4-Ever Hunted: Vampires Rule

by Blake, Kasi

  She circled halfway around the table to look directly at his face. “Just when I thought your ego couldn’t get bigger. Oh my gosh! You want a theme song?”

  He shoved the chair back and leaped to his feet. “I didn’t say I wanted one. Somebody mentioned that Swift’s song ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ should be my theme song, and I was wondering what you’d think about that. Excuse me for asking.”

  Her giddy laughter followed him to the fridge. He pulled out a bottle of root beer, but didn’t bother to offer her any since she was being a butt.

  She folded arms over her chest and jutted her left hip out. “Seriously, I think you should talk to your shrink about your narcissistic personality. Maybe you shouldn’t skip your therapy sessions so often.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m not even kidding.” She stopped laughing, but her eyes still held a glint of amusement. “Who was talking to you about theme songs? Was it one of those brainless mannequins at school that follow you around with puppy-dog eyes?”

  No way was he telling her it was Dani. “Forget it.”

  Scarlet smirked. “Want to know why I call you Ape-face?” After he nodded, she said, “I do it because I am your best friend, and I feel it’s my job to keep you grounded in reality. The girls at school treat you like you’re a rock star. It’s sickening to watch. You are not a rock star. Okay? So get over yourself.”

  She put her hands on his shoulders and stared into his eyes with the expression of someone telling a four-year-old why it was wrong for them to take candy from another kid. “Reno isn’t that big,” Scarlet said. “Someday you’ll move to a city so you can hunt, maybe Chicago or New York, a place filled with gorgeous guys, and I don’t want you to be crushed when you don’t measure up.”

  He pursed his lips and waited for her to finish.

  “You’re cute, monkey-face, but you’re not as drop-dead irresistible as you think you are. I blame the stupid girls in this town. They haven’t done you any favors by letting you think they’d die for you.”

  “Are you done?” he asked.

  Wide-eyed, she nodded and tried to look innocent as if she hadn’t been pushing his buttons on purpose.

  “Are you sure your brother isn’t here?” Baxter asked in a loud voice from the foyer.

  Trick lifted a finger to his mouth, warning Scarlet to keep hers shut. He went to the open arch where the kitchen met the wide hallway leading to the front door, and he listened to his brother’s answer.

  “Sorry, no,” Matt said. “He hasn’t come home from school yet.”

  Matt wasn’t the best liar. He had at least a dozen ‘tells’ when he was trying to fake someone out. The guy definitely shouldn’t play poker, unless he wanted to lose every dime he had. He didn’t know how to bluff, and Baxter was great at reading body language. It would take her half a second to realize Trick was in the kitchen.

  He should have asked Scarlet to talk to her instead.

  After a quick wave at his hunting buddy, he sprinted out the back door and ran smack into Dani.

  His hands grabbed her shoulders so she wouldn’t fall after the impact.

  She grinned at him from behind dark sunglasses. “Sneaking out like a cat burglar just to avoid my stepmother? Don’t worry. I totally get it.”

  He held his hands up as he heard Baxter calling for her. “Please...”

  “Get down!” Dani slammed her hands against his chest, knocking him backward.

  He crashed into the bush behind him, fell sideways, and landed behind it. Baxter’s two-inch heels clicked on the cement walk, getting louder by the second. He rolled onto his stomach. If he kept quiet and didn’t move, she wouldn’t know he was there. Because there was nothing else he could do, he listened to the terse conversation between stepparent and stepchild.

  “Shouldn’t you be at gymnastics?” Baxter asked.

  “I was just leaving.”

  “Tardy people steal time from others.”

  Dani sighed. “Talking to me about me being late is making me later, Claudia.”

  “No one likes a smart mouth, Danielle. Perhaps that’s part of the problem, why your grades have slipped this year. If I were you, I’d concentrate on fixing them. You wouldn’t want to disappoint your father.”

  The clicking heels retreated, and Dani mumbled to herself. “Maybe my grades are down because you have me doing too many things, and I don’t have time to think.”

