The Hunters Series

by Shiloh Walker

Things had been changing on Kit's end for a long time. Byron was her soul mate. She knew it. She had told him so when she was nineteen, which had been a mistake. Apparently. He had taken her for a love-struck kid and he had laughed, patted her on the head, and sent her off to college. Six years ago. And she still felt the same.

  After her little peep show, Melissa had resorted to petty insults. Stupid jibes and quips. And Byron…well, he had gone out of his way to antagonize her, and she couldn’t figure out if he was angry at her or trying to tease her.

  He was so…skilled with women, but he was acting so crudely toward her. He was her boss, signed her paychecks, but he was also her Master. She had gone into service to a Hunter, and sworn to abide by the Council law. That meant something, damn it. She not only was a Hunter in her own right, she was his first Lieutenant, his guard, his servant, the highest honor a Master vampire could afford a member of his enclave.

  Kit guarded him while he slept; she ran the household and his people while he was away.

  She owed fealty to him until she decided that she was going to leave, or he decided to send her away. It was still her decision—although one hundred years ago, it wouldn’t have been. A hundred years ago, she would have been Byron’s until he was tired of her, or until she died. But times changed.

  If she chose to leave, she could. She'd have to appeal to the Council, but they wouldn't deny her, she knew that. She would have to appeal to them and they would allow her to leave, providing she did things appropriately. All she had to do was state her case, basically her unhappiness with the situation, and they would let her leave. The Council didn’t like any of their people being unhappy.

  Kit just couldn’t seem to make herself do it. Yet.

  She couldn't leave him.

  And now she had to find a way to deal with another woman who he had left heartbroken.

  Her job really, really sucked and she wanted to go tell him to clean up his own messes.

  Sadly, this is was her job. Byron was her Master and although she wasn't anything resembling subservient, if he gave her an order, she must follow.

  She actually had a position of power in his enclave. All obeyed her as they obeyed him. Nobody could question her orders, for her orders came from Byron. She acted as his second, and if she expected others to follow his orders, then so must she.

  Which was how so many damned messes ended up on her plate. One right after the other.

  If she could just get this one off her plate, though, she had some downtime. She had two days off a month, the day before the full moon and the day of the full moon, and she'd get the hell out of dodge. It was the one time of the month she could get away, and just breathe.

  Kit's abilities as a shifter had nothing to do with the moon, but sometimes the pull of it made her edgy and she preferred not to be around during that time, if she could. For the past few years, it was routine that she take those two days away from the Enclave and sometimes, she hated it.

  Now she needed it.

  But first…she had to get Melissa out of here.

  “Melissa, there's nothing else I can do. You're set to leave by the end of the week and if you don't leave on your own…” Kit let her wolf show in her eyes as she leaned forward and added, “I'll make you leave.”

  Chapter Three

  Byron heard Melissa crying in Kit’s office, and he fought the urge to break the door down and drag the little bitch out.

  Why wasn't she gone already?

  He thought back, mentally checked the days.

  Yes, she had another day left.

  Damn it, he should have sent her away weeks ago.

  He'd heard all the catty whispers. Maybe he shouldn't have ignored those. But he'd…shit. He'd screwed up, that's what he'd done. Using Melissa to keep Kit at bay, but it had been a mistake.

  When the petty insults had spiraled, gotten worse, he should have known she'd take it a few steps farther. The disaster in his office a few days…

  Mentally groaning, he wished, for the thousandth time, he'd done something, anything to prevent that.

  Acted sooner. Realized it was Kit outside his office. Sent her away. Shit, sent Melissa away.

  She was leaving now, but it wasn't soon enough. It had taken him a few minutes to figure out what had happened, but once he knew…Yes. It was done.

  Arrangements had already been made.

  She'd be set up in an apartment, a job had already been found and one of the older vampires was going to wipe her mind.

  She wasn't going to be given the option to go to another Enclave, not after what she'd done.

  She'd hurt Kit.

  Damn her.

  He had wanted her, yes.

  But he craved Kit.

  Kit thought he was blind, as well. Thought he'd forgotten what she'd told him all those years ago. No. He'd forgotten nothing. He knew how she thought she felt. She was still a child though, and she hadn’t really experienced life outside his territory. How could she know if she was in love with him?

  Even when he had sent her off to college, she had done it in her own way. She had completed in less than thirty months the courses it normally takes four years to do. She had stalked back up to the house one late summer night, on a full moon, wearing that beautiful wolven form. She had thrown back her head and bayed at the moon, and she had been laughing at him.

  But he had made a promise that she would have what she wanted, and he wasn’t it. No matter how much he might want to be.

  The tiny little dark-haired child had grown into a woman he wanted more than he wanted to see another sunrise. After almost a century of darkness, he would never have thought anything would beckon to him more than that. But if he could chose between being able to walk in daylight again without harm, or having one night with Kit?

  No contest.

  He forced himself to walk past Kit’s door.

  She would handle it. She handled everything. Every fucking thing he threw at her. And he hated himself more each fucking day. He kept waiting for her to grow tired of the orders, the commands, but she never did.

