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Bayou Shadow Hunter
Debbie Herbert
Secrets that lurk in the Bayou…Bent on revenge, Native American Shadow Hunter Tombi Silver could turn to only one woman for help. ‘Witch’ Annie Matthew’s ability to hear auras allowed her to discover Tombi’s friend, mystically trapped by forces that could destroy them all. Yet her accompanying message of a traitor in their midst meant Tombi could trust no one!Dare he bring Annie along on his quest to fight shadow spirits? Putting his faith in someone outside his tribe, especially one who pulled at his tightly controlled desires, could prove just as dangerous as his mission…
Wrong time, and possibly the wrong man.
But as if her arms werenât controlled by her brain, Annie reached around his back and drew him to her.
His back muscles tightened beneath her touch and he drew in a ragged breath. Tombi stilled, as if warring with his sexual desire and his duty in the world outside the tent.
Annie wanted him desperately, just for a few minutes, a little slice of time. She saw how much he gave to the others, how they looked up to him. Didnât he deserve a few minutes of happiness for himself?
Didnât she?
Who knew what dangers the night and the hunt might bring?
DEBBIE HERBERT writes paranormal romance novels reflecting her belief that love, like magic, casts its own spell of enchantment. Sheâs always been fascinated by magic, romance and gothic stories. Married and living in Alabama, she roots for the Crimson Tide football team. Her oldest son, like many of her characters, has autism. Her youngest son is in the US Army. A past Maggie Award finalist in both young-adult and paranormal romance, sheâs a member of the Georgia Romance Writers of America.
Bayou Shadow
Hunter
Debbie Herbert
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is dedicated to my mother, April Deanne Goodson Gainey, who passed away while I wrote this book. I thank her for her belief in me as a woman and as a writer. Miss you, Mom.
Contents
Cover (#ua756394b-fc61-504e-ac8d-b72b5faa77ae)
Introduction (#u3b0ada75-48a7-5a2b-b058-5256d9e81c1f)
About the Author (#uedfb4a67-65fd-5f95-b435-03c991c57daf)
Title Page (#u4174fd35-a9e0-5e3b-99a9-bb2f719c3ab4)
Dedication (#u941a64d6-d314-51fe-bf44-836c66b29737)
Chapter 1 (#u7fe6f5e5-c179-5ffe-841a-3b92ef778274)
Chapter 2 (#u3ae50737-8e76-5f52-9ab8-60cb285479d3)
Chapter 3 (#u50428b48-4f1b-5b3d-8bf5-18d96dd7a95c)
Chapter 4 (#ud83cf5d2-844b-56e1-b872-15d782432a55)
Chapter 5 (#ufced2885-8002-5194-b2ca-6a53e4c4c78e)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_47dc3118-30b4-5fed-9d34-fbc1c046001a)
âThunder Moon cominâ tonight. Yer life is fixinâ to change.â
Grandma Tia called the August full moon âThunder Moonâ and proclaimed it a time of enchantment. Annie had to admit tonight did appear magical and mysterious. The forest beckoned with its thick canopy of trees draped in long tendrils of Spanish moss that fluttered in the sea breeze with a silver shimmer like a living veil of secrecy.
And so they had burned tiny scraps of paper where theyâd written what they wanted purged from their lives. As sheâd done every month for most of her life, Annie had written only one thing. The same thing. She held the paper to candle flame, watching it catch fire and curl in on itself before the wind carried it away. It splintered into tiny embers that flickered like fireflies before turning to ash.
Annie sat on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest and staring out the window, pondering her grandmaâs words. She could use some change. Lots of it. If only she could get rid of... No. No point agonizing over that, when she was so close to sleep.
A green glow skittered erratically in the swampy darkness.
Very pretty. Annie turned away from the bedroom window, yawned and slipped into bed, pulling a thin cotton sheet over her head like a cocoon.
Wait a minute... She jerked to a sitting position and peered out the window across the room. Each glass pane framed squares of refracted moonbeams piercing through tumbles of tree limbs. A patchwork quilt of the macabre.
But on second glance, no green, glowing orbs of light dotted the nightâs landscape. Must have been a trick of the eye or the flash of a dream. Perhaps it was merely that Grandma had planted the suggestion of something magical happening tonight when they had gone outside after dinner and held a brief lunar ritual. Full moons represented death and change, a time for powerful magic.
