I walked in the woods behind my house, struggling to get my thoughts under control. I’d vowed not to go into town today, even though curiosity was nagging at me.
Hawk Verity. The man Maya said I was destined to be with. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I’d even looked him up online, and his picture alone stirred something in me. Made me want more.
But he was 100% human.
Just like David was, I told myself. Jonathan’s soulmate. He’d found the person he was supposed to be with and he was the happiest I’d ever seen him.
Would it be the same with me?
Would I fall for a complete stranger? Could I fall for a complete stranger? It didn’t seem possible.
And even if it was possible, it wasn’t smart.
I gritted my teeth, snatching a branch off the forest floor and flinging it into the trees. It hit a tree trunk with a loud crack and fell to the ground.
I couldn’t be Fated to a human. A human was the one who’d taken away my family—my parents, and my sister. Once I’d been changed and the vampire hunters found out, they’d come after me, and found my family instead.
My family weren’t vampires. They were good, decent people who’d had a son turned against his will. But the hunters hadn’t cared. They’d killed my family anyway, trying to get to me.
I’d barely escaped when I’d come home to find them in my house, but I remembered every moment of that night. And I knew from then on that humans were the enemy. Not all of them were bad, of course, but they could turn on us at the drop of a hat.
We didn’t know who we could trust, so it was easier not to trust any of them.
David and Jonathan were…well, a special case.
All I knew was that I had to stay away from Hawk. Soon, the rest of the clan would get him to leave, and it would be over. I wouldn’t even see him so it wouldn’t be a problem.
Still, I hated relying on everyone else for information. To deal with this. I was the leader of our clan. I was supposed to be out there helping take care of the situation.
When my phone rang, I grabbed it from my pocket, seeing Maya’s name before I answered. I’d already had one update from Chris, who said he’d sent Hawk to Maya, so now all I needed to know was that she’d sent him on a wild goose chase about Bigfoot until Jonathan could get to him.
He was the next strongest vampire among us and he’d be able to influence Hawk, to find out who’d sent him here—if that was the case.
“Hello?”
“Hi,” Maya said, sounding defeated. “I’m sorry.”
“What happened?” I snapped.
“He was here—and I told him it was all a hoax. You know, the psychic thing—but then he saw your picture. You know, the one I have hanging—”
“I know which one. What else?”
Her voice went softer. “He recognized you.”
“Excuse me?”
“He recognized you,” she repeated.
I stopped walking and stood still against a tree which was still wet from sitting in the shade after it snowed lightly a few days ago. Snow lingered under the branches at the bottom, stark white against the forest floor.
“I don’t understand,” I said softly. “How?”
“I don’t know. It’s like—I don’t know,” she said again, clearly frustrated. “Like you’re the one he’s been looking for. Like you’re why he’s here.”
“Fuck.”
Maya made a noise in her throat but didn’t comment. She wasn’t used to hearing me curse. Or being upset. I normally had it all together, but now… I had no idea what to do. No idea what was going on.
“I’ll tell Chris,” Maya said. “And—and Jonathan. You need to be careful. I don’t know if he…I mean, he doesn’t seem dangerous, but he knew about you. And if you said he was looking for vampires, then you might be in danger—”
“I am not in danger,” I told her as I started walking again. “He’s a human.”
“But he could be a hunter—”
“Then Chris probably would have been able to tell.”
“There could be more on the way—”
“Maya,” I murmured, back into leader mode. Soothing the situation. Doing what I was supposed to be doing. “We’ll know if that’s the case. But we do need to find out how he heard about us. I’ll talk with Jonathan and we’ll go from there. Just carry on like usual.”
She hesitated but finally said, “Okay,” and hung up.
I should have called Jonathan right then, but I didn’t. How could this man know me? How did he have any idea who I was? I didn’t mix with humans much. I tried to think back, to remember if I’d ever spoken with a man named Hawk. A writer.
Never. I was sure of it.
But still, he knew me.
I turned in the other direction and started back toward my house. But I ended up meandering, wandering almost aimlessly while I wracked my brain for some sort of clue about who this man was.
It was nearly an hour later when I finally spotted my house. The sky had clouded over and I removed my sunglasses. It was dim enough my eyes didn’t ache.
Dim enough, I expected it would snow again soon.
And I was stuck out here in my house with no clue what was happening with a man who had sought me out. A man who was supposed to be my soulmate.
I shook my head at those words. No. No way. It might have happened with David and Jonathan, but this situation was entirely different.
I walked around to the front of my house, planning on calling Jonathan once I got inside. But what I saw there made me freeze in my tracks.
A car.
A man.
Him.
My breath caught when he spotted me. He looked like he’d just pulled up and planned on going to the front door. But instead, he stood frozen by his car just as I was among the trees. Even from this distance, there was a buzz. A small connection I couldn’t deny.
I forced myself to step closer, one step after the next, until he was only ten feet away.
Then it hit me. Hard, like a bolt of lightning to my chest. It took my breath away. And suddenly, I did recognize him—not with my head, but with my heart.
“It’s—it’s you,” he said, voice barely above a hushed whisper.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Hawk. Verity. I—I’ve been looking for you forever.”
I gritted my teeth, both against the onslaught of feeling—emotion—and also in an attempt not to rush at the man. To use my strength to demand he tell me the truth.
“Who. Are. You?” I asked, my pointed words making him flinch.
“I swear I’m not here to hurt you. I—”
He gasped as I raced forward and had him shoved against the car in the blink of an eye. But it was a mistake. Touching him, feeling him under my fingers, was the biggest mistake I’d made.
Because it wasn’t confusion or anger I felt anymore, it was recognition. And—and a feeling I hadn’t felt in years.
Love.
“You…” I shook my head, trying to get myself together.
His heart raced in his chest, but he didn’t move a muscle. He seemed as caught in the moment as I was, held captive by my gaze.
“Something is happening,” he said. “I don’t know—but I know you. And it—it’s more than that…”
I fought the feeling, the urge to pull him against me and take care of him instead of trying to frighten him.
“Tell me the truth,” I demanded.
“It—it is the truth. I—you saved my mom. When we had an accident when I was nine. She was going to die, and then you were there, and you saved her.” He continued to babble as the pieces fell into place. “It was—we slid on the ice. Montana. And then—then we crashed into a tree and she was bleeding…”
All of it came back to me then. I remembered this. Remembered traveling with Jonathan and going out for a drive at night after we’d had a disagreement. That’s when I saw them on the side of the road.
I’d given the woman my blood. But before I’d had a chance to erase her memory or the little boy’s who’d been in the back seat, the police had shown up. I’d vanished into the night and never came back.
But I’d always wondered what happened to that little boy. Now I knew.
He was standing right in front of me.
“You saved my mom,” Hawk said, still slack in my grip, “and I know how you did it.”
“How?” I whispered, shock washing over me in waves.
“You gave her your blood. You let it drip into her mouth. It…I’ll never forget it.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, still fighting against the hold he had on me.
“I know who you are.”
“Who is that?”
“A vampire.”