Hunter Trials (The Vampire Legacy Book 2)

by Rita Stradling

  From the way everyone acted, Sebastian was the nightmare that hung over all of their heads.

  “Okay,” I said carefully. “The way you guys talk about him makes my skin crawl, and there are moments when I think maybe I see that, but most of the time he just seems like your average entitled asshole.”

  “Nothing about my cousin is normal.”

  “What did he do? The fact that everyone calls him Prime Evil implies he did something, or maybe a long stream of somethings.” When I walked over to Justin, his hands went to my hips, and I sat on his lap. I pivoted to face him and laid my arms over his shoulders, making sure to catch his gaze fully. “Talk to me.”

  “My cousin deserves that nickname and worse. But we had an assembly, and all swore never to tell what he did. And from what I learned yesterday, I think I know why he did it—and that’s what terrifies me.”

  “Those fucking assemblies.” I shook my head. “You were right, Justin. I should have stayed away. Now we’re both in danger from the Hawthorn Group.”

  “Hey, no.” His gaze lifted, meeting mine. “I told you, what I’m doing at the Hawthorn Group has nothing to do with you. The danger I’m in also has nothing to do with you.”

  I leaned back and narrowed my eyes at him. “So, this Hawthorn Group internship is really just an excuse to spy on Sebastian?”

  His nostrils flared, and he looked up to the ceiling in exasperation, but when he looked down to my eyes, a small smile pulled up one of the corners of his lips. “January, you are the only person in the world that I actually want to confide in, but I need to be one-hundred percent sure that I’m right before I do. But first, you need to get far away from Sebastian. I will convince your grandmother. I will keep you both safe; I have a plan in place. I promise you that we will all be safer on the run than we will be here.”

  I bit my thumbnail. The last time that Justin told me that we needed to flee, I ignored him, and it put both of our lives at serious risk. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “Fine. I trust you, but one day very soon you’re going to tell me all of your secrets.”

  “Thank you,” he said on a sigh. Then he rested his head on my shoulder for a second before looking up at me. “One day very soon, I’ll tell you all of my secrets, and then you’ll immediately lose all interest in me.” There was a spark of humor in his yellow-brown eyes that told me that he didn’t believe his own words.

  “I can one hundred percent guarantee you that’s not true.” I brought my lips down to his. “I love you—secrets or no secrets.” I kissed him. His soft lips moved over my mouth as his hands slid up my sides to my waist. His tongue entered between my lips to tangle with mine. My fingers ran through his dark hair as I deepened the kiss. A warm, tingling sensation lit low in my belly. I wanted this boy more than I had wanted to be with anyone in my life. I could feel his love and protection wrapping around me, cocooning me from the horrors that stalked us. I wanted so much more of him. I wanted us to be even closer, as close as two people could possibly be, and in the position we were in, I could feel that he wanted the same. I broke away and whispered, “If we’re going to be on the run with my grandmother for the foreseeable future ... What if we headed back to my bed?”

  Justin’s eyes met mine. The heat there made the feeling in my belly tingle through my whole body. Damn, I wanted him and everything about him. “January,” he whispered before blowing out a slow breath. “I want to—trust me—I have wanted that for a very long time. But when we do that for the first time, I want it to be special. We’re probably going to be interrupted at any minute.”

  As if on cue, a knock sounded at the door.

  “No…” I groaned, “maybe they’ll go away.”

  Justin’s brows lifted, clearly communicating that he told me so. He chuckled. “The school administration is definitely not going to let us skip class all day in your room.”

  “Fine. Maybe you’re right,” I told him with another quick kiss. “And I like special, too.”

  “Medic,” an unfamiliar voice called from the hallway. “Please open up.”

  Justin and I took our time answering the door. Mitch and a guy in uniform waited in the hall. “This is a medic the HG sent over,” Mitch said as he stood in my doorway with his arms crossed. “And we can go to class, apparently.”

