Page 47 of Hunted (Love and Revenge #5)

Ruya

T he tunnels swallowed us whole.

I didn’t realize how many layers of noise lived inside The Fox until they were gone—the hum of heating and electricity, echoes of argument, laughter, and conversation, clinking dishes, and the occasional grunts or smacks from the training room—all replaced now by the muffled sound of ragged breaths and footsteps on concrete and old stone.

I was used to being blind, but usually I could at least see blurred colors, light and shadow.

Now all of that was reduced to complete blackness and the occasional dim source of light—mage lights periodically spaced along the rough walls or held in Sanaka’s hand, the wavering blur of orange light that was Robin with a hand full of dragon fire.

I tightened my grip on Josh’s hand, not willing to let him go.

We had almost lost him for good. I had felt his death song rising up in me.

He was fine now, healed by my magic and his own rapid vampire healing.

But still, I clung to him, and I suddenly realized I was squeezing his hand so hard it had to be uncomfortable, all the anxiety and stress from the last hour or so finding an outlet in that one small point of contact.

Josh didn’t protest. He never did. His aura flickered now and then, a constant rippling like black water to my senses, hidden things in the depths. I whispered to him softly. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

His only reply was the subtle twitch of his fingers.

Not quite a thank-you. Not quite a refusal.

Just Josh, quietly suffering some internal torment, quietly enduring.

Sadavir was quiet too, a solid presence behind us, his steady alpha aura silently promising fierce protection and love—I hoped Josh felt it the way I did.

Robin stalked ahead of the group, her fire leading us all through the dark twists and turns of the tunnels.

She hadn’t spoken since we’d started moving, but her steps never faltered.

I had never been in the tunnels before, and I needed Josh with his dark-friendly vampire senses to guide me around the occasional fallen stone or broken section of floor.

But I trusted Robin to lead us. I knew she had probably memorized every crack and crevice in the city’s bones decades ago. It was just how she was.

The rest of us followed silently, including the curse breaker, who was now conscious and ambulatory, after I’d healed his concussion.

Dusek lagged near the rear, only his strong aura letting me know he was there.

To my already impaired eyes he was invisible, nothing but more blackness in the dark.

I wanted to talk to him. I had been able to sense something building in him for a while now, and this attack had strengthened the feeling.

There was a quiet storm in him, held just barely in check.

But there never seemed to be a good time to corner the reclusive bubak.

I noticed that Sanka stayed near Dusek, unconcerned about the ripples of fear his aura produced.

I frowned to myself, even more curious what had happened back there in the halls of The Fox.

Then I vividly recalled feeling the pain and death of every cultist we’d encountered in that visceral way of my healing and banshee magics.

.. and thought maybe I didn’t want to know after all.

The air grew colder as we pressed deeper into Detroit’s underworld.

Every tunnel had a different smell, even to someone like me without keen shifter senses—earth and mildew, old oil and rust, the ghost of factory fire and forgotten machinery.

I knew this wasn’t just any set of tunnels.

Robin had spent years preparing these paths, securing safehouses and contingency routes that only she knew.

But even Robin’s certainty couldn’t prevent what happened next.

Yukio halted in front of me, blocking me with an arm as he apparently pressed a hand to the wall. “Sanka. Here,” he said, quietly. “Look.”

My heart dropped at the angry tone in his voice. What now?

“Blood,” Josh said from beside me. The flat word was the first he’d spoken in well over an hour. “Not fresh,” he murmured. “But not very old either. And not human.”

Sanka grunted an unhappy sound. “Crusted over symbols carved into the bricks over here too—runes of some kind.” I could tell he was thinking furiously.

“Shit, I thought they looked familiar. See how that’s all warped and jagged,” he said as the orange blur of Robin’s fire moved closer to the cooler-toned blur of his mage light.

“See how it looks like something clawed them there?”

“The cult again?” I asked, breath catching. I had naively thought they wouldn’t know about the rebel court’s escape route.

Dusek stepped forward. I felt his dark aura drift nearer to where Sanka and Robin stood. “Demon?” he asked, his deep voice chillingly quiet. “I sensed a hint of demon magic during the attack.”

Sanka sighed. “Yeah. Fucking cult’s got a demon working for them.

No wonder their magic was so different this time.

This wasn’t meant for us, I don’t think.

It’s a message for their little helper.” Magic flared as he did something to the sigil.

