes on a lifetime of hunting all over the world. He has information in here about the twen. He might be the only person who ever saw one alive.”

  “My father told me you came from a long line of slayers and bounty hunters. Is that true?”

  Bishop stood up out of his chair and nodded. He tied a string around the book and put it in his wall safe before he spun the dial to lock it. “It’s true, and now I must follow the trail he left behind to track down the twen. I thank you very much for your help yesterday, but I think we can both agree you better not take this apprenticeship. I will pay your fare so you can return to your own home.”

  Raleigh’s temper flared. Every thought she had about leaving flew right out of her head. “You’re not sending me home. I proved to you I can handle myself. I’m taking this apprenticeship, and that’s that. If you’re going after the twen, I’m going with you. I suppose you’re going down that tunnel, now that I cleared the wolves off for you. That’s your way of expressing your gratitude, is it? That’s just rich.”

  He straightened his coat over his vest. He closed his eyes and bowed at the waist. “I am indeed truly grateful for your help, but you didn’t clear the wolves off for me. They’ll be ten times deadlier since you killed Rekworth. They’ll patrol the tunnel entrance, and they’ll do everything they can to stop me from entering it. It’s too dangerous. Go home while you can.”

  “I just told you I’m not going home. If it’s that dangerous, you won’t be able to go down there, either. You’ll need someone at your back. Who do you plan to take—Dax?”

  “Of course not, and I won’t take you, either. If anybody’s going to get killed down there, it should be me.”

  “You’re darn tootin’ you’ll get killed down there if you go alone,” she spat. “I asked you to give
me a chance to prove myself, and that’s what I did. You want to throw me out because I succeeded. You don’t want anybody to find out I had to save your life down there. You’re such a typical man. All you care about is protecting your precious ego.”

  His shoulders swelled. “I do not care about protecting my precious ego. For some ridiculous reason I can’t figure out, I care a lot more about protecting you from your stupid need to prove yourself all the time. So you didn’t turn into dog meat yesterday. Congratulations. Are you satisfied now? You can pin that on your wall and take comfort in it in your old age. You can be happy you’re going to have an old age, thanks to me. Now get out of here and leave me alone. I have much more important things to think about than you.”

  “I won’t leave, and from what I saw yesterday, you couldn’t make me if you tried. How did you manage to survive all these years in this business—by drinking some magic potion that turns you into a wolf? Is that how you do it? Is that what got you this great reputation? What other concoctions have you got stashed up your sleeve? No, don’t tell me. Let me guess. You have one that turns you into a snail when you encounter some creature you can’t handle. Or better yet, you have one that turns you into an old woman so you can blend into the crowd so your enemies can’t follow you. Why don’t you start working on one that will give you a set of balls, ‘cuz I can see plain as day you’re nothing but a scarecrow in a nice coat.”

  He started to argue back, but caught himself in time. His eyes flashed once. Then he burst out laughing. “That’s a good one. Your tongue is almost as sharp as your aim. I mean it, Raleigh. Yesterday was just a warm-up. Don’t you think you’d be better off back home?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you just going to let what I said run off your back? You’re not going to call me any nasty names back? What’s wrong with you?”

  He threw himself down in his chair. “I’ll be perfectly honest with you. I was actually glad I never got far enough to take any of my apprentices down that tunnel. I knew they couldn’t handle it, and I was looking forward to going down there alone. It’s bad enough losing all those people, but I’ve never worked with a woman before. If anything happened to you down there...”

  Raleigh waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, she let out a shaky breath. She never dealt with anyone like this before. If he could ignore her best insults, maybe she could reason with him. “I’ll be perfectly honest with you, too, Bishop. After what happened yesterday, I respect you. I’ve never met anybody who fought the way you did, even if you did almost lose your life. I’m curious. I want to see what’s down that tunnel. I’ve seen some pretty strange things in my short life, but nothing like I saw yesterday. If I can see more of that world, I’ll gladly face the danger.”

  He studied her. “That’s what it’s all about for you, isn’t it? You care more about seeing the sights than you’re worried about the danger.”

  “I’m not worried about the danger at all. I’m a sucker for a challenge. You issued me a challenge yesterday, and now I’ve got to rise to meet it. If I meet danger, I’ll just fight tooth and nail to overcome it. That’s the way I am, but I can’t go back to being a lonely farm girl. I can’t erase what I saw yesterday, and I can’t pretend that world doesn’t exist. That’s the only world that does exist for me now. I have to see it again. I have to be part of it.”

  He closed his eyes and blew his breath through his teeth. “Oh, God, not another one!”

  “What? Another one what?”

  He rocketed out of his chair. He twisted the dial on his wall safe and took out his gun belts. He strapped them around his hips. “All right. If you’re coming, we better get on with it.”

  He started out of the room. Raleigh raced to catch up with him. “What are you talking about? Another one what?”

  He whirled around to face her so fast she almost hurried past him. “Do you want to know something no one else in the world knows? My father had a talk with me like the one I just had with you. He tried to dissuade me from entering this profession. He wanted to apprentice me to a wheelwright in town. He said I would live a long, happy life. He said I would get married and have children and sit in front of the fire every evening. He said the slayer’s life was a lonely and horrible one, and he wanted to spare me from it.”