  She never told him to shove it, never once threatened to walk. He kept waiting to hear that she had petitioned the council to revoke her pledge to him, kept waiting to see her walk out the door.

  He wouldn’t even be surprised to see an older Hunter come to claim her, even though he would fight to the death before he allowed it.

  He kept waiting for her to leave him.

  That was what he needed her to do.

  He didn’t have the strength to make her leave.

  And she was so fucking stubborn.

  Byron remembered every challenge she'd dealt with.

  Hell, even this latest mess that Melissa set up.

  Kit had walked in, thinking he'd set it up. She'd come in, knowing full well what was going on. In the back of her eyes, he'd seen the hurt, the misery, before she'd hidden it.

  Had she left? Had she attacked him? He could feel the anger inside her. The hurt.

  But had she reacted to it?

  No. She had settled down and started to masturbate, staring at him all the while. He'd fucked Melissa harder, imagined it was Kit and watched the movement of her fingers in her panties, smelling her arousal in the air over that of Melissa’s and Ben’s.

  Just days ago.

  Each second that passed was a lesson in agony. Every second that he couldn't have her...

  Melissa, the silly fool, had tried to pretend outrage when it was done. But he'd seen through it. Realized what was going on.

  And now she was trying to beg Kit to intercede on her behalf.

  Fuck.

  If Kit said anything to him about Melissa staying on, he just might spank her.

  Melissa had actually dared to call Kit a pervert. Had insulted her. After she'd arranged that. Then she'd tried to attack her—she must have a death wish or something. Ben had stopped that mess, quick, but the only thing that made sense was that Melissa had lost her mind.

  The i
gnorant little blonde had even tried to launch herself at Kit but Ben had caught her around the waist, while Byron stood there, hard, aching, hungry…and unable to tear his eyes away from Kit.

  Once they'd been alone, things hadn't gotten any better. Shit.

  He should have just walked away.

  Ben had dragged Melissa out of the room just as Kit went to stand, her swinging, flirty little skirt falling back into place, hiding her panties. Byron hadn't been able to stay away, sliding from the bed, crossing the room.

  The scent of her was a song in his head, one he couldn't deny. Catching her wrist, he had brought her hand to his lips and licked her fingers, capturing that sweet, tangy taste and watching as her eyes rounded.

  Then, still riding high on that, he'd gone to his knees in front of her, ripped her panties away and tasted her there.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid…

  Even now, the taste of her was one he couldn't forget. He craved more.

  She'd cried out in shock, then groaned, buried her hands in his hair as he pushed her hard into an orgasm.

  Without letting her come down from that, he'd fed from the sensitive, intimate area on her thigh. Drunk on her taste, on her blood, intent on taking her, he'd gone to stand.

  And that was when she'd hit him.

  Hard.

  Hard enough to sit him flying across the room.

  “Bastard.”

  He could still hear her…the disgust heavy in her voice. The arousal. The misery.

  Bastard.

  Shit. He was a bastard. And all he did was hurt her.

  “Kit, I…” He still didn't know what he would have said.

  But she hadn't wanted to listen. She'd shifted, wolf-quick, from human to full-wolf form, not the half-wolven, half-human form she sometimes chose. She chose the wolf—the better to run with, my dear.

  And Byron had to watch as she ran away from him.

  He'd thought maybe, just maybe, he'd finally pushed her hard enough. Maybe she'd leave.

  Although if she did, he knew he'd fall apart. He'd just have to fall apart, though, because she was better off away from him.

  Damn it. He was losing it.

  Silently, he moved away from the door. He needed to get away from here. Get some distance.

  Some perspective.

  Tomorrow was the day before the full moon. Which meant Kit would be gone.

  He could think. Get his head on straight. Relax. Maybe find somebody to take Melissa's place…

  Aw, fuck. That was the last thing he needed to do. Melissa was one of the reasons he was in this screwed up mess to begin with. Kit was hurting, and he hated it, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it, because what he wanted to do was hold her, and cuddle her and tell her he was sorry, but she was mad at him, she had every right to be, and if he apologized…

  Shit. He needed her mad at him, right?

  He stalked out the door.

  He had a fucking job to do, and it didn’t include mooning over a sweet little shifter with eyes like storm clouds.

  “You can't kill me…”

  “Yes, I can.”

  Byron wasn't in the mood to chat.

  The four Hunters he'd brought with him had already rounded up the humans. They were going to have to have their memories altered. Some needed medical attention. A few of them needed more intensive help…the kind of healing Byron couldn't hope to give them.

  All because of this fucker here, a man who'd been operating a slave ring two hours out of Chicago.

  Too close to Byron's territory.

  Slave ring. Not a good name.

  Fast food, maybe? He grimaced as he circled around the man who held immobile by the reinforced cuffs. His left leg had been cut off. Byron thought it might be over by the back door.

  “I'm asking for sanctuary,” the vampire spat out.

  “Sanctuary,” Byron drawled. “Oh, that's a laugh. After you kidnapped a dozen women and held them prisoner? Good luck with that one.”

  “I didn't kill any of them.” His smile turned cagey. “It's not much different than what you do.”

