The Hunter's Affection (Bloodwite Book 3)

  The Hunter’s Affection

  Cecelia Mecca

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  Thank you Chris and Steve Masterson at Stage West in Scranton for helping with the very rigorous research needed for The Vault. *wink*

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

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  Also by Cecelia Mecca

  About the Author

  The Guardian’s Favor

  Chapter 1

  Stone Haven, Pennsylvania

  “We need to talk.”

  When his older brother used that tone, Torr Derrickson knew he should do one of two things. Listen patiently, preferably with a drink in hand, or walk away.

  Regrettably, over the course of their long, long lives, he’d usually gravitated toward a third option: fight. He and Lawrence had butted heads about any number of things in any number of places—from where to live when they weren’t hunting Cheld to how they invested their vast wealth—and if he’d learned anything, it was that he couldn’t go up against Lawrence, who had, after all, been his clan chief centuries before, without one of them ending up bloody.

  Figuratively speaking, of course.

  They were vampires, yes, but they were brothers first and foremost.

  “Something tells me I’d like a refill first,” he told Lawrence, who pulled Torr’s empty glass toward him from across the mahogany bar.

  Although his brother had not yet finished transforming the old bank he’d bought into the bar he planned to open, his liquor license had been granted, making it legal for him to serve alcohol, a fact their small group had been celebrating for the past few hours. They sat around the circular bar in the middle of the room. Lawrence stood behind it, as usual.

  After refilling Torr’s Ardbeg, the only whiskey he’d drink if given the choice, Lawrence leaned against the bar, crossing his arms as if settling in for a long lecture.

  Fantastic. At least he’d asked for the drink first.

  “You said ‘we’ needed to talk,” he lifted an eyebrow, “so why do I have a feeling you’ll be doing most of the talking?”

  “I’m serious, Torr—”

  “That’s what worries me.”

  Savoring the rich liquid he sipped, waiting.

  “You’ve been back for less than three weeks, and people are starting to tal—”

  “You mean, they’ve already grown tired of discussing the apple festival? You would think all that fuss over the festival queen would have them—”

  “That’s enough.”

  Perhaps. Still, he wasn’t wrong, and they both knew it. The people in Stone Haven had a tendency to gossip about the most trivial of matters, including the tie vote for their festival queen and the ensuing brouhaha it had caused. Imagine, four vampires currently resided in the tourist-laden Pennsylvania town where his brother had decided to settle, and the townsfolk worried about offending a poor little rich girl whose daddy had just donated enough money to remodel the visitor’s center.

  The Derrickson siblings and Kenton Morley could each buy and sell the small-time businessman fifty times over.

  But no one here knew it.

  The townspeople realized the Derrickson and Morley families had money, of course. After all, they had purchased the only two mansions in the town, neither of which had been up for sale. But no one could possibly fathom how much wealth an individual could accumulate after hundreds of years of existence.

  “All I’m saying is that if you plan to stay awhile—”

  “Which you obviously think is a bad idea.”

  Lawrence’s frown made him look older than thirty, the age he’d been when they were cursed to live as immortals. The aging process had stopped at twenty-eight for Torr, leaving him perpetually the younger brother.

  “I think it would be a fine idea if you weren’t making your string of bedmates so obvious.”

  Torr took a sip of his whiskey and tried not to smile. It would only further infuriate his brother, and he really didn’t want to fight with him today, especially not in front of Lawrence’s girlfriend, Toni, whom he quite liked.

  “If you’re asking me to be more discreet—”

  Lawrence scoffed. “It shouldn’t be difficult given the way you’ve been flaunting your exploits around town.”

  “I don’t flaunt.”

  When someone tousled his hair from behind, Torr placed his drink on the bar so quickly the motion would have given most humans pause. Luckily, Toni, the only non-vampire present, already knew their secret.

  Reaching back without looking, he snagged his sister’s hand.

  “Watch the hair,” he said.

  “It’s almost too easy to get to you,” she said, sitting next to him. He’d tried for a menacing tone, but she seemed completely unrepentant.

  She glanced from him to Lawrence. “What’s wrong?”

  Torr shrugged. “Nothing at all.” From his perspective, it was true.

  “Other than the fact that we’re preparing to open a business in a town too small to tolerate Torr’s antics,” Lawrence said.

  Refusing to make eye contact with his sister, Torr concentrated on the liquid gold in his glass. But he could feel her piercing green eyes, the same shade as his own, on him anyway. Laria had always been able to get to him in a way Lawrence could not. She was his elder too, although only by a year, and he felt a combination of admiration and protectiveness for her. He’d do anything to insulate her from wicked men.

  Himself included.

  “Now what have you done?”