  Trick jumped up, and Dani jerked as if she’d forgotten he was there. Her face flushed. She started to walk away, but he couldn’t let her go without saying something. “Thanks for not ratting me out.”

  She gestured to the door. “You can go back inside. I doubt she’ll bother you again today. Wish I could say the same.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Did you get your necklace? I left it in the mailbox.”

  “Yeah. I got it.”

  “You aren’t wearing it.”

  “Broken chain,” he reminded her.

  She flushed pink. “Sorry. I can buy you a new one.”

  He shook his head, knowing the charm had turned to ashes; he didn’t need a new chain. But he wasn’t going to explain that to her. She didn’t know magic existed. He certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell her. She was his person, the one person he needed to keep in the dark. As long as she was secure in her world, everything was okay in his.

  His cell buzzed in his pocket. Private number. He stared at a text that was obviously from Summer. The vampire girl wanted him to meet her in a warehouse on the edge of town so they could ‘talk.’

  “I’ve got a... date. Need to get going.”

  He turned for the garage, but Dani’s voice stopped him.

  “If you leave on your motorcycle, Claudia will know you were hiding from her. She’ll be on the phone with Laura before you can reach the end of the block.”

  He pursed his lips, and his gaze swung from the text to Dani’s little red car waiting in her driveway. “Any chance you can give me a ride? I can take a taxi home later. You’d be doing me a huge favor.”

  “Well, doing you favors is what I live for.”

  “Forget it.” He sighed. “I’ll push my bike down the block before I start it.” He remembered his guest. “Or I can ask Scarlet for a lift.”

  The mention of Scarlet made Dani more compliant. Pasting on a smile, she asked, “Where do you want me to drop you?”

  He showed her the address on the text. It was a rough part of town, somewhere Dani probably never went. She didn’t question it or complain. Nodding at him, she dug her keys out of her bag and hurried to her car with him on her heels. He walked fast and kept his head low. Hopefully, the nosy doctor wouldn’t peer out the window at the wrong moment. Baxter was crazy enough to chase them down the street.

  ♫

  They didn’t get far before Dani started throwing questions at him. Maybe he would have been better off dealing with her stepmother. At least Baxter was more interested in his past than in his future. Dani was goal-oriented, but he just wanted to deal in the moment. He stiffened in the passenger seat and considered jumping out of Dani’s little red car.

  “Did you hear me?” She repeated her question. “Who is your date with? Anyone I know?”

  “No.” He bit the word off in the hope she would hear the frustration in his voice and stop asking.

  “I’m giving you a ride, missing my gymnastics class, and risking a lecture from my stepmother. The least you can do is satisfy my curiosity. What sort of girl does Trick Donovan like?”

  How was he supposed to tell her that when he didn’t know? So far the girls he’d gone out with couldn’t hold his interest for more than five minutes. They were shallow or weak-willed or downright crazy. Sometimes all of the above. He certainly wasn’t going to make a verbal list for Dani.

  He shrugged. “You’ve seen me date.”

  “I wouldn’t call what you do dating.”

  He stiffened in his seat. “What does that mean?”


  She stopped at a yellow light instead of gunning it and turned in her seat. Good thing no one was behind them. While she basically told him he was a crappy person, he kept thinking about how brown her eyes were, like melting chocolate. Not the stuff you grabbed at the check-out stand as a last minute purchase, but the dark chocolate they kept in the back, the good kind that only a trained Chocolatier could appreciate.

  “Dating usually means you take a girl somewhere like a movie or bowling or to a school dance. Normal guys spend time talking to them, flirting, and trying to get into their pants. Everyone that sees them knows they’re on a date. It’s obvious they’re a couple.

  “But I’ve heard girls talk about their dates with you, and they all have similar stories. You invite them out, but you don’t pick them up. They have to meet you, and you always pick the place. Somewhere crowded. You give them attention for like five minutes. Then you wind up surrounded by kids from school. After that you spend most of your time talking to the crowd instead of to the girl. Some of the girls complained they didn’t know if they were even on a date. A few admitted to having wild make-out sessions with you in their car, but said you never bothered to call them again. A couple even admitted they’d wanted to do a lot more than kiss, but you didn’t seem interested.”

