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

  Sure, she could admit Torr Derrickson was sexy as hell—she had eyes—but she didn’t need anyone to tell her this man was dangerous. Reckless, even. The exact opposite of the kind of guy she hoped to attract.

  Too late.

  He watched her with eyes the same frosty green color shared by his brother and sister. A Derrickson family trait, she supposed, along with unearthly good looks that hardly belonged in a town so small.

  And he was staying all month.

  Wonderful.

  “No, no, no, no,” Alessandra muttered as they walked farther into what looked like a war zone. Construction workers everywhere and a flurry of activity.

  “I hear you, loud and clear,” she murmured back, breaking eye contact with Torr, who turned away.

  “What are you guys doing here?” Toni asked, wiping her hands on her leggings. Only she could manage to look fashionable in that outfit. Typically, Toni looked like a cover model for Urban Outfitters, her boho vibe less in line with Stone Haven’s simple style and more suited to a NYC grad student.

  “We’re on our way to The Witch’s Brew. Come with us,” Alessandra said.

  Toni glanced toward the center of the room, where Lawrence and his brother stood talking. His back was to her now, thank goodness. Unfortunately, however, it gave her a very clear view of—

  “Charlotte . . . ,” Alessandra warned.

  Toni looked back and forth between them, and of course, it didn’t take long for her to catch on.

  “Um, yeah. I may have to agree with Alessandra on this one,” Toni said.

  Charlotte rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing to agree with her about. I was just saying”—she lowered her voice—“that Lawrence’s brother is the last guy on earth I’d ever get involved with.”

  Well, if she hadn’t been saying it, she’d been thinking it for sure.

  “No offense,” she added hastily.

  Toni smiled. “None taken. He’s not staying long anyway—”

  “Thank heavens.”

  Charlotte swiveled to look at Alessandra. It wasn’t like her to be so uncharitable. She was one of the nicest people Charlotte knew, although there was definitely something different about her friend lately. Edgier.

  “Sorry,” Alessandra muttered. “I’m sure Torr is much more charming when he isn’t actively hating on my fiancé.”

  Though the words were addressed to them, Alessandra looked at Torr, almost as if she intended for him to hear them. But he was clear across the room . . .

  His back was still toward them.

  “His ass though,” Charlotte said wryly. Which was when Alessandra began coughing so hard Charlotte thought they might have to take her to the ER. She turned and stumbled outside, leaving them to follow.

  “Are you OK?” Charlotte asked. Did she have a cold or something? Maybe an allergy? Toni looked more amused than concerned.

  “Fine.” Alessandra cleared her throat. “I think a chai will help clear me out—”

  “I swear, the two of you think chai is the answer to everything. I don’t know how you can stand the stuff.”

  They looked at her as if she’d said the earth was flat.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll stop. I’m just glad you’re all right.”

  “So what’s on tap for today?” Toni asked them.

  “Coffee. Grading papers. Meeting a friend in the city for a drink,” Charlotte answered.

  Toni’s brows lifted.

  “Oops, sorry,” she amended, forgetting “the city” usually meant New York City around here. “You’d think I’d learn by now. Just heading into Stroudsburg.”

  “Who are you meeting?” Alessandra asked.

  “Don’t judge, but my mother insisted I meet this guy, the son of my stepdad’s boss.”

  “Insisted?” Alessandra looked at her strangely.

  She didn’t blame her. At her age, Charlotte really should be able to say no to a date she had no desire to go on. But trying to explain her mother wasn’t in the cards for today.

  After teasing her, they chatted for a few more minutes, until the door of the bank burst open.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Lawrence cut in. “I need your opinion on something,” he said to Toni. The look he gave her reminded Charlotte of the way his brother had looked at her the previous day.

  Hungry.

  A look she needed to stay far, far away from.

  A look that could get her into trouble.

  “Go ahead,” Alessandra said. “I’ll get you a chai and swing it by later.”

