Hunter's Prey: Bloodhounds, Book 2 (4 page)

“To avoid confrontation,” she said slowly. “I’m not a proper lady, after all.”

No, she wasn’t. But that hadn’t stopped women like her from reclaiming lives on the border. “I figure we’re all as proper as we act. You act like a lady, don’t you?”

“Not always.” She smiled and patted his hand. “I’m all right, Hunter. I recover quickly. It’s one of my best traits, the thing that’s brought me this far.”

“Still not right,” he grumbled as they crossed the street toward the butcher’s large shop. “You work for Wilder, and he’s the reason they
have
this pretty little town. This close to the Deadlands, they should be grateful for that.”

Ophelia opened her mouth, then closed it again and shook her head. “It’s best put out of our minds.”

It bothered him, that she’d censored her thoughts. Bothered him more than it should have, when she didn’t have any reason to trust him. “Am I wrong? Lord knows I’m not used to life as a bloodhound.”

“No, you’re right. About their gratitude toward Wilder, I mean. It’s only that some people have very long, very good memories.”

And what do they remember?
He bit his tongue and tasted blood, sharp and metallic. He might be clumsy enough to think it, but he
wouldn’t
let the words slip free. “Some people could put what little minds they have to better use.”

“Agreed.” Ophelia pulled him to a stop beside the shop door. “I’m not delicate, you know. Honestly.”

He smoothed his hand down her arm to wrap his fingers around her wrist. It felt fragile beneath his hand. So easily broken. “I’m sure you’re not, Miss Ophelia…but I’m not as gentle as I used to be. You wouldn’t need to be delicate to get hurt.”

After a moment, she looked down at his hand. “I believe that observation is true of everyone.”

“I suppose it is.” He released her before his grip could become possessive and fought for a smile. “I just…”
Don’t want to see you hurt.
It felt like exposing a weakness, so he tried to remember what a charming smile felt like. “I still need a little civilizing, after all those months in a cage.”

“Then we’ll work on that,” she said resolutely. “I promise.”

A serious, sweet little vow, and pain lurched through his chest, a hot twisting that vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving warmth in its wake. Some internal balance had changed.

He only wished he understood what. And how.

Chapter Three

Ophelia settled another stack of books at the end of the table and faced Nate. “Is there anything else you need from upstairs?”

He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, a ghost of the thousands of times he’d straightened his spectacles by pushing them up. When he caught himself, he almost smiled. “I’ve considered wearing the frames without the lenses, just to have something familiar.”

“You could have a set fitted with plain glass, like they do for the theater.”

“Not a bad idea…” Nate’s voice trailed off as he began to dig through the tangle of papers and scribbled notes blanketing his end of the table. “If I could find where I left them. My body may be young, but my brain is in worse shape than ever.”

The bland words covered a very real melancholy. Ophelia slid onto one of the high stools surrounding the worktable. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He clenched his jaw and fixed his gaze on the table in front of him. “You don’t fool me for a moment, young lady. You do quite enough mothering without adding a crotchety vampire to your list of charges.”

“I wouldn’t dream of mothering you,” she countered. “I would, however, like to talk to my friend.”

A shudder rolled through him. “He died, Ophelia. I died. My heart stopped beating. Who’s to say I’m even me? Maybe my soul’s already escaped, and I’m just an echo. An after-image, and I’ll never experience an unfamiliar thought or create anything new, ever again, because I have to live within what I’ve already been.”

He sounded like Kierkegaard as he struggled for purpose in his new embodiment. Since the only person in Iron Creek who cared to discuss the philosopher’s writings with her was Nate, surely he’d made the connection. “The only thing to do is find a truth which is true for you,” she paraphrased. “You no longer exist as you once did, but it certainly does not follow that now you do not exist at all.”

“Perhaps.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “As long as you do not expect me to follow in Nietzsche’s footsteps. My miraculous transformation has only reinforced my belief that he’s a ridiculous fool for choosing to become one of the undead.”

Vampires enjoyed their share of powers as well as disadvantages. Most could bestow pleasure with a bite, a fact that often drew companions and lovers as effectively as money or leisure. For those less concerned with matters of indulgence or consent, the ability to mesmerize, to enthrall, kept them well supplied with ghouled servants.

