“That’s what families should do. Same with our friends, but like you, I’ve lost several of my hunter friends over this.” He turned down another street. He tried not to take the betrayal personally, but it was hard not to do it sometimes.

  “Some friends, though I can understand when it comes to me because the vampire who turned me could possibly make me turn on them.”

  “True, which makes it more imperative that they took him down. I mean, if they’re truly your friends, they’re there for you through thick and thin, not just when it suits them.”

  “Yeah, I agree. What did your friends that dumped you say about it?” she asked.

  “Nothing, really. I learned hunter parties are coming up that normally I would be invited to and that’s not happening any longer.” He shrugged. “I could be irritated about it, but I figure they’re not worth my attention.” Which wasn’t totally true. It was hard growing up with these hunters as friends, play-fighting, socializing with them, watching each other’s backs. Now they treated him like he was a rogue vampire—the only difference being that they couldn’t terminate him legally.

  “What if they’re at a scene that you happen upon? Are you going to help them? Or just let them deal with it themselves?”

  “Well, I would help them, unless they threatened me. And then it is their problem. But yeah, despite their abandoning me, I wouldn’t hold it against them if they needed my help. What about you?” Before she answered, he assumed she would step in to help them.

  She shrugged. “If there was a reward for the vampire’s expiration, I would help.”

  He chuckled. He was sure she would, even if she didn’t get any bounty for it. Then he got a call from his oldest brother. “Hey, Matt, are you there already?”

  “Yeah, we’re parked down the street, but we’re watching the house. How do you want to handle this?”

  Usually, Matt decided when they would do a job, where, who would be involved, and how, during cases they worked on together. A lot of research was done first, and they did fight the vampires together when they had a rogue crew of them that they had to deal with. This was the first time that Matt had ever asked Dane to tell him how this was going down. Why? Because a fellow friend was involved? Most likely. Maybe also because she and he were vampires now and that might give them a different perspective.

  “Hi, I’m Jacqueline Anderson, the huntress turned vampire, damsel in distress,” she said.

  Matt laughed. “From what Dane tells me, the only ones in distress are the vampires you’re targeting.”

  She smiled at Dane. Yeah, he’d called his brother up to tell him what they’d done tonight together. He didn’t usually check in but after that last fiasco with the vampire who had turned him, his brother had told him if he didn’t call, he and his other brothers were coming after him.

  “I’m really not sure how to handle this situation. If this is Heskel, who telepathically communicated with Jacqueline, he’s probably expecting just her. Unless he knows I was with her tonight, eliminating a couple of vampires on hunters’ lists and he hopes I’ll be with her, and he can eliminate me.”

  “Because you’re possibly an obstacle to his control over her,” Matt said. “But should she go into the house alone? Shouldn’t we keep her in one of the vehicles until we can take him out?”

  “He might not even be there. It might be another situation entirely. We might blow the whole mission,” Dane said.

  “I’m going in,” Jacqueline said. “Wait, let me test something out first.” She took a deep breath and said, “Okay, I’m talking to you telepathically to see if I can speak with you from inside the house.”

  “Oh, hell, I can hear you in my head,” Dane said, surprised to hear her speak to him like that.

  “Yes, but talk to me telepathically so I can get feedback from you and you can tell your brothers what is going on. I need to know that you can do it too.”

  “All right. Can you hear my words when I try to communicate like this?” Dane asked.

  “Yes. It’s amazing, isn’t it? Okay, I’ll go in, and you stay in the car. I’ll let you know who all is there and what’s going on. If I say I need rescuing, don’t hesitate to come to my aid.”

  He really didn’t like that she would be going in alone, but they had to try this her way. “Okay. Matt, she’s going into the house.” He explained about the telepathic communication they had just shared.

  “Why didn’t you answer me the first time I talked to you telepathically?” she suddenly asked Dane.

  “The first time?” Now he was worried since he hadn’t heard her speak to him like that before.

