Hunter's Need (14 page)

Duke shrugged. “Asking takes time. I’m not big on wasting it.” He lifted one of the copied articles. “Who is this?”

She didn’t bother looking at the image on the paper. Sighing, she straightened and moved over to the couch. “Her name is Marie. She disappeared from here back in the seventies.”

Duke frowned. Hell, he’d thought it looked kind of old. But not
that
old. “I’m not exactly the
Cold Case
files type of help you might need, Ana. Going to be hard for me to find a trail that’s more than thirty years old.”

“It’s not just her,” Ana said, her voice faint. She put on a pair of sandals, taking her time with each buckle. “There’s something else going on—I don’t know if it’s connected to her, if it
is
her, or what. I just know there’s something weird going on.”

Duke blew out a breath and then brought up a hand, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ana, I don’t know if you know how this works or not . . . when there’s something weird,
our
kind of weird, going on, we feel it. It’s kind of like a magnetic pull. We feel it. I’m not feeling it here.”

Ana opened her mouth, but then closed it. Her gaze lowered to her hands and he watched as she rubbed her palms together. “Maybe you should give it a little bit of time.”

“It’s not like I’m just going to walk around for a couple hours and then disappear. I’m going to hang around a while, see what happens,” he said, grimacing. He gathered up the folder, all the loose articles and the book he had yet to look at. Tucking them back inside her carry-on, he zipped it closed and then rose. “Just don’t expect much of anything, okay?”

Ana laughed. “I stopped expecting much of anything a long time ago.” She sighed and smoothed her hands back over her hair. “I need to get to work.”

He watched as she moved around the house, gathering up her purse, a lunch box. She stopped by the counter and jotted something on a notepad. “Here’s my cell phone if you need it,” she said softly.

“Ana, I can’t do much of anything but walk around this city and hope something pops. You’re the connection here—if something is going to pop, it’s going to have to do with you.”

“Duke . . . ”

“Fine.” He scowled. “Go punch a clock. Have fun with it. I’ll try to muddle my way through this on my own.” Turning his back, he stared out the window at the green mountains.

Behind him, he could hear her moving around, heard the quiet click of locks, the door as it opened. He tensed, ready for the door to shut.

“It’s not that I have fun punching that clock, Duke. I like my job well enough—and I need it. I don’t have some clandestine, uber-rich assembly of superheroes around to pick up my tab. But if I thought I could help, I would.”

Duke shot her a narrow glance. “Hell, Ana. It’s not like anybody made you leave Virginia. You chose to come here. If money’s the issue—”

“It’s not . . . or at least, that’s not all of it. You don’t get it. I’m
not
extraordinary, Duke.” A sad, bitter smile formed on her lips, wobbled and then fell away. “I’m not. My mother was telekinetic. My brother is one of the most powerful psychics the Council has ever seen . . . and he’s still a kid. Me? I’ve got a weird gift that doesn’t really do me a damn bit of good, and that’s it. I’m
not
extraordinary. I’m not going to lead an extraordinary life. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a life. That doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself. It doesn’t mean I have to be a burden to others—not anymore.”

Ana shut the door behind her and headed down the stairs before she could say anything else. It’s not like there was really that much to say anyway. Right now, she had nothing that could help him and taking a day off wouldn’t be doing her job any favors. She needed the job. It was nothing less than the truth.

She needed the job.

She
liked
her job.

She liked doing something nice and normal, after a lifetime of everything
but
normal. She liked knowing where she was supposed to be on any given day and she liked knowing she could take care of herself.

It might sound mundane, but she needed it.

Still, as she strode away from the apartment, and Duke, some part of her wanted to stay.

Some part of her wanted to be there with him, find some way to help. Some way to prove she could be more than just a liability.

 

 

 

 

A
NA wasn’t too keen on giving him the hand he needed, but he hadn’t come up here just to sit in her apartment and wait for lightning to strike. If she said she felt something off, then he needed to at least see if he couldn’t find it on his own.

So he used her shower, changed into a pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt. Then he picked up the mess he’d made in her kitchen before taking a few minutes to get online with her laptop. He pulled up a map on Google and studied it, making notes of the main roads, the parks—and damn, were there a lot of parks. Most of the eastern part of the city bordered a huge state park. He glanced out at Ana’s window to the east, eying the green mountains spearing up into the sky.

The mountains—a good a place to start as any, he figured. Since he really didn’t have a destination in mind, he may as well pick one that might be relatively private. He could use a run. Burn off some of the tension lingering inside him, empty his mind and just see what happened.

Of course, he was going to have a hard time emptying his mind since every few minutes, he found himself thinking about Ana and the way she’d looked at him, those purple eyes somber and sad.

Duke scowled as he locked the door behind him a good hour after she’d left. He jogged down the steps and headed down the drive, turning right. Up ahead, he could see mountains, and more, he could smell them. Wild and green. Even though he was trapped in a decent-sized city, he wasn’t overwhelmed by the stink of car fumes, exhaust and humanity. He could breathe.

It was a beautiful land. It hadn’t taken him more than five seconds to realize that, and he’d had a lot more than five seconds to kill the day before while he found his way to the address Kelsey had given him, and while he waited for Ana to show up.

Beautiful, quiet, serene. Duke didn’t think he’d ever been any place quite like Alaska before. So wild, so open. Kind of sucked that most of the people he knew wouldn’t ever be able to do more than visit for a day or two. Some of the witches might adjust okay, but the were-creatures and vampires were pretty much out of luck.

