by Terry Spear
“Zachary!” his older brother shouted again, only his voice sounded a million miles away.
“Pasha,” Zachary said, his voice hoarse.
“She is safe.”
Zachary floated from the floor, then was jostled roughly through a hall, and shoved through the open window into the sunlight. He squinted, barely making out the concerned faces that hovered over him. His brother’s, his uncle’s, his father’s. And Pasha’s…
He continued his journey, his body jostled back and forth, his mind drifting.
“Get him back to his father’s house!” Curt, one of his father’s cousins, shouted.
“Is he going to be all right?” a woman asked, her voice as sweet as honeydew melon.
He attempted to focus on her face. Dark hair framed her heart-shaped face, the long strands reaching her waist. Her dark eyes were filled with worry as she studied his. Pasha, the woman of his dreams. She was safe.
“Zachary,” she said, reaching her small hand out to him.
“We’re losing him!” Michael said. “Damn it. We’re losing him!”
Her sensuous brown eyes pooled with tears. Zachary reached his hand out to touch hers.
She grasped his hand in hers, warm and filled with love, and held on tight. She loved him too. She’d be his. Forever, she’d be his mate.
“You can’t die,” she whispered. “You saved my life more times than I can count. You can’t die.”
He was certain he smiled back at her. He was certain his lips curved up, and that he asked her to marry him. He knew that she said yes. She would be his forever.
Chapter 2
Pasha couldn’t believe Adonis and Rachael had managed to kill Piaras, and then one of Rachael’s hunter suitors had stabbed Adonis right after he had been stabbed by Piaras himself! The hunter stabbing Adonis in the heart could have killed him! She didn’t agree with the council’s decision to ban Gregory Devine from the region. He had been one of Rachael’s suitors, which was part of the reason he’d stabbed Adonis and also because Adonis had been a hunter turned vampire.
Gregory had nearly murdered a hunter, albeit Adonis was also a vampire, but Adonis hadn’t been fighting the hunters! He’d helped Rachael to take down Piaras!
She wanted to see Zachary, but he’d been asleep the first time she’d gone in to see him in the hospital bed in the clinic in his father’s home, his beautiful blond hair spread out across his pillow while her brother had also been asleep in the room. The doctor had assured her both men would be fine, lucky for their hunter ability to heal faster.
At least the hunter family that had taken her family in were all warm and welcoming. Already some of the bachelor hunters had come to see her though, when the only hunter she was interested in was the wounded one who had saved her life, Zachary Bremerton.
Zachary became aware of movement and harsh, hushed voices, and he opened his eyes. He was resting in the hospital bed in his father’s home. Next to him, Adonis slept in the other bed, a bag of blood dripping into his arm. Then Zachary realized he was attached to a bag of blood as well.
“What the hell do we do now, Tobias?” Dr. Stevens asked from the adjoining room where surgeries on injured hunters or huntresses were performed. “The others must be told.”
“No, no. Only you, my two cousins, Zachary’s cousins, and his brother Michael must know.”
Zachary heard Dr. Stevens pace across the floor as he listened to his father and the doctor talk.
“I don’t like this, not one bit,” the doctor said.
“I’m the head of the hunter family in Dallas. It’s my decision. As senior council members, Curt and Brent are the only other ones involved in the decision of this magnitude. Michael, as Zachary’s brother, is to know, too, so that he can observe his behavior. Zachary will have to be watched at all times.”
“He’s one of them now. He can invite others into your home, any hunter’s home. The other hunters will want him terminated. You know they will.” There was silence. Then Dr. Stevens began again. “Hell, what about the other one?”
“Rachael is marrying him. Adonis has proven to us beyond a doubt, he’s on our side. He and Rachael killed Piaras. He saved Michael’s life. He could have my position as head of the council, should he want it for his heroic feat. Besides, his being with us should give us an advantage. He has both vampiric and hunter skills.”
