Page 33 of Bloodhunter

“You were kicking him,” I said, enunciating each word slowly,carefully. “You made him stand still so Angus could hit him, and you werekicking him.” As though she didn’t know. I grew angry all over again andclenched my fists.

“Calm down,” Angus told me. “Miriam knows how to handle him.”

“You’re both assholes.” I knelt once more beside Clayton,unsure. I had no idea what to do for him, but neither Miriam nor Angus seemedoverly concerned.

Not with Clayton, anyway.

Angus hunkered down beside me. “Are you okay, girl?” Hereached out a hand to pull the bloody lapel of my robe away from my skin. “Whathappened here?”

I shrugged away his fingers. “It’s a long story—one I’lltell youafteryou help Clayton.”

“Sweetheart,” Miriam said, her voice somewhere betweenarctic cold and the fires-of-hell hot, “you do not want to fight me for thisthing.”

I jumped to my feet. “Oh my God. You—”

“I can see you’re beginning to care for him.” She shrugged.“You really don’t want to do that.”

But then Clayton groaned and sat up, and I was saved fromhaving to reply. Care about him?

No.

Definitely not.

No more than I’d care about any other person being abused.

Miriam stood, then leaned over and buried her fingers in hishair. “Up you go.” If he hadn’t stood, she’d have ripped out his hair by theroots.

I wondered why she hated him, but I couldn’t ask. Not then.

I stood as well. Clayton glanced at me, then away.

“Are you well?” Miriam asked him.

He nodded.

She put her hands on her hips. “Explain.”

“I went to get a first aid kit to bandage her wound. When Ireturned, she was being attacked by a strange man. I pulled him off her andthrew him against the wall.” He pointed his chin at the wall, and we all threeturned to look at the dented plaster.

“Where is he?” Miriam asked. “Dead?”

He shook his head. “Escaped. I don’t know what he was.”

“So.” Miriam walked slowly around him, her heels clicking onthe floor.

He stiffened, but didn’t move.

“How,” she asked, “did you go from fighting off a strangeattacker to trying to fuck our little hunter?”

I recoiled, even as Clayton flinched.

In her voice was a dark promise of pain that she didn’t eventry to hide. She was raging, but in a way I’d never seen from anyone. A deep,soul crushing, killing rage that meant someone was in trouble.

It meant Clayton was in trouble.

“It wasn’t him,” I said, quickly, despite my embarrassment.“The intruder rubbed something on me. Some sort of sticky lotion. Clayton, whatdid you call it?”

He blinked at my attempts to protect him. “The Foam ofAphrodite,” he murmured.