Page 6 of Bullets and Blood (Hunting Hearts #1)

Chapter Five

Nix closed off the cash register and put the money in the safe. The restaurant would be running until much later, but he was done. He let the smile he’d forced for the last few hours fade. Orlan’s visit had left him chilled, and he’d formed no escape plan.

He’d had no time to think because of the busload of tourists. There was no way he could stay in Whispering River now. That he’d come to think of it as home was his mistake. Nowhere was home anymore. Nowhere was safe.

In the growing dark, he rode to his place.

In another month, he’d be riding in full dark, not that it bothered him—if anything, he preferred the dusk and night to blinding daylight.

His legs ached, the ride taking forever as the wind pushed against him.

Usually, he liked riding and being lost in his own thoughts; today, he kept glancing around and wondering if Orlan was lying in wait. Or was that more his own style?

He didn’t know anything about the unblooded vampire.

He parked his bike against the granny flat he rented, went up the steps, and stopped. A warning traced down his back. His hand hovered over the door handle, and he sniffed, needing to be sure.

Orlan had been to his home. The scent was old, so he wasn’t waiting. Nix snarled, his fangs flicking forward from the roof of his mouth. A thousand curses on the Orlans. May their line wither in the sun.

He shoved open the door, expecting the worst, but everything was as exactly as he’d left it. Not a wrinkle in the bed sheets. Even the clothes on the armchair were just so. Nix’s snarl became a smile.

Damn. Orlan was good.

He ran his hand behind the wall-mounted TV. The small stiletto blade was still there. There was a small hunting knife in his boot that he never went anywhere without. He cast his gaze around the room, looking for signs of disturbance.

The pen in the kitchen had been moved.

He didn’t care about the knife behind the TV or the silver wire in the pocket of a coat.

Or even the pen. He dropped to his knees by the bedside table.

A little block of a thing attached to the headboard.

The drawers couldn’t be taken out—had people stolen drawers in the past?

He pulled out the bottom drawer as far as it would come and then awkwardly reached his hand into the cavity.

A gap between the drawer and the base of the table, just enough space to hold a few documents.

His fingers brushed the bag, and he pulled it out.

Cash and the postcard he’d received from Zinnia when he’d been in Darwin.

He was pretty sure she hadn’t been in Tasmania when she’d sent it.

There’d been an innocuous message about enjoying her holiday, but she’d signed off with a red heart.

He’d come to Perth after that, and the Reids had let him run all the way to Whispering River.

Why had they given permission for an Orlan to follow?

Or was that them claiming to be impartial?

Either way, the game was up.

He fisted the bag, knowing he needed to run but unable to move. He’d let himself start making plans for a future he wasn’t entitled to. He’d thought he’d be safe from the Orlans.

“Fuck them all.” He was entitled to a goddamn life.

He’d never wanted to be part of the feud.

But he’d been dragged in the day he’d turned eighteen.

No university for him. Guns didn’t need an education.

Zinnia had gotten a business degree, so she was ready to take over.

He sat and leaned against the bed, his head tipped back to stare at the ceiling.

His vision blurred, and he blinked and sniffed.

His whole room stank of unblooded vampire and Orlan’s deodorant.

This was bullshit.

The Orlans had won. They’d killed everyone except Zinnia and him. Couldn’t they just fuck off and leave him in peace?

Anger simmered in his blood. For several heartbeats, he was tempted to go hunting, starting with the man who’d found him, then he’d return to Melbourne and kill them all. He exhaled. His hands were still clenched in fists.

Then he’d be just as bad as them. He couldn’t wash any more blood from his hands.

There was no good reason, no righteous order that had best be followed.

Nothing could convince him to kill again.

He dragged in a breath, not knowing what to do, only that if he ran, he’d be running forever, and he couldn’t do it.

Running meant surviving, but that wasn’t a life. It was barely existing.

Orlan hadn’t killed him at the winery.

He hadn’t waited for him to get home or set a trap.

Nix was very much alive and unharmed. Which only complicated things.

Carefully, Nix packed away the documents and closed the drawer. He needed a plan since Orlan clearly had one, and Nix couldn’t think on an empty stomach.

