Page 11 of Hunters and Prey

Chapter 6

Viola had checked into an elegant hotel upon arrival. She wished that she'd gone for a rental instead; there were too many eyes on their way from the lobby to the suite.

Tom was already too compromised. The damn succubus hadn't been among those who'd ambushed them, which meant that she, at least, knew who he was, what he was. Or suspected it. Once she opened her mouth, saying that a slayer had come to his aid, people would add two and two.

Viola had never been too arrogant to admit that she needed help. She couldn't contain this by herself. Thankfully, she didn't have to.

Tom whistled as they got inside the suite.

"Damn. I take it the merciless assassin business is booming."

He had some spirit. Viola smiled. He'd done well today, processed the information fast, faster than he realized. She could tell he was starting to awaken. Often, it was enough to be close to a vampire from their clan for a fledgling to start the transition.

Tom was starting to move a little too fast. His eyes had followed her while she'd fought, when some vampires struggled to see ancients move at all.

He'd also taken his first encounter with blood after his instincts had been switched on very well. She'd seen Eirikrson kids attack their best friends after they got a papercut, although they were prepared for the change. Tom had just thrown up.

This time.

She wondered if it was because of his age. The Eirikrson let their born vampires and their human trainees change after they reached twenty-one, typically. Viola didn't know one person who'd ever waited a second longer, but Tom was older than that. Twenty-six, she recalled from his file. Six years of instincts, desires, and needs that didn't quite align with those of anyone around him. Six years of deep solitude.

The moment she thought that, she remembered to ask a very important question.

"Do you have a family? Brother, sister, parents?"

She hoped the answer was no, as far as the latest one. A parent? A forty-something fledgling, never turned? That wasn't going to be pretty.

Tom's eyes shifted. He didn't want to answer, which told her everything she needed to know.

Shit. There was more than one of them.

"Look, those guys looking for you will try to reach you another way now. I'm asking because your family will need protection."

From now until the end of time.

Tom's eyes widened. Immediately, he was very talkative. "It's me, my dad, and my sister. Mom left town when we were kids. He's out of town right now. My sister's staying at my place, though. You think they'd go there? We have to find her."

Yes, right this very second. Shit. Another Eirikrson. Presumably. It could be a half-sister. One could hope.

"You can stay here; I'll watch her for the night."

She could erect temporary wards around the hotel, stopping any sups other than her from entering it. Magic wasn't her forte, but she traveled with protections. It'd do for a night.

Tom stiffened. "Hell no."

Viola could feel a headache coming on. She didn't have time for this.

This was testing the boundaries of the oath that bound her, but she nonetheless circled Tom and hit the back of his neck; a nice, clean slap with the side of her hand. He fell forward, unconscious. Viola pushed him to the side, and he landed on the sofa.

That bought her some time she desperately needed to organize herself, and to figure out what the hell she was going to tell him when he woke up.

His place wasn't hard to find. A simple two-bedroom apartment in a modest part of an irrelevant town. It was no wonder that she hadn't found them here.

How the hell had the descendants of one of the oldest, purest lines of immortals in the world ended up in the middle of nowhere, under the radar? She couldn't comprehend it.

Evidently, one of the children had survived the massacre. Every turned Eirikrson had been accounted for before their butchers burned the bodies, but no one outside of the family circle knew about all the kids. The Eirikrson, like every other founding family, had been extremely protective of their heirs.

Most vampires couldn't procreate; they could turn a human into one of them if they were strong, old, and wise enough to do it, but there were only seven families capable of reproducing. The descendants of the seven vampires turned by their goddess.

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