The Huntress

by Lisa Childs

He shook his head. “I don’t understand why you think your sister is dead. Her body was never found.”

  Her heart clenched. “You would know.” And she was glad now that she hadn’t pulled the trigger yet. “What did you do with her? Where is she?”

  Unlike her parents, Eve didn’t need her sister’s body to accept that Jennifer was gone. And knowing what he’d done to her, she didn’t really want to see it. But her parents wanted it, wanted to bury Jennifer’s remains, so that they could find peace at last. Eve hadn’t given them anything else they’d wanted from her; maybe she could give them this. Then she could find her own peace the only way she could: by killing her sister’s murderer.

  “Tell me where she is!” she demanded.

  He shook his head, and his silky-looking hair brushed across his wide shoulders. “I can’t…”

  She narrowed her eyes and studied his, losing herself in the dark, fathomless depths. “You could. But you won’t.” She shoved the stake harder against his chest. “Tell me or I’ll pull this trigger and end your eternity right now!”

  “You’re going to kill me anyway,” he pointed out. “You might as well do it now because I can’t tell you something I don’t know.”

  She trembled as doubt eroded her resolve. What if she was wrong about his having murdered Jennifer? Her heart leaped with hope at the thought, not that she believed her sister was alive. She couldn’t believe that; Jennifer wouldn’t have stayed away for twenty years unless she was dead.

  But Eve didn’t want Andre to be a killer; she didn’t want to kill him—not when there was something she’d rather do with him. Even with the gun between them, her body warmed from its proximity to his, her skin tingling. And she could taste him yet on her lips, the bittersweet flavor of dark passion.

  “You’re telling me you’re not the reason my sister is gone?”

  A muscle twitched in his jaw, and he shook his head. “I can’t tell you that either.”

  Tears stung her eyes, tears of regret and loss for what could have been, but she blinked them back. “It was you then. It was your fault.”

  So she had to pull the trigger, for Jennifer and for any other victims he’d taken or might take if he wasn’t stopped. If she didn’t stop him now…when she had the chance. But she hesitated yet, waiting for him to fight her. But he stood as stoically as he had since she’d pressed the stake to his heart, awaiting his fate.

  The fate that was in her hands.

  “It was your fault,” she murmured again, almost apologetically, as she crooked her finger and began to squeeze the trigger.

  “It was my fault,” a soft voice murmured from the darkest shadows of the alley.

  Finally Andre moved, whirling toward those shadows as Eve did the same. It was too dark for her to see who had joined them. But Andre murmured, “Jennifer…”

  Eve shuddered. “No…”

  It couldn’t be.

  But a flame flickered to life from the match held between the pale fingers of the woman standing in the narrow passage between the two brick buildings. Her hair, a dark gold, glinted in the light, and her green eyes glowed.

  Eve shook her head. “It’s not you,” she said. “It can’t be you…” Because that meant that Jennifer had left her of her own free will. She hadn’t been taken from Eve—she’d deserted her. “No…”

  “I’m sorry, baby sister,” the ghost replied. But the woman, despite looking exactly the same as she had twenty years ago, was no ghost. She wasn’t transparent. She was solid; she was real. Then she was gone again, leaving Eve with nothing more than that brief apology.

  “No!” Eve screamed. “No!” She shoved her makeshift weapon into her pocket and ran after the woman. But strong arms caught Eve, holding her back. She wriggled, fighting him now as she should have fought him earlier—when he’d kissed her. But he was strong, his arms so heavily muscled, that she couldn’t even ease his grasp on her. “Let me go!”

  Instead of arguing with her, he lifted her—not just into his arms but into the dark sky. Cool air rushed over Eve as they flew high above the streets of Zantrax. She dared not struggle anymore for fear that he might drop her. Her stomach tight with nerves, she squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the glittering lights far below, and clutched at him.

  But it wasn’t just fear that had her holding on so tightly. Even if her feet had stayed on the ground, she would have been reeling. She, Eve Williams, had nearly killed a man for a murder he hadn’t committed.

