Chapter Seven
Joanna
“Joey.”
The smoky voice calling my name sent a warmth through my body. It made me shiver, as if someone had whispered it in my ear. I couldn’t respond, and I tried to at least open my eyes, but my lids protested as if they had a mind of their own.
This was peace. Any more relaxed and I would’ve known I was dead and gone to heaven.
But then a jolt snapped me back to reality.
My eyes shot open, my hand flying to the wrist of the aggressor who had the audacity to pull me from my dream. I twisted the wrist until I heard the man beside me cry out.
Pain contorted Agent Hill’s handsome face. His hazel eyes shimmered in the moonlight pouring through the windshield. “Miss Sullivan, please,” he pleaded with a grunt.
I loosened my hold but didn’t let go. “What happened? Where are we?” I stole a quick glance out the window, seeing my building standing in front of us—a beacon of refuge in the darkness.
With a scoff, I released my hold. “Tell your boss I don’t appreciate being on the receiving end of magic. I prefer dishing it out.”
Hill froze, stopping the massage of his wrist. “You have magic?”
I smirked. “That didn’t make it into your file?”
The shock still chiseled on Hill’s face was reason enough not to tell him how pathetic my magic actually was. There was no way I’d be able to do what Li did to James—or to me.
I had no fucking clue how long I’d been unconscious. The last thing I remembered before coming to was Li telling me all the ways the fate of humankind rested in my hands.
Yay me.
“We’ll have to save that discussion for our first debrief,” Hill finally answered, his voice free of antagonism for once. “It’s been a long day. And because of you, now I need to go nurse my hand… But no hoods, right?” He tugged the door handle, and light flooded the SUV.
I couldn’t deny that Agent Hill was attractive, and his voice had been a problem from the beginning. He’d shed his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt at some point, allowing the veins in his muscular forearms to be the last thing I saw before he turned his back to me.
“What are you doing?” I asked once I regained my senses. But he was already outside the vehicle. I opened the passenger door and hopped out into the cold, cutting in front of him. “Where are you going?”
“My job comes with extra responsibilities, Joey—like walking my assignments to their front door, for example.” He pushed past me and continued forward.
I scoffed, defiance rearing its head. “I’m assuming none of your assignments were killers because I assure you, I can make it to my front door without your help.”
“Yeah, well, I take orders from Li, not you,” he called over his shoulder.
I hurried after him, about to protest a second time, when he turned as if waiting for me to catch up.
“This is really your first time working with an agent?”
I rolled my eyes as I trudged forward. “We try to stay as far away from the Bureau as possible.”
Hill frowned. “I’ve never understood why that is. Our lifestyles are lonely enough as they are. And we want the same thing, don’t we…? To protect?”
I scoffed. “Maybe in the beginning, but the Bureau’s decision of what to ‘protect’ changes based on what y’all stand to gain.”
“Right,” Hill replied with hard sarcasm, “because thinking like a selfless hunter with your righteous stab first, ask questions later attitude has done so much for humanity.”
“When the Bureau is off our asses with their red tape, absolutely.”
Hill gave a mirthless laugh, forcing his lips into a fake smile. “You’re trained to kill, Joey. We’re trained to negotiate, but we do kill when necessary.”
“Not efficiently,” I challenged. “Do you know what hunters call Bureau agents? Jack.”
Hill’s beautiful eyes narrowed.
“Jack of all trades, master of none? You agents may know surface-level facts about shapeshifters, vampires, and all the monsters that hide under beds at night, but that’s it. You don’t know them, Agent Hill. Not the way hunters do. So, we’re always left cleaning up your messes.”
“See,” Hill exclaimed as he stalked toward me, “that right there is what makes hunters so fascinating. You learn the world is full of monsters and still decide that one kind is worth more of your time than the others. My conscience didn’t grant me that luxury, Joey.
I took an oath that requires me to consider all of them threats.
So, forgive me if I don’t know what temperature a werewolf likes its steak or what age a vampire turns to dust. But you know what I do know?
Where to find wolfsbane and an ash-wood tree. ”
I snickered, challenging him with another step forward. “Knowing where to find wolfsbane didn’t stop a mole from infiltrating the Bureau, did it? It didn’t stop rogues from threatening exposure and risking the peace that werewolf hunters fight to maintain every fucking day.”
