“Speaking of crazy obsessions,” Mason said under his breath.
“Hey! Don’t mock the love a woman has for her coffeemaker,” she told him. “This is the kind of love that will last.”
Mason chuckled. “Fine, you can bring the coffeemaker. We’re going to need to rent a party bus at the rate we’re going. Hopefully, no other vampires decide they want to go with us. We still outnumber them.”
“How do you figure that?” she asked.
“Two vampires and three hunters,” he stated before scratching his head. “I guess that’s not exactly accurate. Phoenix is more loyal to the vampires, and you’re not exactly a hunter.”
“Thanks for the reminder, asshole,” she shot back with no real heat.
“Please,” he said, waving off her words. “That’s what you were hinting at when you questioned my numbers. I still consider you a hunter because you’re loyal to us. You’re the one who’s been questioning your identity lately.”
Talia said nothing because she wasn’t a hunter—something only Mason, her adoptive parents, and uncle knew. They’d faked her hunter’s mark when she was young for the council’s benefit and had it tattooed on with spelled ink when she was older. Her mixed heritage made it impossible for other hunters to recognize the deception, which was how she’d survived her early years. While the council in their area was much more liberal than others, they might not accept her mixed heritage. Despite her lack of mark, she possessed all hunter skills. She could recognize vampires and possessed the same speed and strength as full-blood hunters. Vampires were also faster and stronger than humans, so she couldn’t say it came from her hunter genes.
“I’m not saying we tell the vampires it’s you those assholes are looking for, but we need to warn them that there is more danger than we’ve let on. The people looking for Shayla are killers. I may not care much about vampires, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let Phoenix and the vampires walk into this blind. These vampires aren’t going to tell anyone what’s going on since they have secrets of their own. If it looks like we can’t trust them, we can always lay all our cards on the table—let them know we’re aware of some of their secrets.”
“You’re right,” Talia agreed, finally pouring her cup of coffee. She’d let Mason grab his own coffee since she preferred to avoid watching him ruin it.
“Drink your coffee and then we’ll talk about how much we’re going to tell them,” he replied without moving from his seat.
“Aren’t you going to have any coffee?” she asked.
“Nah,” he replied with a smirk. “I hit the drive-thru on the way over here.”
“And you let me make the crappy coffee?” she demanded. “You said nothing to stop me from making this?” When he just grinned at her, she sat down and muttered, “I should have stabbed you for waking me up.”
Chapter Eight
Talia was going to lose her mind if she had to listen to the idiotic men argue about who was going to drive much longer.
“I’m just saying, it’s not safe to ride in a car with a vampire driving,” Mason insisted, making Talia want to smack him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Drew asked. “It seems I have more self-control than you do, hunter.”
“What makes you think that?” Mason asked.
“I haven’t killed you,” Drew pointed out with a pleasant smile. “A psycho like me must have great restraint if you’re still alive.”
Mason chuckled. “Admitting to these delusions is not helping with your argument.”
“Which delusions would those be?” Drew asked.
“The ones where you think a puny vampire like you could kill me,” Mason explained.
Talia rolled her eyes at Mason’s arrogance.
Drew simply raised an eyebrow and waited for Mason to continue.
“Vampires have this whole light sensitivity thing, so it could be dangerous if the light hits the hood ornament wrong,” Mason pointed out.
“You are such an idiot,” Talia muttered under her breath.
“You tell him, babe,” Drew said with a laugh. When Talia glared at him, he only laughed harder.
Mason moved up beside Drew. “I should probably warn you about Talia.”
Drew looked at Mason and waited.
“She doesn’t have a sense of humor,” Mason continued. “If you piss her off, she will stab you in the balls.”
Drew chuckled and moved closer to her. “Is that so?”
“The woman stabbed me in the thigh for going into her bedroom one night,” Mason added. “She’s vicious.”
“You learned your lesson about walking into someone’s room unannounced in the middle of the night,” Talia shot back.
Intrigued was the best word to describe Drew’s expression. “That’s kind of hot.”
“Get in the backseat with the other idiot,” she told him, climbing in the driver’s seat so they could get on the road sometime in the next week. “Phoenix can ride in front with me.”
Not waiting for a reply, she slammed her door shut. Much to her annoyance, Drew climbed in right behind her and leaned forward to talk to her. “I like the way you handled that,” he murmured, his voice sliding along her skin. That was what annoyed her most about this vampire—everything about him screamed sex. She needed space between them, and she needed to make sure he understood she wasn’t in the mood for a seduction. She’d be the first to admit she was very much in the mood for seduction, but she planned to keep that to herself.
“Back off, vampire,” she commanded, glaring at him in the rearview mirror.
Drew’s lips curled into a smile that was far from innocent as he settled back into his seat. “Yes, ma’am.”
“He never behaves this well,” Isaiah mused.
“If you ask nicely, Talia might come over and babysit for you from time to time,” Mason suggested.
Drew’s eyes were locked with hers in the rearview mirror. At first, they were sparkling with mirth, but that quickly changed to something darker. His smile slipped, and he averted his gaze first before slipping on his sunglasses.
