The Hunters Series Read online

  The Hunters Series

  By

  Shiloh Walker

  Includes:

  Declan and Tori

  Eli and Sarel

  Byron and Kit

  Jonathan and Lori

  Ben and Shadow

  Hunter's Choice

  Hunt Me

  Copyright © 2014 by Shiloh Walker

  All Rights Reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy. If you did not legally obtain a copy of this book, then you should purchase your own copy.

  Please note that if you purchased this from an auction site or blog, it's stolen property. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Your support is what makes it possible for authors to continue to provide the stories you enjoy.

  Warning: This book contains an old-fashioned master vampire, a stubborn werewolf, sex, misunderstandings, sex, unrequited love, and sex. Did I mention the sex? Don't say you weren't warned…

  Table of Contents

  Declan and Tori

  Eli and Sarel

  Byron and Kit

  Jonathan and Lori

  Ben and Shadow

  Hunter's Choice

  Hunt Me

  The Hunters: Declan and Tori

  By

  Shiloh Walker

  First digital printing 2003

  Please note: This is the original 2003 version—it has been edited, but no new material has been added.

  The Hunters: Declan and Tori © Copyright Shiloh Walker, 2003.

  Cover Art Angela Waters

  Chapter One

  Tori McAdams was a sensible woman. She didn’t believe in hocus-pocus, she didn’t believe that crossing a black cat’s path was bad luck. She had broken more mirrors than she cared to count and couldn’t remember ever wishing on a star.

  And she didn’t believe in vampires.

  But the petite little blonde in front of her obviously did. Her eyes were wide and frightened, and from time to time, got that oddly unfocused look of true fear. As a private investigator, Tori had learned to smell bullshit a mile away.

  This girl truly believed somebody was stalking her, trying to turn her into a vampire.

  Some sick fuck had done a real number on her. No telling what the back-story was, because the girl was getting more incoherent by the second. Jeez, what was she—all of nineteen?

  Twenty-eight-year-old Tori suddenly felt very old.

  And it wasn’t getting any better as she sat up and took a closer look at the mark on the girl’s neck—revealed as her head fell forward—the pixie-like cut of her hair falling away from the ragged gash.

  Gash? Or teeth marks? Shit, now she was losing her mind.

  But they really did look like teeth marks.

  Tori knew she couldn’t turn this poor kid out onto the streets—and young Dani Mitchell was too scared to go home. “He can get me there,” she whispered, over and over again, when Tori had offered to take her.

  So, reluctantly, knowing she had no other choice, Tori made up the little sofa bed in the small room beyond her office. God knew she had spent enough nights here after a late night stake out.

  And she doubted the little thing in front of her was a danger. Dani looked about as dangerous as a wet kitten. It took a lot of soothing and hand holding before the girl would stretch out on the bed, but finally she fell asleep.

  Tori collapsed into her chair with a sigh and rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. She yearned for a tall, cold margarita, her bed, and some aspirin.

  Instead she sat up, reached for the phone, and started making calls.

  The last one on her list should have been her first.

  But Declan Reilly was somebody she tried to avoid whenever possible.

  He made her itchy.

  In the worst possible way. Hearing his voice was enough to harden her nipples, dampen her panties and have her verging on the edge of orgasm. He was sex incarnate—almost too sexy to be real, smart as a whip, and just the tiniest bit arrogant. He had wide shoulders, rounded with muscle, a powerful chest that tapered down to a flat, carved belly and narrow hips, strong legs that he covered with denim which encased them so well, showing him to perfection—especially that ass…Tori shook her head, forcing herself to concentrate.

  But when Declan was in her thoughts, it was difficult.

  A sexy Irish accent remained from the years he had spent growing up in Dublin and looking into his misty green eyes was almost enough to make Tori believe in leprechauns and faeries.

  Almost, but not quite.

  He had gone out of his way to make it clear that he found her very appealing. He flirted, he teased, he asked, he seduced. It didn’t take much though; Declan was a seduction—with thick, wavy, blond hair that grew a little too long over his collar, seductive green eyes, a clever mouth, hands with wide palms, and long narrow fingers.

  But Tori refused to give in.

  She was tempted. Thinking of his hands, his mouth, the way he smelled, damnation, was she tempted.

  But there was a flaw.

  Only one that she could think of, but it was a doozy.

  He was a cop.

  No way, no how was she getting involved with a cop. No matter how mouth-watering he was.

  He wasn’t home. Tori blew out a breath as his lyrical voice floated over the line from his answering machine. She left a simple message, “Call me.”

  He was one of the few cops she could count on to get a fair shake. If her man had any similar crimes out there, she would know. She’d also find out if Miss Dani Mitchell was a fake.

  And she’d get teased and tormented until she had to relieve her frustrations with her showerhead before she went to bed.

  A girl had to do what a girl had to do.

