Hunter's Salvation

by Shiloh Walker

  The walls were a rich, deep shade of red, and the plush carpet was snow white. It was almost stark in its simplicity, but it matched the classy redhead he’d seen in the club. He wasn’t so sure about the blonde in the driver’s license, though. She’d had a fake ID, a good one, in the tiny purse she’d carried. For some reason, she had been in disguise. An effective one—with that deep red wig and the black-rimmed glasses, she could have fooled him. He didn’t fool that easily.

  The redhead was identified as Jennifer Ballard.

  The driver’s license he found in the glove compartment with a picture of the blonde on it was issued to a Jessica R. Warren.

  “Which one are you?” Vax murmured. Her shadow passed by the front window, and he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the handlebars.

  He wanted to know which name she called her own, but more, he wanted to know what in the hell had she been doing at Debach. It didn’t seem to fit her, not that classy-looking redhead and not the lean, elegant blonde.

  Of course, he didn’t really get the bondage scene anyway. He knew enough to recognize when a club was run with the benefits of all in mind. Debach wasn’t one of those. It catered to the pleasures of a select few. The images he’d gleaned from Nate had been disgusting, humiliating, and full of pain. The wrong kind of pain for almost everybody, including hard-core submissives.

  Empathy could be one shitty ability, Vax thought, not for the first time. Especially when it made him feel this kind of shit. Pain was a turn-on for Nate. Vax had kept his contact with the man brief, but not brief enough. The sick fuck got a hard-on when he saw somebody beaten.

  Nate fit in perfectly with the inner circle at Debach. The air around that club was thick with blood, pain, and suffering. Vax knew there was a whole lot of wrong going on inside those walls, but with Miz Jennifer/Jessica’s presence interfering, he hadn’t been able to take much more than a cursory look around.

  Her front door came flying open, and Vax leaned back in the seat, watching as she slammed it behind her. Her body language shouted that she was absolutely furious. But oddly enough, he still couldn’t really get a good read on her. His skin should have been burning and stinging with the depths of the anger.

  But he felt nothing.

  Temper looked good on her. He had to admit it. Made her eyes glow and put some soft color to her high cheekbones. She jerked the door closed and locked it. She jammed the key in the lock so hard, Vax wouldn’t have been surprised if the key snapped off inside. In the distance, he could hear another car, but he didn’t bother blurring his presence this time. She came striding down the walk.

  The moment she saw him, she froze. Only for a second, though. Her eyes narrowed, and she started towards him. There was a shadowed bruise on her jawline. Didn’t look like she’d even bothered to try to cover it.

  He looked away from it in time to see her fist flying towards his face. He could have moved. She was quick for a mortal, but not quick enough. Vax didn’t bother, though. Her fist clipped him on the side of his face, and his head snapped to the side with the impact. If he hadn’t had his weight braced, he probably would have toppled off the bike.

  “Pretty damn strong for such a skinny thing,” he said, turning his head and spitting a mouthful of blood onto the pavement. With his tongue, he touched the cut on the inside of his mouth.

  “Well, I’d feel better if I’d knocked you unconscious, you son of a bitch.”

  “I’m sure you would.”

  Her chin went up, and Vax wouldn’t have been surprised if she decided to slug him again. Instead she just curled her lip and sneered at him. “Didn’t I tell you to leave me the hell alone?”

  “If I’d left you alone to begin with, you’d be dead.” He said it in a flat, cold voice, but if he expected it to slow her down or cool her fury, he was expecting too much. Most people tended to try to backpedal a little if they heard the word dead.

  Not her. She just tossed her head and propped her hands on her hips. “So?”

  The way she snapped out the short, simple word sent a cold, chilly finger down his spine. “So. You don’t care if you live or die?”

  “Yes, I care. I’d prefer death, thank you. I just want one thing before it happens, and you interfered tonight. Don’t do it again.” She jabbed her finger into his chest with each of the last words. She spun away on her heel.

