Martyr's Promise: A Paranormal Mystery Romance (Elemental Covenant Book 2)

Sometimes it takes a monster to hunt a monster.

When Summer Mackenzie and her boyfriend disappear in the fog-shrouded forests of Northern California, it sets off more than one alarm. The sheriff’s department is looking for them, the state rangers are on their trail, and even private security companies have gotten involved.

But Summer wasn’t an ordinary college student; she was a human born into the immortal Mackenzie clan, a line of powerful vampires from the Great Smoky Mountains. Now Carwyn ap Bryn and Brigid Connor are getting messages from allies across the world, old rivals, and new friends, all wanting to know where Summer is and why hikers along the Lost Coast keep going missing.

If Brigid and Carwyn can’t find Summer, tensions between vampire clans might snap, leaving more than just the immortal world bloody.

They might know how to search the wilderness, but the Northern California woods hold more than the average share of mysteries. Secretive immortals, suspicious humans, and ancient myths are all at home in a land where human highways come to a dead end and dense forests meet a rugged coast.

Martyr’s Promise is a paranormal mystery in the Elemental Covenant series by Elizabeth Hunter, USA Today best-selling author of A Hidden Fire, Suddenly Psychic, and over forty other works of fantasy fiction.

Chapter One

Summer Mackenzie watched the waves slowly recede from the ash-grey pebbles tucked against the sweep of the foggy California coast. She turned to her right, keeping an eye on the trail where her boyfriend Dani had detoured to look for a campsite.

Low tide wouldn’t be for another six hours, which meant the current leg of their route was impassible until early morning. It would require at least five hours to finish the stretch of trail that took them closest along the beach, and they needed daylight. Summer had learned long ago that you didn’t go into the forest at night.

She’d grown up in Appalachia, and even though she’d been away from those ancient rolling hills of North Carolina for three years, she knew better than to disrespect the woods.

Summer heard Dani before she saw him. Her boyfriend of a year might have been an incredible athlete—with the soccer scholarship to prove it—but he wasn’t a woodsman.

Dani smiled widely when he saw her, and it still left her a little breathless. “I found the perfect spot. Come, you should see this.”

He wasn’t as tall as some of the guys she’d dated, but his shoulders were broad, his hair fell to his shoulders in thick black waves, and his smile could light up the world. He was so handsome sometimes she still did a double take.

Summer was short and, when she was little, often mistaken for a boy with her grubby knees and dirty face. Luckily, her boobs had eventually gotten a little bigger and she wore her red curls long, so the days of someone taking her for a boy were long gone. Even though she still had grubby knees more often than not.

Summer smiled at Dani’s enthusiasm. “The perfect spot, huh?”

“Definitely.” He held out his hand. “You are going to love this one.”

Summer was tempted to leave her pack near the beach, but if Dani had really found a prime camping spot, she didn’t want to backtrack, and there was no way they were staying that close to the water; the waves along California’s Lost Coast had a mind of their own.

Summer hoisted her bag over her shoulder and followed Dani between two pines. “So what’s so special about this spot? There’s a clear camping area up on that last bluff that was all leveled off.”

He turned, his smile still vibrant. “Trust me. I know you think I don’t know anything about camping, but—”

“I have never said that,” Summer protested. “I just know you didn’t grow up in the woods like me. Your knowledge of soccer—”

“Football.”

“Football.” She rolled her eyes. “Your football trivia is expert level. I’m just saying that when it comes to what bugs you can eat in a survival situation, I have skills.”

Dani grabbed her hand. “Summer, please stay with me so you will never eat bugs again.”

She couldn’t hide her smile. “So romantic.”

“Just follow me, mi sol, and you will see.”

When Daniel Uriarte first moved from his high-rise in Mexico City to the rainy streets of Seattle, his idea of an outdoor adventure had been relaxing at a beach resort while a waiter brought him a cold beer. Little by little, Summer had worn him down.

She followed Dani as he led her along a slightly worn path leading into the trees, his broad shoulders carrying a bright orange pack as if it weighed nothing.

