“Oh, do be quiet.” Nessa shot Dominic a warning look. “Really, Toronto. If I’d wanted to strangle you, there would be no try to it, and you well know it.”
With the blood still roaring in his ears, Toronto struggled to hold on to his control, but every second made it harder. The wolf inside him started to stretch, rolling around inside his skin. Out… the wolf whispered. Let me out… let me run. Let me hunt…
“What do you want?” he snarled.
Something about the way she stared at him made the wolf still. Toronto’s blood ran cold and his heart shuddered inside his chest. “Darkness… you know it’s part of us all, don’t you, Toronto?” Nessa eased away from Dominic to stand at Toronto’s side, staring out over the river.
“All of us?” He tried to force himself to smile. “You don’t have a lick of darkness in you, old woman.”
A faint smile curled her lips. “You know, it’s terribly amusing to hear that from you, when I look younger than you now.” Then she slanted a look up at him. The look in her eyes was… awful.
Something he’d never thought to see from her, something he never wanted to see from her. Something too close to a monster peered at him from her lovely blue eyes and he watched, with his heart racing, as that darkness leeched away, replaced by a grim, bleak sadness. “We all have darkness, Toronto. Mine is a burden I’ll have to bear for all my days, I fear. You…” She closed her eyes. “Your darkest days are in your past, Toronto. Let them stay there. Leave it alone.”
“You know more than you’ve told me,” he said, and it wasn’t the first time he’d said it. Closing his eyes, he thought, Will she tell me this time? But he already knew the answer. “When are you going to tell me?”
“Leave it alone,” she said again, her voice gentle.
Leave it alone? If only it was as easy as that. He wished he could—
Something raced along his spine.
It was faint, but unmistakable.
Sighing, he opened his eyes and slanted a look at Nessa. She felt it, too. He could tell just by looking at her. She stood with her head cocked and a frown on her face. “Hardly what we need right now,” she murmured, absently toying with the end of one braid.
“What?”
Dominic, it seemed, was too young to feel it. Turning away from the river, Toronto said, “Call is going out. We need to batten down the hatches.”
“Batten down the hatches?” Dominic lifted a brow.
Nessa moved to him and hooked an arm through his. “There’s going to be a need for us soon.”
“Us… us, who?”
She answered, but Toronto tuned it out. His mind was focusing on the fact that he needed to go back to Memphis. But that wasn’t where he wanted to be.
Or where he belonged. Of course, he didn’t know where he belonged. Actually, that wasn’t true.
He didn’t belong anywhere, and he hadn’t for quite some time.
CHAPTER 3
“L
OOK who decided to grace us with his presence.”
Toronto should have known that coming back in the daylight wouldn’t prevent the Master from going for his throat.
Plastering a blank expression on his face, he paused on the steps and glanced over to the office. It wasn’t even close to dusk, maybe four in the afternoon. But Rafe was a Master vampire, and he wasn’t a weak one, either— that came with some perks. Sometimes those perks involved being able to rise well before sunset. Didn’t mean he’d be able to go for a tan or anything, but he wasn’t a slave to the rising and setting of the sun, either.
Which meant Toronto had to face him.
He shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “Hey. Sorry I took off.” There. Did that cover it?
“Sorry.” Rafe stroked a thumb down his jaw and nodded. With deceptive laziness, he sauntered out of the darkness of his office into the brightly lit hallway. Sunlight fell through the window to dance across his face as he crossed to the stairs. Rafe didn’t so much as flinch.
“You’re sorry. You disappear, leave one of the younger Hunters alone after a bad fight and you’re sorry.”
Something itched inside Toronto— stretching, spreading. The wolf inside him didn’t like having to answer to anybody. His wolf was every bit as strong as the vampire before him— they both knew it. Toronto didn’t have to serve here. He chose to.
But it wasn’t about strength.
Toronto had decided to settle in one place and that came with rules to follow. He wasn’t about to challenge Rafe for the land— he didn’t want the damn land. He just wanted to stay in one place for a while, and why not here? Especially seeing as how he had people to hassle on a regular basis.
But it came with giving in at times, and giving in, plain and simply put, sucked.
Swallowing the growl that rose in his throat, he cocked his head to the side. “I had to leave.”
“Why?”
This time, he even had a logical, although not particularly honest, answer. “I didn’t shift last full moon. You had problems here, remember?”
The problem had come in the form of a stray shifter who’d somehow found his way into Rafe’s land the night before the full moon. They suspected they’d interrupted a near attack. Toronto, being the oldest shifter in Rafe’s enclave, had been put in charge of the stray.
Rafe stared at him, his near-black gaze unreadable. “You took off because you didn’t shift last month.”
“I took off to save you the hassle of dealing with my cranky ass,” Toronto said, shrugging. “It wasn’t going to be an easy few days for me, and you’re always yelling at me to take it easy on your little flock. Since it wasn’t likely, I took off for the full moon.”
