The Hunter's Affection (Bloodwite Book 3) Read online

  So maybe they weren’t fast friends after all. His brother didn’t usually stoop to sarcasm—that was his purview.

  Torr smiled at Kenton, suddenly quite happy.

  “Why don’t you just get it out of your system, Derrickson?” Kenton said to him, his voice like an icy blast of winter.

  “There’s nothing to get out in the open, Morley. You know I don’t like you. Nothing has changed.”

  “Yes,” Alessandra said. “It has. Everything has changed.”

  Torr didn’t answer.

  “We have Cheld uncloaking themselves, beheading vampires out in the open. An old woman who may know of your existence, and the two of you insist on fighting like teenagers? You’re centuries old. Act like it.”

  “Teenagers?” Alessandra would not have liked him as a teen. He scowled at Kenton. “How old were we that time when you came to Bowden Castle with your father and took advantage of my unfortunate . . . position . . . in the stable with that—”

  “Torr, please?”

  Toni really must be taking lessons from his sister.

  “Fine,” he said, inclining his head toward her. He told the full story, with Toni adding in an occasional detail. Spoken out loud, it sounded worse.

  Alessandra turned to Kenton.“I’ve got to get near her. We have to know if she’s a threat.”

  Torr knew Alessandra had the ability to sense danger, one of her unique Cheld abilities.

  “But even if you do, what will that tell us?” Lawrence asked. “She could be a danger to us and not you.”

  “We need that journal,” Alessandra said.

  He refrained from thanking Captain Obvious, trying his best to keep the peace.

  “Yes. That’s the key, but Birdie and Uncle Jim looked everywhere.” Toni stood up. “If they got it during the Walsh estate sale, they don’t have it any longer.”

  “I could talk to the grandson again?” Torr offered.

  “No,” Lawrence sighed. “He’d have told you more if he knew it. I think he’s as in the dark as we are.”

  The group went silent.

  “I need to get close to her,” Alessandra repeated, sitting up straighter.

  Everyone spoke at once. No one thought it was a good idea—Alessandra wasn’t known for her subtlety, and they certainly didn’t want to confirm any of the Walsh woman’s suspicions—but neither did they have an alternative plan.

  It was maddening, even more so because it looked like they would need to rely on Morley’s woman to get to the bottom of the situation.

  And all Torr could think of was that he wanted to be anywhere but here.

  No, he wanted to be with Charlotte.

  Unable to take it anymore, he jumped to his feet.

  “I think it’s as good a plan as any,” he said. “Let me know how it goes.”

  “Torr—”

  He winked at Toni, letting her know he wasn’t angry, and pushed his empty glass across the bar to his brother.

  “I’ll see you guys later.”

  He didn’t wait for a response before he turned and stalked outside.

  Taking a deep breath of fresh air, he looked up the street. He played with the idea of finding a blood donor—he hadn’t fed since coming here—or heading to Amendment 18, the speakeasy where Lawrence used to work. But he wanted to see her again, and Torr had never been good at denying himself something he wanted. He wasn’t about to start now.

  * * *

  She hadn’t left the apartment all day.

  Charlotte could have gone out after the school day ended, but she would have needed to pretend she was sick if she ran into anyone. Which, of course, was likely. Instead, she’d lain in bed thinking of all that Alessandra had told her, turning it over and over in her mind.

  Vampires. Cheld. A seven-hundred-year-old Scotsman.

  Scotland. He was actually from Scotland, born in the thirteenth century. What would he look like in a kilt?

  Oh. My. Word. Why was she still thinking of him?

  Netflix. She would rewatch Hart of Dixie. Over the top, maybe. But it reminded her of home. Although she liked it here, a lot, she still felt nostalgic for aspects of her childhood. The places she’d loved, her nanny, her childhood friends. She’d tried to stay in touch with some of them, but it was difficult. And over time, most had drifted away.

  She turned on the show, sucked into the familiar drama of it—so much so she nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of a knock on the door. She glanced at her phone. No one had texted to say they’d be visiting.

  Pausing Netflix, Charlotte jumped from her safe haven and made her way to the door. She peered through the peephole, only to see the very Scotsman who’d consumed her thoughts all day.

  Bolting into action, Charlotte raced to the bathroom. She ran a brush through her hair and guzzled mouthwash as if her life depended on it.

  What the hell was she doing?

  Another knock.

  Racing back, she peeked through the peephole again. He was gone!

  Although it would be impossible to pretend she didn’t care if she literally raced after him, Charlotte burst into the hallway.

  “Torr?” she said, catching him just as he turned to head down the stairs.

  He was dressed casually, in jeans, a T-shirt, and a dark hooded sweatshirt.

  Dangerous.

  It was the best word she could think of to describe him.

  “You shouldn’t have dressed up for me,” he said, smirking.

  And a complete smart-ass.

  Charlotte had on black yoga pants and a Stone Haven University T-shirt Alessandra had given her.

  “Maybe if you’d let me know you were coming—”

  He just stood there at the top of the stairs, his hand still on the railing as if he hadn’t yet decided whether to stay or go.

  “You’d have dressed up for me?”

  Arrogant jerk.

