Hunt Me (3 page)

It was law. No Hunter was allowed to bring
another over unless the person wanted it. No, this woman didn’t
entirely understand what Dakota was offering her, but if she wanted
to live and if she was willing that was enough. Focusing, she
waited.

Hello. Screw
acceptance
—it was a
demand.

You help me, damn it. Now…

From the roof, Bo saw the cop coming.
Although he wasn’t surprised, he sure as hell was irritated. “Don’t
need this mess.”

There was a reason he preferred to leave the
Hunters to themselves. They got involved in things they shouldn’t.
They tried to save those they shouldn’t. They tried to help every
damn body and half of them couldn’t even help themselves.

Like Dakota, for instance. Poor girl, down
there doing her best to save the cop’s girlfriend. Yeah, Bo knew
who was in the apartment building. The woman didn’t live here, but
her scent was all over the place. She was here, and she was here
often. And because she was, he also smelled the cop.

Dakota wasn’t to blame for a couple of ferals
making a snack out of the pretty lady. She’d done her job, dealt
with them. They wouldn’t kill another woman, another child.

He was pissed off, and yeah, he did feel
guilty some poor human had suffered for it. But that was the way of
the world. Monsters preyed on the weak. Dakota would let the guilt
eat her up, and because she had a connection to this victim, it
would be that much worse.

And here comes the cop. “I do not need this.”
Leaping off the roof, Bo landed lightly on the fire escape on the
floor below.

Sighing, he ignored the sarcastic voice in
his head reminding him that he didn’t have to be here. Yeah, he
did. Dakota was a friend. She had trouble coming her way, trouble
with a capital T. He didn’t leave friends hanging.

Hurry, hurry, hurry
.

It was a scream in his head, a song in his
blood. Drew lived by his instincts. Like the time he had first seen
Dakota— sauntering down the street, all sexy curves, feline smile
and attitude. Instinct had demanded he follow, just as his
instincts had screamed
mine
.

Right now, his instincts screamed
danger
. They screamed
death
.

Everything looked normal as he tore into the
Hendersons’ apartment building. Nothing looked off. Nothing sounded
off. But something was—the hairs on the back of his neck stood up,
adrenaline crashed through him and every muscle inside him was
loose, ready for action. His phone was silent. He had called Nicole
twice on the way over. She always answered, at least when she
wasn’t working.

He knew this apartment building too well. One
of the elevators never worked. The other was slower than smart, and
it broke down often. He took the stairs. Five floors up—it only
took him minutes, but it felt like years.

Nic…

The Hendersons lived at the very end, the
two-bedroom apartment housing a family of four. Up until past fall,
it had been a family of five. The oldest had run away and gotten
involved with a criminal type. When she had tried to leave, the
bastard that killed her. The family had proof of their daughter’s
involvement, though, and they had gone to the cops.

Was that why Nicole was here? He didn’t know.
All he could think was…
Be safe, please be safe.
And because
he didn’t trust that to be enough, he prayed silently,
please,
God, keep her safe.

If any of those thugs had gotten to her, Drew
was going to tear this town apart. He wouldn’t rest until every
last one of them had been arrested and put behind bars.

He reached the door, hesitating.

He couldn’t wait. He knew that. He couldn’t
wait... and neither could Nicole.

Dakota heard the footsteps. More than that,
she knew she wasn’t alone. Recognizing his scent, she ignored him.
She couldn’t lose focus right now.

“Come on, sweetheart. You need to take more.”
She held her wrist to the woman’s mouth and when she fought to turn
her head away, Dakota held it in a merciless grip. She hadn’t done
this much to lose her now. The problem was that Dakota wasn’t
overflowing with blood of her own.

A master of the obvious, Bo decided to emerge
from the shadows and point that out. “Baby, you know you haven’t
fed enough to be doing this. You barely have enough blood to walk
out of here.”

“I’ll be fine.” Staring at the blonde’s face,
she thought she saw a bit more response, some animation there. A
split second later, she felt the response as the wounded woman
started to draw on her wrist.

