by Leia Stone
Understanding dawned in her features and she smiled. “Your moral values were tested because he looked too young? So innocent? Oh, honey, that’s a good thing. That’s your God-given innocence showing.”
I relaxed a little. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
Maz’s fingers flew over the keyboard as she looked at the screen before her. I sat there, waiting, unsure what she was doing, until she called me over.
I stepped over and went around her desk. On the screen was the young boy from last night, the one Liv killed.
“Was that him?” Maz asked.
He looked so innocent in this picture, a mop of curly blond hair.
Chase Bolen, it said below the photo.
Then I scrolled through the other information present.
Looks sixteen, actually thirty-seven. Wanted for murder, assault, stalking, breaking and entering.
My eyes bugged at the information.
Maz clicked an arrow and a photo of a dead woman sprawled out on the carpet of an apartment came into view. A floral couch sat behind her. There was no blood, no big wounds that I could tell; she just looked pale and was unnaturally lying there. My eyes flicked to her neck, where there were two puncture marks.
“Simone Freesome. Human. Twenty years old and on a basketball scholarship at Gonzaga University,” Maz told me. “Chase killed her a few months back.”
I chewed my lip and she pulled up another photo. “This is Conner. He was at the raid as well. Stephanie, Harper…” She flipped through a bunch of photos all showing their name and age and a list of what they’d done wrong as the walls closed in around me.
I’d been so stupid to question this. To question Maz.
“I … I’m sorry. It’s just been a rough few weeks,” I told my mentor, my mind spinning.
Maz nodded. “I understand, dear. It’s good that you question these things. It means you’re human and you have a beautiful heart.”
I nodded, forcing myself to say the next few words. “Can you show me what Luka Drake did?”
Maz stilled, her hand frozen over the keyboard. “Your kill from a few weeks ago?”
I dipped my head. “It was … hard. He seemed … normal.”
Maz shook her head. “They all do, dear.”
Her fingers flew over the keyboard and then she pulled up Luka’s photo. My heart twisted into a lead ball in my chest, constricting my breathing.
Luka Drake, looks twenty-two, actually thirty-two. Prince of the Drake royal line. Crimes: Murdering his own father, rape, draining a feeder.
The room spun as I looked at his crimes. Luka killed his father? Rape? Bile rose in my throat as I clasped my hands together to keep them from shaking. “Do you have … evidence?”
Maz gave a curt nod, pulling up a photo.
I took one glance at the redheaded girl sprawled out in the woods with two prick marks on her neck and turned away.
My heart pounded so loudly in my chest, I was sure Maz heard it.
He lied. He was a murderer and rapist and he lied to me. I’d been tricked. I’d played with the devil and lost the game.
Concealing any of my emotions from my face, I reached out and clasped Maz’s hand.
“I feel better. Thank you,” I lied. I felt like I wanted to throw up. I felt like I wanted to take a razor wire to Luka’s neck.
Maz nodded. “Of course, dear, you can always come to me with this stuff.”
I left her office feeling a heavy depression settle over me. I knew there was only one cure.
Luka Drake had to die. No more games. It just needed to be done.
“That lying bastard.” Liv was still fuming, even after we’d arrived at our remote cabin in Montana. Yaak, Montana, was literally in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but trees, wide open land, and moose. Just like I liked it. It lacked people and grocery stores and even cell service, but it was a safe haven for hiding out. Rumor had it that the CIA had cabins along the Yaak River for when they needed to disappear. Liv and I bought a tiny cabin last year in case we ever needed to bug out. We’d paid cash for it and no one from the society knew about it, including Maz.
We’d told Maz we were going on vacation to San Diego and then we decided to hunker down in the cabin on the river while I dried Luka out and he starved to death. From what the book said, it would be a rough few days for me as well, but then it would be done and I wouldn’t need to worry about it anymore.
