The King (Games We Play Book 2)

by Liz Meldon

  Bella Donovan, eldest daughter of Shane Donovan, was set to inherit the clan should anything happen to her father. Her picture, along with those of her two sisters who were close in age and appearance, hung in the staff room at League HQ with a warning for new hunters not to approach. Delia had had the misfortune of falling into her clutches briefly at the masquerade ball this past spring—and apparently her face, even beneath a lacy mask, still stuck in the vamp’s memory bank.

  She swallowed hard but stood still, determined not to flinch as the vamp struggled to get at her. Delia had faith that the two hunters holding Bella, who looked very much a predator with her ruby-red lips peeled back in a snarl, would keep the vamp from ripping Delia’s throat out.

  Claude’s bite marks prickled beneath the fabric of her dense protective gear, but Delia resisted the urge to scratch at them.

  With some effort, the hunters holding the wild vamp cuffed her and hauled her out of the room—but only after Kain threatened to put a bullet in her skull to make things easier. Bella scowled as they dragged her out, lips pursed in a childish pout while her eyes blazed with hate.

  Team Alpha had already captured her sisters, Gwendolyn and Kerrie, though Bella proved to be the toughest to physically restrain. She would join her sun-resistant siblings, all turned by their father’s bite like the Warwick kids, in the transport truck waiting in the front yard. Team Bravo stood at the bottom of the stairwell that led up to her tower, waiting for the Alphas to hand her off so they could secure her.

  Delia did a quick sweep of the room. It shouldn’t surprise her that Bella Donovan had a whole tower to herself, with a bedroom at the peak of the spire and several floors of parlors and TV rooms and bars below.

  The Donovan estate could engulf the Grimm manor if it wanted. While Delia had seen pictures and blueprints of the place before the raid, they were nothing compared to the real thing. This was a palace. Situated at the top of a hill beyond the lake at the farthest reaches of Harriswood’s city limits, surrounded by high stone walls and orchards, it was an impressive piece of architecture. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time to appreciate its gothic beauty. As soon as the transport vans had pulled up, it was all teams go. Wentworth had given the raiding squads two hours to complete the assignment—Kain insisted they could do it in half that time.

  Teams Alpha and Bravo had headed for the rooms allotted to Shane Donovan’s immediate family—their job was to acquire, capture, and restrain Shane and his girls, then bring them in for questioning. Team Charlie had gone for the humans. All the other teams were responsible for bringing in the lesser clansmen and subduing daytime security, while the Warwick vamps caught and killed anyone trying to escape through the underground tunnels.

  It had been airtight and thus far executed perfectly.

  Delia barely had time to think, much less feel the nerves that had made it difficult to sleep last night. She knew her role—shoot a non-fatal shot should the immediate family try to resist—and she was determined to follow through. So far, Team Alpha was a well-oiled machine of awesome.

  “No word that Shane’s been spotted in the tunnels,” Kain remarked when the two hunters moving Bella returned. The others were searching the bedroom, Delia included. “There’s a chance he’s gone into his panic room, but if the codes Warwick’s guys gave us are viable, that won’t be a problem.”

  How did one woman have so many dresses? Delia’s eyes wandered over the sea of flowy gowns, a rainbow of pastels and glittery fabric—and stopping suddenly when a few of the tulle extravaganzas moved.

  Delia brought her gun up and took a step back. “Guys…”

  The room fell silent, save for the loading and cocking and lifting of weaponry. Swallowing hard, Delia eased forward, adrenaline blurring out the obnoxious DANGER sign in her mind’s eye, and slowly pushed a few of the gowns to one side.

  “No!” It wasn’t the cry of another Bella Donovan lookalike. No, it was the shriek of a girl—a little girl with blonde ringlets and fiercely blue eyes that made Delia immediately think of Claude. Thick milky tears rolled down her cheeks, round with lingering baby fat, smooth and white.

  It was clear the second the sunlight hit her from the nearby windows that she was a Donovan offspring—all of Shane’s were, like Claude, immune to the sunlight. But that didn’t stop her from shrieking in terror.

  “When the hell did he have another kid?” Gregory shouted over the noise.

