Page 3 of Lured

“You want me to keep an eye on the rest of the clan?” I asked when my uncle didn’t go any further.

“Ludis. I want you to keep an eye on Ludis. And if he’s trying to do anything stupid, stop him and then do what you need to in order to have him removed.”

And there it was. The order I had feared. My uncle had to be careful of course. He couldn’t be seen to kill any clan member who hadn’t moved against him publicly, but having a half-blood challenge a true-blood publicly would be a mark of weakness all of its own. Somehow I was expected to deal with it and keep my own personal hands clean.

I was going to need someone to take the hit for me, because I had no doubt that Ludis was stupid enough to try something if the wrong person started talking to him about trying it. If he persuaded anyone to join him the whole clan could fall and if too many dons were taken out, our entire way of life could go with them.

Chapter 1

Anais

Reaching out a hand, I tried to slam the off button on the alarm without even looking. It was only as my hand found nothing that I realized my alarm clock wasn't even there.

My eyes flew open, taking in my surroundings as my other hand grabbed the large knife that was lying beside me on the bed. Tense, I lay there a moment trying to remember where I was and how I'd got there.

Finally, the beeping stopped, letting me know that it hadn't been my alarm at all. It had been coming from outside the room, down the hall toward the kitchen. Someone swore, helping me remember the rest of the night before.

I was at a friend's house, evicted from my own apartment cause I'd not made the rent on time for the third month running. It didn't matter that I'd caught back up each time in only a couple of days. Late was late and they'd not been happy.

All the belongings I had were sitting in a suitcase and two boxes around the bed and somewhere among all of it was my alarm clock. Thankfully, unplugged. But that meant the noise had been something else. It took me only a fraction of a second to realise it must have been the smoke alarm by the kitchen.

A moment later I noticed I could smell the faint aroma of burnt toast and something else underlying. Possibly jam, or jelly, or whatever they called it here.

I sat up, knowing that it was too late to get any more sleep. I needed to pee and I knew I needed a job from the guild or I was going to have nowhere to go after this night either. And there was no way I could stay where I was, sleeping in the spare room of an old friend. One who only sort of liked me.

There was no way I could afford a flight back to the UK either. Although I had somewhere to go there, I had no way of getting there. Not right now. And I wasn’t phoning my uncle to ask for his help. He didn’t want me.

It didn't take long for me to get myself decent and ready to face another day. Well... night. I worked nights, my clientele needing me to. And the sun was setting. As soon as I'd repacked my bags and put together a kit for an eventful work shift, I made my way out of the room.

My eyes immediately fixed on my friend, Emma, sitting on a rickety, almost broken chair at a table covered in spam leaflets, partially opened post, magazines and newspapers. She was eating burned toast and jelly with her fingers while the other hand held a phone, the thumb flying over the screen as she talked to someone unknown.

“Hi,” I said, but she didn't even look up.

“There's a couple of slices of bread left. Bit stale, but it toasts okay,” she said before resuming her tapping.

I padded through to the rest of the kitchen, noticing the smell of burned toast was worse here, and then my eyes fixed on the bread, it was a crust and the slice that went with it. Neither looked very appealing as they sat in the open packet.

My stomach growled at the sight of the food anyway, not sure it wanted to let me skip a meal when I'd barely fed it the night before. I sighed, debating just walking out of the apartment I was in to the nearest convenience store or snack van and trying to find something more appetizing.

The one problem with the idea? I had almost no money left. And there was no way I was going to be able to get some unless I got a job from the guild.

Putting both the slice and the crust under the grill, I hovered by it and pulled my communication device from my pocket. It was sort of like a cell phone, but it only connected to one place. The guild communications systems. The place where a vampire hunter like me got her next job.

Someone had put up the jobs for the night already and I quickly flicked through them, but there were only a few a hunter could do alone and none of them filled me with confidence. They were either high profile targets in specific situations that required someone skilled in far more areas than I, or they were lower paid butchering jobs with sketchy information but more applicants than I stood any chance of achieving against. And none of them paid soon enough.

Sighing, I fished the stale bread, now toasted out from the grill, careful not to burn my fingers as I looked around for a plate. There didn't seem to be one close to hand, so I stacked the slices on the packet and looked around for both a plate and something akin to butter, or anything else I could put on it.

There was nothing. No plates, and not even margarine, or any remaining jelly so I could copy Emma. With nothing else to do, I took a bite of the dry toast and sighed.

I needed to get my life together.

As the few jobs on the guild board were all slowly snapped up and I tried to chew and swallow the dry food I thought through what I had to work with. The vampire hunting hadn't been going well since I'd screwed up a job. I'd meant to have a nice easy vampire to kill who had gotten out of hand.

A young one who had been ditched by his sire and the mafia don they were associated and left to fend for himself. Of course, he'd started eating people out in the open. And it hadn't been pretty. But when I'd gathered the usual group to go hunt him down and I'd realized he was so starving and clueless I'd hesitated. For a moment I'd pitied him. He'd been turned and then left to work out what that meant. But there had been more to the case than that. Something hadn’t felt right.

Either way it was the pity that had cost me. The vampire had gathered his strength and lunged. He’d knocked me on my ass and almost got away. It had drawn the attention of too many onlookers.

Since then neither the guild nor my usual team had been happy with me. Pity wasn't something we were meant to feel for them. They were ruthless killers and we were locked in a secret war with them.

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