  He was your average, red-blooded American boy, and he thought about sex almost as much as he thought about hunting. He had good reasons for not wanting to go that far just yet. One, girls got clingy after a non-eventful date. He could only imagine what they were like after sex. Two, the last thing he needed was to get a girl pregnant. His dream of being the world’s greatest hunter would die with that news. Three, he’d overheard Sean and his friends talking about their first time. Apparently, sex was something you had to work at to get good, and he was already focused on hunting.

  If he was being totally honest, he would have to admit that no girl could hold his interest except for one. He’d had his eyes on the neighbor girl since moving in with the Donovan family, and he wouldn’t dream of making a sexual move on her. Her father would murder him in his sleep if he even thought about it. What could he say without giving away his true feelings?

  To keep her off the scent of the real story, he flipped the conversation of bad-dates her way.

  “Do you really think you should be pointing fingers, One-Date-Foster?”

  The color drained from Dani’s face.

  Regret sank his heart, but he wasn’t good with apologies. The word ‘sorry’ stuck in his throat. He turned to stare out the side window. If she hated him now, it was probably a good thing. She’d be better off keeping her distance.

  The light turned green, and she drove in silence for a while.

  “Do you think I don’t know that’s what they call me?”

  The abrupt question caught him off guard.

  “So what if they do?” He shrugged. “It’s not wrong to have high standards.”

  Chin up, she announced, “I can tell within ten minutes of talking to a boy that he’s not the one for me. My friends say I’m going to be alone forever because I don’t give a guy a chance, but I know what I know. Why should I waste my time on someone without staying power, someone who won’t be important in my life later?”

  “Yeah.” He thought about high school dating for a minute. In his opinion, it should be outlawed. Hardly anyone was ready for a stressful relationship at that point. “Do the girls have a nickname for me?”

  “Does jerk count?” She flashed him a grin. Then her expression sobered. “Guys don’t get made fun of the way girls do.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  He was surprised to realize he meant it, and he was ashamed of every nasty locker room conversation he’d participated in over the years. Didn’t matter if they were easy or froze the guy out, when boys got together to talk about girls, it almost always boiled down to insults. To hear them talk, girls were either prudes or sluts. No middle ground.

  “Tell me about it.” She smiled at him again. “Hey, I’ll give you a nickname if you want. How about Two-Timing-Trick? Or what about Drop-Dead-Donovan? Since so many girls wish you would... drop dead, I mean.”

  “Maybe One-Date-Foster and Drop-Dead-Donavon should go out.”

  A blanket of awkward silence settled over the car, and once again he wished he’d kept his big mouth shut. They drove five miles in silence. Dani focused her eyes on the road as if she needed all her concentration for driving.

  “We have absolutely nothing in common,” she said. “Don’t take this as a rejection. I used to want you to ask me out. I had a major crush on you when I was a kid and didn’t know any better. It would be a disaster if we got together.”

  Trick bit the inside of his cheek to keep from blurting out the truth, that he knew she still had a crush on him. He’d read the thoughts in her mind while inside her head, but he couldn’t tell her that. She would think he was crazy—or a freak.

  He spread his hands and said, “Opposites attract.”

  “Attraction isn’t the problem. I have a feeling you would be a horrible influence on me and turn my life upside-down.”

  She wasn’t wrong.

  He grinned. “Might be fun.”

  They stopped in front of a warehouse with the address Summer had sent him The numbers were written in white paint above the door. No one seemed to be around.

  “Here you go.” She bent down and peered through the window at the eyesore of a building. “Why would a girl want to meet you in a place like this?”

  He said the first thing that popped into his head. “She’s a little wild.”

  Dani nodded. “There you are, the perfect match for you.”

  He got out, but he bent down to say goodbye. “Thanks for the ride.”

