Masters of the Hunt: Fated and Forbidden

by Sarra Cannon

  Never releasing my watchful vigilance on the area around me, I wiped the eyeball gore from my thumbs onto my ruined dress. It made my skin crawl. My mouth became dry and nausea rolled my stomach. Where did he go?

  I checked around the corner again but the Danube Promenade looked empty of monsters.

  He was gone.

  Chapter 5

  The night clerk at my hotel gave me the fish eye as I walked up to the counter and confessed I’d lost my key at a party.

  He handed me the replacement, taking in my torn dress and bare feet. “Must have been some party.” I’d walked like this for six blocks down the Danube Promenade waiting for fang face to jump me again.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you could say that.” I took the elevator to the seventh floor.

  Rurik astounded me. I flip-flopped between hatred and lust. At the club I would have staked him myself, but at the party... I fanned myself. He set me on fire. I never thought I’d meet another man who could do that. Then again, Rurik wasn’t a man.

  The doors opened onto my floor and I stepped out. Rurik rescued me, sure Colby provided a distraction, but Rurik could have left me stuck behind the couch with a mob of angry vampires between my Calvary and me. It should make no difference to him if I survived the attack at the party. Or did it? He’d come back for me.

  I was too tired to think straight. Beautiful and heroic, didn’t change the fact that he’d done something bad enough to merit Colby’s hire. I opened my room door. The only thing I wanted to do was sprawl on top of my big soft bed and lapse into a coma. My stench overcame me in the closed quarters. The coma could wait until I showered.

  A sliding glass door across from my bed overlooked the Danube River and the city’s skyline. The need for fresh air drew me out onto the balcony and I admired the night view. A breeze brushed against my wet dress and cleared some of the smell from the hotel room. Whatever Colby paid for the room, this sight made it worth every penny.

  The Buda Castle spread itself on the hillside across the river. It shone golden against the night sky, reflecting the spotlights that surrounded it, and was probably the largest Gothic palace in Europe. The city extended around its hill with a combination of medieval and modern architecture, all lit up for their nightly display. The rich lights danced on the gentle currents of the Danube River.

  I leaned against the doorframe and watched the ripples of the water warp the reflections. The soft wind made me shiver and I wished for a certain set of strong arms for warmth. Loneliness overwhelmed me. It hadn’t always been this way, but it felt so achingly long ago, it may as well have been a lifetime. I saw no point in dwelling on it. Despair would just hook its claws into me and drag me back under its gray misty clouds.

  Wishing wouldn’t bring my husand back, nothing would.

  I would call Colby again, but first, I needed to wash my hands of the dirt and vampire gore that still clung to them. Hopefully, the liquid-soaked dress didn’t short my tracking device and they knew I made it back to the hotel. I would hate for them to cruise the streets searching for me.

  My reflection in the bathroom mirror appeared pitiful. No wonder the night clerk gawked. I looked as if I’d been wrestling in trash, instead of hiding in it. A piece of potato peel hung from my hair and my lower lip split from being backhanded. I picked the peel out of my hair and tossed it into the commode. A hysterical giggle bubbled up. I clamped my hands over my mouth before it got out of control. What a mess.

  The hot water ran over my hands, and all the little cuts I acquired in my adventures, screamed at the same time.

  I hopped up and down from the stinging as I scrubbed with lots and lots of soap, getting every bit of contaminated gunk off me, then started on my face. Amazing how a little soap and water can rejuvenate someone. The split on my lip began bleeding from the scrub. I looked up at the mirror again to examine it.

  My gaze met a pair of cool, blue eyes.

  I gasped and my heart raced. “You!”

  Rurik leaned against the bathroom’s doorway and watched me. He moved with unnerving quietness. Somewhere between shoving me out the window and his arrival here, he’d lost his dress jacket. I appeared to have done more fighting than he did, not one of his hairs looked out of place.

  I spun to point my finger at him. “How did you get in here?” Then marched up to him, planted my hands on his chest and pushed. “How dare you!” A bulldozer wouldn’t have moved him.