  “Yeah, before you came to the house. I tried reaching you that way and then I called you on the phone.”

  “I was in the shower. Maybe that’s why?”

  “I hope that’s all it was and that it wasn’t something like we were too far away from each other in the housing development.”

  “I’ll just be in the car and we’re right outside the house.”

  She nodded, then leaned over and kissed him. He sealed the kiss with a promise to be there for her. Then she got out of the car and headed for the house. It was completely dark, and he really had a bad feeling about this. She knocked on the door, but nothing happened. Then she turned the doorknob and it was unlocked. She glanced back at him, appearing confident, though he had smelled her anxiety before she left the car, and then she went inside.

  “I can see, though the whole house is dark. I don’t hear anyone’s heartbeats. I don’t think anyone’s here yet.”

  “Okay, keep me informed.” Dane relayed the information to Matt.

  “Oh, he’s here, sitting in the dark. I hear his heartbeat now. Steady. Calm. Like a hunter waiting for his unsuspecting prey.”

  Like he had nothing to fear. “Is there anyone else there?”

  “No, it appears he’s alone.”

  It was killing Dane not to go into the house right this instant and rescue Jaqueline. He knew nothing good could come of her meeting the vampire. If he sat tight and did nothing and the vampire murdered her or sent her out to murder someone else and made her a rogue, Dane would never forgive himself.

  He rushed to the front door, and it was still open. His brothers hurried to join him.

  6

  “I’ve been busy so I haven’t been able to really get to know you, Jacqueline. I didn’t even know who you were when you killed my brother,” Heskel said.

  She was standing about ten feet away from where he was sitting on a brown and beige plaid couch, acting comfortable, like he had nothing to worry about. “He had been killing blood bonds when his temper got the best of him.”

  Heskel smiled a little, his expression sinister, his blue eyes chillingly cold. “We’re twins. We both have that trait. It probably had something to do with our father who taught us all we know.”

  That’s what she was afraid of and what was worse was she couldn’t do anything to him like she so wanted to. “Where are you, Dane? Take him down, now!”

  Heskel said, “Just in case you alerted anyone that I’ve called you here, we’re going to leave.”

  She readied her sword.

  “You can’t kill me.” Heskel’s brows rose, and she suspected no one he had ever turned had challenged him before.

  She swung her sword at him, and his eyes widened right before he leapt out of the way.

  “You can’t threaten me,” Heskel said, his voice dark with condemnation, but it wavered a bit. He sounded a little unsure of himself.

  It was just instinctive for her to react as a hunter to a vampire threat, but she couldn’t believe she could even do that much when he had been the one who had turned her. He disappeared and reappeared at her back, and she heard his heart beating wildly. Hers was too as she vanished and showed up on the other side of the couch to put some distance between them. She loved how she could vanish and reappear like they could. Even though he couldn’t turn her again, he could still kill her while she would be unable to terminate him.

  “Huntress,” he snarled, angry that he couldn’t control her as much as he could humans.

  That was great news to her. But when she flew at him to strike him, she felt his control stopping her. Still, she fought against his mental strength when she heard someone coming in through the front door. Heskel whipped around to see who had just arrived in the dark house.

  Dane, her hero.

  Heskel cast him a dangerously, evil smile. “So, you are the new lover? You can join my little pack.” Then he bared his teeth and Dane swung his sword at the vampire.

  Heskel vanished and came in for an attack at Dane’s back. But Dane shoved his sword under his arm and into Heskel. He didn’t manage to strike his heart, or Heskel would have collapsed in death as a wizened form of himself, but the vampire did howl in pain.

  Then Dane’s brothers rushed into the living room. They all had their swords unsheathed and hurried to take the vampire down. But he vanished.

  Usually, vampires stayed and fought, being so arrogant that they thought they could fight any odds and win, but Heskel was playing it safe, the fight against four hunters too much to deal with. Still, they waited, making sure he wasn’t going to come back and try and pick each one of them off.