“I’m not buying it.” Rafe smiled. He mounted the steps, one hand trailing up the banister. “After all, the full moon was just last night. If it was that bad, you’d want more time. But here you are. “
Toronto scented the anger, but he didn’t care. If the vampire was that mad, he could kick Toronto out. Didn’t matter much to him, one way or the other. He’d returned to the enclave, offered an apology— as far as he was concerned, he’d done what he needed to do.
“You know why else I’m not buying it?”
Sighing, Toronto leaned against the railing and crossed his arms over his chest. Staring up at the ceiling, he said, “I don’t much care, but I guess I’m going to hear anyway.”
“You don’t care if I ask you to go a little easy.” Rafe stopped on the same step where Toronto waited and stared at the were. “That’s where the problem is. If I bought this bit, that would mean I have to believe you actually are learning to obey orders and not constantly turn the rest of my Hunters into chew toys.”
“I only did that once. With Dominic. And he asked for it,” Toronto pointed out. Dominic had been an asshole, damn it. Was he supposed to apologize, again, over that? “And besides, that was almost two years ago.”
Rafe didn’t look impressed. “You take off whenever the hell it suits you. And you never let anybody know. What in the hell do we do if you’re needed and you’re not there?”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” Toronto said. This time, he couldn’t quite keep the growl from his voice. “And it’s not like I don’t know when I’m needed. Something’s in the air, right?”
“Yeah. And you’re good at knowing when there is a need. You’re here now, but you ignore the fucking rules and screw how it looks to everybody else.” Anger flickered in the depths of Rafe’s eyes, red behind black glass. “If I had anybody in my house other than Hunters, you know the kind of hell you’d be causing me?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake—”
But even as he started to explode, he stopped. Damn it.
It sucked that the bastard wasn’t wrong.
What sucked more? Toronto was.
Leaving the enclave in Memphis had been necessary.
Coming back had been necessary as well, for different reasons.
Now he was stuck there, waiting f
or those reasons to make themselves known as he slowly went out of his mind. As added company, in addition to his normally dark thoughts, he had Nessa’s words to torment him now as well.
Your darkest days are in your past, Toronto. Let them stay there. Leave it alone.
Leave it alone… best to not know? He couldn’t understand it. What would it hurt for him to know who he was, where he’d come from? He just didn’t get it.
But that was Nessa for you— she practically defined cryptic.
Even if she did have her reasons for keeping her knowledge to herself, it made it damn hard for those around her.
Setting his jaw, he met Rafe’s eyes. “I had to leave,” he said again, keeping the growl from his voice, and as hard as it was, he forced the edgy temper back as well. “I apologize, but I can’t explain any more than the fact that I couldn’t be here.”
For a long moment, Rafe stared at him. “Maybe you need to think about it for a little while and decide if you want to be here, Toronto. I need that commitment. Or I need you gone.”
Toronto didn’t know how to respond to that. He didn’t necessarily want to be here. But he didn’t really want to be anywhere. He gave Rafe a short nod and headed up the stairs, his skin prickling and hot.
Whatever had pulled him back here, it would reveal itself soon.
But would it be soon enough?
S
YLVIA had only had a few hours the night before to devote to researching the couple who wanted her to kill Alan Pulaski. Sunlight wasn’t something she could fight— once the sun rose, she went down, and it didn’t matter if she wanted to or not.
Since she didn’t particularly like collapsing where she stood, she’d stopped fighting and accepted it.
When she woke, she got back to the job— of course, that was after she started putting things in motion to get that move done. It didn’t take long— she already had a framework set up and all she had to do was get the ball rolling, which meant she had the entire night to focus on the job, and the entire night to make her decision.
But she already knew she would take the job.
Sometimes, she would spend a few days researching a mark, sometimes a few weeks… a few months. However long it took to be sure. She was picky, very picky about the jobs she accepted— she didn’t like living with mistakes. But the moment she’d seen Alan Pulaski’s name, she’d known she would do this. Killing a murdering, pedophilic monster wouldn’t be a mistake— it would be doing the world a favor.
The killer from Memphis, Tennessee, never should have been released from jail. Mortal justice, she thought, was seriously lacking.
She’d do this job, find justice for his victims and be quite pleased with herself.
Pulaski’s string of crimes had come to light over the past year— crimes that had stretched back for quite some time. A teacher, a friendly looking bastard who worked with kids, he was one of the guys people never would have suspected of committing the crimes he was eventually arrested for.
But he had. He was arrested. Then he was let out on bail… a few weeks ago. Placed under house arrest pending his trial, he’d been keeping quiet, staying in his home.
Then he escaped.
His ankle bracelet was found busted a few miles from his home and he hadn’t been seen since.
In the time since his disappearance, apparently more evidence had been found on his property— not in the main house, though. He’d been a well-off son of a bitch and on his estate, there was another house, one that hadn’t been checked out during the initial search… for whatever reason. Maybe they hadn’t known about it, maybe it hadn’t been included in the warrant, Sylvia didn’t know.
But in that house, the police found enough evidence to put Pulaski away for the rest of his natural life. Hell, if they’d seen that evidence, he probably wouldn’t have been released on bail. If they found him, he’d go away and this time, he’d probably stay locked up for a good long time.
