The Hunt

Byron glanced over his shoulder at the bed against the wall. Katherine looked back at him. She’d resolved to sit stiffly on one side of the plush covered mattress and had at once assigned him to the couch bed in the adjoining suite’s “living room.” There was no way he was going to sleep on it. For one thing, it was too short for him. For another thing… well, anyway, he wasn’t sleeping on the couch.

  In fact he doubted he would be doing much sleeping anywhere that night.

  Hunter money was apparently not in short supply. It had been a long time since Byron had stayed in a hotel room at all, and certainly he’d never dished out for something as posh as this. The suite had two separate large rooms and a bathroom the size of his first flat. An enormous solid oak armoire sat in the middle of the master bedroom in front of the bed. Byron hadn’t opened it yet to see what something so large could possibly be stocked with, but if it was anything like the bathroom, which came with plush robes, complimentary toiletries and what looked like a hair dryer from a Superman comic book, then it was bound to be impressive.

  They didn’t strictly need to stay in a hotel so high-end, but Katherine had insisted on a place that would come with two rooms or, at the very least, two separate sleeping spaces. She’d known exactly where to go, and for reasons he couldn’t quite comprehend, she’d decided not to cause any scenes along the way.

  When they’d come to the front desk of the marble-floored hotel lobby and the concierge had asked for payment, Katherine had taken out a small shimmering silver card made of plastic. When he’d bent to whisper in her ear and ask her what it was, he hadn’t missed her responding shiver. She couldn’t hide it from him, and he wasn’t surprised. He had an effect on her; she wouldn’t outwardly admit it, but it was most certainly there. She was a dormant and he was an alpha. There couldn’t be anything more natural than her sexual reaction to his nearness.

  But her next reaction was one that had surprised him. She’d turned toward him and asked, “You mean the credit card?”

  Apparently, money wasn’t real any longer. Now people carried “credit cards” around with them and those cards were electronically linked to some kind of nonexistent account somewhere. As a result, people racked up tons of debt. On the downside, it was probably bad for self-esteem in the long rum. On the upside, it was relatively good for the economy as long as it kept going – and most of all, it was all electronic. Which meant that if he needed to, he would be able to control it.

  That was a definite improvement over the measly powers he’d possessed over the technology that existed fifty years ago.

  A part of him – a very big part of him – was untrusting of how easily Katherine had gone along with the night’s plan. What was her game? Would she try to escape during the night? Try to kill him?

  It wasn’t that she stood a hope in hell of succeeding at either venture, but it sure would make it that much more difficult for them to get past the hatred part of their relationship and move on to diplomatic acceptance. Which was one short step closer to being lovers.

  At the moment, the lover thing seemed like a pipe dream. Katherine’s deep blue gaze followed his movements with the careful precision of a creature who knew they were in the presence of a predator and could potentially become its prey. There was absolutely no trust in that gaze. They had a long way to go.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, knowing already that she was. He’d heard her stomach growl twice since they’d arrived at the hotel.

  But she refused to answer him, instead averting her gaze and staring steadfastly at the marble top of the bedside table.

  “Well I am,” he said, picking up the phone on the round table at the opposite end of the large master suite. He glanced up at her again as he did so and noticed that she’d paled a bit. With an internal swear, he realized what he’d done.

  Oh, don’t get me wrong, little one. I’m hungry for you all right, but I’m not a big fan of cold meat.

  “I’m getting a steak,” he told her flatly. “I’m guessing you’re a salad girl.”

  “Bullshit,” she said. “I want a hamburger, medium rare, and French fries.” She still wouldn’t meet his gaze. “And make sure they don’t forget the ketchup.”

  Byron turned away from her so that she wouldn’t catch his grin. In truth, he could have pegged the meal to the last fry – but goading her had gotten her talking to him again. He was growing to love the fire that was so easily stoked in his mate.

  Byron made the order and was placing the phone back in its receiver when Katherine spoke up behind him.