I couldn’t kill him outright, he was too human to me, but I could withhold his meals. After seeing the picture of the woman he murdered and knowing he’d lied to me, I just couldn’t do this anymore; it was eating at my soul to live this double life.
“This is the right thing,” I told Liv as we pulled my Beetle up to the river house.
In the winter, this place was blanketed in snow, but right now, in late summer, it was perfect.
“I missed this place,” Liv sighed, as I directed my car into the little overhang carport.
“We should take the canoe out, do some fishing before you really start feeling it,” Liv offered.
I nodded, the knot in my stomach tightening with each passing moment. I was going to starve Luka Drake to death.
Every time I felt bad about it, I pulled up the mental image of the redheaded girl he’d killed.
Raped.
Fresh hot anger rushed through me and I nodded, grabbing my duffle bag as Liv and I stepped onto the porch.
I’d turned my phone off so that it couldn’t be tracked. Even though there was no cell service here on the Yaak, I wasn’t taking any chances.
The sun was going to set in a few hours, so Liv and I made quick work of readying the house for our stay. I turned on the well pump, dusted off the furniture, and opened the windows while Liv started up the refrigerator and transferred the contents of our cooler into it.
After that, we pulled the old canoe out and brushed off the spider webs.
“We haven’t been up here in ages. Feels good to get away.” Liv smiled as she looked out at the river and our sad little dock that was in desperate need of repair. One post had sunken in, making it crooked, and I felt bad for not taking better care of this place. Montana was God’s country; everywhere I looked I saw his perfect design. Liv and I had gotten this place for a hundred grand. It had a composting toilet, well, and solar electricity. The perfect off-grid house.
I sighed, letting the nature and fresh air settle into my bones and give me strength for the task ahead.
The sun was still out, warming us with its rays as we launched the canoe out onto the water. We paddled as we passed other houses, waving at some of the older neighbors who didn’t know who we were.
I’d convinced Liv to buy this place after my twentieth kill. Hunters had a shelf life of about twenty-five to thirty years. Finn was pushing it. In fact, now that I thought about it, he was the oldest hunter in our Spokane branch, save for Maz. All that violence and danger eventually wore you down or took you out. It was actually Sterling who told me it was a well-known thing that hunters had little boltholes they stashed away for the day they would retire … if they weren’t killed in action. By then your face was well known in the supernatural community and so you just faded away into some small town where no one knew your past.
This place would do until Liv and I could upgrade to our private island.
“Do you think he can sense where you are?” Liv asked suddenly.
My eyes widened. “Luka?” I could feel him just under my skin, like a thought waiting to pop into my head. “No. No way.” I wasn’t actually sure, but that idea horrified me.
Liv relaxed a little, slowing her paddling as the water’s stream carried our canoe. “And it will take three days to kill him?”
I mean, I didn’t exactly know, but hadn’t he said he needed to feed every two days to survive?
“I think so,” I added.
Liv looked happier at that, nodding curtly. “In four days, this will be a distant memory, and we can go back to
hunting and never speak of this again.”
That was one thing we both agreed on. “Ever. Ever. Again,” I agreed.
We fished for an hour, catching two large trout before heading back to hunker in the cabin. Looking over at my bestie, I thanked God for her. I wouldn’t be able to go through this with anyone else.
That night, we ate a good dinner of grilled lemon-seasoned trout and potatoes. After playing two hours of Scrabble, we said goodnight and I tucked into bed in my little room at the far end of our small cabin.
As my eyes were drifting off to sleep, I felt him.
‘Aspen? I thought you were coming over? Everything okay?’
I swallowed hard, guilt worming its way into my chest, but again I pulled up the image of the redheaded girl and pushed the guilt down.
Rape.
Murder.
Lies.
Ignoring Luka, I fell asleep.
The next day was rough. I felt as sick as a dog from the thirst symptoms Luka must be having. Headache, chapped lips, dry mouth no matter how much water I drank, and uncontrollable anger.
