The Vampire Huntress Series Bundle

by Ashlee Sinn

“I’m coming,” I said automatically. When we stepped onto the sidewalk, I turned to the right and walked into the shadows of the neighboring building. Viktor held onto my arm but kept scanning the environment around us like a predator.

  “Sophia? Come on, snap out of it. We have to get out of here.”

  My skin tingled with excitement and warning as a vampire stepped out of the shadows. It wasn’t Sebastian based on the size. He was a tiny man, shorter than me. Maybe not meant to be a threat? My hunter instincts flared, yet there was something different about this vampire.

  “Sophia.” The man opened his mouth and the words came out, yet they sounded like Sebastian and not this stranger.

  “A minion,” Viktor breathed. “Jesus, he’s powerful.”

  “What?” I asked in a daze, still pulled toward the man yet fighting the curiosity inside.

  “This isn’t a vampire, Sophia. He’s a human messenger being controlled by Sebastian. Most of us can’t do that.”

  “How is he controlled?” I studied the man and we looked into each other’s eyes for what seemed like minutes.

  “By blood,” Viktor growled.

  I wanted to ask more, but yet I was drawn to the messenger in front of me. He opened his mouth and spoke my name again. I shivered with the way my bite wanted me to go to him.

  “Sophia, you are so beautiful.”

  Viktor stepped in front of me. “Call him off, Sebastian.”

  The man laughed like a robot being controlled by someone else—which was exactly what was happening here.

  “I have a proposition.” The man dragged out the sound of the word long enough to snake through the silent air around us.

  “No,” Viktor shouted.

  “You will come to me, Sophia, or your friend will die.” The stranger standing in front of me looked too kind to say the vile words and threats spewing from his lips.

  “Let’s go, Sophia.” Viktor tried to pull me back toward the car, but I couldn’t make my legs move.

  “This will be your last warning.” Sebastian’s words terrified me. But then his minion handed me a small package wrapped in black velvet. “You have twenty-four hours to come to me willingly. Otherwise you will never find all of the pieces.”

  As soon as the words left the man’s mouth, he collapsed to the ground and hit his head so hard, I knew he must have knocked himself out. At the same time, my bite calmed and the pull I’d been feeling rushed from my body in a wave of relief.

  I looked down at the cloth and felt the warmth of something trickling over my hands. Fear throbbed against my ribs, pushing to get out in the form of a scream. Whatever I was holding wasn’t something I’d ever wanted to touch.

  “Let me see it,” Viktor said, snatching the gift away. He opened it slowly and I gasped when I saw what was inside.

  “Oh my god,” I breathed. “Ezra.”

  Viktor and I stared at Ezra’s hand, bloodied and ripped from his wrist if the damage was any indication.

  “This is a warning,” Viktor said.

  “Of course it’s a warning!” I shouted. “He’s being tortured and…dismembered because of me!”

  “Sophia, calm down.”

  “No!” I turned and stomped back toward the car. “I will not let him die in my place, Viktor.” I got in the car and waited until Viktor placed the severed hand in the back seat and climbed behind the wheel. “Take me to Sebastian’s club.”

  “No.”

  “Take me!”

  “I won’t.”

  I glared at him and then jumped out of the car and began walking away. I didn’t know where I was going, but I didn’t care.

  “Sophia, wait!” Viktor ran up behind me but I didn’t stop. “You need to give everyone a chance to find him first. Trust me, you do not want to be one of Sebastian’s whores.”

  I stopped and turned. And then I slapped Viktor hard enough across the cheek that my palm stung. “You don’t get to make this decision for me.” Turning from his glare, I took a few steps.

  “Sophia, look at me!” Viktor’s voice oozed with anger and desperation. “I said look at me!”

  He grabbed my shoulders and jerked me around. My eyes locked with his and everything I was feeling inside suddenly disappeared. The anger dissipated. The fear faded away.

  And a second after that, everything around me went black.

