“All right.” Colt rose from the couch. “So what do we do with the huntress upstairs? You can’t let her loose if a rogue’s still after her, and the ashes were of another.”
“Maybe it’s a one-time occurrence,” Basil offered. “Maybe he won’t bother her again. If he’d wanted to kill her, he would have. If he wanted to keep her…” He shrugged. “He would have.”
“He nearly killed her.” Atreides couldn’t contain the anger in his voice. If a rogue began killing huntresses, all the vampires would be in danger of retribution.
“He took her blood but only enough to make her weak,” Colt said.
“He nearly killed her,” Atreides growled again. “He hit her on the back of the head so hard she blacked out. That’s why she didn’t remember that she’d even been bitten.”
His friends all stared at him and didn’t say a word. He knew what they were thinking. Only a really twisted vampire would resort to that kind of violence before taking his victim’s blood.
“Did he think she would die before she reached us?” Basil asked.
“He waited until she was close to the club. That makes me think he wants us involved somehow. To make it look like one of the patrons was the renegade? Maybe he has got a grudge against Basil. Or against one of the regulars of the club. The huntress believes he targeted her specifically. What if the hunters won’t protect her from the rogue if he still lives and should he go after her again?”
“Ahem,” Renault said, a slow smile appearing, “I’ve got plenty of room at my place.”
Basil waved his hand in the direction of the club. “There’s enough room at my house next to the club.”
Colt shoved his hands in his pockets. “I have plenty of room at the ranch. And more than enough cowhands who could offer additional protection.”
Atreides wasn’t ready for any of them to keep her. She belonged with her hunter kind. They needed to protect her. “We need to find her family.”
“And if we can’t do that?” Renault asked.
“I’ll take her to a hunter club and drop her off.”
“I’ll go with you. It wouldn’t be a good idea for one vampire to be seen with a huntress like that,” Renault warned.
“I’ll go too,” Basil said.
Colt nodded. “The four musketeers. Though I didn’t live that long ago.”
“All right, it’s settled. We locate her family, try to find out which apartment she lives in, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll find a hunter club and someone there can take care of her.”
Atreides knew that was the best plan he could come up with, but he couldn’t shake the uneasiness he felt. He was certain it was the controlling aspect of his personality, that only he would be able to provide her with the utmost protection, no other. Which was ludicrous. She belonged in the hunters’ care.
By the time night had fallen, and they had exhausted all avenues of searching for Selena’s identity, having found there was no such place as Rivercrest Apartments, Atreides had no other choice, but to take her to a hunter club.
Vampires escorting a huntress to a hunters’ dance club wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but he wouldn’t trust the job to blood bonds, who could easily be manipulated by the renegade vampire, should he show up.
With the beat of the music blaring into the parking lot, Atreides and his friends parked before Selena got out of the van and walked to the hunter club. The drug still seemed to be affecting her as she was quiet and reserved, having not spoken a word all the rest of the day and on the drive over. He wondered then if she had been ostracized because she’d been banned from wearing weapons and had isolated herself from her kind. Although she’d had her unsheathed sword in hand when she’d reached their club.
Then she straightened her shoulders and gave Atreides a tight smile and shared the same strained expression with his friends. “Thank you,” she said. “And…Basil, maybe some day I’ll take you up on that dance.”
Over Atreides’s dead body.
Basil gave her a toothy grin, not caring about the dagger of a look Atreides gave him.
She left the van, walked across the parking lot, and slipped inside the brick building, disappearing from their sight. Atreides couldn’t account for the strange feeling of foreboding that surged through him.
“Are we ready to go?” Basil asked, since Atreides didn’t make a move to drive them away from the establishment.
Atreides stared at the door of the club, waiting for her to reappear in the event she wasn’t intending to stay and thought he and his friends had left. When she didn’t leave, he nodded.
“Yeah, she’ll be all right. She’s with her kind.” And he had no business feeling anything but relief. So why did he cast another look back at the club?
Because he hoped to see that she did not leave the club without some protection this time. On the other hand, he hoped to see her standing there, smiling at him like she had done when she’d danced with him, the damned bewitching vixen.
Basil looked back at the door. “She’s not coming out. If you’re worried, we can sit here and watch for a while.”
“Sure, we can observe the place and see who she leaves with and find out where she ends up,” Colt offered, “just as a precaution.”
As if Atreides wanted to see her end up at some hunter’s place. Yet, he planned to do just what Colt suggested.
Atreides started the engine, then turned the van around and parked where they had a better view of the main door. And waited, hating that she might be in there all night—dancing with a bunch of damned hunters—like she’d danced with him last night.
Chapter 7
Selena hadn’t looked back to see if Atreides had remained watching the door, ensuring she didn’t slip out into the cool dark night alone. Since he was a vampire and eager to get rid of his “charge,” he probably wasn’t still there. Even so, she didn’t want to look back in the event he was observing her, and make him suspicious, as guilty as she was feeling.
But this was such a bad idea—entering a hunter club. Nearly worse than entering the vampire club last night. Plus, here she was carrying a sword, really not cool and not legal.
The hunters were so busy drinking or dancing or conversing, she halfway thought she might be able to slip by them and make her way out the side door without anyone noticing. Dream on.
Gazes shifted in her direction—at first interested to see who the new huntress was who’d arrived at the crystalline joint—crystal chandeliers dripping from above, flashy colorful lights reflecting off the black-mirrored walls, the place appearing even larger than it was because of the mirrors.
Many had been watching the half-dressed huntresses and hunters shimmying to the beat on clear platforms high above.
Several hunters glanced her way, and disdain etched across expressions and the hard looks and dagger-like stares sent a chill racing across her skin. Then gazes shifted to the unsheathed sword clutched in her fist. She imagined she looked a bit dangerous, maybe even a little unstable.
At first, no one spoke, and then the whispers began, which turned into taunts.