Chapter Thirty-Three

Hunter clawed his way back to consciousness, pain like molten lava searing through his body. He wrenched away from the hands trying to restrain him and leapt up into the air, landing six feet back from where he’d been.

“What the fuck just happened to me?” He looked down at himself and shuddered. He was covered in blood, a nightmare come to life. The monster he’d been afraid he’d become was now a reality. “What did you do? No—what did I do?”

He could hear the anguish in his own voice and saw it reflected back at him on Bane’s expression. Next to Bane, Carter Reynolds still lay on the ground, but now he was in human form with what looked like multiple stab wounds and burn marks rapidly healing. The wolf was injured badly, but he was clearly healing from it. So why were the three of them all looking at him like someone had died?

Edge spoke up first. “He doesn’t remember. He was blood drunk, and his short-term memory might be affected.”

“Blood drunk? What does that mean?” Hunter stared at them and then back at himself. At his blood-drenched clothes. “What are you talking about?”

Bane and Edge glanced at each other and then moved aside. Behind them on the ground lay what was left of the three warlocks. Zela was simply dead with no visible signs of why. The man next to her clearly had a broken neck, from the way his head was twisted at an angle. The other one…the other one looked like he’d been attacked by a beast. A beast made of claws and teeth; a beast bent on death and destruction.

A beast of no mercy.

And…he was missing an arm.

Hunter started to ask another question, but he wasn’t sure what, and then he realized his fangs were still descended. The blood—the blood that was all over his clothes and hands—he realized he could taste it.

In his mouth.

He was the beast.

He bent over and retched, vomiting up blood and bile and anguish. When he finally finished, he stood and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, wanting to scream and roar and curse the world. But none of that would help, so he stood there, waiting for the judgment he knew was coming. Maybe he’d be lucky.

Maybe Bane and Edge would kill him quickly.

“It’s not your fault,” Bane said. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I should’ve known better than to bring a newly Turned vampire on a mission like this.”

Edge nodded, but his eyes were wary. “The things I did when I was newly Turned—and I had far less reason than you did. He threatened Alice. We all heard him. If you hadn’t killed him, I was going to.”

Reynolds, his wounds now entirely closed, nodded and slowly stood, naked and scarred. “You saved my life. If he’d killed me, the Chamber would’ve had a good chance to take over the pack in the confusion and chaos that follows the unexpected death of an alpha. Who knows how many of my wolves would’ve died? Thank you for that.” He headed over to his bike to get dressed.

Hunter laughed, but the sound was filled with bitterness and despair. They were trying to make him feel better about being a monster. About having murdered a man—two men—no matter that they were warlocks. Hunter had always believed in justice and fairness, and he’d murdered these men who’d had no trial, no chance of a defense.

Who’d died a painful, gory death.

A loud, painful, gory death. “How is it that nobody heard all this noise?” He looked around, but they were completely alone in the back parking lot of the bar.

“I went inside and did a mass enthrallment. Everybody in the bar thinks Adele is going to show up any minute to play and sing for them. Nobody is moving from their spot. Trust me.”

Hunter rubbed the back of his head and winced.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Edge said, not sounding sorry at all. “I had to knock you out after you drank about a quart of warlock blood.”

“I drank warlock blood?” Hunter felt like throwing up again, but there was nothing else in his stomach. Instead, he could feel the horrible power of the blood’s magic racing through his system.

He deserved to die. And he could never, ever go near Alice again.

“I can tell what you’re thinking, and it’s self-indulgent,” Bane said. “Self-defense and defense of others have always been justifiable reasons for killing someone who needs it. The first warlock almost succeeded in killing Carter, and he would’ve killed you next. This one bragged to us that he was the one who did the decapitating in that apartment. I would have killed him after we tried to question him. I don’t feel an ounce of regret about it, and neither should you. We are the guardians of our people and of all the residents of Savannah.”

