Page 8 of Bullets and Blood (Hunting Hearts #1)

Chapter Six

Lance sipped his wine and tried not to think about the mistake he’d made by agreeing to the truce.

His aunt would be livid. She’d never blood him if she found out that he was drinking wine with a Hadley—he’d rather be drinking beer—but she wouldn’t find out.

What was another two weeks when it had already been six months?

He’d hated it at first. It felt as if he’d been sent off on a wild goose chase. Then he’d grown to love it. The search for clues, the travel and the freedom.

While he knew it would have to end, and he’d have to return to Melbourne and his family, he wanted a few more weeks. He hoped Hadley ran so he could chase.

“Me? You know everything about me. You stalked across the country. Came to my work, my house. What else is there to know?” Nixon ran his thumb over the rim of the glass. “But I know nothing about you. You’re unblooded. Why?”

Every time Hadley opened his mouth to talk, his fangs were visible. The sight of them made his pulse kick up and his dick harden. By the time most people saw a vampire’s fangs, they were about to be dinner or dead.

He was neither.

The bite on Lance’s thumb pulsed in time with the beat of his heart.

Hadley had sucked on the bite for a moment.

He’d only drawn away because it felt too good, and he wasn’t sure he was supposed to like it or want more.

His first bite. Another thing his aunt couldn’t learn about.

He wasn’t supposed to be bitten until he was blooded.

But when making a deal with the enemy, it was best to seal it in blood—therefore, blood had symbolically been shed, and no more needed to be spilled.

“Truth for truth?” Lance asked.

“Why not? What else would we do on this truce?” Nixon’s eyebrow lifted for a second as though he’d already thought of a hundred different ways to waste the next two weeks.

It was enough to spark a few ideas in Lance’s mind.

The touch of his hand as he’d searched for Lance’s hidden knife was burned into his skin. He could have said something—told him where it was. He shouldn’t have enjoyed it, but Nixon on his knees had been a sight.

He was still a pleasing sight sitting across from him, dark hair loose. No fake glasses. He didn’t look like one of the most lethal vampires in Melbourne. Yet they were enjoying a nice glass of wine and being more civilized than their elders and betters had been in centuries.

“In my family, blooding isn’t automatic; we need to earn it. You didn’t know that?”

He smiled and shrugged. “So you get to live a little first?”

“How do you mean?”

“Go to uni and pretend you have a life beyond the family business and blood feud.”

Lance opened his mouth to answer but wasn’t sure what to say. They’d promised each other the truth. “No. In that, we are much the same. I spend my time training and learning. Guarding the women from…” The likes of you . “What’s it like being blooded?”

“Like living in eternal winter.” He drank half his wine as though it were water.

“But you are stronger and faster an?—”

“And I burn faster. And I can’t eat the things I used to love.

The day I turned eighteen, the life I wanted was taken.

You want the truth? There it is. I was born for this, to be this, but it was never what I wanted.

I went to school. Got good grades, went surfing with my friends, and all through high school, I hoped that I’d be allowed to follow my sister to uni and be something other than my older brothers.

” He stared at the wine; his lips pressed into a bitter line.

“There had been talk about moving into more legitimate businesses. I wanted to be part of that. Then, one by one, my brothers were killed.” He lifted his gaze and glared at Lance.

“And then there was no choice. No chance.”

“But you…you’re so good at it.” Terrifyingly so.

Nixon smiled. “I’m good at many things. My turn to ask. Has your family caught my sister?”

“Not that I know of. Do you know where she is?”

“Ah…tricky,” he said as though he found it amusing. “But even I do not know that. Were you sent to seduce me and get all my secrets?”

“No!”

“Well, that’s unfortunate.” Nixon topped up his glass. “I could’ve done with some fun.”

“You aren’t worried about what will happen in two weeks?”

“You’ll say you’ve found me, probably shoot me, put me in the boot, and drive me back to Melbourne, where I’ll be dumped at your matriarch’s feet in a greatly weakened state.

She’ll torture me to find out I don’t know where Zinnia is and then kill me.

” He sipped his wine. “What’s there to worry about when I know what will happen?

