Heart of a Huntress (The Kavanaugh Foundation Book 1)

by Crista McHugh

  She shook her head. “Maybe I should, just so there’ll be a few hunters there.”

  Greg snorted. “And we’re not hunters?”

  “You’re not trained.”

  The other two werewolves snickered at her, and Byron intervened before she dug herself deeper into a hole. “Lana, we hunt by instinct. No one needs to train us, and in case you haven’t noticed, we come equipped with a few extra perks like our sense of smell.”

  “Not to mention strength, great night vision and the ability to heal faster than humans,” Greg added.

  She lifted one eyebrow as she examined his friend, her obvious disbelief evident on her face. To the outsider, Greg resembled your typical nerd. He stood an inch or two shorter than Lana and had arms and legs that looked like they could be snapped as easily as twigs. But for what he lacked in an intimidating appearance, he made up for by speed and cunning. Byron had raced him across the ranch several times and lost—miserably so, at that. If he could choose anyone to be his second-in-command, it would be Greg.

  “Fine, I’ll send Wade a message.” She ducked into a shadow and pulled out her cell.

  “And who’s Wade?” Greg whispered.

  The wolf inside bared his teeth, but Byron dismissed it. “Probably her boss.”

  “Are you so sure?”

  He studied the emotionless way she typed in the message. When she lifted her eyes and saw him watching her, the corners of her mouth rose into a slight smile. A calm breeze of reassurance bathed him. She was his, and he had no reason to feel jealous at all. “I’m sure.”

  Almost a whole block ahead of them, Pete waved to get their attention. He pointed to a run-down building across the street.

  Byron grabbed Lana’s hand and pulled her after him. He wasn’t going to let her leave his side if he had anything to say about it. “In there?”

  Pete nodded. “Espe’s scent is pouring out of that place once you get past all the vampire stench. Besides, with all the boarded-up windows, it looks like someplace they’d infest.”

  Greg leaned forward and sniffed. “Yeah, I can barely smell her there. But there’s something else. I can’t put my finger on it, though.”

  Lana started to cross the street, but Byron tugged her back into the shadows. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Klaus has already sent his crew to spring the trap. Once they realize I’m not going to show, they’ll call him, and Espe’s toast.”

  “Toast? I thought she’d be served more like a fine wine,” Greg quipped.

  Lana paled.

  “Shut up.” Byron took his time trying to decipher the different scents coming from the house. “I’m thinking there’s at least four, maybe up to six vampires in there. What do you think, Pete?”

  “I smell six and a human. But like Greg said, there’s something off about one of the scents.”

  He reached for his gun and checked the number of bullets in his clips. The other two did the same thing while Lana slid one of her bolts into her crossbow. “So, do you want to approach this with our guns blazing?”

  Pete grinned but Greg shook his head. “We have a limited amount of ammo, and we’re outnumbered. Let me scout the place out first.”

  “Call if you get into trouble.”

  “Call nothing. You’ll hear my gun.” His friend dashed across the street. The shadows of the night swallowed him up, and silence filled the air.

  Byron stood behind Lana, drinking in her scent and trying to ignore the way his stomach lurched when he thought of her entering the building. He brushed her hair to the side and whispered in her ear, “Stay close to me, Lana. It’s you he’s after, and I don’t want him to have a chance to hurt you.”

  She covered his free hand with her own. “No guarantees, Byron. Just try not to get in my way.”

  He almost laughed. His beautiful, headstrong mate would need a few lessons in obedience when all this was over, especially if she joined the pack, but he looked forward to teaching her. Hopefully she’d be by his side for many more nights to come.

  His fear chilled his happy thoughts. First, they needed to kill a horde of vampires. With the threat of death looming over them, he pressed his lips to her neck and found the courage to say, “I love you, Lana.”

  Her gasp drew Pete’s attention. “What is it?”