“He lied to us. All along he lied to us. Gregory had been right that Adonis had been a vampire.”
“Adonis had only fought the rogue vampires. He protected the hunters! If Gregory had done only half of what Adonis had done…” Tobias took a deep breath and let it out.
Zachary understood in part why Adonis had. How would he feel if he’d been a hunter turned, wanting to remain with a family, wanting to continue hunting the bloodsuckers?
“He still lied to us,” the doctor insisted.
“In part, yes. About his family, no. They were imprisoned by Piaras, and Piaras wanted Rachael. Adonis couldn’t very well have told us that he was a vampire. We would have killed him on the spot. And then what? My niece would still be at risk, and Adonis’s family would have been murdered.”
Dr. Steven growled, “This could be the end of our family!” He stormed out of the surgery room and raised his brows as he entered the recovery room. He considered Zachary as he stared back at the gray-haired doctor, his blue eyes narrowed.
Zachary’s throat was parched. His shoulder burned like it was on fire, but he didn’t feel any differently than he normally did when he was injured on a hunt.
Dr. Stevens glowered at him. But his father quickly came to Zachary’s bedside and patted his uninjured shoulder. Tears pooled in his father’s gray-blue eyes.
“What’s the matter?” Zachary choked out. His throat felt raw as if he had a bad case of strep throat.
His father turned to the doctor. “Let me speak with him alone.”
When the doctor stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him, his father said, “Zachary, the vampire who accosted you, he...he bit you.”
Zachary’s mind swirled with confusion. He stared at his father, turned his attention to the hospital room at his father’s house, felt the chill in his body, the cold blood dripping into his veins, and smelled the heavy odor of antiseptics. Then he remembered that. He remembered killing the vampire before…before he couldn’t.
“But I’m not dead.” Not unless his father was dead also. But Dr. Stevens hadn’t been at the battle. He never went to them, just took care of those who were injured in the fight.
“The vampire didn’t want to kill you. He wanted to turn you. They have the ability to do either, we have learned, but in this case, he wanted you to be his blood-bond. I don’t know that any have done this before. In all other cases, the vampires wisely killed the hunters, but Piaras had some notion he could control hunters through turning them.”
Zachary’s stomach churned with nausea, his head floating off the pillow as his thoughts grew clouded. “I…I can’t be.”
His father looked over at Adonis. “He is too. Piaras had turned him over a month ago.”
Every thought in Zachary’s brain spun out of control. His cousin, Rachael, had already declared her love for Adonis openly. She had to see her folly. “Rachael’s not safe with him,” he croaked out in a horrid whisper.
“There are some major changes coming to the family. Rachael would have married Adonis no matter what. They love one another. There’s nothing to be done about it. If we had killed Adonis, she would have destroyed her own life. There are too few huntresses born to a family as it is. We have to have children, or our kind will die out, and the vampires will win the race. Adonis told us he and Rachael killed Piaras. They’re married. Mated. It’s done.”
Not believing any of this, Zachary rubbed his forehead, trying to absorb the news. “But they’ll have vampire children, won’t they? Then how will that be good for our kind?”
“As long as we’re fighting on the same side, it wo
n’t matter, will it? Good against evil?”
Zachary swallowed hard. There wasn’t any way that he wanted to be a hunter-turned vampire. Adonis was fortunate to have drawn Rachael’s love. But she was different. Always had been, having been marked by Piaras when he killed her parents when she was little. How would Zachary ever find a mate now?
He thought of Pasha, her warm skin on his hand, her concerned gaze touching his heart. What would she think of his being a vampire? After being a prisoner of the vampires for so long, he didn’t think she’d be happy about it.
He took a deep breath. “I don’t want to live.”
“You have no choice, Zachary.”
“What?” He thought it was a forgone conclusion. Hunters hunted vampires. He was now a vampire, though he didn’t feel any differently, just awful, but no more so than when he was involved in a fight where he had been badly injured. But that was the risk they took. They killed the rogue vampires, and his own kind died in an honorable way—as hunters fighting the evil ones.
