Burning Days (The Firsts Book 17)

by C. L. Quinn

  “San…”

  She walked away. “Uh, uh. No pity compliments. I get it, you like ‘em looking like they just flew down from the sky.”

  “It isn’t that…”

  “She’s hot. Fuck, I’d do her. I get it. Only, Jack, and this isn’t sour grapes. Be careful. Sometimes when something seems too good to be true, is.”

  “I’ve broken it off with her. San, we can’t do normal boyfriend-girlfriend shit anyway, you know that. And I’m sorry if I missed the cues, I wouldn’t hurt you for anything in this world. You get that, right?”

  Her eyes rolling, she looked into his. Damn, she loved his eyes, his face, that hard body…shit!

  “I do. I know that. Forgive me for acting all the jealous ex when I wasn’t ever even the present. You’re just fucking gorgeous, Jack. I want you. Give me some time to crawl out from under your sway.”

  “Aw, crap, that’s wrong. We have to get past this, I don’t want to lose my best friend.”

  “Never, my buddy, I promise. This girl ain’t got no shortage of hot bods to mount.”

  “That I know, gorgeous. You heard Ife tell you that you were gorgeous?”

  “Yeah, I did. She’s lovely, nice, smart, sexy as all comers, so she’s good for you.”

  “She is. And it’s still over.”

  “Now, Jack…”

  “What is it with you women? I mean it, it’s over. Get used to believing me. Now, where am I going to spend my day?”

  Elias entered, pulling on a vest built to carry extra clips for his handgun.

  “Good morning, team. I assume we are well rested. I believe I went out the moment my head hit my pillow.”

  Sanquinetta approached him with a small tablet.

  “Yeah, me too, sir. I have the revised territories for today’s searches.”

  “Excellent. The others haven’t arrived?”

  Jack looked from Sanquinetta back to his father.

  “To be honest, Dad, we had kind of a late night. We went to Quesh’s for dinner before we turned in.”

  His back straight, Elias pulled the vest down even though it was already positioned. “Ah, well, there must be time to play. Let me know when they arrive.”

  He left swiftly, his eyes on the tablet.

  With a low whistle, Jack stood up and tugged at his shirt the same way his father had. “Wait, what? I thought he was going to chew me out. Dad being reasonable? It’s a new day.”

  “Or, he was hurt that we didn’t invite him.”

  That was a new thought.

  Ten hours of blood, sweat, and tears later, everyone returned from the search, unsuccessful, but with one deep wound that they would treat themselves. Medical kits were pretty complete and could handle a lot of injuries. Theirs could handle a lot more than most.

  Helped into HQ by Buzzkill, Jimbo landed hard on a wood chair, as Sanquinetta moved to place his left leg on a second chair.

  “Hairline fracture?” she said to Elias.

  “I don’t think so. The puncture is deep, though, so we need a Cassin to make sure he doesn’t get an infection. Clean it, wrap it, you know the drill. We’ll monitor you closely, boy, and if you need to go to hospital, we’ll take you.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Buzzkill offered, while preparing the cleaning solution. “I just wish I’d seen that hole before you fell through it.”

  “It isn’t your fault, Buzz. I’ve always been clumsy. That’s why my father didn’t want me to become a hunter. Maybe he was right.”

  “Bullshit. There’s a huge learning curve to fighting supernatural monsters. You’re doing fine. Also, anyone can fall down a hole. Including your asshole father, who, by the way, was a mediocre hunter himself. Just get better and get back to it, James.”

  Jack noticed Jimbo sit a little higher after San’s statement. She was good for the team in every way. He really did love her, not the way she apparently had hoped, but as a lifelong friend he would always trust with his life.

  Assuming he had any days of that life left.

  Ben dropped his weapons on the countertop he liked to sit on. “Damn, you think they might have left the area?”

  “They don’t need to be here to do some serious damage to you two.” Plato laid his stash next to Ben’s. “If he gets your images out to vampires and identifies you as hunters, I don’t know how we protect you.”

