Magic Bite (Supernatural Bounty Hunter Series Book 1)

by Leia Stone

  Oh shit.

  “I had no idea,” I muttered. I didn’t know what else to say. This whole time, all these years, they’d actually had a good reason for being so possessive about their territory.

  Brock unlocked the door. “Well now you do. This land is special to my family, and it’s my turn to protect it, so… now you know why I’ve made such a fuss.” He hopped down from the truck and crossed the hood to open the door for me.

  Leaning my weight on my crutches, I glanced at the cabin again. “What exactly are we doing here?”

  Brock shrugged. “Searching for answers. Your family had to know what you were. If we find that out, maybe we can heal you.”

  As he spun on his heel to walk inside, my stomach did flip-flops. Brock, the big bad alpha, was searching for a cure for me. It meant he cared, at least a little bit.

  Molly had tucked a key under the mat. We used it and entered the house to look for clues. Never before had I hoped so much to find them.

  Two hours later, we’d ransacked the cabin, including the attic, and found nothing helpful except for a black and white photo I’d grown up seeing. It was a picture of my mom, a full-blooded witch, and my dad, a full-blooded sorcerer.

  Still, Brock insisted on uploading the photo to my computer, and when he zoomed in on my father’s eyes, his pupils looked slitted… like a fox’s.

  No way!

  My mind reeled at the implications. I tried to wrap my brain around what it might mean, but I was too flustered. What the fuck was happening to my life?

  Brock tapped the photo in his hand. “So maybe your dad wasn’t actually a sorcerer?”

  I scowled. Would Gran lie to me? If it meant protecting me from something bad, then yeah, she would. Did that mean I was in danger? Other than dying of starvation, or whatever was going on with my body?

  “I guess.” My voice sounded hollow even to my own ears.

  “Your parents, are they around?” Brock took in the slender blonde in the photo, her smile wide as she wrapped her arms around my Asian father. I got my unusual violet eyes and figure—curvy in all the right places—from my mother, and most everything else from my father. My hair was long and silky, black as a raven’s feathers.

  Just staring at my smiling mother and father made my heart pinch; I never got to know them.

  I shook my head. “They died in a car wreck when I was a baby.”

  Brock gave me a look that said he didn’t believe the car accident line.

  I rolled my eyes. “Google it. I found the news article online when I was sixteen. It happened here in town. Drunk driver. Healing witches couldn’t get to them in time. My mom bled out. Dad’s leg got ripped off, among other things.” I gulped. I didn’t have memories of either one of them, but what happened to them hurt every time I thought about it, which was why I did my best not to.

  Brock winced. “Damn. I’m sorry.”

  My hair swayed as I nodded. I hadn’t told many people that story, save for Cass and a few others at Hunter Academy. A wave of dizziness washed over me then, and I clutched the seat of my chair in a death grip.

  “What’s wrong?” Brock’s whole body tightened as he leaned into me.

  “Just tired. I’d like to go back and lie down.”

  “Of course.” He stood, and slipped the photo into his pocket, reaching out to help me stand.

  Once I was up, his phone rang.

  “This is Brock.” He held the phone to his ear but didn’t let go of me.

  The voice on the other end was female, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  Concern laced his voice. “Well, what is it?”

  I attempted to read what was going on from his eyes, but he wouldn’t meet mine. After a beat he hung up the phone.

  “Sabine thinks she’s figured out what’s wrong with you.”

  A mixture of relief and fear crashed through me in equal measure. “What is it?” I whispered, my voice cracking.

  He shrugged, but didn’t look happy. “Said she had to tell us in person.”

  Oh God, that was bad. That was really fucking bad.

  In a daze, I followed Brock out of the house and over to his truck, the whole time my mind cycling through what might be wrong with me. That was, until Brock opened the car door for me, and a blue pearl rested on my seat.

  A blue pearl that hadn’t been there before. A strangled gasp of shock left my throat, and Brock’s gaze hurried to follow my own.

  The siren.

  “Shit!” He cursed and pulled out his phone. “That damn siren is on our property. Do a perimeter search now,” he barked.

