by Liz Meldon
“So, do you actually plan your moves at all when you fight, or d’you kind of just wing it?” he asked after taking a large sip of water. She eyed the bottle, her mouth suddenly too dry, and then held out her hand. Devin leaned across the mat once more and retrieved her bottle, and she took a quick swig of the lukewarm liquid inside.
“I plan.”
“Really?” He made a face at her outright lie, then chuckled. “Because I can literally see your brain working out your next move as you go. You need to nail down a few routines, then just use them.”
She slouched forward to retie one of her shoes, the laces looking loose. “I like to improvise in the heat of the moment, I guess.”
“Yeah? How’s that working out for you?”
Delia shrugged. Sure, she was quick on her feet. Track had given her a few shining moments of glory in high school. Tackling HQ obstacle courses usually put her at the top of the heap, but she ranked close to the bottom on any and all combat trials.
“Works fine,” she insisted, starting to feel the dull ache in her neck and head from their most recent bout. Her gaze wandered down to his tight workout tank, which stuck just right to the defined muscles of his midsection—a welcome distraction.
“Hey, eyes are up here, D.”
She offered him a sly grin, then looked over his shoulder when one of the guys in the weights area let out an unnecessarily loud grunt as he lifted.
The League training arena was a two-floor monstrosity partially separate from the rest of the underground facility. It contained all the equipment hunters needed to train: barbells and weight machines, squat racks, bikes, ellipticals, treadmills. Delia’s favourite part was the enormous track loop that encircled both floors.
“You ready to try again?” Devin asked after a few quiet moments. Nearby, two other hunters were also working on their hand-to-hand combat skills, though the pair seemed more evenly matched than she and Devin.
“Why do you still train with me?” She took another small sip, her neck starting to feel a little stiff on top of the ache. When he didn’t answer right away, she added, “You’re way out of my league.”
They both took a quick chug of water, the rules of a recent drinking game still in effect—take a shot whenever someone used “league” without referencing work. Along with: vamp, stake, council, and any of the major clan names.
“Maybe I feel sorry for you,” he said, then laughed when she stuck up her middle finger. “Because I like training with you, D. Do I really need a reason?”
“I’m not going to help you get any better.”
“Well, you’re not my only sparring partner,” Devin argued lightly as he capped his water bottle and set it aside. “And I shouldn’t be yours either.”
She pursed her lips as he hopped back to his feet, stretching out his quads and calves. He wasn’t her only training partner, but everybody else liked to gloat when they beat her. Some seemed to think that put-downs would motivate her to do better, but they only made her bitter.
“Contrary to what you think,” she said with an overly dramatic sigh, biting back a smile as she tossed her bottle aside and pushed herself up, legs protesting every slight movement, “you’re not the center of my world, friend.”
“Delia?” A voice cut off whatever Devin had to say in response, his playful grin dropping in an instant. Behind her, strolling over from the weights area, was a yummy sight if she’d ever seen one: Kain in workout gear. Somehow he managed to make a t-shirt and baggy shorts look good. She crossed her arms, only marginally embarrassed to be seen in a shapeless, grubby t-shirt and bright purple spandex capris that looked straight out of the eighties.
“Kain, hey,” she greeted. While Devin was quite large overall, Kain matched him in height but not in width. He was a slim, muscular kind of guy—lean and strong, wiry almost. He’d pulled his shaggy blond-brown hair back into a little bun, and he wore a blood-red tee that Delia had definitely slept in at least once before.
His eyes, sweet and brown like a goofy Labrador’s, darted briefly to Devin, who only warranted a nod. Typical snooty upper-rung hunter dismissal. Delia sighed noisily to draw attention to it, but Kain seemed not to notice.
“Can we talk for a second?” he asked, his Irish brogue forcing a little half-smile out of her. She nodded and shot Devin an apologetic look as she followed Kain away from their mat. Her friend waved her off, continuing his stretching routine in silence.
