“That isn’t going to happen,” he growled and took a single step towards her.
Her right hand shot to the hilt of her sword, but she didn’t draw it.
He stared her down, aware that the darkness was rising in his eyes again, provoked by his need to hunt, by the frustration now mounting inside him as he looked at the aftermath of the fight and could count only one of the kills as his own. The five vampires might have satisfied him.
Maybe.
Probably not.
It was taking larger and larger nests to keep his need to hunt the vermin quiet these days.
If he could track down the remaining seven, it might at least take the edge off.
He just needed to make sure the woman didn’t get ideas about hunting them, so he had a clear shot at them, without worrying about her.
“You were almost killed tonight.” He risked another step towards her and tried to keep the bite out of his voice as a replay of her held in the arms of that damned wretch flashed across his mind, his fangs poised to pierce her throat. Darkness rose within him again and he didn’t tamp it down this time, let it flood his veins and his eyes so she would see it. So she would know what she was up against. “You’re not strong enough to fight that many vampires alone. It’s tantamount to committing suicide. Do you have a death wish?”
Anger flared in her hazel eyes, fire that stoked the one in his veins as he realised she was going to fight him on this. He wanted to tangle with her, just not in this way. If she wanted a fight though, she had it.
“I’m not afraid of death.” The look in her eyes warned she meant that and told him that he wasn’t the only one who had a reason to kill vampires.
She was driven by something, and from where he was standing it looked personal.
She stooped and grabbed a leather jacket from the ground, tugged it on in a way that screamed of the anger and frustration he could sense in her. Her eyes met his and she cast him a withering glare that let him know exactly what she thought of him, and then stormed past him.
He grabbed her arm, holding her back. “Where do you think you’re going?”
She yanked free of his light grip, tilted her head back and glared up at him. “I’m going to find the vampires.”
“You won’t find them tonight. They will have gone to ground. It’s going to take us a few nights to uncover the location of their new nest.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Us?”
He hiked his shoulders, cleaned his knife on his combat trousers and sheathed it. “I’m not going to let you hunt them alone.”
Partly because she would get herself killed.
Mostly because he needed to kill them himself. Working with her seemed like a good way of getting her out of his way. Once they found the vampires, he could teleport her somewhere safe and return to kill them. She would be furious with him, but he found he liked that idea. He liked it when there was a bite in her tone and fire in her eyes.
“No one lets me do anything.” She looked as if she wanted to hit him. “I’m not yours to control. I can find the vampires without you. I don’t need your help.”
He scoffed. “Is that so? Because from where I’m standing, I have the feeling I have at least two centuries of vampire hunting experience on you and I know every inch of this city in detail, can pin down at least a dozen locations I would check tomorrow night alone. Can you say the same?”
Her mouth flapped open and snapped closed. She was quick to recover and hit him with another glare that let him know exactly what she thought about him. If he was trying to get that spot on her dance card for a midnight tango, he was going about it the wrong way. Something about her made it impossible to play nice though. He had charmed his share of women over the centuries, could normally have them under his spell with only a few well-placed compliments and a little light flirting.
Something about her had him way off his game.
He didn’t mean to be caustic with her, to push her buttons and rile her at every turn, but he couldn’t help himself.
And he had the feeling it wasn’t because he didn’t want to share the vampire kills.
His mind whirled back to when he had first set eyes on her and the black, terrible need that had gone through him in that moment.
A dark urge to protect her.
He felt it even now, even as she levelled a black look at him, her eyes relaying the internal war she waged as she considered his offer despite the fact she clearly preferred working alone. Just the fact she was considering it didn’t sit well with her, he could see that much.
He couldn’t deny that it sat well with him. A little too well. The thought of working with her, seeing her again, had need rolling through him. Not a desire to tangle with her, but a desire to peel back her layers and discover what she hid beneath her beautiful, tough exterior.
Why did she hunt vampires?
He wanted to know the answer to that question.
The corners of her lips turned downwards and she looked away from him. “Fine. But only because it will speed things up.”
Marek held his smile back, keeping his features flat and emotionless, so she couldn’t see how much that pleased him.
He gazed down at her, tracing her profile as she gently brushed her caramel-coloured hair over her shoulder, causing the tumbling waves to catch the light and become threaded with gold. Her eyes slowly slid to meet his, stirring that wicked need in his veins again, quickening his pulse as he drank his fill of his enchanting vampire slayer.
He wasn’t sure this was a wise idea. Duty waged war with desire inside him, the sensible side of him filling his head with everything that had happened over the last few months, how the threat from their enemies was mounting now.
Taking his eye off the ball could prove fatal.
Every battle-hardened instinct he possessed drilled that into him.
But another instinct pushed back against it, one that he had possessed from birth. An instinct she had awoken in him.
Not the vampire slayer.
But the vampire who had betrayed him.
He didn’t miss the irony of that.
A vampire had awoken the dark, possessive side of his blood, had made him wild with a need to protect her and claim her as his forever, and she had killed that side of him too through a single act of betrayal.
Now, a vampire hunter had roused that instinct, breathing new life into it, and the fires of its rebirth felt as if they might consume him.
Completing this hunt without her was the most sensible course of action, but he couldn’t do it. The side of him she had awoken needed her with him, where he could see her, so he knew she was safe. If he didn’t meet her and hunt the vampires with her, there was a chance she would go off alone and do something as crazy as spilling her blood again to attract the vampires.
He touched her left arm, grazing his palm down the leather over the wound beneath it.
Her eyes leaped to his face and awareness of her narrowed the world down to only her, until she was all he could focus on.
Maybe keeping her safe wasn’t the only reason he wanted to hunt with her.
He lifted his gaze to her face.
A hot bolt of lightning struck him as their eyes met.
He wanted her.
And nothing in this world, the Underworld, and all of Mount Olympus would stand in his way.
Darkness curled through his veins, sank tendrils into his heart and threatened to pull a growl from his lips.