A Hunter Born (Hired Hunters Series Book 1)

by Kimberly Forrest

  To be left out in a greenhouse? Cooking under the intensified rays of a Louisiana sun? It would leave any vampire over a year turned, shriveling slowly into a petrified husk while older vampires would dehydrate even faster. Morgan shuddered.

  “Do what you need to do, Miss Rhys, but within the bounds of caution,” Jourdain told her as he moved out of the doorway so that she could pass. “I did not bring you here to add your death to my conscience.”

  Morgan nodded, moving to the exit. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The first thing Morgan did once she returned to Rodolfo’s villa was to find Kane and Jamie to apologize for her less than professional behavior. To which they’d both looked at her like she was crazy, matching scoffing sounds leaving their lips with Jamie adding an “Oh, please,” for good measure.

  “If anyone deserves a bit of downtime, it’s you, boss,” Kane assured her.

  Shaking her head, she settled on Jamie’s bed next to the Turned vampire and her ever-present laptop. “Nevertheless, I won’t see him again. It’s not fair to you guys.”

  Kane pinned her with a look. “I’m an indiscriminate slut with a short attention span who frequently wanders off and you barely bat an eye.” That little gem left Jamie snorting loudly but Kane continued as if he hadn’t heard, “You find a guy you actually like and you want to drop him because it’s unfair to us?”

  “You do like him, don’t deny it. We both saw it.” Jamie grinned, her elbow nudging Morgan’s ribs.

  “We need to stay focused,” Morgan inserted mulishly.

  Kane shook his head, disgusted, but Jamie looked considering for a moment before she remarked, “Since you mentioned angels that first night, I took some time to check the Born’s online resource library and found some interesting accounts. They’re said to be formidable warriors, powerful, tenacious, and extremely hard to kill.”

  “Your point?” Morgan asked, slightly irritated that they weren’t backing her on the course she’d decided upon regardless of her own desires. She did like Travis, but it would be too easy to lose herself in him. Lose her heart to him, and then feel that heart crack wide open when she had to leave him.

  Jamie shot her a look that said ‘Duh’ before she explained, “So, can you imagine having one of them on our team?”

  Morgan let out a bark of laughter. “You want me to recruit him?”

  Jamie shrugged, her grin sly, “Or marry him. You know, whatever.”

  Rolling her eyes, Morgan drawled, “Oh, the Elders would just love that.”

  “I can’t speak for marriage, but The Elders have no authority over who a team of Hunters recruits,” Kane pointed out.

  That was true. A team leader was solely responsible for his or her team, could recruit as they saw fit. If they Turned a human, like Jamie with unique talents, that new vampire’s contract belonged to the Hunter’s Society, not the Court of Elders, and more specifically to the leader of the team that vampire would work with for the duration. And, while Morgan herself never had, some teams even recruited shifters, utilizing their keen senses, stealth, and tracking abilities. As long as a team was effective, recruitment was not questioned or interfered with.

  Morgan imagined having Travis on her team, not having to say goodbye… the idea was more than intriguing.

  Squashing that thought before it could take root and grow, Morgan again shook her head. “He has a life here, a job on the force –”

  “Where he forever has to hide who and what he is,” Jamie interrupted. “We could offer him a form of freedom. With us, he could be himself.”

  “Make the offer, boss,” Kane piled on and Morgan’s brain began seriously mulling over the idea.

  Aside from the angelic power, Travis would bring to the table, he was also a cop, familiar with procedure, requiring minimal training. Not to mention, she’d gotten the impression that once he had closure for his sister, his job would be done here in New Orleans, so any roots he’d set down in this area were tenuous at best. He might even welcome hitting the road with them… and what do you know, that little seed of thought she had tried so hard to kill just moments before, managed to flourish into something that somehow sounded like a good idea.

  ∞∞∞

  Morgan had been determined to punch up her line of questioning with Rodolfo, had even mentally rehearsed what she’d say, only to be told by one of the Born’s Turned muscle that the man was in a meeting and was not to be disturbed. “For any reason,” he’d added with a glare.

  No amount of charm, flirting, cajoling, or even bribery had managed to entice the gorilla standing guard to give her a hint of with whom Rodolfo was speaking or what they may be speaking about. The vampire had practically turned into a statue once he’d told her the order, seemingly not even aware of her continued presence much less her words of entreaty. Talk about blindly following orders. The turn of events was frustrating, but it did, however, free her up to accept Travis’s invitation when he called after his shift.

  They ended up at a rooftop bar that afforded a magnificent three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the city that practically took Morgan’s breath away. As they admired the view, drinks in hand, Travis shared anecdotes of some of his more amusing arrests which led Morgan to be able to do the same, leaving both of them practically gasping for breath, they were laughing so hard, and the entire time, it was on the tip of her tongue to ask him to join her team. To become a Hunter. She held back.

  Until Travis had the answers to his sister’s disappearance, nothing would convince him to leave. She may not have known him long, but that knowledge of his character was a bone-deep surety. Any chance of him leaving with them when this job was finished hinged on Morgan getting into those files and finding something useful inside.