  Waving, Toni moved toward Lawrence, who grabbed her by the waist as she got close to him. A wave of longing surprised her. Not for Lawrence, of course, but for this. For being in love. Still, she was happy for her friends—they both deserved happiness, and they looked to have found it.

  Charlotte and Alessandra continued on to the coffee house, chatting about this and that. The Witch’s Brew was crowded when they arrived, swollen with weekend tourists, and they walked past cozy couches on the left and high-top tables on the right to get into the ridiculously long line.

  “Have your colleagues defrosted yet?” Charlotte asked.

  While Alessandra loved her new job, she’d admitted it was requiring a bit of an adjustment. The other professors weren’t welcoming, nor did they spend time together after work. There were no happy hours. No breakroom pranks. Just research, teaching, and more research. Oh, and competition.

  “Not so much,” she said. “But luckily, I’ve been busy with . . . the bar and such.”

  She was holding something back. Charlotte wasn’t the only one who’d been MIA this summer—Alessandra had been elusive too, but Charlotte hadn’t wanted to say anything for fear she’d appear jealous of her friend’s new relationship. Which she wasn’t. Kenton might have an overabundance of confidence, but he treated Alessandra like a queen and had been nothing but kind to Charlotte.

  So she hadn’t said anything. But maybe it was a mistake to be so reticent. It was something the old Charlotte would do, and she’d worked hard to change.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is there anything . . . else . . . that’s changed, besides Kenton, in the last few months? You seem, I don’t know. Something is different, maybe.”

  She felt like a complete fool, but she wasn’t imagining this.

  Alessandra looked distinctly uncomfortable. “There’ve been a lot of . . . changes. Moving in with Kenton, the job . . .”

  Her voice trailed off as they moved up in line. So something was up, but her friend wasn’t going to let her in.

  Charlotte tried not to be hurt—after all, Alessandra wasn’t the only one keeping secrets—but it still stung. “I get that,” she said, “but if you ever want to talk about it . . .”

  Alessandra smiled, and Charlotte could tell she was grateful not to have been pressed for more information.

  “Nah,” her friend said, “let’s talk about the way you stared at Torr Derrickson’s ass—”

  “A mighty fine one, if I do say so myself.”

  The two of them burst into giggles like schoolgirls, until Charlotte recovered enough to reassure Alessandra that she’d only admired his ass because she was human, and what human woman wouldn’t? Appreciating a thing of beauty and getting involved with the man, in any capacity, were two very different things. The former, well, she couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen again.

  The latter? Nope. After the way he’d goaded her the night before?

  He was simply . . .

  Not.

  For.

  Her.

  * * *

  Torr, hair still wet, a towel wrapped around his waist as he got ready for a night out on the town, stuck his head outside the guest bedroom when he heard his brother approaching.

  “Where’s Laria?” he asked.

  Lawrence stopped in the hallway. “Gone already. Girls’ night with Toni and Alessandra. Why?”

  Confident that Lawrence’s girlf
riend wouldn’t be walking by at any moment, he opened the door wider.

  “I assumed you and Toni would be doing something, so I wondered if she’d be interested in skipping town for the night. But if she’s off with the girls, maybe you—”

  “No.”

  His brother could be a real asshole sometimes. He made it difficult to talk to him.

  “Jesus, Lawrence.”

  “Sorry. But I know that look. And it isn’t a ‘let’s drink a whiskey or two, maybe play Monopoly—”

  “Monopoly? Are you kidding me?”

  Lawrence let out a harsh laugh. “OK, a bad example. But I know that look, and the answer is no. Whatever you’re up to—”

  “I’m not up to anything,” he said. “Not really. But the nightlife in Stone Haven . . .” He shrugged. “What? Your bar isn’t open yet. I’m just saying, in the meantime, I’d like to have some fun.”

  “Exactly. No. But enjoy whatever trouble you plan on getting yourself into. Or, on second thought—”

  Lawrence started walking away.

