The Hunter's Affection (Bloodwite Book 3) Page 8

  Alessandra’s phone rang. “I’m sorry. Someone keeps texting and—”

  “Go ahead.”

  Pulling her phone from her pocket, she answered. And then looked at him with enough alarm in her eyes to pique his curiosity. Alessandra Fiore was not his friend, yet she’d looked at him as if they were on the same side.

  “Kenton wants to know if you are okay. And Toni and Lawrence are still over there—they want to know if they should all come over?”

  “Go back, tell them I’m fine. That I’m with Torr.”

  She wanted to be with him rather than her friends?

  Torr’s eyes narrowed as Alessandra gave him one last backward glance, clearly reluctant to leave. But she did.

  Silence stretched between him and Charlotte as they watched her go. Then she shifted her gaze to him, and he knew in that moment that she finally believed them.

  “Why don’t you sit?” he said gently, moving to the cushioned wicker chair.

  She did.

  Their knees nearly touched. But Lord knew he wouldn’t go near her now. She’d likely jump off the porch, risking scrapes or a broken bone to escape him.

  “You’re over seven hundred years old?” Though her voice was still a bit shaky, Charlotte’s chin lifted in defiance, reminding him of the first time they’d met.

  When he’d thought her stuck up or at least slightly rigid.

  Charlotte was neither.

  “Yes. I was turned at the ripe old age of twenty-eight.”

  “A year older than me.”

  “Several hundred years older, but yes, when I was turned—”

  “You drink blood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  He shifted, ignoring the tightening of his pants as he imagined burying his teeth into the sensitive skin of Charlotte’s creamy white neck. The other night, when they’d danced together, her ass pressed into him, her head thrown back, he’d wanted so badly to do just that.

  “No.”

  She blinked.

  “We most often feed from the wrist. Feeding from the neck can leave us . . . vulnerable.” He tried not to stare but couldn’t resist. “For that reason, it’s considered an . . . intimate . . . act.”

  Fuck it.

  “Erotic even.”

  Her eyes widened at that, just when he’d thought they couldn’t get any bigger.

  “But it doesn’t hurt?” she pressed. “Or kill the person?”

  “It doesn’t hurt, but it can kill if a vampire’s uncareful or inexperienced.” She looked worried again. He didn’t like that he was the one who’d put that look on her face. Hoping to soothe her, he told her about the Balance—how it had “softened the blow” of what they’d become—and the Cheld.

  Charlotte’s poor hands. She gripped them together, pulled them apart and bent her fingers backward. An outlet for the adrenaline coursing through her, no doubt. But he’d be damned if she sat there afraid of him.

  “We do not kill indiscriminately.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, angling toward her. “In fact, my brothers and I have dedicated ourselves to protecting our brother’s bloodline.”

  “Protect them how? From whom?”

  Grimacing as he pictured Kenton standing over the body of a dead Cheld man on a snowy open field in Alaska, one who had, admittedly, attempted to lob Kenton’s head off. Nonetheless, he chose to hold his tongue. For now. As much as it pained him to admit it, Alessandra seemed to have changed Kenton’s view on the Cheld. It didn’t erase the past, but at least it tempered it.

  “Some vampires fear them, and perhaps,” he admitted, “with good reason. They can be as fast and as strong as our kind, and we are naturally drawn to them. When one arouses . . .” Her eyes widened. “Not that kind of arousal. When they come into their powers, they develop strength and senses that rival ours. Most of them also have additional abilities that help them sense and track us. All of that puts some vampires on edge, as you can imagine.”

  “Because they can kill vampires,” she correctly surmised.

  “Some do. But most do not become hunters. Those who are never exposed to vampires may never come into their abilities since they’re not needed. The Balance.”

  He waited for the questions he knew would be coming. And they did. One by one, he debunked pop culture myths, including the most obvious.

  “You can walk in sunlight!”

  “And I delight in it.” Torr winked as Charlotte stopped mistreating her hands for the first time since they’d sat down.