  “Do you want to dance?”

  The request made Morgan wish she had donned the red dress rather than her usual attire of jeans, T-shirt topped with her leather jacket, and clunky, thick-lugged boots. Still, it didn’t deter from accepting the offer, if only to feel his arms around her once more as the singer on a small stage near the bar crooned about a lover’s smile.

  Her senses no longer kicked into high gear in his presence with the exception of the almost instant arousal his proximity now inspired, making her want to drag him off to some dark corner and indulge in an inappropriate, if extremely satisfying, quickie.

  She felt more than heard the low rumble in his chest and she shot him a teasing smile as her fingers played in the hair at the nape of his neck. “Are you reading my mind?”

  His lips tickled against the outer rim of her ear as he growled, “I can smell your desire.” His arms pulled her closer, one hand delving into the back pocket of her jeans, guiding her hips tighter to the thick bulge in his pants to let her know how she affected him. Damn, that was hot. He was hot. Glancing around the rooftop, she gave the idea of a dark corner some serious thought.

  And then his growl turned into something much more sinister, causing her nape to prickle in warning. Travis stopped moving them about the floor, his body stiffening in preparation to fight and Morgan pulled away just slightly, senses on keen alert as she casually scanned the area to discover the source of his new deadly mood. A hint of sulfur hit her nose as if someone had lit a match close by, but she didn’t bother to confirm her suspicion, too preoccupied with the trouble that had just joined the party.

  Vampires. Five of them, and though they may have arrived together, they didn’t choose a table with the idea of having a friendly drink and conversation. Instead, they spread out, taking up different points around the perimeter of the rooftop, their eyes never leaving Morgan and Travis who were now effectively boxed in.

  “You’d think they’d be a bit subtler,” Morgan remarked dryly as she pressed herself against Travis and nudged him into resuming their dance. “Relax,” she whispered, her hands discreetly massaging the tense lines of his back. “Between the two of us, taking five of those meatheads down is child’s play if they att
ack.”

  Honestly, she highly doubted they would, not in such a public place. If she had to guess, they were here to keep an eye on her per Rodolfo’s orders, though why they had suddenly upped their vigilance was a mystery that left her slightly wary.

  Under her ministrations, Travis’s posture lost some of its stiffness and he even managed a smile though his eyes remained shrewd and watchful. When the song ended, they returned to their table, but it was no use trying to recapture the magic that had been lost thanks to the intrusion of Rodolfo’s men. They both ordered one more drink, consuming it mostly for show before they made their escape. If the vampires had been ordered to do more than keep an eye on them, now would be when they made their attempt.

  Standing from the table, her casual posture belying her readiness for battle, Morgan extended a hand with a smile. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  ∞∞∞

  Jamie had finally cracked into Rodolfo’s system about an hour ago, and while she’d done a private victory dance around her room, patting herself on the back, she hadn’t yet told the rest of her team. Morgan was out with her super-sexy angel cop and Kane had been gaming last she checked, headphones on as he chatted with some of his cronies. Updating them on her success would only have led to them dropping what they were doing and hovering over her shoulder while she searched innumerable files that had absolutely nothing to do with what they were looking for. The end result being, all of them would be on edge for no reason. It was better if she waited until they had something usable, something they could sink their teeth into.

  Shit. The things Rodolfo was involved in was horrifying, but weapons sales, drug shipments, human trafficking, those were things that Morgan might decide to give to her new lover to use as he saw fit, but didn’t do diddly to explain why vampires were killing witches.

  She was just about to take a break, grab something to eat, and give her eyes a much-needed break, the lines of code beginning to blur together when a particular file extension caught her attention and made her instincts tingle with excitement. Jamie immediately perked up, hunger and exhaustion forgotten, she dove in.

  “Oh… My… God,” she breathed. Her eyes widened to their full diameter and her mouth fell open with shock as she reread the information just to be sure she hadn’t misinterpreted what she’d found. “Shit. Not good. So, not good.”

  Snapping her laptop closed, Jamie jumped up from the bed and hugged the Alienware to her chest as she made for the door, her destination, Kane’s room just down the hall. She’d barely cleared her doorway before she plowed into a large, muscular body and a hand was clamped over her mouth, effectively cutting off her scream.

  “Someone’s been a very naughty girl,” was whispered in her ear as her favorite laptop was ripped away from her by yet another hulking vampire.

  Her struggles were futile, only serving to amuse the two males, and that large hand that covered her mouth was also blocking her nostrils, making it nearly impossible to breathe. Her heart felt like it was going to beat straight through her ribcage it was hammering so fast, while her lungs burned with the need for air. Her vision began to darken around the edges and Jamie’s last conscious thought was, I don’t want to die… before the blackness took her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You were right,” Travis remarked with a wry twist of his lips as he gunned the truck’s engine while eyeing the rearview mirror. “They’re not even trying to be subtle.”

  Cranking her head around, Morgan saw the vampires, now seated on motorcycles falling in behind them in obvious pursuit. “Those bikes could easily overtake your truck,” she commented needlessly, wishing she’d armed herself with more than the two long-bladed daggers currently hidden in her boots.