  “They go to ground.” Elias looked around the room.

  “Boys, we change your identities, your looks, and you go to ground somewhere far from here. That’s the only way to survive once they know who you are.”

  No fucking way, Jack thought, but he kept it to himself. And yet, at the same time, the idea of disappearing, of living a new life somewhere far from here…appealed.

  “We’re not crossing that bridge yet,” is what he said instead, his eyes on Ben. His face expressionless, Ben leaned against the counter listening to the discussion about his possible future. Jack couldn’t read anything. Was it possible Ben liked the idea too?

  They weren’t born for leisurely lives, for easy jobs, for burying their heads in the sand. They knew what was out there, and although the idea seemed nice, Jack knew he couldn’t just walk away. As he’d said, they weren’t at the point where a decision needed made.

  There was a chance it would still be all right.

  He did, however, decide to make good on his promise to Ife tonight. He would visit her one last time, and although he shouldn’t make love to her, he knew he would. It was a gift to himself, one last moment with a woman he thought he might, as San had blurted out earlier, fall in love with.

  “You guys got this?”

  Her head shot up as Sanquinetta stared at Jack.

  “You got somewhere you gotta be?”

  “I got somewhere I gotta be.”

  After a sigh, she returned her attention to her injured soldier. “Yeah, we got this. Have a great night.”

  Smiling, Jack punched her shoulder on his way out. They were going to be just fine.

  For equal measure, he punched Buzzkill and Ben as well.

  His path to the lookout where he’d first seen Ife was feeling well traveled by now. Anxious to see her, he hurried through the unforgiving sand and stopped just shy of her house.

  Clouds still covered the sky as Jack watched Ife on the balcony just as he had a few nights ago. She wore the simple wrap as she had before, but this one was covered in pale blue flowers, the fabric so thin it barely covered her at all. He approved. God, she was so enticing.

  His hunter instincts as well as that of a man protecting his own, guided him to look around and noticed that she had few options if someone wanted to assault her out here. Small, delicate, Ife wasn’t really safe alone in her friend’s isolated beach house. From vampires or ill-intentioned humans.

  As he approached, he saw her rise from the lounge she’d been reclining on and walk to the railing.

  “Jack,” he heard her whisper. Every part of him responded; his heartbeat picked up, respiration quickened, a sense of joy wrapped with sexual need curled through him. This night would be magic that ended in sorrow.

  Moving closer, Jack stopped just below her.

  “Hi, beautiful naked lady.”

  “Hi, noble stalker.”

  “Is tonight okay for my promised visit?”

  “Any night is okay.”

  As he hopped onto the deck, Jack’s eyes dropped to where the satin wrap split open below her waist. His eyes lifted back to hers.

  Ife shrugged. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  All she wore was the wrap, her charms revealed when Jack dropped his eyes again, then onto his knees to push the wrap further aside as he curved his hands around her bottom and tugged her closer. Ife had to steady herself, her hands on his shoulders, where her nails dug in, deep, and he liked it.

  Lowering his head, he nipped beneath her breasts, then followed the nips with an active tongue. Lowering his head further, he trailed the nips across the top of her thighs, suddenly l
ifting her in his arms. The galley right off the balcony featured a wide granite counter. Perfect.

  He set her on it, pulled a chair up to it, grabbed Ife’s bare feet, and drew her to the edge.

  Sitting up, breathing hard, Ife watched Jack push her wrap off and spread her legs, then all she could see was the top of his head as he dived in with his tongue to pull on the tender folds with his teeth.

  “I’m dining in tonight,” he said, and, showing his skill, Jack pushed his tongue deep while his fingers kneaded Ife from her waist to her buttocks to her upper thighs, igniting her entire body. She began to shake, the shaking revving up when he bit and tongued her. His hot tongue returned to her center, deep again, moving in and out, nipping, tugging, until she succumbed and her orgasm stilled the shaking as she lifted up, pressing into Jack’s still moving tongue as he held her.

