Changed (The Hunters #1) (3 page)

“
Yikes! What have you
done?” Valerie burst out when Rosa entered the infirmary of the
academy.

Rosa didn’t live in the academy any
more. She had her own flat in the middle of Boston. She visited the
academy only for her training, or if the Master called her
in.

Rosa locked the door behind
her. “What do you think I’ve done?” she asked as she sat down on
the bed.

Valerie wasn’t a hunter; she worked as
just a normal nurse. She was small and had short, pink colored
hair. Valerie was often happy. Rosa had seldom seen her in a bad
mood. Valerie was one of Rosa’s only girlfriends. Most of Rosa’s
friends were boys, because girls at her age were simply too
childishly and immature. They had not seen how life could be. Rosa,
with her only nineteen-years-old, had seen it. She had experienced
it already when she was seven-years-old.

“
Today was my final exam,
and I had to fight against two half-demons,” Rosa reported to
Valerie. Valerie sighed and came with her association suitcases to
Rosa.

“
Ah, Rosa, someday you’re
going to kill yourself,” she said. Valerie was just like Colin,
always worried about her.

“
Valerie, you don’t have to worry. Nothing will happen to me,”
Rosa answered and took off her ripped top. Three long, deep cuts
stretched around her breast, and down to her belly. The injury had
destroyed her tattoo, to her dismay. What had once been,
“
Just Live
¸” was
now to be read as “
st
Live”
— the
J
and the
U
had been scratched away by the
claws of the half-demons.

Rose sighed sadly. She had loved that
tattoo. Her love of tattoos was so huge that she already had ten
tattoos on her skin.

Now, with one of her tattoos destroyed
by one of these damned half demons, it only strengthened her hatred
for the shadow creatures.

Valerie took a cloth and disinfected
it. “Many hunters have said that, Rosa. Look what happened to them;
half of them lie in a grace,” she said as she led a cloth to her
wounds.

“
Now this will burn a
little,” she warned Rosa.

It did burn. Rose clenched her teeth
as it felt as if Valerie held fire on her skin.

“
You know that I’m better
than the others,” Rosa gasped out in pain. She bit violently on her
lower lip until the taste of blood filled her mouth.

“
Yes, I know. However,
this doesn’t change the fact that you could be killed,” Valerie
answered.

“
I don’t care! I will kill
them, nevertheless.”

Valerie stopped trying to disinfect
the wounds, and looked Rosa in the face, allowing Rosa to recognize
the worry clearly visible in her eyes.

“
It is because of what had
happened, right? Because of that, you’re obsessed with killing
them.”

Rosa never spoke of the day that had
changed her life—the day that made her into the person she is now,
that engraved in her brain, and that always reminded her of what
her job was—the day when an archangel had murdered her father right
before her eyes.

Except Valerie, Colin and the master,
nobody knew about this day. Not even her mentor,
Christian.

The master had housed her and raised
her. She knew she was not only his student. She was more than that.
She was his niece. However, he didn’t difference her from the
others. He treated all his students equal. It was only sometimes
that he would show her affection as her uncle.

Rosa owed him a lot.

“
Yes, it because of that
day,” Rosa answered annoyed.

Valerie laid her hand on
her kneel. “Rosa, revenge isn’t good.”

She groaned, “Valerie, stop. I cannot
hear it anymore.”

Valerie sighed, “Yes, okay. No one can
teach you anything anymore.” Then she returned to her supplies to
continue cleaning Rosa’s wounds. There was a knock on the door and
Colin came in.

“
Hey, Val,” Colin welcomed
her and sat down beside Rosa on the treatment table.

“
Hi, Colin,” she answered
as she kept busy with her work. She started to sew the wounds, and
every time piercing pain gripped Rosa, she bit down on her lip to
hide it.

Colin looked at her breast.
Rosa didn’t pay him any mind—she wasn’t ashamed that Colin saw her
in her bra, because she knew that Colin was not interested in her
or her body. He was gay. With his blond hair, ocean-blue eyes, and
brown skin, he didn’t look gay at all.

When Rosa saw him for the first time,
his beauty had impressed her; however, she never wanted anything
from him. Rosa never wanted to start a relationship with a boy.
Many boys were interested in her, but she was not interested in
them. Rosa was glad she didn’t need to worry about the possibility
of ever being more than friends.

Nobody except for Rosa and Valerie
knew that Colin was gay. If the master found out it, he would throw
Colin out of the clan.

To the master, gay boys were weak.
Rosa didn’t see it the same way as he did, of course. She had
nothing against gays. Rosa found them better than she found
straight boys. Gays were much more sensitive and nicer.

“
Does it hurt?” Colin
asked her.

Rosa shook her head, “No, it doesn’t
hurt.”

“
Don’t believe her, Colin.
She would say that even if she were burned alive. Right, Ice
Princess?” Valerie replied. Rosa had to smile.

“
I don’t believe her,”
Colin said as he pinched Rosa. She winced.

“
Hey! That hurt,” she
said, slapping him on the arm

“
Ouch! And that also
hurt.” He rubbed his arm.

“
Rosa,” Valerie warned and
threw her a look. “Stay still. Otherwise, I can’t sew your
wound.”