  Pulling out her cellphone, she quickly fired off a message to her team to watch their backs before turning her attention to their unwanted company. “I’m guessing Rodolfo’s orders weren’t to attack but to follow and not to lose sight of me at any cost.”

  “They’re going to be disappointed,” Travis murmured.

  Morgan glanced around at the number of pedestrians wandering the area and her stomach flipped with dread as she imagined a high-speed chase in the heart of New Orleans as he attempted to lose their tail. But instead of cranking the wheel, tires screaming to roar down an alleyway, Travis remained on the same street, barely even speeding.

  “Do you think you can lose them once we’re outside of the city?” she asked, guessing his intent was to lead the vampires away from the milling masses before attempting to shake them.

  “We’re headed to the bayou.”

  His response surprised her yet again. “You hope to lose them on foot?”

  “The bayou is wolf territory. Vampires aren’t welcome and any that try to ignore that order will quickly be either run off or fed to the swamp.”

  “Um… Hello,” Morgan returned wryly, raising her hand.

  Travis grinned, displaying that adorable dimple to full effect. “You’re with me. You’ll be fine.”

  That he was friends with the local shifter population shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, like angels who had been created to battle demons, the shifter species had been created specifically to protect humans from vampires. That may not be the case anymore – humans having lost that privilege when they betrayed the shifters for profit – but the instinctual dislike was still very much a part of who and what they were. And thanks to the demonic blood in every vampire’s veins, it was a dislike both angels and shifters shared.

  Her phone chimed with an incoming message and Morgan quickly checked the screen and released a “Hm.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “According to Jamie, everything is.”

  “Then why the ‘Hm’?”

  Jamie’s response had been exactly that, ‘Everything good here’ instead of her usual barrage of questions, needing to know precisely what was happening and how she could assist. In fact, texting, rather than calling in search of immediate answers, was more Kane’s MO than Jamie’s, yet the message had come from Jamie’s phone.

  “It’s probably nothing,” she replied, shaking her head. “It’s just, Jamie tends to ask a lot of questions, it’s kind of her thing.”

  “What did she say?”

  Morgan read the short text to Travis and he frowned. “Maybe she can’t get into it right now if others are around.”

  “True.” It was definitely possible that both Kane and Jamie were currently socializing, trying to pry gossip that would assist them from any number of the vampires that were constantly at the villa for one amusement or another. She was overreacting in light of her own circumstances. That was all. One thing she needed to remember was that her team could look after themselves, and Jamie was with Kane. Everything was fine, just like Jamie had said and she needed to keep her mind on the immediate threat, not create new, most likely non-existent ones.

  Stuffing her phone back in her pocket, she glanced back at the headlights still following them, though no longer as closely. “I think they’ve guessed our destination.”

  “I guess now we’ll see if their survival instincts supersede their loyalty to Rodolfo.”

  The bayou at night was both beautiful and creepy with its hanging branches skimming the water and pinpoints of lights in the vegetation that might be fireflies or the eyes of predators watching you, lying in wait. The buzz of insects filled the air as twigs cracked beneath their feet. A low, mournful wolf howl could be heard in the distance and Morgan gripped Travis’s hand a bit tighter as she hoped he was right about being welcomed. Right now, she was not in the mood to be jumped and mauled by an angry wolf shifter – not that that thought was ever a pleasant one.

  Her eyes picked up the rapid movement of something in the grass. Something possibly slithery. “If I get bitten by a snake,” she grumbled, “I’m going to make you suck out the poison.”

  Travis let out a low chuckle and raised her hand to his mouth so that he could kiss her
knuckles. “It would be an honor.”

  Morgan’s return laughter was cut short by the ominous sound of brush moving to their right, signaling a rather large animal moving about and way too close for comfort. Quickly side-stepping, she nearly tromped on Travis’s foot, the apology she was about to offer, sticking in her throat as the noise was repeated to their left, as well as behind them. Shit. She liked to think of herself as brave, but right now she was wound so tightly, if something did jump out at her she was definitely going to scream like a banshee.

  “They prefer their wolf forms at night,” Travis quietly uttered. “They’re just checking us out.”

  A large shape detached itself from the shadowy outline of a tree just ahead, bringing Morgan and Travis to a halt. The beast moved forward slowly, head down, its eyes glowing in the moonlight before the silhouette changed to that of a man. “Saint,” was growled as the shifter stopped, legs braced apart and muscular arms crossed over his chest.

  Morgan attempted to keep her eyes on the man’s face rather than gawking at such a blatant display of nudity highlighted by the moonbeams penetrating the overhead canopy. She’d heard shifters weren’t exactly shy about their bodies, but she kind of thought they’d at least cup the dangling bits for the sake of modesty.

  The shifter’s long, wavy hair looked blue-black under the moonlight, his eyes, deep-set and intense under heavy black brows. His cheekbones were sharp, the lower half of his face concealed by a thick black beard. Dress the man in a double-breasted frock coat, hand him a cutlass and Morgan thought he’d make a great pirate.