Hunted (The Tinder Chronicles) (9 page)

He laughed again and
said, “Anything else you’ve just been dying to ask me?”

“Why have you never
filed your fangs down?”

“Because they’re who I
am.”

“They must make life
fairly difficult, though. It means you can never blend in with humans, that you’ve
always had to remain in hiding.”

“Far from it. Humans
can’t see my fangs, because I cast a concealment spell centuries ago. One of
the many perks of being born a warlock.”

“Then why can I see
them?”

“Because I built a
loophole into that spell.”

“What was the
loophole?” I asked.

“I specified that
anyone I fell in love with would be able to see me for who I am. I never wanted
to hide my true self from whomever I loved.”

“But I’ve always been
able to see them, from the first time I met you.”

“That’s not possible.”

“The first time we met,
I was sixteen. You were already in love with me back then, you big perv,” I teased,
grinning at him.

He laughed at that.
“Not true. I fell in love with you about three years ago.”

“Uh huh.”

Bane laughed again,
then flipped us over abruptly so that I was now on top of him. He slapped my
ass, and I yelped in surprise. “You’ve obviously regained your strength,” he
said, “since your brattiness has rebounded considerably. No more going easy on
you.”

Bane began thrusting hard,
up into me, while at the same time wrapping his hands around my waist and
bouncing me up and down on his cock like I was a sex toy. “Oh God yes,” I
ground out, reaching for my cock and stroking myself.

His eyes were again
sharp and focused. They were normally pale jade green rimmed in deep emerald,
but the color had intensified somehow, become richer, brighter, almost lit from
within. I steadied myself with one hand on his big bicep, feeling the powerful
muscles flexing and contracting beneath his smooth skin, and murmured, “I think
you’re absolutely gorgeous, August. I’ve never told you that. But you’re the
most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

 He did another one of
those lightning-fast moves that only a vampire could pull off, flipping us both
around so that I was now sitting up against the headboard, my legs up over his
shoulders as he pistoned into me. “Oh no,” he said. “I’m not going to forgive
you for being a brat. Not even if you compliment me and use my real name.” He
smiled at me and leaned in and kissed me. And then he began absolutely pounding
me.

It was pure ecstasy,
and I was so lost to it that I could barely form words, though I think I did
manage to mumble something along the lines of, “Fuck yes, fucking fuck me.” Oh,
give me a break, I wasn’t exactly coherent at this point.

He’d really been
holding back. Actually, he still was, because if he didn’t, he’d probably snap
me in two. But he began taking me much harder now, each thrust actually raising
me a foot or two up off the bed. I cried out and flung my arms around his neck,
holding on tightly. God it was good.

Bane’s voice was low
and forceful when he growled, “You’re mine.” All I could do was nod, clutching
him desperately. He pulled me up off the headboard and onto his lap, still
pistoning into me mercilessly.

“Yes,” I murmured, clinging
to him. I would have agreed to anything then, absolutely anything.

He bit the top of my
shoulder, fangs tearing flesh, marking me, showing me just how completely he
owned me. Acting on pure impulse, I bit him, too, my teeth bruising and
piercing the skin of his shoulder, and he moaned with pleasure.

After a few more hard
thrusts into me, he released my shoulder. And then he threw his head back and
roared
.
There’s no other word for it. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before,
strength and power transformed into sound. He flipped me onto my back as he
began cumming in me, and it was so incredibly arousing that I came too, yelling
his name, my cock pressed between his belly and mine.

Another wild, primal
yell tore from him, every muscle in his shoulders and arms and chest starkly
defined as he thrust into me with barely contained violence, filling me with
his seed, showing me I was his yet again. He kept thrusting into me until every
last drop of his cum was inside me, slowing his pace gradually before finally going
still. By this point I was sweating and shaking, my body totally depleted, hugging
him to me with the very last of my strength.

 He kissed me gently before
easing out of me, and rolled us over so I was laying on top of him. “You ok?”
he asked.

“So much better than
ok,” I murmured, eyes shut. I was still shaking, and he pulled the covers up
over both of us and held me securely.

“You know, under
vampire custom, we’d be three-quarters of the way to married right now.” There
was a smile in his voice.

I raised an eyebrow and
one lid, and said, “How so?”

“You bit me during sex,
right after I bit you. All we needed were a couple lines of verse after that,
and you’d now be my lawfully wedded husband.”

I chuckled at that.
“Your wedding ceremonies involve sex?”

“Absolutely.”

I closed my eyes again
and nestled against him. “Your language sounds like Klingon, and you screw
while getting married. You know, if it wasn’t for the whole murdering people
thing, I’d almost think vampires were a fun bunch of guys.”

“We’re not all murderers,
you know. I never kill when I feed, and the same goes for the vast majority of
vampires.”