  “Oh…” She could barely speak. “…Gods. Ummm…”

  She lowered herself down until she lay on the countertop, her legs caught around Jack.

  Eyes closed, Ife still felt like she was floating.

  “I thought you weren’t going to do that again.”

  “So did I. Guess I lied to both of us. I want you, Ife, every part of you, but I’m a threat to anyone I care about. To my enemy, you would be the perfect hostage.”

  Sliding off the counter, Ife pulled her wrap tight and faced Jack. “Hostage?”

  “That’s probably the wrong word. He’d brutally kill you just to piss me off.” Jack pulled her into his arms. “To hurt me.”

  He was already hurting, she could feel it. She tried once more to get him to tell her.

  “Jack, what do you do that is so dangerous?”

  Ife knew he wouldn’t tell her as he shook his head again. “Again, I can’t say, it’s class…”

  Yes, he could.

  She caught his eyes and pushed the compulsion she didn’t want to use. “Jack, tell me what you do for a living.”

  Typical of human response to compulsion, Jack’s eyes, unfocused, didn’t move from hers.

  “I’m a hunter. It’s a family business that goes back almost a century.”

  Hunting. Distasteful, but hardly dangerous to anyone but the prey.

  “Jack, how does that endanger me or your friends?”

  “Because of what I hunt. Something you won’t believe, but they’re real and deadly. They feed on us and kill us.”

  Heart thudding now, Ife’s eyes searched his, the balcony to her back to support her. He couldn’t mean…

  “Jack, what do you hunt?”

  “I kill an abomination of nature designed to live off of human blood. They used to be human and they’re smart. Right now, one of them has gotten a bead on me and Ben. I’m a vampire hunter, Ife.”

  Blood was life, especially for a vampire, but at this moment, this terrible moment, hers surged through her body, cold, tingling.

  Jack hunted, killed, vampires?

  No, no, no…

  Jack continued without prompting.

  “Ife, if he finds you, discovers that I’m falling in love with you, he’ll take you, he’ll rape you, feed from you. He’ll kill you.”

  Trying to process what Jack told her, what he and all those people she’d met, and liked, around that table a few nights ago, that they killed her kind, was too much. She needed to know more to understand. But not right now. Not yet.

  In the heat of the moment, blood running cold through it, she almost missed Jack’s declaration. Under compulsion, he admitted he was falling in love with her.

  Falling in love with a vampire. A laugh escaped as she thought about how shocked he would be to find out that she was vampire. And that she felt the same way; that she’d wondered if he could be a vampire’s mate. And that now she had no idea what to feel.

  Ife touched Jack’s face, which she loved to look at, to kiss, to see his slightly crooked smile, her eyes sliding lower to appreciate his heavily muscled body.

  He was such a beautiful man, she knew that, she’d read his aura. Kind, loving, generous, protective, he’d mentioned that he’d been raised to be noble, so she assumed that his family thought that what they did was right.

  She let her fingers linger on his jawline. “Jack, I’m going to have you tell me more, but I need a moment. Go lie down in my bed and sleep until I wake you.”

  Without hesitation or a word, Jack did as asked.

  Sighing, Ife walked onto the balcony to the railing seeking air and distance from Jack’s revelation.

  “He’s a vampire hunter,” she blurted out to the sea, the thirtieth time the phrase ran through her mind since he told her.

  What the hell was she supposed to do with this information?

  Logically, what?

  “Okay, I need more details. Who, why, how? Then, he said that he and Ben were being hunted. Okay. Same questions. Who, why, how? Third, what I am to do? I can’t do nothing, not now that I know there are vampire hunters out there killing vampires.”

  She turned to lean against the railing. “But these are not bad guys. These are not evil men like we’ve run into before. Ugh.”

  Actually, she knew what she had to do. She had to call in reinforcements to deal with it.

  First, what to do about Jack and Ben.

  Walking to her bedroom, she shook her head at the folly of her plan. Tonight, she had thought to reveal her nature so that she could feed, see what Jack’s reaction was, and use compulsion to purge him before he left.

