Hunted (The Tinder Chronicles) Read online

  Hunted

  Book Two of the Tinder Chronicles

  a M/M paranormal novella

  by Alexa Land

  Books by Alexa Land Include:

  Feral

  Tinder (Book One of the Tinder Chronicles)

  And the Firsts and Forever Series:

  Way Off Plan

  All In

  In Pieces

  Copyright 2013 by Alexa Land. All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission in whole or in part of this publication is permitted without express written consent from the author.

  This is a work of fiction (in case the vampires weren’t a tip-off).

  Names, characters, places and incidents are either used fictitiously or are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, business establishments or locales is purely coincidental.

  This book contains sexually explicit material and is only intended for adult readers over the age of 18.

  Chapter One

  Stop being such a wuss and pull the goddamn trigger!

  I sighted down the length of the homemade crossbow in my hands and lined up my shot. I had to adjust the angle slightly, because the slim wooden stake it fired would be smashing through glass before it reached its target.

  And again, I hesitated.

  Come on, what the hell are you waiting for? I chided myself. He’s a damn vampire. Not only that, he’s a damn vampire that can walk in daylight. Just shoot him already!

  The vampire in question was named Nikolai. And the thing that was stopping me from reducing him to a snack for dust mites was the cute little human at his side. Nate.

  During a recent prolonged hostage situation, Nate and I had become friends (I had been the hostage. And no, I wasn’t totally bonkers and suffering from a raging case of Stockholm syndrome, but thanks for assuming that). Nate and Nikolai now incorrectly believed they’d been erased from my memory. They thought they were safe from me.

  So there they were, in the kitchen of their tiny light blue cottage, cleaning up together after dinner. They did this every night, always with the curtains wide open. They were such creatures of habit, which made Nikolai an incredibly easy mark.

  I was sprawled out on my belly, on the hillside directly across the street from their house. Since the breeze was blowing my scent away from them, the vamp didn’t know I was here. That was kind of stupid, though. I mean, scent or no scent, I wasn’t exactly invisible in the dark. Not to a vampire.

  Oh my God, just end him! I’d been out here for about an hour, and parts of me were going numb. Plus, I was pretty sure some ants had found their way up the right leg of my jeans, and it itched like crazy. It was so stupid that I was stalling like this. I shifted slightly, lined up my shot…and failed to pull the trigger.

  I was going soft. That’s all there was to it. The fact that I’d let a hundred perfect shots go by proved it.

  What difference did it make that he was married to a human, and that I happened to like that human? The bloodsucker was dangerous, more so than most because of the incredibly rare daylight talisman in his possession. It was completely irresponsible of me not to dust him.

  And for the love of God, now the vamp was standing directly in front of the window, reaching up to put something on a shelf above it. It was like he wanted to be shot. I sighted down the crossbow. Again. And I didn’t pull the trigger. Again. I sighed dramatically and whacked my forehead against the dry grass a few times. When I looked up, the vampire was smiling at Nate, saying something to him as he grabbed a set of keys and stepped out the front door.

  Just shoot him! I visually tracked him all the way to the beat-up old Jeep they shared, my shot lined up perfectly the whole way. He got behind the wheel and started the engine, and I rolled onto my back and stared up at the night sky. What the hell was my problem? I’d ended hundreds of vamps in my lifetime. Since when did I let sentimentality get in the way of doing my job?

  The Jeep pulled out of the driveway, then rumbled down the street and disappeared around a corner. I sighed again and sat up, then scratched my right leg for a solid minute. Finally, I trudged down the hill, the big, heavy crossbow still in my hand, and knocked on the front door of the little cottage. Well, if I wasn’t going to kill Nate’s husband, I might as well say hello.

  When Nate swung the door open, his expression changed from cheerful to horrified in an instant. “Oh God, Tinder,” he stammered, his eyes darting to the big weapon I was holding. “No. Please, no.”