  Dani forced a smile. “Anytime.”

  ♫

  Trick stood next to the warehouse’s metal door and waited for Dani’s car to disappear around the corner. He pulled the wooden stake from his inner jacket pocket before jerking the door open. Cautious, he stepped into the dark interior. The invitation could be a trap. Part of him hoped it was so he could dust Summer and her friends. If he only managed to kill her today, her vampire buddies might go into hiding. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to find them.

  He blinked, and his eyes slowly adjusted.

  Hundreds of crates stacked on skyscraper-high metal shelves made him feel like a grasshopper in a land of giants. The cement floor was dirty, soiled in places by grease. Or maybe it was oil. There were too many places for the vampires to hide.

  Maybe he should make a quick exit.

  The vampire girl stepped into the open and grinned. “You showed? I owe my friend Cowboy twenty dollars.”

  Trick’s fingers tightened around the stake. “By the time this is over you’re going to wish I’d stayed home.”

  She rolled her eyes, unimpressed by the weapon in his hand. “Do you want to hear about the Shadow Faerie or not?”

  “Not.” He circled her. Any second now the fangs would come out, and she’d attack. Then he’d bury the stake deep in her chest. This time he’d be sure not to miss her heart. “I thought I made it clear I don’t believe in them.”

  “You will.” Summer slid her hands into her jean pockets. “It followed us here to Reno, because someone powerful put a price on our heads. Shadow Faeries are assassins, only they don’t do it for money. They kill because it’s what they were built for.”

  Could she be telling the truth?

  “What powerful thing holds the leash on this Shadow Faerie?”

  “Oberon.”

  Trick did a double-take. He must have heard her wrong. “Are you telling me the storybook king of faeries is real?”

  Summer went on a rant, and she moved deeper into the warehouse as she berated him for his disbelief.

  Left without a choice if he wanted answers, he followed her.

  Her voice raised a notch and lost the cool I-don’t-care-about-anything filter. “What are you finding so hard to believe here?
You’ve seen vampires and werewolves and probably a handful of ghosts by now. Right? Faeries exist. They’re not like Tinkerbell. They wield a great deal of power. I’ve seen it. They’re evil, they live in the realm next to ours, and they love to kill mortals.”

  “Do they suck the life out of people?”

  Her crystal blue eyes widened. “You did your homework. Good. They are real, and they are nasty beasts that normal people don’t want to mess with.”

  “I was just humoring you.” His lips parted on a short burst of laughter. “I think you’re the craziest girl I’ve ever met, and I’m trying to decide if I should stake you or put you in a psych ward.”

  She hissed at him, flashing sharp fangs, and his heart skipped a beat.

  Finally, the monster was showing her true face. She was ready to attack, and he was ready to kill. But she didn’t make a move in his direction. Instead, she took a few steps backward. That was when he heard the weird noise.

  Tap...tap...tap.

  She stared at him through frightened eyes, a rabbit cornered by a fox. “Looks like you’re going to get the proof you want.”

  Tap... tap... tap.

  Chuckling, he asked, “Are you saying that’s a faerie?”

  “It’s the Shadow Faerie, and you won’t think it’s so damn funny when it catches us. We have to get out of here.”

  Tap... tap... tap.

  Trick stood his ground, determined to kill something tonight. He made a silent promise to himself. If she was lying about the Shadow Faerie, it would be her dead at his feet. If she was telling the truth, he would bag himself a rare supernatural gem.

  “I’m not running from a noise,” he said.

  She grabbed him by the arm and tried to drag him away from the sound. With her enhanced strength it was difficult for him to stand his ground. The Tug-of-War ended when he placed the pointy end of his stake against the silky white material over her beating heart.

  “You’re a psycho!” she stage-whispered.

  “If it’s real, I want to see it.”

  Trick took a sneak peek around the shelf. The so-called Shadow Faerie looked like an old man in a black robe that was three sizes too big. In fact, the thing reminded him of the wizard holding Darth Vader’s leash in Star Wars. Nothing scary about that.