A Hunter Born (Hired Hunters Series Book 1) Read online

  “I have a Hunter calling me. How very intriguing,” Olivier Rodolfo practically purred in the Parisian accent he had apparently never abandoned despite his many centuries having control of a deep south state. “Do not tell me that some naughty vampire has decided to cross my borders.”

  And now to see just how well Destin Jourdain knew the Born with whom he shared territory – though tolerated may be the better word. “Mister Rodolfo. My team and I were hoping we might vacation for a few days in your beautiful state. Things have been quiet and we’ve heard such wonderful things about Louisiana and particularly, New Orleans.”

  “Ah, indeed,” Olivier replied, his tone rife with smug satisfaction.“It would be an honor to host a Hunter of such distinction, Mademoiselle Rhys and show you my territory. You and your team will, of course, stay at my villa to ensure you benefit fully from the experience.”

  Well, shit. Morgan hadn’t been expecting that. In hindsight, she should have. Rodolfo ruled with an iron fist and his offer wasn’t so much one of hospitality but wanting to keep an unknown vampire contingent under his watchful eye while they were in his domain. Most likely he would set his people to following them while they were in town as well. Just what they didn’t need.

  “We wouldn’t want to impose,” Morgan demurred. “While a hotel recommendation would be lovely, anything more than that is unnecessary. My team and I have simple tastes and enjoy simple pleasures. You won’t even know we’re there,” she assured him hoping he would relent.

  He didn’t. No surprise there. “Nonsense. I’ll have your rooms prepared. When should we expect you?”

  Rock, meet hard place. If she argued further, Rodolfo was likely to take offense and possibly ban them from entering his territory which he’d be perfectly within his rights to do since she’d already informed him they weren’t coming in under official business. Or, he’d grow suspicious to the reasons why they would wish to decline such a generous offer and watch her team even closer once they were there.

  Pasting a smile on her face in hopes that it would convey pleasure in her voice rather than the dread that had settled in her stomach, Morgan accepted defeat. “We thank you, Monsieur and look forward to meeting our esteemed host.”

  With a few more pleasantries exchanged, Morgan gave Rodolfo their estimated time of arrival, disconnected the call, sat back in her seat with a tired sigh, and informed her team, “We have a wrinkle.”

  Chapter Four

  The team couldn’t resist taking a stroll down iconic Bourbon Street before checking in with Rodolfo at his Garden District villa. “Oh, yeah. This is the shit,” Kane announced, turning to walk backward in front of Morgan and Jamie, raising his arms above his head, his torso swaying to the rhythm the street musicians were providing. Horns, guitars, a drumbeat banged out on overturned buckets. Morgan had to admit that the sound immediately loosened one’s gait, put a spring in your step, and added a smile to your face.

  “Do you smell that?” Kane asked, stopping abruptly, his nose raised to sniff the air.

  “See? Not even ten minutes and his stomach is already leading the way,” Jamie said around an amused chuckle.

  “You should talk,” Kane returned. “The first thing out of your mouth when you got out of the car was that you couldn’t wait to try a beignet.”

  “There’ll be plenty of time to eat,” Morgan added, feeling like a mother attempting to corral her children.

  They barely made it another ten feet before Kane was ducking into one of the eating establishments with the proclamation that he was famished and couldn’t possibly go farther until he’d had something to eat. While the statement had been met with eye-rolls from both women, they hadn’t argued, but, as the place was currently quite packed with people, Morgan and Jamie had chosen to wait outside and continue reveling in the festive atmosphere of the street rather than deal with the tight press of bodies.

  “I wish we could have been here during Mardi Gras,” Jamie wistfully proclaimed as she looked around. “Can you imagine?”

  Morgan barely heard her, her senses firing to life in a powerful surge that stole her breath, her blood suddenly humming through her veins with an awareness she’d never before experienced. Sharpening her gaze, she looked around in an attempt to find the source. Blocking out the music, the joyful shouts of passersby, and the smell of fried food, she focused on that tingling rush. Without a word, she stepped away from Jamie and moved quickly through the milling herd of people, needing to follow where this heretofore hidden sense was leading her. What was it? Where was it?

