by May Dawson
And by last night, I meant three hours ago. Elly was going to kill me if she heard about this. But once I saw the vamp, what was I supposed to do? Walk away? We’d been trying to track this ugly monster for weeks.
I ducked as the second vampire sprang at me, throwing up one arm defensively as I tried to jerk my sword free. He slammed into me, but my sword pulled loose just before he managed to propel us both into the opposing brick wall. My head and shoulder drove into the brick, leaving a jolt of pain in their wake.
We were too close now for a good sword blow, and I grabbed for the knife on my belt.
The vamp got an arm across my chest to pin me and reared back. His eyes dilated as his fangs ripped through his gums. The effect was always gruesome, and I winced as flecks of spit and blood splattered across my face.
“Should’ve brought a better weapon than some big ol’ yellow teeth,” I said, just before I slammed my dagger into his guts.
He fell to his knees in front of me, his eyes wide with shock.
I kicked him in the chest, knocking him backward on his ass before he sprawled out across the ground. There was no one else in the alley. My biggest prey had run.
I cursed as I flipped my sword around in my hand, preparing my grip. I ran my knife across the thigh of my jeans, cleaning his blood off the blade, before I slipped it back into the sheath.
Wrapping both hands around the hilt of my sword, I cleaved it down at his throat, striking his head from his body. This time, the sword sliced cleanly through and the blade struck the cement beneath. Blood splattered across my sneakers.
That was why I always wore black. That, and Elly always told me black is classy and sophisticated.
Lord knew I could use any help I could get with being classy and sophisticated.
My skin prickled down my neck. Someone was watching me. I kept my grip tight on my sword.
When I looked up, my prey was dangling from the top of the brick building. His wind-milling legs slammed frantically into the brick wall over and over.
A dark-haired man gripped the collar of the vampire who’d escaped me. He crouched easily at the edge of the roof, his face relaxed as he dangled my vampire from five stories up. The vamp bucked hard to escape his grip, despite the distance between him and the concrete.
“Did you lose something?” he called. Even at a distance, he sounded mocking.
“I was about to hunt him down again.” What the hell was he? No human would be that comfortable on the edge of a roof like that, gripping a kicking burden. For some reason, the vampire wasn’t screaming. “But thanks for the help?”
“No problem. Want me to toss him down?”
“Sure.”
The vampire didn’t scream as he plummeted to the ground. The fall wouldn’t kill something like him, but both his legs shattered when he landed.
I studied the fallen vampire. He couldn’t seem to open his mouth to scream, even though his eyes were wide with desperation.
“You look as scared as your victims must have felt,” I told him.
I don’t love vampires on a good day, but ones like this? Who preyed exclusively on kids? When I was tracking him, I’d found one of the bodies, twisted and broken and so goddamn small it would haunt me at night.
I’d make this vamp’s death slow, if I were inclined to be inefficient.
But it was his lucky day; I never wasted my time. There were always more monsters to kill.
I whirled with the sword and cleaved his head from his shoulders. The head bounced across the pavement.
The man on the rooftop started to clap slowly.
I looked back up at him. He stood comfortably at the edge of the rooftop, his toes hanging over the side as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
He stopped clapping and put his hands in his pockets. Just the way he stood suggested he was an arrogant bastard, with his broad shoulders and tall, powerfully muscled frame.
“Who are you?” I shouted. We could start there, even though I was also very curious about my follow-on question, which was a toss-up between what the hell do you want and why the hell are you talking to me?
“Duncan.” There was an edge in his voice, as if I were a bit stupid.
Had I met this clown before? I was losing sight of him in the glare of the morning sun, so I cupped my hand over my eyes. I groaned at the light. Maybe I was crossing from drunk to hungover rather rapidly.
Police sirens blared in the distance.
He lifted his hand, beckoning me onto the rooftop, and I stared at him like he was a lunatic. No one beckoned me anywhere. He said, “Let’s take this conversation somewhere that your arrest isn’t imminent.”
“I don’t know that I want to talk to you.” But curiosity had driven me for the past five years; first I’d been desperate to understand where I’d come from, and then I’d thrown myself into making sense of a world I didn’t remember. I sheathed my sword.
“You do,” he said. “I know you, Alisa.”
Did he know me or know me? Did Duncan know the old Alisa, the one I didn’t?
I’d tried to let go of my need to make sense of my past. The depth of my need to understand who I was, where I’d come from, felt dangerous. In so many ways, I was reckless with my life, but I needed to be careful with this random man who was trying to entice me into…something.
I backed across the alley, gauging the distance to the bottom of the fire ladder mounted on the building where he stood. I took a deep breath and exhaled.
Then I raced as fast I could, jumping against the brick wall, before propelling myself toward the bottom of the ladder. I caught it with both hands and swung myself up, then climbed quickly until I reached the rooftop.
When I clambered up next to him, he watched me appraisingly. There was nothing friendly in the way he narrowed his eyes, studying me with intensity that sent a prickle down my spine. But now I was close enough to get a good look at his face.
