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abrupt stop. He reached out to steady me. “I’d make another joke about how you can’t seem to keep your hands off me, but I figure now isn’t the time.”
“You’d be right about that.” I turned to scan the street behind us. My shoulders heaved and my lungs screamed from the work I’d put them through.
“They’re not following us, Alana,” Ty said. “We’re safe.”
He didn’t let go of my arms until I turned back to him, then it was only so that he could lift one hand to stroke his knuckles across my cheek.
“You okay?”
I nodded, holding his gaze. As long as he kept looking at me like that, I was sure I’d be just fine. “Ye—”
The reply stuck in my throat when Ty leaned down and kissed me. His lips firm and insistent, he pushed his tongue into my mouth without hesitation, surprising me. I gasped.
The kiss was hard and possessive. It felt like he was claiming me. That should have scared the living daylights out of me, but it didn’t. My body lit up and I went with it—couldn’t have stopped even if I’d tried. It was the most perfect first kiss I’d ever experienced. I never wanted it to end, even though I knew it couldn’t go on forever. When Ty pulled back, we were both breathing heavily still, but for an altogether different reason.
Ty looked into my eyes and my stomach pitched at the heat in his.
“Is now a good time to tell you that running for my life makes me horny?” he asked around a devilish grin.
I spluttered out a laugh. “Not if you want to keep breathing, it isn’t.”
He nodded, lips twitching. “Figured as much.”
“Ty?”
“Yeah?”
“I like it when you call me sugar.”
His expression softened and he flashed a wide smile. His eyes twinkled like gemstones as he ran his thumb along my cheekbone with a feather-light touch.
“I’ll keep that in mind, babe.”
I didn’t tell him, but I liked it when he called me babe too.
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Chapter Three
The following morning, Ty knocked on my motel room door at seven, an hour or so after the sun had risen. I was already up and waiting for him, impatient to start the day. Despite the fact that vampire hunters usually didn’t call it quits until dawn, I was wide awake, if not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I’d paced around the room until a little after two-thirty then when I’d finally dropped off to sleep, it hadn’t been the deep, restful sleep I was used to getting. Even so, by the time Ty arrived, I was incredibly pleased to see him and that had nothing to do with the kiss we’d shared. Or at least, that was what I told myself, and I think I even believed it.
Although my motel room was basic, it was clean, tidy and far more pleasant than some of the places I’d stayed in. Still, I was sick of staring at the same four walls. I usually slept like the dead, but I couldn’t get the events of the previous night out of my mind. It didn’t matter how hard I’d tried to push the images away, they had kept creeping back in, taunting me. The memories were so vivid and made it easy to remember how I’d felt in the alleyway when I’d first seen the hellhound’s eyes shining back at me, had seen its enormous, bulky frame.
I’d been terrified.
I should have been even more afraid in the parking lot with not only the hellhound to contend with, but the demon too. Yet I hadn’t been because Ty had been there with me. I’d felt safe in his presence, knowing he had my back, but it had been something I couldn’t allow myself to get used to, no matter how much I wanted to.
Because of my mother’s reputation, it had been difficult to live up to the expectations people placed on me, but I’d tried hard to be the best hunter I could be. I’d excelled in the training school and aced every test I’d been given. In the years since, I’d proven myself repeatedly as a hunter. Yet I kept thinking back to the incident in the alleyway—how I’d frozen at first. That made me feel like a failure, a weak, useless hunter who looked up to her mother, but would never be as good as her.
When I swung open the door, Ty greeted me with a dazzling smile, so bright it caught me off guard, instantly lifting my mood. Leaning against the wall, his arms folded, he had one www.totallybound.com
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cowboy boot-clad foot crossed over the other. On his head sat the beige, felt cowboy hat, pulled low so that it obscured his eyes.
“Hey there, pretty lady,” he greeted.
My breath came quicker at the sound of the low purr.
“Hey.”
One look into those stunning hazel eyes and my pulse accelerated, reminding me of our kiss. The flames of my desire extinguished, however, when he shouldered past me then walked right on into my room. It was my own damn fault for giving him my room number instead of asking him to meet me out in the parking lot.
“Not a bad looking room,” he remarked, as he took a seat on my bed. He leaned back against the headboard, placed his hands over his stomach then linked his fingers together.
“Better than the place I’m staying at.”
“Make yourself at home, why don’t you?”
He flashed a million-dollar smile and I found it difficult to be angry at him. “I just did, sugar. Feel free to join me…” He patted the bed beside him.
Scratch that. It was actually pretty easy to be pissed at him.
“Forget it. I already told you it isn’t going to happen and I take it back. I don’t like it when you call me sugar. It isn’t cute. It’s borderline creepy. Now will you get off my bed? We have work to do.”
A burst of unrestrained laughter tore from his lips. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
He climbed off the bed then followed me out of the room.