  “Obviously I won’t be revealing myself to you now.”

  He looked so perfect lying there next to where she lay her own head. If only he wasn’t a murderer.

  Stop. That wasn’t fair and it wasn’t true. She hoped. Only one way to find out.

  “Jack. Wake up.”

  Eyes opening, he rolled over to see her above him and smiled. “Beautiful naked lady. In my bed. I must be dreaming.”

  “You’re not.” Her voice sounded harsh, even to herself. Well, this was an interrogation, so it was appropriate.

  “Jack, sit up.”

  Once he had, she got comfortable on the bed, lifting her face into a refreshing breeze.

  “Tell me about your hunting, about your family, and about the threat against you and Ben.”

  “Okay.” Under Ife’s compulsion, Jack told her the story of his life.

  On the other side of town, Ben stopped for a couple of bottles of whisky. The guys had helped him kill his home supply last week, and he was pretty sure that he might need a glass or two to get to sleep tonight. Things were just so fucked up.

  Elias had warned him and Jack to stay clear of camera feeds, which nearly every business had, especially downtown, but he was hitting a tiny convenience store near his apartment. The clerks knew him well, and while the little market had vid feeds, he knew that they weren’t tied into the city system, so no one could track him from there.

  Either way, he was getting the whisky. He needed rest if he was going to fight this vampire and survive. While he needed a better fucking attitude, too, that wasn’t going to happen.

  Ben had been trying to decide for several months what he wanted to do. Needed to do. It was true that he was a good hunter, trusted, a great partner, but he hated what he did. He hated killing, living with a gun strapped around his waist and a dagger or two on his thighs, burning vampires before they came back to life. A person had to be cut out for this, and he wasn’t. There had to be a better life waiting for him out there, he prayed, and it was past time to find it.

  This situation, being outed by a vampire as a hunter, was the best thing that had ever happened to him. It forced the decision, he didn’t have to agonize over doing the right thing, and while he wanted his father to be proud of him, he couldn’t stay for him.

  Finally, he’d be free to live the life he wanted to live. If all went well, since his brother was outed too, Jack would come with him and they could find easy, normal jobs. They could marry and have families with kids that wouldn’t be expected to grow up t
o be hunters.

  He wouldn’t have to wash blood out of his clothes every other night, or worry that he or one of his friends wouldn’t be coming home some night.

  Honestly, he was okay if they never found this vampire. First, he had a bad feeling about this one, just like Sanquinetta had, only his was based on what he saw in the vampire’s eyes that night. Something that shook him to his core; he didn’t know what to think of it. These creatures were supposed to be feeding machines that killed without remorse. Ruthless killers made from innocent people. Yet that night, he’d seen vengeance in his eyes, but beyond that, pain. That they had killed his friends, members of his clan…had Ben seen grief in a vampire?

  Either way, he was done. He would join the search one last day and then let his father know he was leaving; hope that his brother would come too. It was the sane choice.

  Ben thought about Polly. It was too late to nourish that possible relationship. He would have to leave Polly behind, a thought that twisted his gut. This life ripped the heart out of hunters.

  “Fuck, I’m glad I’m gone.”

  “Where are you going?”

  A soft voice behind Ben, close behind him, made him whirl, a habit born of training, but when he saw the tiny woman, he let his hunting instincts drop.

  She was hot, liquid oil-colored eyes luminous, dark lush hair pulled into a messy bun with tendrils escaping in all directions. The tee shirt she wore had been stretched well beyond its endurance as it struggled to fit around extremely generous globes. He couldn’t help it, his eyes dropped to where her nipples peeked above the top of the torn neckline.

  Sexy as hell, she leaned against the shelf that held a wide variety of whisky. “Hi. I’m Billie. Just heard your comment. So, where are you going handsome?”

  “Um, nowhere yet. Hi. I’m Ben.”

  Billie slid her hand into Ben’s, enjoying the warmth. Damn, he really was handsome for a human. Too bad about his fate. Saul’s plan wouldn’t fail, so this young man’s fate was sealed.