  His eyes widened at my unexpected assault and he raised his hands in a vain attempt to placate me.

  I put my shoulders into the effort to move him out of my room.

  He laughed as he backed out of the bathroom of his own free will. His hands reached to touch me but I slapped at them and knocked them away.

  “Are you laughing at me?” I slapped his hands again and again, until he captured my wrists gently in his hands. I tried to pull away. “Stop it!”

  He sported a huge stupid grin. “You’re such an interesting woman, Rabbit. And what a vision.” He choked on a chuckle, unable to contain himself.

  I was supposed to be safe. I’d fought for my life and finally reached my room. My face and hands were clean, my shower waited, then my soft, cozy bed. He wasn’t supposed to be here. I was supposed to be ... safe.

  Tears welled up in my eyes. I tried to blink them away but they trickled out. He held my wrists so I couldn’t wipe them away. Instead, I looked down at my grubby feet and tried to focus on what was left of my pedicure.

  I wished he would leave me alone. His presence made my loneliness sharper, closer to the surface than I’d allowed it to be in almost a year.

  The dam broke loose and the tears flowed in steady dismal streams. Pressure built in my chest. It ached to breathe. A big sob escaped.

  “Rabbit?” He knelt down to look up at my face as I tried to hide my tears.

  I turned away but it didn’t do any good.

  He released my wrists to wipe away the tears spilling down my cheeks with his thumbs. “Please don’t cry.”

  I’m sure it was an ugly thing to witness. Heat spread across my cheeks as I got blotchy, my nose ran, and a fat, split lip didn’t help. He pulled me down into his arms and pressed me against his chest. He felt solid as I sat on his lap and leaned on his shoulder to sob my heart out. Once I started, it became hard to stop. I hated it.

  “I’m sorry,” he chanted between my sobs, his voice soft and concerned. We sat on the carpet in the middle of my room as his hand stroked my hair and he rocked me in his arms.

  When every pent up tear had poured from me, I pulled away to use the hem of my destroyed dress as a handkerchief.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He set me on the floor with tender care and walked back into the bathroom.

  I heard the water run. A few seconds later, he returned with a wet face cloth. He knelt in front of me and washed my tear streaked face. My temper cooled with each refreshing, gentle swipe. He was so careful with it, as thought unfamiliar with the act. His smile was gone. It surprised me, to find myself yearning for his touch. He kept glancing at my mouth as he washed my face.

  He took my breath away, full soft lips contrasted with the hard lines of his jaw, the sensitive disquiet of his expression softening the edges. His face lowered to mine slowly, coming to within a hair’s breadth of my lips. Our eyes met and he hesitated.

  Who could blame him after my recent impersonation of a psycho? This man who kneeled in front of me, sweetly concerned, did not seem like a monster. I wanted to kiss him but my thoughts and desires warred with each other.

  Rurik drugged me, then offered me up as a pet. I couldn’t afford to be this naïve.

  He continued forward, closing the gap quickly, and traced his tongue along my bottom lip.

  I raised my eyebrows and reflexively reached up to touch where he’d tasted me. My fingers came away with a little blood. The split in my bottom lip still bled. Something squirmed inside my stomach. I remembered how I felt watching the feeding at the p
arty—a twisted combination of arousal and revulsion.

  He brought my bloody fingers to his mouth and delicately sucked on them as his gaze burned into mine.

  I pulled them from his mouth and watched, fascinated, as a lazy smile curled his lips.

  He sighed. “Thank you for sharing. I love the way you taste.”

  “Uhh, you’re welcome?” Was that the right response? This was weird, even for me.

  He folded the cool washcloth neatly and handed it to me. “Keep it pressed to your lip. It will help with the swelling.”

  I held the cloth to my mouth and hid the blood from his sight. “How did you find me?”

  If he used some kind of mind trick to locate me, I needed to know. Dragos wasn’t like Rurik. If he could find me in the same manner, I could kiss my sweet ass goodbye.