“What’s up?” she asked as they loitered around the water fountains. She took the opportunity to refill her bottle, and Kain’s stare burned into the side of her face as she did. She glanced up at him. “What?”
“Why are you talking to him?”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “What? To Devin? Because he’s a nice guy, which you’d know if you stepped off your fucking pedestal for two seconds and—”
“To Grimm,” he hissed, dropping his voice and stepping closer as he said the name. Her face blanched, palms breaking out in a cold sweat, and she busied herself with the fountain again. It’d been a few days since she’d seen or heard from Claude Grimm, and she’d tried so, so hard not to think about him. On the conscious front, she’d been successful—not so much in her dreams. Kain let out a long, annoyed sigh. “Are you stupid, Dels? D’you know what could happen if they find out you—”
“Were you spying on me?” she fired back with a glare. How else would he have known? Kain’s expression hardened as he shook his head.
“No.” He rocked back and forth between his heels and the balls of his feet, then added, “Not really. Not on purpose.”
She tried to slap his arm, but he dodged her hand with ease. Her eyes narrowed. “When?”
“Is there more than one occasion?”
“No, but—”
“The other day,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I was on my way to the bank and I saw you two walking together.”
“Seriously?”
“You weren’t exactly subtle,” Kain informed her, his tone more than a little patronizing. “You were practically tripping over your own feet around him.”
“Hey, fuck you.” She might have been a little thrown in Claude’s presence, but she hadn’t been that bad.
“No, fuck you, Delia,” he snapped. “You told me who he was. You begged for my help, for me to keep your secret. You don’t have the right to be angry when I try to look out for you.”
Her cheeks tinged with colour at the use of her full name. She was always Dels to Kain, unless he was genuinely exasperated. After a quick glance over his shoulder, he glowered at her, his face taking on a handsome scowl, the kind that had once made her swoon—but that was a long time ago.
“Look,” Delia started, pulling him away from the water fountains as a couple of hunters started to drift toward them. They stood close to one another, and only when Delia caught a whiff of his rather masculine cologne did she worry about her training-stink. She pressed her arms down, as if that would keep the smell at bay. “Look. You know I appreciate you keeping my secret. I was a mess that night, and you… I appreciate it.”
His face wrinkled with discomfort—never one for getting too personal. “Yeah, I know.”
“But you don’t need to check up on me,” Delia told him in her stop-fucking-with-me-I’m-100%-not-kidding tone. “I don’t need you to follow me or warn me about him. He showed up out of nowhere, in the daylight, I might add—”
“Yeah, most clan leaders can do that,” he said casually.
She pressed her lips together, irritated. She’d been with the League for almost five years now, but it took a vamp walking around in the sun for her to learn such obviously valuable intel? It was absurd that this wasn’t common knowledge, and it made her wonder what other useful nuggets the senior hunters were keeping to themselves—as if the lower and middle tier guys would somehow steal their assignments if they were better informed. It was laughable.
“Well, anyway.” She waved it off. “He showed up, I handled it, and that was that.�
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“What’d he want?” His gaze drifted down to her neck. That fateful night many months ago, Kain had inspected the wound as Delia dry-heaved into a paper bag back at her apartment, fearing the worst. The marks had faded considerably since then. She shifted to the side so he wouldn’t be able to see them.
“To talk, apparently,” she muttered, hesitating somewhat before adding, “I think he wanted to…to…ask me out.”
Kain gawked at her for a long moment, eyes widening and lips quirking up into a grin. “What?”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” she rambled, cheeks flushed as he started to laugh. “It was weird. Like he wanted to check up on how I was doing after we…”
“Fucked,” he offered. “After you fucked a vamp.”
This time she managed to get him, her punch landing right below his shoulder.
“Can we not joke about that?” She’d yet to come to terms with any of her feelings from that night, but she certainly wasn’t at a point where she could make light of it yet with Kain—or anyone, for that matter, if anyone else actually knew.
