Hunter's Edge

by Shiloh Walker

  Rafe knew her well enough to know better than to argue, so instead of arguing, they’d left the enclave in the hands of Rafe’s lieutenant, Dominic, and hit the road. The first few hundred miles sped by in silence, Sheila sensing nothing but the urgency rolling off Rafe.

  But then Sheila had started sensing it. Sensing them, this man who seemed too damn young, and a vampire. The vampire wasn’t one that Sheila could identify. Vamps had a feel to them, almost as individual as smell or a set of fingerprints. But it was a psychic thing and Sheila’s psychic skills were nothing to brag about.

  Rafe, though? Rafe was a Master vamp, powerful enough to feel this call from so far away. Strong enough to feel the feral, too, from wherever in the hell the bastard was. And despite what Rafe said, it wasn’t that close. Sheila wasn’t a strong Hunter, but if there was a feral anywhere close, she’d feel it, too.

  Close. It was all relative, she guessed. Rafe glanced at her, at the kid sprawled on the forest floor, pale as death, his heartbeat weak and slow. “Can you get him to the car okay?”

  Sheila smiled. “Yeah, slick. I think I can handle one kid.”

  Rafe didn’t wait another second. He disappeared into the woods on swift, silent feet and Sheila sighed, whispered, “Be careful.”

  She set about getting the kid thrown over her shoulder. He wasn’t as light as she would have expected—some seriously solid muscle on him, even as lanky as he was. He groaned, a soft, tortured sound. Sheila winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry, sugar.” He had to be hurting. Already, he was going through the Change, but it was at a slow rate. She could feel it burning through him, moving at a crawl.

  The Change was usually a hell of a lot quicker. Sheila remembered her own change. When you were going through it, it was slow, sheer agony. But she’d watched others go through it and the Change actually moved pretty damn quick. It took three days, but during those three days, the mortal body changed. The digestive system altered. Fangs formed and cut through. Bone and muscle became tougher, stronger. Senses were heightened.

  All within a mere seventy-two hours.

  But this kid, if he lived through, was probably going to be stuck in the Change for close to a week. Some blood would help. Once she got him someplace safe, she’d feed him a little, but a major feed would have to wait until Rafe showed up. A baby vamp needed stronger stuff than she had in her veins.

  You are what you eat.

  Snorting, Sheila muttered, “Yeah, with us, that’s a fact.” She continued to talk, not because she expected him to really hear her, but she knew the sound of a voice was a comfort. So she talked.

  “You want to be strong, first feed has to come from the strong.” Finally, she broke through the trees and emerged where Rafe had parked the car. In the moonlight, the baby-blue paint was colorless, the chrome reflecting the silvery moonlight back at her. “Here we go, sugar. Just a few more minutes…”

  She shot a glance towards the horizon, but it was still dark. The edgy anxiety riding her wasn’t coming from the sun’s approach. It was this totally bizarre situation. Her husband out there Hunting a feral and Sheila had her arms full of a baby vamp who looked like he’d gone a few rounds with a heavyweight boxer—and lost.

  “Wonder how old you are,” she said, trying to keep up an endless flow of words. “Don’t look much more than seventeen or eighteen. God, please, at least be that old…”

  Manhandling him into the back, she settled him on the bench seat as gently as she could. Hard, though. He was a long, lanky bastard and she had to plop his big feet on the floor board to close the door. Shoving her hair back from her face, she muttered, “Rafe gets to have all the fun.”

  It was nearly dawn before Sheila sensed his return.

  Her blood went hot, feeling the echo of the adrenaline that pulsed through him. Even though he hadn’t even reached the hotel room yet, she could feel the wildness. Shoving off the bed closest to the door, she went to meet him, smiling a little.

  Her smile faded, died away as she saw Rafe’s face, though.

  “You didn’t find him.”

  His dark, sexy face was set in grim, harsh lines. “Yeah, I found him, right as he was getting ready to kill some stupid teenager. He felt me coming, crushed the kid’s larynx—I had a choice, either go after him, or help the kid.” His mouth twisted in a snarl.