“Gregory attempted to kill Adonis, furious he had won Rachael’s heart.”
Zachary’s mouth gaped. Hell, Adonis had killed the worst vampire in this region they’d ever known. He couldn’t believe Gregory would have tried to kill Adonis.
“Gregory swore Adonis was a vampire, which we learned was true after the fact. But Gregory’s hunter’s sword didn’t kill him.” His father motioned to Adonis. “As you can see, he’s still just like you and me.”
“Neither of us are like you, so it would seem,” Zachary growled, hating what he had become and wanting no part of it.
“Adonis has lived like this for longer than a month. He’s determined to be a hunter again. And has been. According to Rachael, he can live in the sunlight, eat like us, only he has some other...powers, that we don’t have.”
“Like?” Zachary asked, still frowning at his father. How could he accept him this way?
“She was reluctant to say.”
Zachary frowned. Maybe Adonis was man enough to be both, but Zachary had no desire to be a vampire, not when he’d made a life of killing the ones who turned the city upside down with their evil doings.
“What about Gregory? Surely, he’ll tell the rest of the hunters that we’re both vampires and the rest of the hunters will want our heads.”
His father patted Zachary’s shoulder. “Michael, Curt, and Brent are the only ones who are aware of this. Well, and Rachael. Adonis had to return to the clinic after he was with Rachael to recover further, but when he recovers more, he can speak to you about...well, about your changed life.”
“You’re saying I can’t die?”
“No, I’m not saying that. Only that you will not be hunted by our family.”
“Unless Gregory tells the rest of the hunter families.”
“He’s banished from the region.”
Zachary shook his head. “And therein lies the rub. A hunter tries to murder another hunter when the other has been perfectly heroic, and the murderous hunter would be put down. But the hunter victim is a vampire and so the murderous hunter is vindicated.”
“Gregory fought the vampire threat also. He’s banned. If he returns to the region or attacks Adonis, or you for that matter, he’ll be condemned to die.”
“When can I get out of here?”
“Dr. Stevens says you should be feeling well enough to join us at dinnertime.”
“That soon?” He felt like he’d had a bout of the flu with aches and pains streaking through his wound and other muscles and his throat as raw as when he’d been sick.
His father smiled. “You slept all afternoon after the clash with Piaras’s men, and all through the night. It’s now late afternoon. It’s time to get up and meet that pretty young sister of Adonis’s who has repeatedly asked us of your status.”
“Pasha?” His own voice sounded strange to his ears. She’d promised to marry him, but now he couldn’t marry her. Not knowing what he was. How would she feel about him being a hunter turned? Repulsed?
He humpfed under his breath. She’d been a prisoner of Piaras’s for a month. There wasn’t any way she’d want to be the mate of one of those vile creatures. And no way did he want to mate someone so lovely when she deserved a hunter mate. Not something as hideous as he now was.
“Very few marriageable huntresses are available to the hunters. Rachael’s disappointed suitors will chase after Pasha with fervor, Father.” More power to them, Zachary thought, with great regret.
“They already are. That’s why, my son, you need to rouse yourself from this sickbed and make a stand. It didn’t go unnoticed that you protected her with your life at Piaras’s estates, and in so doing you sacrificed, in a way, your hunter status.”
“She won’t want me.” How could his father even consider such a union?
“Adonis certainly knew how to woo Rachael. Perhaps that’s some of the abilities that Rachael alluded to but wouldn’t reveal.” A sad kind of smile touched his father’s lips. “The world is ever changing. I have no idea what will be in a hundred years from now. Perhaps Adonis and your kind will reign.” He sighed deeply and squeezed Zachary’s shoulder. “When you’re feeling well enough, ring the buzzer. Michael will help you get dressed.”
