Hunting Season (Aurora Sky

by Nikki Jefford

  “You’re putting me under house arrest?”

  “Trust me, you’re far better off here,” I said.

  If Mason had gotten to him first, Henry would’ve been locked in a cell on base never to be seen or heard from again. The complex before us was a deluxe manor in comparison. He’d simply have to vamp up and slum it for a while.

  Fane stepped out of the car first and opened my door. What was this? A date?

  I swung my legs out, standing carefully so as not to bump into him—he was encroaching on my space again, leaning against the roof of the Pontiac. I had to arch my hips back or else slide against his chest as I rose on my feet.

  “Ahem,” I said.

  Fane shot me a deliberate smile. Those inexplicably sensual, mismatched lips are what had attracted me to him in the first place. Time to put on the horse blinders.

  I slid around him, shutting my door before Fane could do it for me.

  Meanwhile, Noel stood beside Henry’s open door trying to coax him out. “Come on, Henry. This is for your own safety.”

  Henry didn’t budge.

  Fane walked around swiftly, a feat he managed gracefully on his sturdy, long legs. Fane didn’t ask; he pulled Henry out.

  “Let’s go.”

  Noel and I followed Fane and Henry up a flight of outdoor stairs to an open hallway. Our collective footsteps sounded like a stampede over the wood floorboards. We reached a door at the end of the hall. Fane knocked three times, paused, and knocked three times more.

  At the end of the last knock there was movement behind the door, followed by the crack of a deadbolt snapping back. The door opened two inches before catching on a chain.

  “Who’s there?” a voice boomed.

  Fane snorted. “Who do you think? I called you thirty minutes ago.”

  The door slammed shut. Fane released Henry and stretched, causing his subtle six-pack to strain through his black tee. I would have rolled my eyes if I wasn’t busy gawking. Noel had her phone out, thumbing over the screen. Boy was I glad washboard abs didn’t do it for her. She could keep her bony Goth guys all to herself.

  A second later, the door flew back. A lanky dude in baggy jeans, a red hoodie, yellow shoulder length hair and a sideways baseball cap did a series of sideways moves with his arms and hands, as though gaining his footing on top of a balancing board.

  “Yo! Fane Donado! My man. What’s up?”

  Fane lifted his chin. “Yo, Zeke.”

  “Yo!” Zeke said back louder. “Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. Come on in, Donado and company.”

  I glanced at Fane. When he told me he knew someone who could keep an eye on Henry, this wasn’t what I’d imagined.

  Fane shot me what I assumed was supposed to be a reassuring smile—that or he was trying not to laugh.

  Noel slipped her phone inside her purse and walked in first.

  “Hey, little lady. You with Fane?” Zeke asked as she brushed past him.

  Noel pivoted, eyes narrowed. “I’m a vampire.”

  Zeke’s eyelids stretched back. “Awesome.”

  I still found it surreal to think of Noel Harper as a vampire—to say nothing of myself—and yet it felt freakishly natural, like finding out I was autistic or gay. Everything I’d struggled with over the past ten months suddenly made sense. My sensitivity to light and garlic. My loss of appetite replaced by an incessant thirst for blood.

  I couldn’t be the only agent going through this.

  I glanced at Noel, whose gaze traveled from Zeke’s broad, hopeful eyes to his neck as though considering a treat off the dessert menu. Nope, wasn’t just me.

  I walked inside the apartment next, Fane hot on my heels, bringing Henry with him.

  Zeke shut and re-bolted the door. The entry led directly into a dingy kitchen. Both the oven and stovetop were streaked with grease stains. At one point, a potato must have exploded inside the microwave and never been fully cleaned out—there were bits of it stuck all over the inner window. Dishes had been piled a foot high inside both sinks. It smelled like a full bin on trash day.

  Henry’s nose wrinkled. I was with him on this one. I was immune to infection, not smell, and this place stank.

  Fane didn’t venture in much further from the front door.

  “Zeke, this is Henry, the vamp we talked about. I need you to keep him safe.”

  “Not a problem,” Zeke said. “This is like witness protection with triple extra pad-locked security. I won’t let anything happen to him, man.”

