Huntress Ch. 06

You would think that because school is out for the summer and I am only taking a few summer classes, I would have had this out sooner, but nope. Fooled ya, I am taking forever! Sorry about that, I am trying. I actually have been editing this chapter for like 2 weeks (that's how lazy this summer is turning out to be). Thanks for reading though. I hope you enjoy.

*

Rhys cursed mentally. He had lost her name. While taking over her mind, he had been able to extract her name, and he remembered that it was a beautiful name, unusual and beautiful, but for the life of him, he had lost it upon his exit. Every time he tried to recall the way his mouth moved or the way his lips had formed the name, it slipped away from him. The blockage felt magical and the memory gap was most likely thanks to a spell that had been cast over her, a security measure, because one's name was everything. It was tricky; something that would protect her against most psychics that tried to enter her thoughts and use them. It had not even occurred to him that he'd lost her name until just moments before.

She had also managed to shut her thoughts away from him. He had no way in, not able to catch on to any of them, like he had minutes earlier. The only thing he was picking up was her emotions, and he was only catching glimpses of that. Rhys was convinced that he had caught her while she was frazzled when they met in the club, when her guard was down. He had been able to grab at her thoughts and force his way in. Now. Nothing.

"Perhaps it is Emily," Rhys murmured to himself while he sat on his couch, waiting for his guest to finish changing in his bathroom. "Or Angela. Perhaps even Angel." He shook his head at the last name. He was not sure that someone like her could be called that. She was everything but. She butchered his people, ate like an orphaned child, and cursed like a sailor.

She was most certainly anything but an Angel.

And yet you couldn't take your eyes off of her.

It was true. He hadn't been able to. As those greenish-brown eyes had watched him intensely, he too had watched her. Analyzing her every facial expression and every bit of her body language. She reminded him of something beautiful but deadly like a black widow.

The air that surrounded her demanded attention and respect. She had fought hard for both in her life. He could tell. Not just in the way she carried herself, but also in the way that she was always quick to fire back, quick to defend herself and especially in the way she was quick to drop her emotions.

And yet her scent had changed so quickly when he told her that she had urinated on herself. She had been humiliated, momentarily, yes, but embarrassed nonetheless.

Instinct had told him to comfort her in the way he would a normal human woman; tell her that she had no reason to be worried. He had wanted to tell her that he had not smelled it when he scooped her up. He wanted to ask her if she went to the beach and spent hours, days, months in the water and in the sand because her scent had been intoxicating, made him yearn for a life that he could no longer have.

But despite the urge, he had not said any of it. Instead he had watched the expressions in her eyes change from hard and resentful to almost vulnerable. It was beautiful and disturbing.

When he had gone to fetch her clothes, the look on her face as he had turned, to see her mouth so stuffed with pasta had made him want to laugh out loud. It had been so unexpected that he had stared. She did not slurp the pasta up like most Americans did. Instead she used her teeth to cut the noodles and let it fall from her mouth back on to the plate, almost delicately. Another surprise he had not expected from a huntress.

"A French name would be appropriate," he told himself. He had told her his name but she had not seemed to care, and while he could easily just go into her thoughts and find out for himself, he preferred for her to give it to him willingly. As a sign of trust.

Rhys glanced at a small, yellowed picture that seemed watch him from the coffee table.

Black and white eyes stared back at him intently, not smiling or telling anything. "What do you think her name is, Eli?" he asked the picture. The photo did not answer, of course, and Rhys chuckled to himself, laughing away the familiar loneliness that had long since become a good friend. Of course Eli hadn't answered. It almost saddened him how much he really had expected to hear the young man's voice.

"You know, I've heard of humans who talk to themselves, but never vamps."

She approached the back of the couch, butcher knife still in hand. Rhys stood up politely and looked her up and down. The sizes he had chosen fit her perfectly. The jeans were snug in all the right places but not overbearingly so. The shirt was a long sleeved v-neck and dipped low enough to show just the beginnings of the curves of her breasts. When she adjusted her stance a tease of skin showed where her jeans and shirt were supposed to meet. He had managed to not throw away the stilettos that she had been wearing the night before, and she'd put them on, lengthening the lines of her legs. The jeans that she wore seemed to tighten at the knee all the way down to the calf and then barely meet at the top of the heels. Skinny jeans, the humans called them. She looked tall, despite the fact that he knew she wasn't, and the tightness in the jeans showed off the slight curve of her hips.