  Hell. Tough little cookie, aren’t you? He couldn’t help smiling a little. “Miz Warren…It is Miz Warren, right?”

  She didn’t even slow down. Jessica Warren continued right on walking across the street, her shoulders back, the shiny blonde locks bouncing up and down with each step.

  “What happens if they kill you before you do that one thing?”

  At his words, she came to an abrupt stop, her shoulders slumped. Vax threw his leg over the bike and dismounted, moving up on her cautiously. He lowered his shields again and tried once again to pick something up from her. There was nothing more than a distant sort of despair.

  IF I die before I make William Masters pay for what he did to Randi…It wasn’t something Jess had allowed herself to think. Destroying Masters was all she had left, and she wasn’t going to fail.

  But Nate hadn’t been planning on taking her for a walk in the park. Her gut told her that there had been more than bulky, muscle-bound bouncers waiting for her, wherever the hell he’d been taking her. In her gut, she knew there was more than just a beating waiting for her.

  “I won’t let that happen,” she said, her voice low and steady.

  “Sometimes things outside your control happen.” His voice was low, sexy—and oddly comforting. It was the kind of voice that made a woman feel safe, the kind a woman would want to hear if she rolled over in the middle of the night after a bad dream—listening to that voice as she curled up against a hard, strong body while big warm hands stroked her back.

  But at the same time, it was the kind of voice that made a woman think of doing all sorts of unsafe things. Like jumping tall, sexy strangers with deep, sexy voices.

  Jess smiled bitterly. Jumping sexy strangers. Yeah, like that was going to happen. She didn’t have the time or the energy for it. Jess was too tired, running on caffeine and nerves for too long.

  Standing in the middle of the street, she turned her head and looked over her shoulder at him. Sometimes things outside your control happen.

  Talk about ironic. Yeah, Jess knew things outside her control were going to happen. Losing her parents had been out of her control. Losing Randi had been out of her control. She refused to believe that avenging Randi was another one of those things.

  “This won’t be one of those things.” Shrugging the rest of her emotional baggage aside, Jess headed for her car. It was late, yes, but maybe he was still there. Damn it, she was going to find him. He’d be at the club sooner or later, and when he was, she’d be waiting.

  The cold air whipped around her legs. The leather skirt might as well be made of tissue paper for all the good it did in keeping her warm. As she stalked to the car, she wondered if she should grab some better clothes, but she’d wasted enough time.

  A big, hard hand closed around her upper arm, and Jess spun, jabbing her finger into his chest. “Let go of me, jackass.”

  “You don’t know what kind of trouble you’re looking for.”

  This time, that low, sexy growl of a voice didn’t make her all hot and bothered. It just made her bothered. As in, pissed. “Excuse me, but the blonde is just skin-deep. I’m not an idiot, and I know exactly what kind of trouble I’m looking for. Let go.”

  But he didn’t.

  Taking matters into her own hands, Jess focused on one of the decorative stones that Randi had used as a border for her flowerbeds. It was about the size of a chicken’s egg. If Jess used enough force, her power could make it go in one side of the dude’s head and out the other.

  She settled for just clocking him on the temple and knocking him out cold. As he collapsed to the ground, his grip on her arm loosened,
and Jess backed away. This time, she’d find a hiding spot out of the open.

  “SON of a bitch.”

  Thirty minutes later, Jess sat on the roadside, staring into nothingness.

  Masters had already left.

  None of Jess’s contacts had been able to unearth where the man lived. The address listed with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles was legit, but it was a family that lived there, not Masters.

  Jess’s only way of finding him was to wait for him at the club. Tonight she’d had vague plans of following him when he left. Now she’d have to wait until another night.

  “Son of a bitch,” she said again.

  WHEN Jess walked into her kitchen the next morning, she wasn’t terribly surprised to find that she had an intruder. During her sleepless night, she’d put two and two together and figured out why Tall, Dark, and Delicious was at the club. Once she had figured it out, she had to wonder what had taken so long. She’d known for months that something was off about the place.