  The lazy smile still graced Rurik’s face. “I saw you walking along the street and followed you.”

  Relief flooded me—no tricks, just dumb luck. Something else disturbed me though. “How did you get into my room?”

  “Do you always ask so many questions, Connie?”

  That was the first time he’d used my name since we’d met. I’d graduated from being a main course to a person. I glared at him.

  He relaxed back onto his hands and tilted his head, flirting with his seductive eyes.

  I wasn’t buying it, at least not for the next minute or so.

  He reached over to remove an errant curl from my eyes. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t injured.”

  “Yeah ... but how did you get in my room?”

  His fingers trailed down my arm sending a shiver up my spine. My resolve dissipated as well. “Is your lip the worst of your injuries?”

  “Yes.” I swallowed as his fingers moved back up. “Did you bribe the clerk? Use vampire mojo on him?”

  His hand paused and his eyes flicked back to mine. “Mojo?” The lazy smile turned into a wicked, amused grin. “No mojo. I saw you standing on the balcony. You seemed so very sad.” The silence grew as I waited for his answer. We stared at each other and Rurik’s grin grew as well. “You left your balcony door open, so I came in.”

  “We’re seven floors up!”

  “I used my vampire ‘mojo’.”

  “Oh.” Seven floors up—that was pretty high—even with mojo.

  He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss against the pulse in my wrist. The soft caress against my skin made me long to have him touch those lush lips to my other pulse points. Similar thoughts seemed to heat up his stare but he released me. “It’s almost dawn and I need to go. I had fun tonight.”

  “You have a peculiar taste of fun.”

  He stood from the floor in one fluid motion then came and plucked a scrap of paper out of my curls. “I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard.” He kissed me on the top of my head and grimaced. “You need a shower, Rabbit.”

  “Really? I kind of like the stench.”

  He chuckled under his breath while he walked out to the balcony.

  “Rurik?”

  He turned and looked at me, the lights from my room reflecting off his eyes, making them swirl like black pools. The cool breeze played along his body while he stood outside the balcony doorway.

  “I was attacked by a vampire in an alley nearby. Just as I couldn’t defend myself anymore, he suddenly disappeared.” I watched his face for some hint of recognition. “Do you know anything about that?”

  He still grinned. “Maybe it was the smell.”

  “You followed me.”

  “I offered you my protection.”

  “If I pleased Dragos. I didn’t do anything.”

  His grin softened and he blew me a kiss. “You pleased me.” Then he was gone. Just like that. Poof.

  He didn’t go over the side, I would have seen that. Staggering to stand, I wandered onto the balcony, dumbfounded for the second time that night. I think he went ... up. The washcloth dripped water onto the floor, forgotten in my hand.

  The shrill ring of the bedside phone shattered my wonderment. It made me jump as if struck by a cow prod.

  Chapter 6

  I knew who it was before I answered the phone. “Colby?”

  “Are you all right?” His voice dripped with anger.

  “I think so. One of them followed me here.” I regretted those words as soon as they popped out. Exhausted, my brain must have malfunctioned.

  “Is it still there? We can be at the hotel in minutes.”

  A twister of emotions raged inside my heart. I didn’t want to tell him it was Rurik.

  “Connie? Are you there? Connie, if you’re in trouble, this would be the time to use one of those code words I made you memorize.”

  “No need for the Double-O-Seven stuff. He’s gone.”

  “Did he bite you?”

  “No, I convinced him to leave ... I told him I belonged to a stronger vampire.” Technically Rurik gave me to Dragos as a present. I wasn’t lying. Colby would want to dissect every nuance of my conversation with the Overlord of Budapest. The details of vampire politics and laws I’d learned at the party needed to be shared but our conversation in my hotel room was private.

  “What? That worked?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Tonight was a clusterfuck. Report in five minutes at the front entrance, there’ll be someone waiting for you.”