“We’ve got new information on Shayla,” Talia began, all business as she started up the Tahoe. She hated driving Mason’s giant SUV, but they needed the extra seats. It also had the most hiding spaces for weapons, making it the practical choice. “We need to find her as soon as possible, but we haven’t been able to locate her since she last moved. We’re not entirely certain when she ran, but it was probably within the last couple of days, a week at most.”
“You knew where she was?” Drew demanded. “If you’d shared that information when we first talked, I might have been able to find her.”
“We’ve been trying to keep tabs on Shayla for the last six months, but she’s been hard to keep track of,” Mason explained. “She has a tendency to only stay in one place for a short time. In that time, she usually makes her presence known to the local hunters at some point.”
“That’s strange,” Isaiah muttered. “Moving around so much makes it seem like she doesn’t want to be found. Why check in with the local hunters?”
“She’s lonely,” Phoenix said softly. “The Seattle hunter community is very inclusive, and breeders aren’t allowed to do much on their own. Shayla learned how to survive on her own because she had to. That doesn’t mean she’s able to completely break all ties with our kind. That’s how she found out about her parents’ deaths. I’ll bet she’s hoping to make a small connection with the community in the area where she’s staying. She may even hope to find one who’ll accept her independence.”
“Except, she’s a breeder, and most hunters are assholes who believe all breeders need to be protected from everything in the world,” Talia spat out.
“You don’t agree?” Drew asked.
“No,” Talia replied. “I would probably kill someone if they treated me like a pampered pet. We’re better in Santa Cruz, but she’d probably feel stifled there, too. Our council would prefer for all breeders to live with the
ir parents until they marry. They have an entire subdivision in a gated community reserved for breeder families. On the rare occasion a breeder moves out of their parents’ home early, they move somewhere else in the breeder subdivision.”
“Shayla wouldn’t like that,” Phoenix added.
“I don’t get why she doesn’t go live with vampires,” Mason mused. “I can see why that would be weird under normal circumstances, but her own cousin is there. Our council wouldn’t be happy, but it still seems strange she hasn’t gone that route.”
Silence filled the SUV, and Talia wondered why Mason was bringing this up. He knew there was a tie between Shayla and the vampires, other than Drew’s obsession. They’d agreed to not bring that up unless they needed to use it as leverage. Talia cast a quick glance Mason’s way, annoyed he was up to something.
“We know about the kid,” Mason stated, and Talia cursed under her breath.
“We don’t want to know all the details,” she reminded Mason through her teeth. “We also agreed we wouldn’t bring this up.”
“I think we need to share,” Mason argued. “We need to tell them some stuff that cannot get out to others. This seems like the best time to reveal the leverage we have.”
“What exactly do you think you know?” Drew asked.
“Shayla had a kid,” Mason began. “The father is a vampire from your family. I’ve got no issue with the cute brunette with the great rack raising the kid, but other hunters will.”
“So, you’re trying to blackmail us?” Isaiah demanded, showing more passion than Talia had expected.
“No, we don’t want to blackmail you,” Talia assured him. “Mason is just handling this poorly. I can only assume it’s because he decided on this plan without giving it much thought and before discussing it with me first.”
Mason chuckled. “She’s right. I should have run this by Talia before I talked to you. It would have given me time to put this in a more diplomatic way. What we’re dealing with is much bigger than the kid. It also needs to remain between us. Very few people know what I’m about to tell you. Even our local council doesn’t know.”
“For future reference,” Isaiah began, still sounding annoyed, “you don’t need to play this kind of game to get us to agree to keep a secret.”
“That was pretty fucked up,” Drew added. “I respect what you did, but it was fucked up.”
“I don’t respect it,” Phoenix snapped. “It’s just another reminder of how manipulative hunters can be.”
Drew laughed. “Listen, Nixie. I can see why you’d think vampires are better. You know me, and I’m pretty fucking amazing, but we don’t usually play nice with hunters. They’ve got good reason to distrust us.”
“Fine,” Phoenix muttered. “You’re all idiots.”
“That’s the spirit, babe,” Drew praised. “So, what’s this big secret we need to hear about?”
“There are other people looking for Shayla because they believe she may be the result of a genetic experiment to breed a hunter with a vampire,” Mason stated.
“Why would they think it’s Shayla?” Phoenix asked. “Both her parents were breeders.”
“Are you really sure of that?” Mason asked.
“Yes,” Phoenix insisted. “As sure as anyone can be, at least.”
“For what it’s worth, we don’t think Shayla is the half-breed,” Mason told them. “Let me give you the details of what happened. Some asshole vampires and hunters decided peace was overrated and wanted to start a war. Our source was more than a little crazy, so we have no idea how this all played out and why they thought this experiment would help. They decided the whole thing was too risky before the baby was born. The scientists and a few others involved didn’t agree, but not for noble reasons. They wanted to run experiments.”
“I can’t decide which is more horrible,” Phoenix muttered.
“It was really fucked up,” Mason spat out. “The scientists weren’t exactly loving and nurturing, so the girl had a shitty life for the first three years.” Talia shot him a warning look in the rearview mirror. They needed to avoid sounding too involved in what had happened.