  Before Byron could tell him it was nothing, two shots rang out from across the street. The wolf inside howled. His instincts took over, and he bolted for the building.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lana hesitated for a moment, letting the tingle on the back of her neck take over and release her inner huntress. Her years of training all came down to this moment, when it was kill or be killed. She followed Byron and Pete around the house.

  Greg stood outside the back door with his gun pointed at two piles of dust by his feet. “What took you so long?”

  “You know us old guys move a bit slower,” Pete replied.

  Byron’s face hardened as he cocked his gun. “Move carefully. They know we’re here.”

  The harsh tone of his voice matched the stiff set of his shoulders. In front of his pack, he was all business, a man none of them questioned. She wondered if they’d ever caught a glimpse of his vulnerable side like she had this morning. His last words to her before he switched into commander mode echoed in her mind.

  He loved her?

  A jolt of electricity raced down her spine as soon as she entered the house, and she spun around just in time to see a figure rush out of the darkness toward them. She fired her crossbow before the boys could aim their guns, resulting in another pile of dust. She frowned. “Another newborn.”

  Byron cocked an eyebrow. “Huh?”

  “A newly made vampire.” She kicked the pile of dust and reloaded her crossbow. “It’s strange that an old one like Klaus would surround himself with them.”

  “Maybe he sent the more experienced ones to the casino.”

  “Maybe.” But something continued to nag her mind. This had all the makings of a trap, and her gut told her she was falling right into it.

  “Remember, rescue Espe first, and then deal with the bloodsuckers.” Once the two men nodded, Byron crept silently ahead through the dust-covered kitchen.

  Pete’s loud sniffing filled the silence. He must be the pack’s designated bloodhound. He even looked the part with his large, droopy eyes. He paused in front of a closed door and pointed to it.

  They gathered around it, and Byron counted to three on his fingers before he kicked the door in.

  Four vampires rushed them with their fangs bared and the feeding frenzy alight in their eyes. One managed to knock Greg across the room, and another wrestled Pete for his gun. Byron chased one to the opposite side, aiming his gun at the blurred figure that raced from wall to wall.

  As the last to enter the room, Lana battled the slowest in the group, easily dodging her attacker. Through the chaos, she noticed no vampires who matched Klaus’s description. All four fought like relative newborns, perhaps only a few months old.

  “I thought you said you only smelled six of them.” Greg grunted while he tried to keep the vampire on top of him from biting his neck.

  “I’ve been known to be wrong from time to time.” Pete jerked his gun free and unloaded two bullets into the vampire’s chest.

  “Stop arguing and kill them.” Byron’s split second of distraction resulted in a fist to his jaw. The blow knocked him into a wall, splintered the wood frame into kindling.

  Her breath caught. Was he hurt? His limbs twitched, and a second later, he jumped back to his feet. The boom of gunshots exploded in her ears, followed by the whistle of bullets passing by.

  That’s the problem with guns—it’s too easy to hit your friends by mistake.

  A set of nails raked across her back when she whirled around to avoid her attacker once again. Her jaw tightened. Time to finish this bitch. She lifted her crossbow and squeezed the trigger in one fluid motion. The bolt launched into the air and disappeared
into the vampire’s chest. The bloodsucker froze and crumbled into dust.

  “Impressive, mein Schätzchen,” a smooth voice whispered in her mind. “Now I know why Sergei sent me to find you. You are a born hunter.”

  A shadowy figure waited at the top of the stairs along the far wall of the room, appearing content to watch the fighting below without soiling his hands. Her skin crawled when she spotted him.

  Klaus.

  She looked over her shoulder at the rest of her team. Byron was still trying to pin down his speedy assailant while Pete was prying the other vampire off Greg. They could handle those two without her while she searched for Espe.

  She made a break for the stairs.

  The shadow blurred down the hall into a bedroom. So he wants to play cat and mouse, huh? She reloaded her crossbow and inched closer, focusing all her senses on her prey.

  The moment she stuck her head into the room, a frantic cry caught her attention. Espe sat bound and gagged in a chair in a nearby corner. Dried blood caked her neck and stained her shirt.

