The Hunter's Affection (Bloodwite Book 3)

by Cecelia Mecca

  Lawrence, thankfully, was behind him. The last thing he wanted to see right now was his brother’s obvious disapproval of the situation.

  “So what do you guys think we should do with the vault?” Toni asked.

  Everyone turned toward the south end of the room where the large steel vault remained closed along the wall.

  “Are you still thinking of putting a table in there?” Laria asked.

  “I love that idea. Like a special seat,” Charlotte said.

  “Exactly!” Toni’s excitement made him smile. His brother was a pain in the ass, but this had been his dream for many years. And he had someone to share it with.

  A prospect that sounded slightly less terrifying to him than it once might have.

  “Have you thought of that as a name?” he asked.

  They’d been tossing about names for weeks, but so far nothing had stuck. “The Vault. If you’re going to make that space usable—”

  “I love it. Oh my God, Lawrence! What do you think?” Toni darted behind the bar and grabbed both of Lawrence’s hands. He turned to look at them, awed by the love and reverence he saw in their eyes.

  A vampire and a human. So messy and complicated, possibly even doomed. And yet he sat here contemplating the same thing for himself. A shiver ran down his spine and he looked at Charlotte, who winked at him as he often did to her.

  Was he seriously considering . . .

  “It’s perfect,” Lawrence answered. “The Vault.”

  Apparently their argument was over, for now. Lawrence had already reached under the bar and produced five shot glasses. He filled them with vodka and sambuca, and each of them grabbed one of the celebratory drinks.

  “To The Vault,” Lawrence said.

  Clinking glasses, they all drank, differences temporarily put aside.

  He and his siblings heard the shuffling at the same time. The front door of the bar was about to be opened. A barely discernible click had all three of them turning to the door, waiting for the inevitable. When it did open, Torr didn’t know what to think. Toni’s aunt and uncle walked in, Jim holding a scarred brown book. Could it be?

  Chapter 17

  Charlotte leaned back into Torr, his arms encircling her like a warm blanket. If hard, muscular vampires could be said to be blankets. She watched as Toni’s aunt and uncle walked toward them, looking, oddly enough, at her. It struck her at the same moment that Jim had something in his hands—and Toni was looking at it with unmistakable interest.

  Something was very wrong. Charlotte stood up straighter as Toni blurted out, “Is that—”

  Her uncle cleared his throat, tipping his head toward Charlotte.

  “She knows,” Toni said.

  That’s when Charlotte realized Birdie and Uncle Jim were in on the big secret. They’d been looking at her like that because they weren’t sure she knew.

  “Oh, good,” Birdie said. “Hello, Charlotte, dear.”

  Everyone was “dear” to Birdie.

  She smiled. “Hi, Birdie. Uncle Jim.”

  With that little fact cleared up, everyone turned their attention to the object Jim held, which looked to be a book. Brown leather and really, really old.

  Jim lifted it up, his weathered face puckered into a frown. “Found the journal.”

  Everyone started talking at once, Charlotte turning to Torr for an explanation.

  “Long story” was all he said as Lawrence came around from behind the bar. “I’ll explain later.”

  Toni raised her voice above the clamor. “Why don’t we sit down?”

  She gestured to the area of the room closest to the vault, the conversation nook where she and Charlotte had sat and talked earlier. It was a cozy spot, two loveseats facing each other across a coffee table, clustered with a few plush chairs.

  “Can I get either of you a drink?” Lawrence asked as they all walked over.

  Birdie shook her head as if stunned. Charlotte had never seen her like this. Toni’s aunt, a pillar of the community, always appeared so strong. Fierce. In control.

  But not now.

  In fact, her hands were actually shaking. She and Jim sat down on one of the loveseats, side by side, and Jim held her hand to still it. The journal was still clutched in his other hand.

  “Tell us everything,” Toni said.

  Jim held up the book. Journal. Whatever.

  “Like you know, we already looked everywhere for it. The shop, storage. Our garage at home. And nothing.”

