Born In Blood (Born Hunter Book 1)

by Nia Davenport

  "You say that as if there is something for me to be afraid of in here." He crossed his arms over his broad chest and flexed the bulging muscles beneath.

  "So that's how Viktor hunted you all into extinction? All brawn and no brains."

  His jaw ticked in response to the nerve she struck. "I am going to enjoy bleeding every last drop of blood from your body. I don't have to kill you for the blood ritual to work, you know. Just like I did not have to kill your father. It only requires the spilt blood of a born hunter, not their death. But I am going to kill you anyway as I did him. I killed him after the ritual did not work."

  "Why?" She had to know.

  "To set you on the path I needed you to follow. You were born with the instinct to hunt monsters. If you believed one to be responsible for the traumatic death of your father, those instincts would naturally kick in. You cannot tell me you simply woke up one day at seventeen and decided to be a hunter. Your mind was probably screaming at you to hunt down the monsters responsible for your father's death from the moment you found his mutilated body on the beach. I bet it eventually evolved into a compulsive need, even an obsession, until you found your self on the Division's doorstep applying for intake training. I guess your father's death is your fault."

  Her darkest thought spoken aloud was as painful a physical blow as it was a psychological one. She wanted to crumple to the floor in an emotional heap as much as she wanted to double over in agony. She would not permit herself to do either of those things in front of her father's murderer.

  Godrell pressed on when she remained silent. "Your death will not be quick. You will writhe in agony and beg me for your life. Only then will I butcher you and dump your body for your vampire to find. I owe his father the same mercy he showed my mate. Viktor's bitch died nearly a millennium ago, so you know what they say. The sins of the father become the sins of the son." Grief at the memory of his mate clouded Godrell's eyes and Cara would bet his better judgment too.

  She capitalized on the moment. "So that is what this is all about? You probably don't care if the wolves return to power or not. You're trying to avenge the death of a wife you were too weak and pathetic to protect."

  Godrell exploded in a berserker rage. He charged toward Cara intent on spilling her blood before he even dragged her to the ritual site. She grabbed for a silver knife and launched it at his heart. He jerked his body to the left at the last possible second. "Reiya was already dead, but she is going to pay for this before she goes to her grave," Godrell spat as he yanked the blade from his chest. He tackled her sending her head bashing into the cement behind her. She grabbed for the second knife but her world faded to black before she closed her hand around its hilt.

  When Cara regained consciousness her hands were nailed to a cross in the middle of the woods. At least hundred wolves in human form knelt around her and chanted in an ancient language alongside their Alpha who stood on a makeshift alter beside her. Pain the likes of which she had never felt before radiated outward from her impaled palms and along the length of her arms. Her blood flowed in a river of crimson down her sides, soaking into the earth beneath her. When Godrell saw she was awake, the bastard jabbed the same knife she'd thrown at him deep into her side. He sadistically smiled at her at as he pushed down on the blade and opened up a vertical gash down the length of her torso. She gritted her teeth against the pain as darkness threatened to overtake her again. She fought to remain conscious. As more of her blood poured into the earth a barely visible force of power collected above the wolves. Their chanting grew louder imbuing the power with life. It converged on them seeming to permeate their very souls as it burrowed into their chests. It cracked like a whip against the air and forced the waxing gibbous in the sky into a full moon. A collective shudder passed through the wolves but they remained in their human form. The ritual was complete, but true to his word Godrell shifted his human hand into the heavily clawed paw of a beast. He shoved it into Cara's abdomen, destroying vital organs as he shredded and ripped his way through her belly. This time she willingly let the pain take her under.

  Cara found herself back in her cell. In a twisted fate of déjà vu Godrell walked inside and let the bars slam shut behind him. He stalked toward her. She tried to uncurl from her fetal position and stand but was too weak to accomplish the task. Her blood stained the cement around her. She looked down at her abdomen and saw that someone had bandaged her wounds to keep her from bleeding out. No doubt it was so Godrell could torture her a little longer before she died. If that's his aim, he better get on with it, Cara weakly thought to herself. She could feel her life force slipping away with every ragged breath she took. Her eyes misted over. Not because she was afraid of dying, she had embraced her death the day her father embraced his, but because of regret over what she did not do before she died. She found her father's murderer but he would kill her not the other way around as she always intended.

  Oddly, that driving force behind her actions and decisions for so long was the least of her regrets while she lay in a ball on the cold floor with death knocking at her door. What she regretted the most and what made her now want to wail to whatever God was listening that she needed more time was that she never verbalized to Aiden what she felt for him. She never told him she loved him and that he'd snaked his way into her heart. She would never get to make love to him in earnest, free of emotional restraints and choking fears. She'd spent half a lifetime in grief and ready to die because of it. Now that she was, all she wanted to do was spend the remainder of her life in love with the vampire who had stolen her heart. A single tear escaped, staining the length of her cheek. She shut her eyes and solemnly embraced her fate as Godrell's boot came down to grind into her windpipe.

  It never delivered the crushing blow. The sound of metal being torn from its hinges grated in Cara's ears and then a split second later she heard a body being slammed against the wall behind her. She opened her eyes to see Aiden tearing into Godrell's chest with his bare hands. He closed his hand around the wolves beating heart.

  "I'm not like you Vampire. Snatching my heart out won't work unless there is silver involved," Godrell smirked at him.

  "I know," Aiden growled then yanked his heart from his chest. "But I bet it hurts like a bitch and I plan to keep you alive for a long time." His eyes blazed pure gold as he closed his bloody hand around the wolf's windpipe and crushed it beneath his fingers before ripping it from his body as well. "I bet that hurt like a bitch too. I won't be using silver on you anytime soon. I will repay you ten fold for every pain you inflicted on Cara. When I am done with you an eternity in hell with the devil himself will seem like paradise in comparison.”