  “You…” she began, but then trailed off and cleared her throat. Byron straightened and turned toward her, watching the play of emotion across her lovely face. She finally seemed to regain the will to continue. “You said something about a Lord Wraith. Who is that?”

  “Lord Wraythe,” Byron supplied, “spelled W-R-A-Y-T-H-E, is a warlock.”

  Katherine looked up at him. A beat of silence passed between them. And then she asked, “A what?”

  “A person who uses magic – but the wrong kind,” he told her. She was quiet and still staring at him, and Byron could only assume that she was digesting the information, so he went on. “Malachi Wraythe is the king of the warlocks, the most powerful warlock on the planet. His daughter was the vampire princess and when you infiltrated Wraythe’s property, the princess was killed.”

  “I didn’t kill any women,” Katherine quickly insisted. And then she straightened and cocked her head to one side. “Wait, did you say ‘vampire’?”

  “Yes,” he said, moving to the large reclining chair beside the table to sit down. When he was comfortable, he draped his arms over the back of the seat and went on. “Vampires are the offspring of warlocks and Akyri. They are the most elusive of the supernatural creatures on Earth and few know they exist. I happen to be one of those few. Now you do too.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Katherine said suddenly. Byron had to admit that she looked a little green. This was a lot of information for a person to take in in one night, and she’d been through a lot over the last few hours, but Hunters were trained to numb themselves up over what they saw and were forced to do. He was a touch surprised by her physical reaction. Maybe it was a combination of things – the poison, the magical smoke that had choked the air in the forest over Wraythe’s estate, the very fact that she was meeting the man she thought killed her father.

  Slowly, she stood up and started toward the bathroom. There were three doors in the hallway. Katherine slowed and looked at them questioningly.

  “Second door on the right,” he supplied softly. Katherine ran the rest of the way. ***** The clock on the bedside stand read 5:24 a.m. when Katherine put down her empty mug and once more ran a hand through her hair. She did it a lot when she was nervous, and she was pretty sure she’d pulled out a good thousand strands over the course of the night.

  Her head was spinning. Physically, she felt better than she had earlier. The bout of nausea had come on suddenly, without warning. She didn’t understand it; she’d been faced with adversity before and had never been sick. But at least it had passed quickly. The thing about throwing up was that as long as you weren’t genuinely ill, you normally felt really good afterwards. She’d even been well enough to eat part of the meal that Byron ordered. Strangely enough, she’d found she hadn’t really wanted the French fries after all, but the hamburger, she’d downed in seconds flat. At least the meat part of it; the bun, she’d left behind.

  It had taken the kitchen an hour and a half to fill the order, so she’d had the time she’d needed to recover from her bout of sickness anyway. Fortunately, there had been lots of complimentary mouthwash in the bathroom and she always carried an overnight supply of toothpaste and a toothbrush in her inner pocket in case she got stuck out and about. Like now. So, she’d spent the remaining time brushing her teeth repeatedly and listening to the story Byron Caige fed to her.

  Now the trays that had contained their fo
od were half empty and the cart was pushed up against one wall, out of the way. Katherine ran the palms of her hands over the legs of her jeans and took a deep breath. “Warlocks, werewolves, and vampires,” she said softly. “Oh my.”

  “It’s a lot to take in,” Byron admitted. “I know.”

  Kat looked up at him. The werewolf was seated on the sofa that was supposed to fold out into a bed. He hadn’t needed to use it that night; she’d kept him up with questions through the long hours. And for reasons unknown, he had decided to answer each and every one of them.

  Amazingly, he looked as put together and unruffled as he had when they’d first met earlier that night. His thick black hair was effortlessly perfect. His eyes sparkled with charcoal flecks of intelligence. His teeth were white and clean and his white long-sleeved shirt was unwrinkled. He’d rolled up the sleeves and it stretched enticingly across his broad chest and revealed his sculpted forearms as he draped his arms over the back of the sofa. She could even still smell his aftershave and the leather of the jacket he’d left over the arm of a nearby chair.

