Hunter by Night by Elisabeth Staab Read Free Book Online

exist.
    Okay, now she wanted Lee to come back. If nothing else, to explain what in the hell had just happened. It gave her a vague, uncomfortable impression of the “disturbance in the force” variety. Only she wasn’t cool enough, or nerdy enough, or whatever enough, to be jacked into any kind of collective consciousness.
    Here, she would always be an outsider.
    A gentle knock sounded. “Alexia?”
    A pale, fanged female with ruby eyes and platinum hair frowned at Alexia from the other side of the door. In truth, Nessa’s crazy eyes had creeped Alexia out at first, but Lee’s ex wasn’t actually so bad once you got to know her. She was intelligent and funny. Sure, a little weird. But cool-weird, come to find out.
    Alexia hated that Nessa was Lee’s ex, but they simply didn’t talk about the fact that Nessa had once screwed—and screwed over—the vampire that Lexi didn’t quite want to acknowledge she still crushed on. Alexia didn’t have a lot of friends on the estate. She’d gotten the impression Nessa didn’t, either.
    She might have worried it would cause other vampires on the estate to give her a wide berth on account of Nessa’s bad succubus reputation, but many vampires already avoided Alexia. It was like she had a big, old “Don’t touch the human” sign around her neck. Especially since that embarrassing thing with Anton. One tiny touch and Lexi had wound up sprawled out on the rug like a drunk. God. Don’t feed the bears. Don’t touch the human.
    Alexia peered at the pale-skinned half succubus, nausea settling in her own gut. Nessa hardly ever looked worried, but she did now. “Is everything okay?”
    “I was going to ask you the same,” Agnessa said. “I felt that shift. I came to check on you.”
    “Shift.” Alexia rubbed the goose-pimpled flesh on her arms. “Yeah, what was that weirdness? Did you get a vision or anything?”
    Agnessa served as Thad’s spiritual adviser. As Alexia understood things, Nessa was one of the last remaining Oracles known to vampire kind. For that reason alone, folks put up with her succubus half and her über creepiness. And Alexia liked Nessa, but she could see how it was a little creepy. Half the time she was pretty sure the scarlet-eyed lady could literally read minds. She’d come to accept that there were wacky vampire powers and whatnot that she didn’t understand, but being around Nessa occasionally gave Alexia the urge to fashion herself a really kick-ass tinfoil helmet.
    Nessa, dressed more conservatively than usual in designer flats and pants, turned in the hall. “I can’t always command my visions. What I experienced was a powerful magical explosion. I know that much.” Without warning, Nessa gripped Alexia’s hands. Pulsing energy passed between them, wrapping around Alexia’s arms and growing into a tangible thing like she held a large ball of static in her arms. “Here, you will need this,” Nessa whispered.
    This was not the first time Nessa had done the weird energy whatsit thing to Alexia, and once the shock had passed, it didn’t seem to hurt anything. So Alexia let it slide. Times like now, the strange energy helped to calm the pterodactyls flapping around inside Lexi’s body. Hopefully it wasn’t a weird vampire spell, and while Alexia was off in a trance, Nessa was leaving her a quart low.
    As fast as she’d gripped Alexia’s hands, Nessa stepped away. “We should find Lee.”
    What fun. It was practically putting matter with antimatter when those two were in the same room. Alexia couldn’t even picture the two of them together that way. Not that she’d tried. Gross. “I’ve been waiting for him to come back. We’re supposed to take some of Isabel’s things over to the hospital, but he’s been gone awhile now.”
    “Here I am.” Lee rounded the corner. He squeezed past Nessa and pushed into Alexia’s small room, magically contorting himself so he didn’t brush against Nessa even one iota. Right, because matter