by Leia Stone
I reached out and shook her. “Liv … breathe. You’re scaring me.”
“Surely imprinting is a myth,” she finally said, “and even if it’s true, it’s only for werewolves and certainly not humans.”
Her confidence made me feel better. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Maybe I’d imagined the mental speaking thing.
She pulled me over to a bench and yanked me down to sit with her. “But … why would you think you imprinted or whatever?”
I took in a deep breath and described the feeding. In detail. Including the intense sexual energy of it and when I’d heard him speak into my mind. She grimaced through the entire thing and I was mortified beyond belief.
“Well … that does sound different, but maybe you were just horny. I mean, you haven’t had a boyfriend since Sterling—”
“Liv! Get real,” I shouted. “I’m not horny, and that doesn’t explain hearing his voice in my head after!” I winced when a passerby glared at us. Shouting horny in the middle of a public park wasn’t even the low point of the last twenty-four hours, and that was just sad.
Liv nodded, her tight dark curls shaking around her shoulders. “Well, that was just a hallucination fueled by panic.”
“Really?” Maybe she was right. Maybe I was freaking out for no reason. I relaxed at her reassurances.
“Close your eyes. Do you hear him now?” she coaxed me.
I did as she said.
Hello?
Nothing. But … I did feel different. When I concentrated on the feeling, it was like … I could feel him, like I knew how he was doing, what he was feeling. He was … confused, scared.
No. I was imagining that.
My eyes snapped open. “Nope. Don’t hear anything.”
The best thing I could do now would be to forget the whole thing happened and go on with my life.
“You need to keep your neck covered until that crap heals. Maz would lose her mind.” Liv eyed the angry puncture marks on my neck that I stroked with my fingers. One of the DNA modifications I’d underwent did speed up healing, but nothing vampire level. It would still take a day or two for this to disappear completely.
I nodded. “So you don’t think I need to go on the run and leave the society?” I clutched my bug-out bag, thinking of the exit plan that Liv and I put in place in case things ever went sideways.
Liv barked out in laughter. “Wouldn’t be the first time a hunter has willingly let a vampire feed from them, won’t be the last. Come on, let’s go home.”
Liv and I grew up in the society. We were raised by hunters and Maz, who told us some pretty crazy vampire hunting stories. Liv was right, this wasn’t the first time, and her nonchalance was making me feel tons better.
“Yeah, no biggie,” I said, but the knot in my stomach told me it was a very big thing indeed.
Once we got back to the society, I covered my neck with a scarf and gave Maz a modified rundown of everything that had happened.
“Cursed Shadow Bloods!” she rasped as she took a dried blood sample from my shirt to identify Luka Drake’s DNA. In place of a head, this was the next best thing. Why was I lying and saying he was killed? Why didn’t I just say he got away?
Partly because I’d never not taken a mark—and because then she’d send a bigger team after him and he’d die. He saved my life … twice. I just wasn’t ready to kill him yet.
The machine that she’d put the blood sample into beeped.
“Luka Drake. Well done,” she said, and my phone buzzed. She’d paid me the twenty-five grand. I almost sagged in relief.
“I have something else I want to speak with you about,” she said, and panic flared inside me.
She knew.
Oh frick, she knows.
I kept my face calm. “What’s up?”
She beamed at me, grinning so big that her hair covering pressed into her cheeks. “The annual Hunter Society Gala is coming up.”
I nodded, feeling relieved she hadn’t started with Did you allow Prince Luka to feed from you and are you now imprinted like werewolves?
“I always take a senior hunter with me to represent the Spokane branch. I’d like to bring you.”
Holy bloodsucker.
My mouth opened and closed like a fish as pride and shock ripped through me. Did this mean … I was a senior hunter? “Thank you, Maz … I’d be honored.”
Every branch of the society all across the world sent a lead member like Maz and one senior hunter to the gala. It was a huge freaking honor to rub shoulders with the society’s elite.
