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Hunter. This Hunter. And she suddenly lost a little faith in her abilities to escape from the association unscathed.

Chapter 3
    True to her word, China was tougher than she looked. She lasted through the rugged red canyons dotted with green scrub along the valley floor and the endless empty miles between Bisbee and Tombstone without a single complaint. The setting sun was no more than a line of red and gold just over the horizon, the cacti surrounding them reduced to silhouettes. A light evening breeze stirred her loose hair, sending silky tendrils of it spinning about his cheek and neck in a most distracting fashion.
    How much pain was she in? Fool woman was too stubborn to complain. Her body was still ramrod straight and unbending despite the heat and the dusty miles traveled. He’d never seen anything like it in a human. But then she wasn’t human, and he’d best remember that, he chided himself.
    “Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to stop?”
    China sighed. “Can you please stop asking me that? These small town doctors wouldn’t know how to patch up a shifter anyway.”
    Feeling her feminine form against him, he couldn’t figure out how shifters were really all that different. “Aren’t you basically human?”
    She snorted. “No Darkin is basically human, just like no angel is basically spirit and no human is basically an animal.”
    He frowned at that. He’d had it drilled into him by his pa that Darkin were creatures of the night, an unholy amalgam of otherworldly powers and in many cases human flesh, creatures that ought to be unilaterally destroyed. But the rational and questioning part of his mind couldn’t reconcile that. Nothing was completely black or white. Their world was infinite shades of gray, and it was only logical that the Darkin realm would be as well.
    “You don’t bleed black like the other Darkin—” He stopped short of saying I’ve killed.
    “Darkin that bleed black are corrupted. They’ve taken life or souls to feed themselves rather than just in defense.”
    “Huh. Never was taught that.”
    “There’s a lot more to Darkin than you think you know, Jackson.”
    Well. She had that right. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t learn.
    By the time they were nearly to Tombstone, dark had descended on the desert. It was a heavy, warm darkness, deep like velvet sprinkled with sharp, diamond points of white light. Heat still seeped from the rocks, but the air had cooled, carrying with it the scent of creosote and night-blooming cactus flowers. As the gibbous waning moon rose, it washed the valley in pearlescent light, making the new lumber buildings in Tombstone seem to glow from a distance like some magical city. Every now and then the swift dark forms of bats would dart past the glowing moon, their tiny squeaks and flapping wings a contrast to the sounds of humanity laughing and carousing growing louder as they neared Tombstone.
    “In the morning, if you are able, we’ll decipher Diego’s map.”
    Joe’s plodding steps went a little faster as they approached town and the prospect of feed and water. Remington tried to slow him down to keep from jostling China.
    “Where will we be spending the night?”
    Remington didn’t see the need to keep a house in town. He rented rooms at the Occidental Hotel, just as he did his offices across Allen Street from the hotel. It meant less to cope with if he were gone for a time hunting. He could pay his rent in advance, and others took care of the premises. But he could hardly take China to his rooms without there being some notice and talk of it, and he had his reputation as an upstanding attorney to maintain.
    “I’ll get you a room at the Occidental.”
    There was a discordant charm to Tombstone. It was a city in the midst of wilderness. As the dark of the desert gave way to civilization, everything changed. Gas lamps lent a flickering light to the adobe and wooden buildings lining the heart of Tombstone, but their light didn’t