  “But wait.” She screwed up her face in the most adorable way, which was when Torr decided he really needed another drink.

  Adorable was not typically in his vernacular.

  “But you do kill people?”

  So they were back to that.

  He sighed. “If necessary. There’s a group of Cheld called the Sect who are . . . let’s call them extremists. The only vampires they like are dead ones.”

  “But you protect the Cheld—”

  “Doesn’t matter. Like I said”—he shrugged—“they’re extreme”

  He hadn’t planned to divulge a story few outside his family knew about, but he also did not want Charlotte to have any delusions about him.

  “The Sect. One of their very first kills was my fault.”

  He forged ahead, the memories as clear as if they’d not happened hundreds of years earlier.

  “I turned a woman, quite by accident. We hadn’t learned to feed properly yet.”

  Shoving away the image in his mind, he continued.

  “With Lady Isobel’s help, the young handmaiden lived. But unlike my siblings and I, for some unknown reason, she was less cautious. Her victims, numerous. It was my young nephew, no more than nineteen, who finally stopped her. Permanently. The beginnings of the Cheld. And of the belief, by some, that no vampire could live peaceably among men. Later, when we’d all learned to control our urges and feed properly, after the damage had been done, I made it my personal duty to hunt down each and every ancestor of my brother’s. To protect them, yes, but also to ensure they knew we were inherently good, despite the actions of a few of our kind.”

  He hated everything about that story, but there it was. The worst of him and what he’d done to help create the Sect.

  “Other questions?”

  Charlotte didn’t answer. But neither did she look at him with the contempt he’d have expected. She stood again, her footing surer than it had been earlier, and gripped the railing. For a long moment, she just stood there looking down on the town. Lights peeked out from the tree line in front of them.

  He knew what was going through her head. She needed time to adjust to a new reality.

  Charlotte peered at him over her shoulder. Something flashed through her eyes before she regained control of her expression.

  He closed the distance between them, not hiding his ability to move more quickly than should be normal.

  “You are not dangerous to me,” she said.

  “Never.”

  “But you could be, against a member of the Sect?”

  “Or another vampire who thinks killing a Derrickson could earn them a fair amount of notoriety.”

  “So there are other vampires, then?”

  “Many others, although none know the exact number. They live among humans, undetected, until it becomes necessary for them to move on.”

  “But you could be killed?”

  “Highly unlikely.”

  Her mouth opened ever so slightly. This time, he would not ignore the invitation, whether it was intentional or not. Without breaking eye contact, he stated the facts. “As one of the oldest, I am faster, stronger, and more knowledgeable than most others.”

  “Except for the Morleys.”

  She laughed at the sound he made deep in his throat.

  “It’s almost a comfort to hear you sound like yourself again.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  His breath caught whe
n her eyes dropped to his mouth. She was thinking of his fangs, wondering if she really could trust him—

  “Your ego—”

  “We’re not talking about my ego,” he interrupted. “I’ll have the truth.”

  Though sometimes he did it out of habit, this time, Torr very intentionally licked his top and then bottom lip.

  “You, sir, are evil.”

  “And you, a perfect princess. Prim and proper.”

  “Was I prim and proper at that club of yours?”

  The air crackled between them. He was dangerous to her now—but no more so than she was to him.

  One did not trifle with a woman like Charlotte Harris. Though he teased her, Torr knew better. There was an unexpected depth to her he’d only glimpsed briefly.

  And he wanted to see more of it.

  He closed the gap between them, forcing her to turn her back to the railing. Gripping it on both sides of her, Torr watched for a sign.

  That she didn’t want this.

  That she was scared.

  That it would be a mistake to venture down this path.

  But Charlotte only leaned into him, pressing her breasts to his chest and covering his hands with hers on the railing.

  His mouth crashed onto hers, opening for more even as she gave it. This woman knew how to kiss. Her tongue didn’t touch his with the hesitancy of a question. Instead, it slashed at him with the knowledge that he could not be broken. Her fingers curled around his hands, her grip tightening, as the energy from Stage West, from the dinner, from her newfound knowledge poured through them.

