Chapter One
New Jersey. The state often got a bad rap, but to Morgan Rhys, it was pretty much the same as any state she’d spent time in. Good parts, bad parts… Too bad she spent way too many hours in the worst parts. Like right now. The dark club her current prey had led her into throbbed with the bass of loud music, making her nerves twitch with agitation while laser lighting in shades of pink and purple illuminated just enough so that the patrons could witness the show that was being performed by half-naked humans dancing in gilded cages suspended from the ceiling.
Morgan rolled her eyes at one such human. A man, undulating his bare, oil-slicked torso to the beat with nothing covering his body but a rooster head mounted on his dick. Lovely. Oh, even better, he had bright red tail feathers sticking out of the crack of his ass. Shaking her head, she moved deeper into the gyrating crowd, opening her senses to locate her target.
Sweat, heavy perfumes and colognes, body odor, stale beer comingling with the sweeter scents of liquors and fruit, as well as the musk of sex thanks to the more hedonistic couples barely concealed from her vampire eyes as they pumped away with abandon in dark corners.
She pushed aside all of that top-layer distraction and dug deeper. Yes, the scent of blood and vampires – several vampires in fact, and Morgan couldn’t help but wonder if the humans performing in the cages knew what kind of clientele they were entertaining and that they were inciting more than sexual lust from some of those patrons. Not that it mattered. What happened in the club after she left was none of her business. She was here for one specific vamp and one vamp only.
John Gibson, blond, hazel eyes, just shy of six feet tall, burly build, thirty-two in appearance, forty-eight years turned, in breach of contract to the Born that held Pennsylvania. A runaway who had abandoned his position three weeks ago and who Morgan had received a hefty down payment to track down, and track him down she had.
It had taken her a little longer than expected. Most vamps that make a run for it head straight back to their past and the human lives they were supposed to have left behind when they signed their contract to be turned. Whether to see what had become of everyone they had once known, or perhaps to reconnect with their mortality, Morgan didn’t know having never been mortal herself, but it was always her starting point. John Gibson, however, didn’t fall into the majority. He obviously hadn’t run because of some sudden nostalgia-driven depression. Nope. John Gibson hadn’t been looking for the farmlands he’d grown up on in the Midwest. He’d been looking for a non-stop party and Jersey had been his destination.
She’d tracked him this far with the help of her team, had been following him all evening, waiting for the right moment to snatch the bastard where human eyes wouldn’t witness what was sure to be a beat-down that would have them calling the cops, especially since Morgan was pumped for a fight and her targets rarely came quietly. Crowds were a hindrance. She hated crowds while John Gibson apparently loved them.
A body ran hard into Morgan’s side and she had to resist the urge to bare her fangs in a snarl as she pushed the woman that reeked of stale cigarette smoke, cherries, and Southern Comfort away from her. Shit. Ten more minutes of this and her target would be lucky if she didn’t kill him outright for putting her in the middle of this cluster fuck.
Of course, then she wouldn’t get paid. This job wasn’t a kill order but rather a retrieval mission. Gibson had one-hundred and fifty-two years of service left on his contract and the Born that held said contract expected those years to be fulfilled. By any means necessary. Thus, why she’d been hired. Her team was the best of the Hunters for hire available to the Born, a race of natural vampires created at the dawn of humanity when demons had impregnated human women before being forcefully evicted from the mortal realm. The Born were immortal, fast, strong, and among some other neat little party tricks, the Born could walk in sunlight, unlike the humans they turned into vampires. Morgan was one of the Born, a descendant of one of those original demon-spawned children, so if her target led her on a merry chase until the dawn, she wouldn’t much care despite rather being anywhere but here. Gibson would have to find cover from the sun, whereas she was perfectly able to drag his ass out of whatever hole in the wall he’d been hiding in and deliver him back to his master. Gibson might be a little worse for wear from the experience, but he’d be alive and she’d get the remainder of the bounty due her. Win.