“Why do you think the hellhounds didn’t come after us last night?” I asked, a question that had plagued me since I’d woken up.
“The demon probably called them off.”
“Yes, but why? And why didn’t the demon come after us? That seems odd after he ordered the hellhounds to kill us, doesn’t it?”
Ty sighed. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. The only reason a demon would let us go like that was if they didn’t see us as a threat.”
“What do you mean?”
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“Well, demons might be careless, but I don’t think they want to expose themselves to humans any more than we want it—at least not yet. That would only make life more complicated for them. He might have considered letting us go as a warning to back off.”
“From finding the grimoire, you mean? Do you think the demon knows we’re on to him?”
“I’d bet my last dollar he does.”
After we’d climbed into Ty’s truck, he drove us to a little Catholic church in West Hollywood, which was right around the corner from the agent’s place of work. We’d agreed to head on over there as soon as we’d loaded up with more holy water.
“If you’re a Texan native, how come you know LA so well?” I asked, just as Ty pulled into the parking lot in front of the church.
“It’s my old stomping ground.” He cut the engine then turned to face me. “My hunting partner is from LA, so she showed me around. We hunted here for a couple of years, actually.
There’s plenty of vampire action here in LA.”
“Oh, right,” I replied absently, peering out at the church and thinking that I should make more of an effort to attend. I always figured that by doing my bit to eliminate all the unholy beings in the world, I was tipping my hat to the Big Man upstairs. “Where’s your hunting partner now?”
“Knocked up.”
I turned my head so fast I was surprised I didn’t get whiplash. My mouth hung open.
Unrestrained laughter met my surprised stare.
“Come on,” Ty scoffed. “You don
’t think I’m responsible, do you?”
“Are you?”
“Nope, not guilty. Give me some credit, babe. You know, for what it’s worth, I’m not the type of man who would get a girl pregnant then move on to the next beautiful woman in the blink of an eye. I have morals. Besides, I love Laura like a sister and there’s never been anything between us. I’m not into her like that. Now you, on the other hand.”
As his gaze roamed over my body, I squirmed with embarrassment.
I rolled my eyes. “Quit checking me out.”
A throaty chuckle was his only response.
“Has Laura given up hunting for good?”
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“I doubt it. You know what hunters are like. It’s in our blood. It’s difficult to ignore the call to fight evil, even when we have children who rely on us.” He shrugged. “If she does hunt again, it won’t be with me. She’ll probably team up with her fiancé. We haven’t talked about it, but that’s usually the way it goes.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Caleb, my partner, is in hospital back in New Mexico.”
“Serious?” Ty enquired.
“It was. A rogue werewolf savaged him, mauled him half to death. If I hadn’t gotten there in time…”
Ty gave an all-over-body shudder. “Been in some scrapes like that myself.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “I’ll tell you about them one day.”
His words implied that he’d be around in the future, and though I doubted it was likely, the idea that he would be was welcomed.
“That’s probably why the council sent us both to LA,” Ty said. “Because we’re both without partners. My handler’s a sneaky bastard. He knew I would have refused if he’d offered to find me a replacement for Laura.”
“Yeah, same here. In fact, my handler did ask. I told him to stuff it.”
Ty chuckled. “And yet, here we are.”
“Here we are,” I echoed.
“I heard that your mother and father retired a while back,” Ty commented.
When I nodded, he went on.
“They miss it?”
“Put it this way… My mom and dad went out to dinner the other night and on the way home, my mom insisted on checking out every back alley they came across, just in case any humans needed help.”
Ty grinned. “They find any action?”
“No, and they were both bummed about it.”
Ty laughed. “I bet. Like I said, hunting’s in the blood.”
“Are your parents retired?”
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I regretted the question the second I’d asked it, because the carefree smile slipped from Ty’s lips and a pained expression crept over his face. He averted his gaze and was silent for so long I wasn’t sure he would answer. He sighed.
“I didn’t have parents like yours, sugar. Mine were a waste of space. It was a coin toss as to which was the bigger screw-up. They were drunk more often than they were sober.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, for want of something better. “I’ve never met any hunters like that.”
“You’re not likely to. Most take the job seriously, but my folks saw the calling as a burden.
Both hated hunting so much, they resented having to do it, but they did it anyway. It’s funny that they both felt that way and found each other, but I guess like attracts like.”
I should have left it at that, but my curiosity got the better of me. “You’re talking about them in the past tense. Have they both passed away?”
Ty gritted his teeth and grew stock-still. As he gripped the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles became white from the pressure. “I would’ve thought the job would have killed them in the end. They hunted wasted—always. Thought a vampire would get the drop on them when they were too drunk to defend themselves, but it was a car wreck that finally did them in. My old man was driving. They were on their way home from a bar when he lost control of the car, wrapped it around a tree. The car exploded.”
“Ty,” I whispered, feeling his pain as if it was my own. I reached out then squeezed his arm, the small, comforting gesture the only thing I could offer. “I’m so sorry. How old were you?”
