Unearthed by Lauren Stewart Read Free Book Online

me?” To see something a lot bigger than a piece of bread slip between those lips, something that was currently a lot harder than it should’ve been.
    Damn it . He adjusted himself. “I want an answer to my question from earlier. Why don’t you think you’re better?”
    “You wouldn’t understand.”
    He leaned back in his chair. “Have we ever met before?”
    “No.”
    “Then maybe I look stupid, or I speak your language awkwardly.”
    She tilted her head. “Point?”
    “My point is how the fuck do you know what I will understand and what I won’t?”
    “Fine.” She finally took a bite of food. “I doubt you would understand. But that doesn’t matter because I’m not going to tell you anyway.”
    “Then I have no reason to keep you alive.”
    “You’re not going to kill me.”
    “Really? Again, you seem to know me better than I know myself because I was so sure I knew how this was going to end. Down to the last breath you took.”
    “I’ll tell you if you let me take out Lamere.”
    He sighed. “I should give up now. Kill you and be done with it, curiosity be as damned as the rest of me. You are ornery and stubborn and not eating the food I so generously ordered for you.”
    She stared at him pointedly and tore off a chunk of bread with her teeth. Not nearly as sexy. Teeth in general—not conducive to the well-being of his most prized possession.
    “Nice effort, but the other two things are still true.” Ornery and stubborn. Adorable in a demon, much less so in any other being. Maybe this one just needed a push. “You look just like her, you know. Right down to the eye color.” Blue, like the sky at its best, except this one’s had a spark the other’s didn’t. At least not anymore.
    “Who?”
    “The human Lamere turned and the thing that brought us together.” Turning a human was punishable by death, all in the name of population control. Now the newbie vamp would replace a centuries-old one. New tits for Lamere’s old tat.
    The thing Davyn still couldn’t understand is why Lamere had risked it. He must have known the newbie would be found. Especially after he’d left her sire-less, roaming the street, feeding on every poor human bastard who came along. Normally another executable offense, but she was given a break once the Prime heard her story, and once she gave up the name of the vamp who’d made her.
    “She looks like me?” The hunter probably hadn’t wanted her voice to betray her shock or the sliver of fear that went through her, but it had. She dropped her gaze to her plate and started poking her food with her fork like she probably wanted to do to Davyn.
    “She could be your twin. Your undead twin. Do you think he’ll make a matching set when he gets hold of you?”
    Her eyes were fiery as they met his. “He won’t get hold of me.” She was funny, not that she probably thought she was being funny.
    “Play it like you did today and you can bet your ass he will.”
    She was fairly strong and moderately smart, but a seer would never be quick enough to take down a vamp as old as Lamere was. Not unless she took him by surprise, had help, or Lamere had other plans for her.
    “I can handle him, puppet. You can’t.”
    “Do you know me? Have we ever met before this?”
    He smiled, enjoying the sound of his own words on her tongue. “No, but I’ve watched you fight. And, if you don’t back off, I’ll also watch you die.”
    “Why did you help me tonight?”
    “You’re welcome, and it won’t happen again. Promise. Go hunt something a little tamer—a witch or something.” After what had happened with the dat vitae, witches all over the world were afraid to cough, they were being watched so closely. Not the local coven, of course. All its members were either dead or human with no memory of the Highworld at all.
    “As long as he’s dusted, you get paid, right?” she asked. “So let me do it. I won’t even ask for half your fee.” She took a huge bite of bread.