Page 11 of Hunted
I lifted my fist and knocked again, paused.
Waited.
Still nothing.
I pressed my hand flat to the rune-plate in the door panel and held it there.The ward resisted me at first—my aura misaligning with its newer, sharper calibration.We’d reset it three times already.The Fox’s wards were being coaxed to defend against Josh—and apparently that includedme.
According to the sorcerer, a faint bit of my aura clung to Josh’s.Some sort of barely-perceivable natural bond that had slowly, quietly grown between us over the years of proximity, friendship, and love.Apparently, the nearly imperceptible connection was just enough for the magic in the wards to detect it.The wards were confused.
Iwas confused.Conflicted.And a hell of a lot of other things besides.I let my head fall forward and rested my forehead against the door.I hated this with every ounce of my being.It felt wrong to keep Josh prisoner, isolated and locked behind layers of magic as if he was some evil thing.It reminded me too much of our years trapped in Acacia’s menagerie, locked away from the rest of the coven.I had only been toted out for vampire queen’s pleasure, while Josh was only allowed out to run occasional approved errands so he could tend to her blood slaves.
Eventually, the wards recognized me and the lock disengaged, jolting me out of my depressing memories.The door opened with a soft reverberation that I felt through the wood, and I straightened before I fell through.
He was on the floor again, huddled in the far corner of the guest suite, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them.He didn’t startle.Didn’t speak.His head turned just slightly, tracking me like a predator that still remembered a time when it was prey.
I signed slowly.“It’s me.You’re safe.”
Josh blinked.His hands didn’t move.He got like this sometimes since he was kidnapped.Distant and unresponsive.He’d tell me he was lost in thought or distracted by Acacia.But I wasn’t sure I entirely believed him.I felt like he was pulling away, getting further from me—further from the man I knew—every day.
I knelt down a few feet away and lowered myself onto the floor, leaving space between us.
He watched.Silent.Distant.Dull-eyed, in the way I’d seen trauma victims in the vampire menagerie look when they stopped bracing for the next blow or unexpected horror and started to just accept it as normal.
After a long moment, he raised his hand and signed.“Acacia is quiet right now.I think she’s resting.”
Even his sign was tired—shoulders slumped, hands sloppy.
I signed back, “Then I’ll whisper so I don’t wake her up.”
He looked at me.Mustered the faintest flicker of a forced smile in response.
I couldn’t stand seeing him like this.I took a deep breath through my nose and slowly let it out through my mouth to calm myself.He needed me to be steady and strong for him.
Josh’s warm, rich scent had changed since his transition, grown fainter under layers of something darker, like a cool, earth-and-leaf-scented fall night.The room itself smelled sterile.Nothing personal.Nothing of the man I used to know.Just spell-wax, clean sheets, and the faint copper trace of old blood from a nosebleed two days ago that he hadn’t let me help with—brought about by resisting Acacia.
I tilted my head as I signed.“How bad is it today?”
His soft lips twitched.His answer came one-handed, fingers clenched tight to his knee:“Medium.”
With Josh and his refusal to ever make a “nuisance” of himself, that probably meant it was bad.
“Did you eat?”I asked, not bothering to beat around the bush.We might notlikethe idea, but that didn’t change the fact that he was a vampire now.
A pause.Then,“I tried.It didn’t help.”
Of course it didn’t.According to most vampires I’d met, blood bags were stabilizing but not particularly sustaining or nourishing.Feeding for them was about more than just the blood—they also needed the little slip of lifeforce, of aura, that they consumed when they fed from a live victim.
And Josh’s needs seemed to be worse than others, probably thanks Acacia’s psychotic energy in his mind and in his aura.The bagged blood filled the need but not the hunger.Not the craving Acacia had cursed into his cells.
I shifted my weight, leaned back against the wall opposite him, and tapped twice on my sternum—a signal between us from years ago.I’m still here.
He saw it.A flinch ran through his body, but he didn’t look away.
His fingers lifted again.Slow, hesitant.“I hate this.”
“I know,” I said aloud.
It wasn’t only the vampirism, the fact that he had been turned into one of the same kind of monsters who had tormented us and held us captive for years.Italsowent against his beta nature.He was supposed to be the caregiver, a source of support and comfort.And I knew he felt wrong being on the receiving end of that, just as much as he felt wrong for sprouting fangs.