  Fane reached around to his back pocket and pulled out a wallet. He took out every bill, handing them to Zeke, who stuffed the wad inside his back pocket.

  “And make sure he doesn’t wander.”

  “How am I supposed to eat?” Henry asked, eyeing the kitchen disdainfully.

  Fane leaned over him. “Noel will bring blood by later. In the meantime, you’ve got a party to plan.”

  “Vamp party?” Zeke asked, rubbing his hands together.

  “That’s right,” Fane said. “So don’t distract him. If he needs classical music to concentrate, put on Beethoven. And for god’s sakes, clean this place up. I don’t want to hear about any biting, dealing, rapping, or Walking Dead TV marathons. Noel will check in every day after she finishes school.”

  “Wicked,” Zeke said, eyes alight as he looked at Noel. “I’m human, just so you know. If you ever need a hit, I’m your guy, if you know what I mean.”

  “Zeke,” Fane said in a warning tone. “What did I just tell you?”

  Zeke grinned sheepishly.

  Noel looked him up and down coolly. “I’ll think about it.”

  “For real? Awesome!”

  Keep dreaming hip-hop. I didn’t see Noel sucking off a guy not dressed in head to toe black.

  “Okay, we’re good,” Fane said, nodding. “Let’s split.”

  As he, Noel, and I made for the door, Henry called out desperately, “Francesco, don’t leave me here!”

  “It’s for your own good,” Fane said. “Don’t leave the apartment. That hunter isn’t going to stop looking for you.”

  Henry shrunk back.

  Noel gave a quick flick of her wrist. “See you tomorrow, Henry.”

  I didn’t say anything. Pigsty or palace, he ought to be grateful we’d saved his sorry hide. I’d rather have rescued Dante or Tommy, but if Henry did his part, we might have a chance at killing several birds with one stone.

  As Zeke closed the door behind us, I heard him ask Henry, “Dude, what happened to your eye?”

  2

  Scavengers

  From the time we grabbed Henry to the time we dropped him off, the sky had morphed from faded pink to a rich red that bled across the pastel horizon. That’s how evening worked in the fall. Daylight was fleeting, especially come afternoon when the outside world darkened at a speed similar to time lapse photography. This one changed in real time before the naked eye.

  Once Fane, Noel, and I reached the car, I stopped in front of the hood and asked, “Now what?”

  Fane lifted his head and looked into the distance. “Now we head to the hillside and find out what Diederick’s staff knows about your partner’s disappearance.”

  My chest surged with gratitude. Having help sure beat going about things alone.

  “I’ll drive,” Fane said, holding his open palm in front of Noel.

  She rolled her eyes before setting the keys in Fane’s hand and climbing into the backseat. I slipped in front beside Fane.

  Even on a Saturday, Anchorage’s congested traffic made our progress from mid-town to the south side slow going. The Glen Alps rose above the city, their peaks poking the skyline like needles on a compass rose. Termination dust climbed steadily down from the tips of the mountains with each passing week.

  Winter was coming.

  Once we made it out of town and onto O’Malley Road, it was a straight shot along the wooded hillside. Spruce and pine trees rushed by the windows. At the end of O’Malley, the back roads turned to gravel.

>   The temperature dropped the higher we climbed. I hugged my arms against my torso. Fane glanced over. Without a word, he turned up the heat. For the briefest moment I almost believed I was still a human girl out for a ride with her friends. But we were a car full of corpses—two perfectly poised and one shivering.

  Heat blew from the vents. At top speed, it was also top volume. It filled my ears with the force of a gale.

  Fane leaned back, one muscular arm manning the steering wheel, the other relaxed on his thigh—perfectly at ease, as always.

  He had on a T-shirt, and Noel was wearing a damn sundress. Maybe I really was still human.

  “If I’m a vampire, how come I feel cold?” I asked.

  “The mind is a powerful force,” Fane said. “Your body no longer requires food. You’re immune to cold the same way you can’t get sick. Hunger, chills—it’s all in your head. It takes a few years to adjust.”