Behind her, Bo sighed. A second later, the
rich tang of shape-shifter blood filled the air and Bo’s wrist
appeared in the center of her field of vision. “Feed, Dakota. You
and me got about three minutes before we have company. And trust
me, they aren’t bringing us tea and cookies, either.”

“What…?” She scowled, but she wasn’t looking
at him. Staring at the door, she narrowed her eyes.

“Feed. Now. Her cop is on the way and what do
you think he’s going to do when he sees this mess? I’ll deal with
the bodies and I’ll handle the blood—throw enough chemical shit on
it that no lab in the world is going to be able to get anything
useful out of it, especially not vampire DNA. But you and her, you
have to be gone…”

She didn’t wait another second. As the woman
fed from her, Dakota seized Bo’s wrist with her free hand and
closed her mouth around the wound there. It was already healing,
but that didn’t matter. Her fangs pierced his skin and the rich,
ripe taste of his blood flooded her mouth.

It wasn’t even a minute before Bo rested his
other hand on her scalp. “Enough, baby. We didn’t have three
minutes. Our time is up—that cop of yours is fast. And damn quiet
for a human. He’s already on almost on this floor.”

In under sixty seconds, Bo had scattered the
chemicals needed to break down the vamp DNA. Another ten seconds
wasted as he gathered the bodies of the dead vamps. In another
fifteen seconds, he was out the window. Dakota gingerly pulled her
wrist from the woman’s mouth, grimacing as she fought to continue
feeding. Already hungry—that was a good sign, Dakota supposed.
Showed strength.

As she gathered the woman in her arms, she
looked up and as Bo looked back through the window. “Go on. You
need to be out of sight more than I do. I don’t have anything here
to come back to, in the end. Your life is here, though.”

He nodded. “I’ll keep in touch.”

He was gone in another blink.

Dakota started toward the door, cradling the
whimpering woman in her arms. Soon, she’d fall into the deep, dark
slumber that would dominate the next few hours. It would give them
some time to get safe—and they needed to be safe—

Shit
.

She heard the footsteps. And she could smell
him.

Don’t look, don’t look dontlookdontlook!

Lunging through the window, she peered
downward. Five stories. She could jump that. The door behind her
opened. Foolishly, she glanced backward. Her heart leaped into her
throat as she saw Drew. Their gazes locked.

Then he looked down and saw the woman
clutched in Dakota’s arms.

As he pulled his gun, the shattered pieces of
Dakota’s heart shriveled. There wasn’t anything even left to heal
now. “Don’t move,” he warned.

She shifted to the side, using her body to
protect the woman she carried. And then she leaped.

Still unable to believe what he’d seen, Drew
took off running for the window. This wasn’t happening—

He wasn’t going to find Dakota crouched on
the fire escape, carrying a bloodied Nicole around like a ragdoll.
It wasn’t happening—wasn’t, couldn’t be. He was seeing things…

The fire escape was empty.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he turned and
looked around. Maybe he was seeing things…?

Except the Hendersons’ apartment was a bloody
mess—very, very bloody. There was a faint, odd smell in the
air—something like bleach, but not quite. Remaining by the window,
he reached for his phone.

He’d call this in. Then he’d call Nicole
again.

He hadn’t seen what he thought he’d seen.

He hadn’t.

If Dakota had been here, she’d either still
be on the fire escape or if she’d been
able
to haul Nicole
down the fire escape, he would have either seen her climbing down,
or seen them both…no. He couldn’t even make himself think of that
image.

There was a logical explanation for all of
this. There had to be. Nicole was at home, or she was out with a
friend, or something…Dakota wouldn’t
hurt
anybody. She
didn’t even know who Nicole was, right?

There was a logical explanation, and he’d
find it.

Except there wasn’t one. And he couldn’t.

Twenty-four hours passed and as those hours
ticked by, Drew was aware of too many fucking weird things.

All of the Hendersons were dead. The children
had been killed in their sleep, the father’s head had been all but
ripped off, and the mother had been raped, her throat practically
torn open.

