Hunter's Salvation (21 page)

There was a knife on the small stand beside the bed. Big and wicked-looking, the blade was slightly curved. The handle was a yellowed white. It looked like the fake bone handles she'd seen on some knives.

But she doubted this handle was fake.

“You look exhausted. You need some rest.”

She jumped at the quiet sound of his voice. Turning her head, she gave him a faint smile. “I am exhausted. But I doubt I'll sleep.”

He dropped into the single chair the room boasted. It was one of those hard ladder-backed numbers that was probably about as comfortable as it looked. He lounged in it like it was a solid gold throne. He draped one arm over the back of the chair and rested the other hand on the table. His fingers beat out a slow, rhythmic pattern. “Even if you can't sleep, you need to rest. Go soak in the tub or something. We'll leave in the morning.”

“Leave,” she repeated. Man, a bath…the idea did have its appeal. Filling up the tub with steaming hot water and soaking her aching body. But instead of leaving the room, she just continued to walk around restlessly.

Vax was frowning at her. “What's the problem?”

“Problem?” She realized she sounded like a drugged mynah bird. “No. There's no problem. And I already took a shower.” She started to pace the room with long, quick strides, certain that if she moved around enough, maybe it would clear the lust from her system. He was still looking at her weirdly, so she forced a smile. “I must be more tired than I thought. Having a hard time thinking straight.”

“Stress.” Vax lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “This has been your whole life for a while now. You know, it's not too late for you to let it go.”

Okay, now
that
cleared the cobwebs. Stopping in mid-stride, she turned and faced him. She ran her tongue across her lower lip and propped her hands on her hips. “Let it go,” she repeated. More of the mynah bird thing. She didn't feel quite so drugged out, though. And the warm, mind-hazing lust was clearing up as well. She had a feeling she was heading in the direction of pissed. Very, very pissed off.

“Is this your subtle way of telling me that I should just go back home? Because
you
can handle it?” Jess asked, her voice low and furious. She wanted to yell. Wanted to scream at him.

“That's your choice.” He lowered his lashes, staring at her with a hooded gaze.

“Over my dead body.”

Straight black brows arched up, and he said, “Beg your pardon?”

Carefully and clearly, she said again, enunciating each syllable, “Over my dead body.” The arrogant jerk, she fumed. Thinking he would leave her out of this. “I oughta break that perfect nose of yours. Fucking jerk.”

He rocked back on his heels. “Okay. You want to tell me what the problem is?”

“You still think I should back off on this. Still think it's not my
problem
. You think you can ship me back home and you'll handle the dirty work. Bastard.” She snarled at him, balling her hands into fists. One good hard punch on that carved jaw, and she'd feel a lot better. It might break her hand, but she'd feel better.

Vax stood up slowly. He had that patient, consoling tone in his voice. The sound of it just made her more furious. “Jess, you really shouldn't be involved in this, not anymore. You've done enough. I know where to look. Let me handle this now. It's just too dangerous.”

“Dangerous. Gee, ya think? They
raped
my baby sister. They killed her. They threw her out like she was yesterday's trash, and all as a warning to me because they didn't like the questions I was asking. And you think I don't know they are dangerous?” She stomped over to him and pushed up onto her toes. She was still about three inches shorter than he was. Grabbing the black leather strip around his neck, she jerked him lower so that they were eye to eye. “I am
not
walking away from this until they have paid for what they did.”

Vax reached up, closing one hand around her wrist. Not to pull her hand away, though. He just held her wrist, his thumb sweeping back and forth across the soft skin on the inside. “You can't be involved in this, Jess. These aren't just a couple of perverts. Bad enough if they were. But they aren't human. They won't be working alone. If only half of what Kelsey suspects is true, then we're all in trouble. You aren't prepared for this.”

She narrowed her eyes. Without saying a word, she crossed the room and opened the door, stalking into her room. She could feel Vax watching her as she grabbed her gym bag out from under the bed and pulled it out. With barely restrained fury, she jerked the zipper down and reached inside. Jess wrapped her hand around the butt of the Browning. She pulled it out and jerked out the chamber, revealing one of the bullets.

It flashed in the light as she hurled it at Vax. Even to the naked eye, it didn't look like regular bullet. Those damn things had cost her an arm and a leg. The man who had sold them to her had said those bullets could bring down almost anything she might go hunting for. Or anybody. He'd smirked a little as he added that last part. He'd had a weird buzzing energy to him, that same weird kind of buzzing energy she'd felt around Dena.

Thinking back, Jess realized the dude had been some sort of shape-shifter. The bullets he'd sold her could bring down almost any creature imaginable.

Vax caught the bullet in midair and looked down at it. When he looked back up at her, he had an enigmatic look in his eyes. “Silver.”

“Silver.” She sneered at him. “You think I'm totally stupid? I may not be some all-powerful witch, but I am not just some helpless mortal. I knew there was something weird going on inside that club the very first time I got within a block of it. I could feel it. Feel
them
. I've known from the get-go that they weren't human.”

“So you think a gun loaded with silver bullets is going to protect you?” With a lightning-quick speed that made her head spin, he crossed the distance that separated them. She retreated, but he followed, backing her up against the wall. “These people can move like the wind, darlin'. They make me look slow. You don't actually think you can hold on to that gun, do you?”

A faint smile appeared on Jess's lips. “The gun wouldn't be my only weapon.” She concentrated hard, but never once took her eyes from his. As she saw the metal come into view, she said, “Why don't you turn around?”

He did, slowly.