  Her sister was alive.

  Andre shouldn’t have brought her here. She already knew too much about him: where he taught and where he hung out. Now she knew where he lived. Not that she seemed at all interested in his underground apartment with its Venetian plastered walls and archways and its dark coffered ceiling.

  Instead of gazing around, she stared down at the hardwood floor. Her arms wrapped around herself as if she needed comfort, but she remained tense, as if unable to accept it even from herself.

  Andre wanted to hold her close again, but he didn’t trust himself to offer her only comfort if he did. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She shook her head, tumbling her wind-tangled hair around her shoulders. “No…”

  “Can I get you anything?”

  She shivered, probably chilled from the flight to his apartment. He didn’t live many blocks from the club, but the night air was cold.

  “Coffee,” he offered, stepping closer. “I can brew a pot. Or hot chocolate or tea.” She glanced up at him as if surprised that he had beverages besides blood on hand. He enjoyed human comforts, like spirits. “Whiskey?”

  She shook her head again.

  “You need something warm,” he urged her. She needed something to bring her out of the shock of discovering her sister wasn’t actually dead.

  She dragged in a deep breath as if bracing herself. “I need the truth.”

  “I haven’t lied to you,” he promised.

  She lifted her gaze to his face, and her green eyes shimmered with tears. “You’re the only one.”

  “Your sister didn’t lie to you,” he defended Jennifer.

  “She just left.”

  “And with her being gone so long, you assumed she was dead,” he said. It was his fault Jennifer hadn’t been able to stay in touch with her younger sister. He was the reason for Eve’s loss and pain.

  She nodded again, and a tear streaked down her wind-reddened cheek. “I was certain of it—even before he told me she was dead.”

  “He?” Andre asked, and a strange feeling rushed over him. Foreboding or jealousy?

  “He’s the man who told me about you, about what you are.” Her delicate throat moved as she swallowed. “About what you’d done.”

  “And this man is the one who told you to find me and kill me?” he asked, as he began to understand how Eve had become a huntress.

  She bit her lip and shook her head again. “That was my idea.”

  Andre doubted that or she wouldn’t have hesitated over pulling the trigger and impaling his heart with the stake. “But he told you how?”

  She nodded now. “He taught me how to hunt you down and kill you when I found you. He gave me the gun that he made especially…especially for…”

  Since she couldn’t even say it, he had no doubt now that she wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger.

  “Who is he?” The man had to be a member of the secret society. No human could know about vampires and live let alone understand how hard it was to actually pound a stake into the heart of one.

  She shivered, as if she couldn’t get warm again despite the heat emanating from the rattling old radiators in his apartment. Andre wondered if it was the cold flight or thoughts of the man that chilled her. “He told me that his name is Liam McKiernan.”

  That name meant nothing to Andre. He shook his head in frustration. Who was the guy and what was his motivation in turning Eve into a huntress?

  “But I don’t know if that was just another lie,” she admitted,
“like Jennifer being dead.”

  She wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t exactly alive either. Andre needed to explain that to her. But her pain had his stomach twisting into knots and his heart aching for her.

  “Why would she do that—why would she leave and let me and our parents believe she was dead?” More tears streamed down her face. “Why would she do that to me?”

  Unable to stop himself, Andre reached for her and pulled her into his arms. “She did it for you,” he assured her, stroking his hands down her back. “She was protecting you.”

  “Protecting me?” She wedged her hands between them, her palms against his chest, and shoved him back.

  He only eased his hold on her but didn’t release her. He couldn’t let her go. Not now. For her safety, maybe not ever…

  “Jennifer was the fragile one,” she said, “the broken one. I’ve always been the strong one. I don’t need anyone to protect me.” She sniffled back her tears and lifted her chin with pride. “I don’t need anyone.”