  The medic tried to lean past Mitch, but the huge senior stayed determinedly in his path. The thirty-something guy looked irate. He looked more military than doctor with short buzzed hair and perfect posture. The only thing distinctive about the guy was his bushy dark eyebrows.

  “I’m an intern at the headquarters’ medical center. I’ve never seen you there before,” Justin said, sounding suspicious. I had forgotten that Justin interned at the medical center, and a bit of tension eased in my chest at his words. I guess I’d always pictured that he was out hunting vampires.

  “I don’t work at headquarters. I’m a field medic.” The guy craned his neck to peer past Mitch’s hulking form. “If I could just take a look at your arm, Miss Moore?”

  “I’m fine. The cut bled for a minute, but it stopped, and I bandaged it up.”

  When the paramedic didn’t leave, Justin came to stand beside me, and he threw an arm around my waist. “She said she’s fine. Didn’t you hear her?”

  “The Hawthorn Group sent me over. If I could just take a look.” The young guy attempted to squeeze past Mitch, but Mitch pushed an arm into his chest, pinning him to the doorframe.

  “You do not want to be doing that right now,” Mitch said, calmly. “We’re all a little jumpy, get it? I’ve been tasked with guarding January. You have a problem, take it up with my brother.”

  Mitch shoved the guy into the hall, which I didn’t really think was appropriate, but under the circumstances, I was a little bit grateful. There was no way that I was going to let that medic get a good look at my arm.

  “I am completely fine. It’s a scratch, and I cleaned it up and bandaged it. I’m just really not in a space where I want to be touched by strangers right now.” After I said the words, I realized how true they were. I felt safe here with Justin, and weirdly, with Mitch too. The Mitch thing I knew was temporary, he’d protect me as long as he was being blackmailed into doing so, but he saved my life —and Bailey’s—today, and that made him feel safe at this moment.

  “Yeah, fine. I’ll take it up with management.” The paramedic threw up his hands and headed down the hall toward the elevator.

  Mitch turned slowly, and his glower landed on me. Maybe I was too quick to think the school’s resident asshole was whatsoever safe.

  “I’m not going to kick your fucking dog, okay? I’ve never kicked an animal. I generally like them more than people. People, I kick, animals, I don’t kick.”

  “So, why’d you threaten Bailey in the first place then?” I asked.

  “How long can you possibly hold onto a grudge over nothing. Shit, Justin, how can you stand her?” Mitch might have been directing his question at Justin, but he was looking at me while he said it.

  “Mitch, we fucking talked about this.” Justin started to move in front of me, but I was going to have none of this.

  “Uh, uh. Nope. Don’t talk to Justin about me, Mitch, especially not in front of me. He’s not my representative or my keeper. If you want to insult me, direct it at me. And now that I’m on the subject, can you please come up with some new insults? Salty bitch, hobo, and dirtbag will only get you so much mileage before everyone’s just tired of hearing you say it.”

  He threw out his hands. “I saved your life. Can’t you stop snapping at me every time I open my mouth? I don’t have a choice about following you around.”

  He made it sound like it was all my fault that we didn’t get along. “Fine. I will be nicer to you, Mitch, if you can just attempt to be pleasant while you follow me around.” I spread my hands open. “We can have a cease-fire until Justin breaks up with me, or your brother loses interest in screwing with my life.”

  “Don’t hold
your breath on my part of that,” Justin muttered, his voice surprisingly cold.

  Mitch pointed into Justin’s face. “I’m not fucking interested, Jr. Put that idea from your head. You’re dating a homeless chick—you’re pretty safe there from people trying to steal her from you.”

  “Thanks,” I said dryly. I was guessing that their heart-to-heart during lunch on Wednesday wasn’t about what I thought it was about. I knew I shouldn’t feel warm fuzzies that Justin had a conversation with Mitch about not hitting on me, but bubbling warmth stirred in my belly none the less. “Yup. I was practically homeless for the year Justin first knew me. He fell in love with me, regardless. You can’t hurt me with something I own about myself. I’m not ashamed of it. Move on or don’t. Anyhow, I agree to a cease-fire with you, but if you’re acting like a bully right next to me, I’m going to speak up. I can’t let it slide. It’s not in me.”