  “You did what you had to do, Rafe.” She stroked a hand down his face.

  Blowing out a breath, he shoved a hand through his short, dark hair. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s going to be a real comfort when he kills again.” Glancing over her shoulder, he studied the new vamp and said softly, “And it won’t be a comfort to him, either.”

  Rafe closed his eyes, lowered his head. Wide shoulders slumped. When he looked back at her, there was a screaming hell in his eyes. “There was another one hurt, a girl.” Rafe jerked his chin in the direction of the bed. “I won’t know what happened until I talk to him, but I could smell the feral and the boy there. Police all over the place, I couldn’t get too close. But I heard enough. There was a girl attacked, probably right before this kid—I think he must have interrupted.”

  A fist closed around Sheila’s heart. Unconsciously, she rubbed the heel of her hand over her chest. “What’s going on with the girl?”

  Rafe shrugged, but the motion lacked his normal grace. It was jerky, stiff. “She’s alive. Low on blood. Unconscious.”

  “Think the feral will go after her again?”

  Rafe sighed. “Hell, I don’t know. Not if he’s halfway sane. She’s in a hospital, surrounded by people. No vamp wants the attention it would attract if he went after her there. But since I didn’t find and kill that that fucker, I’ll have to get somebody in to watch her.”

  He started to move past her, shucking the long leather coat he wore. Sheila stopped him by stepping in front of him and sliding her arms around his waist. “You’re not Superman, slick. We aren’t guardian angels and we aren’t miracle workers.”

  A small smile tugged at his mouth. Cupping her face, he rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. “I got an angel of my own, only seems fair everybody gets one.”

  Snickering, Sheila said, “I’m not an angel.” Then she grinned, pushed up on her toes. “But if I am…sweetie, don’t take this wrong, but I don’t want you being an angel for anybody but me.” She kissed him until she felt some of the tension drain out of him. Pulling back, she skimmed her lips down his neck. “If he’s around here, we’ll find him. Dawn’s coming… He’ll be doing the same thing we’re doing, finding some place to hole up. We got time for now.”

  “Time.” Rafe sighed. He rubbed his mouth against hers and then stepped back, finished stripping his coat off. “Yeah. Time to feed some poor kid that oughta be home having wet dreams about his girlfriend. Watch him like a newborn, try to keep the Change from killing him.”

  Grimacing, Sheila folded her arms around her waist. “That might be easier said than done.”

  Hooking a hand over the back of his neck, Rafe rotated his head one way, then the other. “Tell me about it.”

  Sheila urged him to sit down on the edge of the bed. “Do you want to have Dom come out here?”

  Shooting her a glance, he asked, “Why?”

  Digging her fingers into the stiff muscles of his neck and shoulders, she worked out some of the tension there. Rafe hated it when his prey got away. Hated when they didn’t make it in time to help, and neither of them were pleased with the fact that they’d saved the new vamp from sunlight…but not from having the Change forced on him. “Because we’re going to have our hands full getting this one to Excelsior. You don’t want to let this feral slip away from us, do you?”

  His muscles had started to loosen just a little, but then bunched up and Sheila sighed, watched as Rafe shoved off the bed and started to pace the narrow hotel room. “Yeah, we can call Dom. But he can help you get the kid to Excelsior and I’ll track the prick down.“

  It wasn’t a suggestion that surprised her, but it was one that
wasn’t workable. She shook her head. “That won’t work. You need to feed him and he’ll need another feed here in the next few days. We both know it will be better for him if it’s the same vamp guiding him over. And he can’t wait until Dom gets here to feed.” Lifting her hands, she shrugged helplessly. “I gave him some, but I’m not strong enough to get him anchored, much less get him through this.“

  Rafe went still, still as death, still as the night. In a low, furious voice, he muttered, “Damn it!”

  “Rafe…call Dom. He can handle the feral, but that kid needs you now.“

  Scowling, Rafe shoved a hand through his hair and then nodded. “Fine.” Stalking to the phone, he grabbed the receiver. Abruptly, he slammed it back down. “You know who in the hell I’m going to have to leave in charge?”