If they found him.
If they didn’t fuck things up.
She didn’t really trust mortal justice.
And the people who wanted to hire her didn’t want him found… they wanted him dead.
Sylvia could give them that.
And then she would disappear for a while. Lay low.
Still, she didn’t contact the family right away. She needed to finish up her research. Although there was no doubt in her mind that Pulaski needed to die, she needed to know more about him. Needed to connect all those sick, twisted dots and try to understand the mind of this particular monster, who had preyed on children and broken them.
Sylvia understood brokenness. She’d seen what happened when one took a child, warped a child, twisted a child, broke a child…
A face flashed through her mind… a boy. It was the reason she was taking this job.
Toby— his name was Toby… and it was his parents that had written to her. She didn’t know how they’d come to find her, but she understood what had motivated them to look for a hired killer.
After all, the ghost of a dead child was one of the reasons she had become a hired killer. And he had looked a lot like Toby…
I’m sorry—his voice was a ragged cry in her mind.
“Don’t,” she whispered, brushing it off. Had to keep focused in the here, in the now. On these children— they were all connected.
By one Alan Pulaski. As she focused on her target, revulsion flooded her.
Staring at the picture of Pulaski, she let the anger fill her, ice her pain away until it was numb. Then she let herself study the victims. Toby, first, because he was the most heartbreaking.
From the first time she’d seen Toby’s picture, he’d called to her. Blue eyes. A kind smile. A handsome kid. One who made her remember things she shouldn’t let herself remember.
She’d spent too much time following that story in the papers, in the news, watching the reports about how he had gone missing. Good kid, bright and kind. Had done volunteer work through his church, worked with younger students.
The kind of kid parents probably hoped to have, she imagined.
And then every parent’s nightmare had happened… he’d disappeared.
The last person who had seen him alive had been his teacher… Alan Pulaski. There was suspicion, of course. But he was a nice man… surely nobody could think he had anything to do with it. Outrage had torn through the community.
Then it settled down, while the boy’s parents continued to search and hope and wait.
Then another boy went missing, months later. She hadn’t been around when that one happened. But she could remember wishing she’d decided to do some nosing around on her own. Screw the bit about not getting involved in mortal affairs.
She couldn’t undo the past but she could damn well do something now. Sylvia remained bent over the computer, studying as much information as she could pull up about her intended target and his known victims.
As she researched, she didn’t make notes. That was dangerous. Leaving behind a trail was one sure way to trip herself up. Besides, she didn’t need to make notes. She stored all of the information she needed in her mind. What she wouldn’t give, though, to have a way to take the knowledge of this man out of her mind when it was over. Removable knowledge, perhaps— know what she needed to know, for as long as she needed to know it. Once she no longer needed it, she could be done with it.
Pity that it wasn’t possible. She could get rid of those bad memories that always crept out to trip her up at inopportune moments.
Once the bumbling cops who had the case finally connected the dots, the evidence had piled up hard and fast. She accessed computers files— breaking several laws, but nobody would ever know, much less track it to her— and the images she saw, the reports she read were enough to have fury snarling inside her, a chained, massive beast.
Yet somehow, Pulaski’d managed to make bail. The legal jargon in the court reports wasn’t anything she hadn’t had to decipher before. It came as no surpr
ise. Still, it was still enough to leave her lip curling in a sneer.
Bastards. Bunch of sniveling, idiot bastards.
Absently, she stroked a hand down one of her blades, her fingers itching. When she found this one, he was dead. So very, very dead.
Monsters didn’t deserve anything but death, and she didn’t care if they were monsters of the human variety or the nonhuman.
A face flashed through her mind.
A man who had promised her a new life, a sweet life… a man who had lied to her. He’d been human. She’d believed him. And she’d been a fool. Then there’d been another man… one who hadn’t been human…
Both of them had hurt her in ways she’d never thought possible.
I’ll get you out… The voice whispered from her subconscious, but she shoved it down. No time for that now. She had a job, a monster to hunt.
Couldn’t do that if she let herself fall into a pit of memories, could she?
All of that should be locked away, in the past where memories belonged. Right now, her mind needed to be focused on the damn job.
She took a deep, steadying breath. The feel of oxygen moving in and out of her rarely used lungs was calming. When she opened her eyes, she made herself stare at the other boys, not just Toby. Studied the other victims.
Four boys dead, and all of them could be connected to Pulaski. Plus, others who’d been caught on video— no telling what had become of them. After he’d disappeared, a more detailed search had been conducted— not just of his house, but of the property surrounding it— and they’d found where he liked to play with his victims.
The videos— shit, the videos.
Those were the things she’d like scrubbed from her mind. She’d seen too many awful things in her years to be easily affected, but still… pity, grief and rage swam through her. Yes. Very often the monsters in the world were human.
Sylvia didn’t have any problem at all hunting that breed of human.
CHAPTER 4
Y
OU’LL be fine, though, lad. You will. Just wait and see. Nessa had told him that, time and again.
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