Learning the skills of a U.S. Hunter, and mastering my abilities. And not starving to death in the process.
Plus, I had every night with Lucas to look forward to. The future was starting to feel bright.
Now that I was pretty sure my mate forgave me, I felt like I could enjoy the sunshine on my skin.
“Something’s wrong.”
I nearly jumped at Vaughn’s appearance by my side. I thought she was going to stay in the car and cool down for a few more minutes.
“I smell fresh blood.” She stared at the door with hunger and fear. “A lot of it.”
***
Vaughn and I cautiously made our way to the door. It stood slightly ajar. She pushed it open to reveal a ghastly sight.
Oh God, Giles…
I almost lost the contents of my stomach when I saw what lay beyond. A great deal of staff and Gabe’s enthralled humans — all slaughtered. Corpses everywhere, some even hung from the chandelier as macabre decorations. The walls were splattered red.
My eyes trailed back to Giles’ broken form. His once vibrant, dark skin now looked ashen, and his neck was bent at an unnatural angle.
I couldn’t look at him any longer, but what I saw next was worse. I clamped my hand over my mouth when I saw Clyde… Andrew.
“Oh God,” I whispered.
“Consider this your first assignment,” Vaughn sounded grim. Her young face screwed up into a determined scowl. “Clear the west wing. I’ll take east.”
My eyes widened, “You think whoever did this is still here?”
“Only one way to find out.” She reached into her jacket pocket and handed me a small caliber handgun.
It felt so small and ineffectual in my palm.
“It’s loaded with silver shot,” She pulled two silver daggers from her thigh holsters. She spun the blades in her hands, testing the heft. “Ready?”
No. Fuck no!
“Are you serious? We should call someone,” I hissed.
“Who do you think gets these calls? We’re Hunters. We protect those who can’t defend themselves, and if we’re too late, the least we can do is cleanup the mess.”
“I—I...” All the cold corpses seemed to be staring at me. Blaming me.
“Look at me,” she snapped. My gaze reluctantly met hers. “Put on your big girl panties or stay in the car. I’m going to clear the house and search for survivors.” Without another word, she whooshed to the right side of the house. A door rocked in her wake.
Survivors. The word rattled around my head.
I took a deep breath. I could do this. I stepped forward and bent down to Andrew’s body. I hesitantly placed two fingers on his neck as I scanned the vicinity — firearm at the ready.
My eyes watered the moment I touched his cold skin. Dead.
I should have known; his skin was so pale and even his lips looked nearly ghost white. That’s when I noticed the two punctures on his neck.
Fang marks.
A vampire.
A brick sank to the bottom of my stomach. Vaughn had just been lecturing me about releasing The Broker. Was this Beckett’s doing? Had he come back seeking revenge?
I took shallow breaths as I quietly cleared the room to my left. I remembered what Vicks taught me about holding my gun close to my chest as I rounded a corner. The last thing I needed was to get stripped of my weapon.
My heart thudded in my chest, practically leaping out of my throat. I knew how fast vampires could be. I was fucked if they caught me unaware.
I focused on hardening my skin like an exoskeleton. That way, if the vamp got the drop on me, he couldn’t do as much damage.
I paused near the kitchen when I heard a gurgling noise.
A part of me wanted to run far, far away, but the logical side of me knew that I had to check it out. I silently pushed the door open, my finger threatened to spasm on the trigger.
I froze when I saw the body on the ground.
Red covered the front of her white smock. Her throat had been ripped out and blood leaked with each sluggish beat of her heart.
Her eyes were wide open and scared as she reached out to me. Oh God, it was Staci, the chef who was hired specifically to counteract my appetite. She was bleeding to death because of me.
I immediately knelt down beside her, set my gun down, and ripped part of my shirt off to bandage her ruined neck.
She gurgled and groaned when I tried to place it on her. I dropped it as soon as I realized I was causing more harm than good. She couldn’t live with an injury like that.
It would be kinder to put her out of her misery.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, at a loss for what to do.
Unless..?
If I could take energy, could I give it back? It was a shot in the dark, but somehow it felt right. I took a deep breath and pictured the vast well of energy inside me, a swirling blue pocket of vitality.
I imagined reaching in and scooping out a large vat. But the amount was too unwieldy. Intuitively, I sensed that I could condense the energy.
I don’t know how or why, but it felt right to squish it into a heavy, dense ball of goo. Suddenly, the gelatinous substance rushed to my fingertips; it looked like squiggly worms running through my veins like a freeway.
I stared at my hand in shock. This wasn’t metaphysical any more. There was actual blue slime in my hand.
I took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. I tentatively rubbed the concoction into Staci’s wounds. At first she fought me, but after a few seconds, her neck began to glow.
I shielded my eyes as the illumination grew blindingly bright. A strange keening grew into a wail of despair, growing louder and louder. Oh God, was she making those horrible noises? Had the goo made it worse?
The supernatural light blinked out and Staci jackknifed into a seated position. Her hands were clutching her throat and she gasped heavily.
Then her frightened gaze focused on something above my head. From her newly repaired throat, she whispered: “He’s behind you.”
