The Hunter's Affection (Bloodwite Book 3)

by Cecelia Mecca

  Even so, the bar was packed every night, and aside from a few minor kinks, all had gone smoothly.

  No word from the Walsh family. Or from Tyler. They felt cautiously optimistic that the Walsh problem would, perhaps, resolve itself.

  Rowan, so far, had stayed away.

  The unknown Cheld Alessandra had sensed a few weeks back was still a mystery, one they all feared might come calling again.

  “Why so broody?” Charlotte reached for the door just as he did. She gave him a look that said, I got this.

  “No reason.”

  He could tell she didn’t buy it, but she let it drop. For now. When they walked in, everyone was already at the bar.

  Including Drake.

  His sister, predictably, sat as far away from him as possible.

  “Finally,” Toni said, pushing a round of shots their way. “We were waiting for you.”

  She and Lawrence stood behind the bar, beaming.

  Torr took the glass and lifted it at once. “I’d like to propose a toast.”

  He looked at Lawrence, former chief of Clan Karyn and one of the greatest warriors Scotland ever knew. Fearless on the battlefield, he’d taken up his father and brother Alec’s legacy reluctantly but with great honor and pride.

  It was time for him to do the same. He’d prepared his speech all day but still couldn’t believe what he was about to say.

  And yet, it was time. It was past time.

  “For centuries Lawrence wanted only to settle down. To stay in one place, open a bar . . .” He looked around. “Be normal, or as normal as possible, once again.”

  He leaned down, staring straight at Kenton, and continued. “He’s been a bigger man than I have these last few months, refusing to carry a grudge that serves nothing but our own pride. So let’s drink a toast to more than just The Vault.

  “I propose a truce of sorts between our two families. Our fight over land and titles has continued throughout the ages, and it will never truly end as long as you and your brother”—he looked at Drake—“continue to hunt my brother’s bloodline.”

  Before Drake could respond, he rushed on. “But it need not continue here in this bar. Or in Stone Haven. Here we are, if not friends, companions in peace. For the sake of the brightest soul I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet,” he said, nodding to Toni, “and the strongest Cheld who’s probably ever lived.”

  And then, turning to Charlotte, he finished, “And for the sake of our newest family member, the love of my life and the woman who saved me from myself. To the women of Stone Haven, to The Vault, and to peace.”

  Lifting his glass, he caught his brother’s eye. Although Lawrence would probably deny it, he thought he could see a tear.

  His brother deserved this.

  They all did.

  “Sláinte.”

  “Sláinte agad-sa,” his brother responded.

  A murmur of cheers and even a “salute” from Alessandra rose up around him. Torr drank and was rewarded for his speech with a kiss from his favorite vampire.

  “That was perfect,” she whispered.

  “You are perfect.”

  A hand on his shoulder from behind interrupted their moment.

  He spun and stood. Kenton stood behind him, holding his hand out.

  He didn’t hesitate—he shook it.

  “Thank you,” he said, hoping Kenton knew what he thanked him for.

  “You managed to surprise me, Derrickson.”

  He was pretty sure Kenton wasn’t the only one.

  “We’re a long way from the Isles.”

  “And from attempting to hack each other with a sword. Agreed.”

  “But your brothers . . .” He knew the answer but asked anyway as he glanced down the bar toward Drake, who was talking with Alessandra.

  “They will continue to hunt the Cheld, though he’s pledged his loyalty to Allie and Garrett.”

  Torr had figured as much.

  “Then Stone Haven truly is the one safe place, for now.”

  “For now,” he agreed. “There are still too many threats for my liking—”

  Charlotte squeezed Torr’s hand and got up to join Toni on the other side of the bar.

  “How is she handling it?” Kenton asked.

  “Better than I did,” he said honestly. “Still getting used to the hearing—”

  “The voices were my least favorite part,” Kenton said, taking a sip of his drink. “Aside from not knowing what was happening.”

  He’d never spoken about this with a Morley before.

  “I suppose we could have alleviated some of that. Told you sooner—”

  “That would have been nice.”

  So much history between them. Although it had taken the Derricksons some time to figure out what was happening to them, they’d had Lady Isobel to help them through it. Kenton and his brothers hadn’t learned the specifics of the curse or countercurse for years. Decades.

  “We were enemies.”

  Kenton sighed. “And still are, at least to Rowan.”

  “Drake doesn’t know when he’ll come?”

  “No.” Kenton shook his head. “Only that he’s sure—”

  He stopped talking.

  Stood up straight.

  Torr followed Kenton’s gaze toward his brother.

  Lawrence nodded.

  “Cheld?”

  “Yes,” his brother replied.

  An arousal. Torr didn’t feel anything yet. But that wasn’t uncommon. The two eldest, Kenton and Lawrence, typically sensed such things first.

  So much for their truce. It had been a very temporary one indeed.

  “What is it?” Charlotte asked.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Kenton. Then, coming around the bar, he took Charlotte by the hand and led her to the private vault area.