  “And then what?” I asked. “One day I’ll wake up as numb and detached as Jared, Giselle, and all the other unfeeling vampires of the world?”

  Fane remained silent a moment before answering. “I’m a vampire and I’m not indifferent.” He turned his head toward me. “Far from it.”

  I shivered. “Well, my brain’s still telling me I’m cold.”

  Actually, it was telling me to scoot over to Fane’s side and show him I wasn’t indifferent, either. Not when it came to him. Not ever. But I played it off as a reaction to the temperature—rubbing my hands together for emphasis even as liquid heat swarmed my insides.

  I crossed and uncrossed my legs. The ache of Fane’s bite still throbbed on my inner thigh. His teeth marks were still red and raw.

  His love bite.

  And there went my mind again, whispering nonsense, teasing me relentlessly. I could never turn the damn thing off.

  His nearness made me wild with hunger. Fane was both familiar and foreign—like a rock star I’d lusted after from the sidelines, never believing I’d get my hands on him. And yet, he was still out-of-reach, off limits while Dante remained at large.

  While I’d been away at boot camp it had been Dante who kept in contact with my family—he even helped my mom move. He’d asked me to give him a chance. He’d never gotten it, and I didn’t intend to give him one. I just didn’t love him that way, and I never would. But I never got the chance to tell him, and it didn’t feel right to make a move on Fane so long as Dante was in captivity.

  Noel’s phone dinged with an incoming text. My body did a brief jolt, but, once again, it had more to do with my turmoil at Fane’s proximity than surprise at the sudden interruption.

  A couple seconds later, she said, “It’s from Melcher.”

  I turned down the air vents.

  “We need to turn around,” she said. “He has an assignment for me tonight.”

  Fane’s posture didn’t change, nor did the set speed of the car as it continued up the dirt road. “Not yet. We’re almost there,” he said.

  I glanced from Noel to Fane, once again grateful for his steady presence. When I looked back at Noel, she frowned.

  The lodge’s valet and butler wouldn’t know Dante’s whereabouts, but even the tiniest detail regarding his departure was better than nothing. Had Giselle drugged him and dragged him out? I rubbed my lips together. Doubtful. When I left the tasting with Fane, the valet had made sure it was by choice.

  At the very least, we could recoup his Jeep. It paled in comparison to Dante’s dog, but it was something and it was a start. I wasn’t supposed to be up there snooping around, asking questions. Melcher wanted me to return next weekend. He wanted to put a permanent end to the tastings.

  “What’s your assignment?” I asked Noel, half curious and half hoping to distract her from asking Fane to head back down.

  When Noel didn’t answer, I turned in my seat to find her reading back over the text. Her eyes lifted briefly and met mine. She turned off her phone.

  “What the matter?” Fane asked. “Afraid I’ll try and stop you?”

  “I’m not in the habit of sharing classified information. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m only gathering intel.”

  I eyed Noel curiously, wondering how it felt spying on vampires now that she knew she was one of them.

  Fane must have been thinking the same thing. “It must be difficult working for these people now that you know the truth."

  “The agency isn’t all bad,” Noel answered. “It’s just mismanaged.”

  I snorted. That was the understatement of the year.

  Noel scooted forward on the back bench. “Aside from the underhanded way they’ve recruited some of their agents, they’ve also done a lot of good. We’ve saved lives. The agency has issues, but did you ever stop to consider what would happen if it shut down altogether?”

  My jaw tightened.

  “No,” I said, turning my back to Noel abruptly.

  The agency hadn’t bothered to consider my future. Why should I give two twigs about its?

  The anniversary of my car crash was a little less than two months away. At the end of last year I’d been a straight-A senior in high school. Single. Virgin. College bound.

  Earlier, Noel confided that she’d slit her wrists and the agency had saved her. Well, they hadn’t saved me. They’d run me off the road and infected me while I was unconscious. There was only one word for that. Evil.

  That kind of planning took cold calculation.

