Hunter's Salvation

by Shiloh Walker

  “How so?”

  Now she started to squirm on her seat. “It’s hard to explain,” she mumbled. She put her hands on the table, spreading her fingers wide, curling them into a fist, then spreading them open again. “I felt something.”

  Vax began to speak, but the waitress moved in their direction. He looked down at his menu, but she didn’t stop. She headed past them, and Vax heard a door open. As the waitress disappeared into the bathroom, he looked back at Jess with curious eyes. “Felt something or sensed something? You psychic, too?”

  “Just barely.” She shifted on the seat and reached for her water. She closed both hands around it, but instead of drinking it, she just stared into it. “It’s more like just really good intuition. I tend to know when there are cops doing radar, and I can tell when somebody is lying to me. Comes in handy in my job, but that’s about it. But something just felt wrong.”

  “Felt wrong when?”

  She squirmed more. “Every time one of the victims was found. I went to see most of them in the morgue. When a body was found, I went to the crime scene. And I…felt something.”

  Something had better not mean what Vax suspected it meant.

  Ten minutes later, though, Vax knew it did. Real magick wasn’t something Jess had much experience with. Her mother was a psychic, her sister an Empath—she was familiar with psychic skills and with Empathy, but real magick was different. It felt different. Trying to explain magick to a psychic might be like trying to explain colors to the color-blind. Took a while for her to get it, but once she got it…

  It was witch power she’d felt. Fading and weak, but there all the same.

  He heaved out a sigh and pushed a hand through his hair. Across from him, Jess stared at him with unreadable eyes and asked, “So do you think I’m crazy?”

  “Unfortunately I don’t. Life would have been a lot easier if I could just write you off as a nutcase.” He fell silent for a minute, turning everything over in his mind. “Do you know if any of the victims were drained?”

  “Not one of them.” Jess rubbed her hands over her face. “I checked. That was something that would have made sense. A vamp might keep a woman alive for a while, keep her clean, keep her fed until he got tired of her.”

  “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.” She looked exhausted. There were lines of strain fanning out from the corners of her eyes, and she was so pale, he half expected to be able to see through her. She sat with her shoulders slumped, as though there were some invisible weight on her shoulders. He imagined there likely was.

  Vax wondered when she’d last had a decent night’s sleep.

  A cynical smile curved her lips. “What else am I supposed to do?”

  Instead of responding to that, he blew out a breath and shoved away from the table. He stood up and held out a hand to her. “Come on.”

  Jess glanced towards the waitress. “You haven’t even ordered yet. I thought you were hungry.”

  With a sardonic smile, he drawled, “I am. But if we wait for her to take our order, we’ll be waiting until doomsday. We’ve got work to do, so my belly will have to wait a while.”

  Vax suspected that if he found what he expected to find, his appetite was going to wither up and die. He had some protein bars stashed on his bike, so he’d just eat one of them on the way.

  Once they were outside the diner, he told her where he wanted to go and she just stared at him for a moment. Finally she pushed her hair back from her face and shook her head. “Why are we going to the cemetery? Randi was the last victim, and that was months ago.”

  “It’s not Randi’s grave I need, Jess. And you don’t need to go there, either. I get the feeling you’re spending way too much time there. I need to visit the graves of the other women. And their homes.”

  She just gave him a puzzled look. “Why?”

  “To see if they had any gifts,” he replied.

  Vax had a bad feeling that they would find most, if not all, of the women had been gifted. It might have made sense if they had been drained of blood. Blood from gifted people had a stronger kick. Some feral vamps preyed on witches for just that reason. But they weren’t drained.

  He doubted it was a witch, either. The only reason a witch would hunt other witches would be to steal their powers using blood magick. Witches who walked the blood path had ways of tapping into the energy of gifted people, whether they were mortal or otherwise, and using the power to enhance their own. But blood-path magick left a taint he would have felt. Hell, Hunters from a thousand miles away would have felt that. A bloody, violent death was what the blood-path demanded and during the time of death, a witch could steal the power. But it wasn’t a subtle thing. They couldn’t hide it.

