Hunted (The Tinder Chronicles)

by Land, Alexa

  Oh man, this had been stupid – I’d totally cornered myself. But I’d had no idea there were a bunch a vamps on my tail. And since when did they hunt in packs?

  I wasn’t expecting the vamp that suddenly landed right in front of me, jumping onto the roof from the taller building next door. Reflexively, I thrust the stake into his chest, putting so much force behind it that I fell with him as he disintegrated.

  Immediately, I was hauled to my feet by one of the vampires that had come up the fire escape. Another punched me in the stomach, so hard that several of my ribs shattered. The pain was intense, but I still struggled wildly as the vampire holding my arms tightened his grip and said, “Well, that was just too easy.”

  I looked around, my heart thudding in my chest as fear coursed through me. Several more vampires had joined us on the rooftop by now, ten in all. I’d only spotted a portion of them coming after me on the ground. The rest had leapt down from the adjacent building or had come up from the rear.

  “Can this really be the mighty Tinder?” the red-headed vamp directly in front of me asked, his tone mocking. “Hardly the fearsome hunter I was expecting.” He looked a little like he’d just stepped out of the Scottish highlands, his long, curly hair tied back in a messy ponytail.

  “Bite me, Merida,” I ground out. The Disney reference was totally lost on him. I had to question why I myself could come up with it.

  The vampires closed around us in a circle, eyes gleaming in anticipation. Their spokesvamp continued as if I hadn’t said anything, addressing the crowd. “It’s disappointing, that’s what it is. He was built up to be the stuff of legend, but look at him. He’s more boy than man, really. Just another fragile little human.” To illustrate his point, he circled behind me and took the place of the vamp holding onto me, then wrenched my arms upward. I yelled as bones snapped, the pain so intense that I would have dropped to my knees if he wasn’t holding me up.

  “How many of my kind have you killed, hunter?” The vamp pinned my broken arms excruciatingly behind my back, and another yell tore from me. “Dozens? Hundreds?” He twisted my arms slowly, pain searing through me. “It’s a shame that I can only kill you once. But at least I can drag it out, make you suffer for what you’ve done to my brethren.”

  Despite being in almost unbearable agony, I reached deep within myself and gathered my strength, then whipped my head back as hard as I could. The vamp wasn’t expecting me to fight back, and when my skull shattered his nose, he yelled and let go of me. I flung myself forward and barrel-rolled across the rooftop, knocking down two vamps before leaping to my feet. I was near the edge of the roof, and I didn’t even think about it. I just jumped off.

  I was ten stories up. The fall would kill me, I was sure of that. But it would be a quick death, so much better than slow torture at the hands of those bloodthirsty vampires.

  The moment before impact moved in slow-motion, the only sound the rush of wind past my ears. I wasn’t afraid to die. I’d never been afraid of that. I actually found myself letting go, accepting the end.

  I was at peace.

  Chapter Four

  Strong arms caught me effortlessly three feet above the ground, and my eyelids flew open. Bane was staring at me incredulously, his green eyes troubled. Without a word, he took off running, moving faster than any vampire I’d ever seen as he cradled me carefully in his arms. In less than a minute, he’d put several blocks between us and the other vampires, loaded me into the passenger seat of his flashy Aston Martin, and gotten behind the wheel. The car took off like a shot, and then the warehouse district was behind us.

  Bane slowed down when he reached city streets, and wound smoothly through traffic. I glanced at his profile as he drove. He was angry about something, a muscle in his jaw working as he ground his teeth, and he still hadn’t said anything. Normally, I would have had an arsenal of sarcasm ready to hurl at him. But since I was in excruciating pain, all I could really muster were quick, shallow breaths.

  Abruptly, he swerved into the driveway of a high-rise apartment building and punched in a code on a keypad, which raised a security gate. The silver sports car slid into an empty underground garage. After he parked, he retrieved me from the passenger seat, again lifting me into his arms. I didn’t have it in me to protest.

