Vampire Hunter: Shadow Hunter. Anna Hackett

Z4, Damon quickly hit the unlock button on his remote, wrenched open the door and dropped Tiffany, still kicking and screaming, into the passenger seat. He slammed the door. She shoved herself against it and beat against the window as he slid into the driver’s seat. Thank God for automatic locks and bulletproof glass. Standard issue from headquarters.

      Within seconds he was shifting into Drive and stomping on the pedal. They zipped out of the alley at sixty miles per hour.

      “What’s wrong with you?” Tiffany yelled. “Stripping me of my weapon and then throwing me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes? What are you? A caveman?”

      He tried to tune her out, but it was no use. Damn him, he’d just sucked face with Mark’s little sister. But if he admitted it to himself, how many times had his thoughts wandered in that direction as he’d read Tiffany’s letters? Not while she’d been a teenager, but later, once she entered college, when the handful of years separating them hadn’t been as big a deal. Yeah, he’d wondered, all right.

      “Hello!” She banged her fist on the dashboard. “This is the twenty-first century. This is called abduction, and in case you didn’t know, it’s illegal in every state!”

      Damon growled, so low and throaty he surprised even himself. “Don’t.”

      The tone of that one word shut her up.

      He let out another grumble. “I’m trying to keep you safe, whether you like it or not. Sit back and put your seat belt on.”

      Slowly she relaxed into her seat and clipped the seat belt into place. Damon sped toward the Golisano Hospital at full speed. The city lights and few people roaming the streets blurred as they sped by. There was no way of knowing the next best move without seeing the victim. Crime scene photos never did the actual carnage justice, and now that he was on the scene he needed to see the details firsthand.

      After several minutes of silence, Tiffany finally broke. “Why are you doing this? Why do you care about me?” She fixed him with a hard stare. “Why do you care if I die?”

      Damon bit his tongue and concentrated on keeping his expression flat, distant. He couldn’t let her know who he was. If he did, she would hate him and never trust him to keep her safe. But he couldn’t avoid her questions for long.

      “It’s my job,” he said.

      She shook her head, clearly not buying that for a single minute. “What about the other humans in there? Isn’t it your job to keep them safe, too?”

      He gritted his teeth. She’d hit him right where it hurt, but he would never let her know that. “I can’t save everyone.”

      She crossed her arms over her chest. “So you save the one person in the entire building who needs the least amount of saving?” He didn’t respond. She huffed. “That makes total sense.”

      He shot her an icy stare. “That sort of attitude is exactly why you need saving. You’re not invincible.”

      She scoffed. “Neither are you.” She yanked up the sleeve of his leather coat. “See, I jabbed you right…” Her voice trailed off as she ran her fingers over his skin.

      Electricity shot through his limbs. One small caress and she could bring him to his knees. He clenched his teeth. Everything in him fought against that knowledge. He couldn’t grant her power over him.

      She stared at his forearm. The wounds had already begun to heal. The only remaining signs were several pink crescent-shaped scars, which at this rate would soon disappear.

      Her eyes widened. “What are you?”

      Tiffany stared at Damon’s arm. Her fingernails had dug deep into his skin not even half an hour earlier, and already the healed wounds were nothing but faint pink lines and some residual dried blood. She ran her fingers over the skin once more. Desire pulsed through her every time her skin connected with his. Her nipples hardened into taut peaks as she brushed the muscles of his forearms. She wanted to touch him all over. Run her hands up his thick biceps and onto his chest, down to places where she’d never touched a man before. The thought of their kiss lingered in her mind. She didn’t care that he’d only done it out of necessity. Her lips burned with the need to touch his again.

      She drew in a sharp breath. She needed to calm herself. She barely knew this man. How could she want him, need him, so desperately? “What are you?” she repeated.

      He didn’t look at her, just continued to stare at the road. “A vampire slayer, a hunter.”

      “My brother, Mark, was a vampire slayer before he died.” She held back a small smile. “He’s the one who taught me how to kill vampires.”

      Damon’s whole body stiffened like a rigid board. His hands squeezed the steering wheel tighter. The ice behind his eyes blazed a captivating blue.

      Tiffany wished those eyes were hovering over her as his muscled body slammed into hers. She cleared her throat and blinked several times. She needed to get the image of him naked out of her head, no matter how delicious she was sure he would be. She knew nothing about him. She snapped her wits back into place.

      “Look, I get that most hunters have this overwhelming sense of duty to protect the innocent. My brother was the same way, always spouting at me about what to do if a vampire ever attacked me and feeding me horror stories so I wouldn’t stay out too late at night. But I don’t need protecting. I may be a woman, but you seem to forget that I hunt vampires, too.”

      Damon stared straight ahead at the road, his face unmoving and cold. “Not in my sanctioned territory, you don’t.”

      Hot as he might be, the man had some serious control issues, and she would only take so much bossing around. “And who gave you the authority to claim this territory?”

      He didn’t respond.

      Realization washed over Tiffany like a tidal wave. She stopped her jaw from falling open. She deserved a good whap upside the head. How could she be such a moron? The thought crossed her mind briefly before, but it had seemed so unlikely.

      “You’re a member of the Execution Underground,” she said. “Just like my brother.”

       And B…

      His hands tightened on the wheel. She didn’t need his confirmation to know she was right.

      “You probably knew him.”

      While she didn’t know many specifics about the clandestine organization, she did know that they trained men to be elite hunters of the supernatural and dispatched them across the globe to protect humanity. The Execution Underground had recruited her brother once they’d gotten wind of their parents’ brutal deaths. During the attack, he’d managed to save her from the monster, though he was totally untrained. The Execution Underground had been interested in him from that point on. They’d whisked him away to a private facility to train, while she’d stayed with their aunt Cecelia.

      Whenever Mark had visited, he’d never shared much about the Execution Underground with her. She’d always gotten the impression that she wasn’t meant to know, and at the time she didn’t have the courage to ask.

      To this day, she still didn’t know which vampire led the attack that killed her family, but she was determined to find out. Mark worked every day after their deaths to find their killer and to destroy the monsters that had stolen their parents’ lives, but Caius had taken his life before he could avenge their family. Now she wouldn’t rest until both Caius and the murderous vampire who destroyed their parents exploded like the overstuffed blood bags they were. She would never forget the moment when she discovered who Caius was. All the Execution Underground disclosed to her was the location of the nest Mark had raided. Their letter said he died “valiantly fighting the leaders of the nest.” It didn’t take much snooping around the vamp world to find out who that leader had been. Once she’d put two and two together, hunting Caius had consumed almost all her waking thoughts.

      Without a word, Damon pulled the car to a