by ERIN BEDFORD
“He’s happy, you know,” I pointed out, unable to keep the amusement out of my voice.
“I know.” Piper tucked her hair behind her ear and beamed.
“After all these years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Darren smile quite like that before.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs once more. “You’re good for him.” Piper snorted. “You’re good for all of us.”
“Well,” Piper stood and sashayed across the distance between us, her fingers playing with the buttons of her shirt. “What can I say? I take pride in my work.” She slid into my lap, one leg on either side of my hips.
My fingers trailed over her thighs, slipping beneath the shirt to stroke her bare hips as I resisted the urge to simply sink into her right this second. “You deserve a raise.”
Her fingers threaded through my hair, tipping my head back as she leaned forward, her nose brushing against mine. “I’ll take it in fringe benefits.” Somehow, without me noticing it, her hand had found its way into the front of my pants and grasped me in her soft grip.
Arching into her touch, I cupped the side of her face, bringing her lips to mine. “Believe me, the pleasure is all mine.”
Piper’s laughter was the best sound I’d heard all year. God, we needed to get rid of the hunters. I didn’t know how much more of the running I could take. Or Piper either, for that matter.
Chapter 3
Piper
Sweat dripped down my heated skin, drenching the neck of my sports bra. I grunted and twisted to the side just before my trainer, Billy, could nail me in the stomach with his foot. Swinging my arm as I came out of the spin, I caught Billy on the back of the head, knocking him several feet forward.
“Damn, Piper.” Billy rubbed the back of his dark bald head, his bright white teeth laughing as he held back a wince. “You don’t pull any punches. Or kicks.”
I took up a new fighting stance and smirked, my hands up and ready. “I thought that was the point.”
Billy shook his head and held his hand up. “Hold on, supergirl. You might have unnatural human stamina, but some of us mere mortals need a break and water.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I have normal stamina.” I relaxed my stance while Billy walked to the nearby bench to grab his water bottle. “I’m just more motivated than you are.”
He grinned around the mouth of the bottle, his dark brown eyes crinkling at the edges. Swallowing and letting out a satisfied “ah,” Billy pushed the top of the bottle, closing it before tossing it into his gym bag. “Yeah, well, excuse me for not wanting to hit such a pretty face.”
I held back an eye roll. Billy might flirt, but he was harmless. Nothing like Jack.
“Besides,” Billy continued, taking his towel and wiping his brow before throwing it over his shoulder. “You’ve been training here with me for almost a year and you’ve already surpassed me. Tell me that’s not supernatural.”
I shrugged sheepishly. “I’m a fast learner. What can I say?”
So, I hadn’t exactly been sitting on my ass taking phone calls and filing case files for the last year. While I couldn’t exactly go running after the hunters on my own—I didn’t even know where they were—what I could do was make myself less of a liability. Being a human servant had some extra benefits. Faster reflexes, heightened senses, and now thanks to Billy, a background in mixed martial arts and weapons.
“You ready to go to the back?” Billy jerked his head toward the door at the back of his studio. The front was covered in blue and black mats where we trained with a few free weights lined around the edges.
“Yeah, but only if you’re not going to tease me anymore.” I gave him a pointed look as I followed him into the back room. Here, Billy had five stalls lined up, pointed toward a long room with different targets spread throughout the space. We had begun with normal targets, the kind with the silhouette of a person that they used at official shooting ranges. When Billy found out that my skills were far above the norm, we’d moved on to moving targets. Not that they were much more of a challenge for me now. Before I became a vampire servant, I couldn’t have been able to hit a target if it were five inches in front of me. In fact, I probably would have ended up shooting myself. Exploring my new abilities had been interesting for sure. Especially with my raging hormones needing an outlet.
I shifted before the booth, smiling to myself as I remembered all the creative ways Darren and I had relieved those hormonal fits of mine.
“So, what’s on the schedule for today?” I wiggled my fingers and cracked my neck, prepping for whatever Billy threw at me.
Billy went over to the cabinet where he kept his weapons and punched in a code. Reaching inside, he gave me no warning before spinning around and throwing something at me. I jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding it.
“What the fuck, Billy?” I glared at him and then at the dagger sticking out of the opposite wall. I marched over to the wall and pulled the dagger out, waving it in the air. “You could have killed me!”
With a knowing smile, Billy pointed at me. “But I didn’t.”
I frowned and dropped the dagger to my side. “That’s beside the point.”
“You can’t tell me that wasn’t supernatural of some kind. No one has that kind of reflexes without years of training.” Billy shook his head in disbelief. “I’m an ex-marine, believe me. Even some of the guys don’t have that kind of intuition. I don’t know why you even came to me in the first place.”
“I told you,” I repressed a frustrated growl, “I’m trying to be prepared for—”
“That ex-boyfriend of yours, right.” Billy’s tone sounded like he didn’t quite believe the lie I’d been telling him over the last few months. Turning back to the cabinet, he pulled out another few daggers and brought them over to me. “Since we have gone through all the gun exercises I have and you’ve aced them,” he gave me a pointed look which I avoided, fiddling with the handle of the dagger, “I figured you should learn some other techniques. You won’t always have a gun around to protect you. And you need to be able to fight with other weapons.”