‘Aspen, are you hurt?’ Luka checked in with me for the fifth time that day, and I was having a hard time ignoring him. ‘Where are you?’ Maybe it was the thirst, maybe it was the anger about the way he lied, but my resolve was thinning.
“Don’t talk to him,” Liv snapped at me as she brought me more ice chips from the freezer.
“I’m not!” I growled.
“He is a rapist and a murderer. A demon like all the rest,” Liv told me, and I nodded.
“I know,” I whimpered, a single tear falling down my cheek.
Did I know? I’d seen the photo, but why was my gut telling me something else?
If God made you, he made me too.
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the thoughts from my brain.
No.
Over the next five hours, Liv blasted music, fed me soup, played cards and even charades, all while I was curled into a ball on the couch, ignoring Luka’s pleas and dying from the worst headache I’d ever had in my life.
‘Aspen!’ Luka’s voice was so desperate I couldn’t take it anymore. ‘Tell me where you are and I’ll save you. I’ll come for you.’
He’ll save me?
‘I don’t need to be saved. I need you dead,’ I seethed with hatred, finally addressing him. ‘You lying, murdering rapist!’ I hurled at him as the rage of the thirst finally consumed what pleasantries were left in my body.
I felt Luka recoil as if I’d stung him.
‘They got you. They fully got you,’ was all he said, and then he went silent.
They fully got you? What the hell was that supposed to mean?
My mind chewed on that for hours.
They fully got you.
If God made you, he made me too.
I’ll come for you.
My thoughts were a delirious jumble.
Finally, at midnight on the second day, when Liv was brushing a cool cloth across my forehead, I broke into sobs.
“Make it stop, Livvie. Please.”
I looked up at my best friend to see tears line her eyes. “I wish I could.”
Sobs wracked my body as I felt Luka’s presence slip away and our bond grew fuzzy as blackness took me. Was it only day two? Or was it already day three? Time was so weird. I’d changed clothes and I was no longer on the couch.
“Liv?”
“You passed out.” She looked at me with wide eyes; dark circles hung like bags under her black lashes.
I felt for him, for Luka, and burst into tears when I came up with nothing. Just an open void where he once used to be.
I didn’t realize how much of myself had been enmeshed with him until now. Until he was gone.
“He’s go—” Before I could get the words out, the door burst off its hinges and splintered in half.
Liv wasted no time throwing herself forward into an army roll and grabbing her katana.
In the doorway stood three women I recognized.
Sage, Demi, and Isabella.
“You little bitch!” Isabella seethed.
They were here for revenge. They were here to kill me, and I was so weak and frail right now there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Izzy rushed forward, but Demi reached out and yanked her by the back of the neck.
“I got this. Stand down,” the alpha growled.
Izzy froze, lowering her head in submission.
Whoa.
I’d never seen anyone subdue a vampire like that.
Sage was looking at me with pity as she and Demi strode across the room and over to Liv, who was ready to fight them both to protect me.
“Stand down,” Demi growled, her eyes flashing yellow, and Liv went stock still.
I gasped as I realized what was happening.
Demi had the gift of compulsion.
A wolf? How? It wasn’t supposed to work on us … my mind reeled as I prepared myself for the inevitable.
Demi strode past Liv, her long blond hair swishing at her back, and my eyes fell to her t-shirt.
It’s a good day to leave me alone, it said with an image of a sloth hanging in a tree.
Any other day and I would have liked this girl; we would probably be friends. But she was an alpha werewolf who had just compulsed my best friend and was now here to revenge-kill me. She was my enemy.
I grabbed the remote, clutching it loosely in my hand as my body started to shake from thirst symptoms.
Demi looked down at me and shook her head in disappointment.
“Listen, Aspen, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re in a cult. They lie to you, make up profiles on the vamps you kill to assuage your guilt, and trick you into murdering them. Luka’s a good guy, an innocent guy, and you’re killing him.”
