Primal Desire (Heart of the Huntress Book 6)

by Terry Spear

  "You've got to be kidding. If not by you, then by whom? Ohmigod, the vampire who brutalized her?" Iconia asked, sounding shocked.

  In a way, Atreides hoped she was one of them, but he knew Selena would be upset about it and the League and her family could have real issues with it. "Yeah, if what I believe is true."

  "So why do you even think it's true? When I was aggravating her, she didn't expose fangs, not even baby ones," Iconia said.

  "You were telepathically communicating to your friends on an open broadcast about wanting to kill her if she saw me any further."

  Again, Iconia was silent for a prolonged period, then she laughed. "That's precious." Then she grew serious. "You heard too." She didn't sound contrite about it or unsettled, just surprised.

  "Yeah, I heard too. You know she's my ward and—"

  "Hell, if she's one of us there's nothing to be done about it. All right. Damn it. But you're not dating her. We're together and you'd better let her know it," Iconia said.

  He smiled. He would date whomever he wanted when he wanted and if Selena was a vampiress, albeit a huntress too, she was fair game. He knew if he didn't date her all his friends would be interested, and maybe others also. She was unique like Tezra had been unique. Since she'd been turned by a rogue and because she'd tried to protect one of their own, it was different than in Tezra's situation. Most of the males would accept her. Some of the females, like Iconia, would feel they had lost the chance to mate with one of the vampire princes ruling the clan. Others, who had some hope of gaining his support if Iconia had slipped from his favor, would lose out.

  Someone would have to take Selena under his wing, and he was already doing that. The thing about a huntress turned, from what they'd learned of cases like that, the hunter could still walk the streets in broad daylight, lay out in the sun, and be a vampire all in one. That meant their offspring would be able to do what? That was the question right now. He knew a huntress turned in Florida was due to have her baby soon and everyone was awaiting the outcome.

  He hoped it would turn out well. He hoped the baby would have the same qualities that the hunter and vampires possessed and would not turn rogue. Then they would all be in for a world of hurt. Daylight vampires, some had called them. But they didn't really know for sure what would happen to them.

  When he didn't agree with Iconia about dating Selena, Iconia broadcasted to any vampire around. "I mean it. If she's a vampire, you're not dating her."

  Her friends both looked at her in astonishment. Atreides immediately glanced at Selena to see her take on it—had she heard Iconia's threat or not?"

  Selena scoffed. "As if I planned to date a vampire."

  Selena thought tonight would be a bust, or maybe the hunters were being more careful to target vampiresses because of the recent attacks and they were afraid of retaliation both by vampires and hunters who had a moral code of ethics. She worried it might take some time before the hunters tried this again, waiting for the vampires and hunters to get complacent and then the rogue hunters would strike again.

  She couldn't believe Iconia would even think that Atreides would "date" her. He must have told her that Selena was a vampire. He was so wrong about that.

  He'd been quiet though while he walked beside her, and she figured he was listening for sounds everywhere, just like she was. The fog couldn't get any thicker, she didn't think and then she thought she heard someone running toward them. Just a human? A hunter with his sword raised? She didn't think it would be a vampire. They could just vanish and reappear where they wanted to.

  Then she saw Twilight. Oh, God, she didn't need to be out here in the gloomy night. What if a rogue hunter thought to dispatch her because she was a blood bond and they might think she would learn what she could about the hunters, acting as a spy for the vampires?

  "There you are!" Twilight said, sounding like she was out of breath.

  "What's wrong?" Selena asked.

  "There's a fight on First Street between—" Twilight didn't get anything more out.

  Atreides swooped Selena up, startling her, and carried her to the fight. But it wasn't between hunters and vampires. Three humans were beating up a single man and Selena pulled out her sword and ran into the fray, putting herself in the middle of the fight, serving as a shield to the single man. At least he appeared to be the underdog in the fight, but maybe he deserved to be just where he was at. Who knew?

  Atreides and the vampiresses were off to the side, not interfering. It was better for a hunter to quell the violence between humans instead of vampires getting involved. It could look like they were ready to turn a bunch of humans or dine on them tonight otherwise.

  "Who started the fight?" Selena asked.

  "He did," the one man said, the others agreeing. "He stole my money at the club. Damn pickpocket."

  "Do you have his money?" she asked the accused man.

  "And mine. He took our wallets," the second man said.

  "And yours?" she asked the third man.

  "No, he didn't manage to get mine. But I caught him trying. That’s how we knew he had taken my friends’ wallets."

  She pointed her sword at the man she'd been protecting. "Give them their wallets back, now, or I'll leave them to take them from you in their own way. Make it easy on yourself."

  He seemed reluctant to do so, but finally went ahead and pulled out the wallets and handed them to her.

  "Now get out of here before these guys want to beat you up some more."

  He tore off and the men took their wallets from her.

  "Thanks," one of them said.

  “Yeah, thanks. He wouldn't tell us the truth when we tried to get him to tell us that he had the wallets. But we knew he had them because he went for mine and the other guys’ wallets were missing."

  "Well, you're good now."

  Then the men left, and she returned to speak with Atreides. “Will we find anyone do you think? Any rogue hunters?"