  The what turned out to be a man, balancing on the balls of his feet as he crouched before a little girl that was holding hands with a beaming woman who was most likely the child’s mother. It was a sweet scene, charmingly familial, and while the man was incredibly handsome with his rumpled golden-brown hair, chiseled jaw, and muscular body in a basic white T-shirt and faded blue jeans, none of that explained why her senses had gone haywire enough to lead her straight to him. He wasn’t a vampire, and while the sensation was similar to what she felt in the presence of predatory shifters – though amplified by what felt like a thousand – her nose wasn’t picking up the scent of fur. As far as she could tell, the man and his little family were completely human, mortal, and absolutely nothing that should have had her neck prickling in warning while her fangs suddenly elongated as her mouth salivated with an intense blood-hunger despite having recently fed. Shit. Ducking her head, Morgan forced herself away from the man before she succumbed to what could only be described as temporary insanity.

  “Hey. Are you okay?”

  Morgan jumped, startled, having not been aware Jamie was right behind her. Obviously, something was wrong with her. Her senses had always been overly sensitive to stimuli, even beyond the normal scope of the Born, an attribute which had made her such an excellent Hunter but tonight, for some reason, they were glitching. Just what she didn’t need. Especially when she and her team were in the territory of a Born whose reputation was decidedly blood-thirsty while she contemplated doing a job for one of the most powerful witches in the country.

  Shaking her head, Morgan began moving back toward where they had left Kane only speaking once her fangs had retracted enough to not be obvious. “I thought I saw something,” she volunteered by way of explanation to Jamie who was keeping pace at her side.

  If the other woman suspected anything, she chose to thankfully keep it to herself. Within moments, Morgan’s odd behavior was most likely the last thing on Jamie’s mind as the woman was too busy shaking her head and letting out a scoffing snort. She had spotted Kane exiting the eating establishment with mounds of food overflowing his arms as well as something breaded and deep-fried gripped between his teeth.

  “He has to have a hollow leg,” Jamie muttered. “There’s no other explanation.”

  Still ignoring the jangling awareness that was calling her to go back to that man, Morgan let out a chuckle that she knew sounded strained. Luckily for her, Kane was too busy eating and Jamie was too busy mocking him for it to pay her much mind.

  “Let’s get over to the Garden District,” she interjected, desperately needing to put as much distance as possible between her and whatever the hell was lighting her nerves up with electricity. “The sooner we get the formalities out of the way with Rodolfo, the sooner we can get to work on this business with the witches.”

  ∞∞∞

  Rodolfo’s villa was a stately mansion complete with plenty of columns, balconies, and old-world charm set behind tall wrought iron fences with enough security cameras mounted on them to make any would-be hoodlum think twice before attempting to breach the property.

  While the exterior might be admired as southern traditional, the interior – in Morgan’s opinion, at least – was anything but. In fact, it reminded her of her father’s rather cold, archaic compound back in Wales, right down to the blood sport that was currently taking place in the torchlit enclosed central courtyard. Vampires, as well as vacant-eyed
humans milled about, both those in tuxedos and gowns, as well as tattooed bikers in leather, all placing bets as a pair of shirtless combatants in the center, fought to the death as a form of gruesome entertainment.

  Morgan looked upon the fight with a jaundiced eye. This type of sport had been a bone of contention between her and her father more than once with him being of the opinion that the games kept his vampires’ fighting skills and survival instincts sharp, while she had considered it a senseless waste of life. Last she knew, he was still holding such barbaric displays weekly. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to discover that Rodolfo and her father were cut from the same cloth. While she was still disgusted by such brutality, seeing this set her mind at ease that she might be able to deal effectively with this unknown Born. After all, she had long ago mastered circumventing her father’s strictures through sheer wit and cunning. She’d need to remain sharp, but she had no doubt that wouldn’t be a problem as long as she didn’t have another repeat performance of whatever odd bit of lunacy had taken hold of her while on Bourbon Street.

