Well, in the excerpt earlier today, you got to meet Elias and Nessa. But you also need to meet Dominic.
Over such a period of time apart, of course, both of these characters have changed, but it’s Dom who’s changed the most. Though Nessa gets a pretty darned good makeover herself, when all is said and done.
But no matter what, they recognize each other just because of their love and need for one another.
So take the time to read this first chapter of Hunter’s Fall. I can guarantee you’ll make a trip to the old bookstore when you’re done…
Present Day
There was smoke.
And there was blood.
The air was thick, and he was going to choke on all the blood. Even if he didn’t have it pooling in his throat, he wouldn’t have been able to take a breath.
The pain wouldn’t let him.
It stole through him, turning everything to ice.
She was crying. He could hear her. She cried and wept and pleaded with him not to leave her. But he had no choice. Death was coming, coming to rip him away from the one person who mattered.
Even though he slept, he felt the sting of tears. Felt them well up under his eyes, felt them burn their way down his cheeks. He wanted to wipe them away. Wanted to wake from this awful dream.
But he was helpless, locked in his slumber.
Ah, Nessa . . . my beautiful, foolish, wonderful girl. I love you so much. I will come back . . . I will find you again . . .
Browning, Idaho
“You’re too pretty.”
“Am I?” he asked, a grin tugging at his lips. It was a mouth made for kissing.
“Yes.”
She was dreaming. Nessa knew she was dreaming. If she had any sense, she would lie back and just enjoy it.
Well, I already did that. And she had—three, no, four times over.
There was no way any red-blooded, straight woman could lie in bed with this man, dream or no dream, and not enjoy it. Not enjoy him.
His eyes were dark, rich as melted chocolate, framed by thick, curly eyelashes. His skin gleamed a soft, mellow gold. In the sun, she imagined that smooth, sleek skin would deepen to a darker gold. His hair was black, blacker than onyx, and thick. It had just the slightest curl to it and when she ran her hands through it, the jet strands twined her fingers.
She knew that from experience—she’d spent half the night with her hands buried in his hair.
They hadn’t spent much time standing up, but she guessed he was about five ten. He had a long, lean build, and she sensed strength inside him. Massive strength, but when he touched her, he did it with gentleness. Reverence.
As well a dream lover should, she supposed.
He reached up and traced the line of her mouth with his fingertip. She shivered under that light touch and felt heat flicker through her. Catching his finger in her mouth, she bit lightly.
Hunger blazed in his eyes.
She felt a response and leaned forward, pressing her lips to his. “Well, if I had to dream you, I must say, it turned out rather well,” she mused.
He laughed against her mouth and asked, “How do you know I’m not the one who dreamed you up?”
“Oh, believe me, I’m the one who is dreaming. There is no man out there pining for me.”
No man waiting. No man longing. No man searching. No matter what was promised.
I will come back . . . I will find you again . . .
“You’re so sad,” he whispered. “Why are you so sad?”
Nessa forced a smile. “Of course I’m not . . . well, I won’t be for long. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
~*~
“I will find you. No matter where you go. No matter how far.”
With a snort, Nessa looked away from the TV and focused on Mei-Lin’s hair. The teenager grinned up at her. “It’s romantic, Nessa. You can’t snort like that when Daniel Day Lewis is on the screen saying a line like that.” With a sigh, the girl rested a hand on her heart and gazed at the TV with rapt eyes.
The Last of the Mohicans was the girl’s favorite movie. They usually watched it once a month.
Unless Nessa could see a way out. Today was Mei-Lin’s seventeenth birthday, though, and she’d wanted to watch the silly film before she went out with some friends.
Weaving the girl’s silky hair into a tight braid, Nessa glanced at the screen. Spectacular scenery. Strong, sexy men with big guns, innocent-looking girls with simpering eyes. Romantic bits like, I will find you.
It struck a knife in her heart.
Although it had been five hundred years, she could still hear Elias’s voice.
I will come back . . . I will find you again . . .
Only God Himself could keep me from you, love.
And God Himself had spent the last five centuries doing just that. Nessa couldn’t watch this damn film without reliving her memories. A time when she was torn away from her husband.
Not by pissed off Natives, but by death.
By God.
He had taken her lover from her, and had kept her from joining him.