But you’ll get blooded, so one of us will get what they want. ”

Put like that, it was rather brutal. Until then, Lance had envisioned that he was hunting down a killer, and while Nixon had killed, this man was not the cold-blooded monster he’d read about.

Nixon lifted his glass. “You do want to be blooded?”

“Yes. I’m tired of being seen as less than.”

Nixon gave him a sad smile. “If you are less than, you can do whatever you want.”

“Not all of us are disloyal to our family.”

“Disloyal? You have no idea.” Nixon put the glass down too hard, and the base cracked. “I gave up everything for my family. I did everything that was expected.”

“You abandoned your sister.”

His voice lowered and became deadly cold, and Lance glimpsed the steel in the man who had killed over two dozen Orlan vampires.

“That was absolute loyalty. We knew it would be easier for your lot to find us if we stayed together. She had to order me away. Why bother with me? I can’t continue the line. ”

They shouldn’t be drinking wine. They should be fighting to the death. Lance was sure he’d be dead if they were fighting. Nixon had the strength and speed of a blooded vampire.

“I don’t know. I was ordered to find you. Did you know you were being followed?”

“No, but I expected it. You did well.”

Lance’s lips turned up at the praise, and he returned the favor. “You didn’t make it easy.”

“What gave me away this time?”

“You got comfortable and started making ties.”

“I thought I’d lost you.”

“I backed off.” He’d slowed down because he’d started to have fun being on his own.

He monitored Nixon, but in truth, he hadn’t tried to get close.

When Nixon had passed through Perth, Lance had been forced to speak to the Reids and get the right permissions so they didn’t arrest him for being in their territory.

That had slowed him down again—but by then, he’d no longer been chaffing to catch Nixon.

He’d been stunned to actually end up in the same town as him.

Now they were in the same room. He had kitchen knives within arm’s reach. Pots that could be swung as clubs. But he didn’t want to end this—or Nixon.

“Because?” Nixon studied him as though searching for lies.

“Protocol.”

Nixon drew in a breath and nodded. “Protocol. That’s rich. You do realize your family started the fight at the last peace talks?”

Lance frowned. He’d read Nixon had fired the first shot. “That’s not what I heard.”

“Truce and truth, Orlan. I’m not lying.” Nixon brought the glass to his lips and drank. Light danced off the fracture in the glass.

Lance swallowed and focused on pouring what was left of the bottle into his glass so he couldn’t look at Nixon’s mouth. He did not want to kiss him. “So what happens now?”

“What do you want to happen?” Nixon’s fangs were still down, and all Lance could think about was how they’d feel sinking into his neck or thigh.

He shivered, knowing he shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts at all.

Nixon smiled as if he knew exactly what Lance was thinking.

His tongue flicked over the point of his fang as though he were thinking about biting him.

There’d never been a report of Nixon tearing out throats.

That wasn’t his thing. He killed efficiently—just doing a job, exactly as Nixon had said.

He didn’t want to do it. He’d just been following orders.

In that, they were exactly the same.

Though tonight, neither of them was following orders. Two weeks, and even if they were given orders to kill the other, the truce couldn’t be broken.

“Did my family honestly break the peace?”

“More than once, Orlan.”

“Lance…at least for the next two weeks.”

“Nix.” He held out his hand as though they were meeting as friends.

Lance shook his hand. The lilac tattoo marked him as the enemy, but the touch of his hand only sparked desire. Nix grinned. His thumb swept over Lance’s skin and made his heartbeat quicken. There was something in Nix’s blue eyes that Lance didn’t know if he should fear or want.

Nix leaned closer. “Tell me, Lance, do you top or bottom.”

Nix’s grip was too strong for Lance to pull away, but he tried anyway. They’d been having a serious talk, and Nix had spun the conversation into the personal. Heat burned Lance’s cheeks, and he couldn’t keep the snap out of his voice. “What makes you think you’ll get to find out?”

He didn’t want to know Nix’s preference, but now he was wondering. He shouldn’t be thinking of Nix in that way. This was a truce, nothing more.

“I was curious.” He gave a careless shrug. “I don’t care either way.” He released Lance’s hand, his fingertips brushing over the tattoo on his palm as though it no longer mattered. And maybe for the next two weeks, it didn’t.