Page 69 of Out for Blood
He wasn’t even out of breath.
“Because those are the kinds of sounds my ancestors made when they went hunting for real, the kind of sounds we still make during ceremonies that celebrate our traditions. It’s not a game to us. It matters and it’s not for you.”
I stood straighter, half expecting Hawk to pop off, glad all over again that Vigo had left his bat in the car.
“Shit, man…” Hawk rubbed at his jaw. “I didn’t think about it like that.”
“Same,” Vigo said. “Sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it,” Poe said, his expression still dark.
I was still on alert. Maeve wasn’t here to keep Bram and Poe in line, and I was still testing may own sway over the Hawks.
And I wasn’t the only one. Bram was watching too, probably hoping for a reason to beat the shit out of the Hawks.
“Are you saying you want us to stop doing it?” Hawk cut a glance at me. “Not that we’ll be hunting again.”
My cheeks flushed, and my heart pounded in my chest. It was the first time he’d said something to indicate that our relationship might be permanent and I felt the warmth of it through my whole body.
“Yeah,” Poe said, “I want you to stop doing it. In the Hunt and everywhere else.”
Hawk nodded slowly. “No problem, man. Sorry to offend.”
“It’s fine.” Poe relaxed a little. “Thanks.”
“Sure thing.” Hawk held out his hand. “We good?”
Poe hesitated, then shook Hawk’s hand. “Yeah, fine. Whatever. We’re good.”
“Cool.”
I held my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it really was that easy: Poe asking for something, Hawk hearing him out, taking accountability.
As Reva would say, knock me down and steal my teeth (I had no idea what it meant, it was just something she said when she was shocked).
By the time we headed back into Aloha’s lab, the tension in the air had dissipated. My brother and Poe weren’t exactly friendly with the Hawks, but the open animosity had subsided and for the first time I could almost see a future where it might work: a future with the Hawks, my relationship with Bram intact.
Aloha was typing away when we returned to the lab, his focus on one of the three monitors in front of him,
“Found her,” he said without turning around.
“Youfoundher?” I didn’t dare believe it. “In anhour?”
The six of us had combed the internet and come up empty while we’d finished our burgers at Syd’s.
He stopped typing and swiveled his chair to face us. “Wasn’t that hard. You can scrub the internet but it’s a lot harder to scrub official records, even when you’re an oligarch.”
“So who is she?” Hawk asked.
Aloha turned his chair around to face his computer, then tabbed to an open window behind the one he’d been working on when we entered the metal box. “Alina Volkova, daughter of Dimitri Kaprolov and Tatiana Volkova. Alina is twenty-four, mother died when she was ten.”
Like me,I thought.
“Any siblings?” Jagger asked.
“Only child,” Aloha said. “And you were right, she uses PrincessA as a social media handle or Princess AV to be exact.”
He tabbed to a different screen and an Instagram page popped up.