She nodded, smiling. “We leave Friday. Pack an evening gown. If you don’t have one, buy one. You could meet your future husband at this thing.” She winked.
Maz was badass, and in some ways forward thinking, I mean she was one of the founding members of the society, but in every other aspect she was old school. I was nineteen! Marriage was so far off my radar it wasn’t even funny.
“I’ll get a dress. Thanks.” Friday was three days away.
“Hey, Maz … does this mean I’m a senior hunter?” I was still in shock by her invite to the gala.
Maz walked over to her desk, using her key to unlock the top drawer. My breath hitched in my throat as she pulled out the twenty-four-carat golden stake pin and handed it to me. “Wear it with pride, dear. You deserve it.”
As I reached for the pin, a small pang of guilt washed over me. I technically hadn’t killed Luka Drake … but I could have, and I watched Thorin die, so there was one less Drake in the world.
Yeah, I did deserve this.
I ducked out of the office with a smile on my face.
Chapter Four
“She asked you? What the hell? I’m basically her daughter.” My bestie crossed her arms and glared at me from behind the punching bag.
I chuckled, throwing a right jab into the bag as she reached out to steady it. “Way to take the high road and be happy for me.”
She blew air through her lips, staring at the golden pin I had clipped onto the top of my sports bra. Today after I got in, I’d showered and crashed I was so exhausted. This was my first time seeing Liv. I’d woken late this morning to an empty apartment, and after I’d put makeup over my neck bite, and read a bit of the Hunter Scriptures to reinforce the fact that I still hated evil vampires, I’d gone in search of my bestie.
“Obviously I’m happy for you. But … I thought we’d make senior hunter together.” She pouted, pushing her thick bottom lip out.
Liv was so gorgeous, I swear I felt like a beast next to her sometimes. She was a curly-haired hazel-eyed goddess with full lips and curves in all the right places, and she knew it too. I felt beautiful, but more in an exotic way, a way that not every guy liked. I was half Singaporean, half Sicilian-Italian according to my adoption papers, and I often wondered about my birth parents.
“Hello? Welcome to Earth?” Liv waved frantically in front of my face and I threw a left jab.
I shrugged. “Sorry, babe. I’m just that good.”
After flipping me off, she changed the subject. “Hey, I had an idea while you were sleeping. Just to make sure that thing we talked about earlier is really a myth.”
The color drained from my face and I looked over my shoulder. We were in the training room doing high intensity workouts. My bright red hair was plastered to my neck with sweat, covering the feeder marks. The marks were almost gone. Within another twenty-four hours they should be unrecognizable.
“Okay…” I thought we’d agreed to forget about it. That it wasn’t a big deal.
“Come on, I’ll show you.” She started to unwrap her gloves. Our workout was over, but we usually showered after and then grabbed lunch from Kenz. This must be damn important to bring her sweaty, hungry ass off schedule. As we weaved in and out of hallways and up the elevator of the society, it dawned on me where we were going.
“The Creepy Library?” I whisper-screamed.
She looked back at me, grinning. “Remember when we came in here when we
were like thirteen? They had that freaking preserved vampire finger in there.”
I remembered. She’d run back to the youth dormitory shaking in fear. As Liv got to the double doors and placed her finger on the keypad, it beeped, letting her in.
There was a regular hunter library with normal books and stuff, and then there was this thing. This was … more like a relics vault. We all called it The Creepy Library, even Maz, who I was pretty sure named it. Anything weird that we found while hunting, like a pendant or vampire appendage, made it in here. Not to mention a boatload of rare books stolen from the bloodsuckers themselves.
I wondered if Liv thought we would read about vampire imprinting in here … assuming it was real.
“You’re a genius,” I told her as we entered the stale smelling room. I would surely put this fear to rest by finding a book in The Creepy Library that said it wasn’t possible for a human and a vampire to imprint.
She grinned and both of our gazes fell on a jar with a petrified bat inside.