“I don’t know if this will matter or even if it should matter,” Edge said. “But our people, the ones that these two killed, left behind families. Our people didn’t deserve to die, but these two did. And we don’t have time for you to sit around feeling sorry for yourself. We have to go search the city for any more of them.”

With that, Edge stalked over to his bike, fired it up, and took off.

Hunter just stood there, unable to think or speak or move. He’d killed someone, but that wasn’t the worst of it, was it?

He’d killed. Twice. And drank warlock blood.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to you in time to stop you from drinking that blood,” Bane said. “And you drank so much—it would have been too much even of ordinary human blood, so you were blood drunk and getting worse. Blood drunkenness can send a vampire into a berserker mode or else just act as simple intoxication, depending on your emotional state when it occurs. For you, then—you were going even beyond berserker. The threat to Alice sent you over the edge of reason.”

Hunter tried to take that in, forcing an unnaturally calm expression to his face. “But he is—he was—a warlock. Is there any… What will happen to me?”

“We’re not entirely sure,” Bane admitted. “Basically, we always try to avoid it. Their magical ability is inherent to some degree and not all dependent on their blood sacrifices. So you may have taken in some of that magic with the blood. Do you feel sick or wrong?”

“Or like decapitating anyone for your own nefarious purposes?” Carter said this lightly, walking back toward them, but Hunter didn’t miss the wary expression in the alpha werewolf’s eyes.

“I don’t know what I feel, except sick. And like I need to vomit again and again and again.” He gritted his teeth but forced the questions out. “Is this it? Am I ruined? Am I destined to be evil now—the monster that I’ve been afraid of turning into?”

Bane’s eyes turned icy. “The fact that you think that, and that you have continued to think that since the Turn, tells me that you believe we, your friends—your new family—are monsters. How have you been able to be friends with monsters?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Hunter began.

But it was too late. Bane turned on his heel and left. Carter gave Hunter a look of disgust, but, unexpectedly, there was also compassion. “New wolves go through this a lot. The best advice I can give you is that you’re going to have to decide once and for all if you want this new existence. Because if you believe that being a vampire makes you inherently evil, well, that’s no way to live. And Alice deserves better.”

Alice.

Alice.

Forgetting his anguish, the fact that he was covered in blood, and even the motorcycle he’d ridden over on, Hunter launched himself into the air, focused on only one thing: reaching Alice before any of the factions after her could find her.

…

Alice stood by the window, lifting her face to the cool night air, letting the conversation behind her wash over her without paying particular attention to it.

She liked the women and felt like they might become true, close friends. But their shock over her revelation about losing her virginity had made her feel isolated again. The only person who hadn’t ever made her feel like she wasn’t normal was Hunter, and she missed him suddenly so much that it was like a pain in her chest.

One thing was certain, though. She was never drinking vodka again.

The lemon drops had tasted so good, and she’d been so happy chasing the bubbly, exhilarated feeling they’d filled her with that she’d drunk far too many of them. Ryan, bless her heart, had kept urging her to slow down. Alice guessed that since Ryan was a doctor, she couldn’t help herself. And she’d undoubtedly been right. Alice shuddered to think of the hangover she was going to have in the morning. Right now, she was in the process of drinking the two large bottles of water that Ryan had recommended to help with the dehydration, which apparently caused much of the headache part of hangovers.

It must be wonderful to be a doctor and understand so much about how bodies and health worked. Sometimes Alice felt so inferior. She had no college degree; she didn’t even have a high school diploma. They hadn’t seen a reason for her to study or learn anything in the Institute, because property didn’t need to have any knowledge.

Property only needed to do its job.

She leaned her flushed forehead against the window, annoyed with herself but also realizing she might be learning about another side effect of drinking too much alcohol. Self-pity.

After all, once she’d escaped, she’d made it part of her master plan to learn everything that she could. When she’d been able to settle in one place for a while, she’d studied and gotten her GED. And books—there were always books. Even when she was living in the shelter, she’d gone to the library almost every day. To learn and learn and learn.

