Page 5

If not for being immobilized by surprise, I would’ve complained I was able-bodied enough to walk myself.

“And if not for tonight, probably would’ve stayed that way. Here, at least.”

I swallowed around my surprise before realizing what knowing his secret as a vampire hunter meant. “So...I imagine you’ll have to kill me, then?”

“Kill you?”

He appeared to be genuinely surprised.

“Since I know your secret,” I argued.

It almost sounded like I thought killing me was the only option. Not really the argument of a sound woman, so I conveniently blamed the head injury.

“After doing all that to save you?” Nigel countered with a husky laugh. “Seems awfully backwards if I saved you only to kill you afterwards. I even ensured the human the vampire attempted to kill was stowed away somewhere safe. I’ll do you one better; I’ll make sure he makes it home.”

The dude with the head bash!

His wink was lost to me as my job description reared its ugly head. I’d all but forgotten about the victim caught in the evil clutches of an old-ass vampire.

“Well, that was nice of you and all, but you and your kind...” I struggled to piece a sentence together, mouth moving lazily after my injury settled into a steady throb.

“Fight for the same things that Hunters do,” he interjected as I helplessly ignored how much I felt like a girl being carried in his arms. “Don’t be fooled. The Organization and Hunters already know about us. Since we don’t cause each other trouble, I guess it sort of serves us both to stay out of each other’s way, right?”

That actually made perfect sense.

When I asked my grandmother why vampires existed but nothing else, she only smiled and shrugged. Maybe that was her way of acknowledging it without saying anything. Though, she told me that every vampire hunter should gather their own account of the world; that I shouldn’t rely on others to tell me what was or wasn’t true.

A true Hunter used their mind and their heart to do the job. No matter what, we made our own choices.

Grandma Rose always did have a sneaky way of evading my questions.

“So, a werewolf,” I whispered.

“Does it change things for you?”

Sat on the passenger seat of my car, the one that hadn’t been brutalized in the fight, I was given a real chance to look at my savior, only to realize a second later Nigel wasn’t wearing any clothes.

I turned my head, hoping to give him privacy but earning myself another hard throb. Groaning, I held my head and waited out the echo of pain.

Nigel took my hands and knelt down in front of me. “I already knew...”

“Knew?”

“You were a vampire hunter.”

Well, now him showing up makes more sense.

“For how long?”

“Since your Grandma Rose asked me to keep an eye on you,” he offered, smiling.

That wily old fox!

“I’d say I was surprised, but that sounds like something she’d do. So, for how long? How long have you been my personal stalker?”

Nigel’s face expressed just how entertaining he found my exhausted grumbling. “I’ve been your faithful shadow for quite some time. Until tonight, I never felt the need to step in,” Nigel said with a knowing smile.

“Yeah, that bastard was one old-ass mofo, and strong as all get-out. It’s not often that I feel the breath of death on my face, but I definitely felt it tonight,” I rambled, keeping my eyes effectively pinned to his face and not his naked bottom half.