  Hating the censure in her voice, he ignored the question.

  “Torr . . .”

  “I’ve done nothing an uninhibited, virile—”

  “What has he done?” she asked Lawrence instead, her tone dangerous.

  “The mayor stopped me earlier today in The Witch’s Brew—”

  “A rather droll name for a coffee shop if you ask me,” Torr offered, darting a glance at his siblings, both of whom ignored him. They were conversing with each other now, about him, no less.

  “Apparently, there was some commotion at the inn the other night—”

  Ah, so that’s what had Lawrence all worked up.

  “About that,” he interrupted. “I don’t make a habit of attending bachelorette parties, but—”

  He stopped when Lawrence shifted his gaze to the other end of the bar, where Toni sat with her best friend and . . . him. The bastard was grinning at his brother as if the two of them shared a private joke.

  Kenton fucking Morley.

  For centuries the man had been their enemy, and now he and Lawrence were acting like best buds.

  Lawrence may have forgiven, if not forgotten, Morley’s former crusade against the Cheld,
which he’d forsaken for Alessandra, but Torr certainly hadn’t. As far as he was concerned, the other vampire was still their enemy.

  He wasn’t about to pretend otherwise.

  “It won’t happen again,” he ground out, ending the conversation. “If you want me to leave—”

  “He doesn’t want you to leave,” his sister, the peacemaker, cut in. “Just try to remember this is Lawrence’s town, and he means to stay here.”

  “For now,” he muttered under his breath, earning himself a couple of dark looks from Lawrence and Laria. “Fine. I hear you. Best behavior.”

  He grinned, wishing—not for the first time—his charm had more of an effect on his siblings. They knew him too well to fall for it.

  “I appreciate it,” Lawrence said. “Now give me your glass.”

  “And stop glaring at Kenton,” Laria added.

  Taking yet another refill from Lawrence, he lifted his glass in the air. “That may be asking a wee bit too much, lassie,” he said, knowing his sister had a soft spot for the accent of their homeland, which they’d dropped over the years. “To Lawrence.”

  Joining him in a toast, his siblings raised their own drinks, their differences momentarily forgotten as they celebrated Lawrence and Toni’s forthcoming business venture.

  His brother deserved to be happy, so he would try to behave.

  For tonight, at least.

  Chapter 2

  Ye Old Curiosities had always felt like a place of discovery to Charlotte. No one ever came there because they were in need of something—its shelves were too disorganized to be of use to someone with an agenda—but most of the browsers walked away with something they’d never realized they needed. The store reminded her of her hometown in South Carolina, and so did the street that hosted it. It felt like the little bit of home she’d been allowed to keep when she, her mother, and her stepfather moved to Pennsylvania.

  The store was owned by her friend Toni’s aunt and uncle, and Toni had worked there for as long as she’d known her. Still, it had surprised her when Toni had told her and their other friend Alessandra to meet her at the shop to kick off girls’ night. She’d assumed Toni had already quit to devote herself full-time to the new bar she was opening with her boyfriend.

  When Charlotte walked in, Toni was behind the counter, fiddling with a box of what looked to be mood-changing pens.

  “Didn’t you say the new girl started last week?”

  Toni looked up, her smile broad, as she closed the register in front of her.

  “She did. And promptly quit two days later. So much for hiring college students.” She shrugged. “What’s up with you? I feel like I’ve hardly seen you since school started. You literally ghosted me.”

  Charlotte smoothed her tailored pants, pretending to pick off nonexistent lint as she considered the question.

  “I’m sorry about that. Nothing much is new. So tell me about—”

  “Not so fast.”

  Toni crossed her arms. “Spill it,” she ordered, her tone as fiery as the red hair piled atop her head in a messy bun.

  Saved by the bell. Or perhaps not. The person who’d just strolled into the shop, triggering the tinkling bell over the door, wasn’t a customer but Alessandra Fiore, the third in their group of musketeers. She was maybe even tougher than Toni.

  “Just me,” she said, grinning at them. “Who’s ready for girls’ night?”

  “Where are we headed?” Toni asked.

  Grateful for the distraction, Charlotte shrugged. “Are we blacklisting Murphy’s?”

  Alessandra and Toni exchanged a glance, and something must have been communicated between them in that silent best-friend language of theirs because Alessandra answered for both of them.

  “No, that’s fine,” she said. “And you’re dressed perfectly for it too.

  Ha. Ha.

  Taking off her blazer to reveal a bright green cap sleeve cami, Charlotte made a face at them.

  “There, see?”

  She was accustomed to their ribbing about her inability to dress casually, but as she’d told them repeatedly, where she came from, it was perfectly acceptable to dress as if you could be meeting an important politician or the owner of a Fortune 500 company at any moment.

