Page 43 of Shadow Hunter

Tiffany raised another brow. “Okay then. No ‘good morning, Shortcake, hope you slept well after that crazy time we had last night.’” She dropped her hands to her sides with a slight humph. Was she an idiot to expect a little sweetness? Given how tender he’d been with her...

“Is this city really overrun with supernaturals?” he asked, lifting his head from his hands.

She blinked several times. “What?”

He let out a long breath. “I said, is this city overrun with supernatural predators? More than just vampires.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much. What else would you expect in a city this big with no division? Mark never taught me anything about hunting anything other than vamps, though, so I stay clear of the others.” She walked to the couch and sat down beside him.

He glanced toward her. “How do you know they’re here, then?”

She grinned. “Newsflash, Romeo, once you know of their existence, it doesn’t take a trained hunter to spot one. You know how it is. It might be a flash of a wolf eye here, or glimpse of fang there, or just a strange feeling when you encounter someone. I’ve learned never to ignore my instincts.” A moment of silence passed between them as she waited for him to speak. When he didn’t, she finally cleared her throat. “What’s it matter to you?”

“Everything,” he muttered, racking a hand over his face. She tried not to notice the way the scruff of his five o’clock shadow somehow made him even more handsome. “I need to assemble a division of hunters.”

Her eyes grew wide. “So, you mean there’s going to be a whole load of you guys here in Rochester now?”

He nodded. “Five others. Six total.” He got up off the couch and walked across the room, his demeanor as unamused as his tone.

She knew he had a lot on his mind, but after last night she...well...she wasn’t really surewhatshe’d expected, but it’d been more than this, anyway. Damon’s skills between the sheets made the guys in the romance novels she read look like bumbling idiots, but out of bed, cold and distant was his default setting. At least, when they weren’t flirting at least.

“What’s so bad about that? About bringing in other hunters?” she asked.

He ignored her question. “We’ve got worse things to worry about. The bloodsuckers have some sort of virus they’re passingbetween them. That’s what’s making them act like zombies and causing their victims to turn so quickly.”

Tiffany whistled low and long. “That is…not good. How are they passing it around?”

Damon shook his head. “No idea. But it seems the vamps contract the disease at transition. Chances are it started from one vamp who turned someone and continued from there. I don’t know how or why, much less how to stop it, but I need to find out.”

“If it keeps spreading, won’t the entire vampire population be overrun with these freak zombie leeches?”

Again, Damon didn’t respond, clearly lost in his own thoughts. His gaze was fixed and distant as he stared out the window, his eyes combing over the shadows of the city.

Suddenly his attention snapped back toward her. “If we find the source of the virus and destroy it, then we can go after all the spawn. I think the current existing vamps can’t contract it, since they’re already turned. One of the old bloodsuckers must be behind this—creating an army of monsters to destroy, maybe to gain more power, or to make hunting humans easier as well—and I think I know who it is.”

Tiffany knew exactly what he was thinking. “If you expect to go into Caius’s coven with guns blazing, you’re out of your mind.” She stood up and walked toward him. “I have a better suggestion.” Lingering directly in front of him, she wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on her tiptoes as she pulled his head toward her for a kiss.

Surprisingly, despite his mood, he let her.

Their tongues swirled together, and immediately heat rushed through her. But still, she pulled back a moment later.

“I’ll kill Caius,” she whispered.

“Over my rotting corpse.” Damon wrapped his arms around her waist and raised a single brow at her. “Did you really think kissing me would get me to agree to that?”

She shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

Damon chuckled. “Tiffany, look—”

“Let me finish,” she said, cutting him off. “Whether you like it or not, I know a lot more about the dynamics of this city’s vampire scene than you do. All the local vamps have their heads so far up Caius’s ass they might as well take up permanent residence. They’ll do anything he asks of them, and they’ll kill to protect him.”

Damon lifted a brow. “Vampires have no loyalty. Why do you think they’re so devoted to him?”

She crossed the room again to sit on the sofa once more. “Caius is a good leader. I’ll give him that. He’s charming when he wants to be, charismatic, and good at manipulating others, even other vamps. He’s only been here only three months since he fled here from New York City, after he killed my brother. Since Club Fantasy was already his, this was a natural place to relocate to, I guess. He’d been an absent owner before that.”

“In only three months, he’s taken a disbanded group of rogue-like vamps and changed them into an organized coven. He must have been some sort of Roman version of Charles Manson in his day. He’s a manipulative psychopath. He was only second in command when my brother raided his coven down in the City. But with the head honcho dead, Caius is the big fish now, and he takes his position very seriously.” She shot Damon a pointed look. “With so many vampires here in Rochester, in order to kill Caius you’d have to get him alone, and in order to do that you’d need to gain his trust.” She pointed to herself. “I’ve already done that.”

He met her stare. “What are you proposing?”

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