  "If that one wants to kill you," Iconia said. "Why didn’t you do something about him when he talked to us. You saw him, didn't you?"

  Selena had wanted to, but she couldn’t until she had proof that he’d actually murdered Charlene. “I would have if he had threatened any of you.” Iconia included.

  Selena’s phone vibrated in her pocked and she pulled it out to see she had a call from her brother. "Hey, Selena, I just checked with Rosa and she's calling it a night. Have you seen anything suspicious?"

  She still couldn't believe her brother and his two best friends were helping them. "Just some humans fighting. And Cliff was out here with his friends looking for Rosa and me—to make sure I’m fine.”

  “Hell, you should have run him through.”

  “Yeah, well, you know that would make me a rogue hunter then. He questioned a couple of vampiresses, but then they continued on their way.”

  "Okay, so you're good."

  "What about you? Are you going home for the night?" she asked.

  "In a while. I'm afraid whoever did it, if it isn't Cliff and his friends, they realize we're watching for them and they're going to be on their best behavior—for a while."

  "I agree. And we won't be there when it happens. Daniel, I need to tell you that I was bitten by a vampire." She hated to tell him about it.

  He didn't say anything at first.

  "A rogue. Not someone looking to hook up."

  "A vampire bit you?"

  "Tore into me. It wasn't a love bite. Yet he didn't kill me. He wanted me to reach the vampire club and get Atreides and his people involved, somehow, we figured, but now I’m not so sure. I'd been bitten and then ended up at the vampire club and they had to take care of me. After that, they dropped me off at the hunter club to get help."

  "How do you feel?" Daniel sounded really concerned, more than he'd ever sounded. "Hell, and I threw you out of the club."

  "I had a sword on me." Giving him sort of an out.

  "You had been bitten by a bloody vampire."

  "
Yes."

  "How do you feel, Selena? Honestly?" Daniel asked.

  "Tired. Atreides told me I heard vampire communication."

  "Damn it."

  “Yeah. I have to tell you if it's true, I might be one of them."

  "Hell."

  She needed to let him process the information, good or bad. “Good night, Daniel. I’ll talk to you later.”

  She felt the same way as her brother did, but she couldn't do anything about it. It really truly was becoming a hazard of being a hunter of vampires now. In the past, they killed hunters, period. Now they were turning some of the hunters, to try and get them to work for them. A hunter couldn't kill the vampire who turned him. And they had to do their bidding. The rogue vampire wanted to control a hunter, the ultimate treasure.

  No hunter wanted to be controlled in that way. It was worse than death. And they had no way to kill themselves. They could only fight the vampires to the death and hope to die in a good fight. But she didn't feel that way. Some of her hunter friends: Tezra Campbell, Rachael Bremerton, Crystal Anderson, and Alena MacLeod had all been turned and they had been great huntresses. Now they were a combination of hunters and vampires. Selena would never have wished it on herself, or on them, but she wouldn't regret it. Not when she knew she would have friends all over the States who were just like her. Not that many, but enough to know she wasn’t the only one.

  She would somehow learn to live with it. She wondered, facetiously, if she could dance any better with Atreides with new moves as a vampire, if she were one.

  "Let's go back to the house," Atreides said.

  "She can stay with me," Iconia said. “I can take care of her."

  Yeah, like get rid of her! She would much rather stay with Atreides. He was a much safer bet.

  "She's my ward, she stays with me."

  "You know what Daemon's going to say about all this?" Iconia asked.

  Selena assumed Atreides was hoping no one told Daemon about what was going on here while he and Tezra were away.

  "Well, don't you have anything to say about it?" Iconia asked Selena.

  "I might as well stay with Atreides. He set me up in the guest room already." Selena hoped he would be fine with her staying there until she could figure out what she was going to do. She could return to her apartment, she figured.

  What if the rogue hunters come after her there though? She guessed she could stay with Colt at his ranch too. He seemed to have a bunch of vampires living there to guard her sister. Well, in truth she should stay with her sister, so why did she want to stay with Atreides?

  Thankfully, she wasn't feeling thirsty for blood and she couldn't do anything else the vampires did, so she still wasn't sure about what was going on.

  Then she said to Atreides, “If the women are all going to their places safely, then I'm ready to stay at your home. I'm going to need my clothes though, unless you think I can return to my place and will be safe enough. I'm sure my sister or brother wouldn't mind staying with me or watching out for me now."

  "No, you stay with me. I don't want to worry about you being there alone if they should leave." He wrapped his arms around her. "I'll talk to you later, Iconia." Then he transported Selena back to the house. Basil, Colt, and Renault were there and Atreides said, "Go get Selena's clothes and bring them here."

  "I should go with them," Selena said, "so that I can get everything I need."

  "Okay, then we all will go," Atreides said.

  "How long is Rosa going to stay with you?" she asked.

  "Until we catch the rogue hunters. She's all in on this. She admires you greatly and wants to do what you did for the vampiress—to prove that the hunters are rogues and not all hunters are like that. I just hope that we can get them quickly."

  "All right. I feel the same way."