  “Get her,” Kain ordered, and it took Delia a second to realize he was talking to her. Holstering her weapon, she moved inward to pick the girl up, but she scampered away in her little Care Bear pajamas, wailing.

  “Shoot it and shut it up!”

  But she couldn’t. The hunter in her knew the little girl could actually be older than Delia—the vampirism disease slowed aging to a crawl, giving the illusion of immortality. Looking at her, however, Delia saw a blubbering five-year-old in cartoon pajamas. She couldn’t shoot her.

  “Come here,” Delia said softly, arms outstretched. “It’s okay. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  “Stop it!” And just like that, the little girl was on her feet and racing for the door. She almost made it—until Kain netted her. He’d been bragging about the newly issued net gun for most of their training—and seemed to get a sick thrill out of using the crossbow lookalike. Its shot emitted an obscene crack that made Delia’s ears ring.

  Capture didn’t quiet the young vamp down, however. The crisscross of silver burned her face, legs, and arms, leaving bright red lacerations across skin that tried to heal on its own, only to be marred again as the girl struggled. And did she ever scream. As a pair of hunters closed in on her, she let out a high-pitched screech that reminded Delia of the one little Kyle had given at the grocery store when a bloody-faced vamp crawled toward him. Pure fear.

  And Delia just stood there, watching as two grown men hoisted the silver net up with a squirming vamp child inside, numb. She turned away when the girl started calling for her mother between agonized screams, ones that echoed throughout the tower as she was hauled out of sight.

  “Maybe Bella’s kid?” one of the other hunters suggested. Delia, arms limp at her side, could feel him staring. “Why did you let her go? This is why women shouldn’t be hunters. You get one crying kid and they go all maternal and shit—”

  “Shut up, Travis,” Kain growled.

  Travis complied with a heavy sigh, then ducked down to look under the bed, presumably for more hidden children. Delia, meanwhile, pulled out her gun and examined it, her adrenaline fading, leaving her with an unsettling nothingness. When Kain said her name, she looked to him, but already knew what he was going to say well before he said it.

  “Seriously Dels, what the actual fuck?” He shook his head when she opened and closed her mouth wordlessly. “You know how much flack I’ve taken for defending you to these guys, and then you go and do that?”

  “Kain, I’m sorry, but she’s a kid—”

  “She isn’t a kid though,” he snapped as he buckled his net gun to his hip and lifted his helmet’s visor. Delia did the same, both their eyes narrowed when they met. “It was a vamp who could have probably put you through a window given the chance. She’s a kid… Are you serious?”

  “Kain—”

  “But I guess I shouldn’t have expected you to notice the difference anymore, between human and vamp, right?”

  Travis glanced up slowly from his spot on the floor at the foot of the bed, then hastily went back to pushing through bedazzled boxes when both Delia and Kain fixed him with a glare.

  “I’m sorry, what’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded. The numbness had passed, leaving a simmering anger in its place, one that worsened when Kain scoffed.

  “You know what it means.” He rolled his eyes. “Look, we’ll talk about it later.”

  “Probably with the High Council, right?” Delia gave a few hollow chuckles. “I mean, you broadcast my every move to them, so I guess that’s where I’m headed.”<
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  “Any one of these guys could report you for what you did—”

  “I made a mistake,” she fired back, cheeks red. She’d fucked up and she knew it. No sense in denying it now, not with so many witnesses. “But I’m on Team Alpha with you, so why don’t you treat me like I belong here?”

  “Because you don’t,” Travis said, voice muffled from under the bed. Footsteps thundered up the stairwell at the return of the other hunters.

  “You’re here,” Kain said slowly, as if trying to keep his voice even, “so I can make sure you don’t die. I’m a team leader and a babysitter, and all because you staked a few vamps and got on the news. You’re here because you’ve been given special treatment over hunters who have actually worked hard for years to move up the ranks.”

  Delia’s jaw dropped before she could stop it. Only then did Kain’s tone soften. Behind him, the other two hunters strolled in, not realizing what they were walking into. “Just keep your head down, Dels, and don’t get in the way.”