Nicole was missing. Her phone, her coat, her
keys, all of them had been found at the Hendersons’ apartment. Her
car was parked outside, just down the block. When he tried to track
down Dakota at her ‘security firm’ he’d been told she’d turned in
her resignation early that morning, as well as relinquishing the
key to the apartment they had furnished for her. They were terribly
sorry but she hadn’t left a forwarding address, promising she’d
come by to pick up any needed paperwork in a few weeks—was there
any way they could take a message? Naturally, they told him, they’d
cooperate in any way they could.

Warning sirens were already screaming in his
head.

What in the hell is going on?

Eyes gritty, head pounding, Drew pored over
the lab reports, trying to understand what he was seeing. It was
just a rough preliminary and it was likely about as conclusive as
anything he was going to get, too.

The blood that had been found in the living
room was messed up. Contaminated with something, the techs had told
him. Something similar to bleach—that made him think of what he’d
smelled.

But they couldn’t identify the compound. They
also didn’t think they’d be able to process the blood. It was
breaking down on them—
it’s like sludge, Detective. We can’t even
get a blood type—never seen anything like it.

“You know, you can’t work this case.”

Looking up, he met his lieutenant’s eyes.
Then he looked back down at the reports. “I’m not working this
case. I’m reading these reports. That’s not the same as working
this case.”

“Just like you calling and hassling the lab
techs isn’t the same. Just like you doing door to door isn’t
investigating?” Anna Reid lifted a graying brow as she studied him.
Sighing, she settled herself on the seat in front of his desk.
“Drew, I know this is hard. But you can’t work this. And you need
to take a few days off. Go home. Clear your head.”

“I can’t.” He couldn’t clear his head…every
time he even closed his eyes, he’d seen Nicole.
Suffering—screaming. Shit, earlier, he’d dozed for maybe twenty
minutes and had the most fucked-up nightmare. Dakota had been
torturing her. Holding Nicole down on a bed—

“I
can’t
.”

“You don’t have a choice.” She rose from the
chair, lingering for a moment. “Go home. Take a few days. I
promise, if there’s anything new, I’ll call you.”

Go home
.

Yeah. She could make him go home, all
right.

But the lieutenant couldn’t make him stay.
After another one of those fucked up dreams hit him, Drew left.
Driving around aimlessly. Until he wasn’t—until he realized he had
a direction. On a road heading north out of North Carolina.

Drew didn’t know where he was going, but he
knew he had to go somewhere. He stayed off the highway, sticking to
the smaller roads. When he came across a small town, he figured
he’d stop and get some gas, maybe grab a bite to eat although he
wasn’t hungry.

But instead of searching for a gas station,
he found himself slowing down in front of the small hotel. He
wasn’t sure why.

It didn’t look like much. The units were set
up in groups of twos or threes.

The beds would be rock hard, the water
pressure would suck, but it would be cheap.

“What in the hell am I doing here?” What he
needed to be doing was calling his lieutenant, seeing if there was
any progress. Or maybe heading back to town and doing his own
investigating. He could stay out of the way. Nobody had to know
what he was doing.

Instead of doing any of that, he turned into
the parking lot of the little hotel.

Because he knew he needed to, though, as he
parked his car, he grabbed his phone. A quick call to his boss,
Anna Reid would only take a couple minutes. And he suspected if he
didn’t call, it would make her suspicious. He didn’t want that.

“Lieutenant.” He climbed out of the car and
shut the door, leaning against it as he studied the hotel. It
looked even more humble up close. “Has there been anything new?
Have we found Nicole yet?”

“Sorry, Quentin…there’s nothing new. She
hasn’t been seen or heard from. You know I would call you if I had
news.”

“Yeah. You know I can’t just sit around
twiddling my thumbs either, waiting for you to call me. I had to at
least check.”

“Yeah. I was surprised you hadn’t already
called. I was getting kind of worried—thinking you were out doing
something stupid.” She paused. “You don’t plan on doing something
stupid, do you, Drew?”

He ran his tongue along his teeth.
Something stupid?
Hell. He just might be getting ready to do
that. He didn’t know. His skin was itching something awful and his
instincts were screaming.