  “Lord, no. I’d have told you not to come.”

  The lie fell easily from her lips, but he didn’t even flinch. She could tell he knew better than to believe her.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Here, with him, she marveled anew at what she’d learned. This man was a vampire, something that shouldn’t be possible, but she’d seen the evidence.

  “Positive,” she said.

  He held her gaze, those moss green eyes as mesmerizing as they were unnerving. The power behind them was undeniable.

  He took his hand from the banister, and for one wild moment, Charlotte thought he was leaving. She didn’t want him to, not really.

  Good thing, because he walked toward her.

  “Prove it.”

  Stepping back into her apartment—she couldn’t think with him so close, his scent assaulting her—Charlotte swallowed.

  “Tell me to leave,” he pressed. Then he did that thing with his lips. She’d no sooner tell him to leave than she’d move back in with her parents. “Or invite me in,” he added, practically purring it.

  “Invite you—”

  “One of the few things popular culture got right about my kind,” he said, his voice lowered. “We do need to be invited inside a home that isn’t ours.”

  The air sizzled with sexual tension. She thought of their kiss the night before, and somehow she knew he was thinking of it too.

  If she invited him inside, she’d be offering him something else too. Even as she pretended to contemplate it, Torr looked at her as if he already knew her response.

  “Come in.”

  He did, shutting the door behind him. An instant later, she was in his arms. Slamming his mouth against hers, he carried her effortlessly across the room, her legs wrapped around his waist as if they’d done this dance before and they recognized its rhythm.

  He kissed her as if starved, the same way she kissed him back.

  Charlotte had never felt such wild abandon in her life, as if something inside her had simply snapped. His tongue tousled with hers as they fought to deepen a kiss that was alr
eady wildly out of control.

  She smelled chocolate cake, which was what alerted her to the fact that they were in her bedroom. Instead of being mortified—she’d never slept with someone so quickly—she was excited.

  This was happening, and she wanted it.

  Wanted him.

  Desperately.

  He put her down, but only long enough for him to pull her loose top off in a single motion. Groaning, he barely stopped to look down at her before he threw off his own hoodie and T-shirt.

  A well-defined six-pack peered up at her.

  Holy sweet Jesus. She’d never seen a man so perfect in person.

  “I want to see all of you,” he said, reaching for her again. His fingers worked the clasp of her bra like a master pickpocket, deft and almost instantly successful.

  “Hot pink.” He did stop long enough to look now, and if her nipples weren’t already hard, they’d have peaked under his gaze. “Why am I not surprised?” Torr pulled her against his chest.

  When their skin made contact, she sighed, prickles of pleasure running through her, burrowing down into her bones.

  Torr ran his hands through her hair—a touch she thought innocent until he tightened his grasp, using it as leverage to bring her back for another kiss.

  No. Kiss wasn’t the right word for this hard, searing melding of tongue and lips. She opened herself to him, not just with her mouth, welcoming the frenzied pace even as she tried to recall just one previous instance of this kind of unbridled passion with any man, ever.

  Nope.

  This was a first.

  “God, Charlotte. I can’t get enough,” he murmured against her mouth, kissing its corner before making his way down her neck.

  When Torr’s phone buzzed in his back pocket, he didn’t even pause. He kissed every inch of her neck, even behind her ear.

  She was going to die.

  Pulling her hair back, he exposed her neck even further.

  Which was when she remembered he was a vampire.

  “I’m not going to bite you,” he murmured, his lips positioning themselves in the exact spot she imagined he would bite her. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”

  She didn’t have time to ask what she would be afraid of before she felt the soft graze of two sharp points against her flesh. His teeth.

  She clenched at the touch, surprised that such a thing would be a turn-on. And like he’d anticipated her fear, he somehow sensed her desire too, because he reached down and cupped her sex through her pants.

  “Let me make you come . . .”

  She couldn’t stand. Her knees quivered as Torr’s hand slipped down the band of her pants. Somehow, it felt more intimate than if he’d taken them off, but they never got around to that.

  Because the moment he slipped his fingers inside, pressing the palm of his hand against her, Charlotte lost it completely.

  Luckily, he lowered his other arm from her hair down to the small of her back, because she seriously couldn’t stand on her own. Throbbing against him, she was completely overwhelmed. It reminded her of the sensation of jumping into the sun-kissed ocean for the first time in the summer. Part shock at the cold water, part awareness of the inherent danger of the most powerful force on earth.

  But most of all, the sheer bliss of being a part of something so vast you were lost in it.

  He’d barely even touched her and Charlotte had come apart. Looking down, the sight of his hands down her pants . . .

  Let me make you come.

  She’d thought he meant eventually. Not like that very second.

  Charlotte raised her head and nearly lost her shit all over again.

  Torr’s knowing smile seemed to shoot straight down to her core. The power he had over her . . . it wasn’t natural.

  Then he pulled his hands away and stepped back. She immediately felt the loss of him as she stood wobbling on her own two feet.

  “That was—”

  “Not why I came here, Charlotte.”

  He looked at her with more regret than passion now. “I’d never want you to think that. I just—”

  “Got carried away?”