“Eww.” Liv squirmed and reached for a book that sat just behind the bat. One by one we just grabbed books and flipped through them, looking for anything having to do with imprinting or mental speak. I was reading a book on vampire royalty and their powers when I stilled on the family tree.
Luka Drake.
My fingers brushed his name and I wondered if my blood had saved his life. He seemed pretty damn alert and healed as I was leaving…
Under his name was his birthdate, 1989. Weird, he was thirty-two. I mean, he looked twenty-two, but they all did unless they wanted to allow themselves to age more. At least he wasn’t one of those nine hundred year old ones. Those freaked me out.
Under Luka’s birthday were two words.
Dominus coercere.
My hands froze.
My Latin was impeccable. Those two words basically meant “master of compulsion.”
Everyone in the royal family was rumored to have one special power, and most of them could compulse, which luckily we were immune to as hunters—part of the genetic upgrade we had. Maz did say that it would take the queen herself to be able to force a hunter to do anything, but … what about a master of compulsion…?
Did Luka … use it on me? Did he do things and make me forget them? Oh my … a sick feeling rushed through me but I had to push it down.
No. He wouldn’t. He wasn’t like the others.
“Find it?” Liv looked up from her book and I snapped mine shut.
“Nope.”
I couldn’t even process this compulsion stuff right now. I just wanted to keep looking for more information on imprinting and forget I ever saw those two words.
After two hours, the grumbles of our stomachs forced us to go down to the cafeteria and get whatever was left over from Kenzley’s amazing lunch buffet.
As we turned the corner to the hunter cafeteria, Ricky Vasquez turned as well, nearly plowing into Liv. When he saw her, the smile slipped from his face.
Ric and Liv had been on-again, off-again dating since they were fifteen, but each time got more serious and they stayed together longer, making the breakup all the more painful. This time they’d been together two years and Ricky said he wanted to marry her before we found him screwing Daisy Hawkins in the rec room. He said her wanting to stay a virgin until marriage was too hard for him to handle.
Asshole.
“Olivia.” He used her full name, jarring me, because she was Liv to me.
“Vasquez.” She nodded professionally, continuing to walk right past him.
His hand snaked out and grabbed her upper arm. “Wait, can we talk?”
Her head snapped to the side and she stared at his hand on her arm. “Don’t. Ever. Touch. Me. Again.”
His face fell and he let go as Liv stormed off. I repositioned my walk to be closer to him. “Hey, dirtbag,” I muttered, and smacked my shoulder into his as I blasted past.
If you cheated on my best friend, then you were dead to me. There was no getting back together this time and I hoped he knew that. Vasquez said nothing, just watched as we walked away with his head hung low.
As we entered the cafeteria, Liv made a weird noise in her throat. A yip of surprise. I turned to her and noticed the shock marring her features.
“It’s a day for ex-boyfriends I guess,” she said, and I followed her gaze.
I scanned the crowd to see who was here, and my throat tightened a little.
Sterling.
Liv stepped in front of me, as if she could shield me from the fact that the love of my life was a mere twenty feet away. She searched my face for any indication of alarm, but I just smiled and smoothed my sweaty hair down, because he had already seen me and there was no leaving now.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, and she nodded curtly, moving to the side.
Sterling got up from one of the ten banquet style tables and walked over to me casually, like he didn’t throw my heart into a blender six months ago and move to New York City. I tried and failed not to let my eyes roam over every inch of him. When God made Sterling, he spent twice the time he did on creating me. The man was perfection. On a scale of one-to-ten, Sterling was an eleven: a pretty boy with perfect teeth, bronzed skin, blond hair, and piercing green eyes. Even his damn jawline was sexy. There wasn’t an inch to pinch on that man, he was all chiseled granite, rock hard.
“Hey, Aspen.” His deep voice caressed my skin like an old friend as I shook myself out of the trance he’d put over me.