“The vast majority? I
don’t think so. In my life, I’ve only met a couple exceptions. You’re one of
them.”

“And have you spent
much time getting to know many vampires?”

“Well, no, because if
I’d ever tried, I would have been killed.”

Bane considered that,
sliding an arm behind his head. “Well, in your case, perhaps. You
are
a
hunter, after all. Most vampires probably really wouldn’t give you the benefit
of a doubt, just like you’ve never given us one, either.”

“Why would I give the
benefit of a doubt to a group of creatures whose main purpose it is to
kill
humans
?”

“Did you know that
vampire saliva acts as a coagulant?”

I grinned at that. “Um,
no I didn’t, but thank you for that totally random fact, Captain Irrelevant.”

He chuckled and lightly
swatted my butt, then said, “Vampires aren’t killers by nature, and that proves
it. After we feed from a human, all we have to do is lick the spot where we’ve
bitten them, and it closes up immediately. If we were meant to kill, then why
would our saliva and our blood heal? We
are
meant to feed on humans,
obviously, but it’s supposed to be a symbiotic relationship.”

“Think so, huh?”

“I know so.”

“Did you come up with
this symbiotic theory on your own?”

“No. It used to be a
cornerstone of vampire culture, many, many centuries ago. Since we were so much
stronger, in return for your blood we defended the human race. That was the
natural order.”

“So, what happened?”

“Your kind tried to
enslave us. We were always greatly outnumbered, even back then, and humankind
began to see our strength as something to be exploited. Why send humans down
into a mine, for example, when one vampire could do the work of fifty while
surviving in toxic conditions? Eventually, of course, the vampires rebelled.”

“So, it’s all our
fault.”

“Well, a lot of it
is
humankind’s fault, but not all. There have always been vampires unwilling to go
along with the status quo, both then and now. Some believed we were superior to
humans, meant to be the dominant race on this planet. Occasionally, one of
those individuals would become a leader, attracting followers, gaining more and
more momentum. But it all backfired. The humans rose up, organized, and learned
to fight us. We have the strength, but they have the numbers. They’ve been
winning the war for centuries now, and the result is the world we live in today
– vampires forced to hide, to live in secret or risk execution.”

My eyelids were getting
heavy, and I settled into Bane’s arms as I said, “What’s happening right now
with the vampires, the way they’re organizing – that’s not just random. They
have a leader, don’t they?” He didn’t answer me, so I muttered, “I mean, they
would have to. They didn’t all just happen to run into each other at Costco one
day and say, ‘hey, I know, let’s team up, start hunting in packs and go after
the hunters.’ There has to be someone behind all of that.”

“Get some sleep,
Tinder.”

I really didn’t have a
choice, I was already drifting off. He got up, pulling the covers over me, and
I murmured, “What are you doing? Come back to bed.”

“I have things I need
to do, love,” he said, scooping up his clothes. “I need to find out where my
men are on tracking down the vampires that came after you. I’ll be back in a
few hours.”

“You’re dodging my question.
You know who’s leading the vamps, don’t you?”

“We’ll talk later.”

“No we won’t. You’ll
just dodge again.” He sighed and headed for the door, and I murmured as I
drifted off, “Be careful.”  

Chapter
Eight

When I awoke several hours later, I called Bane’s
name, even though there was really no need to do that. The apartment felt
empty, somehow. I knew he wasn’t here.

I stared at
the ceiling for a while, thinking back over the past few earthshattering hours.
I felt amazingly good. Which is to say, my body ached in a hundred places, but
it was the best kind of ache, one that reminded me I’d been well and thoroughly
fucked. I grinned and played the highlight reel over in my mind a few times.

But then,
gradually, a bit of doubt began to creep in as my afterglow receded. It had
meant so much to me when Bane told me he loved me. I hadn’t even realized how
much I needed to hear someone say that to me, until someone finally did. Deep
down though, I wasn’t sure I believed him.

Those magic
words weren’t the reason I’d had sex with him again, by the way. I’d always
been incredibly attracted to Bane, no matter how much I tried to fight it, and
had been looking for an excuse to let my guard down and sleep with him again. But
now what? Were we on the brink of an actual relationship? I couldn’t imagine
myself in a relationship with anyone, let alone a vampire. How was that
supposed to work? How could I live with the hypocrisy of hunting vamps day in
and day out, then coming home to one in my bed?

Even if I
could come to grips with that and somehow learn to separate Bane from my job,
there was still the issue of trust. I wanted to believe him when he said he had
my back, and when he claimed to care about me. But how could I ever really
trust a vampire?

There were
too damn many questions, and no real answers.

Eventually, I rolled
out of bed, feeling slightly deflated. I showered and got dressed, and wondered
if I should wait for Bane to return. But there were things I really needed to
do, so I headed for the front door. When the alarm went off, I jumped back, completely
startled. What the hell? I pressed my hands over my ears and hurried to the
elevator. It was still disabled. I ran over to the stairway, and found that the
big metal fire door was still locked.

