by Taft, J L
Huntress
J L Taft
Life has taught Fiona, a telekinetic witch, some clear lessons—reveal your true self to no one and don’t believe in love. She keeps men at arm’s length until she meets Trent, an ex-Marine who seems to be satisfied with her need for no-strings sex.
But fate has thrown them together for another reason. Fiona is destined to take over her grandmother’s place as a vampire hunter. Trent has his own secret talent of clairvoyance and doesn’t want Fiona facing vamps alone. Not that he can stop her. But visions of her hunts fire his need to protect her at all costs.
Prophecy says his death will be inevitable and tragic if they stay together. But Trent doesn’t care. He loves her anyway and will push their bond to the limit, even when his life is on the line.
Inside Scoop: Fiona and Trent enjoy a bit of tying up and spanking.
A Romantica® paranormal erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave
Huntress
J L Taft
Dedication
For my husband, for putting up with me and the crazy life of a writer. I love you.
Chapter One
Trent was bored. Damn bored. He knew that he shouldn’t have let his men talk him into coming tonight. He was no longer their commanding officer and was no longer part of their world. This was probably why he had come in the first place. It might be the last time they offered him an invitation.
He was tired of the same old stale party that happened every weekend, with the same old worn-out women. Nursing his beer, he watched his buddies, still dressed in their standard-issue army fatigues, hang all over the same cheap women they saw last time they were here. It was getting old and he wouldn’t have any regrets leaving this place behind him.
He sighed inwardly when he felt a small hand run across his back.
“Hey, handsome, can I buy you a beer?” the woman asked him. She had lowered her voice and he saw the ploy for what it was—a cheap trick. He didn’t know what made him do it but he turned to her with the side of his face that had been damaged by the heat blast. The side that was angry-red skin covered in scars.
Her eyes went big in her face and she took an involuntary step backward. He smiled at her and knew it came out more like a grimace.
“Want to rescind that offer, sweetheart?” he asked her.
Her head bobbed up and down and she mumbled a “sorry” before she walked quickly away.
Feeling more than a little irritated with himself for obviously terrifying a woman, he ordered another beer. But what the hell, he knew he wasn’t interested anyway. What was wrong with him? One-night stands had never bothered him before. A quick roll was all he ever needed. He wanted a woman but somewhere along the last few months he had realized he craved something deeper than the usual thirty-minute hook-up. He never thought he would see the day but it wasn’t enough anymore.
Maybe it was the job, or his sudden lack of it. He was a Marine and had just gotten back from a particularly dangerous mission. There was nothing like having bullets whiz by your head to make you get your priorities straight.
Nevertheless he had managed to bring his team home in one piece, so that was something. Now that he thought about it he wasn’t sure how it had happened. When the situation had gone bad he had made a split-second decision to pull out and in the end it had saved them all.
Sure he had some nasty puckered scars on his face that continued down his neck and his left eye got blurry when he was tired but he was still alive.
It wasn’t the first time he had had a close call and he was suddenly worried it might have been his last. The blast of the grenade had done some minor damage to his left eye. His honorable discharge papers had been waiting for him when he got out of the hospital.
Now he didn’t know what to do with himself. He wasn’t at the top of his game anymore and women no longer went to extremes to get him in their beds. They did the opposite, going out of their way to avoid him. He knew it was the scars on his face and it pained him to realize how superficial his so-called relationships had been.
Suddenly he didn’t want to spend his time hanging in the bar. Two members of his team, John and Ethan, were the only ones missing tonight. They had gone home to their wives and families. For the first time ever Trent was jealous of them.
Finishing his beer with a couple long pulls, he headed for the door. He would just go and walk off these crazy ideas.
* * * * *
Fiona closed her laptop and sighed with a satisfied smile. Her new book was finally done. All she could feel was relief and a sense of accomplishment that made her heart race. Now her editor would get off her back about meeting the deadline for the next Woman Warrior book. She loved to write them and she had never worried about meeting a deadline before but this one had come out haltingly.
The stories she wrote were mostly true and about her maternal grandmother. It was Fiona’s little secret. Grandmother had been a vampire hunter, a much-respected one, until her death several years ago. She had turned her diaries over to Fiona before she died. Fiona had known her grandmother was different and family members had whispered about her behind their hands. However, she never expected to learn Grandma had been a natural witch and that she’d fallen in love with a man who’d been killed by a vampire shortly after Fiona’s mother had been born.
After that she had hunted them with all her energy, killing at every opportunity and showing no mercy against the blood drinkers. Her diaries were amazingly detailed and Fiona swore she could sometimes smell the spilled blood when she read them.
She changed the names of the people and altered the chain of events to make it more dramatic but in essence she was retelling her grandmother’s hunts. While the “normal” people of the world anxiously waited for her books, she doubted they would be so receptive if they knew the stories were true. It was something she wasn’t willing to risk.