Honing in on a particularly large cluster of vamps at a corner table, Morgan made her approach, sticking close to the black painted cinderblock wall to avoid the dancers that seemed to move in an undulating wave to the rhythm of the music. Unfortunately, her target was seated in the middle of the U-shaped booth. Of course, she could just use the quite satisfying, yet less people-friendly sledgehammer approach and start pulling the other vamps out by their hair and tossing them aside until she had Gibson shackled, but causing a scene in front of drunken humans that might intercede – no matter how fun it might be – could only lead to more problems.
“Gentleman,” Morgan drawled, ignoring the two scantily dressed human women at the table that were currently being fed upon, their glassy, half-lidded eyes not even moving in Morgan’s direction as she leaned a hip casually against their table and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m afraid Gibson needs to come with me.”
Hoots of laughter greeted her statement as well as commentary that made Morgan want to roll her eyes. Things like, “Are you part of the show?”, “Come here and give us a dance, honey.”, and “Johnny-Boy here isn’t packing what you need, darling.”
Strongly reconsidering her decision in using the nicey-nice approach, Morgan shot them all a wide smile that showed off her fangs before she pulled back one side of her leather jacket to reveal one of the pair of Sigs she was packing as well as the hilts of several daggers.
The mad scramble that ensued was expected, though no less amusing, and since Gibson had been trapped in the middle, it was child’s play to latch onto him as he attempted to make his escape and march him toward a rear exit. The door hadn’t even fully clicked shut behind them before the fool twisted in her grip and threw the first punch.
Morgan easily evaded his attack and smiled, delighted that her target wasn’t going to come meekly. Two hard, fast hits to the mouth and the guy’s head wobbled drunkenly on his neck, his eyes looking slightly crossed before he smiled with a mouthful of bloody teeth and fangs to slur, “My mother hits harder than that, bitch.”
The last word had barely cleared his lips when Morgan delivered another sharp jab to shut him up. The punch knocked him out and she let him drop to the wet pavement of the alley to secure the specially made shackles around wrists she’d tugged none too gently behind his back. Unlike standard handcuffs, these babies weren’t breaking for either Turned or Born.
Morgan was just about to call her team to let them know that she had the target in hand and request a pickup when her phone rang. Connecting the call, she didn’t even have a chance to utter a greeting before her tech wiz, Jamie announced, “We’ve got a problem.”
“The hell we do. I’ve got him tagged and bagged, get your asses here.”
“An order just came down from the Elders,” Jamie informed her, the tension in the woman’s voice audible. “All Hunters currently operating in New York or the bordering states are to immediately vacate the area and consider all outstanding retrieval contracts for those areas null and void. They’re even pulling Hunters off the Canadian border.”
What the fuck? The Court of Elders was the ruling body for vampires but they’d never interfered with Hunter business and especially not an order that would allow a safe haven for runaway vamps and rogues. “Why?”
“New York has fallen to the angels. It’s no longer under the Born’s control.”
Morgan’s breath locked up hard in her lungs. Thane Stroud was the Born that had governance over New York state. They had been lovers once, as well as friends, back before he’d taken control of New York when the territory had still been young and primarily wilderness. Thane had believed in her when she’d balked against the future her father had laid out for her and chose to carve her own destiny with the Hunters and while they may not have had many dealings with each other these past few centuries, a line had always been open, with the understanding that if one should ever need the other, they’d be there.
Swallowing hard, her voice was choked as she asked the question for which she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer. “What of the Born that held New York? Stroud?”
“Nothing official,” was Jamie’s clipped response. “But the chatter I’m picking up is that he’s presumed dead.”
Morgan swayed slightly and needed to lock her knees to keep from ending up on the pavement next to her target.
“Are you okay, boss?”
No. She wasn’t, but she still had a job to do. She’d have plenty of time to grieve later. Giving her head a little shake, she blinked away the fog that had settled over her eyes and cleared her throat. “ETA on that pickup?”
“What about the order?”
“To hell with them. No way am I letting the Elders screw us out of money we’ve rightfully earned.”