Since they’d met, Summer had turned Dani from a total city boy into an outdoor enthusiast. They fished, they hiked, and they’d even backpacked a little. He loved boats, and his family had more than one.

Or maybe they were more like yachts?

Ugh. Rich-people vocabulary was confusing.

“How far back is this site?” She looked at the brush that was giving way to denser forest.

“Not too far.”

Summer couldn’t even imagine the level of wealth that Dani’s family enjoyed. In truth, it was starting to become a Thing They Didn’t Talk About. They had been dating a year, but she hadn’t met Dani’s parents, and he hadn’t met hers. When any of their mutual friends happened to bring up family stuff, they both changed the subject.

Summer had been raised by a high school math teacher and a musician in rural North Carolina. Her father had taught her how to hunt and fish—along with her times tables—and her mother had taught her the guitar and how to cook anything out of everything. They were a traditional clan who took pride in hard work, loyalty, and self-sufficiency.

She had no idea how they’d react to their daughter dating the heir of one of the largest tile empires in Mexico. Half the time, she didn’t know how to react herself.

Dani walked between another set of trees, stopped, and spread out his arms. “Voilà!” He glanced at Summer, whose mouth was agape. “You see, I knew you would love this.”

Love… wasn’t the right word. Summer turned in a circle, her eyes scanning the obviously manmade clearing in the middle of the woods.

A nearly perfect circle of tall pines soared into the sky, their tops obscured by a layer of marine fog. As she stood in the center, she looked up and saw the sun disappear behind a cloud.

Dani was crouched in the center of the clearing, kneeling beside the old stone fireplace in the middle. “It’s perfect, yes? Some local family must camp here.”

No, this was not a family campground.

The dense forest suddenly felt claustrophobic, and Summer felt eyes peering at her through the trees. There was something out there. Something was watching them.

Don’t stare into the trees unless they know your face. Her grandmother’s whisper tugged at her ear, warning her to leave the clearing.

Summer walked over, grabbed Dani’s shoulder, and tugged. “Come on. Let’s go back to the trail.”

Dani stood and frowned. “What are you talking about? This is the perfect spot! The area around the campfire is so clear and level. I checked for poison oak.” He pointed at the fireplace. “See? There is even some wood left over from the last people who stayed here.”

It wasn’t even a firepit; it was a full-out dressed-stone stove with grates in the bottom for wood and braces on either side to hang pots over the flames. This wasn’t natural—it wasn’t even foraged.

This was a lure.

“Dani, just trust me, we shouldn’t stay here.” Instinct told her that they were being watched. “I think we should head back to the trail, okay?”

Dani looked toward the ocean. “We’re not far from it. You can see the ocean from here.” He turned toward the coast. “I bet you could even see a fire from the marked trail. And people come back here.” He pointed to the trail that had led them into the circle of trees. “See?”

She couldn’t explain it, and she loved that he’d found what to any sensible eye seemed like a great spot. “It just… it feels very visible. Everyone can see us.”

Dani set his pack down and sat on a piece of log that circled the fireplace. “Summer, everyone we’ve met on the trail has been so cool. We have to camp until the morning, right? We might as well put our tent in a clear spot with a firepit that someone has already prepared.”

Was she just being stubborn? Paranoid? Granted, her family made it hard to discount the mythological, but she was probably overreacting.

Dani stood and held out his arms. “Listen, even if you are right and people can see us, so what? They can see us just as easily from the bluff on that last hill. We’re the only human beings out here, we have our bear repellent, and I am tired.” His arms dropped. “Please. Can this one thing be easy?”

She looked over her shoulder at the marked trail, then over at the well-worn path through the brush, the forest, and into the clearing. This was obviously a well-used spot on the trail, and the rangers did request that they keep to used camping spots instead of creating their own.

“Okay.” She kept her voice small. “But we’re pitching our tent right by the fire. I don’t want to be near the edge. If something gets into this clearing, I want some advance notice.”