  “But—” The dial tone cut me off. I needed a shower. He could use a lesson in phone etiquette. My ride could sit there and grow roots. I was taking a shower. I had unidentified alley fluid dripping off the hem of my dress, vampire saliva on my chest, and eyeball remains under my nails. Colby could park his mercenary ass and wait ten more minutes.

  A driver waved me over and held the door for me as I exited the building. Sunlight chased the stars away with its nimbus of pink light in the east. My ponytail dripped warm drops of water onto my t-shirt as I climbed into the back of a cab. I finally felt clean and comfy in my sweatpants. Our destination was a mystery to me. As a rule, the bait never gets informed. Basically, it’s a need-to-know relationship and a safeguard.

  Good bait was hard to find. Can’t exactly place an ad in the classifieds. “Vampire lure wanted. No prior experience needed. Great benefits!” I snorted at the thought. Getting groped, chased, and then enthralled were not my idea of benefits. However, when a plan worked and a killer got dusted, it made up for all the other stuff.

  Colby saved me from my first vampire encounter. It was a dismal time for me. The recent loss of my husband, Laurent, to cancer, cut a huge hole in my soul. Captain Morgan and I prearranged a date every night. I had nothing left and the prospects of joining my husband sounded nicer each passing hour.

  Colby saved my life twice the night we met, the first time from the vampire and the second time from myself.

  The cab stopped in front of a church and the driver looked at me through the rearview mirror. “When you get inside, go down the first set of stairs on the right.”

  I stood on the curb and watched the cab fade into the growing traffic. The church loomed above, a giant stone monstrosity from a time when religion ruled the people.

  Inside the entrance, I found the stairway, but something drew me further into the church. An altar stood on the dais in front of an enormous stained glass window. The weak sunlight, the only light in the room, filtered down around the altar and made pretty patterns of pinks and blues on the floor. Tranquility filled me. A small island of peace after the storm I’d just experienced.

  I knelt at the closest pew. “Thanks for the help tonight.” Then I stood and did a little curtsy to the altar. That might not be the right way but I winged it. The appropriate formula for prayer was foreign to me.

  When I returned to the stairs, Red blocked my way. He grinned from ear to ear, disfiguring his ruddy pockmarked face.

  “That was so cute, Connie. Someone might mistake you for a lady doin ‘ a curtsy like that.”

  “Stick it in your ear, Red.” I
brushed past him to make my way downstairs. Red was the size of a grizzly bear. People thought his size made him slow but they were wrong. He snatched me up like a doll and crushed me in his version of a hug.

  “Breathe...” I swatted the back of his head with my free arm while stars flashed before my eyes.

  He loosened his grip while setting me back on the ground. I gasped in air. “You big red-headed goof. Are you trying to break me in two?”

  “Thought we lost you tonight, shrimp.” He ruffled my hair, pulling strands out of my neat ponytail. “You added more white hairs on my head when you ran out onto the Promenade away from us.” He leaned in close, meeting my eyes to make his point. “Next time, climb the damn fence. I’m too old to be sprinting after a lunatic.”

  “Have you ever tried climbing a fence in a dress and heels?”

  “When we get back home, you’re doing more training with me.” He pointed his thumb to his chest. Red’s hair may be getting whiter but his body could still dent things. “I’ll have you climbing fences in a clown suit.”

  I snorted but returned his hug. Red meant well. I could count on one hand the number of people who truly cared about me. Red was one of them.

  We made our way down the stairs. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “I heard about the vampire who followed you home. You shouldn’t play with strays, you might catch something.”

  “Har, Har, you’re such a comedian.” We continued further into the church basement.

  “How come he didn’t do anything to you?”

  “I didn’t—I mean, he lost interest and dawn was coming.”

  “You tellin ‘ me this thing chased you three blocks, followed you to the hotel, and then lost interest?”

  They thought the vampire who hunted me from the party followed me to my hotel room. “I reasoned with him.”

  His eyebrow rose. “How?”