  Torr had pulled Charlotte down next to him on the other loveseat, and she sat so close she was nearly on his lap, his arm draped possessively behind her. He barely had to lean down to whisper to her.

  “Zach Walsh didn’t break into the shop to steal money. He was trying to find that.” He nodded to the journal. “For his grandmother.”

  This was not the time to be turned on, but his breath on her ear did just that. She leaned even closer to him, which was when he kissed her, albeit too quickly, on the cheek.

  Birdie started, “When Annabel came to the store—”

  “Zach’s grandmother,” Torr whispered.

  Charlotte knew who she was. The Walsh family was a prominent one in Stone Haven. The break-in had shocked just about everyone. Certainly Zach Walsh didn’t need the money.

  “—I thought hard about her sister’s estate sale. I’d brought back more than one box of items, nothing extraordinary. Then it struck me—we weren’t the only ones to have gone to that sale. The more I thought about that day, I remembered Alan, the owner of Antiques & Collectibles in New Hope took a fairly sizable haul from the Walsh estate sale. So I contacted him—”

  “And he had the journal?” Toni sat forward in her seat, clearly impatient for the rest of the story.

  “The next best thing. He’s a bit more organized than we are.” Jim looked at his wife, shrugging his shoulders as if to say sorry and continued. “His non-displayed items are separated into marked tubs, and sure enough—”

  “The journal,” Torr said next to her, his tone urgent. Why was this journal so important?

  “Did you read it?” Laria asked.

  Jim carefully opened the book, its pages thin and obviously delicate. To say everyone sat on the edge of their seats wasn’t simply an expression. Even Charlotte, who seemed to know the least about the journal, was leaning forward.

  “‘May 2, 1855,’” he read. “‘Have I made a deal with the devil? We shall see. They’re coming to Stone Haven. The fate of our town is in their hands.’”

  He closed the journal and glanced up.

  “This book belonged to Mayor Walsh, the first of that title in Stone Haven.”

  “Annabel’s great-great-grandfather?” Lawrence suggested.

  “Something like that,” Birdie said. “Tell them the rest of it, Jim.”

  He looked at her as if to say he was trying, then turned toward the rest of them. “It’s no wonder Annabel is so desperate to get her hands on this. It’s quite a tale.”

  “Have you heard of the Jewett City vampires?” Jim asked the group.

  Charlotte watched Torr’s face as he concentrated, thinking.

  “Connecticut?” Lawrence asked.

  “Yes. I looked it up. In the early 1850s, a family blamed vampires for multiple deaths—”

  “Yes,” Laria exclaimed. “I do remember. It was actually tuberculosis.”

  Torr picked up the thread. “But it started a war between the New England vampires and the Sect—”

  “Exactly,” Lawrence said.

  The nonvampires in the room, Charlotte included, watched the exchange with fascination. It was easy to forget that this family had already lived several lifetimes.

  “Well,” Jim continued, “it seems you weren’t the only ones to have heard about the incident. The mayor’s daughter confessed to her father that she’d fallen in love with a newcomer to the town, a man who had purchased a farm and lived, by all accounts, quiet peaceably on the outskirts of Stone Haven. Apparently she panicked,
telling her parents of her lover’s plans to turn her—”

  “Turn her?” Charlotte blurted. “He was a vampire?”

  Jim nodded. “Yes. As you can imagine, the revelation didn’t sit well with the mayor. At first he didn’t believe her. Letting the daughter believe he condoned the relationship, he investigated. And eventually ended up in Griswold, Connecticut—”

  “Let me guess. They were only too happy to explain how they’d taken care of their vampire problem,” Torr said.

  Charlotte had to think for a second. He was saying—

  “Exactly,” Jim confirmed. “They helped the mayor contact the same members of the Sect who’d slaughtered the vampires in Connecticut. The journal mentions Holy Island off the coast of England.”

  “And brought them to Stone Haven,” Laria concluded.

  “Where our lone vampire was hunted down and killed, followed into death by the mayor’s daughter, who took her own life when she realized the course of events that had transpired after her confession.”

