Coming Home
Sloan was a meticulous fighter. Every move was planned and coordinated beyond even top-notch Hunter standards.
His carry-out, flawless. His intuition, unmatched.
So to say I was surprised by the plan, or should I say lack thereof, was putting it lightly.
It didn’t fit Sloan’s M.O. It went against everything I had learned about him, but we weren’t exactly swimming in options at the moment.
I’d left all our equipment back with Eros, like an ass. It was lucky Sloan carried enough on him to pay our way back home. Otherwise, we’d be forced to do something far worse than swap clothes with some strangers in an airport parking lot.
It wasn’t beyond a Hunter to use whatever means necessary to achieve a goal—and it fit the Brit’s relationship with Phillip to suggest he could be capable of some pretty dangerous crimes if the situation called for it.
But Hunters also hated drawing unnecessary attention to themselves.
Crimes weren’t encouraged, though a human detective would be hard-pressed to link us to any crime or find a witness for one we’d done.
Still, I didn’t relish the idea of committing crimes, and I certainly would never hurt someone to make a mission possible.
I made that clear to my companion, who only smiled gently and patted me on the head like a child. Dude pulled a Phillip on me, but I ignored it so that I didn’t lose my shit in a public place.
Sloan’s wounds had healed the way they should, but the remnants of our disastrous escape stayed vividly on his light skin. Thankfully, none of them sung of pain or injury.
A small mercy.
The Brit’s enigmatic blue irises gleamed like starlight in dirt though, if I was honest. They were the first thing I saw any time I looked at the Hunter.
And really, my favorite part of his face.
Something about the color lured my gaze any time I so much as glanced Sloan’s direction.
But, to my unending amusement, Sloan’s usually perfectly kempt hair was just short of total anarchy.
Think post-explosion and you’d know what I meant.
Without a serious shower and hardcore hairbrush molded from metal while employing the strength of Zeus, Sloan’s hair situation was utterly hopeless.
It was honestly the most endearing part of our situation because I genuinely thought the dude was incapable of flaw.
But his hair begged to differ, and this girl never wished so hard for the opportunity to take a picture with the phone I left back alongside all our weapons and shit.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, though.
My clothes were in tatters, and my skin bore the marks of a hasty escape through dirt and forest. The hole from where Eros stabbed me with a thick arrow had further ripped in my hurry to get away.
I looked like a victim, and it was a hard pill to swallow when I realized I’d nearly been one.
But really, it was a wonder how we’d gone completely unnoticed by the general public on our way to the parking lot.
Chalk it up to the weird things people did for TikToks.
Sloan’s apparent recovery was the small relief I took out of an overall shit situation as we snuck glances at couples walking to and from their parked cars, ignorant of our pointed stares.
“This has potential to be a trash fire,” I whispered, eyes trailing one such victim, whose clothes I could probably fit into. Sadly, her companion was a little too meaty around the middle to give my lithe, incredibly fit partner the same advantage.
Sloan’s low hum met my ears. “We don’t really have the option to be picky. We can’t waste any more time here, so you’re probably right.”
He eyed the same couple, then pulled a cute, all-pink sewing kit from the inside of his jacket. “We’re about to go Project Runway on these bitches,” came the lethal Hunter’s surprising proclamation, and I had to smack a hand over my mouth to keep from outright cackling.
Once the couple was isolated from the rest, we moved. It was a mad-dash to overwhelm them with the potent sleeping powder, then do the swap.
I didn’t think about how I was essentially naked in front of a man, who only a few hours before, kissed me in front of a man I was getting down and dirty with.
Or the fact that said kiss was life-altering and definitely one I wanted to repeat.
To be honest, I didn’t have the headspace to pretend to be modest. A Hunter did what a Hunter had to do to get the fuck out of a sticky situation, and that was what getting naked in front of Sloan inevitably amounted to.
When we finished, both of our victims looked like they’d been attacked.
The woman’s shiny blonde hair was curtaining her face from view, her clothes baring parts of her legs and chest. The man was slumped over, pants halfway up his legs, shirt thrown haphazardly over his chest because it no doubt didn’t fit.
The sight of them was a startling display of a couple preyed upon, and the conclusions human detectives would draw from it were limitless.
It wasn’t my proudest moment.
Sloan shot a glance over his shoulder before tucking a huge wad of money into the slumped over man’s hand. “Sorry,” he whispered to the unconscious couple before standing and taking my hand inside his. “Let’s go.”
The warmth of the Brit’s hand surprised me enough to make my brain slow to respond—and my legs even slower.
Really, it was all just one big shitshow as I failed to walk altogether.
No surprise, I earned myself a very curious glance from the man attempting to lead me away, whose beauty couldn’t be drowned out by an oversized Hawaiian shirt and poorly tailored pair of pants.
Or a barely tamed monster frizz of a hair situation.
It was adorable to watch Sloan curse and fail to tailor the pair of pants he stole, while swiping down his hair a hundred times, often worsening the situation rather than fixing it.
I expected him to be perfect at everything he did.
I mean, the dude carried a sewing kit in his pocket like he was some kind of designer and not a deadly vampire hunter.
Like he knew how to use it when clearly he did not.
It was by far the oddest thing I’d learned about him, but it was also now my most favorite.
Even Sloan wasn’t perfect. Which meant there was maybe hope for me, assuming we made it out of this day alive.
Phillip.
I closed my eyes, the Austrian’s emotionless face burned into my retinas. It killed me that the last time I saw him was at the moment I kissed another man.
Guilt, my old friend.
I swallowed around the forming lump in my throat, gaze stolen by another man’s hand over mine. And when I lifted my eyes, a set of pale blue ones stared back.