  So if it wasn’t a vampire and it wasn’t a blood-path witch, who was doing it? Why?

  He had to agree with Jess. So far it didn’t feel like random pointless violence. There had to be a reason. He’d have to find out why before he could kill the men responsible. If he didn’t, somebody else might just take up where they left off.

  That wasn’t an option.

  “IHATE being right.” Vax slid her a sidelong look and added, “I also hate you being right.”

  They hadn’t felt anything at the grave of Greta Sanders. Greta had been murdered five months before Randi Warren, and she’d been missing for four months before they’d killed her. Vax hadn’t expected to feel much at her grave, with her being gone so long. That sort of aura hung around a dead body only so long before fading away.

  Her home, though—that was a whole different story. There was enough power still lingering around to make his hair stand up on end.

  A young couple lived there now. Vax could hear them—they had a new baby, and she wasn’t happy. Through his shields, he sensed an upset stomach and suspected that the couple would be taking the baby to the doctor come morning. Right now they were both frustrated and exhausted.

  He sensed the power under all of that, and it didn’t come from the family living there now. They hadn’t been there long enough. Even after nine months, Greta’s power was still in the air.

  “Right about what?” Jess had her hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket, and she hunched her shoulders against the cold.

  He shifted so that he stood in front of her and blocked some of the wind. Watching her face, he said, “She was a witch.”

  “Ahhh…so?”

  It was twilight, and the red and gold light gleamed against her pale skin. She looked entirely too touchable, Vax decided. She stood there glaring at him. Her hands were fisted on narrow hips, and Vax had the urge to replace them with his own. To pull her against him and cover that scowling mouth with his. His cock throbbed. Like things aren’t complicated enough, he thought sourly. She was skinny and mouthy, and seemed to be irked with him 90 percent of the time. Not to mention he had known her for less than forty-eight hours.

  There should be no reason for him to be this obsessed with her. Why the hell he couldn’t stop thinking about seeing her naked was beyond him.

  “So…whatever you felt when you went and saw her in the morgue, do you feel it here now?”

  The scowl on her face faded and she turned around, staring across the street at the house. She shivered, but he suspected it had nothing to do with the cold. She licked her lips. He wondered what she’d do if he bent down and did the same thing, tracing the path her tongue had taken with his own.

  When she nodded, he forced himself to focus on the problem in front of them. “Yeah. I can feel it,” she told him. “They were witches. All of them. Why?”

  Jess caught her lower lip with her teeth, and he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Damn it, what the hell did I do?”

  “You didn’t do anything. You were trying to help. You were just…unprepared.”

  Her laugh was a harsh, almost-painful sounding bark, so bitter and angry. “I was unprepared. Fuck that. My baby sister is dead. Unprepared. Don’t you think that’s maybe a little too polite?” With every w
ord, her voice got louder and louder until she was practically screaming at him.

  Vax reached out and caught her arm, stepping close. “You want to scream, you’re entitled. You want to cry, you’ve got more reason to do it than most people. But if you do it here, we’re going to have problems. We have enough problems already.”

  For a second, he didn’t know what she was going to do. He suspected she didn’t, either. Then she turned her back on him, and he watched her slender shoulders rise and fall as she took a series of deep, slow breaths. “Yeah. I was unprepared. But it still doesn’t make sense.”

  Jess frowned. She lowered her head, staring down at the brick sidewalk. The neighborhood was an old one, and the people here took a lot of pride in it. A person could see that from the way the people took care of their houses, how they maintained the out-of-date brick sidewalks, not to mention the homes themselves. Houses built back in the 1920s weren’t exactly easy on the pocket.

  She continued to stare at the brick sidewalk’s elegant pattern as though she were trying to solve some puzzle hidden inside it. “It still doesn’t make sense. They weren’t drained. Raped, beaten, and murdered, but not drained. If somebody is seeking out witches, wouldn’t it be because they want something? Like their blood? Or their power?”

