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112 | RIFT
The drive to the hotel was quiet, but comfortably so. Perhaps because there were no words that could have made the situation any easier, Cyrus and I allowed the silence to swallow us whole. He rested his hand on my thigh, a steady pressure that kept me grounded enough that thoughts of shoving myself out of the car and rolling across the road – just so that the physical pain overshadowed the emotional for even a moment – seemed nonsensical.
Without him there, I wasn’t entirely sure what I would have done. I heard my Dad’s last words to me on every inhale, and I saw the dull look in my Paps’s eyes with every exhale. I breathed, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
Get out. Get out. Get out.
The sun was just starting to break through the clouds as we pulled in to a car park, nestled alongside a shaggy stretch of woodland. I turned to Cyrus, confusion drawing my eyebrows down. H
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The Hunter and the Vampire 113 | SANDBAR
“Get out,” Dad hissed, his face contorting. Shadows crept across his cheeks and nose, distending it into something twisted and evil. Fear filled my gut, and I stepped backwards. My hands trembled as I reached for the door.My fingers turned to claws as I scrabbled behind me. Dismay rose in my throat as I flattened my palms, feeling desperately for the door. I turned slowly, knowing before I saw it that the door was gone.I was trapped. The windows shuttered, and my Dad loomed before me. Paps cowered at his side, shrunken and rat-like with front teeth that slipped from beneath his lips. As I watched, they sharpened into points and became fangs.My feet skidded under me, slipping on something wet streaking across the floorboards. I looked down to get my bearings, to get my balance, and bile clung to the back of my mouth. It wasn’t just something wet. It was blood.Flames shuddered acr
The Hunter and the Vampire 114 | LIGHTNING
I had to move on. At least, I had to try. And, though understanding and enacting were two different things, it was easier to try if I kept myself focused on the present – rather than my jarring, pain-distorted past, or the murky and indistinct waters of my future. Looking back brought forth only blood and terror, and I couldn’t see through the thick, cloying mist shimmering softly ahead. It coated my crumbling relationships, Cyrus’s vampiric nature, and my comparatively short lifespan. Behind, my Dad’s words had carved themselves into my bones and tattooed themselves onto my skin. I could taste Veronica’s fear with every swallow. The walls closed in around me whenever I was alone, and the neat, sharp clicks of Alice’s footsteps followed me around every corner. Even in Wiley Manor, a hotel so detached from my old life in Seafall, monsters found me in my sleep. Sleepy, soft kisses to my forehead, my temples,
The Hunter and the Vampire 115 | SWORD
Gaudy lights flashed above, drenching Cyrus’s face in bright reds and blues. With alcohol humming in my veins and his arms holding me close, I moved past the flashing, burning image of blood that overlaid the reality of the coloured, moving lights. Even as my mind whispered that it was blood, blood and pulsing blue veins, Cyrus swept me into a spin that threw aside my fears.I grinned at him before he pulled me in again. His joy brushed mine, intertwined within my chest. It didn’t lessen the ache that I dragged with me, but it smothered it, forcing the pain to submit.“As much as I like it when you curse and tease and fight,” he murmured, his lips ghosting across my ear, “you are truly beautiful when you smile, Callie.”Before I could respond, Cyrus tugged me around so that my back was pressed to his front, and his hands cradled my hips. We swung from side to side together, my steps cl
The Hunter and the Vampire 116 | EPILOGUE
I braced myself, lifting a bandolier weighted down with silver bullets and resting it across my chest. My knife was strapped to my ankle, a gun was slung low across my hips, and a silver dagger rested at my thigh.I’d laced my boots with resolve, each knot a promise. I was doing this for the right reasons. I was a protector, not a monster. The sword down my back was double-edged, both killer and saviour, but I wielded it with the power to choose. I would not allow myself to be what I had been, and what many of the others still were.Cyrus caught my wrist, pulling me close. Our lips met in a heated kiss, his tongue and teeth searing my core. Hands tugged the plait from my hair, and fingers tangled in the dark waves. My skin tingled with his touch, and bolts of lightning fractured down my spine.The bond between us swelled, crackling with glossy sunlight and soaring blue waves. The heat of Cyrus’s affection bec
The Hunter and the Vampire ONE | BESTOWED
To fight is an honour. My Dads had always told me that, but, as I slammed the stake into her heart, it didn’t feel like one.In the absence of my birth parents, I’d been brought up by Daddy and Papa – later Dad and Paps – and I’d been raised to be a warrior. A fighter. A hunter. There was shattered glass all around us, and I could see my own image fragmented all around me, all across the bloodstained oak floorboards.The grim line of my lips was hard and tight, but otherwise emotionless. That was the first lesson I’d had to learn: don’t give anything away, not even for a second. She was flailing, now, her body wilting around the entry point of the stake. I shoved it harder, adding an exit point to her back, and she cried out, her mouth twisting into an ugly snarl.Supernatural creatures can’t feel pain – that was lesson number two. It was probably a lie
The Hunter and the Vampire TWO | HAUNTED
“What the hell happened to you?” Harper cried, rushing over to help me sit down.“I’m fine,” I sighed, waving a lazy hand through the air. My eye stung, but it was a relief to be home.“You don’t look fine, Cals,” Harper muttered, gnawing at his bottom lip anxiously. His dark brown skin had a strange pallor to it, as though the blood had disappeared from his face.I settled closer to him on the sofa, running my fingers across his short, textured hair. His dark eyes watched me worriedly, darting between the sharp line of the cut and my tired gaze. “You’re sweet,” I murmured, letting my head sink against the warm expanse of his chest.My cheek brushed against the tight knit of his worn jumper, and I smiled to myself. He’d worn this same jumper on our first date, saying that he wanted me to see him at his worst, st
The Hunter and the Vampire THREE | FIRST LIGHT
I pulled up next to my Dads’ car, a huge, industrial-looking black off-roader. My tiny Renault Clio looked pathetic next to it, with a fat dent on the front bumper and mud splattered up its wheel arches, but it did what I needed it to, and got me where I needed to be.The sun was just cresting the horizon and I slipped out into the frosty morning air. My toes were going numb in my trainers, and I bounced up and down on the spot as I searched for the two familiar figures I was sure would be down by the lake.I slid my tote bag onto my shoulder, shutting the door behind me as quietly as I could. The first glint of morning sun reflected off the window, burning orange against the cool blue light of the dawn.I would’ve preferred to be wearing a rucksack or a utility belt, at the very least, but with my shift at the diner starting in a few hours it was easier, for a basic patrol like this, to come prepared for wha
The Hunter and the Vampire FOUR | UNSPOKEN
Careful not to disturb the body, we swung into action. My Dad pulled out an on-the-go first aid kit from his thigh pouch, and my Paps checked for a pulse while I hovered above her mouth, listening for any signs of breathing.Her hair was wet, straggly, plastered to her sallow face. Her cheekbones stuck out, gaunt, and there were ugly, deep-set bruises filling her eye sockets. I didn’t have a second to feel anything for her: no pity, no sadness, no repulsion. I had a job to do, and, as we worked to revive her, I did feel a tiny swell of pride at our quick response, and at our flawless teamwork. I squashed it down as soon as it arose; there was no time to feel pride, not when there was a life on the line.Her lips were blue. She started to shudder, my Dad slamming his hands onto her chest behind me. Her head bounced, rolling onto one side, and my eyes narrowed in on a large bite mark scraped across her exposed neck. It was dark
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