“And you thought daggers,” I lifted up the dagger in my hand with a raised brow, “were the answer? Aren’t they are little…” I huffed. “When am I ever going to have a dagger lying around? A steak knife, yes, but a dagger?” I moved to cross my arms, but then remembered the dagger and dropped my arms again.
Billy moved into position in front of the targets and tossed three daggers in rapid succession. Turning back to me with a straight face, Billy pointed a dagger at me. “Because while I don’t quite believe all this ex-boyfriend stuff,” I opened my mouth to argue, but he stopped me, “it’s your business and I don’t want to pry. However, I do know that someone like you, someone who just eleven months ago came in here looking like she’d never thrown a punch in her life, is gearing up for something. Something big, and far be it from me to keep you from being fully prepared for whatever you are getting yourself into.” He held the handle of the dagger out to me. “So, you’re up.”
I pressed my lips into a grateful smile, taking the hilt. “Thanks. You don’t know how much I appreciate all this.”
“Just stay alive and that’s thanks enough.”
I took Billy’s place in front of the targets and threw the dagger. It hit the target just shy of the center. I twisted to Billy and cocked a brow. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
Several hours and even more sweat later, I left Billy’s to head back home. I hated to lie to Billy, but I couldn’t very well tell him the truth. Not like he would believe me anyway. I hardly believed it. Though, all this prepping to fight the hunters didn’t do me any good if I couldn’t find them. They weren’t exactly listed anywhere. They only revealed themselves to vampires and other hunters. Which, while I wasn’t prepared to be the former, I hoped to convince them I was the latter. I just needed a starting point.
“Darren!” I tossed my keys and purse onto the side table and walked farther into the house. A delicious smell f
illed the air. I followed it to the kitchen where I found Darren at the island and a familiar, grey-haired head at the stove. “Gretchen! When did you get here?”
The plump older woman turned from the stove and greeted me with a warm smile. “Piper. Look at you. You’ve changed so much.” Releasing the handle of the spoon in the pot she had been stirring, Gretchen hurried over to me, pulling me into a tight embrace.
I hugged her back tightly, enjoying the comfort of an old friend. “I’m so happy to see you, Gretchen.” I glanced over her shoulder to meet Darren’s gaze. arching a brow at him. He simply offered me a mysterious smile before popping a slice of cucumber into his mouth from the tray on the table.
Gretchen released me to go back to her pot, which had begun to boil. She picked up the wooden spoon once more and turned down the heat. “I’m so glad to see you and Darren have grown so close. I was worried for you two, out here all alone without the masters.” She gave us a knowing look before winking.
I flushed and slid onto the stool next to Darren. He placed his hand on top of mine, bringing it to his mouth to press a kiss to the top of it. What happened between Darren and me hadn’t been planned. It’d just happened. One night, I was freaking out about being left here and determined to hunt down the others with or without his help, and then next thing I knew Darren and I were kissing. It kind of spiraled out from there.
“So...” I reached out to the vegetable tray and snatched a carrot stick off of it, dipping it into the bowl of ranch beside it. I slid the carrot into my mouth sucking off the ranch. Darren grunted beside me, his eyes fixated on my lips. With a suppressed grin, I chomped down on the carrot. Turning back to Gretchen, I asked, “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what made you come all the way out here?”
Offering me a far sassier than normal smirk, Gretchen turned the stove off before wiping her hands on her apron. “Do I need a reason to come visit my two favorite people in the world?”
I exchanged a look with Darren. “Of course not. Just we’re not the safest people to be around right now. Shouldn’t you be keeping a low profile?”
“Pfft.” Gretchen waved me off as she sat out three bowls. “I’m old enough to know when I should be hiding and when I should be helping.” She gave me a pointed look, then began to fill the bowls with what she’d been mixing in her pot.
My nose had me focusing more on what Gretchen was serving than what she was saying. It was some kind of goulash, and my stomach agreed it was far more important than her impromptu visit. A little more greedily than I should have, I took the bowl from her before she could even finish pushing it toward me. Dipping my spoon into the bowl, I wasted no time popping it into my mouth.
Big mistake.
“Ho…hot!” I swallowed painfully, my eyes watering as I waved a hand in front of my mouth. Gretchen pushed a glass of water to me with a shake of her head.
“See what happens when you get ahead of yourself?” Gretchen gave me a chastising look before handing Darren his bowl and taking her own to the last seat at the island next to me. “Which is one of the reasons I have come. I know you’re trying to find a way to help the masters, and I don’t want to overstep my bounds, but are you sure you want to get involved?”
My brows shot up and I turned in my seat to face her. “What? Of course I do. I’m not just going to wait around here for them to do something. We’ve been stuck here for a year now, and what has that gotten us? Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Darren asked, a bit of hurt to his tone.
I twisted quickly back to the man at my side, grabbing his arm before he could close down. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” I sighed heavily, holding his arm with both hands. “You know I love being here with you, but you have to admit this wasn’t supposed to be a permanent situation. We won’t age, Darren! We’ll stay the same as long as Antoine is alive and that could be two thousand years from now or two seconds. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a more definite future than that.” I took a breath and closed my eyes for a second. When I opened them again, I was staring into Darren’s dark orbs. “I love you and want to be with you, but I love the others too. I can’t just leave them to their fate. Especially when it’s tied so closely to ours.”