She's breathtaking. He thought to himself, unable to contain the thought. It slipped passed his defenses and the words were so loud within him that for a second he could have sworn he said them out loud. He watched as she placed a hand on her hips and switched the weight of her stance from the right to the left. She raised one eyebrow, waiting for a response. She wanted a fight, wanted him to retort back. She was an adorable little warrior.

"V-neck, huh?" The blonde warrior murmured. "How appropriate." She took her hands and folded them into her arms being careful to place the knife below her elbow, but still hold it tightly.

"If you have no intention of cutting off my head, I would appreciate it if you put my knife back, Ms..."

"I never said I wasn't going to decapitate you." As a show she twisted the handle of the weapon loosely. Rhys only nodded. If she were going to do it, she would have done it by now, he was sure.

"And don't try to be cute, you don't need my name. We aren't friends."

Rhys could only nod once again. She was so defensive all of the time. What had happened to her to make her that way?

"If you don't mind me asking. Why do you do it?" He used his chin to point to the knife. She looked at it then back up at him.

"Hold knives?" She asked.

"Kill," he corrected. "You kill our kind for sport, do you not? The way other humans hunt dear or bear, you and your friends just pick a night for it and go." The huntress's confused face turned to anger.

"We don't do it for sport. We do it keep you fuckers under control. So th—"

"So you are self-employed vampiric population control."

She thought for a second, turning her eyes to the ceiling then back down to him. "Unless we have someone that wants us to do a hit for them, then yeah. We're population control."

Rhys nodded. She was very much beautiful, but her beliefs worried him, reminded him of a time he sadly had no choice but to live through.

"You know, I knew of some people a few decades ago who felt the same way you feel. They believed what they were doing was for the good of everyone and they themselves also called it population control."

The huntress smiled. "Well, aren't you just every vamp hunters best friend. How many vamps did they kill?"

"None. They did not kill vampires."

Her forehead creased in a mix of suspicion and confusion.

"They killed minorities and homosexuals." A silence passed between them. Like a cloud of smoke exiting a house through an open window, Rhys was instantly shut off from her emotions. He hadn't had to send himself far to find her, but now he found himself almost leaning forward to try and pick up something. Anything.

"That's different." She whispered. Rhys could almost swear he had touched her in some strange emotional way.

"How so?" He countered.

"Those people were innocent men, women and children." Her voice was more forceful. Vaguely he could pick up anger radiating off of her.

"And you think that because we need blood to survive, we all deserve to die?"

She did not answer.

Rhys wasn't sure if she even could.

She was fighting against something in her head. He saw it in the icy look she gave him.

Once again, he fought the urge to dive into her mind and retrieve what she was seeing, thinking. Rhys wanted to believe that he would know her long enough for her to tell him when she was ready.

If she ever got there.

If they ever got there.

She glanced down at the knife and clutched it tightly in her fist. He watched her knuckles turn snow white then return to a slight pink as she released it.

Unexpectedly and almost painfully, on the tail end of scream that he was sure only he heard, a scene scorched in front Rhys' eyes, blinding him to the real world as it played.

A tall blond man and his wife sat on the floor of a warehouse, hands intertwined, shaking and holding on for dear life. Not because they were scared. No, because they were so damn excited. The female, a short skinny woman with fried, bleached blonde hair bounced up and down on her legs and gave an excited squeal.

Around them, a long-haired man with a patchy beard paced, analyzing, determining what he was going to do with them. In the far corner, two girls sat huddled together, both shaking the way the adults in the middle of the large empty hanger did, but for different reasons.

They were cold.

And terrified.

Patchy Beard knelt down in front of the couple and stroked a few soft blond hairs out of the husbands face. He glanced at the man's wife in fleeting interest before turning back to him. "You will be first," he whispered. The youngest girl in the corner turned into her sister's chest. She didn't watch as the man, and that's what she had sworn he was the entire time despite the waves of evil, darkness and pain that she and her sister could literally feel radiating off of him, opened his mouth, baring his teeth.

