Tempest (9 page)

“I messed things up
the first time by not. As soon as she’s awake she deserves—and
will probably demand—an explanation.”

Just as I said those
words, I heard the sound of Ana’s scream. I immediately busted into
Ana’s room. I wrapped my arms around her as breathing racked her
lungs.

“Ana, it’s ok,” I
turned to my family, “she was probably having a nightmare.” I had
already explained to them about the ghost that was after Ana.

“No, no,” Ana said
in between breaths. “It wasn’t a nightmare. I saw someone!
Someone was outside the window.”

My teeth were bared in
anger, ready to go after them. I could barely contain the rage that
was threatening me, knowing that they had come onto our territory,
that they had come so close to Ana.

“No, Hayden. Now is
not the right time,” my father commanded. Despite everything, I
knew I had to listen. He was right. I could not lose control now when
Ana needed me.

“Adriana, I know you
have been through a lot.” My father used one of his many charms to
try to calm Ana down.

“Why isn’t anyone
moving? You need to call the police! Someone was just trying to break
in.”

I could smell Ana’s
fear. And it only incited me further. I wanted nothing more than to
track down the person who made her feel this way.

“I need you to be
calm right now. Hayden needs you to be calm, before he does something
he’ll regret.” My father was still trying to comfort Ana.
Finally, she took a deep breath and then nodded.

“My dear, you’re
bleeding!” I smelled the blood as soon as my mother stated that.
She and I examined Ana’s hand for the wound. I swear, if the
Vasquez had hurt her…

“No, I’m fine. It’s
not my blood.”

“Whose blood is it,
then?” Luke, of course, picked that precise moment to step in.

Ana looked between us
like the answer was obvious. “Well, whoever it was that tried to
break in, of course.”

“So you’re telling
me that
you
punched the man who tried to come in here and
attack you?” Luke, once again, was finding the situation amusing.

“What do you mean
attack me? How do you know he was trying to attack me—he was
probably just a robber?”

By assuming it wasn’t
a robber we assured her that we knew who it was.

“Let’s leave
Adriana and Hayden to discuss this alone,” my father took the hint,
leaving me with the honors of telling Ana all of our secrets. Was I
afraid? I could no longer think of myself and the consequences it
would have on me if she left. Briefly, the thought of her leaving me,
of growing up, of marrying someone else came to my mind. I’d have
no choice but to follow her. To remain close by, but never be able to
have her. If she wasn’t my mate, she would remain mortal. She would
die
. I tried to think if I even knew of any Hunters whose
mates had not wanted them, who had died. I did.
Oh no…

I heard the door to the
guest room close and I went over to sit by Ana on the bed. Her head
whipped toward me and I caught the smell of her hair distracting me.
How do I begin? “How much do you know about New Orleans’
folklore?”

“What does that have
to do with anything?” Her eyes narrowed at me. She had just wanted
me to jump right in and tell her straight out. I searched her eyes,
trying to will her to put the pieces together again. She saw my
expression and her forehead creased, “What, are you a witch or
something?”

Smart girl. So close.
“No.”

“A vampire?”

“No.”

“A ghost?”

“No.”

“Ok. I give up.”
She threw her delicate hands up into the air.

“They do exist
though—ghosts, vampires, witches—and then there are… others.”
Great, I just called myself an “other.” Could I make what we
are sound anymore ominous?
“They’re what you would call the
'rule of law' in the Underworld.”
That sounded better, more
humanized.
“Do you really want to know what I am?” I let the
disgust on my face show; I would give her one last chance to back, to
not be introduced to this dark part of the world.

“Yes,” her face was
beaming. She was anxious, excited, intrigued.

“Even if knowing will
change your world forever?” That isn’t what I really wanted to
know. “Even if knowing what I am may change how you feel about me?”
I just needed confirmation, assurance that she wouldn’t run away
from me again.

She gaped at me, her
head bobbing up and down in slow deliberation.

That was all I needed.
“We are Hunters. The man at your window was member of the Vasquez
family, a very old and very dangerous clan of humans who are
Hunters.”

“Hunters.” The way
she said the word excited me. I clenched my fists as the desire
built.

She was still
fascinated by the information, even about the Vasquez. How could I
tell her it had a dark side? That it
only
had a dark side.
“It’s nothing to glamorize. We carry out justice and provide
order for the paranormal world, but what the Vasquezes do—“

“There are
rules
?”

“Yes, Ana, very
serious rules. You have to understand this. They don’t like our
worlds mixing. That is what the Vasquezes do—they help paranormals
hunt humans.”

“Why would they want
to do that?”

“Well, they claim it
is to protect the human race, but let’s just say it has its perks.
They get money and power. The Vasquezes are in it for that.”