  A cheer of exultation reverberated through the room and Morgan saw that one of the combatants had thrust his fist through his opponent’s ribcage and torn out the heart. The champion raised the thing above his open mouth, squeezing it and feeding off the blood before he threw the crushed organ to the flagstones with a roar that only spurred the onlookers to greater excitement.

  Jamie shuddered slightly at Morgan’s side. “That’s revolting,” she quietly hissed.

  There was no opportunity for Kane to add his own opinion, though the look of disgust on his handsome face spoke volumes. A hush had fallen over the crowd and Morgan turned to see a man who could only be none other than Olivier Rodolfo looking down on the amusements from an upper balcony like a king surveying his kingdom. His hand raised in preparation to address his subjects.

  Typical of the Born, he was handsome with the trademark symmetry of features that bordered on beautiful. Dark hair, damp from a recent washing was slicked back from his face and just curling slightly at the nape of his neck, brown eyes under perfectly arched brows, an aquiline nose and perfectly sculpted jaw. He was dressed in a pale peach button-down, rolled at the sleeves to his elbows and left unbuttoned at the neck. Sharply creased charcoal dress slacks and black, Italian loafers that were a perfect match to the belt accentuating his trim waistline completed the look of a casual businessman.

  “Yummy,” Jamie breathed, seeming thoroughly entranced and Morgan couldn’t help but point out in hushed tones, “Don’t forget he’s the one who hosted that revolting display you just witnessed.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Morgan almost chuckled at the look of stern disdain Jamie was now wearing but refrained when she noticed that Rodolfo was staring right at them.

  “We have Hunters in our midst,” the Born announced to the crowd which had all eyes turning in their direction and elicited quite a few threatening growls and snarls that had Morgan itching to pull her knives. Not surprising. Morgan had known going into this that Rodolfo had his own little group of vampiric attack dogs that he set upon any runners. Most likely that blood-thirsty lot didn’t want any Hunters in the area to spoil their fun with all that official business crap.

  “No, no,” Rodolfo purred with great amusement at the crowd’s reaction. “They’re here as honored guests and wish to partake of the rich culture of our great state. Let’s not disappoint them.”

  In a show that might impress the humans but did little to stir anything even remotely in someone like Morgan or her team, Rodolfo vaulted over the balcony railing to land gracefully on the flagstones of the courtyard below. Within seconds he was standing before Morgan, loosely gripping her shoulders in his hands and kissing the air on either side of her cheeks. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Mademoiselle Rhys.”

  Inwardly, she despised the pompous prick on sight, but if he was indeed as like her father as she assumed, she’d do best to manage him with sweet manners and a stroke of the ego, so outwardly, she pasted on her most pleasant smile. “We would have met sooner I’m sure, Monsieur Rodolfo if you didn’t have such remarkable control over your territory. Others could learn from you.”

  The praise did exactly as she had intended, the suspicious glint that had previously been in the man’s eyes as he looked her and her team over was replaced with preening self-satisfaction. “Come, come. Allow me to give you and your team a tour.”

  Round one went to her, but she couldn’t afford to get cocky. Letting her guard down even for a moment in front of someone like Olivier Rodolfo, who was currently pontificating about his vast art collection as he led them through a labyrinth of interconnecting rooms, could find her and her team being the ones with their vital organs left to rot on the floor while Rodolfo’s people cheered the grisly spectacle of their deaths.

  Chapter Five

  The sun was a bright glowing orb in the sky when Morgan made her way on foot from Rodolfo’s estate with the intention of meeting the leader of the Order of Witches. Kane had chosen to stay behind while Jamie slept, not trusting their host – a sentiment Morgan whole-heartedly agreed with.