  Atreides contacted the other guys and they all arrived to ride in the van to her place so she could pack. Thankfully, when they arrived there, they could see no one had been in her apartment. She was halfway expecting someone to have trashed her place—hunters, mainly, angry she got away with killing the rogue hunter. But no one had touched. She packed her bags in the bedroom and her toiletries in the bathroom. Then she got her perishable food out of the fridge. She was glad the vampires still ate food. She wouldn't want to give up that hunter or human aspect.

  "Are you hungry for anything other than food?" Atreides asked. "I'll feed you when you need something to eat."

  "Blood, you mean? I don't feel any urge to have blood." She wrinkled her nose at the thought.

  "You don't mean the rogue vampire turned her," Colt said, looking shocked, but then he smiled. "That could be good news."

  "No one's dating her," Atreides said.

  "As if I wanted to be with a vampire." Selena didn’t want them taking it for granted that she just wanted to throw out her hunter sensibilities and start dating vampires.

  "If you're one of us, would you be interested in dating a hunter? I'm not sure a hunter would be interested in dating a vampiress even if she's a hunter too," Renault said.

  "I doubt a hunter would be interested in a vampiress. I would probably be stuck with having to date a vampire," Selena conceded.

  "I love the way she says that. She would be stuck with one of us. I believe she would be happy to have one of us after she got used to this," Colt said.

  Then they carried all her stuff to the van and drove back toward Atreides's place. Near her apartment, they saw a wolf on the side of the road, and she stared at it. "That's it."

  The guys all looked out the van windows and Atreides jerked the van to the side of the road, but when they got out of the van, the wolf was gone.

  "Are you sure that was the same wolf?" Atreides asked.

  "Yes, the same one. Exactly. And he's following us—me."

  They all piled back into the van.

  "I would kill him if I could," Renault said.

  "I would beat you to it,” Colt said.

  Atreides shook his head. “We have to know what this is all about. His showing himself to us like that has to have a purpose. He knew she would recognize him, and then we would know him if we saw him again. But I don't recognize him in wolf form."

  Selena knew they could turn into bats or wolves or ravens. "Maybe he’s the one who said to me that they killed her. I heard him whisper it in my ear."

  "He could talk to you because he knew you had been turned, maybe because he had turned you," Atreides said. "You were with me when you heard him speak. He was talking to you telepathically, privately, so I didn't hear his conversation with you."

  "Privately? You can talk with someone privately?" She was surprised, though she thought it was cool.

  "Yes."

  "Wait! When you were with Iconia, you were talking to her telepathically, weren't you? I thought you two were having a staring contest, but that wasn't what was going on, was it? You were talking secretly to each other." Now Selena was getting it.

  "Yes. When Iconia was speaking at first, she was broadcasting her telepathic conversation, not caring if anyone heard her. She had no idea a huntress could hear her."

  "Broadcasting. I can't do any of that."

  "You'll learn to. But you need to be with us, to learn about us. You'll do it. We'll help you," Atreides said.

  "So do you want to date me?" Yeah, yeah, so she said she didn’t want to date a vampire, but… She sighed. He was a hot dancer and there was a lot more to him that she really liked—his protectiveness when no one else wanted to protect her. His taking care of her when she was injured. His willingness to have her help the vampires to take down the rogue hunters. Even having his friends search for her car.

  Atreides laughed.

  She smiled. "I know, crazy notion, right? Especially when you already have a girlfriend who wants to kill me."

  "We'll see."

  "Nah, I'm just joking. I might date the owner of your club. He wanted to dance with me in the worst way."

  "You're not dancing with Basil,"
Atreides said.

  She laughed this time. "Who's stopping me?

  "Me. No one who dances like you do can dance with anyone other than me." His voice was firm about that.

  She smiled. "You were hot."

  "I am hot. You are too. I know there was more than one vampire who would have switched with me in a heartbeat to dance with you," Atreides said, smiling at her.

  "The vampiresses were ready to terminate me."

  "Right. And some probably still feel that way about you."

  She sighed. She knew that. "Yeah, I'm totally popular, aren't I? Well, thanks for all the help with bringing my things here. But I'll have to return to my own place at some point in time." She really had no intention of staying at Atreides's place forever. What would his brother, Daemon, think when he returned home from his vacation? He probably wouldn't like it one bit.

  Chapter 12

  Not if Atreides could help it was he allowing Selena to return to her apartment. He could see why Daemon was so intrigued with Tezra that he didn't want to give her up. Atreides already felt the same way about Selena when he shouldn't be feeling that way at all.

  "I'm going to bed, and I don't expect to find you in it again," Selena said.

  He smiled. "Not unless you invite me in it."

  "I won't. Night." She left him then and his friends were smiling, shaking their heads at him.

  "You know your brother is going to be upset if he returns to find that you mated a huntress turned vampire in his absence," Colt said.

  "Well, he really has nothing to say about it. Not that it's going to come to that anyway."

  "You still have Iconia to deal with," Renault said.

  "Yeah, I do. And she's going to be unbearable to live with."

  "Maybe Basil can date her," Colt said.

  “I’m not in the least bit interested in Iconia,” Basil said. “Selena, yes.”