  “Good. I’m never a bully. I just say what needs to be said.” When I scoffed at that, Mitch shrugged and leaned against the doorframe. “In the spirit of the cease-fire, I’ll tell you that Sebastian is having me make you one of the Senior Huntress competitors after school today.”

  “What? No. I can’t even do a pull-up. The freshmen were literally crawling circles around me yesterday.” I gestured out. “You saw me. I’m not ready to hunt a vampire.”

  Panic surged through me. It was one thing to think that I might have to fight a vampire nine months from now, it was something else entirely to think that I’d have to do it in front of the whole school in a couple of weeks.

  Mitch looked to the side and lifted his dark brows. “Yeah, it’s going to be pretty pitiful. Sebastian said some crap about testing your capabilities. Knowing my brother, though, I’m guessing that he’s trying to mindfuck you in some way. The guy is a freak.”

  “How do I get him to lose interest in me?” I asked.

  The two guys made eye contact.

  Justin squeezed me tighter, and I could feel the tension in his body as I pressed into his side. They were both silent for a second, passing a meaningful stare between them.

  “I don’t know,” Mitch finally said with a shrug, “It’ll probably happen on its own in a month—if that.”

  This whole conversation gave me the chills like there was a dark undertone they weren’t saying. Maybe it had to do with the things they were magically bound not to say about the head of the Hawthorn Group.

  “How likely am I to get hurt in this competition?”

  “You.” Mitch looked me up and down. “I’d say, very likely.”

  Justin stiffened at my side. My stomach clenched as I realized that I was probably going to go into a desperate blood craving in this hunt in front of the whole school. There had been no hiding my fangs this morning, and Wednesday, I’d fallen into such a strong blood frenzy that I’d been moments away from biting Sebastian Holter.

  “Can’t I just say no?” I blurted out.

  “Maybe you’re not getting this, Dirtbag. My family controls all of us, and they’re soulless assholes who use blackmail and violence to control everyone here. My brother is their golden son because he’s worse than my mother and father combined. If the Hawthorn Group wants something from you, they’ll make it happen.” He motioned between Justin and himself. “They’ll force us to make it happen. Jr. won’t do it, and he’ll pay for it. I’ll probably do it for him.”

  “What Mitch is saying is that he recommends you pick your battles.” Justin’s voice was flat. “We have to be really careful with how openly we go against Sebastian.” He turned fully to me, his dark eyes boring into mine with a meaningful intensity, and I remembered that this whole Senior Hunt thing really didn’t matter. Justin wanted us to take off long before the competition would begin. “January, please let me be the one to nominate you for Senior Huntress,” Justin said, measuredly.

  “Okay?” I said it like a question as I stared into his eyes. “What does that mean?” From his expression, it was paramount that I said yes.

  “I’ll tell you later, but it’s important.”

  Annoyance surged through me. More secrets than ever were piling up between us, and yet again, all of them were him keeping essential things from me. I was, as always, an open book.

  “Fine,” I whispered, probably a little more heatedly than I should.

  “What the fuck is this bran and kale shit?” Mitch asked, and I broke away from Justin’s gaze to find that Mitch had crossed over to my fridge and had his head fully in. “You have three bottles of half-empty peanut butter and no bread or jam.”

  My heart jumped to see him there, pawing through my shelves. He lifted out one of my jars of peanut butter and unscrewed the top. “Crunchy, smooth, and extra crunchy? You need three different textures?”

  “Touch my peanut butter and die, Mitch.”

  He narrowed his eyelids and peered in. “What, do you just eat it straight from the jar?”

  “Put the crunchy down and step away.”

  He shook his head and finally set the jar back in the fridge. “Okay, we need to go because your food isn’t fit for hamsters.”