  His bold orders about a siren had my head reeling. How did he know that a blue pearl was a siren’s calling card? And how did he know about my siren issue? Unless he had his own...

  “What siren?” I mean, technically there could be more than one causing trouble.

  He sighed. “Get in the truck.”

  I did as he asked, and as soon as we were both inside the cabin, he hurried to lock the doors. “That deal that I said went bad the night we met, it was with a siren. One of a set of twins. Nasty women my father got involved with.”

  Twins. He said twins.

  I swallowed hard. “Calista?” As soon as I spoke her name, the look on his face told me everything I needed to know.

  “How do you know her?” he asked, barreling toward his house. Wolves were bursting from the bushes, noses to the ground, scouting the property.

  “She’s one of my recent bounty cases. I caught her and her sister, but then she broke out, so I’m on the hunt for her again. Cass is out looking for her now.”

  He groaned. “That makes sense.”

  We should have had this conversation a week ago! I wondered how forthcoming he’d be with information. “What deal did you have with her?”

  He pulled up to his porch, where Sabine was waiting. Ray stood next to her with a shotgun in his hand.

  “Let’s worry about this later. My boys are on it and we need to get you better.” His reply was obviously to keep from having to tell me about the deal. It was clear our newfound friendship didn’t run very deep.

  I would have argued, but dammit he was right. I needed to know what the hell was wrong with me before I lost any more weight. Exiting the car, I crutched my way to the porch, where Ray exchanged a few brief words with his alpha before running off into the tree line.

  Sabine ushered us over to a quiet area, while her eagle eyes scanned my body as if looking for visible injuries.

  “What is it? Just tell me,” I blurted out anxiously.

  Her eyes flicked to Brock and she sighed. “You’re pregnant, and from the rumors, I’m guessing the baby is his.”

  The porch spun as her words slammed into me.

  “Excuse me? That’s not possible,” I asked, finally managing to string words together.

  Brock hadn’t said a word. He stood there, staring at my belly as if he expected to find some kind of evidence of what Sabine had said.

  “So it’s his?” Sabine jotted some notes in her binder, as if what she was talking about wasn’t a big deal, a really huge fucking deal. Like, life-altering shit.

  My arms crossed over my chest defiantly. “If I were pregnant, which I’m not, then yeah it’d be his. I’m not a whore.” Just a little bit of one, sometimes, last week in particular.

  “A baby?” Brock seemed to have found his voice. A huge grin lit up his normally stoic face.

  Fuck. He liked kids. Could he be any more perfect?

  Sabine nodded. “Her HCG levels are high. Normally, you wouldn’t be able to breed with a witch or a dud, but with a fox shifter…” She let that sentence settle.

  I was a fox shifter, and from the photo my dad had probably been a fox shifter too. Now it looked like I was pregnant with a werewolf’s baby.

  Fuck. My. Life.

  “Birth control,” I mumbled, unable to string my thoughts together better than that.

  Sabine nodded. “Great stuff for human s
perm, doesn’t work with most supernaturals.”

  What? Oh my God. Why did my doctor never tell me that? She was a supe! Well, she did think I was human and I never mentioned my soft spot for the shifters. I also usually used a condom.

  Breathe, just breathe.

  “So our baby is hurting her?” Brock looked at me tenderly.

  Our baby? My heart melted, even though I was pretty sure I was about to hyperventilate, have a nervous breakdown, or something. I was definitely losing my shit. What had happened to calm and collected, badass Evie?

  Our baby. He said it so casually, like it wasn’t the craziest news he’d ever heard.

  Sabine raised her eyebrows, no doubt as shocked as I was that the alpha was taking the news so well.

  Did I even want a baby? I’d never stopped to think about it. I was only twenty-four and I led a wild life, chasing after bad creatures. A baby never factored into that picture.

  “Yes,” Sabine confirmed. “I don’t think the fetus is compatible with her fox, so it’s robbing her of her resources. Feeding off her, if you will.”