  The silence was overwhelming. Delia’s hands shook as she watched Kain lower his visor and instruct the others to do one final sweep of the room, walk-in closets included, before they moved on.

  “Sorry to be such a burden,” Delia managed, tucking her gun away.

  “Room’s clear,” Travis muttered as the trio of non-bickering hunters headed for the door. “Can we press pause on this therapy session already? We’ve still got Shane Donovan to capture, or did you forget that?”

  “I’m good to go,” Delia said gruffly, pushing through and heading for the stairs. Halfway down, the quietest hunter of Team Alpha, Francis, met her eye fleetingly before moving in front of her to lead the group to Shane’s purported panic room in the basement cellar.

  Delia followed, red-faced and humiliated, and told herself not to break down until she was alone. Because this mission wasn’t about her, even if had taken a brief detour in her direction. Because this mission was more important than her and her failings. And because she was determined to show that she could pull her weight, even if that meant staying out of the way until it was over.

  CHAPTER 20: Boys 2.0

  “Congrats to you, Team Alpha,” Arthur boomed as soon as Delia stepped into his accounting domain. Her cheeks flushed when a pair of hunters glanced at her on their way to the door, but once they were gone, there was no one left to judge her—or Arthur for his enthusiasm. The League accountant actually stood and gave a teeny bow as she approached, his grin stretching ear to ear.

  It felt incredibly unnecessary, given her meager contribution to Team Alpha on the Donovan raid yesterday morning, but Delia let him have his moment. Anyone else who came by to collect their pay probably hadn’t given him the time of day so far.

  “You have to tell me all about it,” he insisted as she leaned against the counter, arms crossed with a painfully fake smile on her lips. Arthur, ever her cheerleader.

  “It was…” She let out a sigh and shrugged, watching as he counted her pay, this time in hundreds instead of twenties. When he looked up expectantly, Delia gave him the story she’d been telling all day. “Yeah, it was awesome. Everything I could have hoped for and more.”

  “I told you things were going to start looking up,” he said brightly as he pressed the wad of bills into the money counter and pushed the count button. In seconds, twenty hundred-dollar bills whizzed through and into the tray at the bottom—the most money she’d ever seen at one time. Her bank account practically salivated at the thought of the deposit.

  Delia nodded when Arthur beamed up at her, his wispy hair askew over his forehead, the usual pit stains glaringly apparent on his salmon-pink button-up tee. “Yup, you predicted it.”

  “Well, go on then,” Arthur prompted. It seemed like he was holding her money hostage until he got the story he wanted. “Tell me everything.”

  “Right, uh…” Delia wished she could be more enthusiastic about it. “All the snow and ice melted by the time we arrived, so I didn’t fall flat on my face the second I hopped out of the transport.”

  “Always a plus.”

  “Seriously.”

  Delia did her best to share all the highlights: she wove a story about capturing the notorious Donovan patriarch and his gaggle of bloodthirsty daughters, spicing up the details as best she could to satisfy Arthur’s ceaseless curiosity. He was like a proud mom after their kindergartener went through their pointless graduation ceremony.

  In actuality, the day had been a huge letdown after Kain gave her the talking-to in Bella’s bedroom. Delia had done what she could to support the team, pointing her weapon at Shane Donovan and making her most intimidating glare while the others did all the work. It probably would have gone down the same whether she was there or not. The hunters assigned to the raid knew what they had been doing. They were a hardcore unit, moving as one in the face of the enemy. Delia had just been along for the ride.

  The entire clan had been taken in, the coalition between the local police, the League, and the Warwick clan proving to be a successful one. There’d been two police casualties, one for the League, and none for the vamps in the tunnels. They’d finished the job in an hour and ten minutes, irking team leaders but impressing the High Council. Delia suspected the clan had been so easy to take in because they were attacked when the sun was at its highest—and they had actually been surprised. Had the Donovans been ready for an assault, perhaps the day would have had more serious hiccups. Instead, capturing a bunch of unprepared, sleeping vamps was hailed a brilliant success.

  Scary Donovan clan was off the streets.

  Police officers and League hunters had proved they had control of their city.