A ball of light again materialized at the tree line, not more than twenty feet from their cottage. It burned blue at the center and green at the edges. Annie instinctively touched the silver cross nestled in the hollow of her throat, palm flattening above the rapid thumping of her heart.
A teal stream of light broke away from the orb, forming a tail like a comet hurtling across the night sky. The pixilated specks of color were magical as fairy dust, coalescing into the shape of an arm, beckoning her closer.
Dare she?
Annie scrambled off the bed, feet touching the rough-hewn pine floorboard, still sun-warmed from the dayâs ferocious heat. She raced to the back door and slid into flip-flops she kept at the entry. Hand on the door, she paused and glanced to her left. Grandmaâs bedroom door was open, and her deep, labored breathing wafted across the cottage. Annie softly tiptoed to the room and peeked inside.
Grandma Tiaâs hair was wrapped in a satin cloth that nestled against a white pillowcase. Her lined face was relaxed in a way only produced by sweet dreams. The weight and worry of time and lifeâs sorrows laid aside in a few hours of respite.
She wouldnât rouse her from slumber. Grandma Tiaâs heart condition meant she needed rest. Annieâs eyes rested on the red flannel gris-gris bag hung on the bedpost. Which reminded her to grab her own mojo bag. She hurried back to her bedroom, retrieved it from beneath the pillow and tied it to the drawstring of her pajama bottoms. Just in case. A quick glance out the window confirmed the green light still hovered a few feet above ground.
Despite the late hour, humidity cocooned her body in a damp embrace the moment she stepped outside. To top it off, the light had disappeared again. She sat on the concrete porch steps and lifted her hair off the back of her sticky nape, waiting and watching.
Probably nothing but swamp gas. The night buzzed with a battalion of insects, and she cocked her head to one side, listening, actively expanding her energy outward to pick up even the subtlest of soundâthe wind swirling clumps of sand, the hoot of an owl far awayâall against the eternal ebb and flow of the distant ocean tide.
What was she doing out here? Normally, she wouldnât think of investigating something alone, but, like a cat, curiosity overrode her fear.
Something prickled her skin. The air danced with a faint tinklingâlike the fading echo of tiny bells rung from deep within the forest. Annie closed her eyes, gathering the vibration of musical notes, assimilating a pattern: one, two, two, three, two, two, five, two, two.
Melodic patterns had called to her since kindergarten when a teacher handed out metal triangles and wands. Sheâd pinged the base, and the ringing vibration had shivered down her spine. A living pulse that had been a first clue of her gift, her curse, her fate. Other kids had banged away on the triangles until the pureness of the music changed to an unbearable din, and sheâd run out of the classroom.
Sheâd been running ever since.
But tonightâs high-pitched bell notes made her feet itch to dance and throw her arms open to embrace the night. It had a certain symmetry and lyrical quality that charmed. It drew her, tugged at her soul...
Annie opened her eyes. More than a dozen orbs of light danced in the distant darkness. They were a rainbow of colors and sizes and varied in brightness.
That was where the music came from.
They called her, beckoned her to draw near. She rose unsteadily to her feet, light-headed with awe, and slowly stepped away from the cottage. The lights bobbed and darted behind and between the oaks. All at once, the orbs disappeared, as if someone had turned off a switch. Annie ran toward the woods. For once she ran to the music instead of away from its source.
Wait for me. Donât leave me behind.
As if hearing the unspoken words, a bluish-green orb flashed. A spectacular, southern aurora borealis. It was the first, lone light sheâd seen from the bedroom window, as distinctive and individual as a human form. She ran across the yard, plunged into the woods, down a narrow trail littered with pinecones and broken twigs. Black night, thick with heat, pressed around her body, yet she stumbled forward, ever deeper. More lights bobbled ahead, just beyond reach. Mosquitoes buzzed her ears and nipped her arms and chest. The sulfur smell of swampland grew more pungent and sharp.
Annie didnât care. The blue light glowed like a lantern against the darkness, and the crystalline notes played from its burning core. Low-lying branches scraped her arms and face, and her legs grew wooden with exhaustion as on she walked, following ever deeper.
