“You expect me to believe it was pure coincidence that he took out the Gale clan only hours before a hunter found her way into the tunnels and took out one of our own?”
I stiffen at the mention of me. After all, who the hell else could he be talking about?
“I swear it,” the man cries. “They told me to grab him, so I did.”
“And you didn’t think it was interesting that you—a pathetic noob—was able to capture and arrest one of our oldest?”
“I just—”
“You just thought that he would lie down and take it because, what, you were so terrifying?” A third man laughs.
“I had a blade pressed to his back.”
The man scoffs. “He would not have been so easily taken in unless he chose to be. You should have been more wary of his cooperation and called it in. Now, because of your insolence, the Council has to get out of town, and we won’t get the extra territory we requested.”
Another thump.
A groan.
“Dumb fucknugget,” the man who’s done all the talking so far curses.
“What should we do with him?” the third one asks.
“I’d love to weigh in on that,” I say as I straighten.
Just beyond the line of shadows, three sets of crimson eyes turn to me. “Hunter bitch.” A larger vampire, bald, wearing a black leather jacket and saggy dark jeans, bares his fangs.
“I’m assuming you mean me,” I say sarcastically as I glance behind me.
“You’re so foolish to come here,” another man—this one with a massive face tattoo—says.
“Possibly, but I’d say I’m in the right place at the right time, wouldn’t you?” I step toward them, careful to maintain my stance even as I attempt to appear casual.
Last time I was outnumbered—granted it was five not three—it didn’t go so well, and I somehow doubt Jack will be nearby to save me this time. I may have been lucky once—but twice? No way in hell.
Supernatural energy builds in my veins, giving me an extra boost of adrenaline as I prepare for a fight. The edges of my vision blur as I recall the memory of Ramirez’s CI’s broken body lying on that bed.
Of the man on the counter.
The vampire on the ground snivels and I get a good look at a young—maybe early twenties—supernatural with a bloodied and bruised face. His left arm is sitting at an awkward angle, and I shake my head.
“Picking on the weaker ones, seems fitting for a pathetic douchebag like yourself.”
Face tattoo growls and lunges for me, but leather jacket puts a hand on his arm to hold him back.
“Be a good little vampire and listen to your boss.” I wink at him. “Tell me, were you the jackasses who provided the Gale clan with food?”
“What’s it to you?” Leather jacket folds his arms over his broad chest.
“I thought that was obvious. I’m a hunter; you’re a virus that needs to be purged from this world. I just want to make sure you’re the particular strain I’m looking for.”
He grins. “It’s possible. Hard to remember though.”
“Petite blonde, about my height. She’d been high.”
Face tattoo throws his head back and laughs. “I bet she’s talking about Ollie.”
I stiffen. “So you did know her.”
“Hell yeah we did, bitch was obsessed with us. Thought we could be the solution to her problem. She practically threw herself at us in exchange for some of her blood.”
“You promised to turn her,” I say, reading between the lines, my body vibrating with anger.
“We did.”
“But it would have been a waste,” leather jacket says with a grin. “A waste of a good high.”
“You kept her high so you could keep feeding off her.”
“We did.” He grins at me, showing off two gold front teeth. “And she was fucking delicious until she started getting whiny. Then, we traded her to the Gale’s for another human.”
I’ve always known the bloodsuckers trade humans like stock. They prey on the desperate, the ones who believe they’re already damned, and most of the victims don’t realize they’ll never get what’s promised to them.
I hate bullies—and vampires are among the worst.
“You’re going to die for what you did to her,” I growl and lunge. Face tattoo is the first to come for me. He reaches for me as I get close enough, but I drop to my knees and sweep my leg out, knocking his ass to the pavement.
Leather jacket is next. I jump to my feet just in time to block a blow that was aimed at the side of my face. Pain radiates up my forearm from the contact, but I don’t waste any time as I drive my blade into his gut and turn, the silver shredding his flesh.
Ripping my blade out, I spin and kick my foot out, slamming it into his chest and sending him flying backward.
The sniveling asshole on the ground attempts to come for me, but I dispatch him easily enough. One swipe of my blade to his throat, and he falls to the ground.
Someone grips my wig—a lavender one this time—and attempts to pull it off my head, but this time it stays in place.
Thank you, shit ton of bobby pins I used before leaving my apartment.
I spin out of his grasp, feeling the wig pulling painfully at my hairline. I kick him in the gut and he grunts, stumbling backward. Turning to face him, I drop my shoulder and slam into him, knocking us both to the ground beside leather jacket’s lifeless body.
I land on top of him and press my blade against his throat. “Who were you talking about?”
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“The man, the one your buddy said killed the Gale clan.”
He sneers. “Like I’d fucking tell you anything.”
A door shuts.
A car roars to life.
Shit.
“Time’s up.” I bury the silver blade into his chest and turn, making the final kill and watching as the life leaves his eyes.
The car moves past us, its headlights never once shining on the dead just beyond the shadows.
