The Immortal Hunter(20)

"If you can," Justin commented, apparently still reading his thoughts. "Mortimer isn't very good at it anymore. I doubt you will be either."

Decker opened his mouth to tell him where to get off, but Justin forestalled him by asking, "Are you hungry yet?"

He almost said no, but in truth, his stomach cramps were getting worse, and in the end he admitted, "I could do with a bag of blood or four."

"Four, huh?" Justin chuckled. "Unfortunately, we don't have any handy right now. I meant for food."

"Oh. No, I'm not." He frowned at the realization. Aside from not being able to read the mate, and having difficulty keeping your thoughts your own, a reawakened appetite for food and sex and various other things usually came with finding your life mate. That being the case, the fact that he wasn't suddenly hungry was a bit worrying and he asked, "Why aren't I?"

Justin didn't look nearly as concerned. Shrugging, he said, "Maybe it takes longer for that to kick in. Or maybe you have to actually be around food. How long has it been since you ate, anyway?"

"I stopped when I was one hundred and twenty," Decker admitted.

Bricker looked horrified. "That means I'll, only be eating for another twenty years or so." He considered that and then shook his head firmly. "No way... although," he added with concern, "that last burger I had when we stopped at the cafe didn't seem quite as good as usual."

"That cafe was a dive," Decker said dryly. "The burger was probably roadkill."

"Hmm." He fretted over it briefly and then asked, "How old were you when you stopped having sex?"

"Eighty years ago," Decker answered.

Justin grinned. "Took you a little longer to get tired of sex than it did food, huh? I'm not surprised. I still don't understand how it's even possible to get tired of sex. I can't imagine a day when I will. I'm pretty sure I could do it every day, even twice or three times a day for the next millennia and not grow tired of it."

Decker shrugged, thinking the younger immortal would understand in another century or so.

"No., I won't understand in another hundred years or so," Justin said with certainty, still reading his mind. "I'm gonna want sex till I die. Women are incredible. Every one a different shape, size, color, even texture."

"Texture?" Decker asked, eyebrow rising.

"Sure. Some are softer, some harder, some in between, but all are beautiful in their own way."

Decker supposed he'd have to agree with that. His gaze slid to the van and the woman just visible through the glass, and he thought that while all women were beautiful, some were more beautiful than others.

Dani waited until Decker turned back to Justin to continue talking and then reached out and eased the window fully closed. She'd cracked it the moment the men weren't looking so that she could hear what they were saying... and had gotten an earful.

She sat back on her heels and considered what she'd heard. The last part had been worrisome. Decker had stopped eating at one hundred and twenty? And stopped having sex eighty years ago? The man couldn't be more than thirty years old. What nonsense was he spouting out there? And Justin's answer about having twenty more years before he reached one hundred and twenty and stopped eating? Dani didn't need her medical training to realize the two men were completely and utterly delusional.

A rustle of sound drew her gaze to the tarp-covered pile behind her as she shifted and brushed up against it. Dani grimaced. Okay, delusional was too mild a term. It seemed she was, after all, presently in the company of two crazy men. Not a happy thought, she decided, especially since their being crazy didn't change the fact that they were still her best chance of finding her sister.

Unless, Dani thought suddenly, her gaze sliding to the cup holder between the two front seats. It was where she'd heard Decker say the bug and tracker were, and she peered at it silently, her mind churning. According to Decker, he and Justin had followed Nicholas to where she and her sister were being held. So Nicholas was the one who had actually set out to save them, not these two. And Nicholas was the one now chasing after her sister. He was still trying to save her, while these two seemed more interested in catching Nicholas than helping her sister.

Nicholas had also been the one with a crossbow rather than a gun. He'd been holding the unusual weapon as he'd rushed after her sister and the man dragging her away from the clearing. But these two had been popping out from behind their trees firing guns, though she hadn't seen a single gun since waking in the back of the van. She didn't worry overmuch over that, however, and was more concerned with the fact that-as far as she knew-it wasn't legal for citizens to carry handguns in Canada. The only people who usually carried them were cops... and bad guys who bought them on the black market or various unsavory ways. Dani was pretty sure these guys weren't cops. From what she'd just heard, they'd never pass the psych exam... which meant they were probably also bad guys and Nicholas was the only good guy around.

She glanced out the window and-finding the men still deep in conversation-shifted forward until she knelt between the two front seats. She cast another nervous glance out the window and continued to watch them as she spoke close to the cup holder.

"Nicholas? If you can hear me, this is Dani, the other woman you saved tonight." She paused and licked her lips and then continued, "Decker and Bricker are going to set a trap for you using the bug and the tracking device you left in the van. They know you probably think they don't remember the devices are here and are going to try to use them to catch you."