Page 14 of Huntress Unleashed
She glanced at him. “You’re not thinking of looking for rogue vampires at a human club, are you?”
“No. Unless of course one shows up who we know is trouble. But first, we need to get rid of your vampire.”
“Not the others on our lists first? What if other hunters get them before we do?”
“We can always get more contracts, but we need to get the vampire who turned you so he doesn’t force you to do something you’ll regret.”
“Okay, I agree.” She had wondered how she was going to manage that on her own. But with Dane’s help, she felt that he might be able to handle it. She was glad he thought they made a good team in a vampire fight. She thought she had done well when she’d fought alongside Van too, so she had really been surprised when he told her he preferred fighting beside his brothers instead.
“Since my place isn’t too far from where you live, if you have any trouble with the vampire, let me know,” Dane asked.
“Thanks.” She was really glad he lived in her gated community. “Have…you tried talking telepathically to anyone yet?” She had been practicing with the disappearing and reappearing act because she knew how helpful that could be in a fight and because she could do it in the privacy of her home. Telepathic communication had to be done with a vampire who was willing to talk to her in that way.
“Not yet. I haven’t really had anyone to talk to who is one like us. My friends Adonis Cameron and his sister were hunters turned. His mate is Rachael and her cousin, Zachary, was turned against his will. Adonis turned Rachael so she would be able to protect herself better from a rogue vampire who claimed her for his own. But they’ve been out in Florida taking care of the vampires that decimated the rest of Adonis’s family. They’re living out there now but come here to visit their family in Dallas too.”
“Oh, wow, that’s awful about what had happened to Adonis and the rest of his family.”
Dane parked at her house. “Yeah, it was. They terminated the last of the rogue vampires in their territory in Florida though. If they had been here in Dallas still, I would have tried it with them.”
“Well, maybe we can do it with each other.”
“Yeah, I would like that.”
Then she hopped out of his pickup truck. She wasn’t going for another kiss and lead him on. But maybe later? She wasn’t ready to get into a relationship with anyone after the ordeal with her ex-fiancé. Plus, because of the changes she faced with being a vampire, she just wanted to be more settled with her new self before she had any notions of courting anyone else in her life.
“About our other cases—" he said.
She let out her breath in a heavy sigh. “Okay, sure. You can take some of the cases we have left, or we can work on them together.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Well”—she shrugged—“we did pretty well as a team for the last two missions. I’m good with doing it together until it doesn’t work out any longer.” Not that it wouldn’t, but she wanted him to know that she didn’t want him to feel obligated to work with her if he decided she was more of a liability than a team member.
“All right. Do you want to take some of the names and learn their locations and who they associate with, and I’ll do the same with the others? Then we can go to the first one we can locate before other hunters get there to take care of the rogue.”
“Yeah, that will work. We’ll keep in touch then. Whoever gets a location first, will let the other one know and we’ll take it from there.”
“Sounds great.”
She unlocked her house and turned to see he was still watching her, being a gentleman, making sure she got in okay. She smiled and waved, and he smiled back and waved.
Then she walked into the house and locked the door. Instantly, Princess came to greet her, rubbing her furry body against Jacqueline’s leg and she reached down and stroked her. “Okay, I’m done with jobs for the rest of the morning. Time to go to sleep.” She took a shower and dressed in pajamas, then climbed into bed and Princess quickly joined her.
“Well,”—Jacqueline stroked Princess’s head—“that went fairly well tonight—the meeting, taking down one vampire on my list, and taking another down who wasn’t. Good beginning to returning to work. And we even have a hunter who is willing to go after the vampire who turned me.”
Princess purred, her nose turned up as she eyed her with her big green eyes, her chubby cheeks the cutest thing ever.
Then Jacqueline thought she heard a male voice in her head. She jumped out of bed, Princess leaping off the mattress at the same time as Jacqueline went to check the house and make sure that no one really was inside. She found no one. Why did the voice sound familiar? Though she hadn’t made out what he had said. She didn’t think it was Dane, but what did she know? She hadn’t tried to talk telepathically with anyone, so it could be he tried to talk to her, and his voice would be different than when she heard it in his physical form.
She wasn’t sure how to do this, but she tried in her mind to say, “Dane, did you try to speak to me telepathically?”
He didn’t respond. Did she not do it right? Or maybe he was sound asleep.
But then she heard someone in her head saying, “Go to 75692 Evergreen Drive. I’ll be waiting.”
“Who is this?” she asked in her head.
But she didn’t get a response. She got on her phone and called Dane. “Hey, did you try to telepathically connect with me?”