No.

Not teeth.

Fangs. He had fangs. She could see them from where she was, so sharp and thin, like the needles the doctor used when that stray dog bit her hand after she gave him her lunch. It would be a struggle to see them had it not been for the dim light that glinted off of them, like small, terrifying needles.

He used the hair in his hand to yank father's head to the side and pierce his neck with a soft yet sickening crunch.

The scenes playing in front of his eyes ended as lightening fast as they began, leaving Rhys feeling empty, his chest burning. Had her parent's been vampires? Were they turned right in front of her and her sister? It took everything in him not to ask the questions out loud.

"Yes," she finally said, answering the question that had been asked only seconds before. And just that fast, the conversation was over. Her emotions went back under lock and key, and she folded her arms into one another again, knife pointed downwards.

"I need to call my friends." She said the words slowly, as if she expected him to not allow her a phone call.

"Certainly," he said, giving her a slight bow before rising up from his seat. "You are no prisoner here." Rhys walked around the couch, into his kitchen and reached into a drawer on the island. He pulled a cell phone from it and placed it on the black marble countertop. When she did not make a move for it, he slid it across, closer to her. She reached for it and flipped it open.

"Christ," she murmured.

"Somebody miss you?" Rhys asked. She glanced at him and placed the butcher knife down. Rhys did not move. She could easily pick up her knife and toss it into his forehead if she decided to do so.

"Yeah, about 47 times." She pressed a few buttons and placed the phone to her ear. She glanced at him again, looking to see if he made a move to stop her from dialing.

He made sure to tell her, through his body language, that he wouldn't.

She dialed.

Through the silence of the room, he could hear the line on the other end ring.

When he thought nobody would answer, a quiet voice interrupted a ring.

"Holy shit. Where have you been?"

It was a female. Her voice was barely above a whisper, and he could hear the exhaustion decorating her words. As if noticing the concentration on his face, she glanced at him, then down at her feet.

"I got caught up in something. 47 calls? Really?"

The woman on the other end sighed. That sigh said so much. She was beyond exhausted. Rhys could hear it as if she were right next to him.

"Caleb is in the hospital again."

She sat up. "She was just there 2 weeks ago."

"I know, I know. When we came back last night, I heard her in her room saying something. I went in and woke her up. She took one look at me and started screaming. I couldn't get her to calm down. We called Doc Mackenzie, and he told us to bring her in." The woman on the other end swallowed a sob. "She screamed all the way to the hospital. As soon as we got there, they sedated her, but they have her strapped to a gurney. I don't know how long they're gonna keep her this time."

The blonde warrior looked frazzled, suddenly, and ran her fingers through her hair in a gesture that was almost reminiscent of nervousness. "Have you been there all day?"

"Yeah, Regan and Carmen and I. We all tried to get in touch with you, the next step was calling the damn cops."

"I know, I'm sorry. I'll be there in ten minutes, 'kay?"

"Kay."

The line on the other side went dead, and She flipped her phone closed.

"I gotta go." She stated. Rhys nodded. He pointed to the door, which was on the other end of kitchen down another a second long hallway that was similar to the one she had entered through. Out of kindness he made his way to the door along with her, but when she saw him move she stopped.

Perhaps you should not walk her to the door? Despite his polite upbringing, he fought against it and allowed her to walk there by herself.

A thought ran through his head, as he heard his front door open, and using the speed known to his kind, he ran into one of his spare rooms and retrieved two items off the bed. She was halfway out the door before he returned and stopped her, with a touch of his hand.

She whirled around quickly, ready for a fight, fists up.

"You forgot these." Cautiously, he allowed his hand to hover over her balled up fists. When they uncurled, he allowed her gun and a spare clip to fall into them heavily. She stood outside his door simply staring at them. He could not hear her thoughts, had chosen not to, but her creased eyebrows told him everything.