But as much as all that learning had been wonderful and had opened up the world to the mind of a woman who’d spent her life trapped in a single room, it hadn’t stopped her from feeling a twinge of regret when she saw people her age wearing sweatshirts emblazoned with the names of their colleges. Maybe, someday, she would take some college classes. Maybe even get a degree. If she drummed up enough support for the rescue, she’d be able to hire another employee and have some time to herself to attend class. Time to study.

She was still young, and she didn’t believe that college was only for kids fresh out of high school. She intended to look upon learning as a lifelong experience, not something you did once and then stopped. If she had to wait until she was ten or twenty or even thirty years older to go to college, well, so be it. She’d still be that much older, degree or not, so she might as well get that degree. Or even two degrees.

“Dr. Darlington” had a nice ring to it.

She started laughing, realizing that her thoughts were spinning off in ridiculous directions. Also, she really liked the new last name she’d taken for herself, but, given her gift of communicating with animals and the similarity of Darlington to Dolittle, maybe not.

Meara surprised her by walking over to stand next to her at the window. “I’m sorry if we teased you too much, little one. We like you, and we’re just worried about you. Your innocence, your relationship with Hunter—everything is so new, and now you have to deal with bad guys after you from every direction. It’s a great deal to land on your shoulders all at once.”

Alice smiled, trying to reconcile this compassion and empathy with Meara’s usual conversations about eating tourists. “You’re a lovely person, aren’t you? You try to hide it under a very tough exterior, and I’m not talking about your glamour-girl persona. I’m talking about how aloof you keep yourself. But your heart is just enormous. You’ve even found room in it to take in an awkward stray like me.”

Meara’s expression was the most vulnerable Alice had ever seen on her face. She started to speak and then stopped and simply studied Alice for a long minute.

Finally, just when Alice was starting to believe she’d shocked Meara speechless, the vampire spoke up. “You see, this is what surprises and delights me about you. In so many ways, you are so naive of the ways of the world. So unsophisticated. But you have such a directness and honesty about you, perhaps because you never learned all the little polite lies and fictions of society. However it happened, why you are the way you are, it doesn’t matter.” Meara shrugged. “What matters is that you are a beautiful soul, and I promise that I will do my best to protect you. Please believe, although you may have been friendless in the past, that this is no longer the case. I would be your friend—if you’ll have me—and it’s not an offer I make lightly.”

Alice could feel the tears burning at the back of her eyes. “I would love that. Thank you.”

Meara smiled at her but then noticed Max was heading toward them, and her expression changed in a heartbeat from vulnerability to mocking amusement. “Fine, already. You don’t have to get all mushy about it,” she told Alice, who felt totally bewildered until she realized that Meara was only putting on a show, this time for the werewolf.

So she just smiled and nodded. “That’s me. Totally mushy.”

Max arrived and gave them a sharp look but evidently didn’t see anything out of the ordinary—whatever “ordinary” even meant on a movie night hosting a vampire, werewolf, angel, and ghost whisperer.

“I see the party’s over here at the window.” The werewolf had downed several lemon drops herself. “Ryan went downstairs to find the phone number to order pizza. I figured if we’re going to hang out for another movie, we’re going to need more snacks.”

“I don’t think I can stay and watch another,” Alice said, shaking her head to clear the tipsiness. “I need to get home and check on the animals. I’m also worried about Charlie. He’s done almost nothing but sleep since he breathed fire. I don’t know if he’s in some kind of denial because he hurt that warlock, or if this is a natural reaction to breathing fire for the first time, or ever, maybe? You don’t happen to have a starter manual, like Facts for Living with a Minor Demon, do you?”

“I actually do have something like that,” Meara said, surprising her. “I keep in touch with an order of monks who are scholars and historians of supernatural beings. We were talking about demons—Minor and otherwise—just last month. I’ll ask them to email me everything they have, so we can learn more about Charlie.”

“You were talking to monks?” Alice blinked, trying to imagine that.