Cult? Fake profiles? Did she think I was stupid? Maybe it was the three-day headache or the lack of sleep, but I found what she’d just said hilarious. Tipping my head back, I laughed, deep and throaty.
Demi crouched onto the couch and leaned inches from my face. I swear I saw the ghost of a wolf flash over her face then. A white one, but then it was gone.
“Listen, hunter, you think you know about the supernatural world because you’ve killed a few vampires? Seen a werewolf? You know nothing. You have no idea what we deal with, blind to your human eyes.”
Chills rose up on my arms.
“What do you mean?” A lump formed in my throat as the hilarity of it all wore off.
“I don’t have time to enlighten you right now. I need you to save Luka,” she barked.
“I’d rather die than save that demon!” I snarled.
She bared her teeth. “That is a problem for me because he’s my husband’s best friend and the future king of the vampires. If we can win him the crown, we can be sure to end the war with the vampires. So, I need you to get up and feed him and knock this shit off!” With that, she gestured to the open doorway and I peered out to see the same helicopter from before.
Was Luka in there right now?
“No!” I shouted in her face with as much anger as I could muster in my delirium.
Demi cried out in frustration, raising her arms up into the air. “I’d force you to do it, but Luka said he’ll only feed from you willingly.”
I didn’t believe her. He was dying, of course he’d feed from me right now whether I wanted him to or not!
Demi snapped her fingers, and Izzy rushed forward and handed her a smart phone. The female alpha looked at Liv, who was flattened against the wall, staring at us both. “You might as well both see this,” Demi told her, and then called Liv over.
“Show them how you do it—quickly,” Demi instructed Izzy.
Izzy nodded, throwing a glare my way, and sat on the edge of the couch as Liv and I looked expectantly over at her phone.
“What is th—?” I stopped as I saw her tap an app called VHS. When it opened, “Vampire Hunter Society” scrolled across the screen and then four logos. I gasped w
hen I saw they were the four hunter Houses of Rose, Thorn, Ashes, and Skulls. She touched the House of Rose logo. The app opened and my jaw unhinged when Izzy tapped the word “Mark.”
She typed in Luka Drake and then uploaded a photo of her cousin. Liv and I stared wide-eyed as she then used a dropdown menu to select her bounty price.
It wasn’t until she tapped “Choose Your Hunter” that a whimper left my throat.
There, next to Vasquez and Liv, was my picture. It had my stats underneath: kill rating, age, everything. All of our names were there. “I’d have taken you deeper into the app but this is all I can access without WiFi.” Izzy looked sideways at me as she closed the app and canceled the hit. “There are no families or chief of police that hire you. We do. Rival vampires, fey, witches, whoever. You’re hired assassins,” Izzy said blankly.
“No,” Liv whimpered, shaking her head vigorously.
I’d noticed that the lowest bounty able to be paid was twenty thousand. But we only got five. That meant Maz was taking seventy-five percent. Bile rose in my throat as my body went into shock. Nothing was real.
“Aspen, it’s not real. This is a trick,” Liv said.
But I knew in my bones that it wasn’t and I didn’t feel anything about it. I just felt numb, cold, void of … anything. My tower of beliefs had just been knocked down and I was crushed between the rubble.
My whole life was a lie.
I stood, unsteady on my feet as I began to shuffle towards the sound of whirring helicopter blades outside. I started to fall forward when I got to the doorway as dizziness overtook me, but Sage caught me.
“Don’t do it! It’s a lie!” I heard Liv wail, but the tone of her voice was full of heartbreak. She felt the truth as I did.
With Sage’s help, I walked barefoot and shivering across the yard toward the open helicopter door.
Sawyer, the other alpha, was at Luka’s feet, his head hung low in his hands. My eyes flicked to Luka, who was barely conscious. His body was shriveled inward, like a rotting cucumber, and it killed me to know that I did that to him. Sawyer’s head snapped up as I stepped onto the helicopter and Sage helped me to kneel at Luka’s side.