  She smiled, telling him that she’d wanted it as much as he did.

  “Something like that.”

  She nearly looked away, for his gaze burned as surely as the sun. Until it drifted from her eyes downward. Groaning, he reached for her, and Charlotte melted back into his hands.

  This time, his phone rang.

  “Goddammit.”

  Reaching back into his pocket, he took it out and, without looking at it, tossed it onto her bed.

  “You’re full of surprises, Charlotte Harris,” he said just before crashing his lips to hers once again.

  She could have said the same.

  Charlotte was under no illusions Torr was anything but the carefree playboy she knew him to be. It was just . . . right now, she didn’t care.

  The world had been turned on its head in the last twenty-four hours. She might as well turn with it.

  His phone. Again.

  With another curse, Torr pulled back to grab the offender.

  “My sister.”

  “Take it.” She waved a hand at him. “It must be important.”

  “It better be,” he muttered, answering.

  Torr didn’t even say hello before pausing to listen. The intense look in his eyes told her something was wrong.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  He hung up without saying another word, then looked at Charlotte with softer eyes. “I’m so sorry. I would never leave like this if it weren’t an emergency.” He stooped as he said it, gathering their shirts.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked as they both righted their clothing.

  He was already putting his phone back in his pocket and reaching for her. This kiss wasn’t full of need, demanding a response. It was quick but full of promise, and over much too soon.

  “I’m not sure, to be honest. But I’ll call you later, if I can.”

  He wasn’t going to say anything more, and for some reason, she bristled at that fact. How much more didn’t she know about the Derricksons and Morleys? But it was obviously a family matter and none of her business.

  “Sounds good.”

  With a tight smile that she knew had everything to do with the situation and nothing to do with any displeasure on her part, Torr walked from her bedroom. She heard the front door open and close.

  That had been an abrupt end to . . . to what? What had just happened?

  You completely lost yourself in him. That’s what happened.

  Even worse?

  Charlotte knew she would do it again.

  Chapter 14

  It had been one hell of a week.

  The call that had yanked him away from Charlotte’s embrace on Monday night had been about Alessandra. Cheld could sense it when other vampires and Cheld—even cloaked Cheld—were nearby. Alessandra didn’t have much experience with other Cheld, given that she and her younger brother were the only two she knew, but she’d sensed the presence of someone who felt like Garrett on Monday night. A problem given that he was currently nowhere near Stone Haven.

  A Cheld had come to town, a cloaked Cheld, sensed only by Alessandra, which had sent them all into a collective panic.

  There was only one reason a cloaked Cheld would come to town: to eliminate Stone Haven’s resident vampires. They suspected the Sect, but even though Stone Haven was impossibly small, their efforts to find the hidden Cheld had turned up nothing and no one. Torr had led their efforts. Even Kenton acquiesced to “the Hunter,” as he’d been called for centuries. When Alessandra no longer felt the Cheld’s presence, it didn’t stop Torr from leaving Stone Haven for a few days, knowing his tracking efforts were likely futile if the Cheld was cloaked but not willing simply to wait for him, or her, to return.

  Alessandra no longer sensed the Cheld, but that didn’t erase the feeling they were sitting ducks.

  Part of Torr wanted to leave
town and sweep his brother and sister off with him, but another part reminded him of Charlotte Harris’s silky skin and the pleasure he took in making a lady obsessed with order enjoy chaos.

  He’d thought of her all week long. Dreamed about her. Texted her. All of which was quite unlike him. And finally, he’d convinced her to let him take her out tonight.

  For a date.

  First, though, he had to report for the group’s nightly meeting.

  Torr left his brother’s house and made his way to the as-of-yet unnamed bar that was looking less and less like a bank every day. The others were working late, and as he opened the door, the smell of pizza and sound of laughter drifted to him.

  He froze, staring at his brother as if seeing him for the first time since he’d come back to town. How had he not noticed before?

  Lawrence was ridiculously happy.

  He hadn’t seen his brother this way in years. Always so serious with an edge that came from drifting from town to town, city to city. The lifestyle of a hunter, something he hated but had refused to abandon. Only after meeting Toni had he agreed to pass the hunt along to Torr and Laria. They would manage the Cheld now. Chase the Sect. Save the innocent among them.

  “Come in,” Laria said. “Grab some pizza with us.”

  Laria didn’t know about his date. In fact, he hadn’t told anyone. But by the way Toni and Alessandra looked at him, they probably knew from Charlotte. He didn’t mind.

  The others sat around the circular bar in the center of a room, which now sported exposed wooden beams and a new floor. He knew Lawrence and Toni were going for a cross between a rustic ski lodge and an elegant study, complete with leather chairs and deep earth tones.

  It looked pretty damn good, and he didn’t just think so because he’d helped.

  “No, thanks,” he said, walking toward the group.

  Avoiding Kenton’s gaze, he sat between his sister and Toni. As usual, Lawrence stood behind the bar. Torr held up three fingers, and his brother wordlessly made and handed him a triple of whiskey.

  “I still think we should travel in pairs,” Kenton said.

  “But whoever it was is gone.” Alessandra shook out her hair and tied it back into a high ponytail.