  I raised my hands – and the crossbow – in an ‘I surrender’ position. “Hey Nate. Don’t panic, I’m not here to kill Nikolai. Well, I was, but it didn’t work out. So I thought, you know, I’d come over here and say hi instead.”

  He staggered backwards into the foyer and bumped into a little table, which sent a ceramic dish heading toward the floor. I lunged forward and caught it, crowding Nate in the process. He pressed against the wall, completely panicked, and mumbled, “But you drank that potion. It was supposed to make you forget we’d ever met.”

  I handed him the dish, which he took from me hesitantly as I said, “A lot of times, stuff that’s supposed to work on me just doesn’t.” I had various spells and protection symbols tattooed all over my body, and sometimes they worked in unexpected ways.

  He looked like he was about to hyperventilate, so I told him, “Nate, please calm down. I’m not here to hurt you, and I realized tonight that I just don’t have it in me to kill your husband. You’re both perfectly safe.”

  “But you intended to kill him when you came here.”

  “Well, yeah. He’s a vampire with a daylight talisman, for Christ’s sake, so of course I came to kill him. But like I said, I couldn’t go through with it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of what killing him would do to you,” I admitted.

  He watched me for a long moment as he set the little dish back on the table. And then he stepped forward and drew me into a hug. I leaned the crossbow against the wall and wrapped my arms around him, and we held each other for a while. When he pulled back to look at me his eyes were still wary, but he offered me a little smile. “Thank you, Tinder.”

  “I’m afraid that one day, he’s going to lose control and kill you, Nate.”

  “I know you’re concerned about that. Nikolai used to worry about it, too, he didn’t really trust himself when he first met me. But he knows now that he’s in control of his vampire side, he’s not just a slave to his instincts. And I think you know that, too. I think that’s why you agreed to leave us in peace when Bane offered you a way to forget us.”

  “I guess deep down I do know that. Although, Bane did something to manipulate me when he came here, he used a spell. That’s what made me agree to forget you two and let Nikolai live.”

  “He can do that?”

  “Not anymore. At least, not to me.” I raised the hem of my t-shirt to reveal a very new tattoo on my ribcage. “Just a couple days ago, I found a protection symbol that makes me immune to suggestion spells.” I poked the tattoo gingerly before dropping the shirt over it.

  Nate watched me for a long moment, and then asked, “Is there something going on with you and Bane?”

  “He seems to think there is. For some reason, he has this crazy idea that he should look after me. Like I need a vampire guardian angel.”

  “There’s more than that between the two of you.”

  “Well, kind of. I…um…accidentally slept with him,” I admitted. Nate’s eyes went wide, and I blurted, “It was totally stupid, and I fully realize what a hypocrite that makes me. I gave in to lust over common sense, and I’m not proud of it.”

  “Come into the living
room,” he said, taking my hand.

  “You don’t want me in your home, Nate. I totally freaked you out tonight. It was kind of crazy to come up and knock on your door, I don’t even know why I did that.”

  He squeezed my hand gently. “You did it because we’re friends. I was sad to say goodbye to you, Tinder, I thought I’d never see you again. I’m actually glad you’re here.”

  “No you’re not. I scared the crap out of you by knocking on your door.”

  “I was afraid that you were going to kill Nikolai. But I see now that you’re never going to go through with it, not just for my sake, but because you know Nikolai isn’t dangerous. You really can’t justify killing him.”

  I sighed and said, “My job used to be so black and white. Vampires are monsters and I kill them, end of discussion. I really don’t know what to do about these grey areas, like Nikolai.”

  “And Bane.”

  I frowned at him. “No, not ‘and Bane.’ He’s an evil son of a bitch.”

  “From what little I’ve seen, Bane obviously cares about you. You can’t really think he’s evil.”

  “He doesn’t care about me. He’s incapable of that.”

  “Why? Because he’s a vampire?” I nodded, and Nate said, “Nick not only cares about me, he loves me with all his heart.”

  “Nikolai’s a total freak of nature.”