  CHAPTER 3

  I woke on Viktor’s bed again, only this time I still had all of my clothes on.

  He stood on the far side of the room with his arms crossed, waiting for something. And as the anger surged back into my bones, I knew he was waiting to see if I remembered.

  “You son of a bitch! What did you do to me?” I jumped to my feet but then immediately fell back onto the bed as a wave of nausea gave me vertigo. Viktor started to come to me, but I held my hand out. “No! You stay right where you are.”

  “How are you feeling?” he asked calmly.

  “Seriously?” I snapped. “I feel like shit. I’m dizzy and nauseous and wasting time here while Ezra’s being tortured.” I tried to stand again and immediately felt the bile rise. “What the fuck did you do to me?”

  “You gave me no choice.”

  “What did you do?” I shouted louder.

  Viktor sighed and leaned against the far wall, arms still crossed in defiance. “I forced you to sleep.”

  “Forced me to…what?”

  “Sleep.” He stepped closer and I didn’t stop him this time. “You were acting like a crazy person and people were starting to notice.”

  “And they didn’t notice you knock me out and shove me into your car?”

  He started to smile but then contorted his face to hide it. “I told them you were drunk.”

  I narrowed my eyes and glared. “Did you hypnotize me?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Did you compel me?” I asked again with the proper vocabulary.

  When Viktor nodded, a chill stopped the words from forming. Vampires weren’t supposed to be able to do that. Sure, they had charisma and charm, but not assisted by magic.

  “I’ve been around a long time,” Viktor said as though answering my unspoken question. “There are a few of us who have…additional gifts.”

  I huffed and laid back on the bed to stop my head from spinning anymore. “Of course you do.” I felt the bed shift beside me, but I didn’t look at Viktor.

  “Sophia, we need to have a plan. That involves all of us and not just you.”

  I covered my eyes and groaned.

  “Sophia,” he nudged my side. “I,” he cleared his throat, “we can’t let you give yourself over to Sebastian. He won’t stop even if he has you.”

  Rolling my head to the side, I finally looked at his concerned face. “What do you mean?”

  He let out a breath and lowered his back to the bed so that he was positioned just like me. “Ezra and I had been watching him for a while. We didn’t know he was the leader of the group responsible for the rogue vampires, but he’d been making some shady dealings for the last couple of years.”

  “So why did you take me to his club if you suspected he was involved?” I wasn’t angry, just curious. Sure, my life would be a whole lot different had he not taken me that night. But, at the same time, I wanted to be involved in the investigation and me getting bit was just a consequence of my job. It could be worse—I could be dead.

  It was Viktor’s turn to cover his eyes. “I don’t know. I really didn’t think he’d go after one of Ezra’s, let alone you.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  Viktor huffed. “You’re pretty famous in our world.”

  “I am?”

  He looked at me with a smirk. “Sophia Glen has lived up to her family’s reputation.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. I was a good hunter. No, I was a great hunter.

  Was.

  Past tense.

  Now that Sebastian had marked me, that part of my life was gone forever. And without any warning, I started to cry.

/>   Tears flooded my eyes and quickly swept over my cheekbones, landing softly on the mattress below me. It wasn’t that I was upset about my hunter career being gone, it was more about the sadness of losing my friends and Silas. They couldn’t hunt with me anymore—I had no control over my body if the right vampire got in my head. I could cost them their lives and that’s what truly hurt the most.

  And I’d lost Silas.

  I hadn’t realized just how much he meant to me until this moment. He would never take me back. Not now that I’d been marked and had no control. I wouldn’t even let him.

  “Sophia?” Viktor asked when my sobs got too loud. “Sophia are you all right?”

  I would have laughed had I had the energy. Viktor sounded so…uncomfortable asking me those words.

  “What am I supposed to do now?” I asked. “Everything’s changed. I have no one.”

  Viktor didn’t move for a minute—didn’t even breathe. A part of me wondered if I could even talk to him about my feelings. Or if I should bother. He didn’t care about one human over a lifetime of meeting thousands of humans. Why would he?