  I made a shooing motion out my door. “You live literally five feet away. Go eat your own food.”

  Mitch ignored me and clapped Justin on the shoulder on his way past us. “Look, as much as I’d rather smash my head against the wall than spend more time with your girlfriend, Sebastian ordered that I nominate her. You just narrowly escaped getting thrown in Alderwood Reformatory last week —”

  “We’re not talking about that,” Justin snapped, his tone cold. “And rolling over completely with Sebastian is just as dumb as going against him. This way, we do what he wants but on our terms.”

  “Fine.” Mitch held up his hands in surrender. “But I’m not going to get my ass kicked for either of you. May the faster nominator … nominate or whatever. Can we go now? I’m fucking famished.”

  “When are you ever not hungry?” I grumbled. I was starting to feel a lot like a caged animal as we headed out into the hallway. Mitch paced ahead, and I turned to Justin before we hit the elevator. “Please, just explain what’s going on. Why would Sebastian want me to hunt a vampire in front of the school? What does it matter who nominates me? And what is Alderwood Reformatory? My head is spinning.”

  “I don’t know why he’d want you to be part of the hunt.” Justin rubbed a hand down his face. “And I wasn’t going to be sent to Alderwood Reformatory, not really. It’s where they send …” His phone rang, and he trailed off.

  I had a sudden, irrational urge to grab his phone and chuck it into a wall. Instead, I squeezed my hands into fists and waited for Justin to have a two-minute conversation that consisted of him only saying the word, “Yeah.” I thought that perhaps the buzzing voice coming from the receiver was male, but it was hard to be sure. Justin looked at me as he pocketed his phone again.

  “Alderwood Reformatory is where they send …? Finish the sentence, please.”

  He leaned forward, wrapped his arms around me, and pressed his forehead into mine. “Don’t kill me. I have to go off campus for a minute. I promise that I’ll be there in time to nominate you before Mitch does, and I’ll sneak up here tonight and tell you what I can.”

  “How did you know that I was considering killing you?” I grumbled into his shoulder.

  “You were either considering killing me or breaking up with me.” Leaning back, he gave me a quick peck on my nose and then a mischievous smile. “I have your word that you’ll kill me first.”

  I laughed. “You are such a secret weirdo. Am I the only one who knows what a big weirdo you are?”

  He looked up to the ceiling and then worked his jaw back and forth. “Probably.” His gaze fell back to mine. “Definitely.”

  The elevator dinged behind us, and Mitch yelled something about us being disgusting, but I completely tuned him out. Even though we had to go, Justin didn’t seem to want to let go of me, and as annoyed as I was with him just seconds ago, I didn’t want him
to let me go either.

  “Is this something to do with your internship?” I nodded down to his pocket.

  A shadow passed over his eyes, just for an instant, and then he blinked, and it was gone. A small smile returned to his lips, and Justin shook his head. “This is just something for my mom. It’s not a big deal.”

  He said it while staring just the littlest bit over my eyes, and I was almost sure that he was lying to me. Part of me wanted to call him out on the lie, but I’d done that enough for one morning.

  “You better give me at least some answers tonight,” I said with my brows raised.

  “Oh, I know.” He gave me one more quick kiss, and then he took my hand and tugged me toward where Mitch glowered beside the elevator.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I arrived back at school halfway through second period. The entire student body was taking full advantage of the canceled class, filling the cafeteria and lounging out on the lawns.

  Justin had walked away outside of Gregory Hall, heading toward the parking lot, and Mitch and I walked up to the school together. As we walked, we discussed what would be a reasonable amount of distance we could keep from each other in yards.

  Satisfied that I could finally get at least some space from my bad-tempered bodyguard, I decided to take this opportunity to reconnect with the Bad Boys Club. I found them just outside the cafeteria in a small interior courtyard. The entire area was in the shade, but it was still probably in the upper eighties. Only my determination to be part of their group had me pushing out of the glass doors and heading toward the picnic benches.