Page 10

Yep, I was going to Hell.

“I don’t like him. Something feels off about his arrival at the school.”

Nodding, I immediately agreed, guilt tightening around my throat like the strong hand of punishment. “I can’t argue it’s all a bit suspicious. But he can’t be a vampire. He was out in daylight.”

“There are other things out there, V. Worse things.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I said softly, sliding closer to the bush.

After discovering werewolves existed, I didn’t chalk up every human theory to an overactive imagination. Sure, we hadn’t really met anything else and the Organization didn’t really talk about creatures that weren’t vampires, but it was clear otherthingswere out there. It was up to me to figure out which ones and whether or not they were bad news.

Until then, it was business as usual.

Currently, we were staking out the area due to high reports of a vampire. It was an hour before full dark, so the bastard would be coming out any time now.

Catching a vamp before a drink was just smart hunting. Vampires were at their weakest when they hadn’t fed. And this one was supposed to be older, so it’d take the genius minds of two vampire killers to take it down, even weakened.

A branch snapped and both of us stiffened, alert.

Vampires sort of ghosted across the floor, which made hunting them down nearly impossible by sound. Scent and sight were mostly what Hunters used. So a snapped branch could mean one of two things: it was an innocent civilian just in the wrong place at the right time, or an animal.

Nigel was already gone, off the direction the sound had come from to ascertain which of the two it was. Random civilians made our job a hundred times harder, and it was better to get ahead of them and derail their path than to let them stroll right into the demon’s den.

The hair at the back of my neck stood up, and before I could react, I was locked against a hard body with a hand over my mouth. Biting, I tasted nothing but thick leather and groaned in silent dismay. Whoever it was, they were clever enough to wear protective gloves.

“What is a little girl doing out here all by herself?”

I knew that voice.

Eyes wide, I turned my head far enough to catch sight of a set of beaming blue eyes and a smirk I’d only just calmed down from. “Mr. Smith?”

With a crossbow on his shoulder and a large claymore strapped to his back, Mr. Smith didn’t look like he was out for a midnight stroll through the woods—and he definitely wasn’t dressed like an innocent civilian.

His leather jacket creaked when he finally released me. Moonlight rained down from above to cast his bad boy shadow in a way that put my heart into instant unrest. A hooped circle hung out of his nose, and the neck tattoos that covered his chest were exposed by a low-hanging top. His dark hair was gelled back in smooth waves and dark eyeliner coated the top and bottom parts of his eyes.

Was he wearing makeup?

Badass.

He was decked out in nothing but militia-grade weaponry, suggesting the ex-convict theory was probably not a far-off guess. But the ancient medieval sword and bottles of holy water fitted into little pockets along his belt said otherwise. Without looking farther than a sharp stake holstered in his crossbow, it was evident Mr. Smith was another vampire hunter.

But was he from the Organization?

Identifiers were never carried with us on a mission, so nothing could be traced back to the Organization. We took care to keep those in a special place to identify ourselves to other Hunters. But normally, I was given intel when other Hunters passed through our town.

Grams hadn’t said a word about another Hunter.

“V, isn’t it a little past your bedtime?”

Before I could answer, Phillip was grabbed around the collar. As if he expected it, he quickly dominated my partner by pinning Nigel to the ground with both arms locked behind his back. The speed suggested our kind, because it wasn’t human. Matching a shifter like Nigel wasn’t easy, and the strength Mr. Smith put into the hold also wasn’t human.

Nigel grunted and growled angrily, the shirt he wore distorting in a way that suggested he may shift into a wolf at any moment. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Same as you. Hunting. I’m a bit surprised to see you out here with her and not watching from afar. Isn’t that what good little puppies should do for their masters?”

Jerk.

Nigel snapped his jaw shut, fuming eyes aimed at me.