"You are already halfway out the door, why would you take the time to shoot me now?" he reasoned. Small yet strong fingers, curled around the butt of the gun and her other hand worked to place the ammo in her back pocket, then the gun into the tight waist band in the back of the jeans. The weapon seemed obnoxious hanging there, and Rhys knew that there was no way the hospital would allow her anywhere near her friend with a weapon out in the open like that, but she didn't seem to mind.

She glanced at him one more time before turning to walk away. "The name's Sage." Her voice echoed within the hallway, and floated back to Rhys, bringing a smile to his face, slowly.

"Sage." He said the name quietly to himself. "One who shows profound wisdom." Rhys chuckled, leaning against the doorframe. "I was way off."

He watched as she disappeared around the corner of the hall, leaving the smell of ocean behind her.

~~~

Victoria Van Hoyt was accustomed to waking up feeling as if a train had hit her. In fact, she welcomed it. Such feelings had become a luxury to her, and she had learned to do whatever it took to get herself as hammered as possible, so that when she woke up the next morning, she was actually certain that she had, in fact, woken up.

It was a sadistic idea, she knew. But it helped.

Without opening her eyes, she kicked her legs out from under the blanket and tossed them over the side of the bed. Sage had most likely put her there, in bed, blanket and all. But God, what had happened? She didn't remember drinking herself into oblivion and the cops had taken her coke so why did she feel...

Oh...yeah.

The night before was fuzzy, but not fuzzy enough. She remembered running with her sister away from them. They had chased them all the way through the warehouses district until one had caught up to her. What she remembered after that came in fragments.

A conversation between her sister and her.

A vampire that had held her at fang point.

Sage shooting him dead in the face with a gun.

A big ass gun.

And how awesome had her big sis looked? Handling the gun like a pro, keeping her cool like a negotiator. Sage had killed the vampire without even blinking. Her green eyes had been calm and calculating. Vicky was almost jealous.

She looked around her messy room. Clothes and beer bottles everywhere. This is what had become of her life; living in a pigsty with her two accidents .She hadn't wanted this.

Any of this.

She'd wanted excitement. Fun. Everything that Sage was doing. She woke up every night and killed vampires and werewolves and fairies. Vic was still having a hard time digesting that those things were even real.

And Sage had done a great job of hiding it from her. Making her think that she worked at an office desk. Pshh. It almost annoyed her how dumb her older sister thought she was. There was no way that the five girls she lived with were as boring as she made them out to be. Sure, she had had ideas of what they did. She imagined them to be secret agents or members of the Secret Service. She even imagined them to be strippers at one point, because they were so damn secretive about their life at night.

But that had changed the night Vicky visited her sis in her new home. Being orphans, they had moved around a lot. But after Vicky grew up and had her boys, they separated, no longer needing each other for emotional support; Vicky cause she had her men, and Sage because she had the girls. But Sage's new home had been like nothing they had ever been able to afford, both together and separate. It had been huge, a borderline mansion. Vicky had no idea what they'd needed all the rooms for until she'd gone into one.

"This place is a fucking armory," she remembered saying. And it had been. The walls were soundproof, reinforced and the door had been made of metal. Like a bank safe. There had been no furniture in the room. No lamps or desks. The only light in the room came from behind the reinforced glass where all of the weapons hung. Weapons that even Vicky had never seen before.

And Sage had been livid when she found her sister wandering around upstairs.

"The fuck are you doing up here?" She'd yelled.

Vicky had replied just as loud, "Well, I'm sorry, there was no baby gate to stop me from coming up. What is this, Sage?"

And Carmen had taken that second to walk into the room, smooth like a glass of red wine and beautiful the way poisonous flowers could be. "It is my family collection," her rich accent seemed to drip from her mouth, a lovely sound on Vicky's ears. "You know mi familia es very old. We have collected for generations. Because I am the oldest, I was chosen to pass it on to my little ones."

Vicky remembered wanting to argue the fact of how dangerous it was having those type of weapons in a home, but a part of her, a big part, seemed to take Carmondy at her word. At that moment, it seemed that anything the girl said, could be gospel. Was gospel. It had all made sense, and Vicky had walked out of the room after a shrug not missing the glare Carmen gave to her older sister, but not thinking anything of it.