Getting to my feet, I survey the damage as the first drop of rain falls down from the sky. For a brief moment, I drop my head to look down at the ground as the water splashes on the back of my neck, just beneath the line of my wig.
Then, with a sigh, I reach down and grab face tattoo’s legs before dragging him the short distance to the woods just beyond the asphalt line and returning for the other two bodies.
At least the rain will take care of the blood.
12
Elijah
Rainey slips into the shadows just beyond the tree line. She’s finished dragging the bodies, but the copper tang of blood still clings to the air even as the storm rages around us. Rain hammers down onto me as I stand, but I don’t care for the destruction of my suit.
Seeing her fight again—
Watching her seek retribution for the dead human woman back at the Gale house—
It was too fucking much. She’s amazing—this warrior. Even as pissed as I am that she keeps running headfirst into dangerous situations, I have to remind myself that she’s a hunter.
This is her legacy—her purpose—just as it was Delaney’s.
But the thought of her facing the same fate—I shiver although it’s not cold. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my cell phone and press it to my wet ear.
“What is it?” the familiar voice grumbles in my ear. Music pumps in the background, the heavy thud of bass letting me know my friend was more than likely out feeding.
“I’ve got a cleanup for you,” I say as I move closer to the tree line where Rainey is dragging the bodies beneath some brush. Probably so she can take care of them later.
“Where?”
“The twenty-four-hour diner on the edge of town,” I tell him, knowing that he’ll realize exactly where I’m talking about. There aren’t many diners supernatruals frequent.
A woman groans and he curses. “You have the worst timing. I’ll be there in twenty.”
/>
“Make it forty-five,” I add as I watch Rainey work to conceal the bodies. The last thing I need right now is for Tarnley and his team to show up while she’s still on scene.
Talk about asking for fucking trouble.
She straightens, the lavender wig and enhanced nose shielding her true identity from anyone who might stumble upon her, but it can’t hide her from me. No, her scent has been embedded in my memory from the first moment I saw her.
The night I nearly ran right into her while I was out with Delaney.
“Don’t be a pain in the ass, Elijah,” Delaney scolds as she shakes her head.
I grin. “I don’t know how to be anything else, deirfiúr.”
She smiles, the dimples on either side of her mouth on full display at my words. “Sister, huh? Glad you see me that way since you are definitely the brother I never wanted but got stuck with anyway.”
I laugh.
We round the corner, and Delaney stops in her tracks, placing a hand up to stop me as well.
Immediately on the defense, I search for the source of whatever threat she’s sensing. “What is it?”
She presses against my chest, her purple nail polish a direct contrast with my midnight shirt, as she shoves me back into an alley and peers around the corner. I follow her lead, and glance out as a woman makes her way down the street, laughing wildly beside a brunette.
I can’t tear my eyes away from the one laughing. Her eyes so full of life. Dark freckles cover her cheeks and nose, and her hair moves wildly around her face with the force of her amusement at whatever her friend said.
But it’s more than that—and for a brief moment—when she stills at the crosswalk just ahead, her eyes searching the darkness where Delaney and I hide, I wonder if she sees me. My body stiffens, my blood hammering as I catch her scent with the soft breeze floating in our direction.
The scent of a hunter just like the woman in front of me. “Who the hell is that?” I ask.
“My sister,” she says sadly. “Rainey.”
“Your sister? I didn’t know you had a sibling.” My face screws up at the thought of another Astor. “Why is she not out here with you? Hunting?”
“She wants a normal life,” she whispers softly as Rainey and her friend turn the corner and head down another street altogether.
Seeing them—seeing her—disappear from sight tugs at me, sending my stomach twisting into knots I can’t quite understand.
“Hunters are not gifted with normal lives.” I nearly choke on the words, realizing just how true they are for all of us born supernaturals. Normalcy is a fairy tale for us—a fallacy.
Delaney steps back out and smiles up at me. “I know that, but with what’s headed her way—I’m going to give her as much of one as possible.”
I never knew what she meant by those words. But the finality in them, as I realize just how foreboding they had been, is not lost on me.
Less than a year later, Delaney was dead, and Rainey let loose on the supernatural world with the force of a hurricane.
Word of her traveled to me even as I hid out in Europe, putting all of my energy into seeking something I never actually thought I’d find—and still haven’t—in my desperate attempt to shield myself from my grief. My guilt. I should have been here when Delaney died, and instead, I was out of the country, in my own selfish attempt to find what I thought would make me happy.
Delaney was the second closest friend I’d ever had—and I let her the fuck down. That’s just not something I can ever forgive myself for.
But at least now, I can try and protect Rainey—shielding her from the same fate as her sister. And even as it drives me insane to be this near to her and unable to act on the deep-rooted desire hammering through my body, I’ll endure the torment if only to fulfill my promise to a hunter who was my sister in everything but blood.
13
Rainey
“Easy, Rainey. You have to swing with a fluid movement. Like this.” Delaney holds out her hand, and I place the hilt of my blade in her palm.
She swings the short sword like the badass she is, and I watch, completely awestruck by her skills. “How do I get that good?” I ask. It’s only been four months since our parent’s died, but since then, Delaney has been training me.