  She called the station, hoping maybe he had been called in or delayed. But his cheerful partner, Cy Grady, informed her that Declan was out of town for a few days. She politely refused his offer of help and whirled in her chair to study the sleeping girl lying just beyond the doorway.

  With a sigh, she rose and slid her holster back on.

  Might as well see if the so-called vampire was haunting the strip joint where Dani worked.

  * * * * *

  Agreeing to help Dani Mitchell was a choice that Tori wasn’t certain she’d live to regret. Oh, the girl was the real deal. Her manager, well, ex-manager, had fired her a few nights earlier when she wigged out in the middle of a lap dance, screaming that the patron had bitten her, his eyes glowed, and he was a monster.

  And since said patron had paid very well for that lap dance, the manager, being the gentlemen he was, had been pissed that Dani had gone stark raving mad in front of other customers.

  Now, story confirmed, Tori was cornered in an alley by a man who moved faster than greased lightning.

  “Where is my little dancer, won’t you tell me?” he purred, crossing the alley like some giant slinking cat, his pale blue eyes seeming to pin her in place.

  A cat? she wondered fuzzily.

  Not a cat. A snake, a cobra—the kind that could freeze their prey with dread and devour them on the spot, fear holding them prisoner.

  And Tori was afraid.

  Deeply, mortally afraid. Some thick fog seemed to cloud her brain, the way it did when you were put under at the dentist’s office. But laughing gas
never made you feel so frightened or so scared.

  Tori didn’t get scared easily, but she was now—for no obvious reason.

  She reached up, pressed her fingers to her temples, shaking her head. The slight fog faded, and with it, the fear. All that remained was the slightly edgy feeling caused by nerves.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” she lied easily, shifting her body so that she could draw her gun without it being quite so obvious.

  “My little dancer,” he repeated. “I know you’ve seen her. I can smell her on you. I want her back.” He spoke slowly, politely, with just the wisp of an accent in his voice…Spanish?

  Smell her? “Can’t help you,” she said flatly. Even though the description she had gotten out of Dani had been basically worthless, she knew she was talking to the man who had been scaring her. “I really don’t know any dancers.”

  “Do not lie to me,” he whispered. It sounded like snakes. Like a snake hissing—no, like dozens of snakes slithering against other snakes.

  “Not lying.” She didn’t really know Dani. Just because she was trying to help her out didn’t mean she knew her.

  He moved—from fifteen feet away to less than five—so quickly, in a blink. Her head was going foggy again. Fortunately, her reflexes weren’t. She stepped back—one step, two—while lifting her gun and pointing it straight at the man’s nose.

  “Don’t come any closer,” she warned.

  “Do you really think that silly gun can hurt me? Didn’t she warn you? Tell you what I am?”

  “A bullet that will rip your head from your shoulders will hurt you, I promise.”

  “Rip my head from my shoulders?” he repeated, sounding amused.

  His voice sounded like honey now, sweet, addictive. He moved another gliding step closer, and she wanted it. Wanted him to touch her, to taste her. Wanted to hear his voice.

  “Yes,” he purred.

  The honey was poisoned. She heard it and she narrowed her eyes. Concentrated. Focused.

  The man’s eyes narrowed and he cocked his head, studying her—puzzled.

  “Get away from me,” she said softly. “Now.”

  “No.” He said it just as softly, an evil smile curling his mouth. “I think I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want that silly little dancer now. I want you.”

  A sick ball of fear curled in her belly but she only arched an eyebrow. “Sorry. Charming as the offer is, I’ll have to pass.” Her arm was starting to shake. She couldn’t keep that gun aimed at his angelic looking face much longer.

  “It’ll be fun,” he promised, as if she hadn’t spoken. “You will be a fun toy, not just an appetizing snack. I bet you’re a good fuck, as well. I bet you’ve got a tight, wet little pussy. I’m going to enjoy finding out.”

  Color heated her cheeks and she fell back another step.

  He laughed and lunged.

  The bullet tore through his nasal bones, through his brain and out the back of his skull. He fell backward.

  And lay on the ground, still breathing, still bleeding. Still living—and cursing her.

  Tori ran.

  She holed up in her office.

  Tori had food, bullets, a shower in the back and spare clothes. She also had a crazy dancer in her bed.

  She could handle this.

  He hadn’t actually started trying to come after her. He hadn’t really been rolling to his knees as he swore at his in his ruined voice.

  He had been dead. It was just her imagination going into overtime. He had just been so eerie.

  So strange.

  So scary.

  He had scared her. Deep, gut-wrenching, pee-in-your-pants scared her. Tori paced the small confines of her office, trying to figure out what she was going to do.

  Either he was what Dani had said or Tori had killed a man.

  She whirled and grabbed the phone.

  Declan.

  She needed to call Declan.

  He could help.

  Of course, why she was so certain, she didn’t know. But he could help. He would help.