  “I have some bad news,” he started, grabbing both of her hands.

  “Torr, you’re scaring me.”

  “We’ll have to go.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “We?”

  “You, me. Laria.”

  “A Cheld?”

  He nodded. “I don’t know where, not yet, but after what happened last time, we won’t want to rush into this.”

  The last time a Cheld had stirred, he and Laria had sought him out. They’d thought to cloak him, but it had turned out to be a member of the Sect attempting to lure them in and entrap them. To his knowledge, a Cheld had never done that before. Deliberately uncloaked him or herself to lure them out.

  But now that it had been done once, Torr couldn’t discount it happening again. Especially given the errant Cheld they’d sensed in Stone Haven a few weeks ago.

  “So why is this bad news, exactly?”

  “We’ll need to leave, and I don’t know how long we’ll be gone—”

  “But that was always the expectation,” she said. “It’s fine. So long as we’re together.”

  His heart skipped a beat.

  This woman . . .

  “You did promise to show me the world. And weren’t we heading to Lindisfarne anyway?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “But not soon. As for seeing the world? Anywhere you want to go. Once we follow this lead and find the new Cheld—”

  She kissed him, and Torr—relieved that she wasn’t upset about leaving, emotional from the toast—grasped onto her for dear life.

  “Get a room!” someone called from the bar.

  “Good idea,” he said. “The moment Kenton can determine the location, we’ll need to be on the first flight out.”

  “And I still have to tell my mom and stepdad.”

  “Have you decided how much to tell them?”

  She’d asked him what to say, but Torr had insisted it was up to her, though the less people who knew, the better.

  “Not yet, but I guess I’ll have to figure it out soon.”

  “Indeed,” he said, watching Drake out of the corner of his eye. So he didn’t know where the Cheld was yet either.

  “B
ut in the meantime—”

  “In the meantime,” he said with a wink, “about that room.”

  The others laughed as Charlotte fairly pulled him out of the bar. While she didn’t care for the noises that came with her super senses, mostly because she had not yet learned to block them out, heightened senses during sex was one thing Charlotte was quite fond of since she’d turned.

  His only regret?

  Not turning her sooner. She’d saved him, and in return, he would spend the rest of his days thanking her.

  In the way he knew to do it best.

  Epilogue

  “Tavolo per due?”

  Due. Two. Charlotte was going out on a limb.

  “Sì, grazie,” she responded, pleased with herself when the petite hostess ushered her to a table not far from where they stood. The restaurant was literally carved into the cliffside, with a to-die-for view of the sea to her right.

  Capri, Italy, was her new favorite place in the world.

  Charlotte pulled the menu toward her as she waited for Torr.

  Sea bass with stuffed zucchini flowers. Done. The food on the Amalfi Coast was delicious—each meal a revelation—and she’d never had an easier time ordering food.

  When the waiter approached and began speaking in Italian, she had to give up the pretense that she could speak it. The few words she’d learned so far weren’t going to cut it.

  “Non parlo Italiano,” she admitted. “Mi dispiace.”

  “It’s no problem, signorina—”

  “Signora,” Torr corrected him, sitting down across from her.

  “Mie scuse—”

  “Nessuna scusa necessaria . . .”

  And now she was lost. Charlotte was pretty sure the waiter apologized when Torr corrected her title, but once they began a conversation in truth, she let him take over.

  Of course he spoke Italian, among other languages.

  There was still much to learn about her husband.

  “I ordered a bottle of red—”

  “Torr!”

  “Trust me on this. Just once. If you don’t like it, Pinot Grigio it is.”

  “Why do all you red wine drinkers feel the need to convert us?”

  “Why do these Italian men keep staring at my wife?” he asked, giving the two guys sitting next to them the stink eye.

  She made a face.

  “My wife,” he repeated.

  Charlotte laughed. Since they had decided, very spontaneously, to get married the week before while in Positano, they’d both been using the new titles obnoxiously often.

  But she didn’t care.

  “My husband.” Charlotte would say it a million more times before she tired of it.

  “They’re going to kill us,” she said, not for the first time. By “they” she meant their family and friends collectively. No one even knew yet.

  Since they were heading back to Stone Haven after Italy, she and Torr had agreed to surprise everyone in person.

  “So what did your sister want?” she asked, Torr’s phone call the reason she’d gotten the table alone. As they’d pulled up to the dock, she looked up, saw this restaurant jutting out from the cliffside, and knew immediately she’d wanted to come here after wandering around the streets of Capri for a bit.

  They had only planned on staying the day before returning back to the mainland later that evening, but Charlotte aimed to change that. Who needed a change of clothes when they had a view like this? It truly felt like paradise.

  “I texted earlier to let her know we’d be coming back in about a week—”

  “Or two. Or three.” She smiled innocently.

  “Char, we can stay here every time we’re not on the hunt. I told you, the world is yours.”

