Page 47 of The Huntress

“Do you need my help?” Gabe’s voice teased across her ear, sending shivers of delight across her skin even as her life faded.

She wasn’t equipped to handle suckbloods, not in hand-to-hand combat and not without her arsenal. Tears trickled as Jones scraped his teeth along her cheek. He didn’t smell bad, like a normal human man. It would’ve been fitting had he stank of rotting flesh or congealed blood.

He’d pinned Mike to the wall with an unseen force. Her partner and dearest friend’s mottled face contorted with fear and horror, as he screamed something she couldn’t hear.

She cast her blurred gaze at the shimmer, wishing she could see Gabe’s face one last time. Closing her eyes, she accepted the darkness and the lack of breathing scorching fire from her throat to her chest.

She collapsed to the floor and the sweetness of air filled her lungs. Coughs racked her body with breathing spiking painful shards.

Bodies wove around her, fading, merging with one flying across the room. She raised her gaze to where Gabe had Jones pinned to the wall, before snapping his neck as he’d done to Darius.

Mike’s roaring filled the room. He fell to his knees.

As Jones slumped to the floor, Gabe sprawled alongside Callie, wrapping her within his embrace. She wanted to snuggle into him and at the same time proclaim she hadn’t needed rescuing. But she had, yesterday and today, like a silly damsel in distress.

“What took you so long?” As admonishments went, this one could have been better if her voice hadn’t rasped.

He grinned and like the sun casting its golden rays, so did her heart warm.

“Now do you believe you’re in danger?”

Cold fingers gripped her spine and squeezed her chest so tight she curled into herself. “You set this up?”

He jerked back like she’d slapped him. His handsome features hardened, and pain flickered across his gray eyes. He pulled away, rising to his feet, and taking her with him. When cool air replaced his warm touch, so did guilt strike her, twisting her stomach into knots.

She swallowed past the nausea and raised her hand to stop him from leaving or to take back her unfair judgment.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. How…how many have tried?”

His shoulders relaxed, and he laced his fingers through hers to tug her against him. “Four while you slept.”

Mike dragged himself to his feet, wobbling the metal table. “Do you think the others asking for Callie are also suckbloods?”

Gabe nodded but didn’t look at Mike, keeping his gaze on her.

“So you agreed to give me space knowing you couldn’t?” She frowned then huffed. “I’m stubborn, I know, but—”

“What would you have done in my place?” Gabel lifted her fingertips to his lips and kissed them. “If Val was in danger and wouldn’t see it?”

She stilled, staring at his mouth, wondering why his lips burned her, sending tingles down her arm to her elbow. “The same, I guess.”

The door burst open. A few officers rushed in, gaping at Jones on the floor.

Gabe had faded, but his warm hand still held hers. She sighed, closing her eyes against the feeling of safety his presence brought her. Not that she would admit it.

After her explanation and they arrested Jones, her fellow officers lined the walls of the interview room. They stood united and ready should any of the other supposed criminals turn out to be suckbloods. A few confessors hid their species well, so Callie and Mike took their statements, arresting them for the two days it might take to verify their claims.

With each pale face she interviewed—male or female—the truth in Gabe’s warning settled like lead in her heart. Was this what lay ahead for her, constant fending off suckbloods wishing to feed on her?

By lunch time, exhaustion hounded her, and she was ready to discuss moving in with him. By five in the afternoon, she was eager for a conversion, anything to save her from the tedious day.

As she and Mike interviewed a suckblood, more arrived, some confessing to decade-old crimes and all asking for her. Flowers, chocolates, and jewelry swallowed her desk as suckbloods tried to buy her favor.

Metcalfe had Martinez clear the precinct, loading the gifts into an armored van. Callie had never been so excited to see the piles of paperwork on her desk, shadowed by one of Gabe’s vases.

She’d always wondered what it would feel like if she received flowers from a gentleman. With the bouquets from Gabe, that elation, excitement, and girly giddiness had sent tingles from her scalp to her toes. The other gifts couldn’t compare to that, not for her.

“Mike, I’m heading home.” She grabbed her corduroy jacket and the package holding her new uniforms. “Got a hot date with my man.” She winked at the shimmer.

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