Page 14 of Nexus
“Tell him I said hi in return the next time you run into him,” she requested.
“I will. Do you want to see the gold coins the dragon paid me with?”
“Hand them over,” she replied, holding her hand out.
I picked my kill-bag up and pulled my wallet out. Taking the seven gold coins out, I dropped them onto her palm. “Do you think they’re authentic?”
She hefted them to judge their weight them with a musing look. “They’re far heavier than modern coins, which means they’re probably made from pure gold.” We leaned down together to examine them closely. “The words are foreign and the date is too faded to make out,” she said. “Dragons can’t renege on their bargains, so I’d say they’re definitely rare and expensive.”
“What do you think about me being paired up with a leech?” I asked as she handed the coins back to me.
“Ruen’s bound to ask you questions about our heritage,” she said, watching me drop the coins back into my wallet. “What are you going to say when he insists on knowing what you are?”
“I usually just tell nosy parkers that the information is private, like you told me to. I’m not sure how to handle someone who won’t stop pestering me about it, if he turns out to be like that.”
“He’s going to be your partner, so you’ll have to learn to trust each other,” she pointed out pensively. “You might have to tell him the truth, that we have no idea what sort of monsters we are.”
“It might help if I could at least tell him what sort of creature my dad is,” I said in a slightly disapproving tone.
“You know I can’t answer that question, Saige,” she said chidingly.
“Because you had an orgy with dozens of supernatural creatures!” I reminded her. “Any one of them could be my father.”
“It wasn’t my fault a witch cast a lust spell on everyone in the room,” she said defensively. “Everything from that night is lost in a haze. All I remember is penises, vaginas and breasts everywhere.”
“Tell me you didn’t sleep with all of them,” I said, half horrified at that prospect.
“Only the men,” she said defensively. “You know I’m not into women.”
“And you can’t remember what sort of beings the men were?”
“They were all different kinds, I think,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t have your ability to sense what sort of species they are.”
The sad fact was that I would probably never know who or what my dad was. Our family history was sketchy at best. It seemed all of the Sterling women had trouble identifying exactly what type of being impregnated them. All we knew was that the females of our line only gave birth to a single daughter and we all had a variety of talents. None of us could be classed as human, even if we couldn’t change forms or use magic.
Something we all had in common was that we were tall, full figured and were far stronger than human women. We also tended to have strange colored hair and eyes. A final trait was one that we kept strictly secret and was one of the reasons why mom had retired; we didn’t age like normal. Mom could pass as my older sister, even though she was well over eighty years old. My great-grandmother was still alive, although she was now a recluse. She was living in Europe with my grandmother.
Mom had moved to Nexus forty years ago and had passed herself off as a young, up and coming bounty hunter. In reality, she’d already possessed far more experience at hunting monsters than any of her rivals. People would have talked once they realized she didn’t seem to age. She’d pretended to retire when she’d fallen pregnant, but in reality, she hadn’t stopped hunting at all. She just did it in secret while teaching me the trade. Frugal like me, she’d saved a lot of money over the decades and was in no danger of running out of funds.
Now that I’d taken over her job as a bounty hunter, she would eventually head to Europe to join our relatives. I would live here for a couple of decades until it became obvious I wasn’t aging, then I’d have to move on. One day, I would end up in an orgy or some other strange event and would end up falling pregnant. I would give birth to a daughter and continue the cycle of life.
“I’m proud of you, kiddo,” mom said with a grin. “Your first official hunt was far from conventional, but you achieved your goal. You now have a job as a bounty hunter and a place of your own to live. It isn’t ideal that you’ll have a partner for a while, but refusing would have been a bad idea. You need to blend in with the other hunters until they get used to you.”
“I can always stake Ruen and blame one of our targets if he learns about too many of my secrets,” I figured, only half joking.
“That might prove to be a bad idea,” she said shrewdly. “Lord Gilden most likely thinks of the vampire as his property. I doubt he’d take it well if his servant was murdered.”
“You’re probably right,” I conceded. “I’ll only off the leech if I really have to.”
“You’ve had a big night, Lil Bish. Why don’t you get some sleep? We have a horde of zombies to kill when we get up and you’ll need to be fresh and alert.”
“I could definitely use a nap,” I agreed, covering a yawn with my hand. One trait both mom and I shared was that we only needed a few hours of sleep to get by. Dawn had arrived and sunlight was peeking through gaps in the curtains.
Helping her clean up the table, I headed downstairs to grab a change of clothes. After taking a quick shower, I descended to my bedroom in the basement to sleep.
Chapter Twelve
MY DREAMS WERE FULL of action as I replayed everything that had happened last night. Things changed when Ruen took me to Drake to report in and receive my payment. The weredragon dismissed his servant and waited until we were alone before he spoke. “I could pay you with gold coins like the rest of my bounty hunters, or I could offer you a different form of payment,” he proposed.