Hunter Kiss: A Companion Novella (9 page)

Grant breaks away, chest heaving. "Holy God."

I laugh. "Should you be using the Lord's name in vain?"

"No," he rasps, a slow smile spreading. He rolls us, half-pinning me with his body, and his hands touch my hair again, my face, stroking the outline of my cheeks. His eyes are dark, heavy with hunger, but he does not kiss me. Just stays there, poised, drinking me in.

"You shine so bright," he whispers. "I wish you could see what I see, Maxine. I wish you could see how beautiful your spirit is."

"Not possible," I murmur. "Not me. No light."

"You're wrong." Grant kisses the corner of my mouth. "You're good, Maxine. Down to the core of you, good."

Heat fills my eyes, my face; with it, guilt. I place my hands against his chest and try to push him away. Grant resists, holding me down with his hips and hands. A crease furrows deep between his

eyes. "Maxine."

"Let me go," I say to him.

"Tell me," he replies, unmoving. "What's wrong?"

I close my eyes, silent, anger and disappointment stealing away the warmth inside my body. After a moment I feel Grant shift, his arm stealing around my waist and back, turning me so we both lie on our sides. He snakes his leg around my hip and draws me close and snug. Our noses brush; his lips touch my forehead.

"Tell me," he says again.

I cannot look at him. "There's something you should know. About what might happen if we're together. Now, tomorrow, for any length of time." I hesitate, forming the words inside my head, tasting them, finally afraid. Saying it out loud will make it real. "No matter what we do to protect ourselves, chances are good I will be
come pregnant."

What a mood-killer. Grant blinks. "Pregnant?"

"As in, with child." I shake my head, trying to pull out of his arms. He refuses to let go. I could force him, but I give up, eyes squeezed shut. "It's part of the magic that makes me what I am. It's to keep the women of my line from ... cheating the boys out of their future."

"Cheating." His voice carries an edge. "Does that mean the boys are passed on, from mother to child?"

"Mother to daughter. Only daughters."

Grant's chest rises and falls; I listen to his silence, his breathing, his heartbeat, my own heart shrinking and shriveling, my skin crawling. I want to run. I should have run the first time I saw this man. I should never have let this go so far. Damn.

"So we would have a child," he says, finally, softly. "What else aren't you telling me?"

I cannot lie. I could say nothing at all, but I do not want to hurt Grant, to do him the disservice of distrust. I want to believe he is a friend. I want to live the illusion that such a thing is possible for me. To have a friend, even it means he no longer wants me in his bed.

"It's hard," I tell him, my voice breaking on the words. "The mo
ment I have a child my death sentence is signed. I might have a decade, maybe two, but not much longer than that. And I won't die in my sleep. I'll be murdered. Like my mother was, and her mother, and her mother before that. A single line of women running so far behind me I can't see the beginning of them. All victims of a violent end."

Grant flinches, his arms tightening around me. "No."

"Yes. One day the boys will stop protecting me. They will aban
don me for my child. And when that happens, the demons I have spent my life hunting will know, and they will kill me. It's the price we pay for the protection we are given. The boys ... the boys have to survive. And I'm not immortal. I'll get old, maybe sick, and if I die of natural causes before the boys have made the switch ..."

"They'll die, too?"

"I wasn't always the only Hunter. There were others, a long time ago."

"You could rebel. You could ... stay celibate."

The catch in his voice almost makes me laugh. "I've done that, but it won't last forever. The boys will make sure I get pregnant. Might hold me down and force a man inside me. Might threaten to take a life if I don't find a man to have sex with. It's happened to some of the other women in my family. Sometimes I wonder if they didn't do that to my mother."

"You said she died."

"Shot in the head. Right in front of me."

Grant shudders. I force myself to look at him, but instead of fear,

"Please."

dismay, all I see is anger, a terrible white-hot fury so chilling I cannot see past the pale of his cheeks, the line of his lips, the cold heat of his eyes.

"You love them," he says in hard voice. "Despite that, you still care about them."

"Family," I whisper. "Family cuts, but it's thicker than blood. They live because of me, and I live because of them. I can't hate them, Grant. Not even for how my mother died. How I'll die. They're too much a part of who I am."

He takes a deep breath, pushing it out, slow. "So if we do this, I'll become a father.

"Probably." I hesitate. "I didn't want to tell you."

"Because you didn't think we would be together long enough for me to find out you're carrying my child? Or because you didn't think I would want to be with you if I knew the truth?" He snorts, some color finally returning to his face. "You don't know me at all, Maxine."

"Sorry," I mutter, my eyes burning, burning like my cheeks, my throat. "I'm so sorry, Grant."

"No." His lips find my forehead again, his hands pushing back my hair, cradling my face. "No, Maxine. This is not your fault. And this is not anything to be scared of. We'll make this work. We'll fig
ure something out. I am not going to let you die before your time."

"You can't stop that."

"There's time," he whispers. "If you want to try.

He almost makes me believe. If faith could be a gift, then this man is capable of giving in spades. But I am afraid, and I do not have his faith, or his belief in my future. I know what I am, and all I have is the present, the past. And it does not matter that the hope in his eyes, his conviction, is addictive. Intoxicating.

I swallow hard. "I am not your responsibility, Grant."

"But you were willing to have a baby with me. Some last-minute choice, huh?" His jaw tightens. "Don't you think I knew what I was

getting myself into?"

"No," I say flatly. "I really don't think you did."