“Nine. Was in the house on my own when it happened. I used to wait up for them to come home, but I must have fallen asleep on the couch.”
I gasped, shocked that his parents had left him to look after himself at nine years old and had done so for some time, based on what he’d said. I couldn’t believe what he’d gone through at such a young age. It was amazing he’d turned out so well.
“What happened? Did someone from the police…?”
He shook his head. “My parents’ handler from the council turned up at my door around five in the morning. He told me what happened, packed what little clothes I had then took me to a training facility in Arizona. There were other orphans there too, kids who’d lost their parents to the job—not many of them, but enough. Made some good friends there. We stuck www.totallybound.com
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together, looked out for each other. Stayed there until I was eighteen, old enough to strike out on my own.”
My heart ached for the little boy who’d lost everything at such an impressionable age. “I can’t imagine what that would have been like.”
Ty shrugged. “Wasn’t so bad, actually. Council looked after us well and I got three hot meals a day. That was more than I ever got at home. It was tough for a few months, but after that, it was a sweet deal. I’m sorry that they died, but sometimes I think they did me a favor.
They were never going to change, probably would have gotten worse, and God only knows what would have happened to me then.”
For the first time since he’d begun his story, Ty’s eyes met mine. I’d been afraid of what I might see there, but any ghosts from his past were either buried so deeply that they weren’t visible or he’d already let them go. His gentle smile softened his features once more and put my mind at rest. I was grateful that he felt comfortable enough with me to share such an obviously painful memory, but more grateful that it hadn’t cost him to do so.
“That all happened a long time ago. Been out on my own for twelve years—been twenty years since they died. Life is good for me now.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Ty,” I said softly.
“Be a whole lot better if I had you in my bed.”
I barked out a surprised laugh. “Seriously? You think now is a good time to flirt?”
His smile turned into a wolfish grin. “Babe, it’s a good time to flirt on any day that’s got a ‘Y’ in it.”
I couldn’t argue with logic like that, so I didn’t bother to try. Instead, I said, “Let’s get to work, Romeo.”
When we got out of the car, we scanned the area, and though I didn’t see anybody lurking, I got the distinct impression that someone was watching us. Ty took off his Stetson then twirled it, his lips pursed.
“Do you sense it too?” I asked, my stomach churning uncomfortably.
He nodded. “Yeah, come on. Let’s get inside.”
I didn’t object when he put his hand on my lower back as we walked to the church’s entrance. His touch sent pleasing tingles down my spine and, as we reached the door, he was so close I could all but feel the heat radiating from his body.
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A couple of people sat in pews, praying silently, but there was no sign of any priests, so we walked down the aisle toward the altar. There was a door situated to the left of a pulpit and it was there we headed. Ty knocked and when the door opened, an elderly priest dressed in black robes greeted us, his expression friendly, if a little wary. He was a short man with a balding head, his complexion ruddy. He used a white handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead as he studied us.
“Can I
help you?” he asked, his gaze darting to somewhere over my shoulder.
“Council business. We’ve come for… supplies,” Ty said, keeping his voice low.
“Holy water?” the priest asked. He cast a glance over us again before nodding and standing aside to allow us entry into the room. “I’m Father Donahue.”
“Father,” I greeted. “Thank you for your help.”
He craned his neck to look around the main worship area of the church then used the handkerchief on his head again before closing the door.
“This way, this way.” He walked to a cupboard on the far side of the room and produced a key from beneath his robes before inserting it into the lock. He pulled open the door. “Let me see.”
“We’d like four bottles,” Ty said.
The priest nodded, reaching into the cupboard. I peered over his shoulder as he busied himself gathering the bottles. There were three shelves inside the cupboard. Neat rows of holy water filled the top shelf, the middle contained Bibles and small wooden crosses and the bottom shelf had a rather impressive collection of weapons—knives, stakes, even a gun stashed in the back.
“They’re already bottled up?” I asked, surprised by the inventory in the cupboard.
The priest nodded. “We bottle them when the church is empty. Can you imagine the curious looks we’d get if we filled them up from the baptisteries right out in the open when everyone can see? Too many people have watched The Exorcist.” He shuddered. “I hate that movie.”
Ty and I exchanged amused glances.
“Just holy water you need?” the priest asked over his shoulder.
“Yes, thank you, Father,” Ty replied.
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Father Donahue pulled out the bottles. “You know, you’re not the first hunters I’ve had in my church today. There seems to be quite the demand for holy water recently.”
“Hellhounds,” I clarified. “Someone is setting them free—summoning them.”
“Ah, that explains it. Hellhounds are vile creatures and hard to kill. Holy water will hurt them, yes, but if I were you, I’d coat your weapons with the water too. If one of those beasts gets near you and you have to use a dagger or a stake to defend yourself, it will be more effective.”
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