  When he didn’t, the brothers went in twos to check out the rest of the house, Jacqueline going with Dane and Matt. The twins stuck together. She was so glad Dane had cut Heskel and the vampire hadn’t injured him. But she so wished they could have taken him down. She suspected Heskel was long gone.

  It appeared that Heskel didn’t realize Dane was a vampire too, which could be to their advantage. After they finished looking through the rest of the house, they returned to the living room.

  “He’s going to continue to come after Jacqueline, but since he can control her—” Matt said.

  “I’m dangerous to be around,” Jacqueline said. “I couldn’t kill him, but I threatened him.”

  “Do you mind having some guests at your place?” Matt asked.

  “Uh—”

  “I could just stay there,” Dane offered.

  “No,” his twin brothers said, and she thought it was wonderful Dane had all that family support. Trey and Ryan were both dark-haired like Dane, both green-eyed. Matt was lighter haired and had blue eyes.

  “We can stay at my place,” Matt said. “Or Dane’s.”

  “I have a cat, Princess,” Jacqueline said.

  “She’ll be welcome anywhere that she’ll stay,” Dane said.

  “All right, but she sleeps with me,” she said, waiting to see what Dane’s response to that would be.

  Dane smiled and all his brothers looked at him to see his take on it as if that’s where their relationship was headed.

  “Hey, that works for me,” Dane said.

  She sighed. She thought she would be staying alone in a bedroom—with her cat, but she guessed that could be dangerous if Heskel got to her and could take her with him right under everyone’s noses.

  “If we stay at my place”—which frankly she would have preferred—“Heskel would most likely know that’s where I live.”

  “Yes,” Dane said, “but if you would feel more comfortable with staying there, we’ll do it. This is a really trying time for you with your ‘maker’ after you.”

  “Well, who has the bigger place?” she asked, smiling. She might as well get something out of this.

  Ryan laughed. “You’re my kind of girl.”

  “Dane does and he even has a swimming pool that we love to use,” Trey said, his twin agreeing.

  “Okay, well, it’s close to my place so we’ll meet you at my home first, I’ll pack some things and Princess and then go to Dane’s home with my cat?” she asked Matt.

  “Yeah, let’s go,” Matt said.

  They got into their respective vehicles and Matt followed them in his car, the twins with him.

  “You’re really all right with my cat sleeping in bed with me?” she asked.

  Dane smiled at her. He had the most disarming and charming smile of any hunter she’d ever known. Why couldn’t she have met him before instead of Van? She really liked him deep down so much more than her ex-fiancé. Dane was there for her no matter what.

  “I’m fine with it. When I was a kid, we had a German shepherd and he slept with me. He always tried to sleep in the middle of the bed and would kick me when he was having doggy dreams.”

  She laughed. “Truthfully, Princess gets hot, and she’ll leave the bed, but if there’s another body in the bed, she might leave sooner.”

  “I have a king-sized bed, so maybe she won’t feel too confined. On another topic, I want to talk to your parents too,” Dane said.

  That shocked her. “Why?” She couldn’t imagine he was thinking of talking to them about dating her. There was no way Jacqueline felt her parents should have any say in her life from now on, unless they changed their tune about what she had become.

  “I just need to get something off my chest with them.”

  Her jaw dropped. Then she frowned. “It’s their problem.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “All right. You do what you want.” She wanted to be a fly on the wall when he did it. She could imagine her parents getting defensive, but she was also curious how he would handle it.

  “Good.”

  She hoped he had let it be her choice, but he was his own person and in a way, she liked that he would stick up for her. It would be interesting to see if it had any effect on the way they treated her. On the other hand, she didn’t want them to feel they had to be close to her again just because they were being forced to.

  They finally reached her house, and Matt pulled up in his car next to hers.