  Tucking her tongue into her cheek, Sheila tried not to smile. “Yeah.”

  “Hell, no.”

  She couldn’t fight the grin any more. “There’s no choice, baby. Josiah is the only one who can run things if both you and Dom are gone.”

  Swearing, Rafe once more grabbed the phone. “I need more people. Shit.”

  Sheila laughed. Yeah, leaving Josiah in charge was going to be interesting.

  Chapter Two

  Age 31

  Kel shoved his arms into a worn-out blue jean jacket and his feet into a pair of worn tennis shoes. Hunger gnawed at his stomach like a vicious beast and his gums ached, throbbed. Automatically, he ran his tongue over them, pressed it against one of the narrow notch depressions just behind his regular teeth. His fangs throbbed and burned, ready to push down, to sink into some soft neck and feel the sweet fire of blood as it flowed down his throat.

  “Easier said than done,” he muttered, shoving tumbled brown hair out of his eyes.

  “You need to go feed, damn it. Why do you have to fight it so hard?”

  He could see Sheila’s pretty blue eyes, see the worry there, the sympathy. He hated her. Hated those soft blue eyes, her long blonde hair—she reminded him too much of Angel. Even after twelve years, he couldn’t see a blue-eyed blonde without thinking of Angel. He’d loved her—still did.

  And he’d lost her. He couldn’t ever have her back.

  Again, his hunger screamed at him and he heard the nagging echo of Sheila’s voice from the past day. Go feed, Kel. Feed. Go feed off some woman who’d get all soft and needy, who’d press her body to his, who’d rub against him. His body wouldn’t listen to him—it would respond, and he’d want.

  If he was weak at the time, or especially lonely, he’d give in. Then after it passed, once the hunger was sated and his body was satisfied, he’d be miserable.

  Would be easier to go on like this if he could just get Angel out of his head. He knew she was out of his reach now, but he couldn’t quit thinking about her. Couldn’t quit dreaming about her. Couldn’t quit wanting her.

  It would be impossible, considering that weird connection between them had become ten times stronger than it had been back before he’d been Changed. Before that, Kel’s psychic abilities had been nil. It had all been on Angel’s side, her natural gifts had formed a bond between them and their feelings for each other had augmented that bond, letting them feel each other, sense other.

  It had been that bond with her, Kel suspected, that had kept the feral who had Changed him from working his vamp mojo on Kel. Even now, twelve years later, he remembered the innate urge he’d had to leave when the feral had suggested just that.

  Kel was stubborn, always had been, but it hadn’t been his stubbornness that enabled him to resist. The strength had been born from their bond, a bond that wouldn’t have existed without Angel’s psychic abilities.

  But vampirism was a weird thing. It created a mind-reading ability. While it wasn’t exactly psychic abilities, it made a vamp able to sense a person’s thoughts. Usually just prey, whether a woman’s secret fantasies would make her that much easier to seduce, to fuck and feed, or the fear of those who preyed on others.

  “It’s a Hunter’s calling,” Kel had been told. Told time and again, but he didn’t have any desire to be a Hunter, to be some altruistic defender of the innocent. Part of him knew it was because he blamed them. Blamed people like Rafe and Sheila, not only because they’d failed to save him and not even for the failure to save Angel.

  No. He blamed them for saving him. Now he was stuck in what looked to be one long-ass life, a life where he was able to feel, hear, dream about Angel, but never to touch her again. Never to see her.

  A life where she’d grow old and die—without him.

  She was still the only woman he’d ever loved, and the time that stretched out between them didn’t change that. Neither did the fact that she wasn’t even aware he was alive.

  Thanks to their bond, Kel was acutely aware of her, aware of her happiness. Aware of her sadness. Aware of the triumphs she’d had over the past ten years, and the losses. Aware of all the dreams she’d had about him, and how she’d wake from time to time, crying into her pillow and whispering his name.

  When his family had a memorial for him after, she’d wept and he’d felt every damn tear as though it was his own. As they’d lowered an empty coffin into the ground, he’d felt the rose she’d gripped, felt the thorns digging into his flesh as though he’d been the one holding it. He could smell the scent of the flowers bedecking the empty box, and he could smell Angel.