Sterling was my first love, first kiss, almost my first everything. I’d wanted more out of our semi-casual relationship and his answer was to break up with me and move to New York. He lived in a New York City society house now, and had a new girlfriend from what I’d heard.
“Hey. You’re in town?” I tried to act nonchalant, but my hand shook a little as I reached for the pita bread and hummus that Kenzley offered me on a tray he was carrying. What law made you always run into your ex when you were dressed like a sweaty pig?
“Yeah, chasing a mark that fled,” he said casually, and reached onto my plate, grabbing a grape and popping it into his mouth like old times. I wasn’t sure if I loved the fact that he’d just done that or hated it.
I think I hated it.
“Those are fun,” I said. You got free first-class airfare on the society’s dime and got to hang with new hunters out of town. We had a society house in every major city in every country. My dream was to check out the Paris Vampire Hunter Society house one day.
There was an awkward silence and Kenz cleared his throat beside me. “Miss Aspen, I have taken the liberty of ordering you three evening gowns for the Hunters’ Gala. They will be delivered to your room by this evening so you can choose your favorite.”
God bless you, Kenzley. He was trying to make me look cool in front of my ex. He had done no such thing, because he knew I’d order my own dress.
“Thank you,” I told him, and he bowed slightly before walking away.
Sterling’s eyebrows lifted. “Wow. Maz is taking you? Senior hunter, then?” He sounded shocked. His gaze flicked down to my chest at the pin that was tacked on to my sports bra and I tried really hard not to stick my boobs out … and failed.
Anger bubbled up to the surface at the disbelieving tone in his voice. “Yeah, is that hard to believe?”
He bristled. “No … I—”
“I just had a tough workout too, so I’m gonna run. Good to see you.” I waved him off as Liv grabbed two turkey sandwiches and we beelined it out the door.
“Good to see you!” he shouted after me.
Screw you, dude, I wanted to call back, but didn’t. It was good to see him in a bad way. A way that was painful but felt good. I probably needed therapy. He was an asshole, not as bad as Vasquez but emotionally unavailable, and I’d ignored that for too long.
“We need to date normal guys. The society inflates their egos. We need like … engineers or bankers, or boring guys who think we are exciting,” Liv declared.
> I laughed. “I’d like to see you date a freaking banker.”
She was right though. Men in the society were notoriously full of themselves and emotionally unavailable. I just needed to focus on my work and forget all about any men in my life.
Chapter Five
“HOLY SHIT!” Liv shook my shoulders, pulling me out of a deep sleep. As my eyes snapped open, a headache slammed into me. I groaned, rolling onto my side, feeling like my tongue was swollen and stuck to the roof of my mouth. Staying up until 3 a.m. and watching chick flicks while eating all the candy in our apartment had been a bad idea.
BAD.
“Go away,” I mumbled to Liv, and rolled away from her, searching for my water.
“Dude, I couldn’t sleep because Vaz was drunk texting me all night, so I went to The Creepy Library.”
I bolted upright so fast I almost knocked into her face. “And?”
Her eyes were wide. “And if this is true and if you did do this … you’re totally screwed.” She held a ratty brown suede book in her hands.
“Liv!” I looked at my best friend, horrified. “You’re supposed to ease me into it. What does it say?” I stared at the book, my heart in my throat.
Liv chewed her lip. “It’s bad.”
Oh Lord, help me. She didn’t know how to be a best friend, clearly. I was going to have a heart attack over here.
I ripped the book away from her hands and split it open to where her thumb had been marking the spot.
Imprinting
Only werewolves imprint.
“Oh thank God, Liv, you scared the crap out of m—”
“Keep reading.” She winced, perched on my white comforter with red cherry print. I looked down at the book and went on.
Vampiric imprinting, unlike werewolf imprinting, can only be done with a willing feeder and it is very rare. The vampires call it the Bonding. It is not a process one can control, but is thought to be born out of conditions with many factors.
1. The vampire and feeder must both be sexually attracted to each other.
Frick.