Page 5 of A Hunter Cursed
He and Morgan were conversing, so Keegan took a moment to look the man over. Jeremiah Durand was a fine specimen of manhood, that was for sure. Probably around thirty if she had to guess. He had thick, dark hair that was just starting to curl onto his forehead and over his ears, piercing blue eyes, a hint of a whisker shadow on a strong, square jaw. He had a dimple in his chin, she noted with a little smile before she shook her head at how ridiculous she was being.
He was a wolf shifter. That would explain the ferocity she’d noted in her vision, as well as the glowing amber eyes. He was also, apparently, going to be working with her, which might explain why he was part of whatever was coming. She just wished she could figure out what that was so she might get ahead of it. A darkened Bourbon Street, black ooze, and a sense of evil really didn’t tell her much. Of course, that was the bitch of prophecy, wasn’t it? Most of the time you couldn’t decipher it until after the shit storm struck.
She also hated putting Destin Jourdain on high alert when she had no ideawhenit might happen. Shortly after Evangeline had been imprisoned – so that would have been a few years ago now – she’d had a recurring dream that she had been sure was a vision. To this day, she recalled it with stunning clarity. She hadn’t seen her pursuer in the dream, but she could practically feel its hot breath on the back of her neck as it chased her down darkened, rain-slick streets. Whatever it was, it had terrified her. Her feet slipping on wet pavement, rain stinging her face, her breath leaving her in hard gasping pants. She’d run to a church of dark gray stone, gothic in design, and raced up the stone steps to pound on the doors, screaming for someone to let her in. Lightning flashed in the sky and thunder boomed so loud it had made her ears ring.
The doors had burst open and she’d stumbled through, practically sobbing with relief as she headed up the center aisle for the cloth-draped alter. It was as she reached it that the stained-glass windows depicting warrior angels bearing swords began to warp, the angels coming alive, peeling themselves free and taking three-dimensional form. Wings of startling bronze, wings of glossy black, and wings of brilliant white spread to their full span creating a wall around her, protecting her, and preventing her from seeing what had been chasing her, though she could still feel its suffocating presence. The angels had spoken in the dream, but not to her, their combined voices a shockwave of sound made up of words she hadn’t been able to understand but whatever they were, they had served to banish the evil that had been pursuing her.
When Keegan had woke up, she’d immediately told Destin of the dream she was sure was prophetic. He’d taken her seriously, had put his people on high-alert, and had taken Keegan around to every church in the area to see if she could identify the one from her vision. She recognized none of them, and the vision – if it truly had been prophetic – had yet to come to pass. Still, whenever she traveled to a new place for Jourdain to source an object, plant, or book he needed, the first thing she did was check every church in the area, looking for the one she’d dreamed about. Would this new vision be the same? Would years pass with Keegan holding her breath, searching, waiting?
“So, you’re Jourdain’s spy?”
Keegan blinked the haze from her eyes and shook her head slightly to clear it. The wolf was smiling down at her, waiting for her reply to his question, and man, what a smile it was. The sight of it made her lower abdomen clench, and an almost giddy feeling bubbled through her bloodstream. Forcing herself to look away before she embarrassed herself by staring, or, God forbid, giggling, she saw Morgan was moving briskly down the hall, a cell phone to her ear.
No longer sure what he had asked after having been the recipient of that distracting smile, Keegan mentally scolded herself to act like a professional. “I’m sorry. What?”
“Jourdain’s spy,” he repeated before he shrugged. “Though I suppose, as powerful as he is, he doesn’t need a person on the inside, does he? He can probably just pull out a crystal ball, or look into some enchanted mirror or something if he wants to keep tabs on all of us.”
Keegan grinned. “Are you Archer Langley’s spy?”
“Yup.”
She couldn’t hold back her burst of laughter as she teased, “You should at least deny it. Not very spy-like of you to admit it and blow your cover on the first day.”
Jeremiah grinned and shrugged, completely unconcerned. “It’s not like Morgan doesn’t know I’ll be telling Archer everything. Besides,” he continued, “what I don’t tell him, Jamie will.”
It took a moment for Keegan to collect her thoughts after once more being on the receiving end of that smile that had her staring at him in dumb-struck fascination yet again. The man was too gorgeous by far. Shaking herself, she asked, “Who’s Jamie?”
“One of the instructors here, I’m sure you’ll meet her soon. She’s a vampire, a Hunter, and also Archer’s mate.”
Keegan’s eyes rounded in surprise. “Wow. A shifter mated to a vampire? And an alpha to boot? That’s a surprise.”
Jeremiah stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shrugged again. “You love who you love.”
It was a lovely sentiment, that love could transcend the inherent animosities between two species that had been created to be enemies. And surprising, especially coming from a shifter – a species that tended to be brutal, almost savage in their thinking. Or so she’d always believed. Had she been wrong about that? Unable to resist, she took a closer look at Jeremiah Durand, not that looking at him was any hardship.
Jeremiah stood a little taller under the witch’s regard. He found her absolutely gorgeous. He’d barely been able to take his eyes off of her once he’d seen her, or focus on what Morgan had been telling him. His wolf had immediately sat up and taken notice as well, practically begging for him to move closer, take in her scent. Never had his wolf been so intrigued by a female, a fact which had Jeremiah paying even closer attention to Keegan Bishop.
Her clothes were a touch rumpled and her cosmetics were slightly smudged, but neither of those things detracted from her overall appeal. Thickly lashed, big blue eyes took him in from head to toe and sweetly plump lips that were just made for kissing were thoughtfully pursed. Her hair was a shiny mass of deep, luxurious brown with gold highlights that she absently swept to the side and over one shoulder with her hand, the action sending the smell of coconut wafting his way. He inhaled and nearly growled as he caught her own unique scent just underneath.
Swallowing the betraying sound, he moved to open a door, more for something to occupy his hands than any actual curiosity. A bathroom lay beyond and Keegan popped her head through the door, the action bringing her body so close to his that he unconsciously tensed.
“Communal showers. Yuck.”
Her words were disparaging, but there was amusement in those gorgeous blue eyes as she smiled up at him. “Makes me glad I’ll be living off-campus.”
He grunted, the primitive sound all he could manage, but it drew her eyes to his mouth and Jeremiah immediately hardened as he imagined pulling her into that bathroom she felt such disdain for and kissing her until neither one of them could see straight.
“Sorry about that,” Morgan’s voice intruded making both of them jump back as if they’d been caught doing something wrong. “I had to take that call.”
A becoming rose color stained Keegan’s cheeks, making Jeremiah wonder if her thoughts hadn’t gone on the same erotic trajectory as his. The possibility was intriguing and incredibly arousing.
“Shall we finish the tour?”
Chapter Four
It took Keegan several heart-pounding moments to shake off the haze of lust that had her nearly throwing herself at Jeremiah Durand. What had she been thinking? She knew better than to attempt something so foolish, and yet, if Morgan hadn’t interrupted, she wasn’t sure if she would have been able to stop herself. Focusing on breathing and putting one foot in front of the other, she finally felt calm enough to rejoin the conversation.
She had been given an entire section of the facility for her training program. One room was set up like a typical classroom complete with desks and a dry erase board, another large, gymnasium-style space was empty of furniture except for thick blue pads stacked against a wall and a row of practice dummies her students would be able to beat on. The third room, however, had her mouth open with awe as she remarked, “You did your homework.”