  Every damn day, he felt her, heard her voice. And those nights when she woke in tears, he felt the ache of her loneliness as strongly as he felt his own.

  This existence was, plain and simply, pure hell.

  The only comfort he had was in knowing that while he might be condemned to feel Angel’s every need, wish and hurt, he could keep her from feeling his. During those first few weeks after the Change, while his body adjusted and his grief and rage spiraled out of control, he’d almost driven her insane.

  When he awoke hungry and craving blood, she’d done the same, without understanding why or even realizing it wasn’t her hunger, but his. When he slept like the dead throughout the days, waking only after the sun had set, she did the same.

  Every new, hated experience was shared with her. Poor Angel. She’d thought the blood thirst, the rage, the sleeplessness was hers, something manifested out of her grief and fury.

  When he fed, she’d believed she was hallucinating.

  Her urge to sleep throughout the day, her insomnia, she’d thought it was all on her.

  But it was him and he hadn’t known.

  Then, abruptly, some witch at the school where they’d sent him realized what was going on. How, Kel didn’t know.

  He hadn’t wanted to be at the school, but he’d been too messed up in the head to think about leaving. He’d thought, more than once, about taking a walk in the sunlight, but his body’s survival instinct was stronger. Each time he’d tried to take that daylight walk, his body had refused to cooperate.

  One of the older vampires, a teacher whose name escaped Kel, had taken him out for a Hunt in the forest. They’d been tracking a deer, the vamp making Kel track the animal by scent. Saliva pooling in his mouth, his fangs throbbing and his gut a screaming, empty knot, Kel had all but been out of his mind and then the witch had come.

  Her name was Kelsey. She’d been the healer who’d come to him those first hellish nights and the sound of her voice registered before he recognized her face. His instinct had been to run. It wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t done a damn thing to him, but hearing her voice had reminded him of all the shit he’d tried to forget.

  If he could have, he would have run away from her.

  But something about the way she’d looked at him had frozen Kel in place. When she’d sent the other vampire away, Kel hadn’t known what was going on, hadn’t known what she wanted from him. All she’d done, at first, was watch him with compassionate eyes.

  That compassion hadn’t done him a lick of good once she started to speak. Once he realized what he was doing. He’d always known
Angel was different, had always known that the two of them had some weird connection, but he hadn’t thought it would backfire like this. Even after he’d come out of his Change, realized what he was and that he couldn’t ever go back home, he hadn’t thought about how this could affect Angel.

  His selfishness still made him sick. Even after all these years. Angel had spent a good two months in hell because of him—and not just because of natural grieving. By the time any of the Hunters had figured out what was going on, Angel had all but retreated inside herself, convinced that her grief was driving her crazy.

  With help from Kelsey and some of the vampires at Excelsior, the school he’d been sent to, Kel had managed to get it under control and block Angel out. Time passed, allowed her to grieve, and eventually to heal.

  She even tried to forget.

  She didn’t succeed.

  But then again…neither could he. No matter how hard he tried to forget, he couldn’t.

  He couldn’t forget.

  He couldn’t even begin to heal.

  After a while, he’d stopped trying.

  He heard the footsteps coming his way before Sheila even knocked, could smell her even though she wasn’t in the room. “Come on in,” he said when she knocked. He didn’t raise his voice, but then again, he didn’t have to. In addition to the increased strength and speed, the Change heightened the senses too.

  Sheila came inside, wearing a floor-length pink skirt and a soft white sweater. She didn’t look a damn thing like a vampire. No. She looked like a soccer mom, a PTA mom. She looked like somebody who ought to be making cookies, rocking babies and helping her daughter deal with her first crush.

  She might bake those cookies, although she didn’t get to eat them. They got eaten by the resident shape-shifters and the lone witch who lived within the enclave. Instead of being mama to a bunch of kids, Sheila played mama hen to a Master vamp’s enclave. She fussed when any of the motley crew living there didn’t feed or take care of themselves.