Grandmother’s sexual exploits were enough to write about all by themselves, Fiona mused. After Grandma’s husband had been killed she had locked her heart away and had never married again. She’d been ahead of the times in that regard. She treated her relationships, for lack of a better word, like a man. She got what she needed from them and moved on. No regrets, no remorse and no heartbreak. Grandma had been a smart woman.
Fiona wasn’t sure how Grandma had become a hunter. It wasn’t written in the diaries and Fiona just assumed she had volunteered.
Grandma had raised her since she was a baby. Her parents had died in a car accident only a few months after she was born. Whenever she asked about her parents Grandma clammed up about her mother and told her that her father was a drinker. He had been drunk the night their car had flipped.
Fiona also got the feeling he had been abusive to her mom, from the way Grandma talked. But she had no way of knowing for sure.
Grandma had gotten rid of all of the photos of her parents. Fiona and she had argued about it more than once. Fiona just assumed seeing them caused too much pain and Grandma had rid her house of any reminder.
Fiona left her desk and headed for the shower. She was going out to celebrate the completion of her book and maybe find a man who was interested in some no-strings sex.
After showering and spending extra time on getting her wild mane of red curls to lie somewhat submissively, she dressed in a black, low-cut tank top and jeans.
She always wore her cloak instead of a coat. It was more comfortable and kept her warm. It was black and had a deep-red lining. She loved the way it flowed over her arms and around her hips.
Leaving the house, she walked slowly down the streets, not sure where she was headed exactly but there were several bars and a pub within walking distance.
Fiona stopped a couple of feet past a door leading to a noisy, overcrowded bar. It wasn’t her no
rmal type of scene but something compelled her to go back. She didn’t ignore her instincts. They didn’t often steer her wrong. Backing up to the open doorway, she peered through the dim lighting.
There looked to be an overabundance of military men and that was all right by her. She liked their hard bodies. They were also easy to seduce, if it came to that, and they were easy to keep at a safe distance. She was so used to living alone in the world that she couldn’t have any one person hang around for too long before he got suspicious. She wasn’t good at hiding her true self. She had a special knack for telekinesis and she did it without thinking. It tended to freak people out but most would brush it off the first time and sometimes the second. By her third slip-up they ran in the other direction. She was done with that.
It was better to keep everyone, men in particular, at arm’s length but she was lonely and celebrating. She was also craving a man. A strong one who didn’t mind letting a woman be in control. It would be so easy to find someone who appealed to her and say a quick spell to make him cooperative. It wasn’t as if it would take away his will. He would wake up the next day knowing he had sex but the details would be fuzzy and the woman unmemorable. Then he couldn’t come looking for her. Even though she was getting tired of doing that it was for her protection as well as his. What she really wanted was some mind-blowing, old-fashioned attraction. The kind she wrote about in her books.
Snapping out of her musings, Fiona realized she had been staring into the door of the bar for who knew how long. She lowered her gaze and took several steps through the doorway before she ran into what felt like a brick wall. A brick wall that was warm and smelled of something spicy and dark mixed in with a healthy dose of male. She felt his hands reach out to steady her. Her stomach did a slow roll of pleasure before she ever raised her eyes to his.
Fiona was very aware of the tingling sensation that started where her hands lay on his chest and worked its way up her arms and across her breasts, where it spread and left her feeling overheated. She raised her dark-brown eyes from his chest, lingering over his strong, broad shoulders. She said a quick plea, hoping his face was as hot as the rest of him. Then she lifted her eyes to meet his.
Her dark-brown gaze met his deep-green one and the shivers of awareness turned to certain, full-blown desire. Heat pooled immediately between her legs and her mind went blank. His gaze roamed over her face and then lower, brushing across her low-cut, black top and then continuing down. Her breasts hardened and swelled, feeling his stare.
They were blocking the narrow doorway and at a quiet, “Excuse me,” he pulled her fully into the bar and up against him, causing the breath to whoosh out of her lungs but effectively moving her out of the way of the other patrons.
Her tongue was tied and she had trouble putting her thoughts together. A quiet whisper came to her. “Be careful what you wish for.” She would know that voice anywhere—her grandma, speaking to her from someplace else. Someplace where spirits roamed free. The voice reminded her to be cautious. No man was worth her secrets.
He still had hold of her arms and the awareness of the touch trembled over her. He was looking at her now as if she were a puzzle that confused him. His brow was furrowed and his eyes had narrowed.
She stared up at him. He was a good six inches taller than her and she realized she was waiting for something, even if she wasn’t sure what it was.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked quietly. It would have seemed lame coming from anyone else but his low voice only made her more aware of the sudden burning desire raging through her.
Struggling for control, she nodded her assent. He never removed his hand from her arm as he led her to the far end of the bar and pulled a stool out for her. Taking the seat next to her, he finally released her and ordered both of them a beer.
She usually didn’t drink beer but she couldn’t find any way to object. The drinks were already sliding to a stop in front of them.