When his father retired from the room, Zachary turned to watch Adonis sleep. Memories flooded his mind as he recalled how Adonis had transported himself to the top of the crates in the warehouse two nights ago on the hunt. He hadn’t seen him do it, but all of a sudden he was there. Gregory swore he’d moved like a vampire, and that Michael had seen him do it. When questioned by the family, Michael had denied it. Why? Because Adonis had saved Michael’s life from the host sniper?
Zachary realized then Adonis had risked his own safety to save Michael’s life. He must not have wanted to use his vampiric abilities then but did so, risking all—his chance at having Rachael and of having the hunters turn on him.
Zachary shook his head, not being able to fully realize all that had happened in the past several days.
Had the rest of Adonis’s family been checked out? Maybe they’d all been turned. He groaned. Though he realized if Pasha was one, maybe together they could… He shook his head.
The door opened with a squeak.
Pasha stood quietly in the entryway, her satiny hair hanging over her shoulders like waves of dark chocolate, while her dark eyes watched him. She parted her lips to speak.
All at once he grew ashamed. He was a hunter imposter. He’d never be good enough to win her heart now.
“Zachary,” she said softly, “your father said I could see you for a moment. I want to thank you for saving my life at Piaras’s estates.”
He took a deep breath. “Is what’s left of your family joining ours?”
She nodded.
He assumed they would, since the rest of their family had been killed in Florida. Secretly, he’d hoped Pasha and her family had decided to leave because he couldn’t stand seeing her and knowing how she’d feel about him, about what he had become. Or see her with another hunter. “Are you all right after...your ordeal?”
“Yes, thank you. I can’t thank you and your family enough for coming to our rescue. I understand you were adamant about your family freeing us, at any cost.”
His cheeks grew hot. He hoped his brother hadn’t told him how much he had wanted to save her, forgetting about her parents in the interim.
“Pasha,” Anthony, formerly one of Rachael’s suitors, said to Pasha over her shoulder, “I wondered if you would like to accompany me on a walk in the gardens.”
Zachary tried to rise from the bed too quickly and groaned with the effort as pain shot through his shoulder.
Pasha rushed into the room. “You mustn’t,” she said, grasping his bare arms and making him lay back down. “You don’t want to reinjure yourself.”
Zachary glared at Anthony still standing in the doorway. His body was still too weak to allow him to shove Anthony out of the room and tell him to get lost. To
stay far away from Pasha. But the urge to stake his claim to Pasha overwhelmed his better judgment.
Then all of a sudden Zachary realized his male hunter possessiveness had kicked in where the huntress was concerned.
Or was it something else that stirred his blood to boiling in an instant? Something vampiric?
Zachary clenched his teeth, a strange feeling centered in his canines. Like...they were itching to extend.
Chapter 3
What would he do now, Zachary debated as his damnable teeth—vampiric teeth, now ached to extend? Would he follow through with the way his teeth were acting up and rip out Anthony’s heart to protect his claim to Pasha? Zachary clenched his teeth and clamped his hand over his mouth. He turned away from Pasha’s searching gaze. No way did he want her to know what a monster he’d become.
“Zachary.” Pasha ran her hand lightly over his arm, the touch soft and gentle and coaxing. “Are you all right?”
He dared not speak or she could see the daggers that threatened to appear. His father was wrong. Zachary was mortal. All he needed was for a hunter to strike him with his ancient sword, pierce his heart…
Adonis. That’s who he’d ask to do the job. He’d understand. He had to.
Adonis still slept soundly, his back turned to Zachary.
That’s what he had to do. Solicit his help. Adonis wouldn’t want his sister to hook up with a vampire, surely.
The itching in the sheaths subsided, and Zachary took in a deep breath. Turning to Pasha, he intended to tell her to find another hunter mate. Someone worthy of her attentions.
Instead, when he looked up at her, she entranced him with the way her dark eyes gazed into his. Unlike her sister, Danai, who was too thin and shy, Pasha was a curvy brunette and much more outgoing. He envisioned her wearing a thong bikini and nearly groaned.