  “And what did you say?”

  He waved his hand in front of his chest. “As you can see, I made a most persuasive argument that I wanted to continue. I wanted to follow in his footsteps, and when he demanded to know what could induce me to risk my life that way, I said I was curious. I said exactly the same thing you said just now. I wanted to see that world for myself. I said I couldn’t live as a wheelwright, that I belonged to that world, and I couldn’t be happy in any other profession.”

  Raleigh studied his face. “And are you happy? Did you find what you were looking for?”

  He snorted and wheeled away. He marched away down the hall without answering. He stuck his head through the kitchen door and bellowed at Dax standing outside. “Bring the coach around.”

  Dax tripped over his feet running away. He stumbled and pitched forward onto his hands and knees before he scrambled to his feet and disappeared.

  Raleigh frowned. “What do you have to scare him like that for? He’s just a kid.”

  Bishop humphed. “He wants to be a slayer, and he can’t even handle a little start like that. A fine slayer he would make!”

  “Well, what about your shoulder? Do you really want to go down that tunnel when you’re not healed up?”

  “This?” He rotated his shoulder around. “This is nothing. I’ll be all right.”

  She watched him move his arm. She had to admit he passed it through the full range of motion with no sign of pain. She never expected a man at death’s door the day before to be walking around hale and hearty today. Should she really go out with him? How did she know he wouldn’t change his mind later?

  That story he told her about his conversation with his father stuck in her mind. Some force called him to do this job. The same force compelled her to go with him, to find out whatever lay beyond that tunnel. What would she find?

  The carriage rumbled up to the door, and Bishop sprang in. He leapt into that coach like any man who hadn’t had his arm gnawed off by a wolf the day before. She cast her reservations to the wind. What the hell. Why ever not? She jumped into the coach, and Dax drove away.

  He followed the same route as yesterday until Bishop shouted through the window. “Stop at the bridge.”

  Raleigh’s eyes popped open, but she didn’t question. She and Bishop climbed down. Bishop adjusted the ten knives he kept hidden all over himself. Raleigh slung her crossbow over her shoulder and checked her bolts in her wallet.

  Bishop nodded to her and rounded on Dax. “Go home, Dax.”

  The boy peered down from the driver’s seat. “Sir?”

  “Go home,” Bishop thundered. “Take the coach and go back to the house. If I find out you even thought about disobeying my orders, you’ll never work for me again. Do you hear me?”

  Dax bent his head, but Raleigh saw his lip quivering. “Yes, Sir.”

  Bishop raised one arm and lashed his hand flat against the horse’s rump. The horse squealed out loud and burst forward. It hit the ground with all four hooves clattering on the cobblestones, and the carriage rumbled away around the bend.

  Raleigh stared after it. “You really are cruel to him. Do you know that?”

  “Cruel to him is what I’m not.” Bishop turned away. “He’s far more cruel to me, crying over me like that. You don’t know what it does to a man to see someone all broken hearted when I’m trying to do the best thing for him.”

  Bishop didn’t wait for her to come up with a cutting retort. He jumped off the bridge, but he didn’t stride off into the forest with her scrambling after him. When she vaulted down to the stream bed, she found him standing there in front of her.

  He hissed in her face. “Now listen to me. We’ll have
one shot at this, and we’ve got a much bigger problem than yesterday. The wolves will be out for revenge against the person who killed Rekworth. That’s you, and they know we’re coming back to get into the tunnel. They’ll be watching, and when they catch us, they won’t bother trying to take you back alive. They’ll come at us with all their power to kill you. Understand?”

  Raleigh nodded, but she couldn’t get her constricted throat to work.

  “When we get close, I’ll signal you and we’ll follow the last little bit of the path back to back. We can’t run the risk of them surprising us the way they did yesterday. Keep both your guns drawn and fire on the first thing you see. Got it? Once they show themselves, get into the tunnel as fast as you can. Once you get behind the curtain, you’ll be safe—from them, at least. They won’t follow us into the tunnel. They’ll bank everything on stopping us from entering it in the first place.”

  She swallowed hard. “Got it.”

  He gave her a curt nod and set off down the path. He glanced back over his shoulder more than once to make sure she was still there. Halfway to the clearing, he nodded again. She turned her back to him, and he paused while she backed up against him.

  They crossed the last few yards to the clearing much slower than they came. They crept along. Both made sure they kept their backs pressed firmly together. Raleigh held both her pistols at the ready. She scanned the surroundings on all sides, but she couldn’t ignore that muscled back sandwiched against hers.

  She never faced any danger with a partner before, let alone a partner like Bishop. She could trust him. She could depend on him to take the brunt of the wolves’ attack if it came from his direction. She didn’t have to worry about what might come from behind her. He was there. He was solid and sure and ready.

  They entered the clearing. Still nothing. Only silent forest clicked all around them. Bishop stopped in front of the curtain of vines. His shoulder muscles rippled under his coat, and he whispered under his breath. “Get inside—quick!”

  She ducked under his arm into the darkness. The next instant, his big, warm presence filled the tunnel next to her. He leaned against the wall and caught his breath. “Thank God!”