Born In Blood (Born Hunter Book 1) (4 page)

              “Of course not here and now, Hunter. We have pressing business to attend. But you delude yourself in regards to the latter. I will have you later.”Aiden let go of her just as abruptly as he had pulled her to him. “After you,” he gallantly held out his arm.

              For perhaps the first time in her life Cara was rendered speechless. Aiden had told her he would have her with such conviction and authority that it held zero room for repudiation or discussion. In the back of her mind she was aware she should feel wholly offended and revolted. However, the only feelings she could muster up were a surge of desire and anticipation, which she quickly and quite forcibly replaced with steadfast, stubborn denial. She straightened her spine and held strong to that denial as she exited the library with a very hard to ignore vampire at her back.

Eight

             
A
desolate Tuscany on a Friday night was so absurd that Cara’s mind refused to accept she and Aiden were the only beings except a lone cook and server in the upscale restaurant. Her gaze kept wandering from Aiden to the tables around them expecting to see New York’s elite and wealthy scattered about. No matter how many times she scanned the room it remained lifeless. It reminded her of the ghost towns in the old westerns she used to watch with her father as a child. Cara winced before quickly pushing the memory and its unwelcome pain to the back crevices of her mind.

              “When you said we had pressing business to attend I assumed we would be doing so at the coven house.”

              Aiden took a sip of his cabernet franc whose color was so richly red Cara suspected there was more in the glass than wine alone. “It is customary among my kind to discuss business over dinner. I planned for us to dine at the coven house but Michaelson was in charge of the preparations and decided to forego them in favor of killing you. You’re welcome by the way,” he winked at her.

              Cara crossed her arms over her chest. “For what?”

              “For stopping Michaelson from tearing out your carotid.”

              “The way I see it no thank you is owed. If you had not
summoned
me from headquarters, your high and mighty darkness, I would never have been in a house full of vampires in the first place.”

              “Touché. Consider Michaelson’s agonizing torture and a five star meal as my apologies.” Aiden’s tone sounded every bit as sincere as the words he spoke, but the mischievous glint in his eyes said differently.

              “Sure why not add an air of civility to the otherwise ruthless dealings of vampires.” Cara’s tone dripped with acid. Between Michaelson’s bid to rip out her throat and Aiden getting under her skin in the library, she had had enough of vampires for one night. The sooner she and Aiden completed their business with each other the better. For that very reason she had purposely been ill mannered since they arrived at the restaurant in hopes he would hurry the conversation along to be rid of her. Regrettably it had little effect on the vampire sitting across from her, except to cause him to relax back in his chair and smile at her in amusement. Which only aggravated her even more. She would like nothing more than to knock that brazenly imperious smile off his face. She was not fool enough to physically attempt it though. She was sitting across from the Prince of Darkness himself. He could crush her like a bug without even batting an eye. She was however fool enough to attempt it with words.

              “Is superfluousness and self-importance also customary among your kind because this was completely unnecessary.” Cara gestured to the empty tables around them.

              Aiden simply shrugged lackadaisically. “The owner was more than adequately compensated.”

              “How magnanimous of you. I’m surprised you didn’t forego bribery in lieu of threat of torture.”

              “As you said, I prefer to add a touch of civility to the otherwise ruthless dealings of vampires. Why employ brutality toward that which can be just as easily accomplished with wealth and finesse. I have enough of both to last me a thousand lifetimes over. I can spare a little when the situation calls for it.”

              Cara rolled her eyes at the inherent egotism in his statement. She thought back to how swiftly and mercilessly he had handled the situation with Michaelson earlier in the night. She was sure that while he may prefer civility to cruelty he had no problem reigning death and destruction down upon those who crossed him. He did not strike her as the type who tolerated betrayal or challenges to his authority very well. She saw the cracks in his mask of civility while he ripped out Michaelson’s heart. She shuddered to think about what he looked like when the mask completely peeled away. If fate were on her side she would never be around to find out.

              “Was it necessary to clear everyone out?” She questioned him, still in disbelief that he had actually accomplished it.

              “It was. The details of our discussion are confidential in nature, and as a general rule vampires do not dine alongside humans.”

              “Of course you don’t. You vampires are far too superior to sully yourselves by associating with lowly humans. We are only worthy of being preyed and fed upon.”

              Aiden sat his wine glass down and stared into her eyes. “Something tells me dear Hunter that you have not been prey in a long time. Not since the night your father was killed.”

              Cara’s spine steeled as she fought the urge the leap over the table and cut the vampire’s tongue out, Prince of Darkness or not, for daring to speak of her father. Especially, when it was one of his kind who had killed him. “What the hell do you know about my father,” she hissed low and threatening.

              He leaned closer to her and smiled that stupidly infuriating and dimpled grin of his. “Admittedly not much more than the Division. But I do know one thing that N.A.D.H does not… It was not a vampire who killed him.”

              “Wow, that is a new one.
What are you talking about? I don’t know anything? I won’t talk to a hunter.
Those are the typical responses I’ve grown use to from your kind and can even understand. After all vampires protect their own. You all would never willingly or even unwillingly betray another to the humans. The penalty of doing so is torture and death. I do know that much about your culture and customs. But I have never heard
vampires didn’t do it.
Of course they did. What else is capable of tearing a whole the size of a grapefruit into a man’s throat? And please spare me with the maybe it was a wild animal excuse. We were on a private beach in the Caribbean.” Cara was so furious she saw red by the end of her tirade. How dare he insult her intelligence? If vampires didn't kill her father, then what the hell else did?

              “I never meant to insult your intelligence. I hold it in rather high regard in fact. As for the latter, that is exactly what I intend to find out. I believe you can help me do so.”

