Night’s Mistress (Children of The Night #5)(17)
Author: Amanda Ashley

She tried to dissolve into mist, only to blink back tears of bitter frustration when nothing happened.

Going to the window, she stared out into the night. Without her preternatural powers, the world seemed dull and quiet. As a vampire, she had seen colors and textures clearly. Day or night, it didn’t matter, the world had been bright, the colors vibrant and alive. Once, she had been able to hear the flutter of a moth’s wings, the stirring of birds in their nests, but no more. She felt empty, adrift, cut off from all that had once been familiar.

Mortal, she thought. I’m a pregnant mortal woman with no family, and no one I dare trust, including the baby’s father!

Sinking down on the floor, she folded her arms over her belly and rocked back and forth. If only she had never revealed her true nature to Kyle. She could have stayed with him until the baby was born, and then, with him none the wiser as to her true nature, she could have moved on and left him to raise the baby. Kyle was a good man, strong yet gentle. He would have made a good father.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. Maybe it would still work. If he had truly loved her, he would be happy that she was now mortal, she thought, and then frowned. Maybe without her vampire allure, he would look at her and feel nothing at all.

She remembered the way he had stared at her when she’d told him what she was, the revulsion in his eyes when she revealed her true nature. Did she want to bind herself to a man who had looked at her like that? Would she ever feel safe with him? Would he even consider caring for a child he had created with a woman he thought of as a monster, a child that might be half vampire?

A baby . . . She moaned in despair.

What was she going to do with a baby?

Chapter Nine

It took Kyle three weeks to find a vampire hunter. It would have taken a lot less time if he had just looked online, but he was an artist, not a computer geek, and searching the Web hadn’t occurred to him until he had exhausted all other search avenues.

The hunter agreed to meet him at his place the following night. The doorbell rang at seven o’clock sharp.

“Right on time,” Kyle murmured as he opened the door.

Kyle wasn’t sure what a vampire hunter should look like, but he had never expected a woman. Especially a woman who stood five-foot-nothing, with pale blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a beguiling dimple in her right cheek.

“You’re the hunter?” He doubted if she weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet.

“Lou McDonald at your service, Mr. Bowden. May I come in?”

He blinked at her. Clad in a pair of loose-fitting gray trousers and a bulky white sweater, she looked completely harmless. “You’re Lou?”

“Short for Louise.” She lifted one brow. “May I come in?”

“What? Oh, sure.” He stepped back so she could enter the apartment, then closed the door behind her. “Make yourself at home.”

She glanced around the room before taking a seat on the sofa. He wondered what she’d expected to find, then decided that, considering her line of work, she was probably just naturally cautious.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Coffee? Tea? Soda?”

“Nothing, thank you.”

Kyle sat in the overstuffed chair across from the sofa. This had to be a joke. She couldn’t be more than twenty-five years old.

Lou reached into her bag and withdrew a small red notebook and a pen. “You said you’re looking for a vampire. I’ll need a name, if you have it.”

“Mara.”

Lou’s eyes widened. “Mara? You don’t mean the one they call the Queen of the Vampires?”

Kyle stared at the hunter. Queen of the Vampires? Was she kidding? “Do you know her?”

“I know of her. Why are you looking for her?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not really. Do you have any idea where she might be?”

He rubbed a hand across his jaw, suddenly conscious of the fact that he hadn’t shaved in days. “Last time I saw her, she was in Oregon. How old are you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.”

“I’ll be twenty-nine next month.”

“How long have you been a hunter?”

“Ten years. I’ve made twenty-eight confirmed kills, and I don’t come cheap.”

“I was expecting someone a little older and more experienced . . . a little more . . .”

“You were expecting some kind of big macho man,” she said dryly, “just like everyone else.”

“That’s why you list yourself as Lou, isn’t it? So people will think you’re a man.”

She didn’t deny it.

“Can you find Mara?”

“I won’t know until I try.”

“I don’t want her dead.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t want her dead. I just want you to find her.”

“I’m not a private eye, Mr. Bowden, I’m a hunter. I hunt vampires and I destroy them.”

“I’m willing to make it worth your while. Anyway, from what I hear, she can’t be destroyed.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that, too,” Lou replied. “But every living thing can be killed, one way or another.”

“I thought vampires were already dead.”

“Dead or destroyed, it means the same thing. No more vampire.”

“Yeah, well, like I said, I want her alive. So if you want to work for me, it’ll have to be on my terms.”

“Very well, but it will cost you double my usual rate, and I’ll be wanting half up front.”

Kyle nodded. “All right.”

She held out her hand. “Looks like we have a deal.”

Chapter Ten

Four weeks had passed since Mara’s first visit to the doctor. Her nausea had passed, and now she was hungry all the time, but instead of craving blood, she was craving the oddest things, like potato chips and pizza. And chocolate—the darker, the better. She couldn’t seem to get enough of it, had never tasted anything so wonderful. She loved the way it melted on her tongue, the almost sinful pleasure it gave her.

She looked up when Logan entered the living room. “The word on the street is that someone is looking for you,” he said, sitting beside her. “I think you’d better stay here, with me, from now on.”

“Do you know who’s looking for me?” She popped another dark chocolate truffle into her mouth.

“I couldn’t begin to guess. What about you? Any ideas?”