Page 23 of Huntress Unleashed
Then Jacqueline smiled, to everyone’s relief.
“You know we were talking earlier about how you liked to go to hunters’ clubs for drinks and dancing. We shouldn’t be banned from hunters’ clubs,” Dane said.
“I agree, but I’m sure that we’ll have trouble if we go to one,” she said.
“Tell us when you want to go there and we’ll be there for you as backup,” Trey said.
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Matt said.
“Yeah, I agree.” Ryan toasted them with a glass of orange juice. “Just say the word. Between the two of you and the three of us, we’ll change their tunes if anyone gets nasty.”
“Exactly. You’re both still hunters. You were born that way also,” Trey said. “Sure, you’re vampires now too, but you’re part of our community, still taking down rogue vampires, just with additional skills the rest of us don’t have. You’re the good guys, like the rest of us are.”
“But then if we wanted to go there, we would always have to go with you guys,” Jacqueline said. “That’s an imposition for you.”
“No, not at all,” Matt said. “The more you go there, the more they’ll get used to you being there and realize you’re not any different than you were before.”
Dane would like to take Jacqueline to a hunters’ club. If they hadn’t been turned and they hadn’t been engaged to other hunters, that was something he would have done without question. “I’m game.” But he didn’t want Jacqueline to feel uncomfortable about doing it if she wasn’t sure.
“Yeah, I’m willing.” She smiled at the brothers. “We’ll have fun. And maybe we’ll make new hunter friends who are more openminded.”
“Right. That’s who we’ll want to be around,” Dane said.
“Okay. We could go early when it’s not as crowded. But we probably should wait until we get rid of Heskel. I would hate to be at a hunters’ club and then worry that Heskel could control me and try to force me to hurt anyone. That would undo our effort at proving we’re still hunters and like the rest of them. And that we should be allowed to go to a hunters’ club.” Jacqueline drank some of her orange juice.
“It’s a date,” Dane said. They just had to get rid of Heskel.
“All right. That sounds good,” Jacqueline said.
After they finished breakfast, she said, “Okay, I need a tour of the house.”
“Uh, I didn’t make my guest bed,” Ryan said. “And I probably left my dirty clothes on the floor.”
She laughed. “Dane can show me the rest of the house, and not the rooms you’re staying in.”
“Let’s go.” Dane was proud of his home that he had purchased with the idea of finding a huntress mate and eventually raising a family there. He had bought it before he had met Wendy, his now ex-fiancée, so it wasn’t like they had purchased it together. Though she loved the home and planned to move in. She’d had the nerve to tell him he needed to sell the place and give her half the proceeds, as if they’d been married already and were getting a divorce. To which he’d said no way.
He showed Jacqueline the den and the sunroom which had windows that faced the swimming pool.
“Oh, I want to swim.”
“You’re welcome to anytime you want,” he said.
“Thanks. I brought my swimsuit.”
“Great.” He showed Jacqueline the laundry room and then his office. “And of course there are the three guest rooms my brothers use when we’re going on a mission together and want to watch each other’s backs.” Then he showed her the other two bathrooms.
“I guess your brothers believe we’re dating, but we both had relationships that had ended abruptly because of what we have become.”
“Yeah, but we are much more suited to each other because of it.” He truly believed it.
She shook her head. “Until Heskel is eliminated, I don’t feel anyone who is close to me is safe.”
“Yeah, but we always run that risk, even when we were just hunters.”
“Well, that’s true, but we still had control over our own actions.”
He couldn’t argue with that. He sure didn’t want her to feel unsafe and he didn’t want Heskel to control her. More than anything, he wanted to get rid of the menace to her. But until they found Heskel, they couldn’t do much about him.