              Cara blinked both stunned and confused. Her mental shields were iron-tight, but in her anger she must have let them slip, allowing Aiden a window into her mind. That never happened. Ever. Her mental shields held under the most strenuous of circumstances. Then again, her father and his death was a more than strenuous subject. When it came up, she lost all ability for rational thought. Feelings of guilt, rage, and helplessness all seemed to break free from the recesses of her mind at once. Cara zeroed in on the rage and used it as ammunition against the guilt and helplessness. She dropped a dagger down from her sleeve and forcefully embedded it in the wooden tabletop.

              “Stay the hell out of my thoughts,” she warned Aiden.

              “Learn to control them better,” he challenged her.

              “Fuck you. My shields are unbreakable,” Cara spat back at him.

              Aiden’s demeanor flickered to something dark and dangerous. But it happened too quickly for Cara to precisely define what it was. It was only there for an instant and gone in the next. He spoke his next words with the same smug arrogance he had displayed throughout the night. “Except at the slightest provocation with your father’s murder. Then they go to shit. Your rage should be a source of strength not weakness.”

              Cara shot out of her chair and grabbed the dagger from the table, leveling it at the vampire across from her. “Again,
fuck you
.”

              Just as soon as the words left her lips Aiden was on her. One hand curled tightly around hers that held the dagger and the other possessively cupped the nape of her neck. His pressed his body into hers, ensuring she felt the hard, rigid length of him.

              He growled into her ear.

              “N
o one
speaks to me that way without consequence. While your preferred method of dealing with those that provoke you is swift and immediate, mine is more languid. It is
slow
and
excruciating
. That is twice now that you caused me provocation. Be warned, dear Hunter, upon the thrice I will exact my revenge in a pound of flesh. And in the end you will either beg me for release or beg me for death.”

              Cara’s palms moistened making her grip on the dagger unsteady. Aiden’s tone was low and threatening, but at the same time it held an undercurrent of deadly desire and lust that made her unsure as to with what he was threatening her. There was no doubt his words promised endless, agonizing torture. However, Cara had the unsettling feeling that he was speaking in a sexual rather than physical sense. That frightened her even more than the prospect of physical torture, which Cara might prefer. At least then she would not be faced with the dark reality that what he was possibly threatening her with sent shivers down her spine and made neurons all over her body fire in over drive.
There is a certain pleasure found in pain,”
Cara found herself thinking to her horror.

             
Aiden let her go and deftly returned to his side of the table. When he was seated again, he resumed the casual, relaxed air he liked to carry around. Cara was starting to see it for what it really was. A mask to hide what lurked beneath. Cara was sure he did it intentionally to deceive others. What better offensive strategy to have than one that ensured your opponent consistently underestimated you. On the surface Aiden appeared to be nonchalant, even lackadaisical. Ever the easy-going, good-natured playboy with all the money, power, and wealth one could dream of at his disposal. But beneath the surface lay a monster Cara would not wish to come up against even in her dreams. The monster beneath the mask was lethal, cunning, conniving, and ruthless. The monster was just as dark as he was deadly. It was also just as tempting as the man that the mask portrayed, maybe even more so.

              Cara shook her head. She returned to her seat and forced irrational thoughts of Aiden, both the man and the monster, that would probably have her stamped as certifiably crazy out of her mind.

              “You honestly don’t think it was a vampire that killed my father?”

              “No, I do not.”

              “Then what did?”

              “If I divulge that information then you agree to work for me. You also agree that the information is classified and will not be shared with the Division or anyone else.” The threat of what would happen if it were shared was implicit.

              Cara was not sure why she believed him but she was inclined to accept the vampire’s terms. What he said was more than a little preposterous, but at this point she did not have anything left to lose. She had followed dead end after dead end trying to find her father’s murderer. The Division had long since given up on helping her for that very reason. She was the only person alive who still cared about bringing her father’s killer to justice. Cara let out an audible sigh and thought to herself,
same information, same results. New information, maybe I’ll get some new results.
“I’m listening,” she said aloud to Aiden.

              He silently beckoned a vampire standing guard at Tuscany’s entrance to come forth. He held out his hand and the vampire placed a large manila envelope in it. The contents of the envelope were a series of pictures, which Aiden laid out one by one on the table. Each featured a different vampire but they all had one trait in common… they looked like they had been torn into by a wild animal.

              A sense of déjà vu washed over Cara. The wounds were eerily similar to the gaping whole left in her father’s throat. No sooner than she completed the thought Aiden pulled one final photograph out of the envelope and placed it beside the others on the table. Her eyes connected with the lifeless ones of her father, frozen open in stunned horror.  She forced her gaze to stay on his eyes, for even though she knew what lay below his chin, she was not prepared to actually see it again. It would force her to relive the horrible events of that morning all over again and she would not go there. She had not went there in a long time and she would not do so today either. Keeping her eyes locked with her father’s, Cara reached out and hastily flipped the photograph over. She looked up at Aiden.

              “You think there is a connection between my father’s murder and those of these three vampires.” She did not bother phrasing it as a question because it wasn’t. 

              Aiden nodded at her. “I do.”

              “And you believe the culprit isn’t a vampire.”

              “I do.”

              “Then what the hell was it?”

              “Wolves killed your father just as they killed three of my vampires and I intend to hunt them down and make them pay for it. I need the help of a skilled hunter to do so. My previous attempts to track them myself have been unsuccessful. ”

              “You really think a wild animal killed my father and three vampires?!” Maybe Aiden was not as intelligent as she originally thought. Obviously he had a few screw loose.

              “Not a wolf as in a Canis
lupis.
I mean wolves as in were-wolves,” Aiden said slow and controlled as if he was speaking to someone dense.