On the Hunt

She smiled her wide, enchanting smile once again. "Well, Jamie Angel, not that you know of."

"But I knew you weren't human within moments of meeting you." He couldn't help beaming with pride. He wanted her to admire his skills and abilities, wanted to prove that he could be worthy of her interest, her care. He wanted her to love him.

He realized it right then, a quicksilver thought, right through his heart. He wanted this woman to love him, body and soul. Eternally or not. Even though he had only known her for a day, he already realized that he was falling for her. Hard. He could almost taste how badly he ached for Sunny to turn those wide-set brown eyes on him and whisper words of affection.

And it was utterly forbidden.

He stared at the floor, trying to still his racing thoughts. She'd said something, but he couldn't seem to focus or hear.

"Hmm?" he tried, gazing at his booted feet.

"I was explaining about Kate. Why I'm her guardian."

He forced himself to glance upward, trying his level best to appear composed. "I'm sorry; I was just . . . processing. Taking it all in," he said, not wanting her to read his thoughts or his heart. "So Kate . . ."

"Because she's a vampire, her guardian must be in human form. Otherwise her special sight would reveal the angel's identity."

"And that's the part I don't get. You're saying angels watch over vampires?" He gaped at her, unable to keep the revulsion out of his voice. "Why would God protect a band of bloodthirsty creatures like them?"

Sunny's eyes flashed with mild anger. "Jamie, did you not just hear me? I'm Kate's guardian angel. Please don't speak about her so disrespectfully . . . or her kind. They're God's creatures, too, and they aren't evil. They're also very vulnerable, and as you well know, God protects his own."

It was going to take a while for him to think of vampires as vulnerable or as "God's own," but he also recognized that Sunny would know far better than he would. Made him more than thankful that he'd recently called off any plans to hunt vampires. At least there was one thing he'd done right in this whole fiasco, and maybe that would chalk up a few heavenly points in his favor.

"Okay, vampires aren't evil. Noted. I'll be sure to update the company files. So tell me, then—how did Kate luck out and get you?"

"It's the way with all vampires. Their watchers are sent like I was . . . into their lives. Friends, relatives, neighbors . . . we take a number of roles in the vampire's life, but the purpose is always the same: to guard them from demons—" She stopped short for a moment, anxiously fiddling with the hem of her sweater, obviously hesitating for some reason. "And we protect them from misguided hunters, ones who believe the falsehoods and myths about vampirekind. People like . . . you."

"That might just be the worst I've felt all night, Sunny Renfroe," he said, kicking himself for all the years he'd tormented Kate, needled her about one thing or another.

She shook her head vehemently. "You're a good hunter, Jamie. Excellent. You didn't know.... It was part of why I came today. I thought, well, maybe I could help you understand in some way. Influence you."

"You certainly affected me," he said in a voice that sounded seductive, even to him.

Sunny didn't miss his tone or implication, rising suddenly to her feet. "And now I've answered your questions," she said with false brightness. "I should go find Kate. . . ."

He caught her arm, spinning her toward him. She pushed back against his chest, but not very hard—and not very convincingly. He slid one hand around her lower back, not holding her too close, but near enough. "I have to see you again, Sunny. Friends. We can be at least that, right?"

Her palms still rested against his chest, and he swore he felt the heat of her skin through his long-sleeved T-shirt. "Friends?" She searched his face, brown eyes flicking back and forth across his features. Perhaps she was trying to read his true intentions.

"Just friends. I want more, but . . ." He pressed his nose against the top of her head, inhaling the lavender scent of shampoo. "I'm realistic."

"Yes, of course. You want to be friends with a guardian angel. Both your feet are planted firmly on the ground."

"We already are friends," he countered. "Wouldn't you say? So I'm really just arguing for a continuation of the status quo."

She sighed into him slightly, then stepped backward. "You are a highly persuasive individual."

"I try my best." He gave her a flirtatious yet simultaneously sweet smile, a contradiction, just like the man himself.

Sunny walked to the other side of the room without answering, and at first he thought she never would. But then she paused at the bottom of the steps, turning toward him. "Okay. Friends for now. . . unless I hear an objection from Kiel. And if I do? You might never see me again anyway."

Chapter Six

"Shay, honey, it's me." Sunny cradled the phone against her ear. She was still lying in bed, barely having slept at all last night. "I got a favor to ask."