She was alone, and empty. So empty inside. Not even her dream lover could ease that ache. At least not for long.
She blew out a sigh and used an elasticized band to keep Mei-Lin’s braid from unraveling. Rising from the couch, she gathered up the ice cream cartons from the floor and carted them into the kitchen to dump them in the trash.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Mei-Lin and despite herself, she had to smile.
This girl had pulled Nessa back from the edge of madness, despair.
Even as she tried to draw her mind away from the memories, she found herself caught in them again. It had been a few years since her life had been turned upside down.
One last battle . . . she’d been so sure when she went to face the young witch that it would be her last.
And after more than five hundred years, she was so very, very tired. So empty inside, but she’d become accustomed to that. The exhaustion, though, weighed on her more and more, with each and every year.
The thought of just being done had been such a . . . sweet relief. She’d yearned for it, ached for it. Longed for it. She’d gone to battle with a young woman who used her magic to steal life and power from others—Morgan Wakefield. She had practiced blood magic, and it was addictive. Once a witch gave in to that lure, it became a hunger, a need. Fighting it was almost impossible, and Morgan hadn’t wanted to.
The only way to keep her from killing was to end her life—a sad, sorry fact, but one Nessa had been prepared to handle. She’d been prepared for all likely outcomes—including her own death.
She hadn’t been prepared to live. She certainly hadn’t been prepared to live like this.
Absently, she glanced at the ornamental mirror hanging over the sofa and studied her face.
Morgan’s face.
No. She hadn’t been prepared for this. She’d fought the young, deceptive, blood-thirsty witch, and as she’d expected, her body hadn’t survived the battle. But somehow, her spirit had. She hadn’t planned for it—hadn’t done a damn thing to make this happen—at least not consciously. Nessa had wanted death, craved it. Craved it the way Morgan had craved blood. The way a drug addict craved their next fix. She’d needed it.
But instead of the sweet relief of death, she lived. In Morgan’s body.
For so long after it had happened, Nessa had been lost—trapped in a muddle of depression, despair, memories and madness. Even as she began to emerge from that fog, she’d hated it—she’d yearned for the sweet, oblivious cloud where she’d lived.
Until Mei-Lin.
They had met just a few months ago, but already, this girl had settled inside Nessa’s heart, forged a place there. Given Nessa a reason to believe again. A reason to hope. A reason to live.
She looked at Mei-Lin and saw the echo of her own youth. Kindred spirits, she supposed. That was why she’d felt so drawn to the girl, why she’d taken Mei-Lin under her wing instead of shipping her off to Excelsior.
Almost a year earlier, Mei-Lin’s mother had died and the girl had ended up in foster care, only to run away after one of the other foster kids had tried to molest her.
The night they met, Nessa had been walking through the dark streets, looking for a fight, a drink, both . . . anything to occupy her mind.
What she found was Mei-Lin. Or rather, Mei-Lin found her. The girl had quick hands—she might not have even noticed the theft if the girl hadn’t unconsciously used her magic as well.
Untrained witches—they were a danger to themselves. Nessa had planned to dump the girl back at Excelsior. She needed training, that was for certain, and she also needed to finish high school. She could do both at Excelsior. Kelsey and the other Hunters would see to it that Mei-Lin was trained and care for.
But in the end, it was Nessa who took the girl in. It hadn’t taken but a few hours to realize she needed the girl as much as the girl needed her. Perhaps more.
The two of them, they were both lost, lonely souls.
Meeting the girl had pulled Nessa back from the brink—she’d reminded Nessa of who she was.
She’d reminded Nessa of what she was.
She might be a lonely witch still pining over her lost lover, but she was also a fighter.
Nessa was a Hunter—a warrior, a witch. She’d devoted her life to protecting the innocent from the monsters in the world. She’d never given up in her whole damned life.
Mei-Lin helped her remember that about herself.
She owed the girl.
More, she loved her.
Leaning against the counter that separated the kitchen and the living room, she tucked her hair behind one ear and watched as the teen finished watching the movie. As the credits started to roll, Mei-Lin patted her heart and said, “If you’re still wanting to find me another birthday present, I want that. Gimme a man like that.”
“I looked but they’d already sold out at the mall.” Nessa rolled her eyes. “Darling, you are seventeen. You have plenty of time to find a man.”
