Hunting Season (Aurora Sky (6 page)

Fane's lips twisted in thought. "No, I just happen to view life as a gift.”

Said the man dressed in black.

“So, you and Joss? Is that some kind of cosmic joke?”

Talk about yin and yang. Joss was about the gloomiest vampire I'd ever met. He looked like a sad and depressed Adrien Brody.

Fane was quiet a moment before answering, “Joss is my responsibility.”

I wanted to respond to that, but the light turned green and the moment I lifted my foot off the brake, the Jeep would roll backwards. The current balancing act was a bit more delicate. I gave the car gas while still on the brake. The engine revved. Better to jump the gun than roll into the car behind me. We lurched forward, but I didn't kill the engine, which brought a huge smile of triumph over my lips.

I waited until I'd made it home and parked before turning to ask Fane the question that had niggled at my brain the remainder of the drive.

“What about me? Do you feel like I'm you're responsibility?”

Fane tilted his head when he looked at me, his expression unreadable.

“That's not how I see you.”

I waited for more. How did he see me? But that's all he said. Sometimes it was the things left unsaid that drove me the craziest.

Fane jumped out of the Jeep. While he walked around the hood, I reached behind the seat for my jacket. I opened my door as Fane reached for the handle. He readjusted by resting his arm over the top of the door and leaned in.

“I'd say your car rehabilitation is complete.”

“Wonderful. Can I get out now?”

He had an unsettling way of invading my personal space. Maybe it was the European in him or maybe, like me, he felt the inexplicable cosmic pull between us.

Fane stepped aside and grinned as I slid out.

“Are you going to invite me in this time?” he asked, slipping his hand inside his front pocket.

I wished he wouldn't do that. From the corner of my eye, it looked like he was stuffing it down his pants.

It seemed rude to send him away when he'd spent the morning teaching me to drive the Jeep.

“Would you like to come in for a drink?”

Fane smiled slowly. “I thought you'd never ask.”

Now that the vamp was out of the bag, Noel had stocked our fridge with blood. She'd stuck one inside a small cooler that morning to deliver to Henry after school. I had yet to rip into one of the bags, but offering Fane a mug seemed like the hospitable thing to do.

He followed me to the kitchen dining area. I draped my coat over the back of a chair before setting a mug on the kitchen counter. Fane raised one eyebrow.

“You're not drinking?”

I shook my head. Sipping on blood still struck me as unnatural. What would happen if I started? I might go crazy and rip into all the bags. What next? Ripping off all of Fane's clothes? Blood increased my adrenaline. It was an aphrodisiac—one of the ways vampires got off during sex and foreplay. I did not need to be drinking blood around Fane.

At least he'd been around long enough to know how to control himself.

I filled the mug halfway, resealed the bag, and set it on the bottom shelf of the fridge.

“How long do I heat this up?”

Fane leaned over me to look inside the mug.

“Thirty seconds is good.”

I popped it into the microwave. The time on the digital clock showed five minutes to noon.

“Aren't you hungry?” Fane asked beside my ear.

Actually, I was. Now that the stress of driving was behind me, I felt more famished than usual.

“I'll make myself a sandwich,” I said.

I returned to the fridge and pulled out a jar of peanut butter and jelly, followed by two slices of bread, a plate, and a knife.

Fane tsked and shook his head slowly from side to side. “Jelly is a sad substitute for blood.”

The microwave beeped. I pulled out the mug and thrust it into Fane's hands.

“I'm not trying to substitute blood,” I said, returning to my sandwich assembly.

Fane slurped.

I turned and glared at him as he lowered the mug, revealing a wicked grin.

“Enjoying the blood?” I asked.

Rather than answer, Fane tipped the mug back and drank down the rest. Once finished, he set it on the counter and licked his lips.

“May I have seconds?”

I'd only managed to get peanut butter on one slice of bread.

“Since you asked so nicely,” I said, returning to the blood bag in the fridge.

I filled the mug a little more than halfway and heated it, but when I tried to hand it to Fane he shook his head and said, “That one's for you.”

Our eyes locked.

Fine, if Fane wouldn't take it, I'd set it on the countertop beside him. His eyes followed my movements.

“Why deny yourself the things you want most?” he asked.

I swallowed, which drew Fane's eyes to my throat.

Why did he have to torment me this way? Anger swelled inside me. Life was an ocean breeze for Fane Donado. I'd never met a person more comfortable inside his own skin. He drifted through life all Joe Cool, doing whatever he wanted. He was a globetrotter, a daredevil, a high school delinquent—whatever struck his fancy at the moment, the way I did now.

How long would that last before the next new experience beckoned him?

I shoved my plate aside, not bothering with the clumpy jelly, which reminded me too much of blood clots.

“I don't want the blood.”

Fane's eyes widened at my gruff tone.

I want you to want me forever
, I thought. Oh, what a sucker I was. If I let Fane have me, he'd ride me just like a motorbike over the rough and tumble desert then move on at the finish line. He'd said it himself; he'd try anything once.

