Read Online The Hunter by Theresa Meyers - Free Book Online Page A

his damn horse yet. What was he going to do? Scream like a girl? Run because his belly squirmed and his nerves stretched tight told him to? Hell no.
    Lilly shifted behind him, her small soft breasts rubbing against him in an unconsciously seductive slide that caused his groin to swell. “That’s what you think,” she muttered.
    No, that’s what he had to make himself believe. Didn’t matter how it felt. There was no choice. A cold slip of air slithered unnaturally around Colt’s legs and his hands tightened reflexively on Tempus’s reins. It wasn’t just icy mine air, and he knew it. The palm of his gun hand was itching and the rotten egg odor was noticeably stronger the closer they came to the opening. Something dark and unnatural waited down in the depths of Dark Rim. Okay, likely there were a lot of somethings just waiting.
    Unfortunately, they were between him and his pa’s portion of the Book. “Don’t matter anyhow. Winn confirmed that this is the place.”
    “What exactly are you looking for that you’d risk coming up against the Darkin in their own backyard?”
    Colt hesitated. He wished he could tell her. But he didn’t dare. He didn’t trust the demon enough to confide in her. Not yet. Maybe not ever. “You’ll find out when we get there.”
    He twisted, lifting her slightly so she could hitch her leg over Tempus’s hard metal rump and slide down to the ground. He flipped the GGD switch backward and dismounted. The rhythmic metallic clicks and whirring of Tempus’s inner workings came to an abrupt halt, leaving the night in stifling silence.
    “Well I don’t like it.”
    “Neither do I.” Colt glanced at her. The moonlight picked out the overlarge whites of her eyes, the telltale greenish glow at the center, like a wolf or mountain lion, marking her as a demon. She’d woven her arms together over her chest, her body rigid, closing in upon itself. She was scared. Damn scared. And she was a demon.
    Ah, hell. This was going to be bad. The palm of his left hand began to burn from the powerful itching there. “Let’s go.”
    Colt grabbed his saddlebags off Tempus, dumping them at his feet, then turned to pry at the boards, grunting as the splinters dug into the calloused skin of his hands.
    Directly behind him came the soft feminine clearing of a throat. Colt glanced back at her. Lilly’s legs encased in a fine mesh of fishnet stocking were visible up to just above the knee.
    “Allow me. I might as well be of some use.”
    In that getup? He stifled a chuckle. Might as well let the little lady try. He backed up one step, removing himself from the temptation to look further at her.
    She leveled her chin in determination. “You might want to stand back.”
    He took another two steps back just to humor her. Her eyes narrowed as she focused and held out her small hand, palm facing the door, then created a fist in midair. With a crackling pop of splintering wood, the boards collapsed as if grasped at the center by some giant invisible hand. She pulled her fist back, the nails groaning as the boards peeled away from the wooden beams. The boards dropped into a pile of kindling beside the entrance amid a cloud of dust.
    Colt blinked back the swirl of particles in the air. “Impressive.” Her responding smile made his heart skip a beat. Damn but she was gorgeous.
    She broke eye contact with him, staring at the dark, gaping entrance to the mine. “Are we in the right place?”
    He pointed to the two-foot-thick beam that formed the lintel holding up the weight of the mountain over the entrance. Gouged into it were the roughly lettered words Dark Rim. “Yes, ma’am. Welcome to the edge of Hell.”
    Colt picked up his saddlebags and dug out a long brass tube Marley called a self-contained coil illuminator. A lens was secured in one end and it rattled a lot when shaken, but Marley had assured him that shaking it would produce enough stored energy to produce a fire-safe torch. Something about copper