  “Maybe they want something else.” She shook it off fast, that was for damn sure, Vax mused. Shook it off or locked it down. Sooner or later, she wasn’t going to be able to do either one. She was blocking out the grief by dealing with the fury instead. Not the healthiest way to deal with a loss, but he couldn’t think about that now.

  There was a serious problem shaping up here, and she had some of the pieces.

  Vax headed back down the sidewalk. By the time he’d mounted his bike, Jess had joined him. “Know where any of the others live?”

  She climbed on behind him, resting her hands on his hips. “Yeah. It’s a drive, though.”

  “Not like I got anything else to do.” Over his shoulder, he slanted a look at her. “What about you?”

  Jess just sighed. “Nope. Not a thing.”

  It was the sad, heartbreaking truth, too. Jess knew there was no way she could even try to get on with her life until they found out what was going on. Found out why they had killed Randi. A sweet, innocent college girl. It was senseless. Jess had to make sense of it, or she’d go insane.

  If they had killed Randi as a warning to Jess, then making sense of it would mean exposing them. Finding out what they were doing, and making it stop.

  Her gut went cold every time she drove by Debach, and it was worse when she looked at the picture of Masters. He was involved in something that he was willing to kill to keep hidden. As far as Jess was concerned, her only chance at vengeance was to uncover that something.

  Absolution…

  Vax started the bike, and she automatically tightened her grip on him. As the ghost of her mother’s voice whispered through her mind, she buried her face in his denim jacket. She could feel the heat and strength of him through it, and it felt wonderful. Almost wonderful enough that she could block out Mom’s words.

  Is it vengeance you seek, or absolution, baby? What happened to Randi wasn’t your fault.

  It was. Jess remained silent. She hadn’t argued with her mother’s ghost yet, and she wasn’t about to start now. There was no point. Jess was right, and she knew it.

  She heard something sort of like a sigh, and then her mother’s presence faded. Squeezing her eyes closed, Jess unconsciously squirmed closer to Vax and held on for dear life.

  IT was late.

  After spending nearly three hours riding around Indianapolis on a Harley, Jess’s butt was sore and she couldn’t walk quite right, either. “You haven’t spent too much time on a bike before, have you?” Vax asked.

  As she mounted the steps to her house, Jess scowled at him. “Yes, I have. It’s just been a while.”

  “How long a while?”

  “High school.” And she sure as hell didn’t remember being this sore then, but then she hadn’t spent hours at a time on the back of Danny Cirelli’s Honda. Cuddling up against her high school boyfriend while they headed for the movies was nothing like sitting behind Vax.

  Of course, even if she had been riding just around the block behind Vax, there would still be no comparison. Bigger bike, sexy man—nope, no comparison.

  She unlocked the door and stripped off her jacket as she went inside. Tossing the jacket across the back of the couch, she turned around and watched Vax as he stepped inside and closed the door. She toed off her shoes before reaching for the phone. “I’m hungry.”

  He quirked a brow at her. “You actually get hungry?”

  Giving him a baleful stare, she punched in a number and asked, “You like pizza?”

  A few minutes later, she had a large pizza on the way, half everything, half veggie. “Veggie is no way to eat a pizza,” Vax told her.

  “Neither is everything. You got any idea how many calories are in one slice of Sal’s Special Supreme?” She padded into the kitchen, making a beeline for the refrigerator. She could feel him staring at her as she opened it and grabbed a bottle of water from inside. Before she could close it, a big brown hand caught the door, and she stood there trapped between the cool air blasting out of the fridge and the warmth of Vax’s body.

  “I burn calories pretty easy, so no, I have no clue. And I’m not real worried about it, either. I don’t see death by heart attack in my future. You know, the contents of your fridge are seriously lacking. No beer. Nothing to munch on. Hell, I don’t think I saw a single bag of potato chips.” But he wasn’t looking into the refrigerator. He was looking at her.