Fane's eyebrows furrowed. “What's wrong?”

I took a step toward him.

“Do you believe in soul mates?” I asked.

Fane leaned forward. Without a moment's hesitation he answered, “I do now.”

I searched his face for signs of mockery. Fane gazed back. He didn't so much as blink as he stared into my eyes.

Screw, “You had me at hello.” Fane had me at, “I do.”

I lost it.

I went straight for his provoking lips. He stood steady even as I launched myself against his chest and wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled his head toward mine.

Once more, I was the girl on the public bus—the one wild with desire—unable to resist the pull of Fane's magnetism. I longed to lose myself in the moment. I expected his lips to split apart into a wide Cheshire grin, but his eyes widened in surprise.

Dread stabbed at my insides. Had I misread the signals? His earlier response?

For one tortuous second, humiliation appeared imminent until Fane seized me in his arms—embracing me as though answering a long-awaited question. Our lips met with a crushing force that spread warmth through my entire body. Kissing him was like coming home to my most happy memories.

Fane scooped me up into his arms. I wrapped my legs around him as he lifted me, my arms grasping his neck firmly. One glance at his fingers gripping my thigh and his leather bracelet was enough to make me squeeze him tighter.

Where Fane was concerned, I didn't need blood to go into an all-out lust frenzy.

I sucked greedily on his tongue, coaxing it inside my mouth. When Fane let out a deep, shuddering breath, I smiled without breaking contact.

He carried me out of the kitchen and backed me against the wall. His pelvis rocked against mine—push, push, push—as he kissed me roughly.

The relentless rubbing made me want to lose the clothes already and take it all the way.

I grabbed Fane by the shirt collar—breaking away only to gasp for breath between kisses.

“I've missed you,” Fane rasped, following his words with a blaze of kisses all up and down my neck.

I shuddered and squirmed between his abs and the rough wall. My body throbbed—begging for immediate gratification. I grabbed Fane by the butt cheeks and shoved his pelvis into mine. Fane inhaled sharply.

A deafening crash shattered the space around us. At first I thought we'd knocked over a vase, but there wasn't anything against the wall to break.

Fane's head snapped back—eyes wide and alert. I lowered my legs to the floor. They were still shaky. Fane, meanwhile, sprang to action. The muscles in his arms tightened, his nose lifted as though catching a scent right before he stormed down the hallway toward the front door.

5

Once my legs were stable, I hurried after Fane. He stopped in the entryway and stared down. There was a baseball-sized rock on the linoleum floor surrounded by shards of glass. Cold air streamed in through the splintered gash in the front windowpane.

Fane ripped the front door open by the handle. I had to peer around him to see into the street. All appeared quiet in the front yard.

Fane stepped outside and tramped across the lawn to his car. He stopped in front of the hood and just stared. With my heart lodged inside my throat, I made my way to the Pontiac. It took me a second before I noticed the front windshield had been cracked all across the front.

Web-like fractures splintered the entire window. The worst damage appeared over the driver's side with hairline cracks so dense they'd turned the glass white and all but obscured the steering wheel from sight.

It would have taken a solid object to cause that kind of damage. I looked on the ground, but didn't see anything. Maybe it had been a baseball bat or the same rock pitched through my windowpane.

My stomach dropped. A tingly sensation came over me like a sixth sense.

Valerie.
It had to be her.

She'd threatened Fane Saturday morning. How would she feel if she saw him parked outside my house two days later?

Two days later.

I shook my head. She'd been stabbed. Surely she wasn't already out roaming the streets of Anchorage. Giselle had left her in critical condition Saturday morning. Then again, she'd been rushed to base, where Melcher's white coats had a lightning-speed knack for bringing agents back from the almost-dead.

Fane's jaw clenched as he appraised the damage.

My stomach double-knotted.

Valerie—if it was her—couldn't have known we were kissing. But she would know Fane was inside.

As Fane moved away from the car, so did I.

Once we reached the porch, he waited for me to go inside first then looked up at the security cam as he followed me inside. “I need to borrow your laptop,” he said.

I nodded. “It's upstairs.”

As I skirted the broken glass, Fane said, “Be careful.”

Good thing neither of us had removed our shoes. I hopscotched my way over and around the jagged shards then hurried up the stairs to my room. My laptop was on top of my desk in sleep mode. I unplugged the power cord, closed the lid and clutched the machine against my side.

When I came back down the stairs, Fane had already begun picking up fragments of glass, which he tossed inside the trash bin we kept beneath our kitchen sink.

Cold air prickled my skin. Shutting the front door did little good blocking the chilly stream flowing through the gaping hole in the window. A shiver ran down my spine.

It's all in your head
, I chanted.
The cold is all in your head.

“Watch your step,” Fane said. “There's still glass everywhere.” He straightened up as I moved carefully around the glass to the other side of the hall. “I was just about to phone the window repairman.”