  According to Caige, he had been a prisoner to the warlock king’s daughter for the last fifty years, give or take a few months. To hear him tell it, said daughter had been a vampire – the Offspring of a warlock and a creature called an Akyri – and now that vampire was dead. Also according to him, twenty years ago, he’d managed to escape for all of a few hours, and that was when he’d made his way into San Francisco and then into her apartment complex.

  According to Caige, it wasn’t him that killed her father, but the warlock king, Malachi Wraythe – or at least one of Wraythe’s servants. And he’d done so in order to punish Caige.

  Of all reasons.

  “Do you have any proof for any of this?” she asked finally, even as her mind whirled and danced. She felt as if she were filled with bad energy. It buzzed inside of her, vibrating her nerve endings and making her twitch. It was the reason behind the chamomile tea she’d just finished. It was her third cup.

  “No,” Caige said. “I’m afraid right now, I don’t.”

  Katherine wasn’t surprised. You can’t have proof for something that wasn’t true. Her memory of that night was clear as day. There had been two people in the lobby when she’d come running around the corner. Just two: Her father and Byron Caige. And whether all of these things he was telling her about the warlocks and witches and vampires and Akyri – whatever those were – were true or not, those very basic facts remained. Two people. One was her father; the other had been her father’s killer.

  “I see,” she said coldly. “That’s what I thought.”

  Caige looked both calm and starkly disappointed. Something flashed in the depth of his storm gray eyes. But it didn’t matter. She’d done her part. She’d kept him in one place through the night and used her emergency credit card so that her location could be tracked by Hunter headquarters. It would only be a little while longer before help came huffing and puffing at their hotel door.

  And she would never have to look into those beautiful gray eyes again.

  *****

  Lucas moved much more slowly and carefully beside Danny that morning than he normally did. He didn’t want to wake her. He also didn’t want to disturb the little ones.

  Lucas smiled at that thought. He rolled quietly over, propped himself up on one elbow, and gazed down at his wife and mate. The sheet hugged her body where it was draped over her, revealing the beautiful curves that he’d fallen in love with so many times over the past three months.

  Her stomach was flat and smooth, her hipbones finely accentuating the slope of her long thighs. He’d nibbled on the taut flesh over that spot a few times, always tempted to bite harder – to barely pierce the skin and have a taste.

  Slowly, gently, he ran his hand over the sheet and felt the warmth of her beneath it. There was more to it now. It wasn’t just her he was feeling. She was carrying precious cargo.

  Lucas blinked, stilled, and almost laughed out loud. His face cracked a huge grin and he ran his free hand through his hair. He couldn’t believe it. He was going to be a dad.

  On the bedside table, his phone began to vibrate. Lucas glanced at it, at once irritated by the noise it made; he didn’t want it to wake up Danny. He glanced back down at his wife and bit back a curse.

  “Morning,” she said, smiling lazily up at him. Instantly, Lucas’s irritation melted away. The phone may have woken her up, but for that smile, he couldn’t fault it.

  “Good morning,” he said, returning the smile. He leaned over and caged her in with an arm on either side. She grinned with sleepy mischief and then moaned softly beneath him when he claimed her lips with his own and lingered in the warm, soft kiss.

  The phone on the table stopped vibrating. But three seconds later, it started up again. Two strong hands on his chest pushed at him enough to break the kiss.

  “Better get that, gorgeous,” Danny told him, her voice still husky with sleep. She rolled over a bit, yawning and sliding into a cat stretch. He watched her, shot a dirty look at the phone, and then sighed.

  “Caige,” he said as he pressed “Talk” and placed the phone to his ear.

  A few seconds later, Lucas Caige wasn’t smiling any longer.

  Chapter Twelve

  “The Blind”

  For a werewolf who was lying through his fangs, Kat had to admit that Byron Caige was putting on a good act. Over the course of the pre-dawn hours, he’d drilled her with questions about a world of which he claimed to be ignorant – and from the way he reacted to a lot of her answers, Kat was nearly convinced he was ignorant after all.

