Magic Hunter: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Vampire's Mage Series Book 1) (7 page)

R
osalind
, sitting on the back of Caine’s bike, wrapped her arms tight around him. They roared down a narrow Salem street, past crooked colonial houses, on their way to meet Aurora at the bar. Lilu trailed behind them.

A marine wind rushed over Rosalind’s bare arms, and moonlight dazzled off puddles as they rushed past.

It was beautiful by the water, but she didn’t belong in Salem with her arms wrapped around a mage’s body. Her plan had been simple: become a Guardian and fight evil. Until now, her worst-case scenario involved leaving the Brotherhood to become some kind of software engineer. Maybe a computational biologist, to keep things a little interesting.

No part of her plans had involved donning a black leather dress, covering herself in fake alchemical tattoos, and straddling a sorcerer’s motorcycle. But things didn’t always go to plan.

Caine had cast a spell to cover her in magical markings that snaked around her arms and back, disguising her as a mage. It so happened there was a lot of exposed skin to cover, thanks to Aurora’s outfit choices. Apparently, demons didn’t like leaving anything to the imagination. As she sat on the back of Caine’s bike, the short dress was hitched all the way up her thighs. At her insistence, she’d kept her own boots on.

As they pulled up to a rickety old pier, Rosalind spotted Aurora standing in the amber light of a streetlamp not far from the harbor. The low-cut back of her dress exposed a brutal network of scars.

Gods, what happened to her?
It looked as though she’d accidentally exposed her skin to the sunlight and never healed.

As Rosalind stepped off the bike, she shuddered. Whatever had caused those scars must have been agonizing.

Aurora turned, eyeing Rosalind’s outfit. “I told you that dress would suit you.”

Maybe it
did
suit her. Rosalind hadn’t failed to notice Caine’s jaw drop when she’d stepped out of the room in the tiny black dress. Still, she felt exposed, and tugged the neckline up.

“But you’ve got to stop fidgeting,” Aurora added. “You’re acting like a pedestrian.”

Rosalind frowned. “A pedestrian?”

“Ordinary people,” Aurora said. “Those without magic. Boring. Stuck on the ground. Like you with that stupid iron ring. I told you. Stop fidgeting.”

“This isn’t how I normally dress. And there’s no room in this dress for my weapon belt.” Not to mention a bra.

“Only pedestrians need weapons,” Caine said.

She
liked
her weapons. But even without them, a Hunter had other tools. Josiah had taught her to scan her environment for anything that was usable as a weapon. Ingenuity was the one area where Hunters had the upper hand. Iron dust could defeat magic, and Hunters knew how to fight the old-fashioned way: fists, broken bottles, big blocks of wood—whatever they could find.

In the cool sea air, goose bumps raised on her skin. Nothing stood on the wharf apart from a ramshackle, two-story house labelled
Sail Loft
. Weather-beaten and boarded with old wood, it must have been deserted for centuries.

She hugged herself. “That’s where we’re going?”

“Glamoured,” Caine said. “Unlike me.”

Rosalind paused, touching his arm. “I’m supposed to act like a mage, and they’ll believe it?”

Caine nodded. “As much as you can. They’ll know you’re human by your scent, but they won’t touch a mage. If they think you’re pedestrian, things will become unpleasant fast. And if they discover you’re a Hunter, you can expect an excruciating death.”

“Fantastic,” she said.

“That’s why you should take the ring off,” Aurora said. “What if a high demon comes in? Some of them could smell your Hunter blood even if you haven’t drunk ambrosia in a day. A bit of real magic would protect you.”

Instinctively, Rosalind tightened her hand into a fist. The whole point of this was that she’d never again have to suffer the wild, burning rage of the witch’s soul, that uncontrolled animal mind that threatened to swallow her whole. “That is
not
a good idea.”

“It’s true. She’s not ready for that yet,” Caine said. “We’ll just hope no high demons are there tonight.”

Aurora arched an eyebrow. “You just want to hope? That’s your plan? We should’ve left her at home.”

“We can’t leave her anywhere until I erase some of her memories,” Caine shot back. “She could still run to the Brotherhood with everything she knows, in the hopes of making a deal.”

Rosalind scowled. She really hated that whole memory-erasing idea. “I’m not taking off the ring again until I can get this spirit out.”