  Smart-ass. Torr had just the thing to stop him in his steps—his other reason for flagging Lawrence down in the hallway.

  “I ran into Zach Walsh today. He was in front of me in line at the deli.”

  That stopped his brother cold. Unfortunately, Torr didn’t have a whole lot of other information to pass on. That Zach had been seen was significant—it meant he was still in town—but it didn’t mean too much else.

  “I followed him, of course—”

  “Of course.”

  Torr pulled his towel tighter across his waist.

  “And aside from the fact that he literally jumped when he first saw me, nothing. I guess I really did scare him into silence. Oh, and his dick boss was there too.” Zach worked for Toni’s ex-boyfriend Tyler, a contractor who pulled in a lot of work around Stone Haven. He hadn’t gotten the job at the future bar, for obvious reasons.

  Lawrence leaned against the wall next to him. His look had turned contemplative. “I can’t help but wonder why a guy whose family owns half the town—”

  “Or at least a few of its buildings and an electric company,” he clarified, drawing on his own research.

  “Is working for someone else, in a job that probably makes him minimum wage. Generations of Walsh mayors, and then him.”

  “I agree, it’s all strange. But not criminal.”

  “Unlike breaking and entering,” Torr reminded his brother. “It’s too bad we couldn’t get ahold of that journal the grandmother wants so badly.” They’d searched the store high and low, to no avail. “Anyway, I thought it worth mentioning.” He smirked. “Speaking of tonight—”

  “Like I said, just do me a favor and keep your exploits on the down low.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  He couldn’t help smiling at that blatant falsehood. They both knew their roles: Lawrence did his best to keep himself out of trouble, and Torr did his best to find it. The parts were familiar, and they’d played them for centuries.

  “Staying home tonight, then?” he asked, about to close the door.

  Lawrence didn’t move.

  “Ah, I see.” Pretending not to care, he shrugged. “I must have misplaced my invitation.”

  “You’ve made no secret of your opinion of Kenton—”

  “Of a man who has murdered so many of our brother’s bloodline?”

  “Murdered? The Cheld are strong. A fight to the death can hardly be called murder.”

  “Semantics, brother. My opinion is the same one you held for centuries,” Torr said, hate welling from his gut.

  “People . . . change.”

  Torr laughed, a hollow sound even to his own ears.

  “Do you mean you? Or Morley?” He shook his head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter—”

  Lawrence pushed away from the wall and Torr attempted to shut his door. His brother blocked him. Damn him, they were of equal strength, which made these standoffs impossible.

  “Torr.”

  “I don’t want to keep you from your new best friend.”

  Lawrence paused for just an instant—long enough for him to shut the door. He waited a beat, half-expecting his brother to knock or speak to him through the closed door. Lawrence was the good one and would not want to part angry. But he was as stubborn as Torr, if not more so. And so he wasn’t surprised when he heard his brother’s footsteps echoing down the hallway.

  Well, no matter, he had plans of his own. According to the bartender at Murphy’s, the best place to spend a Saturday night, especially during the first weekend of the month, was at a place called Stage West in East Stroudsburg. Normally, they boasted nothing more than cover bands and cheap vodka. But one night each month, the place was transformed into a “hedonistic night celebrating a provocative subculture on sensory overload.”

  His words.

  Noir Nights, they were called. Perfect.

  Let Lawrence hobnob with the Cheld-hunting English bastard. Torr would find his own entertainment.

  Chapter 5

  “I’m not planning to stay late,” Charlotte said, her phone on speaker. She stopped at a red light, waiting for her mother’s next question.

  There surely would be one. Every time her mother visited, she nitpicked every last nook and cranny of Charlotte’s existence, asking question upon question. In some ways, it was preferable to all those years she’d been mothered by the nanny instead. Better late than never, and all that. If only she approved of any of Charlotte’s answers.