  No one spoke. There was a lot to unpack in Jim’s story. The Derricksons and Morleys were not the first vampires to have stepped foot in Stone Haven—vampires had a presence here before then, and Cheld too. Cheld who were in the Sect.

  “She knew.” Lawrence stood up and reached for the journal, which Jim gave him. “Annabel’s sister knew. All of it.”

  Jim and Birdie nodded. “The journal has been passed down from generation to generation. And with a clue as to how to find them as well. Take a look at the notes in the back.”

  “Does this mean Annabel knows everything too?”

  “Annabel never saw the journal,” Jim said. “Flip to the last few pages. Her sister had a falling-out with the entire Walsh family. Something about a boy. An engagement.”

  “Ironic,” Charlotte thought aloud.

  “If you believe in irony,” Birdie said. Clearly, she did not.

  “But Annabel obviously still knows of its existence. And, at least in general terms, its contents,” Toni finished. “Why hasn’t she tried to retrieve it before?”

  “Maybe to her it was just a story,” Toni said. “But then Birdie started asking questions about the Cheld—”

  “Not a common word,” Birdie admitted. “Plus the boys and their spending habits . . .”

  Charlotte loved that Birdie called Kenton and Lawrence, two deadly seven-hundred-year-old vampires, “boys.”

  “So she suspects something, but wants that journal as proof.” Toni stood. “Do you guys realize what this means?”

  “It means,” Lawrence said, looking from Laria to Torr, “we’re on borrowed time in this town.”

  So much for toasts to The Vault. It was as if that journal had sucked all signs of life from the room.

  Chapter 18

  “Look.” Alessandra pointed at her screen, where an article had been loaded onto microfiche.

  She and Torr sat in a little-used corner of Stone Haven University’s library. Unlikely research partners, to be sure. But with his brother, Toni, and Kenton working overtime to open the bar on schedule and Laria on spy duty outside the Walsh home, that left the two of them to this task.

  For the past four days he’d spent his mornings and afternoons here in the library, digging up as much information as he could about the town’s history. Alessandra met him when she wasn’t teaching, and though the first day had been more than a bit awkward, Torr could now admit, if only to himself, he’d been a stubborn arse to judge the Cheld so quickly. She was determined. Driven. Strong. Alessandra had refused to give up even though they’d found little evidence to support the incidents mentioned in the journal.

  Until now.

  “If only these articles were indexed better, we might have found this sooner.”

  Torr didn’t need to lean forward to see the words on the screen. The headline stood out to him clearly enough. Robbins farm purchased by New York resident. Oddly, the purchaser’s name wasn’t listed. But they’d uncovered enough evidence to tie the old Robbins farm to the Walsh family. They’d found a bill of sale dated two months after the Sect’s alleged visit to Stove Haven. The mayor had purchased the vampire’s farm, torn down every structure on the property, and planted what was now a forest on the edge of town—a farmland restoration any modern nature conservationist would be proud of.

  “So we know Mayor Walsh did buy the farm, but instead of utilizing the land—”

  “He turned it into a forest.” He looked at Alessandra. “A nineteenth-century eco-warrior,” he said dryly.

  “Convenient,” she agreed. “Especially if you wanted to hide a buried body.”

  “Oh, and I talked to Kenton about Lindisfarne.”

  Torr did his best not to react at the mention of the Englishman’s name.

  “What did he say?”

  “He knows little about the place other than what can be found on the internet. He’d been there just once and can think of little reason why the Holy Island, as it’s known now, would be mentioned in the journal in conjunction with the Sect.”

  “Perhaps something to investigate after the bar opens?” A lead he and his sister should likely pursue.

  “Perhaps,” she said distractedly.

  They continued their search but found nothing more. “I’ve got office hours—”

  “This late?” It was nearly five p.m.

  “Yeah, just this one night a week.” She sighed. “This isn’t looking good, Torr. We all know that. The Walshes have ties to the Sect, and right after Grandma and Zach Walsh left wherever they’d been holed up all summer, a cloaked Cheld showed up in town. Something’s up.