Caine looked her over, his gaze lingering on her skin. “It’s fine. With the tattoos, she can pass as a mage. As long as she can manage to refrain from lecturing everyone about morality for the next twenty minutes.”

“We’ll just go in and ask about the sybil, right?” Rosalind asked.

“No,” Caine said. “You don’t want to launch right into the sybil thing. It’s never good to let vampires know you’re desperate. It gives them power over you. We’ll blend in, get some food, act like normal shadow mages, and then casually ask Jorge about the sybil.”

“Little problem,” Aurora said. “She doesn’t smell like a mage.”

Caine arched an eyebrow. “Mages don’t have a smell.”

“Yours is like fresh earth,” Aurora said. “A bit of peat and some sage. I think that part belongs to you. But the magic has its own scent. Anyone who’s conducted Angelic spells in the past several days smells like a lightning storm and singed air.”

Rosalind furrowed her brow. “Are you telling me I need to smell like ozone?”

Aurora shrugged. “If you don’t want the vampires to kill you, you need to smell like Caine. Or you need to take off the ring and do one little magical spell. Or we can leave you outside and chain you to the pier.”

Rosalind’s eyes widened. “I’m not just being stubborn. I’m afraid of losing my freaking mind. This witch’s soul is like an inferno. It’s completely warped, and I don’t even want to know what it would do if I let her out. It wouldn’t be pretty. I think in that case
I’d
be the one ripping out throats.”

“Fine. So rub up against Caine.” Aurora flicked a hand at the mage before staring at Rosalind again. “Don’t look at me like that! You don’t know how many pedestrian girls would pay good money for that.”

“She’s not lying,” Caine said, with a small shrug.

Aurora sighed. “Bollocks. I fed the ego.”

Rosalind took a tentative step and a deep breath. The thought of getting close to Caine sent her pulse racing, though she wasn’t sure if that was because he was a demon from the shadow hell, or because he looked like a Greek god. “Rub up against Caine? You have got to be kidding me.”

Caine flashed a half-smile. “Given your well-established appreciation of my beauty—”

“The scent is strongest on the neck,” Aurora cut in. “And don’t pretend to be disgusted, Rosalind. I can hear both your pulses racing.”

Rosalind glanced away, cheeks burning, though she wasn’t even sure why she cared what they thought. She was a Hunter, for crying out loud, and this was all part of a mission for the Brotherhood—albeit, a severely screwed up mission. Caine was just part of the job, a means to an end.

In the silence, the only sound was water lapping against the pier. “Right. It’s just a body. Just two bodies, coming together…” Had she really just said that out loud?
Rosalind, you absolute moron. Please stop talking.

Aurora rolled her eyes. “Are you going to do this weird babbling all night? If I get any hungrier, your pedestrian smell will no longer be a problem.”

Chilled by the ocean breeze, Rosalind rubbed her tattoo-covered arms. “Right.”

“Because I would have eaten you,” added Aurora for emphasis. “Not an expression.”

“Yeah. I got that." Rosalind stepped closer to Caine, her heart thumping. Just part of her mission. Her shockingly, wildly fucked-up mission, completely unsanctioned by the Brotherhood, who wanted to arrest her. Or possibly kill her. This was the mission of a demon-infected Hunter gone rogue.

What would Josiah make of all this?

Aurora threw her arms up in the air. “Ugh. I’ll give you two some privacy. I’m going in for a drink before I murder you both.” She stalked away over the pier.

Rosalind stepped closer to Caine. Moonlight bathed his skin in milky light. With his tousled hair and sharp cheekbones, he really was stunning—obnoxiously so, in fact. As a mage, he was supposed to look like a withered hag… but if he was a demon, maybe that explained his otherworldly beauty.

He held out his hand, and she took it, edging closer to his body. Wordlessly, he lifted her wrist to his warm neck, pressing it against his smooth skin. In the night air, she could feel the heat coming off his muscled body, the blood pulsing fast in his veins. As she stood close to him, a strange thrill whispered over her skin, and she had to restrain herself from closing the last few inches between them.

He’s not human,
she reminded herself.
He’s a predator.

She cleared her throat. “I saw your eyes change earlier. When you were angry.”

“Yes.”

“It happens to demons. You’re not human.” It seemed an oddly personal conversation—yet she was standing here, pressing her wrist against his throat. Might as well get to know him.