“You did the right thing,” Sloan whispered huskily, his thumb gently caressing the top of my hand. “Don’t let it stop you. Keep moving.”
He’d never know how truly ironic his words were in that moment, and how little they did to ease the guilt inside my heart. But now wasn’t the time for regrets or guilt.
Licking my lips, I looked over my shoulder to where the sun finally sunk behind endless hills. “Yeah.”
Somehow, we made it back to the US, and I managed not to be as awkward around Sloan as I worried I would be.
Granted, Sloan was easy conversation and kept me talking as if he specialized in interrogation.
To his credit, he very well could have. Because it wouldn’t be far from the necessary Hunter training we underwent every damn day of our godforsaken lives.
The curious Hunter asked me about Grams, about Kate and my classmates, about the things I did before everything changed.
He never once brought up Phillip or anything in relation to the Austrian’s sudden arrival.
He didn’t mention Eros or overthrowing the Organization.
The gorgeous Brit barely mentioned our entire Hunter schtick.
The dude was a genius. It was clever the way he knew how to get me to talk about things I hadn’t thought about since Phillip came into my life. It was a distractive method, one I’d learned myself, but goddammit if it didn’t work like a charm.
“Where are we going?” I finally asked after Sloan dragged details out of me about Cici. “Are we hiding underground or with other Hunters?”
Sloan’s grin was impish. “It’s a surprise.”
“What am I, five? Besides, nothing surprises me anymore,” I complained as we strolled out of the airport, no luggage to our name and somehow perfectly inconspicuous.
“This will,” was all he replied before he hailed a taxi, and then we were on our way to some obscure address Sloan gave the driver.
It took two hours from the airport to get to the address Sloan gave the driver, who was thankfully quiet and didn’t try to make conversation with us.
I wouldn’t know how to after leaving Phillip behind to his uncertain fate in Austria.
The address Sloan gave wasn’t a location I knew in California.
Granted, I didn’t know most places in California except for the ones raved about by Kate or on the news.
I’d never been out of state in all my eighteen years, and in a matter of weeks I’d been to several different states and a totally different country.
In the next few years, I doubt there would be places that I hadn’t been.
If I lived, that is. It was a new experience to say the least, traveling all over the place, and I took it all in the only way I knew how—with a sigh and a shrug.
Thankfully, it kept me from thinking about my new life as a Hunter, or really as a woman with the blood of a vampire and whatever the fuck else was in me.
A life that had begun in utter chaos.
The taxi slowed to a stop in front of a small house, and once we got out, Sloan walked in an entirely different direction. “This way.”
Curious, I followed him down the street towards a line of trees.
His hand reached for me, palm up, and I looked down at it for a moment before taking it.
Sloan led me down a path, picking up speed naturally with our abilities, and in only minutes we covered miles of ground, headed deep into the forest. Soon, we were surrounded by nothing but wildlife with no buildings or houses anywhere nearby.
Sloan’s lips tilted. “Just a little farther.”
“This is giving off major murder documentary vibes. If you’re taking me somewhere you plan to kill me, let me just remind you that I’m stronger and faster, so you don’t stand a chance, buddy.”
His rich, surprised laughter soothed the tight feeling in my throat. Brushing back his hair, which was finally starting to look normal, Sloan offered me a devilish grin. “Can’t say I blame you for being suspicious, but it’s important to keep our path here confused and untraceable.”
“Fair enough.”
Hunter 101: Move in ways that can’t be easily traced.
We were up against our own kind. Maybe even better.
All precautions were necessary. And from how Sloan made it sound, we weren’t going to stay on the move.
We were putting up shop wherever the hell we were going.
So, the kinds of precautions we took were even more necessary because we couldn’t be followed.
Finally, when it felt like I’d spent hours looking at the same dirt path and high-climbing trees, we arrived at a cave entrance. It was a clever place to go since very few would know where to look for it. Off the map, untraceable, no digital footprint. A perfect place to hide.
“So, a cave,” I commented, amused. Then a voice and scent hit me that damn near sent me into a verbal outburst.
“Not just any old cave. The best cave there ever was!” the deep, impressionable male voice said from behind me.
I turned full circle, unable to hide my surprise, and stared at the last man I ever thought I’d see. His chocolate-dark eyes and beaming white smile hit me like coming home to Grams, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling back. “Nigel!”
Sloan crossed his arms over his chest, happy with himself, and watched the two of us collide in a hard hug. He didn’t interrupt our happy reunion as the entire pack came out of the cave to greet us, and it was minutes of chatter before I realized what it meant to be around them.
“This was your grand idea?” I finally asked when Tiff let me go. The chick squeezed me with her insane strength for nearly five minutes straight. “Nigel’s pack?”
“I figured who better to help us than the man who stood beside you before us,” Sloan explained, eyes on Nigel. “Thank you for letting us come here.”
Nigel’s jaw clenched. “I’d do anything for V, so no thanks necessary.”
Tiff swooped in, looping her arm through mine, and led me into the cave ahead of everyone else. “I have so many things to show and tell you. It’s really just swell that you’re staying here with us!”
For a second, I forgot what a crappy day I’d had, or that I was nearly done in by a bastard of a Dark Fae.
For a minute, it felt like coming home, and I totally submitted to the spritely she-wolf talking a mile a minute beside me.
Tiff’s excitement and jubilance stole away my sorrow, my guilt and shame, my slow heartbreak.
Somehow, being with Nigel and his pack felt like we could have a real chance at tackling the Organization.
So, I decided in that moment to enjoy Tiff’s company and ignore the reality that, somehow, I’d stopped time.
I’d believe Phillip had gotten away and that it was only a matter of time before he came crashing back into my life, much like when I first met him.
For once, I chose optimism and hope. Because in no way, shape, or form was this over.
No, we’d only just started.