  Because usually she really was meeting someone like that. Back then, at least.

  “Perfect.” Toni slung her ever-present messenger bag over her shoulder and stepped around the counter to join them.

  “Let’s go,” Alessandra said.

  Walking from the shop, the women skirted an occasional crack in the sidewalk and navigated the passersby as they made their way from one end of Main Street to the other, not a long walk. Tomorrow was Friday, and it would usher in this weekend’s batch of tourists. Double the people or more would roam the streets of the “Switzerland of the U.S.”—the Pennsylvania town known as much for its local charm as the small South Carolina one where Charlotte had grown up.

  “I can’t believe it’s getting cold already,” she said, pulling her blazer back on. After seven years, one would think she’d be accustomed to the cooler northern climate.

  “You say that every year,” Alessandra accused as they closed in on their destination. Murphy’s Pub. Not special, perhaps, but familiar, and its location catty-corner to the visitor’s center and the sole gazebo in the small square at the heart of Stone Haven pretty much guaranteed it was always busy, even on weeknights.

  “Do you miss it?” she asked Toni as they found a four-top and sat.

  Toni snorted. “You’re kidding, right?”

  She’d worked a second job as a bartender at Murphy’s for as long as Charlotte had known her. That job she had dropped.

  “Not a chance.”

  The waitress, another college student, asked for their drink order.

  “So how’s the school? And Tom?” Alessandra asked. They’d met as colleagues at Stone Haven High School, where Charlotte still worked as an English teacher, but Alessandra had quit a few months back to accept a job as a history professor at the university.

  “Good,” she said. “He says hello.” Her principal had always loved Alessandra, and Charlotte suspected he might have made the moves on her this summer, now that she was no longer his subordinate, had she not met Kenton. Alessandra thought she was crazy.

  “Tell him I said . . . oh, please no.” Those last words were said with plenty of sass, aimed at someone behind Charlotte’s back.

  Charlotte was about to spin in her seat when Alessandra stopped her. “Trust me, you don’t want to look.”

  When Toni followed Alessandra’s gaze, her eyes widened. Too curious not to look, Charlotte finally swiveled in her seat, but she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  “Who are you looking at?”

  She’d followed their gaze to a man at the bar with his back to them.

  “Lawrence’s brother. I don’t think you’ve met him yet.”

  The waitress returned with their glasses, red wine for the other girls and a Pinot Grigio for her. She’d never understood how anyone could actually like red wine. It was so gross.

  Much to her mother’s dismay, she only liked white wine or beer in the summer. Unrefined, she knew.

  So be it.

  “No, I don’t think I have. How is Lawrence, anyway? And the bar?”

  Toni shot her a loaded look—okay, so she’d been deflecting—and waited for her to speak. Might as well. They’d expect her to fess up eventually.

  “You’re wondering where I’ve been.”

  They waited for her to continue.

  “My mother came for an extended visit—”

  Both women spoke at once—“And you didn’t tell us?” “Why didn’t we meet her?”—but Charlotte chose to answer the second question.

  “Trust me, you wouldn’t be asking that if you knew her.”

  She felt horrible speaking ill of her mother, which was why she rarely talked about her. Or her father. Mother always said if you didn’t have something ni
ce to say . . .

  “Charlotte!”

  She’d done the impossible and shocked Toni. Charlotte didn’t need to ask why. She typically avoided speaking badly of anyone, and no doubt it was also hard for Toni, who’d lost her parents in a car accident, to understand how a parental visit could be unwelcome.

  “I know, I’m sorry.”

  And she truly meant it.

  Alessandra put her hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. “Knowing you, I’m sure there’s a good reason—”

  “Of course,” Toni cut in. “It’s just so strange to hear you mention your parents. You never talk about them.”

  Alessandra pulled her hand away.

  “And you don’t have to now. So your mom came to town, we missed her . . . and you.”

  Charlotte felt a tingle behind her eyes at Alessandra’s sympathetic words. She even considered telling them everything. Well, not everything, but enough that her friends wouldn’t think her a complete monster for speaking ill of her own mother.

  But the idea slipped away as Toni lifted her glass in the air for a toast. Her friends loved toasts. And she really did want to enjoy a night out with her friends. She needed it, and her story was sure to ruin the mood. Much better to save it for another day.

  Or never.

  “To Charlotte Harris. The prettiest, most proper Southern gal east of the Mississippi.”

  She raised her glass.

  “I can toast to that,” she teased, about to take a sip when a deep voice behind her stayed her hand.

  “So what are we toasting to, ladies?”

  Chapter 3