That was when she saw his back. For a second, the blur of color didn't make sense to her eyes. Then she realized that his entire back, beginning just under his shoulder blades and disappearing under the waistband of his pants, was covered in tattoos. Feathers, to be exact. Finely detailed feathers, as though an artist had decided to use his back as a canvas.

She lifted her fingers to touch one of the feathers, but then she froze. His breath hissed out of him, and she slid out from behind him. The knife was pressing into his chest. Hard enough to pinch, not hard enough to draw blood.

“Leaving unguarded weapons around a telekinetic is a bad idea,” she whispered.

Vax reached up and closed his hand around the hilt of his knife. She let it go, letting him take it out of the air. When he looked at her, she met his gaze head-on. “Nice trick. And somebody decides to knock you out? That pretty head of yours might seem hard as a rock. But it isn't.”

“I know that. But I'm not the helpless little wallflower you seem to think. I may not be Mr. Indestructible, buddy, but I'm not helpless and I'm not stupid.” She shoved her hair back from her face. As she did, she realized her hand was shaking. She clenched it into a fist, feeling her neatly clipped nails biting into her palm. She squeezed a little more tightly, hoping it might help.

It didn't. She was still furious. Scared to death, too, but that wasn't going to stop her. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When she thought she might be able to speak without screaming at him, she said, “I will
not
let this go. Not until it's over.”

“And if it ends with you in a body bag?” A muscle jerked in his jaw, and his eyes darkened. His voice was rough.

“If that's the way it ends,” Jess murmured. She turned away from him and started towards the bed. Then she stopped and looked down. She was still holding the gun. The Browning fit into her hand nicely. It was the reason she had chosen it. It was neither too big nor too small. She had gone to the shooting range routinely and could hit the bull's-eye every time.

She dreamed of putting a bullet between the eyes of the men who hurt Randi. It was weird to think of it. Jess had done a series on the dangers of guns. Her parents had hated them. Jess hadn't cared for them. But she would use this one to kill.

Suddenly unable to look at it, she tucked it back inside her gym bag. “You say you know how it hurts to lose somebody, Vax. I haven't just lost somebody. I've lost everybody. When Mom and Dad died, I promised I'd take care of Randi. I failed. She's gone. I don't have anybody now. Just getting through the day takes everything I have. How much worse could it be if I don't make it through this?”

She heard a soft sound behind her and then his hands closed over her upper arms. He pulled her back against him and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You sound like that's exactly what you want.”

It bothered him. A lot. Vax held her close, breathing in the soft, clean scent of her hair. Words weren't something he usually wasted much time on, and right now that was bad. There had to be something he could say to make her understand how wrong this was. How dangerous.

Her hands covered his. She didn't cling to him, but she didn't push him away, either. “I wouldn't say that I want it—but it's not something I'm going run away from screaming, either.”

“You know what they did to your sister. They'll do the same to you—worse. She was a warning. If they get their hands on you…” Involuntarily his own hands tightened. It took a conscious effort to make them loosen. Slowly, he turned her around and cupped her chin in his hand. Vax stroked his thumb back and forth across her cheek, aware of how soft, how delicate her skin was.

She was strong—he had seen the muscles flex as she ran away from the were, and he had felt the power when she decked him. He didn't have to see her in action to know she knew how to fight. But there was no way to understand the sheer power that a vampire had, the speed that came so easily to a shape-shifter. If she fell into their hands, they'd tear her apart.

His voice was gritty as he said, “I have enough trouble sleeping at night. If something happens to you, I may never sleep again. Let this go. I'll make them pay for what they did to her, I swear. But please…”

The thick fan of her lashes lifted, and Vax stared into her jewel-bright eyes. “I'm sorry. But I can't. They have to pay for what they did to her—I can't let this go. I
have
to do this. Or I'll never sleep again.” She forced a weak smile. “Sleep isn't easy for me, either. Please, Vax…”

He felt the warm caress of air drift across his skin as she spoke. Felt his heart knot inside his chest. And he knew he couldn't tell her no. He should.

Dear God, he knew he should. And if she didn't willingly back away, he should force her. It would just take a few words, and Ms. Jessica Warren would find her tight little ass locked up in Excelsior. She'd be safe there.

Safe and secure.

And when the ferals that did this were dead, she'd be returned home.

But he couldn't do it.

Yes, he knew how much it hurt to lose somebody you loved. Knew that it was so much worse when grief was compounded by guilt. He'd been living with that kind of guilt for so long, he couldn't remember what life was like without its coloring his every waking moment.

Vax couldn't do that to her.

He closed his eyes. He draped his hands loosely around her neck, his thumbs resting just below the hollow of her throat. He could feel the pulse of life flowing through her. All the years he had spent Hunting made it all too easy to imagine that life cut short. In a harsh voice, he said, “If you do this, then you don't do anything alone. You stay by my side, period. You understand me?”

In a mocking drawl, she said, “Yes, sir.”

“Smart-ass,” he muttered. Then he kissed her. Hard.

His hands molded to her skull and held her still. His thumbs pressed against her jaw, and when her mouth opened, he pushed inside, taking in as much of her as he could, as quickly as he could. Her hands came up, gripping his wrists. They stood there like that, touching only where their mouths and hands met on each other. Their bodies didn't touch. He couldn't feel the ragged rhythm of her breathing and he couldn't feel the long, sleek lines of her body.

He wanted to. Vax had wanted just that from the first time he had laid eyes on her. Wanted to feel her naked and sweaty under him. He lifted his head and stared at her through slitted eyes. Her face was flushed. Her lips were wet and swollen, and the soft green of her eyes had darkened to a deep, mysterious shade that made him think of the forest.