“Sorry, you’re right. I’ll be serious.” Kain cleared his throat, his laughter slowly dying down. “I just don’t know what a clan leader would want romantically with you of all people—”
“Hey—”
“Right, right, sorry.” He held up his hands innocently and she tried not to glower. “I’m not saying you’re, you know… You’re a pretty girl, Dels, but some clan leaders are like royalty, you know what I mean? Royalty doesn’t go for…”
“Peasantry?” she offered, hating the way her cheeks burned. The topic shouldn’t affect her like it did. “Yeah, I get it.”
“I’m not trying to have a go at you personally—”
“I get it, Kain,” Delia snapped. Gripping her water bottle tightly, she looked away, eyes roving the gym landscape. “Move on.”
“Stay away from him, okay?”
“Sorry, at what point was I actively seeking him out?” This was getting ridiculous. Sure, she’d read up on the guy in the chronicles section of the HQ library, but she wasn’t following him around like a paparazzo creep taking photos. “He just showed up, out of the blue. I couldn’t run because you know he’d catch me, and I didn’t want to make a fucking scene at a full coffee house in the middle of the fucking day—”
“Okay, okay, Dels, fine,” he muttered. He reached out to set a hand on her shoulder, but Delia swiveled out of the way, biting her cheeks in displeasure. Kain sighed. “I’m just trying to look out for you. If any of the higher-ups knew you were bitten, you’d be listed as a traitor and disciplined accordingly.”
“I know,” she said. Some of the anger melted out of her at that. He was right, after all. Nobody knew beyond the rumors what was done to hunters who let a vampire bite them, but it couldn’t be good.
“So… walk away if you see him. Don’t engage.”
“I don’t want to engage, Kain.”
“Okay, well… Good.”
Her eyes narrowed at him. “Yeah. I know.”
“Right.”
“Okay.”
Their staring contest went on a fraction of a second too long, and Kain broke away first to scratch at the back of his neck. Nearby, a few curious eyes had darted their way.
“Nice shirt,” Kain said suddenly as he nodded down at her chest. Delia squared her shoulders. She didn’t need to look to know what she looked like down there; her baggy t-shirt was old and worn out and soaked with sweat—definitely not flattering. Kain opened his mouth like he had something more to say, going so far as to draw in a breath; but then he turned abruptly on his heel and left, marching for the locker rooms at a pace too brisk for her to match. Delia stood there in a stewed silence, watching him go, before pretending to top up her water bottle again. She zoned out as the water spilled over the top, Kain’s words bouncing around in her head until the water started to numb her fingers.
Cursing, Delia pulled back and capped her bottle, then wiped its dripping sides on her shirt before stalking back to Devin in a huff.
Her fellow hunter was in the middle of doing push-ups when she arrived, and when she stopped directly in front of him, he glanced up, his taut-muscled arms unflinching as they held up his body weight.
“You heading out?” he asked, and when she shook her head and all but threw her water bottle on the exercise mat, he pushed up and settled in a seated position, a line of perspiration on his forehead. “Everything okay?”
He didn’t need to say things had looked heated between her and Kain—Delia knew they had. He wouldn’t either. Devin was too polite to admit to spying.
“Yeah,” she said stiffly, planting her hands on her hips, jaw tight. “Everything’s fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Clearing his throat, Devin rose, the movement fluid and smooth. “Look, Kain… Kain’s a dick.”
Unable to help herself, Delia snorted. “Not news to me, D.”
“Don’t let him get you all riled up,” he went on.
Delia exhaled deeply, like that would carry away the tension. “I’m trying.”
“Seriously.” Devin smacked her arm lightly, then hopped back on the mat, all nimble elf-like grace—absurd for a man his size. “Kain and all his slutty buddies give the rest of us a bad name.” Delia laughed harder this time. “Let’s get back to training.”
“Fine,” she muttered, tossing her head this way and that to stretch out her neck, arms swinging. “I just hope I don’t injure you too severely this time, because…”
She launched herself at him—surprise attack!