“Living forever isn’t for everyone.” She leaned forward and grasped Nate’s hand. “But a little extra time surely never hurt.”

His fingers tightened around hers. “You only wish to keep me around so you have someone with whom to discuss the follies of philosophers turned vampire. Satira wouldn’t willingly open a book without design schematics or equations on the inside.”

“Guilty,” she admitted readily. “You haven’t learned how to say no to me, have you? That would be a disappointment.”

“Who can say no to you, darling?” Nate eased his hand away from hers and patted her fingers. “I hear the new boy is following you around like an eager puppy. He’s not bothering you, is he?”

“Hunter, you mean?” Ophelia looked away. “He’s hardly following me around. And no, he’s fine.”

“He’s not fine. He’s like me, my dear. Trapped between existing and being consumed by the ether.”

“No, I meant—” She sank her teeth into her lower lip. He wasn’t fine. He was struggling too, casting about for solid footing when there was none to be found. “He sees something familiar in me, some shred of his former life. You know it’s true.”

“I know everything he sees in you,” Nate agreed, tapping the side of his head. “I shouldn’t be able to read a bloodhound, you know. The formula they use to create them includes protections against vampires. He doesn’t have protections. Not for his mind…” Nate thumped his chest once. “Not for anything. He’s a raw nerve, and you touch it.”

No, Hunter hadn’t gone through the Guild’s process. He hadn’t been properly prepared, and whatever had happened to him out in Lowe’s dungeon had left him open and bleeding in unexpected ways.

It hurt too much to think about.

“I’m not touching him at all,” she said lightly, rising from the stool. “Not for the next few days, anyway. He’ll be with Sylvie.”

Nate’s lips twitched again, an almost smile that his face seemed too weary to let form. “I imagine she won’t touch any of the same places,” he muttered, then pinned Ophelia with an unwavering look. “I’d understand, you know. If you wanted to leave as well. The blood Hunter is leaving should keep me through the new moon, but I’d rather be alone. Just to be safe.”

“I’m not leaving you, Nate. I’ll lock the basement door if you need me to, but I’m staying here.”

He didn’t blink. “Then lock the basement door. You can ask me to live with what I am, but there are some things I wouldn’t survive.”

Ophelia nodded and offered him a smile as she backed toward the stairs. “I promise I’ll protect myself. Even from you.”

She was almost to the stairs when he spoke again. “You’re reborn too, Ophelia. Don’t forget that.”

She managed to control the hitch in her breathing, but her heart was pounding and he would hear that, anyway. “How so?”

He looked down at his table, nudging a stack of notes into a neat pile without seeming to look at them. “You spent your last life seeing to the needs of others. Don’t go through this one without letting someone take care of you.”

Perhaps he’d been reading her mind, as well. “I’ve already come to that realization, actually. I plan to talk to Satira—after the new moon.”

Nate didn’t look up. “She’s a strong girl. And Wilder will tend to her, whatever happens.” Paper crinkled under his hand as his fingers curled into a fist. “Or perhaps you shouldn’t listen to me at all. I don’t have enough bloodhound in me to heed the new moon’s call, but it isn’t helping my mood.”

She started to ask him if he was sure, but she bit off the words. Nate wouldn’t want to discuss his more carnal needs with her, even as a matter of comfort or necessity. “I’ll come back down in a few days, when everyone returns. Until then, ring if you need me, yes?”

“Of course. I hope you enjoy a bit of time to yourself.”

“I will.” But enjoyment was the last thing on her mind as she slowly climbed the stairs.
Distraction
was more like it—distraction from her responsibilities, from her loneliness.

From the fact that Hunter would spend the next three days in another woman’s bed.

When he heard Satira’s familiar footsteps echoing down the adjoining hallway, Hunter very nearly bolted.

A coward’s response, perhaps, but Wilder’s self-control and patience seemed to vanish along with the moon. With only a sliver left in the sky, the man roared through the house more often than not, snarling at Archer or Hunter if either dared so much as look at Satira. The new moon’s fury might not claim them before sunset, but Wilder was riding an entirely different sort of rage now.