  The infallible Hunters should have been all over the place ages ago.

  Jess knew about the Hunters. Nothing specific, but enough details to know that they should have been here. Mom had told her about the Hunters—paranormal cops, basically. Considering that the badness in the club had some sort of unnatural bent to it, it was right up the Hunters’ alley. Or should be.

  “Don’t you have a job to do?”

  A thick, straight black brow arched, and he leaned back in his chair, studying her with a probing gaze. “Excuse me?”

  She just smiled. So what if it felt a little pissy. “How is your head?”

  He lifted a shoulder in a shrug and said, “Considering that somehow you levitated a rock and plowed it into my skull, I guess it feels okay.” There was just a shadow of a bruise on his temple, already nearly gone.

  Witches really did heal fast, she mused. Then she shook her head and focused on the problems his presence could bring about. She wasn’t giving up on Masters just because some Hunter appeared on the scene. Some big, sexy Hunter who had the most amazing eyes…

  A little focus here, Jess? Tearing her gaze from the sexy Hunter with the sexy eyes, she turned away. She answered him in a cool, dismissive tone. “I didn’t levitate it. It looks like you made yourself at home.” There was a half-empty pot of coffee sitting on the warmer. He had poured himself a cup, and he was using her favorite mug, too. She could grab it. She liked using her mug when she drank her coffee at her table. But that wasn’t an option. She’d have to wash it five or six times, and she would still find herself wondering whether it was him she was tasting on the cup, or the coffee.

  Instead Jess took another mug from the cabinet and poured herself some coffee. “How nice of you to make yourself so comfortable,” she said as she turned around to look at him.

  He was either ignoring her sarcasm or didn’t notice it. She was betting on the former. He took a sip from his mug and said, “If you didn’t levitate it, how did it fly up off the ground and hit me?”

  “It’s called telekinesis. Surely the Hunters have seen telekinetics before.” She arched her brows and smiled sweetly at him as his eyes narrowed. Her skin prickled and she suddenly had an idea how a gazelle must feel right before a lion took it down. Her heart kicked up its speed, slamming into her ribs so hard that it stole her breath. Her hands grew sweaty, and every instinct in her body was screaming at her to run away.

  She didn’t run, though. Instead she lowered her head and blew on the coffee. Faking bravado wasn’t as good as actually being fearless, but it was a damn sight better than letting him know how unnerved she was.

  “What?” His voice was soft and quiet. It shouldn’t have sounded at all terrifying, but for some reason, she was terrified.

  But Jess would be damned if she let it show. She might not be able to keep her heart from beating a mile a minute, and she couldn’t keep herself from breaking into a cold sweat, but she could control her facial expressions and she could keep from backing away. She wanted to. Really badly. She wanted to back away—hell, screw that. She wanted to turn tail, run, and hide.

  She didn’t, though. She kept her face blank and her voice level as she replied, “You heard me. You all have been around for centuries, if I’ve been told right. Telekinetics are pretty rare, but not that rare. There’s no way I am the first you’ve run into.”

  “That wasn’t what I was referring to,” he said. His tone was still as silky and as soft as before, but now there was an undercurrent of menace.

  It struck Jess as maybe just a little ridiculous, and her fear retreated to normal levels. “Oops. Is your existence some top-security secret that I shouldn’t know about?” She rolled her eyes and said dryly, “You may be able to live right under the nose of average mortals, but you can’t expect the gifted ones to not know about you.”

  No. Vax didn’t expect the gifted people to remain blissfully unaware of the creatures, those of the Hunter variety or otherwise, that shared their world. Gifted people sensed others, so why wouldn’t they be aware of the Hunters?

  Vax knew some of the gifted population didn’t trust the Hunters. Most of that came from not understanding their purpose. The Hunters had been around for ages, going back so many generations their true origins were shrouded. They’d come together with one goal and that was to make sure that other gifted creatures—witch, vamp, shifter, or were—didn’t try to turn mankind into their playthings.

