Page 8 of Immortal Hunter
Whowasthis man? He’d gone from an odd mix of fearful and indignant to bold and brave. And when Kára pierced his vein, that sensation in her chest turned from the odd rattle to a steady, rhythmic thumping.
His blood flowed over her tongue, rich, thick, and the best thing she’d tasted in her more than four hundred years of vampire life. As she took another pull, Ewan’s cock swelled even more, filling her fuller than she’d ever been.
As her chest continued its strange pulsing, sending her own blood coursing through her veins, Ewan reached down and pinched her clit, and Kára let herself go. Pleasure consumed her, white hot and so foreign after centuries of being as cold as ice.
He joined her in release as she took her final sip of his blood, and she collapsed onto him, spent, sated, and with the terrible feeling she’d done something she could never…ever…take back.
* * *
Ewan slept next to her,his quiet breathing the only sound in the room besides her heartbeat roaring in her ears.
Her. Heartbeat.
A vampire’s heart stopped when they were made, and only when the found their mate did it start beating once more.
Kára’s mate was a Hunter. How? Why? She stared out his small window, watching the night sky. She’d have to leave him soon. Return to the relative safety of her own home. It was lightproof, secured, and—shit…Kára leaned over the mattress and pulled it up slightly—without a silver chain under the bed. No wonder she’d felt on edge.
“Ewan,” she said softly, cupping his cheek and staring at his closed lids. “Wake up.” When he blinked up at her, she used every ounce of her strength to enter his thoughts. “Do not ever tell another soul you are—or were—a Hunter. They are forbidden in this town, and you will attract the wrong type of attention. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” he said. He hadn’t fully woken. His flat voice and steady breathing attested to her hold over him. “I rescind my earlier command to leave town. Stay. Work. Live. I will come back for you, Ewan. I do not know when, but I will come back for you.”
Pressing a kiss to his lips, she sealed her vow, then rose, put on her clothes, and slipped from the room.
Chapter Four
Ewan
Morning came too early,the bright sunlight streaming through his window and slashing across his bed. His memories of the previous night were…fuzzy. Almost as if he’d been… Fuck. He’d slept with the vampire. Kára.
She hadn’t turned him. That much was clear from the way his skin warmed pleasantly in the morning sun. But when had she left? He had a vague memory of her voice. Something about coming back for him.
No. No more associations with vampires. Ever.
Ewan rose and trudged into the small bathroom. He could stillfeelher bite, but where he expected to find the twin reddish marks, he saw only smooth skin. “Bloody hell.” The sensation was pleasant. Like a tingling that connected him to her. No. That had to be simply her scent surrounding him.
After he’d showered and shaved, he felt around under his mattress for the silver chain and tucked it into his pocket. If Kára returned to the bar tonight, he’d be ready. No more glamour. No more sex. And definitely no more feeding a vampire.
* * *
He couldn’t stayin the small, stuffy room where he and Kára had done…all manner of things the previous night, so Ewan spent the morning and early afternoon familiarizing himself with more of St. John’s. A little before 3:00 p.m., though, when he realized he needed to hurry back to McCann’s pub, he took a shortcut through an alley.
“Fuck me.” Against a rubbish bin, a dark pool of blood was nearly dry. Crouching down, he sniffed, then wrinkled his nose. Shifter maybe? Arthur had always insisted his Hunters learn how to tell whether blood was vampire, shifter, fae, or human. Though he’d never been very good at discerning the difference, Ewan didn’t think the blood had come from a human.
Had Kára fed on another creature the previous night? Or was this some random crime? It felt…too convenient. He’d just come to town, met a vampire, been glamoured by her, and now…a pool of blood only two kilometers from the pub? He didn’t want to leave St. John’s. But this was too much like an omen.
As he pushed through the door, Alfie nodded to him. “Special of the day is fish and chips. The cook made you a plate. It’s in the kitchen.”
“Thank ya’,” Ewan said as he tried to force confidence he didn’t feel into his voice. Grabbing the plate, he sat at the edge of the bar and pushed a potato wedge through a scoop of tartar sauce. “Alfie? Is this a safe town?”
“St. John’s? The safest. Get a fair number of brawlers, we do, some drunk driving, but beyond that…there hasn’t been a murder here in ten years.”
Ewan nearly choked on his bite of fish. “Ten…years?”
With a sigh, Alfie shuffled closer, a pint glass in one hand and a polishing rag in the other. “My boy, there’s more to this town than meets the eye. You have to know that, don’t you? Given how you came here?”
“Aye. I suppose I do.”
“We’ve a protector. I don’t know her name, and I don’t ask. But she’s been keeping us safe for decades. Her and the local coven.”
