Page 1 of A Hunter Cursed
Chapter One
“You turned the man into a goat,” Destin Jourdain growled, leaning forward in his seat behind his desk. Sharply dressed in a three-piece suit of pale gray with a chrome-colored silk tie over a white button-down, the man should have been sweltering hot in the lack of air conditioning in his home, but his mahogany skin lacked even the faintest glazing of perspiration. Keegan Bishop wasn’t so lucky, even though she was in shorts. In fact, she was pretty sure she was sweating straight through her T-shirt.
She tucked her trembling fingers beneath her thighs in an attempt to disguise her trepidation, but that only served to set her heel to bouncing nervously on the floor. She didn’t think anyone would be able to sit in front of the leader of the U.S. branch of the Order of Witches and not quake with fear. The level of power the man possessed was staggering. It made the hair on her arms stand up and her nape prickle in warning.
She wasn’t able to maintain eye contact with that hawk-like stare for more than a few seconds, and she’d known the man practically all her life. God knew she’d been called on the carpet enough where she should have been immune to his glare of disapproval. Still, despite possessing a healthy level of self-preservation, her jaw was set mulishly as she bit out, “He deserved it.”
He had, too, the shit. There she’d been, minding her own business, picking up a few groceries, when she’d felt a hot breath in her ear and a hand on her ass, as the familiar drawl of Noah Landry whispered, “Hey, Kee.”
She most likely would have just shoved him away with a snarled ‘Back off’ and moved on, no big deal, if that asshole’s hand hadn’t moved, insinuating itself between her legs and groping her like he had the right. Her temper had exploded, and with it, her primary ability.
Every witch had a specialty, a power that came so naturally, it was pretty much their default setting with no spells or incantations required. Keegan, unfortunately, was the weirdo that had two, but in this case, it was her offensive ability that had kicked in. Transmogrification – transforming something into a different form – as that pervy little prick, Noah had discovered when she’d changed him into a goat.
Goat Noah had, of course, freaked out, bleating, and kicking his way down the aisle, calling attention to himself as he knocked down displays and brought employees running. Keegan had only been able to hope no one had witnessed the change, and doing a fair imitation of shocked dismay, she’d joined the crowd before volunteering to help get Noah out of the store.
Animal Control had been called and Keegan had received a nasty kick to the gut as she and the store manager had attempted to corral one pissed off goat while they waited for them to arrive.
It had been tempting to let Noah stay an animal, after all, he acted like one practically daily, but Keegan’s conscience had gotten the better of her. Springing Goat Noah from his cage at Animal Control had been a breeze thanks to her magic. She’d merely flashed a blank piece of paper and the officer had seen exactly what he’d needed to see. Unfortunately, her gift had failed her when she’d attempted to change Noah back, leaving him some gross, part-human, part-goat abomination, bleating piteously on the ground. Keegan had panicked. She had no choice but to call Destin Jourdain to help clean up the mess and face the consequences of her actions.
“Why didn’t it work?” she asked, frowning. “Why couldn’t I change him back?”
Destin sat back in his seat with a blown-out breath. Raising his big palm to scrub over his bald head, he eyed her speculatively for a moment before he drawled in a bass rumble, “My guess is that you didn’t want it to work.”
Keegan’s lips twisted with a grimace at the truth in those words and she hunched down further in her chair. “He’s an asshole.”
“Irrelevant. You used your magic in public, with no thought of who might have seen you, and then you didn’t even bother to give me a heads up that clean-up might be necessary.”
“I did call you,” she protested, lurching forward.
“Hours after the fact and only once you’d made an even bigger mess.”
She could feel the prickling heat of shame creeping over her skin along with a shudder of fear. Destin Jourdain had the authority to declare her incompetent, strip her of her power, and cast her out. She’d broken the cardinal rule, displayed her powers outside of the coven, potentially exposing their kind, not to mention, she’d used her gifts in anger for petty vengeance – a big no-no.
She deserved to be punished, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t attempt to wheedle her way out of it. “I can make restitution,” she suggested, hopefully.
Jourdain shook his head and pulled open a desk drawer as Keegan held her breath, waiting for the metaphorical ax to fall.
He pulled out a piece of paper and tapped it with a long finger. “What do you know of the Hunters?”
Keegan blinked at the unexpected change in subject. She’d never even heard of the Hunters until almost a year ago when Destin Jourdain had called a team of them in. They’d helped Jourdain take down the ruling vampire, Olivier Rodolfo, and after that, the Hunters had been all anyone in the supernatural community talked about.
Keegan shrugged. “They’re vampires who hunt vampires.”
Jourdain nodded. “They’ve set up a training facility here in New Orleans.” He eyed her pointedly, “You’ve been drifting since Agnes and Henry died.”
“Murdered,” Keegan corrected him, unable to hold back her biting tone. “They were murdered.”
Jourdain nodded, his face sympathetic.
For a time, Keegan had been filled with rage, all of it aimed at the vampires, only to later discover that it had been a witch at the helm, a witch that had been not only Keegan’s mentor but also, her friend – one of her best friends. Controlling the vampires’ minds, Evangeline Duvalier had used them as a weapon to kill any that stood in her way in a grab for power. Including witches like Agnes and Henry, Keegan’s host family. It had been bad enough to think that vampires had killed them, but to discover it had been someone she, as well as Agnes and Henry, had considered family… It had broken her heart.Keegan had barely been able to grasp it. The Evangeline she knew had always been powerful and stubbornly determined, yes, but she’d also been warm, protective, caring. It hadn’t made sense.
When Evangeline had first begun acting erratically, the coven, as well as Keegan, had been shocked to discover that Evangeline had somehow been using powers from a demonic source. That magic had warped her character and the coven had been forced to bind her, imprison her for her own protection while they tried to figure out how to remove the evil without killing her since she refused to voluntarily give up the power. Keegan had sat with her so many times, begging her to relinquish those abilities for her own sake.
"You forgive me then, child?" Evangeline had asked of her during her first visit.
“Of course I do,” had been Keegan's immediate response. She had strongly felt that Evangeline had been infected by that power, corrupted, and her actions that had led to her imprisonment weren’t her fault. But after… Evangeline had known who the anchors were to the cooperation spell that bound her. Witches that had once been her friends and Evangeline hadn’t hesitated to send vampires to kill them to free herself.
Feeling her throat close with emotion, Keegan gruffly cleared it, pushing those thoughts away before she broke down in front of Jourdain. “What does the training facility have to do with me? Hunters are vampires.”
