The Hunter Read Online Free Page A

He fished around in the drawer again, pulling out another bottle with a different-colored cork.
    “More holy water?”
    “No. Whiskey. You’ll need the water for fighting the demons and the whiskey for fighting your brother.”
    Colt kissed the second bottle and tipped his hat at Marley. “You’re a good man, Marley. Don’t let no one tell you different.”
    “Just do me a favor, old chap, and don’t do anything foolish.”
    Colt chuckled. “You know me, Marley.”
    Marley raised one dark, bushy brow. “Precisely.”

Chapter 2
    The familiar stench of burnt flesh and decay woke Lilly from her deep sleep.
    In the middle of her sparsely furnished boarding room, where the faded wallpaper peeled in strips from the wall, stood an enormous man. If the inhuman size of him didn’t scare any sane being senseless, the pure maliciousness that rolled off him would. It tainted the very air with a palpable darkness far heavier than the night. But her fear was born not because she didn’t know him, but rather because she did. Far too well.
    Part vampire, part fallen archangel, and all demon lord, Rathe was Hell personified and put on Earth. His skin, dead-flesh pale, glowed eerily in the filtered moonlight coming through the thin cotton curtains over her window. He was dressed like a dapper Englishman, with a great black overcape, freshly pressed black pin-striped suit with matching vest, crisp white high-collar shirt, and blood-red silk tie. Ice blue eyes split by a vertical pupil froze Lilly to the core. Ironic, really, considering it was Rathe. She sincerely doubted Hell had frozen over. He was rather partial to keeping things hot in his dominion. But then, in the right conditions ice could burn too.
    She brushed the fall of dark red hair out of her face and fought down the urge to cover herself from his hungry, predatory gaze.
    “Lillith Marie Arliss, I have a job for you.”
    She just bet. He only used all of a person or demon’s name when he wanted to bind them into service.
    “Whose soul are you hungry for now, Rathe?”
    Rathe laughed. The grating vile sound irritated her skin like the nagging itch of a mosquito bite multiplied by a thousand. “Someone special. A Hunter.”
    Lilly sat up a little straighter, flipping her long hair over her shoulder, ignoring the persistent itch. Hunters were bad news. Especially for demons. They could permanently send a demon to Hell. No furloughs to the surface world could make for one cranky demon.
    “Sounds dangerous. What’s my incentive?”
    “Your incentive is I let you exist another day. Untouched.”
    When Rathe said untouched, what he really meant was untortured. There wasn’t a forgiving morsel in his body.
    “What exactly did you want me to do with him?”
    “Seduce him, find what his father left him, take his soul, then kill him, of course.”
    Lilly shrugged. “Easy enough.”
    Rathe reached out a long pale hand, his fingernails pointed and sharp like talons, and brushed a finger along the outer edge of her cheek, then down along her neck and along her sternum, flicking the nipple that was barely covered by the edge of the black silk negligee she wore. Her skin shriveled in response. “His particular weakness is women. That’s why I picked you. Who better to bring down that Hunter than an incredible succubus?”
    Lilly turned away. A shiver of disgust started from where he’d touched her and wormed its way down deep into her belly. As much as she despised Rathe, he wasn’t one to be argued with. As an immortal demon, she had no choice but to obey his summons or suffer however long he chose to make her suffer. After all, it wasn’t like she’d ever die from his torture.
    “What’s his name?”
    “Colt Ambrose Jackson.”
    For a second every sound in the room was amplified a hundredfold as her heart stopped beating. Then Lilly couldn’t hear anything as the rushing sound of her own pulse pounding fast and furious filled her ears.
    “ The Colt Jackson? As