Kelsey had mentioned something about the stronger pull from the poles, polarity, something—sounded a lot more technical than he really cared to get—that affected a were’s control. Were-creatures were all about control—they had to be. Vampires didn’t have any problems being close to the poles, but they were territorial creatures and any vamp that settled here would either have to all but hide out during the summer months or relocate. Those territorial instincts weren’t going to take to yearly migrations.

Of course, if some feral vamps ventured here during the winter months . . . damn. Duke winced even thinking about it. They needed somebody up here—

“Somebody?” he muttered. He shoved a hand through his hair, brooding. Yeah. Somebody probably should be up here, but it wasn’t like there was a huge pool of people to pull from. He could just see himself mentioning it to Kelsey, too. She’d probably throw Grady in his face again.

“Like hell.”

He didn’t want some Hunter settling down here. He especially didn’t want
Grady
settling down here. Not if this was where Ana was making her home.

Without realizing it, he started walking down the sidewalk at a fast pace, desperate to leave the city behind.

Eventually, the sidewalk stopped, he saw fewer people on the roadside and the cars came by only sporadically. Then he started to run.

His thoughts tangled inside him, twisted him into knots. Memories of last night slipped up to tease and taunt him. The way she’d felt against him. How she’d gasped his name. The way her body heated when he touched. The scars on her back. The faster he ran, the faster he needed to run and soon, he’d left the city behind and was climbing, up, up, up, following a steep, twisting road, his booted feet all but soundless.

Her nails digging into his flesh. The way she gasped when he sank his teeth into her shoulder, her entire body clenching and shuddering under his.

The thin ridge of scars he’d felt under his hands.
I know about the scars, Ana. I felt them last night.
The humiliation he’d seen in her eyes.

I don’t like to talk about that.
Sad eyes, lingering on his for just a moment and then looking away as though she couldn’t bear for him to know.

The way she curled into him as she slept, and the way she blushed when he looked at her.

I’m
not
extraordinary, Duke.

She really believed that.

Hell, even when he’d wanted to hate her, he’d been amazed by her. She’d stayed in hell because she wanted to protect her brother. How many teenaged girls would do that? Stay in a place where they weren’t just mistreated, but
tortured
?

I’m
not
extraordinary. I’m not going to lead an extraordinary life. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a life.

“A life,” he muttered, coming to a stop just at the bend in the road. Exactly what did she want to find in this
life
?

Blowing out a breath, he moved to the edge of the winding gravel road, staring down on over the mountain. How long had he been running . . . ? Long enough that he’d started to sweat, long enough that the muscles in his body had loosened, relaxed—but not long enough that he’d taken the edge off.

His head was a fucking mess and it was because of Ana.

Pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes, he swore. “You can’t do the damn job if you can’t get your mind off of her.”

She’d always done this to him, left him edgy, confused and twisted up inside. It was a huge part of why he’d always steered clear of her back in Virginia. There had been times when he’d avoided returning home just because he didn’t want to see her and deal with that turmoil. Right now, he needed to deal with it, though. If he didn’t, he wasn’t going to find any peace inside his head, and if he couldn’t level out, he wasn’t going to do anybody any good.

Too bad he couldn’t seem to figure out how to get level. What in the hell did it matter if she seemed just fine with punching a time clock, living a mortal’s life?

“She
is
mortal, you dumb cat.”

Gifted, yeah, but still mortal. She was in a position to make the call about whether she wanted to live out in the mortal world or try to use her gift. She hadn’t ever been called to serve, but there were other ways to use a gift besides being a Hunter. She’d made her choice.

Hell, before the choice had been taken away from him, Duke had been perfectly content himself to live a nice, normal life. He’d kept his secrets, guarded them well, and he’d been just fine doing that. No reason he couldn’t have kept doing that if life hadn’t gone and taken a sharp right turn on him.

A real home. Maybe a family. Somebody there at night—nothing wrong with wanting that . . .

A growl rolled out of his chest. Is
that
what she was looking for?

This life Ana wanted, did it include some normal guy? A guy who’d never really understand the choices she’d made, the life she’d lived, all the mistakes and heartaches and losses . . .

Hot, potent rage sank into him, claws and teeth bared.
Mine
—

Off in the distance there was the low rumble of a car engine. Swearing, Duke looked down the road. Then, with an impulsive grin, he moved, jumping off the road. It sloped down at a sharp angle and he landed in a crouch, his knees flexed, one hand resting on the earth.

Up on the road, a car drove by, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. Duke lingered for a second, waiting until the car’s engine faded and then he focused. East—he needed to head farther east. Away from the town. Away from the roads, from the humans, from everything. East into the mountains.

He needed to run,
really
run. The kind of running he couldn’t do on two feet, and the kind of running that he couldn’t do where human eyes could see. His skin, tight and itchy from all the tension pent up inside him, began to heat but he didn’t give in yet. Not until he was sure. Not until he was alone.

 

 

A
NA glanced at the clock on her desk and then focused on the voice on the other end of the line. One of her boss’s more difficult customers, the club owner was pissed off because the IRS was investigating him and he wanted to know why.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Woolsey, but I can’t answer those questions. Yes . . . yes, he’d be happy to discuss this with you . . . ” She winced as he once more started to yell.

By the time she got off the phone, she had a raging headache. She knew it wasn’t all from Lawrence Woolsey, though. She hadn’t slept enough over the weekend and last night, instead of catching up on sleep . . . Duke.

Her mouth went dry even thinking about him, and despite the headache pounding behind her eyes, she smiled.

“You look like
you
had a good weekend.”

Ana jerked her head up and blushed when she realized Darlene was staring at her. There was a wide grin on the other woman’s face and a teasing light in her eyes. “Ah . . . it was interesting,” Ana hedged.

She couldn’t call it good.

Not even the parts involving Duke.

Well, maybe a few . . .