  And he was serious. God she loved her husband.

  “I know. But I do want to spend the holidays back home.”

  “Then home it is. After we find a place to buy right here, in Capri.”

  She shook her head. “You’re ridiculous—”

  “And serious. If you love it this much, let’s make sure we come back.”

  She rolled her eyes. Charlotte had learned a lot over the last few weeks, but no person alive, vampire or otherwise, could tell when Torr was being serious.

  “What else did Laria say?” she asked, looking over the cliff out into the sea. The partially wooded and rocky coastline gave way to turquoise blue water dotted with boats from the coast well into the gulf. And she’d thought her parents wealthy. This place was . . . incredible.

  “Nothing much.”

  She whipped her head back around. Charlotte knew that tone.

  “Torr?”

  He sighed, clearly holding something back.

  “Just some rumblings, from a friend of Laria’s—”

  “Rumblings?”

  He shrugged. “After the recent incident . . .”

  His voice trailed off, Torr taking a pause to drink and grab the menu.

  The incident. The one that had taken them to Italy in the first place, after they’d determined the new Cheld was located in Polvica. Unfortunately, they’d arrived too late.

  Drake. Or Rowan. Or another vampire like them who also believed the threat of the Cheld could not be ignored. They still weren’t sure who had gotten to him first, but the town had been abuzz about the shoemaker’s death when they’d arrived. Torr had taken it pretty hard, as had Laria. From there they traveled to Lindisfarne, the weather in Northern England quite different than it had been here in Italy.

  Unfortunately, they’d not gotten very far. After waiting for low tide, the island only accessible once per day, they’d taken a tour of the old castle. Stayed for nearly a week, waiting. If it truly had been a Sect “stronghold,” as Torr called it, surely they would be a target. Torr hated to put her in danger so soon after the turning, but as Charlotte reminded him, it was what she’d signed up for.

  After more than a week, they’d found nothing. Laria returned to Stone Haven and Torr brought Charlotte back here after she’d talked nonstop about the beauty of a country she’d seen for such a short time.

  “I think it’s just conjecture right now, but some are saying what happened in Polvica, coupled with the death in Amsterdam—”

  “They fear it’ll encourage the Sect to retaliate?”

  “This happens from time to time. For years things are quiet, lulling you to almost forget the two sides exist, and then . . . this. Something instigates one side or the other . . .”

  He stopped.

  The waiter, arriving with their wine, poured a sip for her first. She was supposed to taste-test it. Great. Swirling it around in the glass and taking a sniff—a wine connoisseur she was not—Charlotte took a sip, trying hard not to make a face.

  Which turned out not to be necessary.

  “This is actually not bad!”

  Torr smiled, the whites of his teeth contrasting with his deep tan.

  “Molto buona,” he said to the waiter, who filled both glasses.

  There were so many things she’d never considered about this life, the life of an immortal, and whether or not they could tan was the least of them. So far she’d “taken to vampirism like a champ.” Torr’s words. But it was very much a work in progress.

  “I still can’t believe you’re an Italian citizen,” she said, having only learned of the fact when they’d been able to get around the two-week civil banns requirement for a marriage certificate.

  “So much still to learn.” Torr raised his glass. “To red wine—”

  “To forever,” she added. They drank, the mood light despite the course of events that had taken them here.

  Charlotte tried not to think of that.

  “So what do you say? Late lunch and a room—”

  “How did you know I was going to ask you to stay the night?” she asked.

  Torr winked. “I know my wife.”

  She laughed, thinking suddenly of the night he’d “kidnapped” her back in Pennsylvania. She’d thought him so
arrogant and high-handed, and here he was, anticipating her desires, as he seemed to do all the time. A perfect gentleman.

  Heat crept up her face. Maybe not a perfect gentleman.

  “And I know that look.” He raised his hand. “Il conto, per favore.”

  That phrase, she knew.

  “We didn’t even eat!”

  He looked at her, those green eyes narrowing, his tongue shooting out . . . first the bottom lip, then the top.

  Damn him.

  Suddenly, she wasn’t very hungry.

  She really, really liked the view, but she liked the way her husband made her feel even more. And thankfully, they had an eternity to come back to this place.

  To explore Capri, and the world, together.

  * * *

  In case you missed it, Meet Lady Isobel in the origin story, The Healer’s Curse, available as a free download. I also love connecting with readers, so if you’re on Facebook be sure to join Immortal Ambassadors private group to say hello!

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  Also by Cecelia Mecca

  The Border Series

  The Ward’s Bride: Prequel Novella

  The Thief’s Countess: Book 1

  The Lord’s Captive: Book 2

  The Chief’s Maiden: Book 3

  The Scot’s Secret: Book 4

  The Earl’s Entanglement: Book 5

  The Warrior’s Queen: Book 6

  The Protector’s Promise: Book 7

  The Rogue’s Redemption: Book 8

  The Guardian’s Favor: Book 9

  Enchanted Falls