  Her mentee had been someone’s snack. Anger scorched Lana’s veins.

  Espe’s eyes widened. She seemed desperate to say something, but the dirty piece of cloth in her mouth muffled her words.

  The door slammed shut behind her. “I expected better from you, Hunter.”

  Lana whipped around and fired. A soft grunt told her she’d hit him, but he didn’t turn to dust. Something moved through the room quicker than she could follow and slammed into her hand. Pain raced up her arm into her shoulder. Her crossbow skidded to a stop against the opposite wall.

  She grabbed her stake and retreated to Espe. No one was going to lay a hand on the younger woman without going through her first. “What do you want, Klaus?”

  The movement stopped and a man’s figure materialized in the darkness. From what she could see, he looked like a Nazi poster boy with his Aryan coloring and features. Only the centuries-old light in his eyes betrayed his true age. “I thought I already made that clear, Hunter. And since you failed to follow my instructions, your little apprentice will pay for it.”

  Lana braced her feet and lowered her shoulder. When he lunged for Espe, she knocked him to the side. More waves of pain jarred her body, but she managed to stay on her feet. “You’ll be dust before you touch her again.”

  He grinned so the single beam of light that entered the room through a crack in the plywood glittered off his fangs. “I think not.”

  She managed to raise her stake before he tackled her into the wall with the force of an NFL linebacker. She blindly stabbed him with her stake, drawing a hiss. The injury she inflicted caused him to loosen his grip enough for her to roll out of his way. Her lungs burned for air. Black stars exploded on the edges of her vision, but she prepared for the next strike. She was a hunter, and she refused to go out with a whimper.

  Klaus straightened his posture and wiped a trickle of blood off his face. A snarl curled his upper lip, exposing more of his fangs. “You are not making this easy.”

  “What did you expect, you bratwurst-sucking piece of shit? For me to swoon and surrender?”

  A volley of gunshots exploded from outside the room. Lana flinched, and Klaus attacked. She whipped her leg around, hoping to deliver a solid kick to his face. Instead, he caught it and snapped her femur like a pretzel stick.

  Waves of nausea pounded her stomach and forced bile up into her throat. Her other leg collapsed from under her. The room spun in circles. A sliver of fear worked its way into her heart. Years of hunting, and she couldn’t even handle one vampire. If she failed, what would happen to Espe and Byron? Would they pay the price for her carelessness?

  He threw her across the room and stood over her like a giant. “You are making this harder than it needs to be, mein Schätzchen. I have no intention of letting you go.”

  Her sides heaved from her pants. Her heart hammered so hard, it felt like it was trying to break her ribs. The sounds of scuffling on the other side of the door told her Byron would be here soon. She needed to find out what Klaus wanted, even if Espe had to be the one to report it to the Foundation. “What the fuck do you want with me?” she wheezed out.

  He knelt beside her with a look of pity on his face that made her want to smack him. “You are one of the oldest hunters in the Foundation. You know their secrets. And when I’m done turning you, you’ll gladly spill them all to me.”

  “Not a chance, asswipe.” She tightened her grip on her stake and aimed for his heart. Her pulse skipped a beat when he twisted at the waist. The sharpened piece of oak sank into squishy flesh, and his scream eased some of her frustration with missing his heart.

  “Enough games.” He wrapped his hands around her stake arm. She heard the sickening crunch of bone before the jaw-tightening agony hit her. Two jagged white edges protruded through her skin, rendering her arm useless.

  Her bruised and broken body waved a white flag. She couldn’t fight him anymore. A quiet acceptance of her fate gathered in the corners of her mind and swept through her consciousness like the blackness on the edge of her vision. She only regretted that she’d brought those she cared about into this mess. Dear God, she hated that her death would cause Byron to endure the same hell she went through when she lost Max.

  Please don’t let him grieve like I did.

  He winced as he pulled the stake from his gut and slung it across the room.

  At least I showed the motherfucker the definition of pain.

  Something banged against the door, splintering the wood. Hope revived her, edging out her impeding surrender. She just needed to hold out until Byron came.