  But as those dark thoughts made me slip deeper into my depression, Viktor wrapped his strong arms around my back and pulled me into his chest. His touch comforted me and within a few seconds, I was crying all over his tee shirt again. I cried and cried until I felt like I had nothing left inside. And when I finally stopped, I only had one thought on my mind. “I can’t let them kill Ezra. We all need him.”

  Viktor rubbed his hands over my back, soothing me more than he probably realized. “You aren’t turning yourself over. Not until we have a plan.”

  I looked up at him in surprise. “A plan?”

  “Yes. A plan so that we can get rid of Sebastian before he hurts Ezra or gets his hands on you.” At his words, Viktor tensed tight enough that he was squeezing my arms hard enough to cause pain.

  “They won’t take me back.”

  He pulled away from me enough to look at my face. “What are you talking about?”

  “Them. The hunters.”

  He studied me longer than I felt comfortable with. I tried to drop my gaze but he grabbed my cheeks and forced me to look at him. “The hunters or Silas?”

  At the mention of his name, the tears broke free again. “Both,” I whispered.

  With his thumbs, Viktor wiped the tears off of my cheeks. I felt him staring at me but I couldn’t look him in the eye. His movements slowed and his breath suddenly caressed the very edges of my lips. “I don’t like to see you in so much pain,” he said.

  I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter and lifted my chin, wanting him to kiss me but knowing that I shouldn’t seek comfort from him at the same time. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to make the decision.

  Viktor pressed his lips against mine—gentle at first and then more forceful as I responded in kind. His soft skin stroked every cell in my lips, gliding over them with the precision of someone who knew exactly what to do. The tears continued to fall, perhaps out of guilt or out of the awareness that maybe I wouldn’t end up alone after all.

  I reached up to grab Viktor’s face and pulled him closer to me. Shifting to the side, I crawled on top of him, trying to get every inch of my body to feel his. He smiled underneath my lips and increased the intensity of our kiss. His tongue danced inside my mouth just the perfect amount of time to have me begging for more. And as his kisses began to move to my neck, I had a thought that made me pull back in fear.

  “Wait,” I said between breaths, “Is this real or am I dreaming again?” I needed to be touched…no, loved so badly right now that if he told me this was another one of his mind tricks, I might not be able to handle it.

  He squeezed my breast and smiled. “Does this feel like a dream?”

  I let out a moan and tried to think clearly. “No. But it didn’t feel like one last time either.” Somewhere, deep in my soul, I wondered if I should behave and not ruin any chance, even if it was slim, at losing Silas. But a greater part of me needed to be touched right now.

  Viktor ran his tongue along my jawline and nipped at my earlobe. I ground my hips into his and pressed my breasts closer. “Trust me, Sophia. This isn’t a vision.” His husky voice quivered as I slid back and forth against his arousal.

  I devoured his mouth again, not wanting to feel emptiness for even one second. My bite ached for some sort of release, either pleasure or pain. It didn’t matter. I just needed to feel wanted.

  Viktor worked his lips to my neck, starting on the side away from my bite. His teeth grazed my skin, reminding me of how much I’d once craved a vampire to claim me. And now, even considering the situation I faced, I wanted his fangs to pierce my skin. I wanted Viktor to have me. To mark me like his own.

  When his lips passed my throat and made their way toward the bite, every inch of my skin screamed out in need. The seconds felt like hours while he teased and sucked his way to the other side of my neck. I screamed out in pleasure even though I hadn’t orgasmed. It was simply the anticipation of his presence that had me wanting all of him inside of me now.

  And then he found my bite.

  With gentle lips that had me breathing heavy, he caressed each fang mark with his tongue. The sensation was unlike anything I’d experienced before. Waves of ecstasy rippled out from my core, lighting up my fingertips and sending shivers down my legs. I pressed his head tighter against my neck while using the other hand to reach in between our hips. His erection pushed at the surface of his jeans and I grabbed it as tightly as I could each time a new wave of pleasure pulsed through me.