This favor was the closest thing to a plan of action that Sunny's many sleepless hours had yielded. Drawing a breath, she laid that plan on her friend. "You know those books that Jamie had in the cellar last night? Any chance I could borrow a few of 'em?"

"I wish." Shay sighed into the phone. "Jamie holed himself up down there last night after you left, and he's not budged ever since. No way would he let me take anything out of the library. Frankly, Sunny, he's not been in his right mind since you left."

Sunny closed her eyes. "He's gotta leave the cellar sometime, right?"

"But not long enough that I could let you borrow any of those books. He'd ask too many questions, all of them about you."

And he'd want to know why Shay was removing those volumes, which would elicit a firestorm of problems, as well as potential amorous attention once Jamie realized Sunny was the one after the texts. Which was so not what Sunny needed right now. She'd been hoping to come up with a subtle way of investigating their "problem" without Jamie knowing. Like she'd told him, she was a lower-rung angel, and it wasn't as if she had many answers, but during the night she'd come to hope that maybe—just maybe—some of his family's many volumes about angels might help them.

Might even point out a way they could be together, a way she might fall to earth without turning dark or sinning.

"Sunny, I have to tell you . . . Jamie can be incredibly stubborn. He won't let this thing with you go easily."

"But, Shay, he doesn't understand. If he did, he wouldn't be doing all that research."

"Then why did you want to read all those same books?" Shay asked innocently. "Just a sudden random interest in learning more about your own kind?"

"I kept praying, all last night . . . hoping there might be some way."

"You can't blame my brother for hoping and praying for the same thing." Shay laughed into the phone, lowering her voice. "That kiss you two shared, it must've been out of this world."

Sunny's face flushed and she covered her eyes even though Shay wasn't there to see her shyness. "I think I could love him." Sunny reached for a pillow, pressing it against her cheek, wanting to hide in shame.

Shay made a happy little squealing sound into the phone. "That means we've just got to solve this problem."

"It's more than a problem!"

"A compatibility issue, that's all. God is love. You of all people know that, more than any of us. So if He is love, and you think you could love my brother, then maybe it's not as forbidden and impossible as you seem to think."

Sunny opened her mouth, about to argue and explain Kiel's warnings, but Shay was too excited to hear.

"Sunny, doll, I have an idea. Just keep an open mind and I'll be over in an hour."

Shay sat down across from Sunny on the sofa. She clasped her hands together, excitement glinting in her eyes. "I don't know how much you know, as an angel. About me or us, I mean."

Sunny couldn't help smiling. "I'm limited in my scope. So don't worry; I don't know the secret stuff you wrote in your diary at fourteen."

Shay reached for the big purse she'd plopped on the floor. "What about my gifts? Jamie's and Mason's? Know anything about that?"

"Just that you're all very gifted hunters. That's all."

Sunny peered into Shay's purse, wondering what she was pulling out of it. Suddenly her friend produced a big sketch pad and charcoal pencils. Shay placed them both on her knees and then faced Sunny. "I'm a prophetic artist. That's one of my gifts, and that means I can sketch the future or visions or sometimes get heavenly insight. I'm a prophetess."

Sunny grinned. "Oh, yeah, that—that I'd actually sensed. Sorry, forgot to mention it. It's in the way your aura glows. It's pearl colored."

"Really?" Shay's eyes went wide. "I don't see auras. None of us Angels do. That's freaking cool."

"Just like humans, heavenly guardians have different gifts. That's one of mine."

"Like how I draw and see things, learn things." Shay nodded in understanding, opening her sketch pad. "Oh, and I should warn you, Sunny—I kind of zone out while I do this."

Shay slowly began moving her pencil across the blank page. Her dark eyebrows knitted together; her pale blue eyes became glazed as she stared down at the page. After several silent moments, she began a rocking motion as she drew, humming a strangely monotone tune that sounded a bit like a hymn.

Sunny rose quietly, moving to the sofa where Shay sat, intensely curious as to what her prophetic drawing might reveal. Shay kept working, oblivious as Sunny settled beside her on the couch.

Very quietly, Sunny stole a look at the sketch, and her breath caught in her throat at the vicious scene on the page. Jamie lay prone on the ground, a heavy metal chain wrapped about his throat—held firmly in the hands of a hideous-looking demon. And if anything might have frightened her away from Jamie, if any image could have convinced her that she didn't belong in his life, the rest of Shay's sketch did just that.