The roaring waves of sexual heat subsided when they were no longer touching and Fiona took a deep breath to calm her body and gain control of her mind.
His face was no longer in shadow and her breath caught at the sight of the pinkish, puckered skin on his left side. For some reason it didn’t turn her off. This was a man who lived dangerously and had the scars to prove it.
He caught her gaze and she immediately lowered hers, not wanting to offend him with her staring.
She glanced around her to take in the other customers in the dim lighting of the almost full bar. There was a jukebox in the corner that played something unrecognizable over the noise of the other people, the small dance floor was full and both pool tables were occupied. She noticed there was no shortage of obvious military men looking for a good time.
Turning back to the man at her side, she felt his gaze rake over her. She resisted the urge to pull her cloak closer about her. His gaze saw way too much for comfort. He smiled slightly and she wondered again what secrets he was hiding of his own.
“Do you come here often?” Again his low, rough voice shivered along her spine.
Smiling slightly at him, she shook her head. He looked at her with a sudden dawning across his features. “Do you speak?” The blurted question and the sincerity on his face ripped a long laugh from her. She wasn’t nervous often and she had been accused of many things in her life but never being a mute.
Trent watched the transformation of the woman before him from leery and quiet to vivacious and awe-inspiring. Her laugh rolled over him and settled between his legs, tightening his muscles and draining his brain of much-needed blood.
She was still laughing, a deep, husky sound that had him smiling in return. Her hood slid off her head and revealed a long mass of deep-auburn curls. His fingers itched to tangle themselves in her hair and he put a death grip on his beer bottle to keep from acting on impulse. There was no reason to terrify another woman tonight. But he knew she had already assessed his face and since she was still sitting next to him he was going to hope it didn’t disgust her as much as it did him.
“So I’ll take that as a no,” he stated.
Her laughter slowly died but a smile still hovered on her lips and in her eyes. Holy shit she was beautiful and the red-gold hair hanging down her back called to him like a scream in the night.
He tried not to stare at the cleavage spilling out of her black top but he was definitely a tit man and he couldn’t help it. He wanted to bury his face there and never find his way back out.
“No, I don’t come here often and no, I’m not a mute,” she said as she stared at him.
“Well, okay then. What do you do?” It had been a long time since he had tried to carry on small talk with a woman and it was harder than he remembered. Especially with the distraction of her breasts constantly available for him to drool over.
“What do you mean, like, what do I do for a living?” She took a small sip of her beer and he couldn’t help but think about her luscious lips closing over parts of his body.
“Yeah. What do you do for a living?”
“I write books.”
“What do you write?” His aunt had written romance novels until she passed away a couple years ago. He had started reading her books in secret while still in high school. It had turned him into a closet romance reader for life. His buddies would never let him live it down if they knew but it gave him some valuable insight into what a woman wanted. Plus he liked the stories—sex and beautiful women, men who made mistakes but always got forgiven in the end.
“Nothing you have ever read I’m sure,” she said, evading the question.
Quirking a brow at her, he said, “Try me.”
She let her gaze roam down his body, over his broad shoulders and trim waist. Slowly making her way back to his face, she whispered, “Love to.”
The comment had been quietly uttered and caught him off guard. He raised his startled face to hers and read the answer in her eyes. He had heard her right. This woman was confusing, kept him guessing but didn
’t act as if she was playing games. He was riveted to the direct stare of her dark-brown eyes.
He thought for a moment he saw the same fire that burned through his blood but then with a small, knowing smile she looked away, breaking the moment.
It occurred to him that she might be just what he needed to cure his boredom. All he had to do now was get her into his bed. Or any other bed, he wasn’t going to be picky. He just wanted a little privacy and someplace he could get his hands on her.
“What’s your name?” Fiona asked him and smiled when she noticed she had caught him off guard again. No doubt he had been thinking about how to get her into bed and it hadn’t crossed his mind that he didn’t know her name yet. Men were so predictable.
He took a long pull of his bottle and she couldn’t keep from staring at his corded neck as he swallowed. Then he turned to her, stuck out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Trent.”
Fiona couldn’t help it, her laughter rang out over the crowded bar and several people turned to look at them curiously. Still chuckling, she took his hand. “I’m Fiona.”
The moment their hands touched the fire in her blood took hold again and she couldn’t think of anything else to say, let alone string two thoughts together. He looked down at their entwined fingers and then raised them to his lips. She held her breath as he rubbed her knuckles across his mouth then she felt his tongue dart out and taste the skin on the back of her hand.
She might have fallen off her stool if he hadn’t been gripping her hand so tightly. He never broke eye contact and his directness captured her as nothing had before. This wasn’t the usual seduction scene she was accustomed to.
She watched the smirk come to his mouth and wanted to run her tongue along it. He cleared his throat and asked, “So do you wanna get out of here?”
Feeling the blood pound in her ears and the fire of desire burn along her veins, she didn’t have to think about her answer. “Absolutely,” was all she could say to him.