  “You do now,” he insisted. “You found out something you can’t know. You need protection.” From the members of the society who would hunt her down and kill her like she’d hunted him. “I’ll protect you.”

  Her lips curved into a slight smile, but he couldn’t tell if she was amused or doubtful. “You will?”

  “Yes,” he assured her. “It’s why I brought you here. I need to hide you. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”

  “You’re going to keep me safe—after what I did?” she asked, her green eyes narrowed with suspicion and confusion. “I nearly killed you.”

  “You didn’t.” Andre was certain she wouldn’t have pulled the trigger, even if her sister hadn’t appeared.

  Eve pressed her palm harder against his heart, her brow furrowing as if she counted its hard, steady beats. “I intended to kill you.”

  “You couldn’t.”

  “If not for Jennifer showing up, I would have,” she insisted. “I would have killed you.” The tears flowed again, streaking down her face to drip from her chin. “I would have…”

  Andre shook his head in denial of her claim. “You’re not a killer.”

  “No,” she agreed. “But I would have become one. I would have ended your life. And then I would have regretted it. I would have regretted so much…” She slid her palms up his chest and around his neck. Then she pulled his head down until his mouth met hers.

  She kissed him with so much passion, her lips pressing hard against his, that Andre’s mind went blank. His body taut with desire, his pulse pounding erratically, he couldn’t remember all the explanations he owed her. He also couldn’t remember ever wanting any other woman so quickly and so desperately.

  Her fingers tangled in his hair, clutching his mouth to hers. Her tongue slipped through his lips and stroked across his, back and forth. His fangs extended, growing longer and sharper. He pulled back, so that he wouldn’t hurt her. So that he could control himself.

  Between pants for breath, he warned her, “You don’t want to do this.”

  Her lips, swollen from the passion with which she’d kissed him, curved into that sexy, slight smile again. “I want to.” She reached for him again, her fingers clutching in his sweater as she tugged up the cashmere and pulled it over his head. “I want you…”

  He groaned as her lips skimmed over his chest. He clutched at her head, and her hair tangled around his fingers like ropes binding him to her. “Eve, there’s so much you don’t know yet.” So much he had to tell her.

  “I know what I need to know,” she said, her breath warm against his skin as she pressed another kiss to his heart.

  He groaned and tried to pull back. But she followed him, pressing her body against the taut, straining muscles of his. “Eve, there are things I need to explain to you, so that you can understand everything….”

  “We can talk later,” she said, and fear glinted in her eyes, as if she was afraid of what she might learn. “I don’t want to talk now. I don’t want to think. I don’t want to do anything but feel.” Her teeth, her straight short human teeth nipped at him and slammed his pulse into overdrive. “I just want you….”

  A growl burning his throat, he uttered it as his control snapped. He couldn’t deny her—not when it was what he wanted too.

  Chapter Three

  Was this what she wanted? Doubts niggled, as they had when she’d been about to pull the trigger and release the stake. So Eve pulled back slightly.

  But Andre gave her no time to reconsider the rashness of her actions. He swung her up in his strong arms, muscles rippling under the skin she had bared when she’d pulled off his sweater. He epitomized the perfect masculine body with the sculpted muscles of his hair-dusted chest and the bulging muscles of his arms. At nearly six foot, she was no lightweight, but he carried her effortlessly, striding down a short hall. Then he kicked open a door to a dimly lit bedroom. Gold satin sheets glowed in the light of the candle chandelier hanging from a dark beam in the ceiling.

  After laying her down on the bed, he stepped back and reached for the belt of his black pants. Eve jumped up, and his hand stilled.

  “You’ve changed your mind?” he asked, his voice a raspy whisper. A muscle twitched along his jaw, as if he struggled for control.

  Eve shook her head then shrugged off her jacket. The leather coat dropped to the hardwood floor with a clatter of metal, because of the flashlight and the gun in the pockets. Although the noise wasn’t loud, she winced as she remembered what she’d nearly done to him. Guilt squeezed the breath from her lungs, so that she gasped. “I’m sorry.”

