I offer out my hand again. “We’re here now, and if I have my way, it’ll be the two of us at the top of the food chain.”
Grabbing my hand and giving it a shake, Dav says, “Mind the hunter, something’s off about him. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it in my bones.”
When I pull my hand back and nod, he pulls a cellphone out of his pocket. “We also found this on him. Nothing else. No wallet, no keys. Only the phone and the bag of his trade.”
I can smell it too. Something is off, but what?
“When you’re asking him questions, make sure you pull up his shirt,” Dav says, then nods to his men.
Once the pack is gone, my men move the hunter to a chair. Securing him with duct tape and chains.
When I nod my head at Raphael, he rips the hood off the man.
Gagged with an old gym sock, the hunter blinks his eyes up at me.
Sweat gleams across his forehead and a weird smell oozes out of his pores. He smells of… something…
Something that churns my stomach.
“Cut his shirt off,” I say to Matthias as I continue to look at the silent hunter.
His eyes are full of rage, like a madness has set in. The veins in his arms bulge as he tries to break free from the chains that bind him. Is it insanity? Religious zealotry? Could his devotion cause him to smell so foul?
Matthias gags. “What the fuck did he do? Ingest a can of fart spray?”
Looking at the others, I ask, “Do you smell him?”
Ambrose stops dancing long enough to say, “He smells of anthrax gone wrong. He is a poor substitute for any meal. He has eaten something very, very naughty.”
When the hunter’s shirt comes off, I stare at the tattoo on his chest. “Aw, you have your club’s little symbol. How vogue and unique. Not that it will serve as any sort of protection, mind you.”
My words may be glib, but that symbol reminds me of the hospital, the blood loss, and the senseless death of Chloe’s mother.
Grabbing one of the knives from the hunter’s bag, I slash it twice across his chest. Blood weeps instantly from his wounds, and it’s like whatever he’s been consuming oozes out of him.
It’s her!
It’s Chloe’s very essence.
This close to him, I can smell the perversion of his blood.
Her essence and his intermingling.
“What the fuck?” Raphael gasps as he backs away from the vile abomination.
“He’s ingested her blood,” I whisper in terror.
Andrei retches. “He’s a fucking human.”
A shrill ring blasts through the room and the hunter’s cellphone vibrates across the table I set it on.
The hunter’s eyes widen in terror for only a moment, but it’s long enough for me to know that the phone is a weakness.
I allow the call to go to voicemail.
The hunter may have been trained by the Order to be firm and stoic, but it’s not hard for me to notice the way his body sags slightly in relief.
Smirking through my rage—he’s tasted my beloved, he’s tasted my fated fucking mate—I look at him and pick up the phone.
As I suspected, it rings again from the same number.
I accept the call and remain silent.
“Isaac, where are you?” Chloe asks.
The relief I feel at hearing her voice is so all-encompassing I almost miss her repeating his name.
“Chloe, you have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” I say into the phone.
I hear the shocked gasp of her breath escaping her lungs.
Looking out the window, the sun is setting quickly in the east.
I grin.
It’s time to go.
Fifteen
Chloe
I startle awake. Adrenaline pumping, muscles poised to react…
To my empty bathroom.
Blinking my eyes, I lift my chin from my knees and push through the stiffness in my neck to turn my head. Searching for whatever it was that disturbed me.
But there’s nothing there.
The water is still dripping steadily from the faucet, and sunlight is streaming through the curtains. My phone is on the floor, upside down, where I dropped it.
Nothing is out of place.
I’m completely alone.
It must have been a dream.
Sagging with relief, I let out a breath.
He’s not here. He didn’t somehow break in while I slept.
Letting my lashes lower, I begin to ease into sleep once again, but then I remember I can’t stay here. I need to get up. I need to move.
Who knows how much time has passed? How much time I’ve already wasted?
Jolting again, I open my eyes and look to the window, studying the sunlight. Given how weak it is, it must still be early morning.
Which means I only passed out for a few minutes.
Thank God.
There’s still plenty of time to plan my escape. There’s still plenty of daylight left to get to another city.
Unwrapping my arms from around my legs, I grimace and grunt a little as I push up to my feet. Slapping my palm against the tile, I give myself a second to let the pain vibrating through my bones to fade away.