A clearing opened onto a muddy bank, and Annie pulled up short at the sight of a brackish pond. Mud gooshed over her sandals and between her toes. The slimy sensation worked like a face slap. Blackness shadowed the night as a cloud passed over the moon, and the glowing orbs vanished once more. The music stopped, and silence gathered, dense and foreboding.
âUmm...hello? Anybody out there?â She didnât know whether she felt more foolish or frightened. She lifted one foot out of the goo and almost lost a sandal. âTerrific. This is just great.â
Screeching eruptedâas if a parliament of enraged owls or a volt of vultures were descending on her for interloping on their territory. Annie clamped hands over ears and squeezed her fingertips over the ear canals, but the noise and pressure felt like a bomber plane taking off inside her brain. Turning blindly, she ran, desperate to escape the sound attack.
What the hell is this? Where is it coming from? It was like a combination of an animal screech, a howl of pain, shattering glass and a jarring, jumbled chorus of dissonant chords, as if someone were banging an untuned piano.
Silence crashed the darkness. Annie leaned her back against an oak tree and hunched down, panting. Relieved the noise had stopped but expecting it to return any moment, her body was coiled and tense. She grimaced at the stitch in her side and tried to regulate her breathing to a slower pace. Calm down. Think.
She tilted her head upward, rough bark grazing her scalp. The moon glowed, laced with a web of black thread from the treetops. The sky held a thin promise of dawn, evidenced only by a violet-hued line in the east that graduated to black by degrees.
Great. So she knew where east lay. But that was the extent of her internal compass. And it didnât help her figure out how to get back to the cottage. Best to stay right where she was and wait for daylight. If she was lucky, someone, maybe a hunter, would be along, or she would recognize some landmark once the sun emerged.
How could she have been so stupid as to trot off at night into the bayou after a will-oâ-the-wisp or whatever that light was? She shuddered. Focus. Right now there were rattlers and water moccasins and gators to worry about. And who knew what other cursed creatures roamed the land.
She swatted at a mosquito nipping her arm. Hmm. Could snakes climb trees? A glance upward revealed that seeking higher ground was a non-option. The nearest limb was several feet above her standing height. When she recouped her strength, perhaps she should search for a stone or stick just in case...
âHelp me!â
The deep baritone voice rumbled along her spine.
Annie scrambled to her feet and searched the shadows. âWhoâs there?â
Silence. Okay, she was going to be that person in the headline news who was lost in the woods and found days later, a nutcase raving about swamp monsters and Big Foot and saying sheâd been carted away by aliens on their UFO.
Nothingâs out there.
âPlease.â
The anguish in that word was too tortured not to be real. Annie shivered despite the heat and sweat coating her body. Ignoring someone elseâs pain went against all her healing instincts. âWhere are you? Who are you?â
An orb manifested not ten feet from where she stood. No warning, no gathering of light, no sound. One second before loomed a dark void, and in a clockâs single tick, the orb absorbed the space.
The blue-green light swirled and pulsed like a breathing, living thing. The same orb sheâd seen first from her bedroom window.
So the question was no longer where or who but âWhat are you?â she whispered.
âThe shadows trapped me.â
The voice rumbled in her gut, vibrating in her being. âYouâre...trapped in the light?â she asked haltingly.
âMy heart beats within. Look.â
At the core of the blue light shone a concentrated mass of teal that swelled and contracted. In, out, in, out, pulsing with the cosmic rhythm of life.
A heart.
Not the flowers-and-lace, cupid sort drawn by five-year-olds, but the itâs-alive-and-itâs-real-and-it-beats kind. Annieâs breath hitched, and she took an unsteady step backward. She couldnât stop staring at the fist-sized gelatinous mass of muscle that pumped and wobbled.
âI need out,â the low-timbered voice pleaded. âHelp me get out.â
She shook her head violently, her own heart pounding a song of fear. âI donât know how.â And even if she did, no way was she freeing...whatever it was. Not until she knew its true nature.
âMy name is Bo,â it said. âFind Tombi and tell him I live. Heâs in grave danger. Trust no one within the circle. I was betrayed. And if he was ever my true friend, he needs to find that betrayer. I canât be released until then.â
âI donât know this Tombi person,â she protested.
âHeâs coming now. Tell him to beware.â