Hill flexed his fingers. “Because your vigilantism doesn’t have any consequences, right? I think your werewolf boyfriend would disagree.”
My breath hitched. I lowered my gaze, blood rushing to my cheeks.
Is that what people were calling him?
“Have you told him how many of his kin you’ve killed?”
I swallowed hard before raising my chin to meet Hill’s stare with my own. “He’s not my boyfriend,” I said lowly.
A complication.
He was only a complication, damn it.
Agent Hill dragged a hand down his face, then tilted his head toward the sky in disbelief. An indignant chuckle slipped past his lips, carried off by the wind. “I don’t get paid enough for this…”
I waited for him to finish. Instead, he swallowed the word, and intrigue caused one of my eyebrows to raise.
“Go on,” I said, taunting him.
He removed his hand from his mouth. “Go on with what?”
I smirked. “Li isn’t here, Agent Hill. You don’t get paid enough for this… what? Shit? Bullshit?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, a frown replacing the pressed line of his lips. “This shameful behavior, Miss Sullivan,” he said, shoving past me. “Have a good night.”
I laughed as I watched him retreat to his SUV.
“What happened to walking me to my door?” I jeered.
Agent Hill paused, heaving a heavy sigh. “Word of advice,” he began. He pivoted on his heel to face me, his hazel eyes hard and unapologetic. “Don’t worry too much about monsters hiding under beds. It’s the one who was smart enough to get in your bed that should concern you.”
◆◆◆
Breaking News: Multiple Dead in Attack on Nightclub.
I’d shut off the faucet to my bath and reread the headline multiple times after the notification popped up on my screen. My finger kept hovering over the news widget displaying Club Luna’s neon sign, but it refused to cooperate.
Was it a coincidence someone attacked the werewolf club the same day the Bureau cornered me and James?
I paced my loft and readied myself to call Agent Hill for some answers… Then I remembered the bastard had never given me his number.
“I’ll reach you,” I recited in the darkness. “Corny piece of shit.”
I unlocked my phone to call James instead, but the doorbell rang, as if he sensed I needed him.
I was relieved I no longer had to talk to him over the phone. Sure, it was the middle of the night, but we always said, “If Death never slept, why would hunters?”
I needed James to see the sincerity in my eyes as I thanked him for not telling the Bureau about Latoya. It must’ve been hard to keep the information to himself, especially when the payoff was my sister being in a government black site.
James pounded on my front door.
Right… he was angry with me. I’d have to warn him to keep his opinions about my recent decisions to himself.
I grabbed my robe off the wrought-iron bedframe and threw it on over my underwear as my front door succumbed to another barrage of fists.
“Geez, old man.” I ignored my house slippers and scurried across the cold cement floor to the other end of the loft. “You already destroyed my keypad this year,” I complained as I unlocked the door. “Now you’re after the rest of my—”
Marcus leaned against the doorframe bathed in moonlight, one arm stretched above his head for support. Blood was the only thing I discerned from the array of colors staining his white tee. Soot and sweat even matted down the silver streak in his hair.
His amber eyes jittered as his gaze traveled down my body, from head to toe and back up again as if I were the one struggling to stand.
“Are you okay?” I asked, trying to deaden the worry in my voice.
Marcus confirmed with a slow nod of his head.
“Come in.” I stepped aside and allowed him to stumble past me out of the chilled night air… and into my sanctuary. A place no person besides James had ever entered. I was unsure how I felt about it, but I closed the front door regardless, locking it behind me.
Marcus stood in the middle of my apartment, taking in his surroundings.
On his left, the panoramic windows separated the exposed brick.
Their motorized blinds were half closed, yet the Moon’s celestial spotlight still cast shadows upon the antique coffee table and brown leather sofa.
Both pieces of furniture were more for looks than usage, since James and I usually talked shop over coffee in the kitchenette to the right.
The walls were lined with industrial pipe shelves displaying family photos. The photos of Latoya lay face down… ever since she reappeared.
Past the row of Edison bulbs suspended from the high ceiling was the bathroom, the only true area with four walls of its own.
And finally, at the rear of the loft, was my bed. It held most of Marcus’s attention, and damn it, as I watched him stare at it, I became very aware of my bra against my nipples.
I hated this… how much my body craved his. How the storm raging inside my head calmed when I was near him… but just his fucking scent could trigger tsunamis between my legs.
I cleared my throat. “How badly are you injured? Have you started to heal?”