  He turned Godrell over to Dorian and Rafe as they entered the cell. "Restrain him!" He barked out as he rushed to Cara's side. He gently cradled her in his arms. He would berate himself for the rest of eternity for allowing this to happen to her.

  Cara saw the familiar guilt in his eyes and whispered up at him, "Don't. Blame. Yourself."

  He placed a finger over her lips to quiet her. "Conserve your strength," he said nestling her head in his lap.

  She feebly shook . "I'm dying. I love you...should've...said it… sooner...." She winced through the words. Every breath she took was more painful than the next. She felt as if her insides were engulfed in flames.

  "No, Cara. You will not die. I will not allow it." It was supposed to be a command but it came out as a desperate plea.

  "You can't always get your way, Your Darkness." The pain finally receded. The flames extinguished themselves and were replaced by cold numbness. She smiled into Aiden's emerald eyes for a final time. They were the perfect image to take with her in death.

  Twenty-Eight

  I'm thirsty, Cara thought to herself. Her throat ached with an unquenchable thirst. I thought you aren't supposed to want for anything in heaven. Oh God, maybe I'm in hell. She certainly shed enough blood in her lifetime to warrant a place there. The beat of her heart kicked up in panic. The very alive
reaction startled her into the realization that she was not dead. She was in Aiden's ridiculously large bed in his suite of rooms on his island. The same set of perfectly hued emerald green eyes crowded her vision just as they did before when she thought death had claimed her. This time the look on his face was one of relief instead of helpless grief.

  "I thought I was in heaven, then I thought I was in hell." Cara's voice came out hoarse and raspy. "How long have I been out?" She asked Aiden.

  "For too long." He brought his mouth down on hers in an urgent kiss. His lips moved against hers as if they may have never gotten the chance to again. He drank her in as if kissing her was the only sustenance he required to live.

  "If you're going to kiss me like that, I should almost die more often," she said in a breathy voice.

  "Don't you dare," Reiya said from the other side of the bed. She hugged her tightly then loosened her grip when Cara winced. Her torso still felt tender. "Sorry," she backed away from the side of the bed. Her eyes said she wanted to say much more along with the sorry.

  Cara reached for her hand, giving it a firm squeeze. "You don't have to say anything more. You were ready to give up your life for the slim possibility of mine. That's enough for me."

  "I'll give you two privacy," she said then left the room.

  Cara watched her leave then looked at Aiden questioningly.

  "Asad found her in a cell not far from yours. She was unharmed. Godrell had not had time to hurt her yet. He was too busy focusing all of his efforts on you. I assure you he is being paid back for it as we speak." Gold quietly glowed in the recesses of Aiden's eyes.

  "Good. That bastard stays alive until I can carve out his heart with a silver blade myself."

  "Whatever my mate wants, my mate gets." Aiden placed a kiss to her for head.

  Cara choked on whatever words she were going to say next. "Your what?!"

  His face displayed the arrogant grin she wanted to knock from his face during their first interactions with each other. That same grin had also made him irresistibly charming and undeniably sexy. Now it made her want to drag him into bed alongside her. The heat in his eyes told her he knew what she was thinking.

  "I am aware you may not agree at first, stubborn woman that you are, but I'm persistent. You will come around eventually."

  She thought back to her last thoughts before Aiden entered her cell to save her and knew she was already there. "If I come around now can I have a fancy dress, and throw a huge party, and drive the McLaren?” He already had her heart, but hey, a girl had to negotiate the terms of her surrender.

  "If you come around now you can have the McLaren...and this." He picked up a small blue box that sat on the table beside the bed. He placed it in her hands allowing her to decide if she wanted to open it or not.

  She eyed him and then the box. She felt like a giddy schoolgirl. She opened it with shaky but sure fingers to reveal a sparkling diamond of flawless clarity. Delicate emeralds surrounded it in a glittering crown.

  "It's beautiful," she told him. "I didn't know vampires got engaged?"

  "They don't. But you're mine and I want to claim you in every way possible. Both human and vampire...if you will have me?" He said the last part a little unsure as if he were bracing for her rejection all the while hoping for her acceptance of him. It revealed an underlying vulnerability Cara had never seen in him. It endeared him to her even more.

  She took the ring out of its box and held it out to Aiden. Then she held her right hand out and waited for him to slide it on. I'll have you. She let the intensity of her gaze and the words intimately whispered from her mind to his answer for her. Joy flooded his features as he placed the ring on her hand.

  "I thought you were going to die, Cara. I thought you did die. Your heart stopped beating in my arms. All I could think was it would be the end for me too. I cannot live an eternity without you."

  A thought belatedly crossed her mind. "Did you turn me into a vampire?!"

  Aiden erupted into laughter at her animated response. "No, but I would have. I didn't need to though. The trace amounts of my blood left in your system after Godrell gave you the serum to try to purge its effects saved you. Would it really be so bad if I had to though?"

  Cara thought about it for a moment. She would become the very creature she hunted for so long, but then again her vendetta toward them had been misplaced. The wolves, not the vampires, were responsible for her father's death. There was still no doubt in her mind that one species could be just as cruel and inhumane as the other, but Aiden had showed her that to judge them all as monsters was wrong. Just as decent humans existed aside the corrupt ones, she saw the same was true for the vampires and maybe the werewolves as well. Reiya certainly seemed to have a conscience.

  "No," she finally said. "It would not have been that bad. I can imagine worse things than spending an eternity with the man I love."

  Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment in the Born Hunter Series!!!!

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