Page 41 of Shadow Hunter

That was when good men like Mark died.

What kind of a lowlife was he that he’d not only gone to bed with Mark’s sister, but lied to her about who he was, whatshe meant to him? Mark had trusted him to write to her with no idea of the consequences. No matter which way he looked at it, there was no justification for what he’d done. Even as they’d made love, he’d tried to convince himself that Mark would have wanted Tiffany to be protected, safe with him. That he would have wanted her to find a man who would love her and care for her, to stand at her side.

Maybe at one point that man could have been Damon. But after all he’d done, everything that had happened, it certainly wasn’t him now.

He stroked the soft tresses of her hair, watching the rise and fall of her chest.

He shook his head. What was she doing with someone like him?

A lump lodged in his throat as he thought of the last words in the final letter, she’d sent him. They were burned permanently into his mind and his heart.

I don’t know how you can miss a person you’ve never met, but somehow, I miss you every day.

With love,

Tiffany xoxo

He knew that after Mark’s death the Execution Underground had given her as many details as they could, to help her achieve closure, which meant she knew he could’ve saved Mark, and yet, he’d failed. There was no way she didn’t know.

She’d never answered a single one of his letters after that.

How much would she hate him now if she knew who he truly was?

Careful not to wake her, he slipped out from beneath her and rested her head on one of his pillows, making quick work of throwing on some clothes before he headed downstairs. They’d slept most of the day away, and now, with sundown not far away, the true work was about to begin.

He thought of the time he’d spent with Tiffany last night. Already he’d been neglecting his job, making love to her instead of closing in on Caius or searching for the vampire who was killing innocent women. There were so many things wrong with this situation. Images of partially devoured corpses, the awakening bloodsucker’s kidney exploding with green acid, and the way the vamp in the alley had guarded the body, flooded his mind.

But he couldn’t bring himself to regret that, everything that’d happened between them.

He punched in the security code for his tech room, and the heavily reinforced door unlocked. Shoving it open, he stepped inside, flopping into his chair as he hit the button that dialed Chris’s number.

The monitor beeped on, and second later Chris’s face emerged on the camera. “Hey, man—”

“Green acid came out of his kidney,” Damon said abruptly, unable to bring himself to deal with niceties.

Chris’ eyes widened. “What? Whose kidney?”

Wasting no time, Damon recounted the events of the previous evening, sparing no detail, except for the parts that involved Tiffany.

He wasn’t quite ready to confess his sins yet, not even to Chris.

When he finished, Chris let out a low whistle. “This is fucked up, Damon.”

Damon nodded. “It gets worse. After the vamp was dead, I brought the victim’s corpse back here to examine. Like I said, his kidney had green acid in it. Nearly burned my damn hand off, but...”

Immediately Chris stopped typing and looked at Damon.

“The dead guy turned into a vamp an hour later, Chris.”

“An hour?” Chris’s mouth fell open. “Only an hour? That’s barely a fraction of the normal transformation period. You’ve gotta be fucking me.”

Damon racked a hand over his face. “Wish I was.”

Chris shook his head. “And to add fuel to the fire, I got in five new reports for your area last night.”

Five?Damon’s eyes went wide. What kind of—

Chris raised a hand. “It’s not what you think. Not vamp news.”

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