  We rode the elevator to a huge apartment on the top floor of the twelve-story building. Bane carried me through to the bedroom, where he placed me gently on the mattress. He sat beside me and stared at me for a long moment, and his silence was so unnerving that I whispered, “Say something,” my voice thin and scratchy.

  Instead of replying, he used his fangs to tear open his wrist. I flinched, both at the sight of those teeth and at what he’d just done. Almost all vamps filed their fangs down so they could blend in with the human population, leaving only hunters’ second sight as a way to identify them. Not Bane, though. Apparently, he was out and proud.

  I pulled back reflexively when he stuck his wrist in front of my mouth, and he demanded, his voice dangerously low, “Drink my blood, Tinder. It’ll heal you.”

  “No.”

  “Do it, or so help me God, I will hold you down and force-feed you.”

  It was a well-known fact that vampire blood had the power to heal humans, but that was a line I really didn’t want to cross. “No,” I said again, trying to sound firm. “I don’t want this. I don’t want anything from you.”

  A low growl rumbled in his throat as he climbed on top of me, straddling my thighs, and held his slashed wrist right above my mouth. Even though he was furious, he was being really careful, arching over me so he didn’t put any pressure on my broken ribs. “Stop being so stubborn, Tinder. You’re minutes from going into shock, and I think you may be bleeding internally. Surely you must know I’m not bluffing about force-feeding you.” Bane’s English accent was normally slightly diluted from living in the States, but when he was angry it ratcheted right back up again, overshooting the Queen’s English and teetering on the brink of Cockney.

  I watched him for a long moment, the rage in his green eyes churning like a storm at sea. “Why are you so angry?” I asked.

  “Because you fucking wanted to die!” He yelled it, then launched himself off the bed and stood over me. “I saw your face a moment before you thought you were going to hit the ground. And you bloody well looked happier than I’ve ever seen you! It makes me wonder why I’ve spent so much time trying to keep you alive when you’re completely suicidal!”

  “I’m not suicidal,” I said quietly, the words punctuated by my fast, shallow breathing. “I’ve just always known this job is going to kill me. I accepted that a long time ago. So when I thought my number was up…I guess I was at peace. I felt like I’d done all I was supposed to do and could just let go. If I looked happy, that was why.”

  “Christ, Tinder,” Bane muttered, pushing his dark brown hair back from his face with both hands. After a few moments, he sat beside me, the mattress dipping under his weight.

  My breathing was becoming more labored, and the relentless pain was really starting to wear me down. “Take me to a hospital,” I whispered. Hunters almost never went to hospitals, because we wanted to avoid drawing the attention of the police with our usually suspicious-looking injuries. But I knew it was my only alternative, aside from Bane.

  “No. Stop being so damn pig-headed and drink from me. You can’t possibly spend weeks with both arms in casts, it would leave you completely defenseless.”

  He kind of had a point there. I stared at him for a while, brows knit as I weighed my options. Eventually, the pain wore me down, and I relented. “Let’s do this quickly, before I change my mind.”

  His wrist had completely healed by now, so he tore it open again and held it out to me. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I muttered, then fought back my gag reflex and experimentally ran the tip of my tongue over his wrist.

  The moment I swallowed, warmth and energy flooded me. It was an absolute rush, more powerful than any drug,
and I found myself lunging for his wrist. He pressed it gently to my lips and I drank deeply, hungrily, my eyes sliding shut. It was so good, so nourishing and healing, its taste surprisingly palatable.

  Bane let me do this for a long time, the pain easing and my body beginning to mend itself as I drank. When I finally ended it, he stood up and said, “You’re going to need to stay in bed and rest. It’ll take some time for my blood to fully heal you.”

  I felt slightly buzzed, and mumbled, “Where are we?”

  “One of my safe-houses, it’s the best place for you right now. The wards on your house aren’t sufficient to keep out that vamp gang if they track you there.”

  “My wards are perfectly sufficient. They keep everyone out except you. And I’d like to know how you manage to get around all my protections.”