  Feeding. “Like a parasite?” I screeched. Yeah, I’d totally lost my cool.

  The doctor nodded.

  Everything started spinning faster then, and a black wall slammed into me with force, stealing the breath from me. As I lost consciousness, the last thing I remembered was falling into strong, waiting arms.

  10 Oh, Baby

  When I finally came to, I immediately realized I was back in Brock’s house. There was a certain feel to the place, one that reminded me of him. His earthy scent permeated every surface.

  Only this time I wasn’t in the bed with the fluffy white comforter, and the nightstand on the wrong side of the room. I was in an even larger bed with silky sheets in earthy colors. The blinds were slanted, mostly shut, but some late-afternoon light still filtered into the room, illuminating the sole man sharing it with me.

  The moment I fully opened my eyes, Brock jumped up from the armchair in the corner, where he’d clearly been waiting. I was pretty sure I’d felt him staring at me even while I was unconscious. The wolf had a certain presence that did things to me.

  He was at my side in a flash, reaching to hold my hand. “Are you all right, Evie?” His voice dripped with concern.

  I took in his strong jaw, full lips, thick dark hair and dreamy amber eyes, and forgot that I was supposed to answer him. But he looked so worried; I couldn’t make him wait.

  “I’m fine,” I croaked, even though I sure as shit wasn’t fine. I was probably still a pregnant fox shifter with a sketchy past. “Though, I think I need some water,” I added, around a parched throat.

  He helped me sit, piling pillows that smelled of him under my back, and then rushed to the chest of drawers to retrieve a glass of water, already poured. He pressed the glass to my lips gently, and tipped it up slowly. I wanted to complain about the fussing, but drank instead.

  “Is that enough? Do you need more? Do you want ice cubes?” he asked, ready to bolt for the kitchen as soon as I said the word.

  “I’m fine for now.” I chuckled darkly. “You know, I can drink water on my own. I’m not completely useless.” Though I did feel a hell of a lot like it.

  He ignored my protests and set the glass down instead. His gaze traveled the length of my body before he slipped his hand into mine. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  I sighed. Should I tell him the truth? Or should I put on my tough Evie act, the one I had perfected? In the end, I found so much vulnerability in his gaze that I opted for the truth. “I’m as well as can be expected. I feel like crap, I’m scared out of my wits, and it seems like I have a parasite growing inside me.” I laughed to try to cover my discomfort, then stilled when I caught his reaction.

  “A parasite? You think our baby is a parasite?” His jaw tightened as my heart melted all over again at those words. Our baby.

  What was with me? I wasn’t the maternal type. I was the kick-down-doors type.

  He pulled his hand from mine but I caught it before he could pull away. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Though I kind of had. The baby was feeding off me, for fuck’s sake.

  “Then how did you mean it?” His words were defensive.

  I let the tension ease from my shoulders and tried for honesty again. “Listen, I’m not used to this kind of, er, stuff. I don’t do feelings, and I don’t do... babies.” He went to pull away again, but I persisted. I huffed, blowing strands of hair from my face. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m out of my element, and I’m kind of freaking out here. I don’t know what to think.”

  “So you’re spewing at the mouth?” he offered.

  I grunted, offended, before I noticed the kind smile that graced that gorgeous mouth. The corners of my lips came up as I gave him a very small smile back; it was the best I could do right then. “I’ll never admit to spewing anything, but, yeah. I might appear calm and collected, but I’m not. I’m totally losing it.”

  He laughed, a real hearty sound, but he didn’t let go of my hand. “You? Calm and collected?”

  Yanking my hand away from his, I crossed my arms across my chest, giving him a full-on pout.

  He laughed some more and sat on the bed at my side, placing a possessive hand on my thigh. Even beneath the blanket, the heat of his hand radiated through the point of contact, straight to my core. Damn, what this man did to me. I was in trouble, and now I was carrying his baby. What the hell kind of turn had my life taken without my permission?

  “You aren’t even a little bit calm and collected,” he said, and I glared, doing my best to ignore his wide smile. “You’re fiery as fuck, stubborn as hell, sexy as sin... and now the mother of my child.”