“That takes care of that. Stupid fuckers. Can’t trust demons.

They’ll always screw you over in the end no matter what you promise them.

And that’s coming from someone who’s related to the fuckers. ”

Robin moved away. “We have to keep moving. But stay alert. If the cult has been down here messing around with magic, then they might have found a way to see through Sanka’s protective wards. They likely know The Fox is connected to the tunnels. Our escape route is probably compromised.”

We passed through the echoing remains of old infrastructure, which Cicely described to me via mind speak for something to do while we walked—rail lines and boiler rooms, access tunnels from the prohibition era, even the remnants of a fallout shelter, which had long since been looted. Robin’s path never wavered.

Until we reached the church. “Fuck me sideways,” Sanka muttered as we all drew to a halt.

“What is it?” I whispered, my heart in my throat.

“What’s wrong?” I could sense death. Not the sharp, oncoming premonition given to me by my banshee scream.

.. this death had already occurred, leaving lingering traces of last breaths in the air.

Sensing it this way was new to me... and it wasn’t a magical development that I particularly enjoyed.

Cicely did something with his magic, and for one brief second a wavering image appeared in my mind.

A door stood ajar at the top of a narrow stairwell, painted a sickly green that had faded to lichen-gray.

The doorframe was splintered and blacked around the edges.

The iron cross above it was bent at an angle, like it had been wrenched half-off by some powerful force.

“This is it,” Robin said. Her voice was tight. “Or it should have been. The Cathedral Abbey of St. Anthon. Our best fucking safehouse.”

“Ah-ah! Hold up!” The curse breaker spoke for the first time in ages, the location of his voice telling me he pushed through the group to get to the front. “There’s a curse there. Nasty bit of work. Let me just...”

Magic sizzled through the air, filling the space with an almost electrical feeling that crawled across my skin and through my aura like a million restless insects. The sensation swelled, then popped , and faded.

“Shit, I woulda walked my tired ass right into that,” Sanka grumbled. “Thanks, man.”

The curse breaker grunted. “That’s what I’m here for, I suppose.

” There was more than a little bitterness in his tone.

I don’t think he had planned on being attacked by weird witch cultists and nearly killed then sent on a trek through Detroit’s underground when Robin called for his help with breaking a little vampire bond.

We filed into the building silently, cautiously, the alphas and gammas leading the way. Dust hung in the air, making me cough. Eventually, light reached me—sunlight filtered through shattered stained glass, judging by the blurred colors spilling everywhere.

The scent hit me then—burned metal, ozone, and something rotten. Not death. Not quite. But definitely something... wrong.

“There were guards here,” Robin murmured. “Unaligned paranorms who were paid a pretty penny to live here in secret, maintain the illusion that the place was nothing more than a squatter’s hovel, and alert me if anyone came sniffing around.”

“No bodies,” Martina murmured. “And more demon stink.”

“Probably fed them to the demon,” Sanka replied, voice low. “Most of the for-hire types like to scavenge afterward.”

I drifted toward the area where the altar should be, cautiously trailing my fingers over things as I went.

Broken candle stubs. Splintered icons. The thick velvet curtain that had once hidden the rear exit had been torn down and left crumpled beside the baptismal font.

I yanked my fingers back when I felt something crusted into the fabric that some part of me knew instinctually was dried blood.

I touched the wall. Magic residue clung to it, obvious even to me, without any sorcerer talents. It felt wrong somehow. Twisted. Was this what raw demon magic felt like? It was so different than the magic Sanka wielded, enhanced by the distant demon blood in his lineage.

Josh came to stand beside me. “They knew we’d come here.”

“There were wards set to trigger when we came in,” Sanka said tiredly. “I disabled them, but it’s highly possible there’s more I missed. They’ll be back, boss. Probably on their way already.”

Robin didn’t speak for a long moment. Then she moved, the blur of motion trackable now that there was light—I thought she was stepping up to the pulpit. The sudden loud crunch of stone and wood echoed through the nave.

“Back to the tunnels,” she said, her voice tight.

My healing magic told me that her knuckles were bleeding from hitting whatever she’d just punched. But the wounds were superficial, already closing thanks to her paranormal constitution. No one commented.

No other orders were needed. We moved again, swift and silent. Out the back of the church, down another stairwell. Back into the pitch black of the tunnels.