Unbound

“I got a call while you were away looking into Katie Hixson’s murder,” he began, erasing our light moment of relief. “It was from a contact I have up in Cincinnati. She said that a hunter rolled into a town a few days ago looking for you.”

“By name?” I asked. It was extremely rare for anyone to know me by name outside my own domain. Most simply referred to me as Fire Starter. Any hunter that knew of me would know me by that moniker.

“Yes.”

I understood why the call was being made. Knox’s contact was looking for permission to send the hunter my way and get the person out of that domain. A dark grin spread across my face. “Tell your friend to send him my way. I’ll be ready for the hunter.”

Two Lines Melissa Mar

To J, Vicki, and Mark,

for far more than I can ever say. You’re the best.

1

Eavan pushed through the crush of dancers at Club Red: sweat-slicked, alcohol-saturated prey swayed and gyrated in time with the music pulsing out of a wall of speakers. It was—as it had been every other night—tempting, but lately, Eavan had been letting herself be carried away by the crowd, enjoying the too-brief touches of strangers, near-drunk on the energy on the dance floor. But tonight wasn’t for indulgence. Daniel was in the club. She’d felt it the moment he crossed the threshold, felt him in an unacceptable thrum under her skin. For reasons she didn’t know, she could find him in a crowd without looking.

He was moving through the room, a beacon among the waves of swaying bodies. In another life, she would’ve run away from—or perhaps to—him. Instead, she waited, proving to herself that she still held some measure of self-control. Each time she caught him mid-crime, she whispered a silent prayer that he’d stop poisoning girls, that he’d become innocuous, but hoping and praying were no substitute for action—not that action was proving particularly effective, either. Trying to single-handedly rescue the worst of Daniel’s zombies was futile. For every one she saved, there were a dozen more she couldn’t reach.

He was only a few bodies away from her now. Tiny electric zings bounced over her skin as she came closer to him. He was tempting enough that it hurt. And he knows.

Foam poured onto the dance floor as Daniel took a far-too-high girl into his arms, and the time for waiting passed away. Swirling violet and crimson lights gave an ethereal cast to the humans who squealed and writhed around them as the dance floor became a slippery mess. A predator’s banquet. The question of which of them was the better predator wasn’t one Eavan wanted to answer: either answer meant she lost.

Daniel glanced back at her and then moved toward a side door with the girl. He cut through the crowd with an ease that made him seem Other. He wasn’t though.

He’s just another mortal. She had repeated that assertion every night these past six months. There was nothing particularly exceptional about him. Except for the way he provokes me. Putting a final end to him made good sense, but she couldn’t be the one to do it. There were two steps needed to wake up her maternal heritage—sex and death. So far, she’d avoided both, but if she did both in the same month, she’d become a full-blooded glaistig.

In another few moments, he’d be out of the club, out of reach, and the girl would be lost.

Not this time.

Some nights, she’d lost their quarry. Many nights, she was at the wrong club. Once in a while, she found his prey before Daniel could. Tonight, she’d decided to step up the confrontation.

She intercepted Daniel and grabbed the hand of the barely conscious girl.

“Chastity!” Eavan squealed her name with false excitement, an act for the crowd around them. She had no clue what the girl’s real name was. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Eavan was taking the girl from Daniel. The two men on either side of him stepped closer. If they wanted to, there was a good chance that they could take the girl out of reach. Eavan was banking on Daniel’s dislike of scenes.

She smiled at him, a flash of teeth that animals still understood as aggression. She didn’t bother glancing at his employees. Daniel waved them away as usual when she was near. He either didn’t see her as a true threat or was amused by her efforts. She hadn’t figured out which it was, but she knew that he preferred to be alone with her when he had a chance.

Once the men vanished into the sea of bodies, Daniel stepped closer to Eavan. He didn’t let go of the girl, but he didn’t do anything obvious to keep her out of reach, either. “She’s with me, Eve.”

“Is that what you really want?” Eavan let her conservative habits slip farther away and turned her full attention to Daniel. It wasn’t a hardship to look at him: he was a pretty specimen, wrapped up in Armani and attitude.