  “I don’t know about that. I really don’t have much to go on, I’ve only ever met two vampires in my life,” Nate said, “But I tend to think, if those two are peaceful, there must be more. I mean, surely you’ve gotten to know other vampires, weren’t some of them like Nikolai?”

  “Hell no, I haven’t gotten to know other vampires. I really don’t make a habit of cozying up to the enemy, aside from the one time I got way too cozy with Bane.”

  “So, maybe you really don’t know what you’ve been hunting all these years.”

  That annoyed me, and I dropped his hand. “I’ve been hunting the things that dismembered my mother right before my eyes when I was four years old. The things that also killed my brothers and sisters, and my father, and my grandfather, and every single person that I ever cared about.”

  “Oh God, Tinder, I’m sorry.”

  “See, most vamps aren’t big, fluffy, love bunnies like your husband, your perspective is really skewed,” I told him. “And they don’t just target hunters, by the way. I’ve come across way, way too many slaughtered civilians in my lifetime. Hell, there were a couple times when I found bodies piled up by the dozens in vampires’ lairs.”

  Nate flinched, and I continued, “That’s why I hunt, and why I think I have a pretty good handle on my enemy. It’s not just some personal vendetta because they wiped out my family, it’s because vampires are remorseless killers. So you found an exception. Probably. And ok, maybe Bane’s an exception, too. But most vamps are nothing like them.”

  He said gently, “I’m sorry for all the horrors you’ve seen in your life.”

  “It’s just part of the job.” I picked up my crossbow, and reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “I apologize for freaking you out. I just…I missed you. But I shouldn’t have dropped in, that was stupid of me.” I opened the door and stepped out onto the little porch, and Nate trailed after me.

  “Wait. Stay a while, Tinder. I think you really need someone to talk to.”

  I just kept walking, cutting across his tidy front lawn. “I’ll see you around, Nate.”

  Just then their old, rusty Jeep pulled into the driveway. Nikolai leapt from the driver’s seat, staring at me in near panic, clutching a carton in his left hand. I almost rolled my eyes. Vampy had gone on an ice cream run.

  I didn’t break my stride as I called, “Hi, bloodsucker. Don’t worry, I’m leaving. You might want to learn to close your curtains, just FYI, because any hunter that wanders by here could kill you a hundred times over, and that’s just in the time it takes you to serve up a bowl of that rocky road.”

  “Yeah…ok,” Nikolai mumbled, obviously rattled.

  “By the way, if you ever harm a hair on Nate’s head, you should know that I’m not just going to kill you. I’m going to make you suffer first, like no undead motherfucking vamp has ever suffered in the history of suffering,” I told him. Then I cheerfully called, “Have a nice day,” as I headed down the sidewalk.

  Chapter Two

  My white rental car was parked a couple blocks from Nate’s house. There were two other white cars parked along the same stretch of road, and I had to pause for a moment. I had no clue which one was mine. My Camaro was currently in pieces in my garage, so I’d been puttering around in this generic P.O.S. for the last few days, and always had a hard time picking it out of a crowd.

  When I finally figured it out, I left the hills above Santa Barbara and drove into the heart of town, eventually finding a place to park along busy State Street. No reason why this trip a couple hours north of home should be a total waste of time. After a quick, surreptitious weapons check, I pocketed my keys and stepped onto the broad sidewalk.

  The night was warm, rows of palm trees rustling overhead in the light breeze off the Pacific. It was actually a really beautiful night, but I wasn’t here to enjoy myself. I engaged my sixth sense as I made my way down the street. The one special skill of true hunters (and the thing that separated us from every Buffy wanna-be out there) was the ability to see people’s energy signatures. Humans produced a rosy pink glow, while vamps gave off a stark white light. Yeah, I know that sounds insane. Whatever.

  As I walked, my thoughts drifted to Bane, and that made me want to punch myself. Lately, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. It had been epically stupid to have sex with him, and I’d been so angry afterwards, angry enough to pull a gun on him. But really, I was mad at myself, not at Bane. Sleeping with a vampire had been a huge lapse in judgment. They were evil, and absolutely not to be trusted. I knew this for a fact.