“They do still make them like that, right?” She wrinkled her nose and said, “I want a real man, not one who spends more time messing with his hair than I do. I don’t want some dumb boy, either. Real men still exist, right?”
Nessa grinned and thought of some of the men she knew. Chortling, she tried to picture Malachi messing with his hair. The vampire had seen millennia come and go, and while he was a vain bastard, he wasn’t one to primp.
Images of other men, other friends—Hunters she’d worked with over the years—flashed through her mind. Would they stand in front of a mirror and primp? Tobias, Declan, Vax . . . no. Not a one of them.
Eli, perhaps, but he had always been a peacock.
She had a quick flash of her dream lover. That thick, silken hair, tousled by her hands. He wouldn’t spend his time studying his reflection, either, she knew.
Of course, he wouldn’t . . . he isn’t real. He was just her dream lover, a man her imagination created to help with the emptiness inside her, to help wile away long, lonely nights.
A dream lover . . . and he belongs in those dreams, only those dreams, so for the love of all things holy, stop thinking about him during the day.
She shoved off the counter and went to turn off the television. “Yes, Mei-Lin. I promise, there are plenty of men who are less than enamored with their pretty reflections.”
Outside, Nessa heard footsteps and she tugged on one of Mei-Lin’s braids. “Your friends are here.”
“How can you hear them?” she asked, cocking her head. She squinted her eyes as though it might help her hear better.
“Practice.” Nessa shrugged a shoulder. “You’ll get there.”
The doorbell rang and Mei-Lin moved to answer it. As a gaggle of giggling girls entered the small house, Nessa tidied up the living room. Living with a teenage girl, she was constantly picking up, straightening up, doing laundry.
She didn’t mind, oddly enough.
Other than Mei-Lin’s training, this was the closest to normal Nessa had ever known.
Mei-Lin reappeared in the door, surrounded by her friends.
“Hi, Ms. Chandler!”
Nessa managed not to make a face. Ms. Chandler was only one of the many names she’d used during her life—she’d much rather be called Agnes or Nessa than anything Ms. Made her feel as old as she truly was. Ancient.
Giving them a smile, she said, “How are you this evening, Kim?”
“Oh, you know.” She rolled eyes heavily made up with black liner and said, “I’m sort of on probation. Brought home a C on my final and Mom said if it happened again, I’d lose the car until I brought home something better.”
“You could have a better grade if you wanted.” Nessa knew the line she should use and she did. Mei-Lin’s friends, the teachers, all the people they knew thought Nessa was Mei-Lin’s stepsister. They even had legal papers to document it. “Your mother just wants you to do your best.”
“I know.” Kim sighed and shrugged. “Chemistry is just so boring. I can’t wait until I’m done with school and don’t have to worry about that sh . . . uh, crap anymore.”
Dryly, Nessa said, “Paying bills is quite boring as well. You’ll have to do things you don’t enjoy the rest of your life. The good comes with the bad.” She gave Mei-Lin a bright smile and said, “Speaking of which . . .”
She dumped the armful of shoes, books, iPod and socks into Mei-Lin’s arms. “Before you go out, please put these away.”
Mei-Lin rolled her eyes and obediently trucked up the stairs.
One of the newer girls asked Nessa about her accent, and another started rambling on about how sssexxxy accents were. Kim enviously told the others how Nessa had taken Mei-Lin to France for spring break.
The new girl—Ashlyn—rolled her eyes and said, “Man, Mei. You’ve got the coolest mom. Mine would never let me go that far away without her.”
Mei-Lin appeared on the stairs and pain flashed across her face. Nessa gave her a gentle smile and whispered mind-to-mind, Are you okay?
Mei-Lin gave her a tight smile.
An awkward silence fell, and one of the girls leaned in and in a loud whisper said, “Way to go, Ashlyn. Mei’s mom died last year. Ms. Chandler is Mei’s stepsister—her guardian.”
Ashlyn went white. Nessa patted the girl on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Ashlyn. You didn’t know, now did you?” Then she gave her a smile and said, “I imagine your mum is quite the protective one. I’m sure you find it quite irritating, but she loves you. Enjoy it . . . enjoy her, because you never know how long you’ll have her.”