Something slammed into me with the force of a Mack truck. Midair, I realized I’d dropped both my weapon and hard shell while healing Staci. I frantically sent a surge of ardor to protect my skull before smacking into the wall, but it wasn’t enough. My world spun and I had a difficult time registering where I was.
I heard gunshots and screaming from a thousand miles away.
“Get away from her!” Those noises were supposed to be important but I couldn’t make sense of them. All I knew is they sounded like bell chimes. A lovely, clear feminine voice.
A blonde bat voice? Bats didn’t talk… How strange.
“You would protect this demon spawn?” a rough voice hissed. “Traitorous rat!”
Why were so many animals talking?
My vision swam in and out of focus. Two blurry figures were dancing, one large, the other small.
Twirling and leaping.
Dodging and connecting…
My eyelids felt like cinder blocks. I couldn’t hold them up any longer to watch the dance. My world faded to darkness.
Claire, get up.
I felt something smack into my side. I blindly felt it. Someone threw a statue arm at me? It was so small, child-sized. I let it drop to the floor without bothering to open my eyes, or investigate further.
Wake up!
Muffled taunting words. A sharp scream pierced the air. Vaughn?
I blinked away the cobwebs and realized Vaughn was fighting a much larger opponent. The unkempt long-haired vampire from the dungeon, Rowan.
Claire, fight! Lucas shouted.
Adrenaline slammed through my veins as true comprehension hit me. Oh God, Vaughn…Oh God, he was killing her, riping her apart!
My eyes snapped open to find a monster hovering above me with one of Vaughn’s daggers poised over my heart.
Our eyes met. He snarled and slammed the blade into my chest.
Pain swallowed me whole, eclipsing my entire being. My mouth opened in a silent
scream, only to cough up blood.
Lucas roared in my head.
Suddenly, my mate seized control of my body. Through me, Lucas grabbed the vampire’s wrist and snapped it backward, then trapped the arm to my chest and used my foot to lock his leg in place. Lucas bucked my hips and the vampire and I rolled toward his restrained side. I landed on top.
The vampire squeezed his legs around my waist but I had the superior position as Lucas used my fists to reign down enhanced punches. Rowan’s face crumbled under the force of my strikes. No blood. Just chunks of statue flew off of him.
I didn’t know how Lucas fought for me with the knife wedged between my ribs, or how he could think past the pain.
I screamed as the vampire punched my ribcage. Lucas and I took the pain as he maneuvered the vampire into a headlock.
Finish him, he growled.
My entire body was on fire. I simply obeyed. I leaned in and kissed the insane vampire’s twisted snarl — he barely had lips and had lost a fanged tooth, but I didn’t care. Rowan’s body immediately fell limp as I pumped ardor into him.
He moaned into my mouth. I shoved my blue sauce down his gullet, hooked it around his very essence, then dragged it back into me. His moans became screams.
I ripped the knife out of my chest and continued to feast. The vampire struggled weakly as I stole his fucking soul. His skin shriveled and his bones turned to ash. I reveled in every moment until I drank him dry.
I blinked down at my lap. There was nothing left but dust. I’d devoured him.
Breathing deeply, I realized that it no longer hurt to breathe. The stab wound was gone. Feeding had completely healed me. Maybe it would have healed on its own since I had so much energy in the tank.
I didn’t know, and I didn’t care because I saw something that just about killed me.
“Vaughn!” I screamed bloody murder. She’d been completely dismantled. Oh God, I felt sick.
I scrambled to what looked like chunks of statue. There was no blood, just crumbled pieces of her. Tears streamed down my face when I saw that she’d been decapitated and quartered.
Do you see any blood? Lucas was trying to talk to me, but I was so clouded by grief, I couldn’t understand why he would ask me that.
I picked up her little, partially shaved head and hugged it to my chest. A sob burst out of me in a guttural keening as I rocked back and forth, crying hysterically.
She fucking died trying to protect me.
Everyone who came into contact with me ended up destroyed one way or the other…
“Mind getting your boobs out of my face?”
Startled, I dropped the head.
“Ow!” Vaughn’s face winced. “Careful.”
I gaped. “You’re alive? How are you alive?”
“He didn’t tear my blood sack. Be a dear and assemble me back together, would you?”
“Uh, OK,” I said as I started collecting her dismembered body parts. They felt more like pieces of marble than flesh and bone. I tried to fit them back together like puzzle pieces and ended up placing her head back onto her shoulders. Then I set her arm back in its socket.
To my amazement, the edges melted together and Vaughn flexed her fingers. “Good as new. Thanks, I’ve got it from here.” She grabbed a foot and twisted it onto her ankle.
“Jesus,” I whispered, still in awe.
She shrugged, “Gabe hasn’t taught you about vampire anatomy, yet? We can survive just about anything but being burned and getting our blood sack drained. I always move mine around every week.”
Vampires could displace their organs and innards? Actually, from what I saw vampires didn’t really have organs anymore. They seemed built entirely of stone. Except for this blood sack, apparently.
I had so many questions, but instead, I blurted, “Thank you for saving my life.”