  “I was a full-blooded warlock before being turned into a vampire. My powers are a bit unpredictable now, but they’re still more than enough to get around your piecemeal spells.”

  I frowned and said, “That’s impossible. Warlocks can’t be turned into vampires.”

  “It’s not impossible, merely unusual. I meant what I said about getting some rest, Tinder. Your body needs time to mend.” With that, he turned and started to leave the bedroom.

  “Where are you going?”

  He paused and glanced over his shoulder at me. “Far away from you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because any minute now, you’re going to have a powerful reaction to all that blood you consumed, and I don’t want to be here when that happens.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Define powerful reaction.”

  “Vampire blood is an aphrodisiac. Any moment now, you’re going to be begging me to have sex with you.”

  “And…you don’t want to be around when that happens?” I blinked a few times to clear my vision, feeling a bit dizzy.

  “In some ways, drinking my blood is like drinking alcohol, it clouds your judgment. I’d never take advantage of you in that state.”

  I tried to roll my eyes at him, which just made the room spin. I leaned back against the pillow and muttered, “Oh no, of course not. But when I’m horny as hell in an empty warehouse, then it’s ok to take advantage.”

  Bane grinned a little. “Entirely different situation.”

  He turned and started to leave, and I said quietly, “They were hunting me, Bane. It wasn’t just random. Those vamps knew my name, they came after me deliberately.”

  Again he paused, just inside the doorway. “I know.”

  “But vampires don’t do that. They don’t hunt in packs. It’s just not how they operate.”

  “Not normally, no.”

  “Why are the vamps changing their behavior? What’s going on?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m taking care of it. Get some rest.” He left the room, and I leapt out of bed and ran after him.

  “Come on, Bane! Why can’t you just clue me in?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Tinder, I told you to rest!”

  I put myself between him and the front door. “I know what you told me, and I don’t give a shit. Everything’s been changing, and I need to know what’s going on. What are the vampires up to? Why are they hunting in packs? And what was up with that warehouse? Who went in and totally emptied that place? Was it you?” The room spun again, and I flung a hand out to steady myself against the front door, which made me cry out in pain. My arm was healing, but it was nowhere near back to normal.

  A wave of nausea crashed into me all of a sudden. “I really don’t feel so good,” I murmured as I dropped to my knees. In the next instant I was throwing up violently, my entire body heaving. Given what I’d just consumed, it turned the entryway of the apartment into a scene from a horror movie.

  “What the hell?” Bane exclaimed as he dropped to his knees on the tile floor and held on to me.

  It felt like my body was turning itself inside out. And it just went on and on, tears streaming down my face as my body purged itself of every last drop of Bane’s blood and then kept going and going and going. Throughout it all, Bane clutched me tightly, and I clung to the big arm wrapped around my chest like it was a life line. I shook violently as my body convulsed from the strain of what it was doing to itself.

  When I finally passed out, it was such a relief.

  Apparently, I’d fallen asleep at some point. When I awoke, the room was dark, but a faint glow around the edges of the heavy curtains told me it was daytime. Bane’s arms were around me. I burrowed deeper into them, and he held me securely as he asked, “How do you feel?”

  “Like shit.” My voice sounded really raspy.

  “No doubt.” He brushed my hair back from my eyes and said, “You know, when I said you’d have a powerful reaction to my blood, I was not expecting you to vomit your guts out.”

  “I know. Why did that happen?”

  “I have no idea, I’ve never heard of a human rejecting vampire blood like that. I’m going to look it up in my research library, right after I hunt down that vampire pack and tear them to shreds. I’d already be on their trail, but I didn’t want to leave until I knew you were ok.”

  His hand slid down to rub my bare back gently as he was talking, and I asked, “Why am I naked?”

  “Because you were covered in blood and vomit.”

  “Pretty. Did you bathe me?”

  “I did.”