  He just hadn’t expected her to know about them. He hadn’t expected her to be anything other than the average mortal. Well, maybe not completely average. The telekinesis was a bit of a surprise—she’d flown right under his radar with that one. She was too damned nosy and too damned stubborn, and she had a mouth he really wanted to feel under his. But she was mortal all the same.

  Thanks to the rock she’d pelted him with, though, Vax knew firsthand just how not average she was. A telekinetic. He hadn’t met more than one or two people in his entire life who used pure telekinesis. Like psychic ability, it had nothing to do with magick and everything to do with a hyperrefined mental sense. All in the brain, as opposed to magick, which was in the heart and soul.

  Magick used the elements of air, fire, and water.

  Telekinesis used the power of the mind.

  That could explain why Vax hadn’t read her until it was almost too late to help. His strengths lay in reading the emotions, and like most psychically gifted people, she had probably learned to master her emotions when she learned to master her gift. They had to—emotions wreaked havoc on the control of somebody with psychic gifts. Poor control wasn’t an option for somebody who could hurl objects through the air without even touching them. But he had met telekinetics before, and not one of them had been like her. She was like a blank slate.

  He was silent for a moment as he tried to figure out how to handle her. Under normal circumstances, mortals who learned too much about the paranormal races were placed under a compulsion, their memories wiped.

  If her shields were anything to go by, wiping her memories would work about as well as laying a compulsion. And he’d already tried that, with absolutely no success.

  Vax suspected logic wasn’t going to work, either. “If you know about the Hunters, then it probably won’t surprise you to realize that there is a world of wrong going down in that club. You don’t need to be there.” Suspecting it wouldn’t work and refusing to try were two different things.

  “Oh, I beg to differ.” Her voice was low and throbbing with passion as she said, “I have every reason to be there. I know just how much wrong is happening there. Believe me, Mister…” Her eyes narrowed on his face, and she scowled. “You know, you’re sitting in my house, using my coffeemaker to make very bad coffee, and I don’t even know who the hell you are.”

  Grinning at her, Vax sipped at the overly strong brew and said, “Where I come from, strong is the only way to make coffee.” He sipped again before adding, “I’d bet you like it weak and watered down. Or do you prefer those i
ced foamy things like they sell at Starbucks?”

  “Please.” Jess shuddered in reaction. Sugary, icy mocha latte whatevers were definitely not how she preferred her coffee. But she did like to drink something that might leave her stomach lining intact. “And you still didn’t tell me your name.”

  He debated on that for a minute, trying to decide whether he should give her the name he was currently using legally. Finally he gave her the name he’d been given years ago when he was still a child. “You can call me Vax.” Even as he told her, though, he wondered why. Only a handful of people knew his real name. Why the hell had he chosen to tell a total stranger?

  “And is that your first name, last name, or neither?”

  He smiled at her over the rim of his coffee cup. “Take your pick.”

  Her pretty green eyes narrowed. He thought she was going to say something, but instead she just turned to the fridge and opened it. She took out a plastic bag full of bagels, and Vax watched as she popped one into the toaster. The scent of toasting bread drifted through the room, and accordingly his belly started to rumble. “Not much of a breakfast.”

  She glanced at him and shrugged. “I’m not much of an eater.”

  Shoving up from the table, he said, “That’s okay. I am.” He went for the fridge and opened it to find mostly bare shelves. No milk. No juice. A carton of eggs, a few veggies, and several different kinds of cheese. A few things of Chinese takeout that looked ages old, and some deli meats. “Man, you aren’t kidding.”

  “Huh?” She gave him a puzzled look that quickly shifted to outright irritation as she watched him open one of the containers of Chinese food. He sniffed it and then he closed it and tossed it over her head. He heard it land in the trash as he reached for another one. “What do you think you’re doing?”