Vaughn connected her other arm. She winced then rotated her shoulders. “I wasn’t about to let you die without a fight. You’re one of us now.”
My throat was starting to close up from emotion. I had no idea that Vaughn actually cared about me, and to know she risked her life for me was incredibly humbling.
I like her, Lucas said out of the blue. With those words, all the stress and emotional tension broke. I started cracking up.
“You alright?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” I waved her concern away, still chortling. “It’s just been a really fucking weird day.”
Vaughn quirked her lip in amusement. “You think this is bad? Just wait until you get your badge.”
For some reason, that made me cackle harder, because if I didn’t laugh I might just cry. Vaughn slapped my back and joined in with her own high-pitched peals. I shook my head with a grin. All this shit would hit me tomorrow, but today, I was just happy to be breathing.
Two long years of training had passed before I became a full-fledged U.S. Hunter. I’d mastered my succubus skills, aced the written test, and even managed to survive my first solo mission. The main thing that held me back from graduation was getting approval from my shrink. He’s a vampire. It was awkward at first, but Dr. Petichi was very professional, even though I was convinced he hated me at first.
It took me a while to work through my issues, but now that I’ve gone through the process, I can admit that it was good for me.
It definitely got a lot easier when we all moved out of Gabe’s old mansion. None of us wanted to live there after everything that went down. Least of all, Gabe. He was pretty torn up about what happened.
He actually signed up to join Vaughn’s new Supe task force. Did I mention that Vaughn got a big fat promotion? As in, the government is actually recognizing her now. The first ever Supe U.S. Hunter.
Gabe’s the unofficial second, who operates under a different face and name for cases that require backup.
And I’d recently become the third.
There’s rumors that The Flock, a famous group of witch superheroes, might join, too. I wouldn’t hold my breath though, they seemed to enjoy doing their own thing.
So much has happened it’s hard to keep it all straight. When I’m awake I’m the badass U.S. Hunter, but when I sleep I live an entirely different life with Lucas. Our dream life. Literally.
Both of us are impatient for the day I get to come back to the States. I’m actually planning on surprising him next week. I’ve been getting butterflies every time I think about it.
The good news is no one died when Lucas went crazy trying to chase the helicopter. The bad news is I’ve got no idea what his pack will think of me. Either they will appreciate what I did or they’ll see me as the woman who betrayed their Alpha and brought the Hunters knocking on their door.
Fearing the latter, I’ve already prepared myself for an icy reception.
Nervous tremors raced through my fingers as I stared into the mirror. I adjusted the badge on my hip and felt a bit better. I wore my every day skin, Fierce Claire, with warrior braids and exaggerated makeup. After the first few months, she’s become me. Nowadays, I feel more comfortable wearing leather and guns compared to my old wallflower chic.
The only person who hasn’t seen Fierce Claire yet is Lucas. Even Camilla has ohh la la-ed over my new look during video chats. The reason I haven’t shown him is because we have something explosive together, and I’ve never wanted to mess with the formula.
I think the best part of the last two years is Vicks disappearing shortly after Rowan died. I’ve always suspected that Lucas had something to do with it, but neither one of us has ever brought it up. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Though I would like to know if Vicks was responsible for Rowan’s escape.
Unfortunately, the dead don’t talk and we’ll never know. But if I were a betting woman, I’d gamble that he knew I was going to kill him on the plane that day. He saw that he’d pushed me too far and like a true predator he’d made his move to eliminate me first.
Regardless of who got caught in the crossfire.
The memories of all the slaugh
tered staff will never leave me, but at least Staci survived. Though healing her with my energy had the unfortunate side effect of bonding her to me. It’s like having a pet with extreme separation anxiety, but thankfully Staci’s condition has improved over the years.
A knock at the door startled me out of my reminiscing.
I took a moment to collect myself and swung the door open.
My jaw dropped, “What are you doing here?”
“Surprise?” Lucas grinned. His eyes slowly trailed down my Fierce Claire form as he distractedly murmured, “I’ve come to help you pack.” Before I could say anything, he closed the door, bent down, and tossed me over his shoulder. A surprised squeak fell from my lips as our mate bond flared to life. So, that’s why he’d been shielding lately!
He stopped in front of my bed.
“I thought you were going to help me pack?” I asked, still shocked. Still breathless.
Lucas playfully growled before he dropped me on the mattress and pounced on top of me.
I gasped and he took advantage by lightly nipping my bottom lip.
“I changed my mind.” His voice was meant to be teasing, but it came out deep and coated in lust.
A huge smile plastered across my face. “I take it you like the new look?”
He grinned back, and lightly ground his erection against me, “I believe this is body language for fuck yeah.”
I laughed, absolutely drunk on the fact that he was really here. With me.
I darted in for a quick kiss before whispering, “I fucking love you.”
“I love fucking you, too.”
“Hey!” I slapped at his shoulder. “That’s not what I said!”
“For us, it works both ways, baby,” he chuckled. “But yes, I’m very much in love with you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little black box. “Now when are you going to marry me?”
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The Hunter: A Sinful Supes Novel (Red Crescent Book 3) Page 16