  As Turned vampires, especially the older ones, wouldn’t be able to be out in daylight, it was less likely she’d have a tail at this hour, but not impossible as Morgan had noted at least three human guards upon exiting the grounds. Guards that, should they have orders to follow her, could be easily eluded with her preternatural speed, but as she was supposedly in town as a tourist who would have no need to run away, it was much more fun to lead them on a merry chase through one of the famed Lafayette cemeteries. Plenty of places to lose her would-be followers without raising suspicion that would surely be reported back to their master.

  Making her way deeper through the rows of tombs and mausoleums Morgan suddenly felt an intense prickle at the back of neck followed by that now disturbingly familiar rush of blood through her veins that brought every nerve ending to life and had her fangs distending in hunger. He was here.

  She needed to leave. She needed to turn around and walk back the way she’d come. Her feet refused to listen to reason, her body practically lurching into motion to once again find the man that caused her body to light up like a Fourth of July firework display.

  Around another corner, her feet propelled her forward until she was practically running over uneven sections of pavement, past a wall of vaults, before she came to a skidding halt. The scent of blood hit her nose, blood from a vampire, just the tiniest hint, mingling with the scent of death and him. The man from last night, currently in a New Orleans Police uniform was standing with his hands perched on narrow hips, over the body of a woman lying prone in the weeds, discarded like litter.

  He turned fully on her approach blocking Morgan’s view of the body. “Ma’am, you can’t be here. I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to leave.”

  A slight hint of cigar smoke and sulfur, possibly from a match that lit the first, the crisp, woodsy scent of pine mixed with the clean smell of soap. Morgan breathed it in with an odd need to memorize the scent.

  “Ma’am?”

  His eyes were covered by dark sunglasses so she couldn’t see the color but his nostrils flared ever so slightly as if, like her, he was breathing her in. His face wasn’t perfectly symmetrical like her kind, was rugged instead of beautiful with a complexion that bespoke of hours spent outdoors in the sun as well as the hint of a dimple in his right cheek.

  Morgan was grateful for her own dark lenses covering her eyes as she was sure they were black with hunger if not sparking red with her loss of control. She was completely fascinated, could look at this man all day, but the realization that she was staring at him instead of trying to get her fangs under control had her snapping her head down. Luckily, the dental anomaly that would have most likely had the man doubting his eyes had remained hidden from view behind her closed lips, but such a lapse in judgment was beyond problematic and had her quickly shifting her focus to the more important issue. The b
ody.

  The woman was Caucasian, with black, curly hair tied back with a deep purple scarf edged in gold. Her clothing of peasant blouse and broomstick skirt were colorful as were the multitude of bangles and rings left on the corpse. Not a robbery then and cause of death was pretty obvious, considering the odd angle of the woman’s neck and bruising around the throat – a throat absent of puncture wounds. The hint of vampire blood she’d scented? Most likely the woman had fought her attacker, perhaps clawed his face or got in a punch or two. Whoever the killer was, they had to have come straight at the victim then, perhaps tormented and taunted her first rather than sneaking up behind for a quick snap of the neck. Morgan was willing to bet they’d enjoyed the sport. Bastards. As Jourdain had said, this wasn’t about feeding. This was a game or perhaps an order carried out.

  “Ma’am. This is an active crime scene. You need to leave now.”

  Feeling her teeth with her tongue to make sure they were at least within the realm of normal, Morgan asked, “What happened?”

  The man reached out a hand like he might be thinking of assisting her in leaving and Morgan quickly stepped back. If his mere presence had her practically coming out of her skin, what would happen should he touch her?

  Both of his hands went up in front of him in a display that he wasn’t a threat just as Morgan heard others approaching. More police? Morgan’s gaze went once more to the body and the ground around the woman as she searched for clues knowing that she’d have to inform Destin Jourdain that he’d most likely lost another of his people.

  “You have my assurance that we’re going to take good care of her, ma’am. We’ll find who did this to her.”

  As more police converged on the area, Morgan nodded, feeling as she had the night before, that odd reluctance to leave the vicinity of this man. Who was he? Why did he affect her senses so strongly? Before she could stop the words from leaving her lips she blurted, “Who are you?”