Seriously? After
everything that had just happened between us, he was still locking me up
against my will? And why was that so surprising to me?

Once again, the alarm
didn’t stop until I was back in the apartment with the door closed. A phone
began to ring in the bedroom, and I ran to it and answered it with, “Are you
kidding me?”

“You need to stay put,
love,” Bane told me. “I’m getting close to tracking down that group of
vampires. Shouldn’t be much longer, maybe only a day or two.”

“Oh come on!”

“It’s for your own
good.”

I felt betrayed
somehow. I really didn’t know why I’d expected things to be different now, why
I’d expected him to stop treating me like a child…but I had. As I sank down
onto the edge of the mattress, I said, “I can’t believe you locked me up again,
after what just happened between us. After you told me you loved me.”

“I do love you. And
that’s why I need to keep you safe.”

“You’re not keeping me
safe, you’re keeping me prisoner!”

“Well, that wouldn’t be
necessary if you’d simply agree to hide out for a few days. I knew you’d never
cooperate, though.”

“Sane people don’t hold
their loved ones captive. You know that, right?”

“In your case, extreme
measures are often necessary. It’s not easy keeping you alive, you know, given
how stubborn you are.”

Anger boiled over in
me, and I yelled, “And now you’re somehow making this my fault!”

 “It is!”

“Damn it, Bane! Come
back here and let me out.”

“No.”

“Christ, and I was actually
contemplating having a relationship with you! I was willing to forgive you for so
much, up to and including staking me to a wall, for God’s sake! But how can I
forgive someone that treats me this way?”

“Treats you this way!
Oh yeah, what a villain, providing you with a safe and comfortable penthouse
apartment, in order to prevent a gang of murderous thugs from ripping you to
shreds!” Bane was apparently behind the wheel, because there was the faint
sound of tires squealing in the background, followed by some elaborate cursing
on his part.

 I got off the bed and paced
around the apartment, eventually ending up in the kitchen as I said, “I don’t
believe that you love me. No way would someone lock up a person they love,
under the guise of it being in their best interest.”

“I’ve had to make hard
choices with you, Tinder. Like I said, it’s not exactly easy keeping you alive.”

“So
stop trying
!
I don’t need your help. I’m more than capable of looking after myself, and I
really don’t appreciate you treating me like I’m a fragile little egg!”

“Excellent analogy, Humpty
Dumpty, because without my help you’d be splattered all over a back alley in
the warehouse district!”

“Yeah, you know what?
If you didn’t constantly feel the need to keep me in the dark about everything,
I wouldn’t have even
been
in the warehouse district! You could have told
me what was going on with all those vamps in that warehouse, so I could stop
digging for answers. Oh, and you might also have mentioned that my name was at
the top of a damn hit list, so I would have known that I was about to go from
hunter to hunted!”

“Even if you’d known
about the list, you would have still been out there putting yourself in danger.
You know that as well as I do!” Bane said. “By the way though,
your
name
isn’t at the top of that list,
mine
is. And I sure as hell didn’t get
myself put on death row to then sit back and watch you get yourself killed. If
I can do something to save your life, I’m damn well going to do it, whether or
not you approve of my methods!”

I sighed in
exasperation and pushed my hair back from my face. Then I told him, “I need
answers from you, Bane. If you’re really on my side, then prove it. Give me the
name of the vampire that put the hit list together. It’s the same person that’s
been getting the vamps to organize, isn’t it?” I waited for a response, and
when he didn’t say anything, I yelled, “See? There you go again, withholding
information!”

“If I did give you a
name, you know what would happen? You’d go after him recklessly, totally
undermanned, and you’d be dead before you got within fifty yards of him!”

“So in other words, you
do
know his name, and you’re intentionally keeping it from me!”

“Of course!”

 “You don’t trust me,
that’s the bottom line. You don’t trust my judgment, or my ability, or anything
about me, really. And you know what? I don’t trust you, either, Bane. Whatever
the hell this thing is between us, it’s never going to work out. It can’t. Because
without basic trust, we have absolutely nothing.”

Instead of waiting for
his response, I turned off the phone, set it on the kitchen counter, and looked
around me. I had to get out of here. There was so much I needed to do, and I
couldn’t sit around until Bane arbitrarily decided to let me go.

In a flash of
inspiration, a plan of escape occurred to me. I turned all four burners of the
electric stovetop on high, found four big pots in the cabinet (why did a
vampire have pots?) and set them on the burners.

When the bottoms of the
cookware glowed red-hot, I picked up a big stock pot and pressed it against a
corner of the thick plexiglass, holding it there for a couple minutes. When I
pulled it away, I grinned with satisfaction. The window was slightly warped and
melted. Just a bit, but it was a start.

