Hunt the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity #11)(4)

Not only hunted . . . but hunted by a first-class, grade A, always-get-my-man predator.

And she should know all about predators.

She’d been prey since her mother had tried to put an end to her existence with a particularly nasty spell on her sixteenth birthday. No one understood the difference between an okay hunter and one you didn’t have a hope in hell of shaking off your trail better than she did.

Still, she’d managed to elude him for the past three weeks.

Twenty-one days longer than she’d expected.

Now she intended to hold her ground.

No one was putting her back in a cell.

Planting her hands on her hips, she pretended a confidence she was far from feeling.

“Why are you following me?”

His beautiful eyes shimmered a perfect silver in the moonlight.

Of course, everything about him was perfect, she acknowledged with a renegade rush of awareness.

The exquisitely carved features. The dark hair that was silky smooth. The hard, chiseled body that should only be possible with Photoshop.

And the raw, sexual magnetism that pulsed in the air around him.

There wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t secretly wish he’d handcuff her to the nearest bed.

A pity he was a coldhearted vampire who would happily kill her if her magic hadn’t tied them together as mates.

She shivered despite the heavy sweatshirt and jeans she wore to combat the cold.

“Is that a joke?”

She tilted her chin. “There’s nothing funny about our situation.”

“I agree.”

“Then why don’t you return to Chicago?” she demanded in frustration. “I’m perfectly capable of tracking down my father without you.”

A dark brow arched. “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“The last time you went rogue we ended up mated.” His lips twisted as he stopped struggling and instead stood there with his head held high, pride etched onto his beautiful face. As if he was above noticing her tedious spell. “Forgive me if I don’t entirely trust you.”

Sally flinched, her eyes narrowing. Dammit. She didn’t need any reminders that she was a major screwup.

Not when she was tired and frustrated and in the mood to punch something.

Really, really hard.

“Sacrebleu,” a voice rasped, drawing Sally’s attention to the tiny gargoyle standing at Roke’s side. “You may have a death wish, vampire, but I do not. I believe I will speak with Yannah.”

Sally blinked, effectively distracted by the question.

Yannah had been a strange travel companion. The small demon had happily zapped Sally to each of her mother’s properties so Sally could search for clues of her father, but she’d rarely spoken and had spent most of her time zoned out as she mentally communicated with her mother, who also happened to be an Oracle.

Sally had been almost relieved when Yannah had abruptly announced she had to go home.

She was used to being on her own.

It was . . . comfortable. Familiar.

Tragic, achingly lonely, but familiar.

“She left,” she informed Levet.

“Left?” His heavy brow furrowed. “What do you mean left?”

“One minute she was standing next to me complaining about the dust, and the next—” She waved a hand.

“Poof,” Levet finished.

“Exactly.”

Without warning the gargoyle was stomping away, his tail twitching and his tiny hands waving in the air as he muttered to himself.

“Aggravating, unpredictable, impossible female.”

“I feel his pain,” Roke drawled.

She turned back to stab him with a glare. “Not yet, but keep it up and you will.”

The silver eyes shimmered. “Release me.”

Sally wrapped her arms around her waist. She could feel his anger through their bond, but more than that she could feel a seething frustration that was echoed deep inside her.

That scared her more than his irritation.

“Why should I?” she bluffed. Yeah, look at her. All badass just so long as Roke remained trapped in her spell. “You’re trespassing on my property.”

He glanced toward the cottage. “Yours?”

She shrugged. “It was my mother’s, and since I’m her only heir, I assume her various houses are now mine.”

“She had more than one?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing the past three weeks?”

The silver gaze returned to sear over her pale face. “Running.”

She sniffed, refusing to admit that running had been a large part of what she’d been doing.

There had been a little method to her madness.

“I’ve been searching through my mother’s belongings,” she said. “I hoped that she would have left some clue to my . . .” She bit off the word father. Did a donation of sperm actually earn the title of father? “To who impregnated her.”

He frowned. “I thought you said that witches had a spell so their private papers were destroyed when they died?”

It was true that many witches had binding spells attached to their most sensitive possessions. It gave a whole new meaning to taking “secrets to the grave.” And her mother had been more secretive than most.