  And still, he was constantly on my mind.

  Even though I’d been encountering him on and off for about the last five years, Bane was a total mystery to me. All I knew about the vampire could be summed up as follows: I’d heard he was old to the point of being ancient, he had an English accent, and he was gorgeous (which pissed me off, because that was probably why I kept thinking about him). Oh, and he claimed to want to take care of me, which somehow justified putting a tracking device in my car and finding ways to break into my heavily-warded home. I suspected he was actually trying to manipulate me, not take care of me, but I couldn’t figure out what he hoped to gain from that.

  I tried to force him from my thoughts, and concentrated on my surroundings. I walked the length of State Street’s shopping district, then expanded my path out in a wide spiral before eventually circling back to where I’d begun. I was almost ready to give up on Santa Barbara after a couple deathly boring hours, when a flash of white appeared in my peripheral vision.

  The vamp was on the other side of the street, leaning casually against the corner of a fancy little wine bar, assessing the crowd on the patio. He was wearing a flashy suit, and so much hair gel that if he rested his head against the wall, he’d slide right off. Oh man, I’d hate this guy even if he wasn’t a vampire.

  I jaywalked, determined to keep the oily vamp in my sights, and the driver of a BMW honked at me impatiently as I cut in front of him. I didn’t even glance at the douchemobile as I gave its driver the finger and continued across the street.

  The honking caused several people to glance in my direction, including the vamp. And then, oddly, he did a double-take and pushed off the wall of the building, quickly disappearing around a corner. It was almost like he recognized me, but how could that be? Ok, sure, I blended in with this upscale crowd like a mangy cat at a pedigreed dog show. But there was no reason this random vamp in a city I rarely spent any time in should become alarmed at my presence.

  Then again, maybe I was totally misinterpreting the spot-and-scoot. Maybe something else entirely had set him in motion. I fi
nally made it across the broad boulevard and ducked down the same alley the vamp had taken. He must have started moving quickly as soon as he got off the main street, because he was nowhere to be seen. I broke into a run.

  Santa Barbara was a lot less attractive back here amid the dumpsters and service entrances. Some misguided attempt at hosing down the alleyway had resulted in stagnant puddles and a gag-inducing aroma, just to add to the ambience. A busboy stepping out of a restaurant with a bulging trash bag raised an eyebrow at me as I jogged past, and I quipped, “What an incredible smell you’ve discovered.” My geek reference was totally lost on him. He stared at me like I was insane as he jettisoned the trash bag and went back inside.

  Now where the hell had that vamp gone? I slowed to a walk after a while, reaching out with my sixth sense. It only worked visually, it didn’t locate vamps like sonar or anything (man, if only). So right now, it wasn’t helping me much.

  I had pretty good instincts, though, and when the hair on the back of my neck prickled, I came to a dead stop. I tightened my grip around the wooden stake in my right hand and pulled it out of the inside pocket of my jacket, holding it against my chest. A couple pairs of footsteps were closing fast, making very faint splashing sounds in the damp alley.

  I whirled around and assessed the situation in a split second, then lashed out with my stake. Two vamps were almost right on top of me. I drove my weapon into the chest of the one on the right and he turned to dust on the spot, his clothes crumpling to the ground.

  I’d grabbed a knife with my left hand and swung it around in a wide arc, but the vamp with slicked-back hair ducked easily. I dropped to the ground and rolled out of the way as he lunged at me, my jeans absorbing some of a big puddle. Gross! Now I was going to smell like wet garbage.

  Slick pulled a gun from inside his suit jacket and pointed it at me, and I rolled my eyes. “Come on,” I told him. “You’re a damn vampire. Carrying a gun on top of that is pretty much the definition of overkill.” This made him pause for a moment, knitting his brows like he was trying to decide if I was totally crazy.