  I gulped and my pout fell. Well, damn. If he was going to be like this, how the hell was I supposed to keep my distance and remain angry at him? I was starting to want to curl into the safety of his arms, and that was so not me. I didn’t rely on anyone else to prop me up. Were the pregnancy hormones messing with my emotions already? Yep, I was sure they were. It was like PMS on steroids.

  I didn’t know what to say. Already this pregnancy was turning me into something I wasn’t.

  “I want to help you,” he said. “I want to take care of you.”

  “Take care of me? Just because I’m carrying a baby doesn’t mean I’m a baby myself. You realize that, right?” But my protest was half-hearted and he knew it. I’d lost so much weight in the past week, it was clear I did need someone to take care of me.

  “I know you don’t need me to take care of you. I want to.” His eyes twinkled. “Even though you are pretty gimpy at the moment.”

  The comment made me bristle, and then I realized he was totally joking. I was in over my head; no point pretending things were normal. “Is Sabine a hundred-percent sure I’m pregnant?” It wasn’t like I could actually feel a baby moving around inside me, or anything. The baby was probably the size of a pea at this stage, if that.

  “She’s totally sure.” Joy lit up his face, and I melted like chocolate in the sun. Damn him, his sexiness, and baby loving nature. “She ran the tests multiple times, coming at them from different angles. There’s no doubt about it. You’re carrying my baby.”

  You’re carrying my baby. Those words shouldn’t have made desire flare to life inside me, but they did. He wasn’t asking me to get an abortion, or paying me off to raise the kid for eighteen years alone. No, he was holding my hand, two seconds away from asking me to move in with him. My, how the tables had turned.

  He simply sat there, looking so happy that it was easy to imagine him a carefree boy, without all the weight and responsibility of being an alpha of a good-sized pack.

  “You really are happy about this pregnancy, aren’t you?” I asked. I was still processing my shock, but he’d taken the news well.

  “Of course I am! You might not know this, but werewolf pregnancies are rare. There’s no guarantee you’ll get to have a child when you’re one of us.”
r />   “But… you have brothers!”

  “I do, but things have changed since my mother conceived us. Something’s been happening to the wolf genes. It’s gotten increasingly difficult for female wolves to conceive, and when they do, more often than not the pregnancies result in miscarriages.” Sadness tugged at the edges of his face.

  I frowned. “Could that happen to us? To me?” I hadn’t been sure I’d wanted this baby until the second he said ”miscarriage.” Now my heart was pumping like crazy, and I wanted to do everything possible to make sure this baby was safe.

  “It shouldn’t,” he reassured, but I caught the flicker of fear in his eyes before he stashed it away. “You’re different. You’re a fox shifter. Which is why Sabine was so excited to study you when we first figured out what you are.”

  My eyes were wide. “All werewolves are experiencing this?”

  He nodded again. “Across the globe.”

  “Wow. I had no idea.”

  “That’s good. You weren’t supposed to know. No one’s supposed to know—”

  “Because if your enemies find out, they’ll take advantage of it…”

  “Yeah, and as you know, we wolves have plenty of enemies. If they found out...” He let his implication linger.

  “They’d try to wipe out your entire race as fast as they could, so you wouldn’t have the chance to replace your numbers…”

  “And I can’t let that happen, obviously.” He looked worried, and I knew our newfound trust was fragile.

  I bit at my lip. Wolves had plenty of enemies. The supernatural community wasn’t known for its ability to get along. Vamps and witches were the sworn enemies of wolves. I was pretty sure vamps didn’t like anyone; they didn’t even really like other vampires.

  Then there were the demons, the goblins, the trolls... the list went on and on. As a group, supes weren’t friendly types.

  “And Calista? Does she know? Is that what all the deal is with her?” Okay, I’d put my detective hat on, but dammit I was having a kid with this guy. I needed to know what his baggage was. I also needed to close this Calista case so I could cash in, because kids were expensive, and I didn’t want to owe Mack twenty-five hundred dollars, on top of being put on suspension.