Page 1 of A Hunter Turned
Chapter One
Jamie Wilson shifted in the bed to find a more comfortable position. She hated being injured, hated feeling like a burden. For shit’s sake, she couldn’t even go to the bathroom on her own, and this confinement was really beginning to grate on her nerves. Her job was a dangerous one. She knew that – had always known that – and had never shied away from it. Even before she’d become a vampire working for the Hunters’ Society, she’d lived dangerously, had pushed boundaries as a hacktivist, knowing that each day might be the one that saw the men in black coming to drag her away. Skill and blind luck had been her salvation in the past. This time, she hadn’t been so fortunate. If it weren’t for her team, she might still be buried neck-deep in that sick prick, Olivier Rodolfo’s greenhouse of horrors.
She’d finally managed to get a backdoor into Rodolfo’s system, had found the answer to the question that had brought her and her team to New Orleans, but she had also managed to accidentally trip an alarm she hadn’t realized was there, tipping off the Born to her snooping and in retaliation, the Born vampire had sicced his thugs on her.
For her crimes, she’d been blinded, her eyelids cauterized with glowing hot blades, the bones of her hands smashed with hammers, her lips sewn shut. She’d been beaten, tortured, bled out so she couldn’t heal, and then buried in the earth and left to bake in the unrelenting Louisiana heat.
How had she ever thought that Rodolfo was attractive? Jamie thought, shaking her head. Like all the Born – natural vampires created thanks to horny demons impregnating human women back in the early years of civilization – Olivier Rodolfo possessed a symmetry of features that was downright beautiful. So, Jamie supposed she couldn’t be blamed for gawking openly at the man when she’d first seen him. His character, however, left much to be desired.
Aside from the brutality she’d witnessed first-hand while staying at the man’s villa, the things she’d discovered, thanks to her hacking skills, had turned her stomach. Jamie may not have always been on the right side of the law, but she had always been able to justify her actions as benefitting a greater cause. The only cause Olivier Rodolfo stood for was himself. Illegal weapons sales, drugs, human trafficking… the list went on.
Not all of the Born were ruthless, heartless, conscienceless beings, however. Her team proved that. Of the three vampires that comprised their team, Jamie was the only Turned vampire. Morgan, their team leader, as well as Kane, were both Born, and they happened to be her best friends. She loved them, trusted them completely, but she was also well aware that they were exceptions to the rule.
Thanks to regular feedings of pure vampire blood from both Morgan and Kane, she’d been healing. Unfortunately, not fast enough for her liking. Their mission, to discover whether Olivier Rodolfo had ordered the vampires in his territory to murder innocent witches, actually went far deeper than that and she was itching to get her hands on a computer and discover just how deep that rabbit hole went. There had to be a reason, a trigger… The decree had come straight from the Court of Elders, the ruling body of vampires, and sent to every territory-holding Born. It was a silent declaration of war against all magic wielders worldwide and the consequences of such were catastrophic. But why? Was it just sheer arrogance? Vampires may have strength in numbers, but some witches, such as the witch who hired them for the job, were so powerful, they could take out a legion of vampires with a flick of the wrist.
Morgan and Kane were doing all they could to prevent an escalation, Kane even going so far as to seize control of the now-deceased Olivier Rodolfo’s territory. According to Morgan, her sexy cop boyfriend, Travis St. John, who they had originally thought was an angel pretending to be human, had turned out to be a badass dragon shifter. A species everyone had thought was extinct until he’d transformed and spewed fire right onto a screaming Rodolfo’s head, ending that sick prick’s sadistic reign. How Jamie wished she could have been awake to see that smug bastard’s demise rather than hearing about it after the fact.
While her team was out there, making a difference, fighting, lighting shit up, she was here, lying in a bed, useless. Aside from the fact that she still couldn’t yet see, her broken hands were also swathed in so much bandaging to prevent her from accidentally banging against something and setting her healing back, she practically had catcher’s mitts attached to her wrists. She couldn’t even scratch properly, and that was hell of annoying, especially since they were currently residing in the bayou and just the sound of insects buzzing was making her itchy. The burned skin around her eyes was also beginning to itch and while the pack healer had informed her that was a good thing, a sign of healing, the inability to scratch was driving her bonkers.