  “Melcher must have a reason for turning us into vampires and keeping it a secret,” Noel said. “Maybe this is a probationary period and he’s waiting to tell us once he feels we’re ready. Or maybe the antidote didn’t work the way it was supposed to—his scientists slipped up. They’re still figuring out how our blood reacts with their toxin. Melcher wasn’t a hundred percent sure AB positive blood would paralyze a vampire the way type AB negative did… not until my initiation.”

  Right, because being one of Melcher’s guinea pigs made everything all right. The rabies vampire I killed during initiation had nearly killed Noel first. The toxin hadn’t protected her from the slobbering fanatic. Being a hunter had its pros.

  “Are you sure you want out?” I asked Noel. “Because it sure doesn’t sound like you do.”

  Noel didn’t hesitate. “The day I became an informant, I made a commitment to protect people from vampires—even if that means protecting civilians from the agency. No one should be a target based on blood type. We’re in this together.”

  The anger inside me dissipated upon hearing Noel’s heartfelt words. I looked over my shoulder. Noel’s hands were folded in her lap, head bent.

  I’d been so preoccupied with Dante’s capture and my new found discovery that I hadn’t stopped to consider how Noel was taking everything. When I first returned from boot camp, she appeared all peaches and cream, which was why I hadn’t worried about it until now.

  The agency might have killed me, but it had saved Noel and given her a sense of purpose. What would she do without the agency?

  From the moment I discovered Noel and I were both new recruits, she’d proven herself a sensitive and loyal friend. When I’d been abducted by Renard and his cohorts, she’d put my safety before the secrecy of the agency by calling in help from a vampire: Fane.

  And she’d never succumbed to blind hatred of vampires the way Melcher and Dante had. Noel knew there were shades of grey and that vampires who didn’t kill didn’t deserve to die at our hands.

  “What will you do if we manage to take the agency down?” I asked.

  That was a big if… a big as if.

  Still, it didn’t hurt to talk about the future in case we did manage to somehow outsmart Melcher—even with his unlimited resources, funds, assassins, and government backing.

  “I’m not without options,” Noel said. “I’ve made a lot of connections over the past year. Fans of the undead society are much more motivated to help out a lady vamp than a human girl. I’ll get by.”

  She said it like she believed it.
<
br />   Being a vampire appeared to have put a spell over Noel. She exuded confidence and style. Maybe she had a massive freak out when she first found out. I’d run from her and Fane when Noel’s initial realization hit. I’d missed her big moment. I thought I’d walked into something entirely different. Afterwards, I’d disappeared for six whole months. While I was at boot camp, Noel was coming to terms with what she was. I hadn’t been there for her, and now I was playing catch up—trying to figure out who this new version of my old friend had become.

  “How do you feel about being undead?” I asked. “You seem to have accepted it rather well.”

  “Because for the first time, I feel alive,” Noel said. “I spent almost my entire life acting like a timid little mouse, hood over my head, hiding in the corner. There are two types of people in this world: criminals and quarry. That’s what I used to believe until I became an informant and a vampire. Once that happened, I realized there was a third category of being: champions.” Noel lifted her chin. “I don’t owe my family or the agency anything. I have no fear. My purpose is clear and that is to do what’s right at all costs.”

  Fane turned my way. When I looked over his eyebrows jumped. “Is this when we applaud?” he asked.

  “Shut up,” Noel said with a laugh. “And hurry, will you, so I can get home and change.”

  “Into your warrior princess costume?” Fane asked.

  Noel snickered. Even I cracked a smile. It was becoming easier to relax around Noel and Fane now that our secrets were out in the open. Well, maybe not Fane, but that’s because my heart did funny things in his presence.

  “By the way, you forgot a fourth category of people,” Fane said. “Loyal subjects. You stole a couple of mine. Daren. Reece. How are my old groupies?”

  “More like quarry,” I said.

  Noel shrugged. “Even a champion’s gotta feed.”

  As the stone pillars marking the mansion’s driveway appeared in the headlights, Fane slowed the car. The road smoothed out as we rolled onto the paved driveway leading up to the three story stone mansion.

  “Just don’t get carried away like these fools,” Fane said, nodding at Tasting Headquarters.