Darren inclined his head slowly, cupping my face with one hand. “I know. We will get them back. Won’t we, Gretchen?”
A soft hand rubbed my back and I shifted toward the older woman.
“Don’t worry, dear, I’m not just here to feed you.” Gretchen smiled sadly. “I have some news.”
“News?” Now that had my full attention. “What kind of news?”
Gretchen stood and walked across the room. She picked up her purse and pulled out her phone, bringing it back over to us. “While you’ve been hiding out here and with the masters on the run, I’ve been watching the house. Checking the mail, looking for break ins, the like. Nothing has been stolen, thankfully, but there have been a few suspicious characters lurking about.” She brought up a video on her phone, which I recognized from one of the security cameras. There were three figures dressed in black with far more firepower than they should have for solicitors, especially in the middle of the day. “Three times I have caught them on camera. They haven’t broken into the house yet, but this last time I went to check the mail, one of them showed up.”
I gasped, clutching her arm. “Are you okay? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“No, no.” Gretchen patted my hand, setting her phone down. “They didn’t hurt me. Though, they did want to know where my employers were.” Her eyes grew hard at that statement.
“What’d you tell them?”
“Nothing, of course.” She leaned back, her brows raised. “What kind of person do you take me for? I’m not going to tell the bad guys where my family is. Even though they offered me tons of money to do so.”
I frowned, pursing my lips before asking, “Why wouldn’t they hurt you for it when you said no?”
Darren spoke then. “Because it’s against their code. They don’t hurt humans. At least, not the non-human servant kind.”
“So, they’d hurt you or me to get to them though,” I pointed out, my stomach rolling with anxiety and growing anger.
“Yes. Which is why we must stop them at all costs.”
Darren’s words surprised me. I looked between Darren and Gretchen, my brows furrowed. “I thought you were against me going after them. It’s too dangerous for such a breakable woman such as me,” I mocked, repeating his words to me several months ago.
“But you’re not so breakable anymore, are you?” Darren scanned over my form, his fingers trailing across the muscles I’d gained over my time working with Billy. “Nor are you unable to protect yourself. In fact, you may be more formidable than even me.”
I snorted. “Yeah, okay. That’s all good and well, but it doesn’t help us find the hunters, and without them we’re pretty much stuck here.”
“Except,” Gretchen pulled my attention back, “I know where they are.”
My brows rose. “How’s that?”
With a sly grin, Gretchen pulled up an app on her phone, showing a blinking red dot on a map of Atlanta. “You didn’t think I was just hired for my cooking, did you? I slipped a tracker onto one of those hunters while they were contemplating what to do with an old woman. And now…” The red dot moved across the screen and then stopped on a large estate.
“We know where they are,” I finished for her. Plans formed in my mind, and all of sudden my time in Seabrick seemed to be short-lived. Soon, my life might be back to normal. Or as normal as it could get.
Chapter 4
Antoine
A year in the span of a vampire wasn't very long at all. A blink of time in the long, infinity of forever. However, this last year had been like no other. Every moment away from Darren and Piper felt like knives digging into my veins.
Even hundreds of miles away, I could feel everything they felt. Every quiver of fear. Every burst of joy. T
hen there was the never-ending black hole of rage, which at any moment would fill to the brim, and who knew what would come from it when that happened.
Unsurprisingly, the anger came from Piper. Darren always had been more in control of his emotions than her. He'd been with me far longer, so I supposed he has had more practice.
Still, it was worrisome. My brothers and I had been on the move almost constantly since the hunters caught our scent back at Boris's manor. From Frankfurt to London and then finally back to the U.S. where I could keep a better eye on Darren and Piper. Not that it had done much good.
We were only ever able to get away for a day or two every month and never more than one of us at a time. The hunters were more tenacious than I had expected. Then again, with one of the most powerful master vampires terminated, they didn't have much else to do. Chasing us must be one of the only things giving the suped-up humans a purpose.
"You're an idiot if you think that." Rayne snorted, plopping down on the ratty couch, which at one point used to be red but was now more of an ugly brown.
"Do my ears deceive me, or am I still the head of this household?" I narrowed my gaze on Rayne. His shaggy red hair had been cut short with only the top part slightly longer. The long-sleeved, ribbed black shirt he wore had several holes in it, but not as many as the dark jeans on his legs. The combat boots he'd acquired from somewhere along with the rest of his outfit were covered in mud.
We'd all had to make sacrifices for the sake of our family, the disgusting motel we were staying in for one, but Rayne had chosen to change himself far more drastically than the others.
"Not you though," Rayne argued, interrupting my thoughts once more with a sneer. "And as I see it. You're not head of anything anymore. None of us are. We're just another group of bloodsuckers the hunters can pick off one by one."
"Wallowing in self-pity has never been a good look for you, Rayne. Best not to start now." I sighed and lifted my phone to check my messages. Nothing from Wynn yet.