  He closed his eyes, his lashes dark against his chiseled cheeks. “It’s okay.” He groaned. “Hell, it’s probably good that you changed your mind. This was a bad idea. We need to talk.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” she said. She reached for his belt now.

  Even with his eyes still closed, he caught her fingers in his hand, and his grasp was tight. “Eve…”

  Had he changed his mind? Didn’t he want her?

  Eve shouldn’t have been surprised. No one else had ever wanted her—just for her—only as a cure or a substitute for the one they really loved. Steeling herself for another rejection, she lifted her gaze to his face. With his black hair shining in the candlelight and his sharply featured face all planes and shadows, he was so damned handsome it was ridiculous. He could have any woman he wanted; she’d been crazy to think that he might want her.

  His eyes open again, he stared down at her. She wasn’t used to that. At over six foot in heels, not too many people ever looked down on Eve. The candlelight reflected in his eyes, as if they burned. With desire for her?

  “I want you,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “I want you too much.”

  Her pulse tripped, racing away at his words and the intensity of his stare. He released her hand, but before she could reach for him, he’d caught her close. His fingers tangled in her hair, and he held her head still as he made love to her mouth. His tongue slid through her lips, in and out, across her tongue and along the even line of her teeth.

  She shuddered as his fangs scraped across her lip.

  Panting for breath he pulled back and promised, “I won’t hurt you.”

  He hadn’t lied to her about her sister, so she had no reason to doubt him now. But with everyone else having lied to her, she had no reason to trust him either. She could only listen to her own instincts.

  This time when she reached for his belt, he didn’t stop her. Instead he sucked in an audible breath and his abs rippled as her knuckles brushed across his skin. She unclasped the belt and unbuttoned his pants. But before she could unzip them, he jerked back and shook his head.

  “You first,” he said.

  Her fingers trembled as she lifted her sweater, pulling it up and over her head. Then she unzipped her skirt and let it drop down over the boots. He groaned and his eyes darkened even more as she stood before him in nothing but lacy underwear and those t
high-high boots.

  “You’re killing me now,” he murmured as he touched her, stroking his fingers across her shoulders.

  Her skin tingled, heat streaking across it and pooling between her legs. She leaned closer, so that her breasts brushed his muscular chest. Her nipples hardened beneath the lace.

  His fingers on her shoulders shook slightly as he pushed down the straps of her bra. Then he reached around and unclasped it, so that the lace fell away. He lifted her again, as he’d carried her to his room, as if she weighed nothing. When she’d pulled the gun on him in the alley, if he’d fought her, she couldn’t have won. He was too strong. Too powerful.

  Too overwhelming.

  His mouth followed the path his fingers had taken, across her shoulders and down over the slope of a breast until his lips closed around a nipple. He tugged gently, then one of his fangs scraped across the sensitive point.

  She moaned and wrapped her legs tight around his waist. With each tug of his mouth on her breast, pressure built inside her. She writhed and squirmed against him, silently begging for release from the unbearable tension. “Andre…”

  He tensed against her, seeming to fight for control. As if just the sound of his name on her lips was pushing him beyond it…

  His mouth on her breast, Andre cupped her butt in his hands and then skimmed along the sensitive skin of her thighs. His fingers slipped beneath the lace of her panties, edging it aside to slip into her heat.

  She moaned and arched against him. “Andre…”

  He was killing her now, making her want more than she’d ever wanted. Making her need when she had made a point of never needing anyone or anything.

  “Please,” she beseeched him, the word slipping out with a moan. “Please…”

  Finally he laid her trembling body on the bed. His zipper rasped as he dragged it down. Then he kicked off his pants and shoes. She gasped as the size of him. His erection pulsed as blood rushed through it. She could never remember anyone wanting her as he obviously did. Cords strained in his neck while his pulse beat so frantically she could see it beneath his skin. “Now,” she urged him. “Take me now…”