“I’m half demon.”

“What kind?”

“Incubus.”

At that word, horror churned in her gut, and she snatched her arm away from him.

A look of confusion flickered across his features. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She swallowed hard, trying to shut out the guilty thoughts echoing in her mind. “Josiah told me that all incubi were brutal rapists.”

He took a long, slow breath. “Josiah is wrong,” he said softly.

She stared at him, trying to control the thoughts swirling in her mind.
But Josiah can’t be wrong—because if he is, then I’ve committed a far worse sin than I thought.
“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

A mixture of emotions flitted through his gray eyes, hurt and anger among them. “Of course I’m sure. I feed off sexual energy. That’s true. But I’ve never forced anyone against their will.” The cocky smirk returned to his lips. “You’ve seen how I look. Why would I need to?”

Remorse tightened her throat. If Caine were telling the truth… She couldn’t let herself think about what she’d done—not now. She was close enough to losing her mind as it was. “But some incubi must be evil,” she said.

“Demons don’t have the same concept of evil that you have, but if you’re asking if some demons are rapists and murderers, the answer is yes. Just like humans.”

She forced the guilty memories deep into her mental vault. If she pored over them now, she’d never make it out of this situation with her wits intact. “Are there many like you?”

He shook his head. “Not many, no. And even fewer succubi. Even mages hate the females.”

“Why?”

“When succubi feed from humans, it’s not quite as pleasurable as when incubi do it.”

“Oh.” She swallowed hard, moving closer again to press her hand against his neck. “I’m sorry I freaked out. I thought incubi were… evil.” She drank in his clean, earthy scent, her eyes lingering on the flawless skin near his collarbone before drifting up to his full lips. They looked soft, and she couldn't help but stare. If he ever wanted to feed from her, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to turn him down—assuming he was telling the truth about only choosing willing partners.

“You’ve been brainwashed. It’s not your fault.” He lowered her wrist. “There. It’s not always so bad when you get close to the monsters.”

Not bad at all—horrifyingly, disturbingly
not bad
. Obviously, the mage’s spirit inside was leading her into dark, animalistic places, drawing her to other corrupted souls.

Okay, fine. The truth was that Caine was just hot as hell.

As she stepped away from him, she steadied her breath.
Keep your composure, Rosalind.
Somehow, the fact that he wasn’t a real monster—that she actually
liked
him— was more horrifying than anything else she could have learned about him. It raised questions she didn’t want to answer.

She followed him over the old wooden pier toward the bar, and the breeze lifted her hair. As much as she hated herself for it, his warmth had been delicious, and she could almost imagine what he’d look like without his—

Stop it.
She clenched her jaw. She was on a Hunter mission, and couldn’t get distracted by his beauty. And more than that, she now had a duty to report back to the Brotherhood what she knew about incubi. Of course, people like Josiah would say that Caine was a liar, but his voice had the ring of truth in it—not to mention the fact that he hadn’t once tried to force himself on her, even though he could easily overpower her.

They reached the shoddy old door to the bar, and Caine yanked it open, revealing a room fit for vampire royalty. White stone swooped high above them, and candles blazed from ornate chandeliers. Vampires stood around, drinking blood from champagne flutes.

Or at least, they
had
been drinking moments before. Right now, they were all staring at Rosalind. In fact, it kind of seemed like the whole
wrist on neck
maneuver hadn’t worked.

A tall, thin man stood behind an oak bar, his hand paused mid-pour. His fangs glinted in the candlelight. “Caine. Did you bring a Hunter into my bar?”

Shit
. Was it the smell of her blood? She scanned the room for weapons. A marble fireplace with burning logs and silver pokers. Chandeliers, and champagne flutes all over the place.
I can work with this.

“Jorge.” Caine smiled. “Would I bring a Hunter into your bar?”

“She smells like a mage, but she’s wearing an iron ring. And by the frisky glint in her eye, it doesn’t look like she’s been hypnotized.”

Oh. So they did notice the ring.

Caine stared him down. “Of course she’s a mage. But a bastard fire cleric put a curse on her, and now she has to wear the ring to suppress the spell or her whole body will go up in flames. And I’m quite fond of her body.”

“I’m sure you are. I know your type.” The bartender winked, returning to his blood Martini. “Fine. Keep the ring on. As long as you can vouch for her.”