Seconds later her back hit the mat, forcing all the air out of her body. Delia closed her eyes tightly and groaned.
CHAPTER 3: Rooftop Rendezvous
Delia placed a hand on her stomach when it growled so loudly that the folks two towns over in Trent had probably heard it. She checked the laptop she’d set up on an old box five hours ago, the one connected to the camera on the edge of the roof monitoring the building across the street. The two vamps stationed at the front door continued to smoke and chat with one another. If they had heard her stomach’s desperate plea, they gave no reaction. Tense and still, she watched the screen for a few more seconds, then settled back into her fold-out chair and resumed her multi-hunter Scrabble session with a soft sigh. With her phone’s screen set at its lowest brightness setting, she added OVULATE to the board.
Her phone vibrated when Devin wrote Gross in the chat window below their game. She smirked.
Their game included three other hunters who were also on surveillance duty that night, stationed on and in buildings across Harriswood like Delia, probably just as bored—though probably better prepared for a long-haul stakeout. All she’d brought was a ham sandwich and a can of soda, both of which she’d finished in the first hour.
According to all the rats, there had been chatter of human trades tonight between a few of the more influential clans. It wasn’t illegal, per se, to trade humans, but the humans had to be there voluntarily. At any whiff of kidnapped victims or bound, screaming humans, the hunter present was supposed to record only, then hand the footage over to the League to review and issue a warrant the next day, in conjunction with the police, to rescue said humans.
So, Delia and a few others had been tasked with doing essentially what a security camera could do.
Mel, an eighteen-year-old from Cincinnati, spelled out MISOGYNY on the board, earning her a hell of a score. Seconds later Eric, a thirty-something part-timer, added SENSITIVE. Delia’s eyes narrowed at her phone, fingers hovering over her letter tiles. How was everyone getting all these awesome letters? Delia ranked fourth on the Scrabble app’s scoreboard, and tonight was determined to at least get up to third.
Ali, a hunter from California who’d connected with Delia their first day of training, spelled PLAYER off the ‘e’ in Delia’s last word, and the round started over again with Delia. She sat there, eyebrows crinkled in concentration
and lower lip caught between her teeth, then let out a petulant huff, thumbs tapping at her screen: RED.
Devin’s response in the chat box—LOL—appeared shortly after. She resisted the urge to throw her phone—again. Another quick glance at the monitor told her there was nothing new going on with her two vamp guards, even when their obnoxious laughter trickled up from the street level. Her gaze went from their faces to their surroundings. All in all, things were looking good.
When she looked back at her phone, Devin had added XENOPHOBE and the screen was covered in fireworks and confetti.
“Fuck,” she muttered, eyes narrowed.
“Bad time?”
Delia flew up from her chair, which went toppling over behind her, and assumed a defensive stance: legs bent, arms up, phone gripped tight. Standing there across the roof, right in front of the rusted fire escape she’d used to get up there in the first place, was an annoyingly familiar attractive figure.
“What,” she said stiffly, heart pounding as colour flooded her cheeks, “are you doing here?”
“Did you plan to throw your telephone at me?” Claude asked as he strolled across the dusty rooftop. “Maybe zap me with all its radiation?”
He had something in his hand—a bag of some kind. Delia shifted her stance to a less melodramatic pose, knowing that she could probably get to the stake in her purse in a few seconds if she needed it.
But something told her she wouldn’t need it.
Probably the fact that the bag he carried had the logo of her usual burger joint on the front of it.
It was sweet.
In a somewhat stalkerish kind of way.
Delia pursed her lips, pushing questions about how he knew her favourite burger—just a good guess?—out of her mind for now. “Why are you here?”
Claude stopped some five feet away, the bag extended to her. He was dressed similarly to the night of the masquerade: black pants, leather shoes so clean that the moonlight glinted off them, and a dark button-up. Green, maybe. It was hard to tell. Delia, meanwhile, was in her usual stakeout attire: faded yoga pants and an old t-shirt.
