Breaking Fate

Chapter 4

Darkening Rage

My words were spoken through a snarl as I felt my eyes reddening with my rage. "You're one of those American hunters. I fucking knew there was something wrong with you."

The woman shifted her stance, and for a moment, I was convinced she was going for a weapon hidden somewhere on her person. I reacted instinctively and growled before launching myself at her and pinning her against a tree with my forearm. I felt her struggling in futility against my hold, felt how well her body fit next to mine, as blood-perfumed air swirled around us, making me dizzy and hungry for more than just blood. She hissed and kicked, and the movement only confused my body more, and I glanced down to see blood from Akihiro had stained my suit, compounding my odd sense of confusion.

In fact, I was so disoriented by the human's presence next to me that I didn't notice she still held her knife in her fist until she was trying to stab it into my head to kill me. If I'd had the energy, I would've laughed at her efforts, but as it was, I just grunted and deftly grabbed the weapon with my free hand. With some training, she might be good. As it was, though, there was little contest, and the woman gave the weapon up relatively easily, and she snarled at me as I kept her pinned while I threw her weapon into the tall weeds beside us before returning my attention to her.

Despite the futility of her efforts, she still struggled, long dark hair falling into her face as she fought against my iron grasp, pressing her body more fully into mine. I couldn't afford to be distracted, not even by her. Where there was one hunter, there was always more.

With my face close enough to her lips that I could kiss her if I wanted to, I spat the words, "Where are the others?"

"What?" More struggling from the human, although her bewildered tone and the light, alluring quality of her voice were both almost enough to give me pause.

She was a venus flytrap. The sound of her voice, the smell of her skin. It was all designed to make me want her. Get close, then kill us. That's how hunters operated.

"Your team of murderous, brainwashed, psychotic science fair projects. They wouldn't have been foolish enough to send you here alone. God, I had the whole employee database of that fucking company thoroughly examined by my people. How did one of you hunter bastards sneak in?" I felt my eyes shift from red back to their normal blue color as I continued, still furious but calmer, more calculating. "Who's your target? Me?"

When I started laughing, the small woman groaned before croaking out against my hold. "Can't breathe...shut the fuck up...will tell."

I suddenly felt somewhat guilty when I noticed the blue tint to her skin and realized how violent my hold on the human had been. She genuinely couldn't breathe. I released the pressure of my hold, enabling the woman to speak but not giving her enough room to do anything else..

"I was a hunter. I escaped Imhullu when I was ten. I've been lying low from the fuckers ever since."

She was good, this small human. She was almost good enough telling this lie that I believed her, but her story of escaping was impossible. No hunter escaped Imhullu. They swore fealty to their overlords and were raised from test tubes to serve the evil governmental forces that were trying to eradicate all supernatural kind.

"Do you take me for a fool, human? No monsters desert that place or their murderous brothers and sisters. They make you and brainwash you and turn you into weapons. I am wise enough not to believe a single word you say."

I expected her to shrink from my words or to challenge them. Or to pull out another weapon and try to fight me, which seemed like just the sort of foolish thing the tiny person would try. Instead, all she did was thrash and whine. "Ah, for fuck's sake, dude! For being obviously at least a couple of centuries old, you're clearly one dumb bastard."

I paused, taken aback by her bravado. Upon sensing my surprise, she continued. "Think about it. If I were here to kill you for the hunters, then why in the hell did I just save your life?"

I shook my head. It was impossible. She could never have escaped from Imhullu, the facility where hunters were created and trained in the arctic. On the orders of their commanders and handlers, hunters murdered with wanton abandon and were loyal to the people who created them. They would die to protect the secrets of Imhullu. My people had captured hunters before. We'd tried to extract secrets only to have the hunters die by their own hands before we got the chance. And they certainly wouldn't risk their lives to save one of our kind, as this hunter claimed to have just done.

Claimed to have saved my life.

"This is some sort of ruse to manipulate me."

At my words, the woman rolled her eyes dramatically and huffed, giving me the impression of an irate teenager rather than an elite, genetically engineered murdering machine. "Manipulate you to do what? Not rip out my throat? If that's the case, I would have let you monsters all kill each other and been on my merry way, would have let you assholes do my job for me."

Her beautiful eyes flicked to me as she continued in a breathless rush so fast that I almost didn't catch all her words. "Look, I hate what I am almost as much as I despise you monsters. Hunters are brutal and violent. The things they do to children. The things they did to me when I was a child—"

When her voice broke and the pain filled her gaze, that's when I realized I suddenly believed her. I trusted every word she was telling me because I'd felt that kind of pain, too. My agony recognized her agony, and this woman had experienced a lot of agony in her time. Hunters didn't feel agony or remorse. They weren't capable of it.

"I just wanted to be done with the world of inhumans, but I apparently had to work for the only party company in New Orleans serving goddamn vampires. You think I wanted to politely serve a room full of mass murders while they ogled my tits all night?"

I sighed, willing myself to be calm as I asked. "Why did you follow me?"

Her dry, wan laugh sounded musical in the still quiet of the night. "You're asking why I followed when King Vampire mysteriously left the party in a tizzy. None of the humans there but me knew we were fucking lambs to the slaughter. Of course I followed you. I wanted to make sure my friends weren't exsanguinated."

Loyalty. She was loyal. That was, interestingly, another quality the hunters lacked. They were loyal to their owners, to be sure. But they were disloyal to their colleagues. They'd sell out their own kind to get their mark or move up in rank. In fact, the facility encouraged violence among the lower ranks. It weeded out the weak ones, at least that's what our intelligence told us about hunter command structure.

When next the woman spoke, her voice was filled with abject hatred. "You may not remember what it is like to defend life, but I do. I was ready to die tonight just to save people who did not know what they signed up for."

As I regarded the certainty in her gaze and the tremor of determined fear in her voice, I suddenly knew two very important facts.

First, the human hunter was being truthful with me, and that honesty of hers had me curious. What could she reveal about hunters that we didn't know? What secrets did she hold in that stunning head of hers? Could she help us defend our people? Teach us things we didn't know? Would she help me save the lives of the people I cared about?

The second thing that I knew with undeniable certainty was that I wanted her. I desired her in a way that I hadn't wanted someone for centuries, and it was taking everything inside of me not to kiss her‌ right then and there. The thought was almost enough to bring a flush of shame to my cheeks because I did not know if she wanted me or not. The hunter was attracted, I could smell that much, but she might not want like I needed. Though, judging by the flush of her cheeks and her accelerated heart rate, perhaps she did want me, but logic told me hers was a physiological reaction to danger. She didn't desire me, so I brushed aside this reasoning.

Yet, as her tongue peeked out of her mouth and moistened her dry lips, I was overcome with conviction that I would taste her. Her lips and other parts. And, I prayed I'd have enough sense to wait until she wanted to taste me back before I did it.