“I'll call the agency,” I said. “They'll cover the cost.”

Fane shook his head. “The less they're involved, the better.”

“What about your window?”

“I'll take it in for a replacement.”

I made my way through the land mine of shattered glass a second time to retrieve a hoodie from upstairs. When I returned, Fane made swift work of cleaning up the last of the glass with a broom and dustpan. He'd duct taped a black trash bag over the opening in the window.

I knew he was eager to look at the footage and appreciated the time he'd taken to patch up the entryway. I wanted to see it, too, though I wasn't in any rush. At the moment, a nameless hooligan had thrown a rock through my window. Once we watched the video feed, we'd have a face and, likely, a name.

There wasn't anything left with which to distract ourselves.

Fane had cleaned up and called the repairman. I'd turned down the thermostat and set up my laptop at the dining room table—pushing a second chair in front of the screen.

Fane and I took a seat side by side. His fingers reached forward and zipped over the keyboard. A security website appeared on the screen asking for a password, which Fane typed in rapidly. I liked watching his hands in motion. They looked very skilled. I suspected they'd be gentle but firm in taking off my clothes.

My face flushed. Fane leaned closer to the laptop and didn't seem to notice.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard. “What time would that have been?” he asked himself. “Ten, twelve minutes ago?” He peered at the time on the lower right corner of the screen, leaned back and entered a number on the screen.

“Here goes,” he said.

We both leaned forward.

The video feed showed the porch in front of the door vacant. It didn't capture the window. I held my breath waiting for someone to walk up and chuck a rock toward the house. A timer with seconds raced by beneath the video display. No one was there. Suddenly there was.

Valerie, dressed in skinny jeans and a beige sweater, walked up to the camera. She looked directly into the camera, at us, and flipped it off. Just as quickly, she pivoted and stormed away, disappearing from the screen.

I gripped my arm while waiting for the inevitable. It wasn't instantaneous like I'd expected. Maybe she'd gone off to smash up Fane's windshield first. Over a minute went by before the camera picked up the rock sailing past. If I hadn't seen the rock in the entryway, I might have mistaken it for a bullet, despite its size, as it blurred past in a flash of silver-gray.

Caught, red handed, or in this case, red haired.

“That stab wound certainly didn't slow her down,” I said.

Fane's fingers tightened into a fist.

He soon appeared on the footage bursting through the front door with a fierce scowl that matched the one on his face now.

Fane stopped the video feed and closed the screen of the security site.

“Do you think it's out of her system now?” I asked.

“Doubtful,” Fane replied.

Fane's hip suddenly rang. He stood up, pulled the phone out of his pocket, glanced at the screen and answered.

“What's going on?” He sounded serious. It wasn't a breezy, “Hey, what's happening” kind of what's going on.

I watched Fane curiously, but his gaze looked a million miles away.

“I'll be right there,” he said abruptly.

He jerked the phone from his ear and squeezed it so hard it looked like it would crack inside his fist.

“I have to go,” he said.

“What's going on?” I asked.

Fane shook his head, lips pushed out.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Joss.”

“Is he okay?”

Joss was gloomy, but he was the closest thing Fane had to family.

“He's fine.”

Okay. I waited for Fane to elaborate.

“The window repairman will be here in an hour or two. He has my credit card information. We'll talk later,” he said, heading toward the door. He stopped, spun around, and hurried back to me. Fane put his hands on my cheeks and kissed me hard. My heart fluttered. A second later, it was over. Fane turned his back and practically sprinted out the door.

I stared down the hallway after he'd gone, wondering what the heck had just happened—not just with the vandalism and phone call, but with us.

I suddenly felt weak and shaky in the hungry sense. I remembered the blood on the kitchen counter. Getting it back into the bag without staining the counter would be nearly impossible. I could stick the mug in the fridge. Or I could stop kidding myself and drink the damn thing.

Why fight nature?

Once the front window had been replaced, I retreated to my bedroom and sat at my desk, the start of an English paper open on my laptop and my hoodie zipped to my chin. Try as I might, it was a little hard to concentrate on homework after Valerie's surprise attack.

Who was I kidding?

My concentration had blown out the window long before she threw the rock. It had shattered the moment my lips touched Fane's.

Then there was the other issue. I had trouble seeing myself sticking around long enough to complete a college degree.

There was still the question of what I would do once free of Melcher. How would I support myself? I had no skills, no experience that mattered in the real world. How many companies were looking to hire ex-vampire hunters? None that I'd be interested in.

Maybe I could get a fresh start in another country or state—another do-over to add to my list.

I wasn't really in the mood to be alone. I tried streaming music online, but it only made the house seem emptier.

Shortly after eight o'clock, I heard the front door open and close, which gave me a brief start. I'd been so caught up in my own thoughts, combined with online radio, I hadn't heard anyone pull up.

“Noel?” I yelled from the stairs. I was pretty sure it was her, but these days I could never be sure.

“Yeah,” she called back. “I picked up a pizza if you're interested.”