Page 4 of A Hunter Turned
A light rapping on the door was followed by Morgan’s, “Are you okay, Jamie? Do you need any help?”
Morgan, always so considerate. She and Kane both had better things – more important things – to do, yet they always checked on her first, let her know that she was a priority and it never failed to lift her spirits.
Opening her mouth, she was just about to assure the other woman that she was fine when she heard that snarly voice that never failed to put her on edge say, “Stop babying her. If she needs help, she’ll ask.”
The words may have been true, but the way they were spoken pissed her off and the dam on her temper broke. Had she been a cartoon character, flames would have been shooting out of the top of her head. Latching onto the doorknob with an awkward and painful grip she was sure to feel later once she’d calmed down, Jamie wrenched it open and, blurry vision or not, marched straight to Archer Langley to give him a piece of her mind. Poking her entire hand, since she couldn’t point her finger independently of the others, she growled, “Stop being a dickhead, asshole. We’re not your wolves. Not your concern. So why the hell are you still here?”
The alpha leaned forward, his face coming into focus, revealing eyes that were a stormy gray, the color of clouds during a thunderstorm, beneath dark, forbidding brows. Jamie had the sudden urge to step back, put space between herself and an obvious predator that had the hair on the nape of her neck prickling in warning, but she held her ground as he quietly announced, “As long as you’re on pack lands, vampire, I’ll be watching you. Get used to it.”
Jamie hissed, her fangs fully distending in her anger at his sneering tone.
“Okay, okay, Xena, Warrior Princess,” Kane drawled with a chuckle as he inserted his body between her and the asshole wolfman. “Let’s not shed any more blood today. It would be a waste since you’re full.”
Hearing a low growl, Jamie’s eyes snapped away from Kane’s familiar bearded face, to the darker, also bearded alpha who was still looming despite Kane’s best efforts to nudge the man aside. Glaring, she muttered, “Asshole,” before turning her back on the man with every intention of ignoring him.
She focused instead on the slightly blurry form of Morgan who was standing with her feet braced slightly apart and arms crossed over her chest as she took in the unfolding drama, prepared to act if need be. Archer Langley obviously had no idea that Morgan and Kane were both just as deadly a predator as he was, that the two of them were currently playing nice only because they appreciated the alpha’s hospitality, but would, if pushed, push back violently when threatened. Why else would the alpha insist on needling them at every opportunity?
“Please tell me it’s almost sundown so that I can get out of here and go for a walk. I’m going stir crazy.”
“A few more hours yet,” the other woman informed her, to Jamie’s disappointment. “How about some pizza?”
Her stomach rumbled at the suggestion. Unsurprisingly, since Kane tended to think with his stomach more often than not, the male chimed in with enthusiastic approval of the idea, only for that annoying man that, Jamie was sure, lived for the pleasure of antagonizing them and specifically her, added, “You can’t get delivery out here.”
Jamie rolled her eyes – and how great did that feel? – before looking over her shoulder at Archer Langley to scoff, “What? They don’t pay their drivers enough to deal with your bitchy ass?”
She had moved too far away from him to see his face with any clarity but she could actually feel his glare like an oppressive weight settling on her skin. She’d bet it was a look that had left his pack cowering many a day, and perhaps, if she hadn’t had Morgan and Kane there to back her up, she wouldn’t have felt quite so brave in the face of a pissed-off wolf, but something inside of her wouldn’t let her back down. Turning fully, she mirrored Morgan’s stance and returned the alpha’s glare, practically daring him.
For a moment, everything went quiet. Even the buzzing of the insects ceased, as if the world outside was holding its breath to see how an alpha would respond to what was clearly a challenge. And then Archer Langley did the unexpected and laughed. His head thrown back, great guffaws of merriment that filled the space before he shook his head, still chuckling. “I’ll order enough for everyone,” he said, “and post someone near the road to retrieve it.”
Feeling a combination of pride at having won the silent battle of wills and mild confusion at what she may have missed that the alpha had found so funny, Jamie watched warily as Archer’s blurry form headed for the door and disappeared outside. She couldn’t help but wonder if he had just come up with some new, diabolical way to torture her.
“Doesn’t he remind you of a pirate?” Morgan murmured, stepping up to stand at Jamie’s side.
Jamie raised a non-existent brow at the comparison and then scowled when she remembered how ridiculous she must look. She hadn’t thought pirate upon getting her first look at Archer Langley, her brain leaning more toward deranged mountain man, but considering the long, thick, dark hair with its tendency to curl and the long beard, added to their current proximity to water, Jamie could see how Morgan had arrived at such an observation.
But she didn’t want to talk about Archer Langley. Her vision was coming back, her fingers were on the mend and semi-usable, and since she couldn’t yet go outside for some much-needed fresh air, she was dying to get her hands on a computer to catch up on everything she’d missed.
Of course, that was easier said than done. Most of her tech had been destroyed by Rodolfo’s thugs when she had been taken, including her favorite laptop. Her backup, that had been in their SUV wasn’t as nice, nor as fast, but considering she’d be far from speedy herself for quite some time, it would be sufficient. It would have to be, at least until she went shopping to replace what she’d lost.
“I need to get online,” Jamie told Morgan and Kane as her eyes searched the room, squinting to try and bring things better into focus.
“Here,” Kane offered, grabbing up the thin device from a side table and passing it her way.
Stifling the insane urge to hug the thing, Jamie settled on the couch and opened the laptop with a pleased sigh. “Oh, how I’ve missed all my babies,” she whispered with a fond smile, stroking her bandaged fingers over the hard, outer edge of the casing.
Kane and Morgan both let out choked laughs before Kane added, “Your babies’ deaths have been avenged and they were given warriors’ funerals.”
It was said in a teasing manner that most would take as a joke, but Jamie knew Kane, and Kane knew how she’d felt about her equipment. Theywereher babies, and as such, she could absolutely picture him with bowed head, speaking solemn words over their decimated corpses to honor Jamie.
The thought had her inexplicably tearing up. Brushing the moisture quickly away with her forearm, she sniffled, leaning closer to the screen in an attempt to hide the reaction. Her team couldn’t be fooled that easily, the two of them settling on the couch on either side of her, both wrapping their arms around her.
“We’ll replace it,” Morgan quietly assured her. “All of it.”
“Top of the line for you, Jamie girl. Best of the best,” Kane tacked on.
The words opened the floodgates on Jamie’s thus far bottled up emotions and a torrent of tears was released. Wrenching sobs that shook her body as her team held her within their comforting embraces. She cried out her pain, not only for the tangible things she’d lost, but for the trauma she had endured, and the parts of her psyche that had surely suffered catastrophic damage during her torture and, unlike her equipment, she feared could never be so easily replaced.
Chapter Four
