Page 122 of Bloodhunter
I felt like they were mine.
Goosebumps covered my body and I shivered, something shrewdand ancient in the back of my mind, watching. Smiling.
Waiting.
“Son of a bitch,” I whispered.
Miriam nodded. “Clayton belongs to me, though. I know youhave feelings for him, and I know he has feelings for you. But he’s back withme, and I will hurt him like you can’t even imagine if he touches you again.You can love him, but you can’t touch him. Do you understand?”
I looked into her eyes, and my grip tightened on the stake.
“Please understand,” she continued into my silence. “I can’tallow the man who tortured my father to feel pleasure. What you did with himwhen he had his moment of freedom—I can let that go because that will beagonizing for him. He’ll long for that every single day, and it will be justout of reach.” Again, she smiled, widely, happily. “That’s all I ever reallywant. For Clayton to suffer.”
“Miriam,” I whispered. “You’re so twisted up inside. Don’tyou get tired of pain?”
“Yes,” she said, viciously. “I get tired of pain.” Shethumped her chest with a tiny fist. “He made this. And watching him suffer forwhat he created relieves my pain.”
I was the tiniest bit afraid of her, but I took her hand.“No, it doesn’t,” I told her. “It doesn’t at all.”
“You don’t know,” she said. “You don’t know what’s inside myhead.”
“I wish I didn’t,” I told her.
I pretended not to see the sad darkness in her eyes and wentback to staking vampires—something that was less painful than thinking about Miriam’sneed to hurt one of the men I cared about.
Chapter Forty-Three
Everything seemed to have changed almost overnight.
The vampires were in trouble, the incubus was gone—forever?I couldn’t know—and the supernaturals were slowly testing the waters as theywandered out of hiding to face a relieved city that was in the mood to bemagnanimous.
But Angus still lay on a cot in a jail cell, awake but unresponsive,nearly killed by human police. His children waited, dejected and worried andmissing their dad.
I sat in Captain Crawford’s office, biting my fingernails,waiting for him to arrive for the meeting to which he’d summoned me. Every copI’d passed on my way to Crawford’s office paused to congratulate me on not onlywiping out the hundreds of infecteds in the woods off Raeven’s Road, butkilling the incubus.
Obviously, as Red Valley’s first bloodhunter, they wanted tobelieveIhad killed the vampires,Ihad killed the incubus, andIhad saved the city.
And I was theirs.
They gave Shane a smile and a slap on the back, but he wasn’treally one of us. He was an outsider.
The city buzzed with the news of the vampires’ loomingannihilation, and what news programs and gossip I’d caught seemed to believe Iwas somehow responsible for that, as well.
The vampire infection was a strain Amias was unfamiliarwith. The newly sick didn’t roam the woods, searching for prey, bursting withrage…well, theydid,but after about a week, they fell down and died.
It wasn’t a true death, Amias said. Maybe months from now orcenturies from now they’d get back up. So Shane and I searched for them, and wemade sure they would stay dead.
Sure, there were some vampires immune like the master,vampires who’d caught the disease, fought it off, and lived to tell about it,but they were few and far between.
Captain Crawford walked in, finally, his smile bright andhis face a little less haggard. “Sinclair! You’re looking good.”
I’d seen him only once in the two weeks since the battle inthe woods, and only then because afterward, when I’d called to report the fightand the rapidly spreading vampire infection, he’d insisted I join him in animpromptu press conference. He’d wanted me there before I cleaned up.
“The city should see you as you are,” he’d said. “You’re theperson who stands between them and the nonhumans. They want a hero. We’re goingto give them what they want.”
“No way,” I’d said, flatly. “I’m not—”
“It’ll go a long way toward getting the city to back off theBay Town supernaturals, Trinity. You want things back to normal? This would bea hell of a start.”
