Amber Fire Read Online Free PDF

each other.
    Amber blinked and repeated the words. “ A small population remains? What does that mean? It sounds . . . not good. It sounds not good at all.”
    He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees. “The Hunters date back to the Spanish Conquistadors; the Yaguara, much further than that. Yaguara had close ties with the Indians. Our women were dying in childbirth, and a Shaman aided our efforts to heal them. In turn, we offered food and protection. But then the Conquistadors came in large numbers, far larger than our own. They tortured the Indians to get to Yaguara. Yaguara were captured, and experiments were run to test their weaknesses.” He was careful to speak as if he were not Yaguara. He’d come as close to admitting what he was as he’d planned to. Amber was still human; their trust was newborn and fragile.
    â€œAnd those tests led to their methods of hunting,” she said, her face pale with understanding.
    â€œYes,” he said. “But it was not our physical weakness they latched onto, but our emotional bonds. They attacked our villages. Threatened our women and children. Tried to enslave the men to fight for them.”
    Stunned, she whispered, “My God. We’ve done this throughout time. What humans do not know and understand, we fear. And what we fear, we destroy.”
    â€œThe Conquistadors were not afraid,” Jareth said tightly. “They wanted to possess the Yaguara warriors, to use them to fight their wars. But they pushed us too far. Once we would take no more, once the Yaguara stood up and began to fight, they were demonized and have been ever since.” Unbidden, his mind painfully tracked through the hell of discovering that his sister and mother had been locked inside homes and burned alive—only one of the ways to kill an immortal, once ash always ash. Because he’d dared to fight his enemy. “Never again have we lived openly among humans.”
    Her hands ran down her wet pants, her spine stiff. “Who are these Hunters? Are they part of the government? Please tell me our government is not this inhumane.”
    He laughed but not with humor. “The Hunters are nowhere near being part of the government,” he assured her. “They see themselves as above the law. A private club that reaches across the world.” A club of which her father had been a high-ranking member. Something she wasn’t going to accept readily, which was why now was not the time to tell her. No one wanted to hear about how their idol was really a ruthless, murdering bastard. And hers had been. Now was the time to focus on getting her out of this canyon safely.
    There were secrets inside that cavern that the Hunters wished to find, like old Yaguara alliances with Indian tribes that existed to this day, and that could endanger innocent lives. Jareth would not allow that to happen. Nor would the leaders of his race. He did not want Amber, nor anyone else who might be oblivious to the Hunters and their agendas, to be caught in the crossfire if this turned nasty.
    â€œThere are Indian tribes still aligned with Yaguara,” he said. “This area is rich in that history. We cannot allow anyone to be put in danger. Protecting Yaguara’s secrets is protecting innocent lives.”
    â€œI would never do anything to hurt anyone,” she said. “I’ll do what needs to be done.”
    â€œYou have to walk away from the cavern discoveries and do so now.” He went down on a knee in front of her, rested his palms on her slender thighs. “Listen to me, Amber,” he said urgently. “We are dealing with cold-blooded killers, and they are now working from inside your crew. That is why I had to be sure you were not one of them. My instincts said you were not a Hunter, but they are all around you. It was hard to believe you didn’t know any of this.”
    Her eyes widened, her hands settling urgently over his. “No.