"So I didn't know all of it. But I considered at least one possible consequence." His hand slides off my waist and presses gently against my stomach, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Maybe this is rash of me, too. Maybe I could step back, wait another day. Cool off, think this through. Not put you in danger."

"I understand," I murmur, unable to look at him. "Good idea."

"No." He tilts up my chin. "You don't get it, do you? I can't walk away, Maxine. And not ... not because I want to ... to just have sex with you. And not because I want to hurt you. Not that. Just the opposite."

"You don't know me, Grant."

"You don't know me, either. Not really. So why are you here? Why, when the risks are so great?"

"Because I want you," I whisper. "And I'm not afraid to want you. It feels ... right."

"No matter what?"

"No matter what," I tell him. "Even if it's just for a night."

"Okay," he breathes. Just like that. Okay.

I search his eyes. "You're so calm. Why are you always so calm?"

Grant never answers me. Just wraps his hand around the back of my neck and presses his lips against mine, taking me under with an achingly tender kiss. I almost pull away, almost fight him, but I give up and press against his body, doing everything in my power not to think about what I am doing, to not second-guess myself. No future. Just here. Now. Him.

I stop shaking after our clothes are gone. I stop shaking when I touch him. I stop shaking when he touches me, though another kind of quake rushes through my body as his palms caress my breasts, my stomach, between my thighs. He is a big man, a strong man, though his right leg is the only sore spot; a mangle of muscle and bone, twisted, skinny. I kiss it. I kiss it with my mouth, my fingertips, my hair tumbling over my face to trail a path up his skin. He shivers and

groans, writhing beneath me as my tongue finds more to love, hard and hot and long.

And then, somehow, we are inside each other, and there is a bit of pain but nothing more, nothing but a full heavy pleasure as we move against each other, again and again, riding ourselves higher, together, and it feels so good I think I cry out. I think he does the same, neither of us lasting long at all. But we rest, and we touch, and not much later, begin again.

Lost time, Grant calls it.

Not enough time, I say.

In the wee hours of morning, just before dawn, I feel the boys crowd close beneath the covers and hug my naked body. Grant is spooned behind me, snoring softly.

"Sleep," Zee breathes into my ear. "Sleep as we sleep, Maxine. And dream."

I do as he says, and the next time I open my eyes I see sunlight through the window.

My skin is covered in tattoos.

Six

Grant is gone from the bed, but I do not feel particularly aban
doned. Not after last night. I roll free of the covers, taking a moment to stare at the chaos behind me. My body is sore, my knees weak. The memories make me smile, though not for long. There are con
dom wrappers everywhere on the floor, but that is no guarantee when it comes to me. Or at least, that was my mother's warning
the same warning that has ever been written in the old family di
aries. I have always been slightly amazed at the lengths my ancestors went to in an attempt to prevent conception. Always failing, though I have to question the resources at their disposal. Maybe this time will be different. Maybe it does not matter. Not anymore.

The door swings open. Grant walks in, dressed in sweats and nothing else. He is leaning on his cane, but in his free hand carries a white mug of something that smells like coffee.

He stops when he sees me, and the appreciation in his eyes makes

me smile. I go to him, walking slow, with a sway to my hips that I never thought I would be capable of achieving.

"Love the body art," he murmurs. "Not sure I care much for who makes it."

I glance down. My skin is entirely covered in tattoos: shades of silver and obsidian, scaled ripples of muscle and limb and tangled claw; here, there, a red eye and a curling fang. The boys cover me from the bottoms of my feet to the pads of my fingertips to the tips of my breasts. I do not have a mirror, but I know the intricate labyrinth of dark lines and bodies ends at the top of my neck, be
neath my hair. That my face is clear is a conceit on my part, though in the daytime I am still as protected there, as anywhere else.

Grant hands me the coffee, leaning close to kiss my mouth. His fingers trail down my throat, between my breasts.

"Feels like skin," he says. "Is that really them?"

"In all their glory."

"And you don't know how?"

I shake my head, sipping the coffee. "No one does. There are sto
ries of why, some of which stray into legend more than truth. That humans were first and that the demons came, offering a choice. I don't suppose it matters what kind of choice, just that humans made the wrong one and invited the darkness into their lives. Bad times, after that. And then the Hunters were made, the barriers went up, and all the violence and strife left behind belonged solely to humans. No blame left to cast, except on themselves. And eventually us, the people trying to protect them. Hunters. Demon-runners. Unholy."

Grant frowns. "And there was never any mention of God in those stories? A higher power?"

"I suppose. But not ... in a direct way.

"Someone made you, though. The barriers, too. The demons

didn't go away on their own."

"It took power to do that," I concede. "Immense power." "But you're not convinced."

"I don't believe in Satan, either," I tell him. "As ironic as that

might sound."

"Very. But you do believe there is a ruler over those demons. The

Dark Queen."

"She rules only some of them. And there's a difference. One is

myth, archetype. The other is real."

"Real as far as you know."

"As far as I've been told. By those she commands."

Grant shrugs, a small smile forming at the corner of his mouth.

"I've never questioned the existence of God. Just the Devil. I've

changed my opinion."

"Have you?" I ask him. "And do you think you could convert

the epitome of evil, in the same way you think you can change its

followers?"

"No," Grant says, after a brief hesitation. "I know my limits."

"Maybe." I smile, trying to take the bite out of my words, and

bend down to pick up my jeans. He clears his throat and my smile widens. I like this. Being with someone.