Page 39 of Heart of the Hunted
"You might have thought I wouldn't find you there," he said.
She wasn't about to tell him that she had hoped he wouldn't have looked under the bed. So instead, she said: "Yeah right, because who wouldn't think to look under the bed?"
From the look on his face, it was clear he had planned to look under the bed, but she gave away her location before he had the chance to.
"I'm not that stupid, you know," she told him. "It's not as if I'm spoilt for choice when it comes to hiding places."
Natalia grabbed her coat and satchel from under the bed where she had been hiding. She put her coat on and then draped the strap of the satchel over her shoulder before turning to face the Demon again.
"Is that it?" he asked, looking at her meager belongings.
"Well, yeah," she said. "This kind of life doesn't make it easy for carrying around a load of shit, you know. Everything I own needs to be easy to move at a moment’s notice, and it has to be easy enough to run with if need be."
"I understand."
"I don't think you do," she said, shaking her head. "How could you when you've never been hunted like I have?"
"Just because I'm a Demon, doesn't mean I've never been hunted before."
"Yeah, right," she said, rolling her eyes.
"Believe what you want,” he said. “But it's the truth."
"If it's the truth, then why do you hunt down and murder my kind?" When he didn't reply, she added: "Yeah, I didn't think so."
"Come on," he said after a moment. "We need to get going now."
"I still don't understand why we can't wait until morning," she said, but then it finally twigged on her. "You want to leave now so that your friend has less chance of winning the bet, don't you?"
"I've already won the bet," he said adamantly.
"How do you know?" she asked. "He could have captured one of us and you wouldn't even know about it because you're here with me."
"There's no way Arun has caught a Human already," he said, shaking his head.
"Why not? You have." It was the first time he's mentioned a name, but it still wasn't his.
"Because he's not that good of a hunter, that's why."
"But you are?" she asked sceptically.
"Yes," he stated.
"Because you're a Demon?" she asked.
"Partly, but mostly because I am just a better hunter than him."
"Okay then, whatever you say, Demon,” she said, rolling her eyes.
"My name isn't Demon," he told her.
"And?"
"I would rather you call me by my name than refer to me as Demon all the time."
"Would you like me to just guess your name?" she asked sarcastically. "Because you certainly haven't told me what it is."
"I could say the same to you," he said pointedly.
