Page 23 of A Hunter Turned
Archer looked confused. “What?”
“Nedra. When we first arrived and Cady was showing me Rueben, I heard Nedra say ‘Another one?’ and that she hoped this one had more gumption or something like that.”
Archer grimaced. “Another vampire,” he stated, in a decidedly chilly voice.
Jamie frowned in confusion, “Who was the first?”
His eyes skated to his daughter who was conked out against Jamie’s side, her little mouth open as she dreamed, completely oblivious to the adults and their conversation.
Stepping out of the boat, he busied himself for several moments, tethering it to the pier and Jamie thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally, he said with a growl, “My wife.”
The unexpected response had Jamie’s penciled-in eyebrows shooting nearly to her hairline. In a whispered hiss of disbelief, she blurted, “You were married to a vampire?” Then glancing at Cady, she frowned. “But vampires can’t have children.”
Archer’s expression was as ferocious as she’d ever seen it and she shrunk back slightly, a protective arm going around Cady. Not that Archer would ever hurt his daughter, she knew that, but some things were just instinctive she supposed, like protecting the vulnerable.
Seeing her reaction, recognizing it for what it was, Archer closed his eyes and took a deep breath in an attempt to regain his cool. “This subject gets me riled, so if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather get my daughter tucked into bed first.”
An appropriate response was probably to tell him that he didn’t need to share, or that they could discuss it another time, but honestly, Jamie’s mind was practically bubbling over with questions and a curiosity that wasn’t going to easily be set aside. She needed to know. So, she followed him as he carried his daughter to his house, and since he didn’t shut the door in her face, went inside and made herself comfortable while he settled Cady for the night.
When he reemerged, he had two bottles of beer and he handed her one as he settled into a comfortable looking recliner, his hand stroking over the length of his beard. Taking a deep pull from the long neck, Archer seemed miles away as he finally broke the silence. “Kelsey wasn’t a vampire when I married her or when she had Cady. She was a sweet, beautiful woman with a heart so big and a smile so sweet that everyone loved her.”
He fell silent, lost in his memories, Jamie was sure, but she couldn’t hold back her questions. “Why would she volunteer to be Turned?”
Archer snarled, his eyes flashing silver and his knuckles showing white in the fist he made against his thigh. Jamie quickly glanced at his hand holding the bottle, fearful that he’d squeeze so hard the glass would shatter.
“She didn’t volunteer. She was taken, forced,” the last was said with such animosity that Jamie cringed back slightly.
“Oh, God, Archer. I’m so sorry.”
Forced Turnings were frowned upon and certainly not the norm, but then, when it required a Born to do the Turning, and that Born ruled a territory, who was there to naysay them?
Archer took another swig from his beer, his knee bouncing with agitation. “She’d just had Cady,” he murmured, once more lost in the memories and Jamie was determined to keep her mouth shut and let him speak this time.
“We were both sleep-deprived, going a little stir-crazy, but Kelsey more than me. I at least could get out of the house for pack business occasionally and I felt bad, so, I suggested that she take a day, go visit friends, go shopping, sleep, whatever, and I’d stay with the baby.”
Another drink and his body stilled. “Not long after dark, she texted me that she was going to stop at the store to get some ice cream, and then she’d be home.”
He was quiet for several minutes and all of Jamie’s good intentions to keep her mouth shut flew out the window. “She didn’t come home. Did she?”
Archer shook his head, a bleak look on his face. “At first, I tried to explain it away, you know? She ran into some friends, got distracted, whatever, but when midnight hit and she still wasn’t home, wasn’t answering her phone, I got frantic.”
Springing out of his seat like he couldn’t possibly stay in it a second longer, he began to pace. “Practically the whole pack went out to look for her. Her car was finally found in a grocery store parking lot, a bag of melted ice cream on the ground by the driver’s side door.”
“The store’s security cameras?” She asked since that would have been the first thing she would have checked.
He ran a hand through his hair in frustration and shook his head. “The store got a delivery around the time Kelsey disappeared. They recorded her walking to the car and by the time the truck passed out of frame, she was gone.”
“Fast then.”
He nodded. “We filed a missing person’s report as soon as we were able, checked local hospitals in case she was taken by a vampire and fed upon but then left alive…” he choked on the last word, his emotions too high and Jamie tried to imagine the fear, the desperation he must have suffered not knowing if his wife, the mother of his newborn baby, was alive or dead.
“Over three months before she somehow managed to escape and return to me. They’d Turned her, held her against her will, abused her…” Archer’s voice broke into a snarl and his eyes turned silver as he stared at Jamie with a feral glint. “And then when she wasfinallygetting better, finally moving on, the bastard that took her came back.”
His voice had lowered, more animal than man as he continued, “The knowledge that he could get to her again, even with her surrounded by the protection of the pack, that he could drag her back to hell at any time, broke something fundamental inside of her that night. It ripped the light out of her eyes until nothing looked back at you but an empty void. Not even holding Cady would snap her out of it. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t leave the house.”
Archer shot his arm out and pointed at Jamie’s cheeks which she realized were wet with tears. “She wouldn’t even cry. It was like her spirit had flown away and left an empty shell behind.”
Grabbing handfuls of hair in his fists, he squatted down. “I tried to be so careful with her, tried to be supportive and loving, and then one night, I thought it had worked. There was just the tiniest spark, just a glimmer as she told me she was going for a walk. I felt so much hope at that moment.”