Luckily, someone was always within earshot in case she needed a helping hand. Unfortunately, too many times of late, the person within calling distance had turned out to be Archer Langley, the arrogant and autocratic alpha of the wolfpack that called this stretch of bayou home. She could be covered in the itchy-scratchies, dying of thirst or hunger, or bursting to pee but still rather bite her tongue than call for him if she knew Morgan and Kane were elsewhere.
Jamie had been mortified at their first meeting. Not having yet been informed they were in pack territory, she had assumed what she had scented was a dog that had come in with Kane and under that assumption, had made cooing baby noises as she exclaimed, “Ooh, Kane! Did you bring me a puppy? I want to pet the puppy.”
Kane had thought her statement hilarious, his gasping hoots of merriment echoing through the cavernous space of the house in which they were temporarily residing. Archer Langley had not shared in her teammate’s amusement, snarling quite viciously. Since then, he found every opportunity he could to visit his seemingly perpetual bad mood upon her, frequently deriding her, calling her weak, accusing her of babying her injuries. Jamie mentally snorted.As if.The sooner she was healed, the sooner she could feel useful again.
For fun, when no one was around, she’d begun imagining what Archer Langley looked like. Short, balding, of course, with maybe a thin, greasy comb-over. Snaggle-toothed with a pock-marked, florid face, hanging jowls, big ears, and a beer belly that hung well over his pants. Laughing quietly at her imaginings, Jamie didn’t realize she was no longer alone until she heard a rustle near the foot of her bed.
“Who’s there?” It didn’t smell like either Kane or Morgan, nor did it smell like Morgan’s boyfriend who had built this house, or the heavy medicinal smell that clung to the pack healer who had patched Jamie up. The scent was a combination of dirt, grass, and… peanut butter?
The voice that answered was that of a little girl as the child announced, “I’m Cadence Marie Langley but everyone calls me Cady or Cadydid though I don’t like that name. Katydids are bugs.”
The girl's voice had changed on the last, altered in such a way that Jamie could guess the child’s face had scrunched up in disgust. Jamie chuckled, “I wouldn’t want to be called a bug either,” and then, “It’s nice to meet you, Cady, I’m Jamie Wilson.”
“You hurt yourself.” The voice was closer now, the girl must have come around to the side of the bed to inspect Jamie’s injuries. “Did you fall into the fire? Daddy always says no running near the fires cus I fall down all the time. Marceline says I’m the clumsiest pup ever born but that can’t be right. She couldn’t have met every single pup on the planet.”
Jamie smiled fondly at the rapid-fire disclosure. “You’re a clever girl, aren’t you?”
“Mm-hm,” was said, probably with a rather adamant nod, and then, “I skinned my knees this morning. You can’t see them, but Daddy kissed them and put band-aids on them. They’re Paw Patrol.”
The girl’s full name finally sunk in. Her last name was Langley. Somehow, she couldn’t reconcile that grumpy asshole, Archer Langley, having produced this sweet child. Nor could she imagine him kissing boo-boos. Little Cady must be a niece or cousin to the alpha. “You like Paw Patrol?”
“I wanted the princess band-aids like I had last time but the store was all out. I like your hair.”
Jamie would have blinked at the non-sequitur if she had functioning eyelids. “Thank you.”
She heard a wistful sigh. “I wish I had blonde hair.”
“What color is your hair?”
“Black. It gets snarly so it’s a pain to brush and Daddy is always finding grass and twigs and stuff in my hair.”
“I used to have black hair,” Jamie told the child. “Back in my goth phase. Black with a turquoise stripe down one side.”
“What’s goth?”
Jamie pursed her lips as she considered how best to explain the subculture that had defined the majority of her teen years into her twenties and finally settled on, “Mostly it’s a lot of black clothes and a bad attitude.”
“I don’t have black clothes. My favorite color is pink.”