  “Well, except for the kidnapping part.” Byron smiled, lifted his blade. It was a little too long to be called a knife. Too short to be called a sword. Perfect for severing a head.

  The vampire didn't even have a chance to scream.

  Blood and violence and a decent kill should have done something to sate the frustration rumbling inside him, but it hadn't.

  Byron was still burning with it as he made his way to his rooms that night. Rooms that took him too closely to Kit's. Swallowing a curse, he paused, leaning against the wall as he heard a soft, gasping cry.

  That was Kit. Had she...if one of his men were in there…

  His ears pricked and one hand clenched in rage before he realized he heard only one voice, one person breathing raggedly. His people were talking, some were sleeping, the low hum of conversation buzzing…but there was just one person in that room. Just one.

  He felt like a fucking pervert as he stood there, head bowed, listening.

  Soft ragged cries. Hungry whimpers. Broken moans.

  Kit had never taken a lover while in his house. She most likely had in college…hell, she had been gone two and a half years.

  But there had been no lovers in his house. Not once.

  He didn’t know if he could have allowed it, but she had never even tried.

  He wasn’t being fair to her. She climaxed with a soft, muffled wail, hidden by the walls of her room, while he stood out there and imagined it, pictured what she was doing…and imagined he was in there, doing it to her.

  As the need, hunger and misery tore him apart, he forced himself to walk away.

  He wasn't being fair to her.

  Chapter Four

  The next two days were the longest of what had already been a long life.

  He made plans.

  He thought it through.

  Told himself he was making a mistake.

  Convinced himself it was the right thing, only to start back at square one. Again.

  By the time sun had set the day after the full moon, he had almost driven himself insane.

  But he knew what needed to be done.

  The plans were set.

  Tickets had been purchased and arrangements had been made. He had one week to say goodbye.

  Kit needed to explore the world. Find herself. Find who she was, who she had come from.

  Two years. He needed to give her that…and he needed to give himself some time, some distance away from her, before he lost his mind.

  Staring out over the horizon, watching the myriad of colors as the sun disappeared, Byron convinced himself this was what he needed to do. It was.

  She was stifling here. So miserably unhappy. So much she hadn't seen or done.

  It was time that ended.

  Two years, damn it. He could handle two more years.

  “You’re what?” Kit asked, almost soundlessly. She cleared her throat and spoke again, only slightly louder. Byron was sitting at his desk, looking for all the world like an upper-class businessman. He was wearing a white silk shirt, a black vest, unbuttoned, and a pair of black, trim-fitting pants. His hair would look ridiculous on some men—like a man trying to follow the trends—the way he kept it cut brutally short on the lower sides and the back, letting it fall long on the top and upper sides.

  Kit loved his hair, loved how thick and soft it looked, loved the midnight-blackness of it. She knew his feet were bare and she knew he couldn’t do a damn thing with a computer. She did that for him, but he was a fucking genius when it came to mathematics, and he ran a small empire from this little enclave.

  He was the youngest Hunter in America, and the youngest Master with his own Enclave. There had been others in history, but they hadn’t lasted long. So far, Byron had not only lasted, but thrived. He dismissed those facts as he dismissed his wealth, attributing it to luck.

  Byron was more than a Hunter, even if he didn’t ackn
owledge that.

  Kit knew it even if he didn’t. Byron was amazing. And together, they could be more so. But he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to share his life with her. He didn’t want her.

  He was sending her away.

  “It’s time you go to France and find out more about your mother’s people,” he said, forcing himself to ignore the wild pain in her eyes.

  “You’re sending me away.”

  “I’m not sending you away, Kit,” he said quietly. “There's a pack in France…your mother's family. They want to meet you. You'll spend some time with them, before you travel to visit your father's people.” He paused, studying her face. “Then you come back here. It's just for for two years.”

  “You're sending me away,” she said again, keeping her voice level. He wasn’t going to appreciate another wailing, sniveling female. She couldn’t stop the pain from showing, but she’d be damned if she cried. “You’re sending me away, just like the rest. But I haven’t done anything.”

  “No,” he agreed. “You haven’t done anything. It’s France, Katrine. Don’t you want to see France? Russia? It's your history, Kit. You'd mentioned you wanted to go sometime. It's time to do that.”

  Not unless you are with me, she thought. She just stared at him, bleeding inside. Finally, through her tight throat, she asked, “Why?”

  Byron stared at her and said nothing.

  She swallowed, the sound horribly loud in the silence of the room. Her body felt terribly bruised and battered—strange. All she had done was walk in here and stand in front of the desk for a mere three minutes. And her whole life had just been irrevocably changed.

  She turned and slowly walked away.

  “Fuck,” she heard him say quietly. “You’ve never been anywhere else, sweet. You have to go see other things, try other things before you commit yourself to my world.”

  “I’ve committed myself to this world already, Byron. Or have you forgotten?” she asked wearily.

  He hadn’t, no. How could he forget the delirious, shameful pleasure that had filled him when she had petitioned the Council to join his Enclave, to join his world? It had given him the right to keep her, for always. But Byron knew he really didn’t have that right, because of the promise he had made to her father. He shouldn’t have agreed to take her in. But if he hadn’t, she would have been sent to another Hunter.