Page 77 of Hunted

‘He intercepted your courier before the memory wipe.’

My stomach drops.

Tezra.

‘What did you do to him? Is he okay?’

His eyes light for a heart-stopping second. ‘Your courier is fine. He accepted the inevitable and was therefore not harmed.’

I file that away for later fury. ‘Do you even hear yourself when you speak?’

‘The only one suffering wilful blindness and deafness in this room is you, little hunter.’

‘Because I don’t stay in the box you insist on putting me in?’

A tic appears in his jaw, but he doesn’t answer. He only leans closer.

And I smell him, his warmth bathing me in ways that remind me of a velvet-dark room and a hand at the small of my back, guiding me somewhere I said I’d never go again.

Can vampires manipulate their scent like some shifters can? Because sweet Gods, the way he smells.

Clean rain on hot stone. The first bite of something forbidden. My brain begins turning to slurry, which is deeply inconvenient when a centuries-old vampire has you pinned in your own bedroom.

‘I went to Louisiana,’ I push out, desperate not to lose the thread or the plot.

‘I am aware.’

‘Then if it was a report you wanted, you could’ve called. Or waited for our scheduled meeting tomorrow.’

His breath washes over my cheek. I want to chase it back to its source, which means I need immediate professional help or a brick to the head.

One long finger slides beneath my chin, freezing my motion and lifting my gaze to his.

‘I am here, little hunter, because you were barely there. Louisiana was almost a pit stop. The true purpose of leaving New York was something else.’

Damn.

Certainty, not question.

‘I was there long enough because I know how to do my job. And because what I found didn’t warrant immediate action.’

He waits me out.

I lick my lips, scrambling through the breadcrumbs I planted. ‘The pawn shop transaction I mentioned in Louisiana,’ I murmur. ‘I found a crest ring. Filed down but not enough.’

Valentin steps closer, scent intensifying. ‘You believe this belonged to her.’

‘Yes. I believe she may have been running out of options even then. Girls running out of options tend to liquidate what they can’t eat.’

‘Go on.’

I give him the tale I built. Parish property records. Temporary housing intake facilities within ten miles of the pawn shop. Bureaucratic drudgery that sounds impressive and means very little. Gaps. Manually archived paper files. A trail that looks methodical and forensic.

Progress that will lead nowhere.

Because the ring was real and the alias was real, but the pawn shop transaction never happened. Even then, I knew the crest ring was as dangerous as a spotlight in the dark. I exchanged it for a warm coat and a hot meal at a truck stop heading a dozen directions.

‘And now my report is done twelve hours early,’ I say sweetly, despite my spine being pressed to the wall and my heart auditioning for percussion. ‘Feel free to uninvite yourself and vacate my sanctuary.’