Immortal Hunter. Kait Ballenger
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When he didn’t release her, her sweet face twisted into a scowl, and he knew what she was gearing up to do—what she always did when she was beyond pissed at him. Use his full name.
She inhaled a sharp breath, and as she spoke she punctuated each of her words with pure irritation. “David Jonathan Matthew Aronowitz, you let me down this instant or I swear I’ll—”
“Allsún, you need to listen to me. This is really important,” he interrupted her.
Refusing to listen, she continued to scowl at him, and he knew her stubborn side had set in. If he didn’t cave, at least a little, she would keep going for hours, and if he got her pissed off enough, boy, would he regret it. Allsún might be only half-Fae, but that half was of pixie heritage, and while pixies were sweet little things most of the time, you really didn’t want to piss them off. Allsún held true to that rule.
Slowly he loosened his hold, allowing her body to slide down the wall until her feet touched the floor. But he didn’t release her completely, just enough to placate her temper.
The scowl faded slightly. “I can’t stay here, David. I came to help that family, and you know I’m all for saving live victims, but the dead ones are your thing, so since you have this covered, I really need to go and get out of this hospital gown.”
No way was he letting her go when there were demons out there who knew what she really was. “Allie, listen to me. We need to talk.”
Turning her head away, she refused to look at him. “There’s nothing for us to talk about.”
He scoffed. “Really? Nothing? How about the fact that you’ve been in a coma the last month, and now you’re suddenly awake and at a crime scene? How the hell did you get here? How did you get out of the hospital? Jace was heading to the hospital to watch over you as soon as I left.”
Finally she met his gaze again. “No one was there but me when I woke up, so I just left, okay? All of a sudden I woke up. I was lying in a hospital bed, connected to an IV, and when I woke up I didn’t want to be there anymore, so I took the IV out and I left.”
David stared at her for a long moment. She wasn’t serious, was she? “So you woke up, pulled out your IV, decided ‘I don’t really need to be here,’ and then walked out in a hospital gown into the freezing cold Rochester night and decided to follow me to a crime scene? Why wouldn’t you wait for clearance from a doctor to make sure you were okay?”
She ignored his last question. “Followed you? I didn’t have any idea you would be here, okay? I woke up, and I had one of my feelings. I knew that somebody in the area was in trouble, that they were having problems with demons. I listened to my senses. I flagged down a cab, and I got a ride here. I didn’t expect you to be here, that’s for certain. If I had, I wouldn’t have come.”
“I’m the only demon hunter in the city, and you didn’t expect me to be here?”
She flashed him a look that said don’t-be-an-asshole.
David’s eyes widened, and he stared at her in disbelief. Clearly she hadn’t thought a single bit of this through. All the more reason she needed to stay with him. She needed time for her head to clear. “Last I knew, you weren’t hunting demons. What happened to that?”
She frowned. “I haven’t been hunting demons, okay? I haven’t been hunting anything in the past five years, but when I woke up, this feeling of someone being in danger overcame me and I couldn’t ignore it. I’ve never felt a pull so strong. I knew I had to track it to the source, and my senses led me here.”
“What exactly were you expecting to do when you got here? Single-handedly take down a demon with no weapons and protected by nothing but a hospital gown?” he asked.
He loosened his hold enough for her to wiggle free. As soon as she left his arms, he missed the feel of her body pressed against him. He grabbed her hand to keep her from leaving, but she wrenched away from him.
“I hadn’t thought that far through it, okay? Get off my case. What does it matter to you, anyway?”
David’s jaw dropped. “What does it matter to me? I’m the one who’s been stationed at your bedside nearly 24/7 since you were hospitalized. I’m the one who carried you out of that awful warehouse where Robert tortured you. You do remember that, right?”
She met his stare. “There’s no way I could forget that, even though I want to.”
A lull fell between them. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he wasn’t even certain where to begin.
Allsún broke the silence first. “Once the drugs wore off, it all came back to me pretty fast.”
David couldn’t believe what he was hearing. She’d simply snapped out of her coma? That was it? On the very night he’d found out that her life was in danger?
No. It was too coincidental. Her senses were clearly trying to tell her something.
Allsún dropped her hands to her sides in exasperation. “Look, I get that it was dumb, okay? And I can clearly see that I’m not needed here. The carnage that’s down there—” her eyes flicked to the staircase leading down to the basement “—well, you can take care of that. Now that you have the Execution Underground on your side with all their fancy equipment, I’m sure that sort of thing is no problem for you.”
He could hear the slight contempt in her voice at the mention of the Execution Underground. Did it really still piss her off after all these years? She’d left him after he joined the Execution Underground. She hadn’t approved of him signing on. Not that he could really blame her. Hell, he should’ve considered her feelings more back then. He knew that now. He’d been young, naïve and so ready to save the world that he’d failed her in the process. For the first year, every day without her had been worse than the last. He tried to tell himself that things had improved since then, that he wasn’t constantly longing for her to be by his side, and that he was really okay, but who was he kidding? Even being with her like this now was killing him. He shoved the feelings inside, boxing them away where they wouldn’t be so painful. He couldn’t allow himself to go down that road.
She wrenched her eyes away from the stairs and spoke again. “Anyway, I’m out of here,” she said. She moved toward the door.
David stepped in front of her. “I can’t let you do that.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why not?”
“Because I need to watch over you.”
She scoffed. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. In case you hadn’t noticed, I wasn’t kidnapped by a psychotic killer until you and Jace barged into Frankie’s pack. Before that I was fine.”
He winced. He knew it was his fault. He knew that before he and Jace had shown up at K9’s, the club run by Frankie Amato, Rochester werewolf packmaster and Jace’s girlfriend, Allsún had just been hanging out with the werewolves. He had brought Robert into her life. She didn’t need to point that out to him. “Yeah, I know it was my fault, but that’s all the more reason I need to keep you protected now. I know you’ve always been capable, but give yourself at least a few days to recover from what you’ve been through, Allsún. Allow me to watch over you.”
She tried to move around him, but whatever way she turned, he blocked her path. “I don’t need you to watch over me. Robert’s dead, right? If I remember correctly, Jace killed him.”
David nodded. “Yeah, Jace killed him.”
The tense muscles in her shoulders relaxed. “Good. Then, as far as I’m concerned, I’m perfectly safe.”
Without warning, she ducked underneath his arm and started to walk out of his life yet again.
“A few days ago a demon possessed your psychiatrist.”
Allsún froze. She lingered in the doorway for a moment as if she couldn’t