Ashlyn gave Mei-Lin a slightly sick smile. “I’m sorry, Mei. I didn’t . . .”
“It’s cool,” Mei-Lin said, shaking her head.
Changing the subject, Nessa looked at Kim and said, “So, what plans do you girls have tonight?”
Mei-Lin gave Nessa an exasperated look while Kim smiled. In a singsong voice, she replied, “We’re going to get some dinner at Applebee’s, then we’re going to a movie. The movie is at the Multiplex and it starts at 9:15. It should be over by 11:30. I have to drop the other girls off first, but we’ll be here by midnight and I’m spending the night. And yes, Ms. Chandler, my mother will be calling at midnight so I hope you’re awake.”
“Cheeky girl,” Nessa murmured. She looked at Mei-Lin. “You have your phone?”
A few minutes later, Nessa shut the door behind them. Alone in the house, she rested her head back against the door and sighed. Alone . . . and it was too quiet.
When silence came, the voice was louder.
The voice . . . Morgan’s voice. Yes, she had Morgan’s body, and she also had Morgan’s . . . ghost, for lack of a better word.
“This is just too cute for words, you old hag. Look at you, playing house.”
It was a taunting, angry jibe, but Nessa pretended to ignore it. Once she had noise, once she had something to occupy her hands, the voice of the dead woman would fade.
For a time.
How much longer, she wondered. How much longer would Morgan linger?
Even now, months, years later, the girl haunted her.
Damn her. Even in death, she’d managed to ruin things. If the woman’s body had just died, then Nessa could have died as well.
“Is this the reason you stole my body, so you could play Holly Homemaker?”
Nessa shoved away from the door and reached out. With the slightest flex of her magic, she turned on some music. Loud. But Morgan wasn’t going to go quiet that easily.
“This is a fucking waste. Why did you take my body if this is all you’re going to do? Shit, can’t you even go out, find a guy, get drunk, get fucked? Something—anything—would be better than watching you play mama witch to that little idiot.”
Nessa smirked. “Not while I’ve got a dead witch whining in the back of my head.”
“I don’t see why not. It’s my body.”
“Actually, no, it’s not. If it was your body, you’d be able to take it back. But you can’t.” She knew what the girl was about—Morgan wanted to make Nessa feel guilty, wanted to exploit any and every little weakness.
“It damn well is my body,” Morgan snarled, her mental voice an angry, ugly growl. “Your body died. That old bag of bones is gone. Hypocritical bitch. How in the hell can you condemn me for taking blood when you took my damn body?”
Narrowing her eyes, Nessa turned to the mirror and stared at her reflection. She saw her face—the face that had once belonged to Morgan. “You didn’t just take blood, child. You took lives. You ended lives. When I came upon you, you stank of death. How many have you killed? Can you even remember?”
“The strong kill the weak. It’s the way of the world.”
“We could write your death off that way if you like.” Malicious cow—she knew just what words to use, when to use them. Guilt tried to settle inside Nessa but she cast it off. “And here’s another way of the world. You can call it karma. I prefer ‘you shall reap what you sow.’ You killed. Blindly, indiscriminately and you enjoyed it. You would have sucked my body dry of magic, sucked me dry of life, and then moved on to your next victim and your next. But you couldn’t beat me. And I didn’t take your body. Trust me, precious, I didn’t want your body. I didn’t want this life. You don’t like it, and I understand that. I don’t like it either. But we’re both stuck with it.”
“I’ll find a way to get my body back.”
“No.” Nessa shook her head. “You won’t. You’re just a ghost, Morgan, clinging to life. You need to let go and move on. It’s not like there’s much of anything keeping you here now, is there?”
“There’s plenty keeping me here. My body, for one.”
Nessa stared at her reflection, knowing the ghost in the back of her mind would see the insolent smile on her face. That was where Morgan existed now—that was the only place Morgan existed.
“It’s not your body. You went and got greedy, precious. Tried to take things that don’t belong to you. This is rather karmic, don’t you think? You took power, you took blood . . . and your body was taken from you. It’s mine now.”
“Because you stole it.”
Nessa sighed. “No, I didn’t.”
After all, stealing another’s body would imply that Nessa wanted to live. She’d wanted anything but. She’d gone into that battle with her eyes wide open, knowing that after more than five hundred years, she could finally rest. She would die, and on the other side, she’d find Elias. Finally.