  “It’s super weird that you feel the need to take care of me,” I murmured, snuggling against him. My only excuse for that was that I felt miserable, and was in desperate need of a little comfort.

  “Shame that it takes nearly dying before you’ll let me.” He adjusted his hold on me, and said, “I’m sorry you had such a violent reaction to my blood, but the good news is, it appears you kept it down long enough to mend your broken bones.”

  “Don’t know if it was worth it,” I mumbled.

  I was starting to drift off again, and he said, “Since you’re doing better, I’m going to take off in a few minutes, before the vampires’ trail gets cold. There’s water at your bedside, and your clothes are in the dryer.”

  “You did my laundry?”

  “It was that or let you go about looking like an extra in a slasher film.”

  “Thanks, Bane.”

  “You’re welcome, Tyler.”

  “I don’t like it when you use my real name.”

  “I know. But you’re too incapacitated right now to do anything about it.”

  I grinned at that before sinking back into sleep.

  Chapter Five

  The next time I awoke, I was groggy and disoriented, and had no idea how long I’d been out. I took a couple deep breaths, and found that the pain from the broken ribs was completely gone. As I sat up, I pushed my hair out of my face and called Bane’s name. The apartment was perfectly still. I grabbed the bottle of water he’d left on the nightstand and drank all of it before swinging out of bed. Then I went in search of the dryer, which I eventually found in a hall closet.

  Getting dressed was far more exhausting than it should have been. After I put my clothes on, I laid down right where I was, on the area rug in front of the dryer. I kept my eyes closed for a few minutes, then forced them open and took a look at my surroundings. Bane had brought me to the Land of Beige. Beige, beige, beige, as far as the eye could see. The walls were beige, the curtains were beige, the furniture was beige (with dark wood accents, but still, the rest was beige). The rug I was laying on had a pattern of squares, all in varying shades of beige. God. It was enough to make me want to hurl again.

  I pushed myself into a seated position and tugged on my boots, then stood up tentatively. My leather jacket was hanging from a hook in the little laundry closet, and when I put it on, it was a bit damp. I tried to picture powerful and elegant Bane with his sleeves rolled up, scrubbing the puke off my jacket, or for that matter mopping up the entryway, and failed miserably.

  My weapons were neatly laid out on a (beige) towel on top of the washing machi
ne. He’d arranged them in order of size, subcategorized by function. OCD much? It took a while to get all my weapons in place on my body, and when I finished, I needed to lay back down on the area rug for a few more minutes. Man, that vomitfest had really zapped my energy.

  Eventually, I was back on my feet and propelling myself toward the front door. There was a note stuck to it, written in ornate cursive (that was such an old-vamp tipoff). It said: Get back in bed. You’re not well enough to be up yet.

  What a control freak. I opened the front door, which set off a piercing alarm. Ugh, great. I pulled the door shut behind me, clamping my hands over my ears (for all the good it did) as I hurried to the elevator. It also had a note stuck to it. It said: NO. Oh my God! Total control freak. I pushed the elevator button…about a hundred and forty-seven times. Nothing happened. The control freak had actually disabled the elevator!

  The horrible, shrieking alarm was still going off. It was so loud that I felt like I was going to begin bleeding from my ears soon. I hurried to the end of the hallway and tried the handle on the big metal door leading to the stairs. Oh, here was a surprise: it was locked. And yes, there was a note stuck to it. It said: Definitely not.

  “What the hell, Bane?” I yelled over the alarm, as if he could hear me. “You have some serious control issues, dude. Like, ‘keep a team of psychotherapists employed for decades’-type issues.”

  If the alarm didn’t stop soon, I was going to go completely insane. I returned to the apartment, and was surprised to find I hadn’t locked myself out. The control freak had probably somehow controlled that as well. I stepped back inside, closing the door behind me, and breathed a sigh of relief when the alarm stopped. I tried opening the door again, and immediately the alarm began wailing. When I shut it from inside the apartment, the alarm stopped. But when I was out in the hall and shut it, the alarm kept going. Really?