Page 66 of Huntress Unleashed

“The only one who actually talked to us was a dude called X. At least that’s the name he gave to us. But the others were there as well. My friends and I said we would do it, because we wanted to warn you and if we didn’t take the job, we were sure they would have hired someone else. They might have also figured we were a liability at that point and killed us.”

“Come inside,” Jacqueline said. “Would you like anything to drink? Sodas? Tea? Water?” Since they said they weren’t here to try to terminate her, she figured they needed to move this indoors and she needed to learn as much as she could about the hunters who had hired them.

“Water would be good,” Zeke said.

She got everyone some water to drink, and they eyed hers, as if they were surprised to see her drinking it too instead of blood. Blood was important, of course, but staying hydrated by drinking water was too. They all sat down in the living room. Princess greeted them, breaking the ice. “I’m going to call on a hunter-vampire friend of mine who was turned also to come join us.”

They all looked at Robert.

“That’s Robert, my brother, a hunter who hasn’t been turned.”

The guys were all petting Princess, the cat setting them more at ease.

Then she said, “Dane, I’m visiting with some Van Helsing hunters who were hired by hunters to eliminate me. If you’re not busy doing anything, I would like you to join me to see what they have to say.”

Immediately, Dane was standing in her living room with a sword in hand.

The men all jumped up from their seats on the sofa. Even Robert did, but he was concentrating on the humans, not on Dane, in the event the humans tried to fight Dane and Jacqueline, which she so appreciated.

“They warned me that some hunters had contracted them to terminate me,” Jacqueline said. “They’re not about to do it.”

“It’s too bad we couldn’t have them return to the hunters and kill them, but they can’t do that without going to jail for it,” Dane said privately to Jacqueline.

“Right. We need to learn who the hunters are and then out them to the head of the League of Hunter’s Council.”

“Tobias.”

“Yes.”

“Take a seat, gentlemen,” Dane said, sitting down next to Jacqueline while Robert sat on a chair nearby and the humans sat back down on the sofa. As soon as Dane was sitting down, Princess jumped on his lap, and Dane smiled, then began petting her.

That seemed to set the humans even more at ease as if they felt the cat wouldn’t go to Dane if he was dangerous and they relaxed a little.

“All right, tell us everything you can about the hunters,” Dane said.

“One was called X, but we were sure that wasn’t his name,” Zeke said.

“That’s Zeke,” Jacqueline said to Dane, “and this is Dane. Like me, he went to take down a rogue vampire and lost the battle.”

“He might be one of the ones they wanted to have eliminated,” Zeke said, motioning to Dane.

“I thought you had only come for me,” she said, worried this was more a case of taking out all hunter-turned vampires.

“Yes, but they said there would be more jobs for us, if we did this one without getting caught. That there was a rogue hunter-vampire male who was a friend of yours,” Zeke said. “Since he came to your defense, I would say that’s a good bet. And by the way, we always check the records to see if a vampire has committed certain crimes and it can all be verified. We have our own private investigator.”

A skinny, mousy-brown-haired guy raised his hand. “That’s me. I’m Timothy. I did a lot of research on you and found you were an excellent fighter, always took down rogue vampires, never targeted anyone who was innocent, and saved some humans from being turned by rogues. Even after you were turned by Heskel, you were fighting the rogues. There’s not one thing that showed up that would indicate you had turned rogue. So we figure, for whatever reason, the hunters have a beef against you. Or that it’s just a general hatred for hunters who have been turned. What if one of them was turned? That’s what we wanted to know.”

The blond guy of the group said, “I’m the IT guy, Callaway, and I did a lot of digging, trying to learn who these guys were before we came here. We wanted you to have as much intel as we could gather so that you could ensure your own safety. No way were we going to take money for the job and try to eliminate you. Then those guys would have their way, and if anyone discovered we had done the job, we would end up with sentences of life without a chance for parole. Even if we didn’t talk, the hunters would have gotten away with your murder. I found where they had been last night, via the GPS on their phones—the Starlight Club. And Timothy learned the bouncers and some hunters threw them out of the bar over an incident with some hunter-turned vampires who were dancing.”

“The five rabble-rousers we had to deal with at the club,” Dane said, glancing at Jacqueline.

She couldn’t believe it! It was one thing to hassle them in a club and not want them to be there but to hire a hit on them?

“Who are they, do you know?” Robert asked.

“Sorry, Dane, I should have introduced you to Robert, my brother,” Jacqueline said, so wrapped up in what was going on, she realized her mistake in not introducing the two of them to each other.

“Good to meet you,” Dane said, but he didn’t really sound like he was too pleased with her brother.

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