Page 79 of Bloodhunter

He studied me quietly, then, “Trinity.”

“Yes?” I murmured.

“I was a new hunter once. Don’t be hard on yourself.”

My breath caught in my throat. He knew.

Before I could think of a thing to say, he reached into thedrawer, then tossed me a small package. “Clean up,” he said. “Eat. Sleep. Youwill be…”

I stared at him, clutching the package to my chest, andwaited.

“Extraordinary,” he finished, finally.

When I turned away, breathless, he stopped me once again.“The vampires will gradually stop testing you. It usually takes a new hunter acouple of years to integrate—if she survives that long. The more you hunt, thequicker the process.” He ran his stare over my body. “It will happen for youmuch faster than it does for most.”

A tendril of hope snaked through me. “They’ll leave mealone?”

His smile was faint. “Well…no. But they’ll stop coming indroves. Right now they believe they have a chance to destroy you. Becauseyou’re so new, you’re giving off a certain…scent. It attracts them, enragesthem, and they will try to destroy you. But they’re dying. You’re provingyourself. They’ll accept you as an equal, or better, and they will stop comingfor you.” He shrugged. “It’s a matter of self-preservation and it’s asinstinctive as their drive to challenge you.”

“So all I have to do is stay alive and wait them out.”

“Hunt. If you stop hunting, the cycle will begin again.”

“That’s why Shane can walk around without a bunch ofvampires descending with pitchforks and torches?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a relief.”

He nodded. “Soon, they’ll hide from you.”

I hesitated. “You don’t hunt. Why don’t they come for you?”

He stiffened immediately, and was quiet for so long thingsbegan to get awkward. Finally, he spoke. “I’m no longer a hunter. It didn’tcome back when I did.”

And his desolation at that fact was so severe it broke myheart.

Miriam had taken away everything he’d ever been. The killer,the hunter, the man.

There wasn’t anything I could say to that. I walked towardthe bathroom. “Goodnight, Clayton,” I whispered.

When I left the bathroom forty-five minutes later, he wasgone. I sat on the bed and ate cold pizza, every muscle in my body aching. Butit wasn’t a bad ache, somehow. I was getting physically stronger.

I called the captain. I left a message on his voicemail,telling him about the battle of the night. I explained to him that on the wayout of the woods I’d still had Gray’s scent. He hadn’t been one of the vampiresI’d fought—or if he had been, he’d taken off when things got rough. He wasstill alive. Still out there.

“I’ll find him tonight,” I promised. Big promise, but Imeant well. I could find Gray if the vampires would stop attacking me everytime I stepped foot in the woods. And if Clayton had told me the truth, thatwould happen. Eventually.

I wondered why Shane hadn’t educated me on that fact. Someteacherhewas. And then I got a blistering image of him thrusting intome, his mouth buried against the side of my throat, his hands holding me in apunishing grip, and I lay back and allowed that breathtaking, overwhelming memoryto take me where it would.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I need a place to live,” I told Rhys, taking a seat infront of his desk. I didn’t care if real estate were a front for him—all thesupernaturals had fronts, and they still took their chosen jobs seriously. “Ican’t keep staying with Angus. I need privacy.”

Rhys steepled his long fingers, his brown eyes bright and amused,and gave me a wide, white smile. And still, I saw the darkness in that smile.He would never be able to hide it from me. I wasn’t sure why, but there it was.

Maybe he knew it, maybe he didn’t. I wasn’t going to tellhim, though, or ask him what sort of monster he was. It wasn’t like he’d tellme, anyway.

“Two of his exes are moving back in,” he said. “If thingsaren’t loud enough already with his many children and their nannies, twoex-girlfriends in the same house? It’ll be a circus. I almost feel bad for ourAngus.”