He was unreasonably handsome. His cheekbones were high, his cheeks hollow beneath them. His eyes were an eerie light blue, lushly lashed, in contrast with the black hair that fell to his shoulders. His skin was almost unnaturally perfect, as if he was airbrushed, and intricate tattoos that must spread across that powerful chest peeked from the torn collar of his shirt. Either that shirt was a fashion statement, or the vamp had tried to put up a fight.
“I don’t know you.” And I would remember him, if I’d met him in the last five years.
He cocked his head to one side, studying me. “You don’t remember anything, do you? Not your childhood, not your home, not your misspent youth.”
“Was my youth misspent?” I rubbed my hand across my head, which was beginning to pound. “I’ve been trying to misspend my twenties. Good to know I’ve got some practice.”
He looked me over just as curiously as I was looking at him. “At first, this Hunting business made me assume you were trying to help the humans as penance for your sins. But I suppose you would find your way into any career field that involved death and destruction.”
“You’ve been following me?” I demanded.
I should probably just kill him now. But he didn’t give me that creepy vibe up the back of my neck; I felt safe enough with him. Just… irritated.
And I also felt a flutter of nerves, an odd reeling in my stomach and a flush of desire that heated my skin. I bit my lip. I spent a lot of time around good-looking, well-built Hunters and I never felt these stirrings. This man was too damned pretty.
His brows rose as if that were ridiculous. “No. I’ve been trying to track you. You’ve been missing for a long time.”
I couldn’t stop staring at him, and I wanted to know what the hell he was talking about, both of which made me feel hot and self-conscious. I forced myself to meet that mocking gaze. “Last chance before I get bored and wander off. Who the hell are you?”
“You’re not going to just wander off.” He crossed his arms over that broad chest, still holding my gaze. I tried not to notice
the way the movement pulled what was left of his shirt lower, revealing the dark lines of hounds and runes tattooed across his chiseled pecs. A perfectly shaped brown nipple winked at me before it was covered by his thick bicep, not that I was looking. “You’ve never had any control over your curiosity.”
God, what a twit. He wanted me to think he knew something I didn’t. My desire to uncover my past was a vulnerability, and I wasn’t about to let some random jerk—no matter how beautiful—control me.
I cocked my head, staring at him. “Are you a vampire?”
“No…” He frowned impatiently.
I could tell he was about to say something else, so I beat him to the punch. “Shifter?”
He was so big, I could peg him as a shifter easily.
“No,” he scoffed.
“Witch?” I asked brightly.
“No.”
“Evil?” That was the part that mattered most. I never hurt anyone who didn’t hurt someone else first.
His brows arched over those icy eyes. “No.”
Must be a Hunter then, to have caught my stray vamp as soon as he broke away. He was an unusually reckless, confident, sexy man, even by Hunter standards. But he was just another human.
“Then I don’t give a damn about you,” I told him, heading toward the far edge of the roof. “You’re cute, Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Mysterious, but you seem like trouble, and I find enough of that on my own.”
His lips parted, and he seemed to stumble over what to say to that. Since it was always nice to leave a man speechless, it was the perfect time for me to walk away.
“You need answers, Alisa,” he called after me. “I can give you answers.”
I started to run, picking up speed. I jumped nimbly onto the ledge of the building and my momentum powered my leap to the next rooftop. I landed cleanly, on my feet, my knees buckling for just a second before I caught myself.
I whirled, taking a step back. He stood there watching me, his light eyes eerie at this distance. I almost faltered, sure he wasn’t human, that he was my business after all.
But he wanted something from me, and there was nothing I wanted to give to anyone but my Hunter friends.
I spread my arms out in an exaggerated shrug. “Meh.”
Then I turned and sashayed off toward the next rooftop, leaving Duncan-the-gorgeous-weirdo behind.
Chapter Two
Azrael
“She was drunk?” I asked skeptically, staring at my best friend in the dim light of the bar where we’d taken shelter.
The Alisa I knew didn’t get drunk, not even during solstice.
“Tell me the part again where she said you’re cute.” Tiron took a long sip from his Scotch, but even with his face partially concealed by the crystal glass, his eyes danced with mischief.
There were some benefits to being in the human world. Not many, but whiskey in all its various and glorious forms was one.
Duncan snorted at him. “Focusing on the important details, as usual.”
“Where did she go?”
“She ran away, like she always does.” Duncan sounded dismissive, and I frowned at him.
“You didn’t lose her?”
“Of course I didn’t lose her,” Duncan said. “The hounds and I tracked her back to her pathetic house. It’s not even a house. A segment of a house.”
He shifted, his hand concealed under the table, and I knew he was reaching to pat one of his hounds. The two hulking creatures hid under the table, not that it mattered; they were invisible to humans, and the barkeep was our servant now anyway.
“The word you’re looking for is apartment,” Tiron supplied helpfully. “You spend enough time in the human world. Are you really too obstinate to learn their culture?”
“Can you call it culture, though?” Duncan asked. “Does pigs wallowing in filth a culture make?”
He was in a fine mood today, even by Duncan’s standards.
“Do you think she truly lost her memories?” I asked.
Duncan nodded. “She didn’t recognize me. She was genuinely curious who I am. What I am.”
“She wouldn’t have said you were cute if she recognized you,” Tiron observed.