I repeated the process
again and again, switching out the pots, returning them to the stovetop when
each one cooled. Some of the plastic began to stick to them, and the apartment
filled with a nasty smell when it burned off. I really hoped the fumes weren’t
toxic.

It took a while, but
eventually I melted through the panel enough to then kick out a section. I
grabbed Bane’s laptop and the note pads and zipped them up inside my jacket,
then tried to squeeze through the opening I’d created. It was a tight fit, but
I’d already spent way too much time on this. If Bane came back he’d surely stop
me, so I had to hurry.

Ha! I was out!

And now I was on a six
inch-wide ledge twelve stories up, and had to creep around the corner of the
building, which made me nervous. I’d contemplated melting out a window closer
to the fire escape, but figured the pots would cool down too much by the time I
carried them across the apartment. This balancing act was the price for that
decision.

No one had to tell me
that looking down was a bad idea. I looked straight up instead and tried not to
think about where I was. It was predawn, and I concentrated on the faint grey
light beginning to seep through the clouds. There was a breeze coming off the
Pacific, the smell sharp and briny, its force strong enough to make me feel a
little unsteady up here. Awesome. I inched along on the tips of my toes, trying
to use my fingertips to somehow cling to the plaster façade, eventually
rounding the corner of the building.

When I finally reached
the fire escape, I exhaled slowly and eased myself onto the metal platform, then
rushed down the ladder. If Bane was waiting for me at the bottom, I was going
to be
so
pissed, because that would mean this had all been for nothing. But
there was no sign of my captor as I hit the ground and started running.

It took over an hour to
make it home on foot, my senses on high alert the whole way. At least most
other vamps weren’t a threat right now, not with the sun coming up.

If he was looking for
me to lock me up again, Bane would of course go straight to my rental. Just in
case he was already out front waiting for me, I approached the house from the
rear, hopping my neighbor’s side gate, then the fence between our yards. I
stayed low as I crossed my dead lawn, picked the lock on the back door and let
myself in.

I had taken half a step
into the kitchen when Lee leapt out at me and yelled, “Freeze, motherfucker!”
He was dressed only in boxers, a gun in one hand and a frying pan in the other,
his short golden-blond hair sticking up in every direction.

“You really should have
gone into law enforcement,” I told him. “But I have to question your choice of
weapons. With everything in your arsenal,
that’s
what you went for? You
planning to sauté an intruder to death?”

His body language
relaxed immediately. “Holy hell, Tinder, you startled me. I just woke up, I
ain’t exactly thinkin’ clearly. Where you been, anyway?”

“Long story. We need to
get out of here, so get dressed and pack your things. I’ll meet you in the
living room in five minutes.”

Lee did as I asked
without question or comment. Meanwhile, I went to my bedroom, grabbed a duffle
bag, and put Bane’s laptop in it (yes, I was going to return it to him, just as
soon as I copied all the files). The legal pads full of the notes I’d been
taking went in the bag too, and I packed my few clothes before slinging it over
my shoulder. I grabbed a second bag, which already held weapons and my books on
witchcraft, and took a handgun from the top shelf of my closet, checking to
confirm that the clip was full on the way to the living room. My roommate
joined me thirty seconds later. We went out the front door (which wasn’t an
issue now that I had a loaded gun) and I locked up behind us before we ran for Lee’s
truck.

He drove us to a strip
of seedy motels a few miles from the house, and parked two blocks over to avoid
totally giving away our location. We chose a motel at random. Apparently we
woke up the desk clerk, and he handed us a key without bothering to count the
cash I tossed on the counter. He was on his way back to bed before we’d even
left the lobby.

Finally, when we were sitting
on the sagging queen bed in the musty little motel room, Lee asked, “So, who we
runnin’ from, exactly?”

“Both Bane and a big
vamp gang that might track me to the house.” I filled him in on all that had
happened over the last couple days – leaving out the part about sleeping with
Bane. No hunter would understand something like that. Hell, I could barely
understand it myself.

I pulled out the laptop
and showed him the hit list, and Lee exclaimed, “Number seventeen! Screw that!
I
know
I’m better than this yahoo in the number twelve position! And
don’t even get me started on number fifteen, she couldn’t hit a vamp with a
truck, let alone a stake! This list is downright insulting.”

I had to grin at that.
“So, you’re upset because you’re not higher on the list?”

“Damn straight. And
that’s bullshit that only full-blooded hunters are in the top ten. My second
sight is plenty strong enough to get the job done, I tell you what. It don’t
matter that I’m not a full-blood like you. No way should you be at number two,
with me stuck way the hell down at freakin’ seventeen!”

“Lee, this is a kill
list, not a ranking for the hunter of the year award. Let’s try to stay focused.”