He pulled what was left of the beef out of the fridge.

He hated it cold, much preferring it at room temperature or warmer, but he was hungry enough not to care.

He took a bite of the raw meat before sitting down at what was euphemistically called the breakfast bar.

It was a small overhang with room for two stools.

He licked his fingers clean while he chewed, savoring the blood in his mouth, and dragged the notepad closer to see what was written there.

He read the numbers and almost forgot how to swallow.

He coughed and took off the glasses that he didn’t need, but his eyes hadn’t lied. There was a phone number on the paper.

His friendly stalker had turned up at work, tossed his place, and left his number.

How cute. He tore off the paper, tossed it toward the trash, and missed.

For several minutes, he concentrated on shoving raw beef into his face and getting enough blood and meat into him to get him through the next twenty-four hours.

He’d have to bite something or someone soon and get a decent feed.

He’d promised no biting of people, and he didn’t want to break his work to the Reids.

Nix’s gaze drifted to the crumbled paper on the floor. He could call. He had a cheap phone, and every time the credit ran out, he got a new SIM card. He’d keep the call short and change the sim earlier. He was already in trouble, so what did it matter if he spoke to Orlan?

He put the last piece of beef in his mouth, then picked up the paper with his clean hand.

He read the number and committed it to memory before dropping the paper in the bin.

There were many reasons he shouldn’t talk to Orlan, but none of them mattered.

They weren’t in Melbourne. There weren’t territory or trade routes to protect. And Orlan wasn’t even a full vampire.

Even if Orlan didn’t have a gun with a silver bullet, Nix’s name had been etched on one since he’d been born. It had always been a matter of when not if. Vampires didn’t get old enough to age, at least not in his family. His brothers were dead, their lives extinguished by this war.

Nix pulled his phone out of his pocket and typed in the number, then he set the timer on the microwave for thirty seconds and hit dial at the same time.

The phone rang twice before it was picked up.

“Hadley,” he said, his gaze on the clock.

“I want to meet. No weapons.”

Why? But Nix was curious enough to play along. “You’ll be alone?”

“Yes.”

Nix weighed that statement for three seconds and decided it was worth the risk.

“Where are you staying?” He didn’t want the humans who lived in the main house at the front to get caught up in the war if this went badly.

Orlan gave the name of the swanky hotel and a room number, and Nix hung up. Eight seconds left on the clock. He breathed out, and the timer beeped.

His heart was beating too hard for a simple call.

Orlan wanted to talk.

The last time there’d been peace talks, it had ended with blood on the floor and an outbreak of hostilities eventually leading to the attack on his family home.

He screwed his eyes shut, refusing to think of it even though he could still hear the hiss of bullets and feel the bite of metal in his leg.

If he did nothing, he’d be hunted down. If he met with Orlan, he might be walking into a trap, or it might honestly be a talk—he’d seen the way Orlan had smiled at him. And he could kick himself for smiling back. But for a few moments, there had been something other than hate.

The edges of a plan started to form. Desire was just another weapon, one that didn’t leave a physical wound.

Fine, he’d meet with Lance. They were on the other side of the country, well beyond the reach of the Orlan matriarch. Perhaps they could work something out. He could sacrifice a finger or even a fang to send her, so she thought he was dead.

He showered and changed and put on the coat with the garotte in the pocket and slipped the stiletto blade into the sheath against his wrist. He’d watch Orlan disarm before he did.

He wasn’t still alive because he trusted blindly.

On a whim, he grabbed a bottle of wine—a peace offering or a club depending on what happened and placed it in the basket of his bike.

The streets were still busy, but the heat was gone from the day.

Autumn’s chill was starting to creep in with the dark.

He rode through the streets, darting around cars, his reflexes faster than a human’s.

In the dark, he was freer. There’d been a time when he’d have sneered at riding a bike anywhere, but back then, he’d had a driver and access to the family pool of cars.

He’d grown to love the freedom of riding to the beach at night to surf alone on the breaks.

No one gave him a second glance on his bike, and more importantly, there was no documentation required to own a bike. He didn’t need the hassle of a stolen car when he was trying to vanish—not that it mattered now. He stopped at the hotel and chained his bike.