“I am cute, though,” Duncan muttered. Then he admitted, “If she’d recognized me, she would have run.”
That was wishful thinking on his part. If Alisa had recognized him, she might have put a blade through his gut.
“How’d she survive all these years without any clue who she is or what she can do?” I wondered out loud.
“Princess Alisa is quite good at surviving,” Duncan said dryly. “Even though her presence reduces everyone else’s odds.”
He might hate her more than I did. She simply betrayed me and my court. For Duncan, she betrayed his brother. That was a far more serious crime.
“Do you think she might come with us willingly?” I asked. “Once she understands who she is?”
“No.” Duncan’s lips twisted into a cruel smile. If I didn’t know the man beneath the angry mask, that face would terrify even me a little. “I think we’ll have to take her back.”
Tiron tilted his head to one side, studying Duncan. “Why don’t you let me go and talk to her? It would be nice if we didn’t have to thump the princess over the head and drag her back home unwillingly.”
“Would it?” Duncan questioned. “I think the thumping and the dragging sounds nicer. For us.”
“Thank you, Tiron,” I told the younger man. “But I’ll go. She and I have history. Faer wants to know if she has any memories or if the reports are true. She won’t be able to fake it with me.”
“I need to see for myself,” I added to Duncan. I didn’t want him to think I didn’t trust his judgment.
Tiron nodded. Far from seeming offended, Duncan’s dangerous grin widened. Whether he thought an encounter between Alisa and me would punish me or punish her, I had no idea, but Duncan had a sadistic streak.
“Let’s go to this apartment,” I suggested.
“That’s not a good idea,” Tiron said. “You’ll scare her.”
Duncan snorted. “Proof you do not know Alisa.”
“She might try to kill you,” Tiron amended.
“Oh yes,” I said. “But she has tried that many times before. I don’t mind.”
My heart quickened at the thought of being face-to-face with my queen, my former fiancé, my betrayer.
But I knew my outward appearance gave no indication of my reaction. I took another long, slow sip, finishing off my whiskey. Duncan still side-eyed me; he was a male of few words who still managed to get his judgments across.
Duncan knew me well enough to know my heart always raced when it came to Alisa—with love, or hate, or a dangerous combination of both.
“This is a bad idea,” Tiron said lightly.
“You always say that,” Duncan reminded him, rising from his seat. “And you’re always outvoted.”
“And we always end up in trouble,” Tiron shot back. “Maybe you should listen.”
“In the end, she’s just one spoiled little girl with a sword,” Duncan said. “If she gets too feisty, Azrael can throw her over his shoulder and carry her to the portal.”
The image was so ridiculous that I smiled. “It almost seems like you’ve been cursed with forgetfulness.”
Alisa had indeed always been spoiled and willful.
But she was also dangerous.
Delightfully so.
Or at least, that was how I’d seen her once.
Chapter Three
Alisa
“I’m not sure even the baddest vamp would steal a girl away from right under her grandma’s nose,” Carter said, right before he raised his beer to his lips. The muted light in the bar did nothing to hide how handsome his chiseled features were.
Elly harrumphed at that. “I’m old enough to be her mother, not her grandmother, you ass.”
Carter leaned back, yawning and stretching before slinging his arm across my seatback. Julian watc
hed us as he always did with an amused smile across his face.
I turned to regard Carter skeptically. That move would have worked on the girls by the bar who kept eyeing the two sexy Hunters, but I wasn’t interested. “If those fingers touch skin, I’ll castrate you, you know.”
He grinned at me. He had a nice grin that crinkled the corners of his deep brown eyes. “I love it when you’re scary.”
I rolled my eyes. “Buy me another drink. Get a girl properly drunk, would you?”
That was the plan for the night, after all.
He clapped me on the shoulder—his scarred hand finding just the cloth of my tank, none of his warmth touching my bare skin—and headed for the bar.
“I’ll be back too,” Julian said, and I groaned and threw a crumpled-up napkin at him as he stood. “Traitor.”
He knew Elly would want to talk to me about the messy Hunt that morning. None of us were supposed to work without backup.
Instead, she shook her head in amusement at us. Her hair was freshly permed and dyed into a deep shade of purple-ish red that I was pretty sure didn’t occur in nature. It looked good though with her tanned, wrinkled skin and her bright hazel eyes. I’d like to age as gracefully as Elly.
“I wish you two would stop flirting and bow to the inevitable,” Elly said.
I smiled non-committedly and swirled my half-drunk beer in the bottle. I knew that Carter and Julian were good-looking, with their handsome faces and their muscular bodies; I admired their competence as Hunters, and I loved the easy friendship between the three of us.
Elly had asked me once why I didn’t just try to like them the way they liked me, when they were such good guys.
“Or you three,” she added. “I wouldn’t judge. You go for what you want, Alisa.”
“I don’t know what I want,” I said automatically, then added, “I love them too much as friends to risk ruining it all.”
But the truth was, I couldn’t see them as anything but friends. Carter was over at the bar now, and a slender redhead had sidled over next to him. He braced one big forearm on the bartop, keeping a respectful distance from her, but she kept pressing closer with a thirsty smile on her face.