Page 89 of Huntress Unleashed
“I believe he’s in a backroom then, offering sustenance to a vampire—willingly, of course.”
“Of course.” She really wasn’t here looking for rogue vampires. They had to learn if a hunter was the reason for Lucilla getting the best of Dane.
“Your name is?” the vampire asked.
“Jacqueline.”
“Jacqueline…?” the vampire persisted.
“Anderson. And you are?”
“One of the good guys. Reese Butler. We don’t like to see rogue vampires get away with crimes against anyone—hunters, humans, and vampires alike. If we can, we take them down ourselves. But sometimes they have friends who help to protect them. Then they’re considered rogues also. They give us a bad name, you do understand? We can’t have that.”
“Just like we can’t have hunters turning on other hunters, or humans or law-abiding vampires,” Jacqueline said.
“I like you. If you weren’t already with a hunter turned, I would make an effort to get to know you better.” Reese gave her a genuine, rather devilish smile.
She was thinking Dane might want to put him on his terminal list, whether Reese was a rogue or not. “Can you tell us where Green is exactly so we can talk to him briefly?”
“He’s busy. Believe me, when a powerful—friendly—vampire is busy with a blood bond, you don’t want to interrupt things. Now that you’re one of us, you’ll have to learn how to live by our rules too,” Reese said. “I would be willing to teach you more about us.”
“Thanks, but we’re good.” Not really. It would be nice, she realized, to make acquaintances with a few decent vampires to learn what they could about their ways. She also was now aware that though she still thought of herself as a hunter, she and Dane were also vampires and there were another set of rules to navigate by as such. “Wait, I have an idea. I would have to ask the others in the group what they thought about it, but maybe a couple of vampires who have always been vampires, or at least early on, centuries ago, could come to a couple of our…uhm, meetings.” She didn’t want to say therapy sessions because it might sound like they were weak. But she thought having vampires speak to them about doing things their way might help the newly turned deal with the changes better.
“Meetings,” Reese said.
She glanced at Dane, and he looked like he was ready to take her back in his arms, though the music was still playing, and he was still dancing with the vampiress. “Okay, a few of us who have been turned by vampires are meeting to talk about how we feel about the changes.”
“When we were turned centuries ago, we could have used such sessions,” Reese said, sounding truthful.
She knew it had been awful for them because they hadn’t had blood banks to draw from and everyone wanted to hunt them down and eliminate them. The situation had improved so much for them and most lived by the rest of society’s rules like anyone else who just worked, had families, friends, socialized, and were fairly normal in every other way.
“I’ll ask a couple of my friends and get a hold of you. In the meantime, you can ask your group if they would be willing to have us talk about what you might have to deal with.” Then Reese glanced at Dane. “I believe your fiancé wants to dance with you again. I thank you for your honesty.”
“You’re welcome. And I thank you for yours.” She had never socialized with vampires before and was so used to going after the bad ones, that she never really gave the decent ones any thought. But she could see here at the club, everyone was having a good time and they looked just like the hunters at a hunters’ club, or the humans at the human clubs.
Then he kissed her hand and moved off to ask the woman dancing with Dane to join him in a dance. Dane quickly rejoined Jacqueline and they decided to get a drink.
She explained what Reese had said to her about Green being in a back room, and even about maybe coming to one of their therapy sessions.
“We would have to talk to the whole group about it,” Dane said.
“Yes, of course. We might even be able to come to a club like this more often, if we can have a bloody cocktail and dance and the other vampires don’t mind that we’re also hunters,” Jacqueline said. “Did you learn anything from the woman?”
“Only that she knew I was a hunter, then she saw my fangs, not that I meant to show them off to her, and I told her why we were here. She said the same as Reese. That Green is with a vampire in a back room.”
They got their cocktails and stood at one of the tables, watching the other vampires. But many of them were watching Jacqueline and Dane now. “I think we’ve been found out,” she said.
“I think Reese and Eleanor came to speak to us while we were dancing to learn who we are and then shared the information with the rest of the patrons at the club,” Dane said.
“I think you’re right. I wonder how long it takes for a blood bond to be with a vampire? It seems to me if he’s with one for this long, he would be drained dry,” Jacqueline said, wanting to just talk to him and get on their way.
Then the bouncer approached them, and she figured he was going to make them leave. “You didn’t tell me you were hunters.”
“We’re vampires. Newly turned. We told you we were new. If we were humans newly turned, then we would be welcome, right?” Dane asked the bouncer.
“You’re hunters. You still hunt rogue vampires,” the bouncer said. “You need to leave. Now.”
“We’re here to meet a man named Green,” Dane said.