  There was also the fact that he’d nearly had a heart attack when she opened the armoire and revealed the massive flat screen TV behind it. When she’d flipped it on for soft background noise, Byron had gazed at the moving pictures with what looked like genuine shock. “Color?” he’d asked.

  “Um… yeah?” she’d replied, shaking her head.

  According to his story, he’d been locked away for fifty years. So now he wanted to know a lot of things. Who was the current US president? And Australian? Was the US at war with anyone? Was Australia? Who’d won the last World Series? And on and on went the questions.

  He was surprised to hear that the United States had an African American president – but he was more surprised to hear that Elvis was dead. Perhaps most shocking of all was the fact that the Rolling Stones were not dead. That one, he seemed to have a hard time wrapping his head around.

  If what he was telling her was true, the last time Byron had been out and about, they’d been doing the Jitterbug in Australia. Christ, she thought, no wonder he was staring at the TV like that.

  Wait… am I actually believing him now?

  Kat mentally shook her head and tried to get a grip. The Hunters would be there at dawn. That was the rule. Use the card, flash on the grid, and the home team locked down the location to attack at dawn – when the wolves would most likely least expect it.

  “And what of you, Katherine Dare?”

  Kat blinked and looked up, meeting Byron’s gaze. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “How have you changed in the last twenty years?” Caige studied her carefully, removed his arms from the back of the chair he sat in, and then leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together. He gave her a hard look that made her feel like a bug under a microscope. “Any hobbies?” he asked softly. “Dreams?” He paused, and then, in a tone slightly lower, he asked, “Or have you been studying up on ways to kill the big bad wolf all this time?”

  Kat swallowed hard and tried to look away, but found herself trapped this time. The pull of his gaze was incredible. “I didn’t kill your father, Katherine.” “So you’ve said. Repeatedly.” “Why won’t you believe me?” he asked her, his tone gentle and – could it truly be? – hurt.

  “Have you any idea what I went through after that night?” she asked.

&
nbsp; Byron was quiet for a moment and Katherine could have sworn he was actually considering not only her words, but the pain behind them.

  “I have an idea.” “No you don’t. You have no idea what it’s like to lose someone who means as much to you as my father meant to me.” “I do,” he told her flatly. “It happened to me twice.” Katherine stilled beneath the weight of those words. She hadn’t been expecting them. It was either a genuine confession, in which case he was opening up to her for no discernible reason – or it was yet another lie, told to further his charade as the man who hadn’t kill her father.

  Either way, there was nothing she could say.

  “One is a long story,” he said softly. His tone had lowered and his gaze dropped to stare at something somewhere in the vicinity of the floor. “The other is my brother, Lucas. When I was taken, I was separated from him. I was told by the warlock king and his daughter that Lucas was under the impression I was dead.” He paused and cleared his throat and Katherine could tell that it had become thick. With unshed tears? She didn’t even want to guess. “For fifty years, he’s believed that,” he said.

  Again, Kat didn’t know what to say. His words were spinning through her head. In the twenty years since she’d first looked into the eyes of the man she was certain had killed her father, she had never once considered he might have a family of his own. That he would be a son – or a brother. Such a thing was possible, of course, and anyone who had ever taken a life had themselves been given life at one point. Everyone had a mom. Everyone had once been a child.

  But she’d never thought of him like that. She’d always just thought of him as… a demon. What did that say about her? About the path she’d gone down for the last two decades?

  To say the least, it gave her pause. “What’s the other one?” she asked before she fully realized what she was saying. “What’s the long story?” Byron looked up, his expression searching, his eyes uncertain. “It happened a long time ago,” he said. “Everything happened a long time ago for you,” she replied. “If what you say is true, anyway.” At that, Byron’s lip twitched as if a part of him wanted to smile. She wondered what he was thinking in that moment. But then the moment passed and the semi-smile was gone and the werewolf was once more looking away and focusing on something that was either the unraveling of a new lie in his head – or a very distant memory.