She wanted to be strong?
I could help her.
She wanted to be brave?
I could make her fearless.
She wanted to get revenge for the deaths of her friends?
She take her anguish out on my cock.
I wanted her, and I was going to have her, but maybe it could wait. Maybe it didn’t need to be tonight. I sighed, shaking my head. I was getting anxious, and I was going to be caught if I made hasty choices. I couldn’t think with my cock this time. I had to think with my brain. I wanted the human girl more than an
ything else in the world, but the timing had to be right.
Raven was correct. Tonight wasn’t a good night for it, but I’d keep watching because soon...
Soon I was going to take my mate.
3.
Kimberly
It was three days before I saw Raven again. I spent my days sleeping and my nights prowling around town, trying to save people from the creatures who liked to creep around. I had never considered myself much of a vigilante before my friends died. Still, I didn’t really think of myself as any sort of savior. It was just that hunting was the thing I was best at, and I was able to make a living doing it.
I had a little office where I met clients a few times a week. People would come in and ask me to take care of a monster that had been terrorizing their trailer park or their suburban street. Always, the story was the same.
“We don’t know where the vampires are coming from.”
“We’re tired of our dogs being eaten in the night.”
“One of them broke into the house. It was a bloodbath.”
There weren’t just vampires. There were werewolves, too, but those were more rare. It wasn’t often that a werewolf just wandered around and killed someone. Werewolves needed to have some sort of external motivation to risk exposing themselves. For vamps, blending in was easier. They looked human, and they had been, once upon a time.
I always charged my clients half up front and half after the clean-up had taken place. I was one of the freelance hunters who killed on my own time. I was picky about the jobs I took. I liked saving people. I didn’t want to be a murderer.
My friends, back in the day, had all been contract hunters, too. We’d worked as a team to clean up our city and to make it a safer place. Megan and Jacob had been thinking about having a kid, after all. They didn’t want to bring a baby into a world where everything kind of sucked. That had been good motivation to keep going.
When I walked into the bar on the third night, Raven was waiting. Now that I knew she was a vampire, I wondered how I couldn’t tell before. She was wearing the same clothes she used to wear before, but she looked...prettier, somehow.
She wasn’t as dirty as she’d been when she was a hunter.
“Has anyone told you that you clean up nice?” I asked, sliding onto the barstool beside her.
“As a matter of fact,” she said. “Someone has.”
“What?” I asked, looking at her sharply.
“Someone thinks I clean up nice.”
So, she had someone. She’d found someone. Who? Where? I had so many questions, but Raven was a private sort of person. She wasn’t going to tell me a damn thing until she was good and ready. Me asking her now was going to do nothing but make her clam up.
“I’m glad you found someone who can appreciate you,” I said carefully.
She raised an eyebrow. She had makeup on tonight, and her eyebrows looked like they’d been waxed or plucked. Her cheeks had a soft pink tint to them. Blush? Was Raven wearing blush? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn makeup or perfume. I didn’t wear anything that could attract a vampire to me. I didn’t want anyone to look twice at me, much less spend any time thinking about me.
“You didn’t ask me who it is,” she pointed out. “You’re being on your best behavior, aren’t you?”