Page 19 of Bloodhunter

Amias Sato.

Apparently I’d been in that backseat all night and part ofthe next day. Angus had gone to work and saw my car. According to the smallclock on the bathroom wall, it was now seven p.m. and though a good chunk oftime had passed, I realized a normal person would have been in the hospitalgetting a blood transfusion.

I was not a normal person. No one was disputing that. And ifI hadn’t gone after that vampire, I still wouldn’t know what I was.

But neither would the vampires.

Not yet. But eventually, if I really started hunting them,word would spread.Thenthe vampires would come.

At least that was what I believed.

Reality was that they were vampires. What I believed mighthappen didn’t really matter. There were too many variables.

Amias, for one.

He hadn’t helped me when the vampire had nearly killed me,but afterward, he’d taken me to the supernaturals.

He hadn’t left me for animals, humans, or other vampires tofind. He hadn’t left me to die. He’d put me in the car, he’d driven me to BayTown, and I’d healed because I had something of Sato inside me.

I still didn’t know why he’d attacked us that grimThanksgiving night.

And I would never stop trying to kill him.

I began soaping my body, slowly, as my muscles groaned whenI moved. If I was going to become a hunter, I’d have to join a gym. I was alittle too weak and scrawny to make killing vampires my life’s work.

At the thought, my stomach muscles clenched, my heart ratepicked up, and shivers chased each other up my spine. I grabbed the knob toturn to hot water down, because suddenly I was hot. Too hot.

Excited.

The thought of killing vampires was turning me on.

I leaned against the wall and let the cooling water beatagainst my back, ignoring the throbbing between my thighs and forcing mythoughts elsewhere until the feeling passed.

“Wellthat’snew,” I muttered.

I squirted shampoo onto my hair and scrubbed my scalp alittle too hard. By the time I’d rinsed and stepped out of the shower, mythoughts were once again under control.

I found bandages in a cabinet, and examined my bite woundbefore slapping a fresh bandage on. The wound was tender and raw, but the painwas less and it was healing nicely. No pus or angry red streaks. I figured Iwas good.

I wrapped a thick towel around me and left the bathroom insearch of some clean clothes I might borrow. I needed to go home and preparefor the night ahead. For thelifeahead.

There were vampires to hunt, and apparently, I was just thewoman for the job.

Lucky me.

Chapter Six

I’d become a part of the supernatural world on Thanksgivingsix years earlier, the very second Amias, injured and hungry, had touched me. Hadhurt me.

After I’d healed, I’d immersed myself in Bay Town’s supernaturalcommunity—a community I’d barely been aware of until Miriam Crow had invited mein.

She’d taken me to Angus, and he’d given me a job.

I’d had no one else. My sister had pretty much raised meduring our mother’s struggle with the cancer that had eventually taken her, andmy father had left when I was two. I didn’t remember him and had no idea wherehe was, or if he were still alive. And I couldn’t have cared less.

For a long time, I’d closed myself off from everyone.Everyone except the Bay Town supernaturals.

They’d accepted me without reservation—mostly—and it hadn’toccurred to me to question their acceptance. I was truly one of them, even ifthey hadn’t known what I was when they’d welcomed me into their world.