  “Good. You can never be too safe,” her mother drawled. Born and raised in Alabama, her Southern accent was as thick as honey. Charlotte’s mother and stepfather had moved the family to Charleston after he was transferred to the Army Depot in Tobyhanna.

  Margaret Graves was a true Southern belle, and she wanted everyone to know it.

  Charlotte had been one too, once upon a time.

  “Oh, and don’t forget the party we’re throwing for the senator.”

  Charlotte was careful not to groan out loud. The last thing she needed right now was a lecture on ladylike behavior.

  Why had she agreed to attend the party anyway? Just because her parents liked to pretend they were still multimillionaires, hobnobbing with the political elite, didn’t mean she should have to do the same. But her mother could be so persuasive.

  “In two weeks, right?” she said instead, moving into the passing lane.

  “Yes, dear. Be sure to bring along a few dresses . . .”

  Though her mother let the sentence trail off, Charlotte silently finished it for her. So I can approve of your choice. Appearances are important. Blah, blah, blah.

  She nearly burst into giggles at the thought of how her mother would react if she actually said blah, blah, blah out loud to her.

  “Yes, Mother,” she said instead.

  “Well, do be careful, dear. I have to go. Your stepfather needs me to help pick out a tie. Good evening, Charlotte.”

  Good evening. Not “see you later,” or “love you,” or even “have a good night.” Charlotte may have changed her life, but her family remained the same as always.

  “Good evening, Mother,” she muttered, realizing belatedly she hadn’t spoken clearly. She waited for her mother to cluck her tongue and say something about the importance of articulation, but the line clicked off. Her father must really be desperate for help with his tie for her mother to pass up the opportunity to lecture her. Or maybe she was pacified by the fact that this date was her idea.

  Charlotte would have released a sigh of relief if the car hadn’t refused to move. The light had turned green, but nothing happened when she pressed the gas pedal.

  Well, not nothing, precisely. The engine revved, but the car stayed put.

  Shit.

  Please don’t use vulgarities, dear. She could hear it as clearly as if her mother sat next to her.

  Double shit.

  Her car wouldn’t move, horns beeped behind her, and her mother lecture
d her despite being over an hour away.

  After putting the car in park and turning on the hazards, Charlotte got out of the Volkswagen Jetta and waved at the cars behind her. They got the hint, finally, and started to drive around her.

  None of the other cars stopped to help, mind you. But at least they’d quit their honking.

  Charlotte continued to wave cars by as she pulled out her phone and dialed the number for the towing service. Multi-tasking for all she was worth—for some reason the message wasn’t getting across that she was literally in the middle of a two-lane highway—she didn’t even notice the middle-aged guy walking toward her until he stepped in front of her face.

  “Need some help?”

  She nodded, attempting to explain the situation with her hands as she described her location to the operator. Her savior pointed for her to get into her car, which she did. The operator finally hung up after assuring her a tow truck was on the way, and she rolled down the window and apologized to the Good Samaritan.

  She hated that she needed to be rescued—it made her feel like some damsel in distress, something she’d fought hard not to be. But she was prudent enough to realize she really did need the help.

  The guy just nodded.

  “Put it in neutral,” he ordered, moving to the back of her car. A man of few words, but who was she to judge? She turned the wheel to the right as he pushed, and sure enough, it slid off the road. She parked it as far off the road as possible.

  “Keep those hazards on,” the guy said as he walked back to his car. Why did he seem so familiar? Charlotte was sure she’d never met him before.

  “Thank you,” she replied through the window. But he was already walking away, seemingly anxious to do so. She rolled the window back up, as if it might provide a protective barrier.

  It struck Charlotte that she’d heard of people getting hit while they were parked on the side of the road. It seemed like a good idea to move as far away from the cars whizzing by as possible, so she crawled over to the passenger side, getting the sleeve of her blazer stuck on the stick shift in the process.

  Oh, her mother would have a field day with this.