  She had his cell number, and she always had it with him, even on personal time. But it went to voice mail, damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. As the message played, she listened to the soothing melody of his voice, then left a message of her own.

  “This is Tori. As soon as you get this, call me. Declan, I need you.” She marked it urgent, sent it, and slammed down the phone.

  Curling in her chair, she settled down to wait, her eyes on the door.

  * * * * *

  Stupid, fucking bitch.

  The damned bullet had almost taken his head off, and that would have killed him.

  Manuel prowled the confines of his rooms, cursing the blue-eyed bitch and the pain in his head while he healed.

  It was a good thing he had his rooms close. His human had been with him, watching with veiled jealousy while he searched for his little dancer. The tall, slim man had gotten him back to his rooms before sunrise, and eagerly ripped open yet another vein for him. Manuel had been tempted to drain him. He needed the blood, needed the energy to speed his healing. But the human may yet prove useful. After all, he had gotten him back here, fed him and protected him.

  Which meant Manuel would live to find her.

  His human watched warily from the corner. He’d forgotten this one’s name already. Not that it really mattered. He changed humans almost as often as he changed his mind.

  He’d tire of this one soon. And either kill him or let him go quietly mad when Manuel left him to fend for himself. He could always feed without forcing the dependence on his humans, but it was such fun to watch the slavish devotion on their faces as he fed—as he brutalized, or loved tenderly—just depending on his moods.

  Of course, when he left, the devotion stayed. And the human always went crazy without him there.

  The woman—she’d been different. He didn’t know how, or why, but she had been different. Each time he had tried to beguile her with his voice—first with fear and then with seduction—she had shaken it off, shaken him off. Yes, she was different.

  Manuel had been looking forward to figuring out why. Stupid bitch. He would have used a different method with her—his normal methods tended to destroy a human’s paltry mind—and he hadn’t wanted hers destroyed.

  But now…now, her blood was going to flow in a red river when he was finished.

  He turned and pierced his human with a fiery blue gaze. His face was disfigured for now, disgustingly so. But when he whispered, “Come,” the man rushed to him, falling to his knees to take Manuel’s now exposed cock in his mouth.

  While the human suckled and ate at his Master’s cock, Manuel imagined it was her—that damnable woman, on her knees in front of him, her back bleeding from a dozen different stripes.

  * * * * *

  Her new roommate up and left her, after she had heard what Tori had to say. “He’ll find you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. This is my fault.”

  Then Dani was gone, like she had never been there.

  Tori dozed lightly throughout the day. Her phone rang half a dozen times but she never answered it. None of the numbers on the caller ID were Declan and he was the only one she would trust right now.

  She ate sparingly, drank like a fish, orange juice, tomato juice, anything in the place that was highly acidic.

  “Yes…that’s it, make your blood toxic to him…”

  “Oh, God. I’m as crazy as she is,” she whispered, scrubbing her hands over her face. Then she reached for more orange juice.

  The gallon that had been full that morning was now in the trash.

  And she was guzzling down tomato juice.

  “Next thing you know I’ll be hanging garlic from the eaves and windows.”

  “Garlic isn’t poisonous to vampires. It’s all about the blood…you have to alter your blood.”

  Tori jumped—shit. Now she was hearing things.

  “He’s coming.”

  Groaning, she covered he
r ears with her hands, as though that would silence the insane rambling of her own thoughts.

  The shadows in the room were thickening as the sun set. She refused to turn the lights on. Almost as if she were afraid it would make her easier to find.

  But how could he find her?

  “He will.”

  “SHUT UP!” she bellowed, pressing her hands to her temples.

  “Fight. If he bleeds enough, it will weaken him and take him long to recover.”

  She really was hearing that voice.

  “You’ve altered your blood...all the acid you’ve taken in has changed it enough that it will bother him—he won’t be able to feed from you enough to recover. You’ve poisoned your blood and he can’t drain you. You want him to take as little of your blood inside as possible. It will make his hold on you weaker.”

  It felt like an old woman’s voice—like her grandmother…Alice. Alice Huntinghorse. She’d been the closest thing to magic that Tori had ever known. Alice’s father had been Navajo, and a medicine man.

  But although this woman’s voice felt like Alice’s…she didn’t sound her. It was more of a feeling, a sense. That sense of wisdom. Of knowledge.

  She felt like somebody wise. Like somebody ancient in more than years.

  “Be ready, Tori. He comes now.”

  The sun had set.

  Minutes crawled by while more advice was whispered into her head.

  Sunlight weakens them. If they are ill or starving or newly changed, it can kill them. It takes time for the body to adjust to tolerate even the smallest bit of sunlight in the dusk. The early morning sun and the midday sun are the most deadly, even to the full Master vamps. And it will kill the lesser vamps.

  There was more…

  “When you wake up, eat.”

  “You won’t want to, but eat. Anything. Everything. It will keep the change from completing.”

  “You will have to hide for a while.”