“
Oh, now Doc is angry,”
said Colin. Rosa smiled broadly.

Valerie threw them another dirty look,
but said nothing.

“
When will you be
finished?” Rosa asked Valerie.

“
In a moment,” Valerie
answered.

“
So, now you must kill
only one of the Nephilim, and you are a full member,” said Colin.
Rosa nodded.

She had passed her test, while she had
killed the shadow creatures. Now she had to kill a Nephilim to
become a full member. She was ready for her next task. Every time
she thought about it, her adrenalin would rise.

“
I
am
very
excited
that I get to kill a Nephilim. I can’t wait,” Rosa
said.

Valerie looked at her with a furrowed
brow. “You are the first girl that I ever met who found it exciting
to kill a person.”

Rosa
shrugged. “I won’t kill a person. I will kill a
Nephilim
. They are not humans.
Besides, I have to clear something personal with
them.”

Valerie did the last stitches and put
the needle in the reservoir to disinfect it later.

“
Finished,” she said. Rosa
glanced down at her breast, noticing the three ugly
wounds.

“
Will I have scars?” Rosa
asked.

“
I think so. But if you
don’t move so often and don’t open the stitches, there won’t be any
extremely visible scars,” Valerie answered.

“
But there will be
scars?”

Valerie looked at her with
an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, but yes.”

As her anger rose, she hastily put on
her ripped shirt.

“
Rosa, is everything all
right?” Colin asked her.

“
Yes,” she returned
irritated. Colin and Valerie knew that they shouldn´t press
further. They had done it once, and it had not ended well. Rosa had
let her fury run free and shouted at them both. Since then, both
would leave Rosa alone when she was irritated.

“
Rosa ...” Colin
said.

Rosa shook her head. “Not now Colin,”
she answered and disappeared from the space.

Colin looked at Valerie worried. “What
should we do with her?” Colin asked.

Valerie sighed. “I wish I knew,
Colin.”

Rosa walked through the old-fashioned
hall of the academy. The hall was large and had many doors on every
side, which were the rooms of the hunters. As Rosa passed the door,
her anger snapped, and she kicked a door. She was furious. If the
half demon had lived, Rosa would have killed him twice.

“
Well, what do we have
here? Our Ice Princess,” said a voice behind her. Rosa stopped. She
didn’t need to turn round to know to whom the voice with the
mocking undertone belonged. She would recognize it
anywhere.

Rosa sighed and then turned round.
“What do you want, Stewart?” she asked annoyed.

Shane Stewart stood before her with
his arms crossed and a mocking grin on his face. Shane was in
Rosa’s group, and also had his final examination completed. He too
still had to kill a Nephilim. Furthermore, he was the heart breaker
of the whole hunter clan.

His hair was brown and he had deep
green eyes—he got every girl that he wanted. He also came from a
rich family, which only made him more attractive to the girls. If
they were honest with themselves, they would recognize that Shane
was an asshole. Rosa didn’t know how he had become a hunter. Shane
only had parties, girls and alcohol in the head—nothing else.
Certainly, he had become a hunter because his family had money and
taken him there.

Rosa simply didn’t understand girls.
They knew that Shane was an asshole, and still got involved with
him—and this was the reason she didn’t have many
girlfriends.

Shane took a step closer to her. “And
how was your final exam, Petrova?” he asked.

“
Why do you care?” Rosa
asked.

Shane grinned wide. “Our
Ice Princess is bitchy today.”

Most in the academy called Rosa “Ice
Princess,” because she never showed her feelings or interest for
anyone. She had repeatedly rebuffed everyone.

Rosa felt her anger only continue to
increase. She could not, and did not want to talk to
Shane.

“
What do you want, Shane.
I need to go home,” Rosa said.

He took another step toward
her. “I just wanted to ask how you feel, and how your final exam
was.”

She gave him a cool look. “Shane, you
just want me wrapped around your finger so you can kiss me—just
like you do to every other girl.”

Shane looked at her as if he was
shocked, but she knew that he was not serious. “You’re always
ascribing bad things to me, Rosa. That’s not very nice.” The
mocking smile he had worn when he first started talking to her
grew. “And would it be so bad to kiss me, Rosa?” He let his eyes
wandered over her body.

Shane’s gaze stopped at her breast. As
her top was torn, he could see a part of her chest and her
bra.

“
Rosa, you make me wild,”
he said, staring at her with a look that clearly lusted after more
than a kiss.

That was too much for her.

Rosa grabbed his arm and twisted it
behind his back. He groaned in pain as Rosa slammed him against the
wall, pushing her knee into the hollow of his back.

Instead of defending himself, Shane
smirked.

“
Rosa, you are more and
more attractive every day, you know?”

She snorted. “You know, Shane, what I
hate even more than our enemies?” she asked.

“
What?”

“
You.”

“
Ouch.”

“
Shane, just leave me
alone. I am not like the others bitches here. I have no interest in
you, or your mouth. Just leave me in alone,” she said.

He laughed. “Rosa, you’re just a hot
bride.”

Rosa sighed. You could tell an idiot
whatever you wanted until you were blue in the face, and they would
still never understand. Shane was an idiot.

She let go of his arm.

“
Shane, you are an idiot,”
she said as she walked past him.