She really couldn’t blame them for wanting to keep their distance. From what Adir had said, new Vampires were unpredictable and spent the first few years in uncontrollable blood lust. But she didn’t feel any of that. Well, not anymore. Hunter grounded her. Every night when she awoke she fed on him and went on about her business. She didn’t think about blood at all.
Maybe in a few years the others will feel comfortable enough around me to come inside and visit.
She sighed at that thought. That was a long time to wait to feel welcomed into the Pack. But even still, when they did finally decide to visit her new house, she would be ready to receive them.
My new house.
She’d never had a place of her own. Someplace where she felt safe and protected.
When she’d lived with her mom, she had always been afraid of the different men parading in and out at all hours of the night and day. Then at the foster homes she had been well-aware that she’d been a guest and, at any moment, they could rescind their hospitality—which they often had. And even at Clarissa’s, she had never once believed that her house was their house. Everything had been Clarissa’s and she hadn’t even been a guest there. She’d been a servant.
But this place…
She looked around the room and let out a breath that she hadn’t needed to take.
This place was hers.
She went over to the sectional and picked it up with ease then walked it over to a different corner.
“Um…Ash, honey.”
“I know, I know,” she said to Hunter. “We already tried this corner, but I was thinking if we put the television on that wall, there won’t be a glare on the screen, so the couch would have to go here. What do you think?” She glanced at him over her shoulder. Her mouth fell open when she saw Trudy, Katalin and a petite woman standing next to him.
“You’re a strong one,” the woman said. The woman stood out—she had a caramel complexion and smoky, light-brown eyes.
Right. She did have a sectional hefted on her shoulder. If she’d still been human, this was where she would’ve blushed. Could she still blush?
She eased the couch onto the floor and used a foot to push it into the corner. “Hello.” Should she approach them? Shake their hands? Would they move away from her? Not knowing what else to do, she clasped her hands behind her back.
She had visitors! She had almost decided not to put on the brown contacts that she’d ordered online when she’d woken up. Hunter had told her that she hadn’t needed the contacts, but she’d put them on every night just in case someone had decided to stop by. She didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable with her freaky red eyes.
She blinked, probably more than she needed to.
“I hope you don’t mind us barging in on you two, but Andras said to give you guys two weeks of alone time, and, well…” Katalin said.
“The two weeks are up,” Trudy finished.
“So it was true?” Ash looked at Hunter. “I-I thought no one visited because…”
“Because you’re a Vampire?” the woman asked. “Girl, I wanted to meet you as soon as you touched down from New York.”
Ash didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They hadn’t been avoiding her because she was a monster after all.
“Ash, this is my best friend, Meisha,” Trudy said, motioning toward the newcomer.
Meisha waved. “Nice to meet you.” She walked into the room and glanced around. “I like the digs. Furniture Haven?”
“Um, no. I ordered it from Lauson’s Furniture Depot.”
Meisha looked over at Trudy. “See, I told you that I should’ve gone there. They have a way better selection.”
Trudy rolled her eyes. “Lajos was tired of sleeping on a pallet on the floor. You didn’t have any more time to hunt around.”
“We did go there,” Katalin said, crossing her arms. “I took you there. But you couldn’t make up your mind about anything.”
Meisha humphed and fell into the love seat. “You guys think that picking out new furniture is easy. It’s not.”
“Right,” Ash said. When they all turned to her, she fidgeted with her hands. “It isn’t, especially if you’ve never had to pick out new furniture before. Like me.”
“Exactly my point!” Meisha said. “Lajos spends most of the night running around in dirt and he gets cranky because he has to sleep on the floor. I wanted the perfect bed.”
Trudy waved her off. “Don’t mind Meisha. Her mother, Katalin and I had to furnish her house because she couldn’t decide on what she wanted. But it looks like you’ve done a pretty good job here, Ash.”
“It was my house!” Meisha yelled.
“And thanks to me and Trudy you now have furniture,” Katalin said, lowering herself into the recliner. “Oh, this is comfy. I might have to get one like this.”
“Soo…I’m going to leave you girls to it, then. I have furniture in the guest room that I need to assemble.”
“Oh! That’s right. We’re getting another Vampire visitor,” Katalin exclaimed. “When is he coming?”
“He’s coming in another month,” Hunter said with a growl.
Adir had offered to send someone to help her get acclimated to the life of a Vampire and, to Hunter’s and her surprise, Andras had agreed to allow it.
“And hopefully, he won’t be staying long. He’ll see that I can control myself and I don’t need his help, then he’ll leave.”
“I don’t want another male hanging around my life-mate,” Hunter grumbled.
“Don’t pout, Hunter,” Meisha said. “It doesn’t become you.”
Hunter peered at Meisha. “Wolf-Shifters don’t pout.”
Both Katalin and Trudy rolled their eyes.
“Shifters don’t pout? Ha!” Meisha said while laughing. “I can tell you plenty of times where Lajos pouted. Why, just this morning…”
Ash slid onto the couch as Meisha began her story, her hands moving through the air animatedly while she spoke.
“I’m definitely not sticking around for this,” Hunter mumbled.