  Warwick vamps had solidified a strong truce with local hunters.

  And Delia had fallen asleep in the locker room. After returning from the raid, she’d showered and then fallen asleep and woken up much later on a bench between the rows of lockers, still miffed about the role she’d played. Too tired to walk home, she’d stayed in for-rent HQ dorms, eaten alone in the cafeteria—minus the occasional pat on the back from younger, clueless hunters—then had gone to collect her pay shortly after Arthur started his shift. By then, she was ready to go home and call Claude about her decision.

  It was time to officially re-evaluate her position at the League. Not contemplate it. Not hem and haw and dance around it. Maybe this, maybe that. No. The revelations made during the raid had clarified things for good.

  She’d already missed her shot to do better. No one who mattered could see beyond her shortcomings—and that wasn’t an environment she wanted to be in for much longer. Maybe she would ask for a transfer, or try her hand at a different department. Maybe she’d quit, though where was she supposed to go from there? It wasn’t like she could take a corporate gig with vampire hunter on her résumé. If someone outside of her world asked her what she’d been doing between the retail nightmares of her teens and the last five years, what was there to say?

  What did she even want to do outside of vampire hunting?

  Delia still wasn’t sure the exact path to trod, but this one wasn’t making her happy like it used to. Even if it gave her a unique purpose in the world, was that enough of a reason to sacrifice her mental and physical health?

  Did it make her a quitter to walk away?

  Delia hadn’t decided yet. All she knew was that she was more than a little sick of being put down for trying—and tired of feeling guilty if she didn’t.

  “I can’t believe you looked the Donovan daughters in the face,” Arthur said with an overly dramatic shiver. “Those pictures of them in the break room give me the willies.”

  Delia laughed. “You mean you actually use the break room? Don’t they have you chained to this desk from the time you start to the time your shift is over?”

  “Sometimes I wiggle loose,” he told her, finally sliding over the white envelope. She hastily stuffed it in her purse—it was more money than she was comfortable carrying in public. Still, with her winter
coat hanging over her arm and yesterday’s outfit clinging to her body, she needed to get some cold, fresh air soon. HQ was starting to feel claustrophobic.

  “So, you going to that big party thing at the end of the week?” Arthur asked as she started to slip her coat on.

  Delia frowned, tugging her hair out from under the cuff. “The what?”

  “Party,” he repeated somewhat unsurely with a nod toward his computer. “They sent an email about it this morning.”

  “Haven’t checked mine yet.”

  “It’s to celebrate the raid, I guess,” he told her, cheeks going a faint shade of pink. The colour spread brightly to the tips of his ears when she grinned. “Everyone’s invited, hunters and support staff. Seems like…kind of a staff party.”

  “Oh. Right.” It would have excited her a few months ago, but now the thought of coming back to live it up with her coworkers… It made her feel nothing. Delia could see Arthur, Ali, and Devin, plus any casual acquaintances, outside of work if she left. Still, the hopeful look on Arthur’s face broke through the nothingness. She was probably one of the few people he’d ask about going; Delia suddenly had the strange urge not to disappoint him. “Sure. Sounds fun. It’ll be nice not to have to cab home if I get too drunk.”

  “Yeah, okay, great,” he said, his voice catching. She grinned again as he cleared his throat. “Should be a good time.”

  “Definitely.” The more the idea ruminated around in her head, however, the more she suspected she’d probably bail—but she’d tell Arthur first, of course. Delia just needed the space to get some perspective on things, and drunken partying with the few people who made her work-life enjoyable wasn’t the best way to go about it.

  As a new group of hunters arrived, Delia said her farewells and headed for the door, bypassing the ones who congratulated her on the mission with nothing more than a friendly smile. A stabbing sort of headache was starting to develop behind her eyes—the sooner she got out of HQ, the better.

  Unfortunately, her departure would be delayed by at least a few minutes. With a hand pressed to her forehead, eyes clenched closed, Delia accidentally hit the wrong floor button, and rather than going up, the elevator shot down to a level she’d never visited—holding cells. Even if she and a team of other hunters brought in a vamp for questioning, Delia was never the one to do it.