“Monks who have email?” Max laughed. “You never fail to surprise me, vampire.”

“You’re pretty surprising yourself, werewolf,” Meara said. “Speaking of which, I think I should call my team over sometime this week, and we can give the two of you a fashion makeover. Right now, you’re both naturally hot. But a little time with my glam squad, and you’d both be simply stunning.”

“Great. A vampire makeover.” Max looked like she’d swallowed something sour, which made Alice laugh.

“I don’t know about Max, but I would love it. Does your team have somebody who cuts hair, maybe? I haven’t had my hair cut in a couple of years, and the ends are getting frizzy. Plus, it would be awfully nice to have some kind of shape to this mass of curls. Or maybe I should call it a mess of curls.” But then she remembered Hunter stroking her hair when they’d made love, and she smiled a private smile.

“My glam squad has a hairdresser, makeup specialist, and a clothing stylist. Plus, I have accounts with all the best boutiques in town. Or we could fly to New York if you want. Actually, we should probably do that anyway.”

Alice’s head started spinning again, but this time she didn’t think it was from the lemon drops. “Wow. That would be great. I mean, here in Savannah. I’m not ready to leave the rescue and go to New York, but—”

Suddenly, Max growled—a truly frightening sound—and yanked Alice away from the window.

“What is it?” Meara’s amused expression turned savage. “If those cochons from the Chamber dare come here, they will be very sorry.”

Alice, knowing that she was the weak link in this trio of vampire, werewolf, and ghost whisperer, backed away from the window and then ran to intercept Ryan, who had just entered the room.

“I think somebody’s outside,” Alice told Ryan.

“Not just outside but almost here,” Max said. “I can smell them, and they smell like blood. Lots of it. Whoever or whatever it is, they’re coming at us through the air.”

Meara made a sweeping expression with one hand, and a beautiful sword that had been on the wall display across the room flew toward her. She caught it, twirled her wrist one time, the blade flashing, and then stood in a ready position.

On the other side of the window, Max had partially shifted her fingers into claws. “No time for the entire shift to wolf. They—”

A blast of wind shoved both women away from the window, and then Hunter, blood-drenched and with glowing ruby eyes, hurtled into the room and landed six feet or so away from Alice.

His gaze snapped to hers, and he started toward her, a predator intent on his prey. “Mine.”

Meara leapt across the room to intercept him, landing between Alice and Hunter.

“You’re not yourself, little brother,” she said lightly. “Why don’t you get cleaned up? And then Alice will be very glad to see you.”

Hunter swept out an arm as if to shove Meara out of the way, but she gracefully somersaulted backward through the air and landed a foot or two beyond his reach.

“Alice. I need you. Come with me now,” Hunter demanded, and the anguish on his face laid to rest any doubt she might’ve had about his appearance.

This was Hunter. He wouldn’t harm her.

He held out his hand, and she stepped forward and took it.

“Alice, no,” Ryan cried out.

Meara held up her sword, as if to block Hunter from taking Alice, and Max raced over to stand with her.

“I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong,” Hunter snarled at them. “I would never hurt her. She’s in danger, and she’s mine. I must keep her safe.”

“It’s okay, Meara,” Alice said. “I want to go with him.”

Hunter tightened his grip on her hand. “Yes. Now.”

Ryan, who must be one of the bravest people Alice had ever seen, took a step toward them and put her hand on Hunter’s blood-soaked sleeve.

“We want to protect her, too. Why don’t you get cleaned up, and we’ll all protect her together? You know me, Hunter. You know I would never do anything to hurt you or Alice.”

For a moment, Alice thought Ryan’s calm, reasonable tone had gotten through to him. But then he bared his fangs. “You don’t understand. None of you understand. Alice, will you go with me?”

She looked into his eyes and still saw him, even through the brilliant scarlet color. “Yes. Always.”

Before Meara, Ryan, or Max could move, Hunter wrapped Alice in his arms and shot through the air, out the window, and up into the night sky.