Ash gave him a wave as she listened to Meisha.
Hunter gave her a look. “Are you going to be fine?”
She bit back a smile when Trudy joined in with a story of her own about Kristof. “I’m going to be just right.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ash stood on the sidewalk and watched the small ranch house that sat on the corner of the block. Once, long ago she’d hated that house and everything that it had stood for—her being stuck in the system and dependent on someone else.
She stared at the house. Her Vampiric eyes let her see what her human eyes wouldn’t have ever noticed—the fine cracks in the vinyl siding and mold growing along the bottom trim. There were other obvious signs of disrepair—a crack along the foundation where the siding ended, running alongside a basement window and a section of the front gutter was missing and other parts of gutter were broken and hanging precariously from the roof.
She scanned the lawn, taking in the brown, crunchy grass that hadn’t seen water in weeks. Her vision was crisp as if it were bright outside when there were only two streetlamps on the block. One was quickly losing its power, casting an eerily dull light above the station wagon that was parked by the curb in front of the house. At first whiff, she knew it belonged to Tom. It had his scent—stale beer, cigarettes and body odor.
Hunter touched her arm. She welcomed it.
“You know that we don’t have to do this,” Hunter said softly.
He’d tried to talk her out of her quest when she’d first told him about it. She would make good on her childhood promise to visit everyone who’d said that she would amount to nothing and who’d expected her to end up like her mom—dead. Well, technically she was dead, but it wasn’t because she’d been addicted to drugs, prostituting or hanging out with low-life men, so she felt as if she’d lived up to the promise that she’d made to herself. She’d become something better than what they’d expected—no, that th
ey’d seemed to hope that she would become. She had a good education and once she trusted herself around other people she would join Hunter on Dark Wolf Enterprises’ staff in the Security Office. Andras wanted her as the head stop-loss prevention expert. But most of all, she had Hunter and her Pack. She wanted to let her old foster parents know that she was loved.
“I know. But I want to.”
“Well, if you’re determined to see this through, let’s get on with it. So, how do you want to do this? Knock on the door, tell him how you’re doing and then I punch his teeth in?”
Despite how heavy her heart felt she chuckled. “I think that’s a good plan, except I’ll be the one who makes him eat through a straw.”
He gave her butt a hearty slap. “Your call.”
She knew he was eager to get this over with.
“Let’s go say hello, then.” She plastered a fake smile on her mouth. She didn’t know why, but it was important that Tom saw her happy before she knocked him out.
One step and a noise sounded from the back yard. Not loud enough to alert the neighbors but loud enough for her and Hunter to hear. They both stopped mid-step and listened. She couldn’t pin down what the noise was, but that, coupled with the whispering that followed and her interest piqued.
“It’s not a man,” Hunter said as a statement rather than a question.
“No. A girl.” Then another set of whispers. “Two.”
She started toward the back of the house with Hunter at her side. When they rounded the corner, she spotted the screen on the ground and a skinny jean-clad leg hanging through the window.
Ironically it was the exact same way that she’d escaped eleven years before.
She was on the retreating pair in a flash. Two girls. The resemblance to each other was uncanny. Sisters—large big brown eyes and mocha skin. It took the girls a minute to realize that Ash and Hunter watched them, but when they did notice them, the one who had her leg out of the window yelped and fell back onto the other one.
Ash glanced at Hunter. He lifted a shoulder and extended a hand toward the window. “After you, my love.”
Without missing a beat, she hoisted herself into the room. The girls scrambled, crab-walking away from her as Hunter hopped through the opening as well.
She didn’t want to scare them. She could see the fear in their eyes.
“We weren’t going anywhere, I swear,” the first one said, rushing her words out.
The other girl behind her shook her head vehemently. “The screen fell out and Shavon was going to get it.”
“Lie,” Hunter whispered behind her.
She rolled her eyes. Of course it was a lie. She didn’t need Hunter to confirm it for her. The girls were dressed in warm clothes, had on their coats and had backpacks. They were prepared more than she had been when she’d run away.
“Has he touched you?” Ash asked. Along with not wanting to scare them, she also hadn’t meant to blurt out that question.
The girls exchanged knowing glances.
She balled her hands into fists and narrowed her eyes. “I’ll kill him,” she seethed.
“He hasn’t touched us,” Shavon said. “But…but he keeps looking at Sissy wrong.”
“Is that why you were leaving?” Hunter asked.
Both Shavon and Sissy nodded. “Are you here to take us back to the group home?”
Her heart wasn’t supposed to ache because she was dead, but it did—something bad. “No, honey, I’m not. I’m here to check up on Tom.”
“He makes us call him Daddy Tom,” Sissy said.
“Of course he does,” she said through clenched teeth.
The bedroom door swung open and light from the hallway spilled through the dark bedroom. Someone loomed in the doorway. Ash would have recognized that form anywhere—six-foot four, large build with a belly that extended out farther than it should have. She also recognized the belt that was wrapped around his hand and swung at his side.
“What’s going on in here?” His voice was deep and commanding.
She’d once flinched at the very sound of it. Now she straightened her back as he flicked on the light.