But fate hadn’t worked out that way.
Nobody else knew. Nessa had told no one about Morgan. Morgan was her burden, her problem. And she’d learned how to deal with the problem relatively well.
Smiling at her reflection, she leaned in and kissed the mirror. “I must get to work now. Toddle off now, precious. We living witches have things to do.”
In the back of her mind, she heard Morgan shriek . . . just before she blocked her off.
Her workroom was tucked away down in the basement, and she might as well spend some time working on Mei-Lin’s next lesson—the poor girl was still having trouble with basic grounding and shielding. Until they had down, they couldn’t start even the more rudimentary magics.
Focusing on the work, she lost track of time. It wasn’t until she felt a brush against her senses that she looked up with a glance at the clock. Nearly ten. Time enough.
“You might as well come in, Mal. I’m alone for now.”
The vampire appeared in front of her, materializing out of thin air. He cast a look around the small, dimly lit room and grimaced. “Fuck me, love. You could do far better than this, you know.”
“This will do me fine, thank you.” She made a few more notes in the margin of the paper and tossed her pencil down. Rising from the chair, she moved around the desk and rose on her toes to kiss Malachi’s cool cheek.
The vampire was her oldest friend—in more ways than one. He was so old, he’d forgotten just how old he was. Nessa knew he’d been a Roman slave at some point during his human life.
She had met him shortly after she’d returned to Excelsior after Elias had died. Five hundred years of friendship.
She knew his moods. Though that pale, poetically handsome face showed no expression, something was bothering him.
He was worried.
“Where is Kelsey?”
“At the school.” He brushed an absent hand down her hair and turned away. Restless, he roamed around the small room for a few moments before coming to a stop in front of the shelf of books.
Many of the books were old. Not a few decades or even a couple of hundred years. They’d belonged to Nessa for several centuries. He studied them and then turned around, looking at Nessa with an unreadable expression.
Nessa sighed. “What it is, Mal?”
“I don’t know.” Dark, deep red hair fell to hide his face as he lowered his gaze to the floor. He stood in silence for long, long moments.
Her skin started to buzz and adrenaline started to course through her. She didn’t feel anything. But something had Malachi on edge. The bastard had walked this earth for even longer than Nessa—whatever bothered him, it wasn’t going to be some mild little annoyance.
Finally, he lifted his head and pinned her with midnight blue eyes. “Kelsey wanted me here, pet. I don’t know why. She doesn’t know why. But she wanted me here.”
“That doesn’t sound quite good.” Nessa rubbed her eyes and then lowered her head, mentally extending her senses. She felt nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
No nasty, hideous supernatural monster creeping close—that she would feel, just as she’d sensed Malachi’s presence. The small town of Browning, Idaho, had a nearly nonexistent paranormal population. It was why Nessa had chosen to live here after she’d made the decision to take care of Mei-Lin. She didn’t need to worry about any vampires or werewolves. The nearest wolf pack was close to a hundred miles away, and the nearest vamp was even farther. There were one or two lesser witches, a family of cat shifters, and the odd random psychic.
If anything new had moved in, Nessa would have felt it.
“I don’t feel anything,” she pointed out, although she knew it was unnecessary. Malachi might be a vampire and she a witch, but they were both Hunters, which meant they were tuned into the monsters—the non-mortals that hunted and preyed on the innocent.
“Neither do I.” A muscle twitched in his jaw.
Nessa felt the bottom of her stomach drop out. The look in his eyes, it nearly froze her to the bone. She closed her eyes and reached out, extending her mind until it brushed up against Mei-Lin’s. She sensed the younger witch, sensed her surprise as Mei-Lin felt Nessa’s presence.
She gave the nonverbal equivalent of Shhh . . . it’s okay. Just wanted to check on you. And that she did—the girl was most definitely in the theater, as were her friends.
Feeling a bit reassured, she opened her eyes and focused on Malachi’s face. “Mei-Lin will be here shortly. It’s her birthday and she’s gone to the pictures.” She paused and took a deep breath. “She was to have a friend spend the night, but I guess I should reschedule that.”
Malachi just watched her.
“She’ll be cross with me,” Nessa said, forcing a smile.
“She’s a good lass. She’ll understand.”