  Sitting back in her seat, she crossed her arms. For someone who needed to leave, she didn’t appear to be in a hurry.

  He could tell she wanted to talk to him about something, and he suspected it had nothing to do with the trouble with the Walshes.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “I’m surprised you haven’t brought it up before.”

  Peering at him from under a set of dark lashes, Alessandra held his gaze.

  “I hear you’ve been with Charlotte every minute she’s not at work.”

  “She’s not at work now—”

  “Come on, Torr.” She exhaled so loudly a nearby student shot them a dirty look and pushed her earbuds deeper into her ears. “Be serious.”

  In that case . . . “Guilty as charged.”

  He’d been staying in her apartment, giving them time together each morning before she left for work, and he was going to grab food and head over there now. They planned to eat and then head to the bar.

  With other activities in between.

  “I don’t know you well,” Alessandra hedged. “But you’ve never struck me as a romantic, and yet . . .”

  It seemed like she expected some sort of answer. Fortunately, she hadn’t asked a question.

  “She says you may not be leaving,” she prodded.

  “At the end of the month, as I’d planned. I’m not. Unless Laria and I follow up on this lead.”

  A but hung between them.

  “When the time comes—” she started.

  “Who knows?” He lowered his voice. “Maybe no new Cheld will arise anytime soon.”

  Biting the insides of both cheeks, Alessandra looked at him the way a mother does a wayward child.

  He shrugged. “It could be months.”

  “Or days.”

  “The finding, and cloaking, could go quickly—”

  “Or take a year.”

  She’d been well-schooled on the matter. And he couldn’t deny she was right. Most Cheld who came into their abilities were trained, and cloaked, by family members familiar with the process. Only the ones who had no knowledge of their ancestry, like Alessandra, needed his family’s intervention. But it was no simple matter. Sometimes, it took a long time to pinpoint the location of a new Cheld. Training, if it was required, took longer, and a few of the new Cheld, those resistant to the truth, needed to be watched until they learned to
always, always cloak themselves with the dried rose stems.

  The Derricksons would do anything to prevent the other eventuality—that the Morleys would find the Cheld first and then there would be no Cheld to protect.

  “Has Kenton heard from either of his brothers?” he asked.

  Drake and Rowan had been unusually quiet. Not that he was complaining. He and Alessandra might not have gotten off to a great start, but he certainly didn’t want to see her killed. This was the first instance Torr could remember of either Morley brother knowing of a Cheld’s existence and allowing him or her to live.

  But also the first time that the Cheld in question was engaged to a Morley.

  Even so, he would not expect them, Rowan especially, to hold back for long.

  “Nothing,” she said, gathering her belongings. “But don’t try to change the topic. Charlotte—”

  “Is a big girl and knows what she’s getting into.”

  Alessandra’s flashing eyes told him she hadn’t liked the way he’d put that. She let him know it too. “Of sorts. But dealing with . . . your kind isn’t always so straightforward.”

  He covered his heart with his hands. “You wound me.”

  Alessandra rolled her eyes.

  “I’ll do more than that if you mess with my girl—”

  “I believe you,” he said more seriously. “But don’t you think we have more important matters at hand?”

  Turning off the microfiche machine, Alessandra stood up. “Such as?”

  “Such as the fact that nearly a week has passed since we found the journal, and we’re no closer to the truth.”

  Well, maybe slightly closer.

  She shrugged. “If Annabel knows, she hasn’t spilled the beans yet.”

  “And if she does—”

  “Then you won’t be the only one leaving Stone Haven.”

  If he was forced to leave, would she come with him?

  Despite himself, he felt a rush of pleasure at the thought of Charlotte accompanying him on his travels . . . of them seeing the world together . . .

  But would she ever consider such a thing? Could he ask her to abandon her job, the security and respect she’d built at such personal cost? To do what? Cavort like a playboy, as she called him?