  Her fucking lips. Could they taste any sweeter?

  A dam had been broken, flooding him with want for this woman whose body fit so perfectly against his own, whose tongue seemed to have, already, an intimate knowledge of his mouth.

  He wanted more.

  Needed more.

  Pulling away just long enough to get her permission, which he did with one look, Torr yanked his right hand out from under hers and found the small of her back. Inching his fingers upward, he reveled in the feel of Charlotte’s bare flesh beneath his touch, her smooth back only the first place he intended to explore.

  Lips swollen from their kiss, she watched his mouth as his hand explored.

  “Can I see them again?”

  She didn’t need to tell him what she meant—he knew instinctively, and he quickly acquiesced. Torr displayed the worst part of him, baring himself for her completely. Showing her where man and monster met within him.

  “May I . . . ?”

  He opened his mouth wider, but when she put a hesitant finger to his fang, he refused to allow the opportunity to be wasted and captured her finger between his lips.

  He caressed. And sucked. And waited for the precise moment . . .

  At Charlotte’s moan, he tore her finger from his mouth and kissed her, hard. When her tongue found the tip of his fang, he didn’t mistake the not-so-subtle press of her hips toward him. Grabbing her, he melded their bodies even closer together.

  “Ahem.”

  Charlotte shoved him away, clearly stricken.

  He, on the other hand, discovered he didn’t mind at all. Sure, Toni and Laria looked surprised, and Lawrence was downright murderous, but he found himself grinning.

  Chapter 11

  The problem with living and working in a small town? When you called off sick, you were basically homebound. Not that Charlotte felt like moving from the comfort of her bed anyway. But she hadn’t gone grocery shopping this weekend and had no idea what surprises, or lack thereof, her refrigerator would bring her for breakfast or lunch.

  Pulling the white down comforter to her chin, she breathed in the chocolate cake scent of the candle she’d lit on her bedside table. Toni knew all about Charlotte’s obsession with chocolate cake. She considered herself somewhat of an expert. And so Birdie had stocked some at the shop especially for her.

  Oh yeah, and Torr was a vampire.

  And one of her best friends was a . . . Cheld.

  Yep. Just another typical day in Stone Haven.

  When her phone buzzed on the nightstand, Charlotte startled. Deep breaths. It was a text message. Nothing more.

  She checked her phone and saw the message was from Alessandra. Direct and to the point as always, it simply said: here.

  Tossing off the covers, Charlotte grabbed a gray and pink robe off the back of her bedroom door. Her apartment was her sanctuary, decorated in creams and browns with orange and yellow splashes, from the couch pillows to the three large paintings on the wall. Everything had its place, an order that reliably comforted her whenever her life felt out of control. She reached out reflexively to straighten one of the three barstools along the kitchen counter as she walked to the door.

  “I didn’t even hear you knocking,” she said, opening it to reveal Alessandra on the other side. Dressed casually in jeans and a black sweater, she looked . . . pretty normal actually. Not at all like some mysterious supernatural being.

  “What,” Alessandra asked, making herself at home in Charlotte’s kitchen, “were you expecting exactly?”

  Charlotte closed the door, then sat on the same stool she’d just straightened, watching as Alessandra made herself tea.

  “Want a drink?” her friend asked.

  She blinked. “Tea?”

  “No, silly. Coffee. I know you don’t drink tea.”

  Nodding, she tried to reconcile the person in her kitchen with the one who had run abnormally fast off Lawrence’s porch the previous night.

  “How did you know—?”

  “When you didn’t answer my calls, I went to the school. I was worried about you.”

  She’d gone home alone last night, chaperoned by Toni. Her friend had wanted to stay with her, but Charlotte had refused. She’d wanted—needed—time to make sense of it. Although she wasn’t sure how much it had helped. She was as confused now as she’d been then. Oh, and embarrassed, she was plenty embarrassed too. Toni and Laria and Lawrence had all seen her sucking face with Torr like she was a college student in a nightclub.