“Eventually, at least some of the scientists had a change of heart,” Talia explained. “I’m not sure what caused the change, but a few were charged with hiding her in the hopes that the other members of the order would never find her.”
“But someone figured out she was still alive,” Drew deduced.
“Exactly,” Talia agreed. “Alonzo, one of the scientists who helped hide the girl, was killed. He made a call to warn others the secret was out first. He also revealed enough details to lead them to the west coast in search of a blonde breeder.”
“How did he let details like that slip?” Isaiah asked.
“Alonzo apparently carried around a picture of the girl as a child and talked to it often. He gave it to the vampire who killed him in the hopes of making the vampire feel a connection to the girl. That’s the problem with trusting crazy people with secrets,” Talia grumbled.
“I should probably be offended,” Drew muttered. “Either that or I should point out that you obviously haven’t learned your lesson if you’re telling me a big secret.”
“I take it the girl looks enough like Shayla to make them think it’s her,” Phoenix stated.
“She was three in the picture, so they don’t have much to go by,” Mason told her. “If they weren’t technophobes, they could probably get a better idea of what she looks like today by using an age progression program.”
“They probably assume she’s a breeder since she’s with hunters,” Talia added.
“Why not assume she’s a hunter?” Drew asked.
“A hunter’s mark appears at birth,” Talia explained. “Someone involved in keeping the half-breed alive betrayed the others. They would have revealed that the baby didn’t have a hunter’s mark.”
“Maybe it is Shayla,” Drew mused.
“It’s not,” Phoenix insisted.
“It’s definitely not Shayla,” Talia agreed.
“Do you know who it is?” Isaiah asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mason replied.
“He’s right,” Talia told them. “You don’t need to know who it is. That’s not important. You only need to know what we may be up against.”
“Since you have video footage, you know what some of them look like,” Isaiah began. “Do you have names? We may be able to help identify and locate the vampires involved.”
“I’ll send the video feed to you,” Mason assured him.
“What’s the plan for finding Shayla?” Drew asked.
“We plan to interview the people in the small town where she was staying, and the hunters in the nearby community, to see if Shayla gave any hints about where she was headed,” Mason explained.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Phoenix said thoughtfully. “I wish she’d call me.”
“That would make it easier, babe,” Drew agreed. “Your lunachick cousin has never been one to make things easy.”
“Lunachick?” Talia asked.
“Lunatic and chick combined because she’s a crazy woman,” Drew explained. “I’d think that would be obvious.”
“It’s not,” Isaiah muttered. “And I’d appreciate it if you could avoid making Phoenix angry by calling her cousin crazy.”
“I’ll try,” Drew assured him.
“You’ll fail,” Phoenix added.
“It’s part of my charm,” Drew insisted.
Phoenix snorted.
“Lovable scamp or irritating pain in the ass. There seems to be a fine line between the two,” Talia mused.
“Insightful and hot,” Drew murmured, leaning in much too close again. “You are the total package, sweetheart.” As his warm breath caressed the side of her neck, Talia fought the urge to shiver with desire.
“Don’t flirt with her,” Mason warned in a scary tone.
“Knock it off, Mason,” Talia told him, his attitude helping to cool he
r sudden lust.
“Don’t worry,” Drew began in a cocky tone. “I’m not stupid enough to try seducing a hunter.”
Isaiah snorted but said nothing.
“This is going to be a very long trip,” Talia grumbled.
“Speaking of long,” Drew began with a wicked grin she caught in the rearview mirror.
“Don’t even think about bringing up your dick,” Isaiah warned.
“I wasn’t planning to,” Drew replied innocently. “I can see why you’d think I was referring to my dick, considering how impressive it is, but in this case, I was just going to suggest we grab some food before we get too far into this long ride.”
“Sure, that’s what you were going to say,” Phoenix said doubtfully.
“We’ll stop for food later,” Talia told him.
“I’m hungry, too,” Mason complained.
“You both had a chance to eat before we left,” Talia reminded them.
“What if I have to pee?” Drew asked.
“She’ll make you hold it,” Mason answered for her. “Talia is evil when she’s driving.”
“You should have let me drive,” Drew stated. “I would have stopped at a drive-thru for burgers.”
“It is my car,” Mason pointed out.
“Then you should have just used that argument to begin with,” Talia snapped at Mason. “If I stop for burgers, will you both behave?”
“Not a chance,” they both said in unison.
It was going to be a very long drive.
Chapter Nine
Drew looked at the rows of rundown trailers the town called a hotel. They were apparently the best accommodations the town had to offer. He’d hate to see the worst. Since there were three available, he had his own rundown trailer, so he could at least be thankful for privacy. After spending hours with everyone, he needed some time to himself.
The drive hadn’t been nearly as annoying as he’d expected, mostly because Talia was there. She wasn’t his type by any stretch of the imagination. She was nearly as tall as him with an athletic build, hair dyed a deep shade of purple, and dark blue eyes. Walking in front of him, he had a perfect view of her round ass encased in faded skinny jeans.
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