  At her mouth, more specifically. Jess felt her skin start to buzz, her pulse kicking up a little at the heat she saw simmering in those thunderstorm eyes. “Ahh…pizza will be here soon,” she said, trying to inch back a little. He just moved closer. Now she was trapped. She could move back and end up falling into the refrigerator, or she could stand there and feel the seductive heat of his body. It wasn’t a hard to choice to make, although Jess suspected the wiser choice would have involved the fridge.

  Vax reached up and caught a hank of hair in his hand. He held her gaze as he wound the long strands around his wrist. “Yeah, I know. Funny, though, I’m not really that hungry for pizza now.”

  Oooo-kay. There was no denying the intent in that statement, or the sleepy, heavy-lidded look to his eyes. Even though her hormones were clamoring, her knees were a little weak, and she was feeling a whole lot of heat, Jess pressed a hand against his chest. He eased back a little. Regret and misery went pretty well together, she decided. The loss of his heat caused a reaction inside her that was almost painful. Still, she didn’t lower her hand. “This isn’t a good idea, pal.”

  His hand came up, covering hers. She hadn’t noticed it before then, but he wore a simple silver band on the ring finger of his right hand. Then she forgot about the ring as he closed his fingers around her wrist and dragged her hand a little to the left, until it covered his heart. Under her palm, she could feel the quick, steady beat. “Why not? Other than the fact that there’s a pizza boy due here in about forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes is plenty of time…for now.” His lids drooped, and Jess could feel herself giving in.

  Just thinking about the things they could do to each other inside of forty-five minutes was enough to make her breathing kick up. He was entirely too sexy, with that thick black hair, that heavy-lidded look to his dark gray eyes, and that mobile, sensual mouth. Under his stare, she could feel everything inside her going hot and liquid. Her breasts ached, her hands itched to touch him, and she was dying to get a taste of him.

  Everything inside her was clamoring, and for a moment it left her a little dazed, a little disoriented, even confused until she figured it out. She felt alive. Jess hadn’t felt alive since she had stood over her sister’s lifeless body.

  Randi’s face flashed through Jess’s mind. The guilt that followed nearly cho
ked her. Panicked, she shoved her hands against his chest and tore away from him. “I can’t do this.”

  A warm hand came up, caressed the back of her neck. She tensed, ready to struggle, but he made no move to pull her back against him. All he did was watch her face as he gently massaged her neck. “You feel guilty.”

  “I am guilty,” she muttered, her voice rough. “She’s dead. Until I stop the men who did it, how can I even think about something like this?”

  Vax laughed softly. He rubbed his hand up and down her back as he responded, “Because you’re human, darlin’. It’s how we are. The body doesn’t always understand grief or the need for revenge. It just understands living.” His hand slid down her back and cupped over one hip, then his other hand came up, sliding around her waist. He pulled her back against him. She tried to resist, but eventually she leaned back against him. “Feeling something isn’t a betrayal to your sister, Jess. Let me make you feel something….”

  He lowered his head and nuzzled her neck. His teeth grazed her skin, and then he whispered into her ear, “Feel alive for a few minutes…. Just feel.”

  Oh, she was. She was feeling more heat, more hunger than she’d felt in such a long time. He felt good against her. Strong. Warm. Unable to help it, she slid her hands down and laid them over his. She thought about it—more than thought about it. She was tempted. So very tempted. “My life is a mess right now. It’s not just losing Randi.”

  “Too much of a mess for this?” He placed his palm against her belly and spread his fingers wide. That simple, almost innocent touch felt achingly good. Too good.

  “Definitely too much of a mess.” And even if it wasn’t, Jess wasn’t sure she was ready to deal with the this. Not with this man.

  He had complicated written all over him. All over the hard, sinewy planes of his body…in those amazing storm cloud eyes…Focus, Jess. “Look, I just…I’m a mess. Half the time, I don’t know if I want to scream, cry, or beat something up.”