  “So, do you want to start? Or should I?”

  She accepted the coffee and pretended not to know what Alessandra meant.

  “Maybe you go ahead. And start with when you learned Kenton was . . . is . . .”

  She couldn’t bring herself to say the word aloud.

  “A vampire?” Alessandra offered. Charlotte nodded. Her friend leaned on the counter across from her, making her scrunched-up thinking face. “Let’s see . . . oh yes, it was at Amendment 18, not long after he came to town. I freaked out, of course—”

  Charlotte smiled for the first time that morning. “Naturally.”

  “Listen.” Alessandra took a sip of tea. “I get it. I went through the same thing a few months ago. That’s why I’m here. That, and to tell you . . . I’m sorry that we kept this from you.”

  Something about her tone, so honest and earnest, pricked at Charlotte. She felt herself thinking about her own secrets, and somehow her old rationalizations—that she was only keeping her past from her friends, not her present or her future—no longer held weight.

  “Since we’re letting it all out—”

  “Finally! I hope you don’t mind . . . Toni told me all about it this morning on her way to the bar. She apologized for not coming with me, by the way, but she and Lawrence had a meeting with the decorators.”

  “I’m actually not talking about Torr.” Charlotte shifted on the wooden stool.

  “Why the hell not?”

  Laughing, she put down the mug and caught Alessandra’s eye. “It’s about my parents. My past. Last night, when I overheard you and Toni talking . . .” She’d been hurt. Badly. But it felt silly to say as much out loud—they were all adults, after all. “Well, let’s just say I’m a bit of a hypocrite—”

  “Stop it,” Alessandra scolded. “You’re too hard on yourself.”

  “No, I’m not. I should have told you both sooner, but I don’t like
to talk about it. I guess I was embarrassed.” She looked down into her coffee. “My father was a software engineer—”

  “Who stayed back in South Carolina?”

  “Right.” She looked up. “We came to Pennsylvania after my mother remarried, when I was nineteen. After . . .” She took a deep breath. “After we lost everything.”

  “What do you mean, everything?”

  “We were rich.” Charlotte shrugged. “My dad and his business partner developed a piece of software in the early eighties and co-founded a company. They became—we became—millionaires. Virtually overnight.”

  “Millionaires?”

  “My parents bought a humongous house, complete with servants and a nanny. My mom quit her job as a dental hygienist and never looked back.”

  She thought of how differently they’d been raised. Alessandra had been brought up by a single mom, always busy, always hustling. Charlotte’s mother, on the other hand, had an abundance of time—but not enough to be involved in her only child’s daily life.

  “She took to the role like a champ,” she said, trying not to sound bitter. “Mother loved nothing more than entertaining. She still does. I mean, sure, she and my stepdad live in a more modest house, but her car is leased to the hilt, and the parties . . . somehow she’s managed to keep a modicum of the lifestyle we once enjoyed. Lord knows how.”

  “Charlotte, I had no idea. I don’t mean to pry, but . . .”

  “He and his business partner,” she said, answering the question she knew was coming. “They’d been embezzling from the business, for years.” This time she laughed with as much bitterness as she felt for the man she had once called uncle. “The same man who never missed a birthday party. Whose family we vacationed with every summer. Conspired with my father to embezzle millions after their company had gone public.”

  To this day, she still could not reconcile either man with the ones who bankrupted them.

  “And they both went to jail for it.”

  “Your real father?”

  “Is in jail. In South Carolina.”

  “Wow.” Alessandra put her mug on the counter with a clang, her expression mutinous.

  Out of nowhere, Charlotte burst into laughter at Alessandra’s expression. Charlotte was pretty sure this outpouring had something to do with the utter craziness of the past twenty-four hours. Vampires. Cheld. Confessions. Torr. “Is there a full moon? Because things feel a bit crazy suddenly.”