Page 7 of A Hunter Cursed
She might even witness them in their animal forms. The thought was exhilarating but also a little bit frightening. These wouldn’t be animals behind protective boundaries at the zoo. They’d be roaming the facility freely and had claws and sharp teeth…
“Do I have something stuck in my teeth?” Jeremiah asked and Keegan realized she’d been staring at his mouth, probably with a weird look on her face. Her cheeks exploded with hot embarrassment.
She watched as his upper lip bulged slightly when he ran his tongue over his teeth and she quickly shook her head to reassure him. “Sorry. No. I was zoning, thinking about something else.”
Jeremiah nodded, taking her at her word before he said, “Speaking of something else, I’m starved. Anyone else hungry?”
Feeling an answering rumble in her belly at the thought of food, Keegan nodded just as Morgan’s phone rang. The vampire waved at them in a shooing gesture. “You two go ahead, we’re pretty much finished here for today anyway. I have to take this.”
“Lunch?” Jeremiah asked with a bright smile. “I know a great place.”
Keegan hesitated. “Er, I think I’ll just check out the dining hall. I think I saw some bagels and fruit set out.”
Jeremiah’s eyes flicked down to her bare left hand before coming back to her face. “Boyfriend wouldn’t appreciate you having lunch with me, huh?”
She shook her head. “It’s not that.”
“I’ll treat,” he offered in a cajoling tone that only made Keegan frown harder. Her refusal had nothing to do with money either. How did you explain to someone that going out with her, even for something as benign as lunch might be putting his life at risk? Hell, just her being attracted to him as strongly as she was might have already triggered things.
Wiping suddenly sweaty palms down the front of her slacks, she grimaced. “I’m not comfortable with that,” she told him and hoped he’d take the hint and drop it.
He didn’t, was frowning rather heavily as he asked, “Is it the wolf thing?”
Crap. Now he probably felt insulted. Raising her hands in a placating gesture, she quickly assured him, “No, no. Not at all.”
“What is it then?”
Tight-lipped, Keegan turned and walked away without answering and Jeremiah felt like an ass. Well, technically, hewasan ass for not taking her refusal like he should and leaving well enough alone, but dammit, he wanted to know why. She was attracted to him, he’d seen it, felt it, yet the idea of lunch with him had put a tinge of fear in her lovely blue eyes that she hadn’t been able to hide. So if she wasn’t afraid of him then she was afraid of something or someone and that just was not acceptable. His wolf agreed, practically howling inside him to find whatever she was scared of and eliminate the threat.
Her stride was eating up the distance, but Jeremiah had no problem catching up to her with his long legs. “I’m sorry, I’m not usually so pushy,” he offered sincerely. “If you want to grab some food in the dining hall, I’m good with that.”
Turning her face to glance at him, he saw her expression was still pinched, her voice a disgruntled mutter as she said, “You may not even want to do that.”
The bitterness in her tone had him wincing. Shit. Had he pissed her off that bad? Had his careless words cost him the chance of getting to know this woman better? “I’m really not an asshole,” he offered, trying to inject some humor he certainly didn’t feel into his words. “I promise.”
“It’s not you,” he heard her grumble, and then, so quietly he wasn’t sure he heard her correctly, she added, “I’m dangerous.”
Chapter Five
Keegan had to give Jeremiah credit. He didn’t laugh at her statement even though it probably sounded ridiculous to a man who harbored a wolf inside. Instead, he nodded thoughtfully. “You’re that powerful?”
The words were out before she could think better of it. “I’m cursed,” she confessed, and then cringed. Why?Why?Why had she told him that?
Having reached the dining hall, she made a beeline for the table that held an assortment of foods intended to be grabbed on the run for consumption. Once the training had officially begun, she knew there would be scheduled times when hot foods would be served, but for now, things were casual as instructors and staff came in and out while preparations were still underway.
“Well, now I have to admit I’m curious.”
Keegan winced. Of course he was. You couldn’t just drop a bomb like that and not follow through, could you? The only plus was that if she told him, he’d either laugh and think she was crazy, thereby losing any interest in the nut-ball witch, or he’d take her seriously and leave her alone out of self-preservation.
Taking her plate with the bagel and orange she was no longer hungry for over to a table, she sat down with a sigh. Jeremiah took a seat across from her and plunked his elbows on the table to look at her with expectation written all over his handsome face.
How did she even begin?
“So let me guess,” Jeremiah prompted. “You pissed off the wrong witch and they put some kind of hex on you.”
Keegan wished it was that simple. Spells could be broken. This… she shook her head. She honestly didn’t know what this was or where it came from, though it had been suggested it was the price of her gifts. One thing she did know was that it had already cost too many people their lives.
“My parents died when I was nine,” she began, fiddling with the orange on her plate. “A structural collapse that never should have happened. A fluke, a tragic accident they called it.”