She’s told me things I never would have believed before, and honestly, had I not seen it myself the night we buried our parents, when they broke into our house, I probably would have thought she’d lost it. Sure, I knew I was different—my mother told me that much.
But no one bothered to explain why.
Delaney smiles, the dimple next to her mouth on full display. I’ve always been jealous of my sister. She’s older than me and beautiful. Unlike my brown, her hair is a soft blonde—nearly white. She doesn’t have heavy freckles on her face, and she’s taller than me—by a lot. And here I am, stuck in an awkward stage of not quite a teenager and not a little girl anymore.
Still, she’s my best friend, and I don’t know what I’d do without her.
“You have to practice, Rainey. One day, it may be you doing the hunting, and I need you to be ready.”
“You’ll always be with me though, right?” I take the sword from her, staring down at the blade as it glints in the sunshine streaming in through the window of our apartment.
When I look back at her, she looks sad, her mouth no longer turned up in a smile. “I promise that I’ll never leave you if I can help it. Now, let’s train.”
She lifts another blade and holds it out to me. I take the stance she showed me last week and hold the weapon out.
“Let’s do this.” I lunge for her, swinging my blade, but she blocks it easily, not even breaking a sweat as she spins, knocking my feet out from beneath me. I fall, thumping against the ground. “I’m never going to be as good as you.”
Delaney kneels in front of me. “Listen carefully, and take my words with absolute honesty. You are more than I will ever be.”
I open my mouth to argue, but she shakes her head.
“You are going to be the future, Rainey Astor.”
There isn’t coffee in the world that’s strong enough to help me this morning. I’m pretty damned sure I died at some point in the night and this is my reanimation.
Not really, of course, but it sure as shit feels like it. I stand on my balcony, rocking a large T-shirt as I sip my caffeine and stare down at the street below. It’s still dark as I wait for the sunrise, and I savor the most peaceful part of my day.
Right now, I get to at least pretend my life is normal. That I didn’t spend last night killing vampires in a parking lot or pouring over information to try to gain some insight into who the hell would have put a hit out on me. And not just that, but they’ve also gone through the trouble of setting me up.
Someone had to have known I was going to the club—which is impossible, of course, since I didn’t tell a single person I’d planned to. Unless they saw me going in and put together some crazy-ass master plan in a matter of a couple of hours?
Either way, they used Darrell Smith to lure me. There’s no way he could have forked up the hundred bucks to get into the club in the first place, which probably means they planted him there as bait. Then turned him, knowing my day job would take me to his place.
How did they know the woman would die? Of course. Maybe he was their backup plan? If it looked like I was going to walk away, ripping her throat out would ensure we’d pay extra close attention to her.
And if that’s the case, she used his blood to lure me to the alley, and he was used again to put me in the field yesterday. Taking a seat on my patio chair, I grab the bag of Skittles I brought out with me. They’re the same ones that were left on my bike by whoever pulled me from the tunnels.
I tear the bag open and pull out a handful as I ponder the list of people who’d have the resources to pull a hit like that off. It’s an easy thing to do since the list literally contains zero names.
The club hunt, vampire nest, near-death
by silver bullet—one big-ass hot mess after another. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the Gale nest that was wiped out by another supernatural. No fucking way a human did that.
Based on the way the heads were ripped off, it was either vampire or shifter. But why? What’s the motive of the man those two vamps were willing to beat another over?
Shit, I wish Delaney were here.
There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t miss my sister. But when I’ve got this much going on, it definitely makes it a hell of a lot harder to be without her. She always knew what to do. Then again, if Delaney was here, she would have kicked my ass from here ’til Sunday for walking into those tunnels yesterday. I smile softly and take a drink of my coffee.
I miss my sister.
I miss my parents who were the first of my immediate family to depart from this world.
Hell, I even miss the grandmother who never seemed to want anything to do with me.
I’m the last one, the final Astor walking. After I go, there will be no one left to carry on our line. No fucking pressure.
Just as I’m about to get up and head inside to start getting ready for the day, a shiver of discomfort runs through me, and I narrow my gaze to the alley directly across from my apartment. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as I try to focus on the blurred shape I swear is staring up at me. The shape is similar in size to the one I saw at the hospital, and the same shiver of awareness runs up my spine.
Not quite unease, but not comfortable either.
Since I don’t want to spook whoever it is, I slowly turn into my apartment, setting my mug and Skittles down before I slip on some jeans and grab my blade, racing out the door. My bare feet pad on the soft carpet of the hall as I move as quickly as I can without making extra noise.
I hate the elevator so opt for the stairs instead even though it’ll add a few minutes to my trek downstairs.
By the time I get down to the front of the building, I can’t see the shape anymore. Running across the street, I head into the alleyway, but whoever was watching me is long gone. Adrenaline pumps through me. This is the second time I’ve seen the blur and the first time I had actual confirmation that I wasn’t just imagining it. No way I would have imagined the same blur twice…right?
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