  Klaus yanked her up by her hair and tilted her head back until the base of her skull touched her upper back. “I was planning on being gentle when I turned you, but you’ve sealed your fate.” His fangs sank into her neck, filling her veins with white-hot heat.

  Lana struggled against him, refusing to go quietly now. With each swallow of her blood, he tried to rip her soul from her. Resistance slipped away. A loud crash was the last thing she heard before the darkness consumed her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Byron’s jaw tightened when he watched Lana bolt up the stairs alone. What the hell is she thinking? He took a step after her, but Speedy rammed into his stomach and sent him sprawling in the opposite direction.

  A shot fired to his right, and a shrill cry ended abruptly as the vampire attacking Greg turned to dust.

  Now they had three werewolves battling one bloodsucker. His lips curled into a grin. He liked those odds.

  He lifted his gun and unloaded it into the flying blur in front of him. It froze in the air like one of those high-speed camera shots, capturing the vampire’s look of shock as the bullet penetrated his heart. Then he exploded into a cloud of dust.

  “That was fun,” Greg said as he offered to help him up. Blood oozed down from the scratches on his friend’s arms, coating his hands with sticky goo.

  Byron winced as he grasped the gore-covered hand. “It’s not over yet.” He jumped to his feet and ran for the staircase.

  Two sets of feet pounded behind him. A loud crash came from the end of the hallway. His heart pounded. Lana was in trouble.

  A familiar scent caused his hackles to rise. A figure stepped out of one of the side rooms and raised a gun at them. “Going somewhere, Byron?”

  “Alan, why you backstabbing son of a—”

  A shot silenced Greg’s threat, and he crumpled to the ground. Wet coughs rose from his body.

  Pete ducked down to tend to him while Byron fought to restrain the infuriated wolf inside. “What are you doing here, Alan?”

  “Sealing my position in the pack.” He aimed at Byron and fired again.

  A sting ripped across his upper arm, followed by the spread of slowly searing heat. The bullet had only grazed him, but the touch of silver burned deeper than the wound. The wolf’s rage threatened to seize control of him. He pulled his trigger only to get a click.

&nbs
p; Shit!

  Alan laughed. “Should have reloaded.” A volley of shots exploded from his gun, sending Byron and Pete running for cover in a side room.

  Byron’s breath came in short pants. His best friend lay bleeding on the floor, a member of his pack had betrayed them to the bloodsuckers, and it sounded like someone was beating the crap out of his mate on the other side of the far door.

  All in all, a friggin’ peach of a night so far.

  He pulled a handful of bullets from his pocket and shoved them into his empty clip.

  “Greg’s hit, but not badly,” Pete whispered.

  “He’s using silver.”

  A hissed curse escaped from the other werewolf’s lips. “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him.”

  “Not if I get to him first.” Byron whipped around the doorway and squeezed the trigger.

  Alan stumbled back and responded with his own shot, which went wide.

  “You know the penalty for treachery, Alan.”

  Alan pressed a hand against his hip. The metallic smell of blood thickened the air. “Only if there’s anyone left to carry it out. I’m sure everyone else in the pack will believe me when I tell them you died in the struggle with the vampires. I knew you had something up your sleeve, so I came here to warn Klaus. I’m so glad I was still here when you arrived. Now I get the pleasure of killing you myself instead of trusting Klaus to finish you off like he did Eddie.”

  Byron stared down the barrel of Alan’s gun and lost control of his inner beast. His senses heightened. Everything started to move in slow motion, from the miniscule flexion of Alan’s finger to the tendrils of smoke that rose from the chamber of the pistol. Several pulses pounded in his ear. Sour bile filled the back of his throat, and beads of sweat prickled his skin. He doubled over, recognizing the signs of the unavoidable shift occurring in his body.

  Even though it felt like eons, his transformation took less than a second. His hands turned into paws before they hit the wooden floor, and he licked his fangs with the hunger for revenge gnawing at his gut.