Hunter was already backing up a step when she turned the corner and smiled. “There you are. I wanted to ask if you’d let me draw another vial of blood before we leave. Nathaniel should have enough, but it’s better safe than…”

Her words trailed off with a frown, and Hunter realized he was shaking his head. His body recognized more quickly than his mind, apparently, how suicidal it would be to venture into the basement so Satira could put her hands on him.

The girl’s usually cheerful eyes colored with worry. “No? Is there something wrong?”

His voice came out a little rusty. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Satira. Not unless Wilder comes with us.”

The wrong thing to say. He knew it the moment her worry changed to irritation. “I don’t need his permission to do my job,” she started, the words edged with enough bite that he wondered if being mated to a bloodhound gave the new moon sway over her temper too. “If you have a problem with me—”

Archer appeared at the other end of the hallway, and Hunter felt relieved to see him for the first time in two days. “Archer. Tell her I can’t go into the workroom with her and let her touch me.”

The other hound laughed. “Hell no. Satira, are you trying to get us killed? Now get. Go on.”

She pivoted toward Archer fast enough to send her blonde braid whipping around her head. “Has every man in this building lost his mind? The new moon is still hours away.”

He held his ground with a glower. “Is it, now? I reckon if you went to look, Wilder’d be getting set to head out.”

That changed her anger to bewilderment, and she pivoted again and vanished back the way she’d come. Hunter opened his mouth, then snapped it shut as her footsteps returned. She poked her head around the corner and pointed a finger at Archer. “Could you draw some of Hunter’s blood for Nathaniel, then, if I’m not allowed to touch him?”

“Ophelia can do it.” Archer’s lazy tone belied his sharp gaze. “She’s the one he wants touching him.”

Archer’s voice shaping her name brought rage, a thundering anger as his vision danced in time with his throbbing pulse. “Fuck yourself, Archer.”

Satira disappeared with a muffled curse, her booted footsteps falling so close together Hunter thought she might have actually fled. He hoped she had. It would make killing Archer easier.

Archer grinned, apparently unconcerned by the danger. “What can I say, kid? You don’t hide your secrets very well. Is it the perfume? I admit, it’s some damn intoxicating shit.”

The thought of Archer sinking his nose into Ophelia’s unbound blonde hair curled Hunter’s hands into clawlike fists. “Bite your fucking tongue, or I’ll rip it out.”

“Make me, pretty boy.”

Wilder stomped around the corner. “What the fuck is going on?”

With the older bloodhound’s temper on edge and Satira’s scent lingering in the hallway, a sane man might have retreated.

Hunter snarled. “I’m working up to killing Archer.”

“Any particular reason?”

Archer shrugged. “Kid’s a little touchy today.”

Hunter’s fingers prickled, and he wondered if he could actually sprout monstrous claws, even with the full moon weeks away. “Because that ugly bastard won’t stop poking at me.”

Wilder glowered at them both. “Satira and I are leaving. Can you two get through dinner without making asses of yourselves, or do you need to leave now too?”

The last thing he wanted to do was head to the brothel, where he’d have to endure awkward small talk with Ophelia’s friend while waiting for madness to overtake him. “I’m going out back to train.”

“Whatever you two do, behave yourselves.” Wilder grumbled under his breath as he stalked away.

“Dinner,” Archer mused aloud. “May as well sit down for a nice meal before I go.”

Alone. With Ophelia.

The bastard was trying to get a rise out of him, and Hunter needed to be too controlled to let it happen. Too superior, too confident, too
human
.

He repeated those virtues to himself more than once as he lunged toward Archer, ready to drive a fist into—
through
—his jaw.

Archer took the hit with a laugh and launched a counterattack, a single, hard punch to Hunter’s midsection, hard enough to drive the air from him. Even so, bitter satisfaction came with the pain. It felt good to fight, as if the sheer release of violence served some higher purpose far beyond his rage.

This was what he was reborn to be. A fighter. Snarling, Hunter weaved out of the way of Archer’s next swing and came up underneath it, catching the other hound’s wrist in a bruising grip as he twisted his hand.

Archer’s laughter vanished, and he cursed bitterly and snatched at Hunter’s head. As he closed his fist in his hair, cold water splashed over them. Archer stumbled back, sputtering.