  Viktor moaned against my neck and wrapped his hands around my ass. He squeezed every time his tongue moved and I rubbed my hand back and forth over him in a synchronized rhythm. For several minutes we made out like ravenous teenagers exploring each other for the first time. But at some point, Viktor scooped me up and flipped me onto my back to that he now lay on top of me.

  I smiled up at him when I saw his eyes bleed black. It should have scared me. It should have ignited my hunter instincts and encouraged me to run. But between my mark and the need to feel wanted, I didn’t care one bit that he was on the verge of losing control. In fact, I wanted it.

  My grasp on him dropped when he slid off my pants. I still wore his button-up shirt, but everything below the waist disappeared in just a few seconds. His hands ran up and down my thighs, tracing the muscles and getting closer and closer to my folds with each brush of his fingers. I wanted to kiss him again…he was too far away. So, with a fast and surprising quick movement, I grabbed his face and pulled him down before he could resist.

  With a laugh, he devoured my mouth again only this time he began to tease my clit. The building heat raced to my core, especially when he moved his lips back to my neck. We didn’t speak to each other as our mouths were otherwise preoccupied. So when his fingers slipped inside of me, I was surprised with the amount of noise that left my lips.

  He moved them in and out while still rubbing me and kissing my neck. In just a few minutes, the burning need radiated from my bite danced across every cell in my body. I wanted sex but knew that I couldn’t resist his touch like this. I laced my fingers through his hair and pressed my hips against his hand. He replied by increasing his movements—faster than humanly possible—until I screamed out with my release. He continued teasing my sex while it pulsed with need and pleasure. I wanted more. I wanted all of him inside.

  But the ringing of his phone distracted me for just an instant. And in that moment we stopped to really look at each other. I watched his eyes turn back to their mesmerizing blue while our breathing slowed together. I wanted the night to continue, but when the phone started ringing again, we knew that it was time to pause.

  Viktor pulled away from me and grabbed his cell out of his back pocket. “Hello?” He paused and then snapped his head toward me. “Where?”

  I sat up, the reality of my world crashing back down around me. And while I felt temporarily satiated, I knew tha
t the pleasure of orgasm wouldn’t hide me from the pain of what I would face now.

  “Okay. We’ll meet you there.” He hung up the phone and bent over to pick my pants up off the floor. “Brandt and the others think they may have found something.” Viktor stared down at me with a look that only a man can give to a woman he wants.

  I tingled all over. “Where?”

  “An abandoned warehouse by the river.” He gave me the clothes. “They’re expecting us.” Viktor turned and walked into his bathroom, giving us both a chance to calm down and focus again.

  I got dressed in a daze wondering what had just happened between us and worrying about what we might find when we left this little bubble of ours.

  CHAPTER 4

  We drove to the site in silence—me contemplating what I was going to do with my growing obsession with Viktor, and he thinking about who knows what.

  “There it is,” Viktor finally spoke as we turned into a dark parking lot. Most of the lamps were broken and the concrete had been cracked long enough that the weeds had outgrown them. The city lights across the river sparkled in comparison to shadows creeping over the ground in this pit of abandonment.

  When we pulled in next to the only other car in the parking lot, I immediately jumped out. The tension between me and Viktor ignited my bite and I felt like the best way to clear my head was to get some fresh air. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the time I needed.

  “Where were you?” Silas snapped at me. He’d been waiting in the darkness and grabbed my arm to pull me away from everyone else. “What have you done?”

  I let him take a few steps before yanking my arm back. “You need to stop this.”

  “Stop what?” He glared at me for a moment before diverting his eyes.

  “You know what, Silas.” I glanced back toward Viktor who was speaking with Brandt. “I’m sorry that things have turned out this way for us, but I didn’t ask to be marked.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No!” I wanted to scream at him for insinuating that I’d asked to be in this situation. “And you know that!”