Page 75 of Hunted

Knowing.

‘Sit down, little hunter. There’s much we need to discuss.’

15

EIRA

The teacup slips from my fingers and shatters on the hardwood floor, sending horror through me in one cold, galvanising rush.

I start to move, then freeze.

Bare feet. Broken ceramic. The most powerful vampire I know lounging five feet away like he belongs in my bedroom.

If this isn’t the most colossal clusterfuck of my life, I don’t know what is.

One glance tells me the shards have scattered everywhere. Under the bed. Against the dresser. Across the route to every weapon I’ve stashed in this room.

Then my gaze snaps back to him.

Valentin Moretti doesn’t rise from the armchair. He watches me with deadly patience, one ankle draped over the opposite knee, fingers steepled loosely. Against my peach wallpaper, his immaculate black suit looks obscene, framing his mile-wide shoulders and dark hair curling over his forehead in a way that makes him look younger and more dangerous at once.

‘How—’ I begin, then stop.

How is secondary. I’m trapped in glass, and he’s in my bedroom.

‘Come to me, little hunter,’ he says softly.

Yeah. He’s fucking with me, the bastard.

I bark out a laugh that sounds more brittle than I’d like. ‘You mean walk across broken glass towards a powerful vampire and hope, what? That it’s your night off from drinking blood?’

His mouth curves faintly. ‘You believe I cannot control myself?’

‘I don’t know. Can you?’ I gesture at the room. ‘Look where we are. My bedroom. My very private space. I don’t recall inviting you in. I thought you people needed permission to cross a threshold?’

‘You either watch too much television or consume too much fiction.’

‘So that’s a no on the threshold rule?’

‘Thresholds matter,’ he says mildly. ‘Intent matters more.’

‘Cryptic. Love that.’

I shift my weight carefully. A shard bites faintly into my arch but doesn’t break skin. I lift my foot free and tuck it against my ankle, exhaling slowly when nothing sharp follows.

Sweat collects at the base of my spine. My robe is thin. Ridiculously thin. And while I have a shit-ton of weapons stashed around this house, I may as well be butt naked right now.

I was not planning to entertain ancient predators tonight.

‘This place is warded,’ I say, hating the hint of bewilderment in my voice. ‘If the threshold thing doesn’t work on you, the wards still should.’

Selphine has a lot to answer for if her work is a dud. At minimum, she owes me a refund. With interest. Which I will fucking collect. Plus damages for the emotional suffering of watching Valentin Moretti tilt his head in that infuriating way.

‘To keep the weak and ineffectual out,’ he replies. ‘I am neither weak nor ineffectual, Eira Cross.’

Gods, I should not love the way his tongue and lips wrap around my name.

‘Oh no? And how about uninvited? Unwanted. Undesired.’