His eyes went to Shavon and Sissy then settled on Hunter and Ash. “Who the hell are you guys and what are you doing breaking into my house? Girls, get over here now.”
The girls looked from Tom to Asha and Hunter. Although they were strangers, Ash could see in their eyes that they were preferred to Tom.
“They aren’t going anywhere, Tom.”
Tom squinted, peering at her. “Who are you? Do I know you?”
She smiled. She’d spent so many years dreaming of this moment and he didn’t even recognize her. She’d finally realized what Hunter had told her—she didn’t need to prove anything to this man. She should’ve let the memory of him go. How could she move on with her life when she couldn’t really get over what had been done to her?
“Asha?” he continued. “Is that you?” Tom shook his head. “It can’t be you. I thought you died.”
She extended her arms out to her sides. “It’s me, in the flesh, coming back to pay you a visit and to make sure that you never do to anyone else what you did to me.”
Tom’s gaze jumped from Ash to Hunter. “What are you talking about, you crazy girl? I ain’t do nothing to you.”
She suddenly felt fifteen again—small and insignificant.
“When you told the case worker that lie, I had to set him straight.” He lifted his belt. “And I had to set you straight, too, remember?”
She almost shrank away from the sight of the thick black belt that hung in the air. The memory of it hitting against her back caused phantom pains.
Tom caught her eyes on the belt and a slow smile crept across his lips. “Oh, I get it. You thought that you were going to come here and tell me a thing or two.” He raked his gaze up and down her body. “You look good. You filled out where it was most important.”
Behind her, Hunter emitted a deep growl.
“This your woman?” Tom laughed. “Well, if it is I feel sorry for you. Did she tell you about her mother? That she was a crack whore? Let me tell you a thing or two, son. The apple never falls far from the tree.” He inclined his head toward Shavon and Sissy. “Just like them two. Their mother can’t get her act together and their daddy ain’t in the picture. I’m thinking about adopting them.” Something predatory flashed behind his eyes. “Bring them up real right.”
“No.” Her voice came out so soft that it was barely a whisper. “What our parents do or have done, don’t define us. These girls can make something of themselves just like I did.”
Tom laughed. “You think that you can break into my house and tell me that you’re different than your mom? What was the plan anyway? Steal my shit and sell it on the street? You ain’t nothing. You’re just like your mom.”
She was on him in a blink of an eye, standing face to face, nose to nose. “I was a young girl and you touched me. You were supposed to care for me, and instead you violated me,” she said, her voice low and deadly.
Tom’s eyes widened.
“I’m not like my mother. I never was.”
He tried to laugh again, but the sound got stuck in his throat. “If you don’t leave here, I’ll call the police.”
“Oh, you are calling the police. But you’re going to tell them what you’ve been doing to the girls that the state has been sending here and you’re going to ask them to come and rescue Sissy and Shavon from you.”
His eyes were as big as saucers. “Wh-why would I do that?” His breath was rancid, smelling of stale cigarettes.
She remembered that breath, hot and smelly on her neck as he’d pressed himself against her. She opened her mouth, making sure that the girls couldn’t see what she was doing and allowed her canines to elongate. Tom watched them grow to fine points and rest on her bottom lip. “You see,” she whispered. “I’m not like my mother at all. I’m more dangerous than she ever was.”
Tom whimpered.
> “I thirst for blood, but tonight I’ll settle for vengeance. Call. The. Police.”
Tom fiddled with his back pocket, finally bringing out his cell phone. By the time he dialed 911, sweat poured from his head. Tom confessed everything to the dispatcher and by the time he finished he was crying. Hunter helped the girls pack their belongings while she stayed in front of Tom and showed him her teeth, toying with him. The sirens sounded down the street, and as they came closer she began to back away.
“I’ll keep checking up on you. No matter where you go, I’ll find you. If you’re around any other children, I will drain you dry.”
A dark wet spot formed in the front of his sweatpants and the smell of urine permeated the air.
She and Hunter made their exit the same way they’d arrived.
“Where are we going next?” Hunter asked while they hid in a bush, watching Tom as the police escorted him from his house in handcuffs.
“Home.”
“No need to visit any others?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m done.”
Epilogue
“You’re sad.”
It was a statement rather than a question. She could feel his sadness as if it were her own. Ash laid her hands and rested her forehead against the door that separated her from Hunter and the guests who’d come to the church to witness their official wedding.
“I am. I miss Erzsebet and I wish she were here to see this day.”
“She may miss this day, but we’ll create more memories with her when she returns.” She didn’t quite know what to say to help ease his grief. She’d never had a sibling before, but she mourned the loss of Erzsebet just the same. Erzsebet was just as much a part of Ash as she was Hunter. She was family.
Andras touched her elbow lightly. “Are you ready?”
She pulled away from the door and looked up at her Alpha. He was dressed in a long-tailed tuxedo and wore his hair slicked back. He wasn’t her father biologically, but he was the closest thing that she had to one.
A father served to protect his daughter, ensure her safety and went out of his way to make sure she felt loved. Andras had done all of that and more since she’d joined his Pack.
Hunter Claimed (Dark Wolf Enterprises Book 3) Page 17