  Then she went to the front door and wasn’t surprised when Dane and his brothers all went inside with her. They greeted Princess who had heard her car’s engine so she was eager to see her. Jacqueline was so tired after hunting two vampires tonight and then going after Heskel, she just wanted to retire to bed.

  “If you could grab some of Princess’s food, her water dish, the litter box, and the bag of litter, I would be grateful,” she said to the brothers. “Princess will not ride in a carrier, so we’ll just take her in my car. I’ll pack a bag.”

  She hoped it wouldn’t take too long to terminate Heskel so that she didn’t have to impose on Dane and his brothers’ generosity for too long. She knew they had their own jobs to do.

  When she came out of the bedroom, she smiled to see Dane brushing a very satisfied Princess’s long soft, silky fur, stretched out on his lap on the couch, her big fluffy tail waving a little. Princess perked up when she saw Jacqueline getting ready to leave, pulling a suitcase. But making sure she wasn’t going to be left behind again wasn’t enough of an incentive to leave Dane’s lap and the heavenly brushing she was getting.

  “Traitor,” she said to her cat, amused and glad she seemed to like Dane.

  “I’ll bring Princess, her comb and brush. Is there anything else she needs? My brothers hauled out everything else.”

  “Nope. I’m ready to go.” Then she pulled her bag out the door with Dane following behind her with her cat.

  Ryan quickly took her bag from her and put it in her car and then she got in to drive to Dane’s place while he held Princess on his lap in the passenger’s seat. She drove behind Matt’s car since he knew where to go, though Dane could have given her the directions.

  “She really likes you,” she said to Dane.

  “Yeah, I have a way with animals.”

  “You don’t have any pets right now, do you?” She wasn’t sure how that would go over with Princess. She hadn’t been around dogs or other cats before.

  “No. My ex-fiancée was allergic to everything. I’m not totally convinced that she was or if she just didn’t like animals.”

  “Okay, so she wasn’t the right one for you.” She motioned to the way Princess was sitting on his lap, looking out the window. “She adores you and you seem to like her just as much. I can tell you’re an animal person.”

  “I am and I agree she wasn’t the one for me.”

  Then Jacqueline pulled into the driveway of his two-story, red-brick, Greek Revival home and parked next to Matt’s car. Nice. Really nice. She loved the four pillars that reached up two stories high, white trimmed windows with white blinds filling them. Just beautiful.

  Dane’s brothers started hauling stuff out of his car to carry the items into the house. She got out of her car and started to roll her bag to his house while Dane carried Princess inside, but Trey returned to grab her bag. Ryan had opened the garage door.

  “Matt said you need to park your car in the garage so that no one sees it here,” Trey said to her.

  “You mean Heskel or someone who works for him,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay.” She got back into her car and drove it inside the garage next to Dane’s. It was actually a three-car garage which meant they had plenty of room.

  “We’re going to each take turns returning to our homes and grabbing a bag so we’ll have what we’ll need to stay here also,” Ryan said.

  “Thanks to all of you for doing this for me,” she said, genuinely thankful to Dane and his brothers. They had even set everything up for Princess.

  “No hunter should have to live under a vampire’s control,” Ryan said.

  “I agree.” It’s just too bad all hunters didn’t see it that way. And the thing of it was, they would get a bounty if they took Heskel down, so even if they didn’t want to do it altruistically, why not just do it as another mission that they got paid for? Maybe they were afraid he would turn them too.

  Trey closed the garage door, and they went inside the house. Matt was leaving first to get his bag packed. Princess was walking around the place, swishing her tail, like she owned Dane’s home.

  A seamless flow between the dining room, kitchen, and living room existed, covered in wood flooring and Turkish blue and ivory area rugs. The kitchen counters were white marble, and the cabinets were all white, very cheerful. Prints of longhorn steer and fields of bluebonnets hung on the walls. She was impressed. She hadn’t known what to expect, but she hadn’t thought he would have that much style. Her brother didn’t and Van hadn’t, so she just figured all bachelor hunters were like that.