“Hmmm. Perhaps. Although if I knew whatever the trouble was, it might make it easier to explain, wouldn’t you agree?”
They left Nessa’s small house to drive to the theater. Malachi wouldn’t go for remaining at the house. Truthfully, Nessa was glad he came along, and not just because it was amusing to watch as the big vampire forced his large body into the front seat of her Ford Fusion.
“I’d have more room in a tin can, love.”
“Oh, nonsense. Besides, you can’t drive a tin can.” She started the car and backed up, zipping along the roads with careless speed.
“You can’t crash a tin can, either,” Malachi muttered, maintaining a white-knuckled grip on the doorframe.
Plastic cracked and she shot him a disapproving glance. “If you make a mess of my car, vampire, I’ll have your arse.”
She could almost see how much it took for him to ease up. “How did you get any sort of license, driving like this?” He gave her a sour look. “You didn’t magic some fool into it, did you?”
“Of course not.” Nessa smiled serenely. “I don’t have a license.”
She checked the opposite lane of the narrow two-lane highway and darted around a semi, grinning as the driver laid on the horn when she squeezed in front of him.
“Fuck me,” Malachi mumbled. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the passenger seat. “Damn good thing I’m not mortal—you’d give me a heart attack.”
As they neared the interstate, she reached over and patted the white-knuckled fist he had resting on his knee. “You worry too much, my friend. Turning into a boring old fusspot.”
He shot her a narrow glance. “Very few people would dare call me a fusspot.”
She opened her mouth but the words locked in her throat.
Blood roared in her ears. She barely had the presence of mind to pull the car onto the narrow shoulder before she wrecked it. Her hands shook, cold and clammy on the steering wheel.
“Mal . . .”
It came as a cold wind.
Death. Uncaring, unstoppable.
Malachi felt it as well—she could tell by the tight expression on his face, the blue light glowing in his eyes.
She shot him a dazed look. For a few short moments, she could hardly breathe.
The sound of her mobile phone buzzing hit like a fist, stealing the breath from her lungs. She grabbed it, recognizing Mei-Lin’s picture on the display.
“Nessa, hey, you didn’t answer the home phone.”
“Mei-Lin, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing.” Then she paused.
In the background, Nessa could hear the girls talking and their voices lacked the excited, happy tone from earlier. Then Mei-Lin sighed and said, “Kim ran into this guy she was dating at the theater. He started being a real jerk and I told him to back off. He started yelling at me and some guy in the row in front of us told him to back off and then . . .” Her voice trailed off. She was quiet for a minute and then said, “Kim just wanted to leave. So we left. I wanted to let you know we’d be there soon and—”
There was a scream.
A crash.
And Nessa felt it as death came in and claimed yet more lives.
~*~
She cried.
His pretty little witch was crying.
Standing in a field of stone, surrounded by people, yet utterly alone.
Day bled into night and the people drifted from her side and still she cried. She was alone now, save for one woman and one man.
Anger bit into him as the man—the vampire—dared to lift a hand to touch the witch. Dared to wrap a big arm around her slender shoulders and draw her close.
Tears choked him.
Her pain racked him.
He wanted to reach out to her. He wanted to be the one to comfort her, to hold her against him as she wept.
But when he whispered her name, she didn’t hear him.
~*~
Dominic came awake with her name on his lips and a tearing pain in his heart.
Snarling, he fought free of the covers and dashed a hand over his damp face. Crying. Damn it. Again. Dreams of some woman he’d never met and he wakes up crying. He stared at the pink smears on his fingertips and stormed into the bathroom to wash away the blood-tinged tears.
With water dripping from his face, he looked at the mirror. A muscle worked in his jaw and he gripped the edge of the marble counter.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” he muttered.
He was obsessed. Obsessed, dreaming about the same woman, night after night, year after year. And now he was even crying like some fucking pansy in his dreams.
“What in the hell is this?” Shoving away from the counter, he strode to the enclosed shower and turned on the water with an angry flick of his wrist. He needed a damn hot shower, he needed a good hard run, maybe even a down and dirty fight—if he could get all three of those, it might lighten his dark mood.
But somehow he doubted it.
The dreams were getting worse, and he had a bad feeling he knew why.
Dominic Ralston was going crazy.