“And so you’re a
Hunter, too?”

Her voice was small,
hesitant to ask. It was the second time I'd heard her say the word,
and it was liberating knowing she didn’t scream it as she was
running away. But I didn’t want her to think of us on the same
level as the Vasquezes. “Yes and no. The Vasquezes do it willingly,
mainly for the economic gain. We—Luke and I—have to do it.” My
family didn’t get our money and status from Underworld. Well, not
all of it at least. Simply living for centuries and making good
investments put us where we are today. It wasn’t blood money.
Boudreaux Properties had been in business for over a hundred years.
My father and I created it as a front to our immortality but it had
opened up many opportunities for us. Technically, my father was now
the grandson of the original owner. I smirked at this notion. No one
ever questioned the insanely rich. We never had to change our
appearances. Everything was done electronically these days and no one
ever suspected why the owners never made any public appearances.

Luke’s father had his
own front, which he left to Luke. Of course, Luke didn’t have to
actually
do
any work; fortunately for the company, it was so
large it ran itself.

“Luke’s a Hunter?”
A flash of worry passed across her face. Ana was looking at me
expectantly and I realized then that I was supposed to continue.

“When I said that my
family and Luke’s family go back a long time I wasn’t
exaggerating. My father and Luke’s father lived in New Orleans
together. My father was a lawyer when he met Luke’s father, Claude.
Claude was a young dockhand accused of murder. As unpopular as the
case was, my father represented him. Claude spent months in jail as
the trial went on, and spent that time talking to my father. After a
while, my father became convinced Claude was not capable of the
grotesque murder that he was accused of. My father led an
investigation that eventually proved Claude innocent, but it was too
late. Claude was sentenced to be hanged.” I shook my head at the
memory of the story my father used to tell me over and over. It was a
lesson really. “Law was different then. Someone had to pay for what
happened, but it killed my father inside that he couldn’t save
Claude. He did everything in his power, but it just wasn’t enough.
Finally, out of desperation, my father went to a voodoun priestess
named Marie Laveau. At first she refused to help, but after seeing
the devotion he had to his friend, she agreed. My father promised to
reward her handsomely. Miss Laveau, however, didn’t want money. She
wanted favors. My father didn’t think any favor was greater than a
human life so he agreed. Laveau gave my father two liquid vials, one
for Claude and one for himself. She said that, to save Claude, all
they had to do was drink the vials before the hanging and Claude
wouldn’t die. They didn’t bother asking questions, not knowing
the contract they were getting into— a contract that was binding
for eternity and would pass on to their heirs.”

“Wait, I don’t
understand. Marie Laveau?
The
Marie Laveau? The voodoo queen?”
Ana’s brow creased and I could see the connections she was
beginning to make in her head.

I nodded at her. Why
tell her when she was going to figure it out on her own?

“Wasn’t she alive
antebellum?”

I nodded again.

“That was around
1830. That’s impossible. That would make your dad
one-hundred-and-seventy years old.” She cocked her head to the
side. Man, she looked so beautiful.

“He was twenty-nine
in 1828, actually, so two hundred and six to be precise.”

“Is this a joke?”

Maybe I should have
done better at hiding my amusement when I corrected her. “Not at
all. The conditions of the contract are that you don’t age, you
can’t die, and you can’t break it. Your work just gets passed on
to your heir. That is why we call it a curse.” I clenched my teeth
at the name. A curse that we have been living with for centuries.

“So that means,”
she turned away in thought, “you’ve taken over.”

“Precisely.” I
gauged her reaction.

She turned back toward
me. “Well what about Luke? What happened to his parents? And how
old is Elizabeth?”

“My father and Luke’s
were about the same age when they first met. They were both
unmarried. My father wanted to get married but feared that it would
be unfair to his bride because of the way we live. My father was
lucky; it took him only fifty years to find Elizabeth, and when he
did he couldn’t stay away from her. Eventually Luke’s father
found the woman he loved, and eighteen years later, here he is.”

“So he’s not really
old then?”

“No. Why, does he
look like it?” A smile tugged at the corner of my lips.

“No. I just
thought...“Her words trailed off and a laugh escaped her. What a
sweet sound it was. I made a note that I would have to make her laugh
more often.

“You could say Luke
is ‘new’ to this.”

“So, y’all are only
eighteen. Good to know.”

Uh, oh. “I only said
Luke was eighteen.” I couldn’t meet her eyes when I said this.

“Well, how old are
you
, then?"

“One-hundred-and-twenty-seven.”
Wow, I was actually nervous. I wouldn’t have given answering her a
second thought if she were familiar with my world. These types of
matches happened often in the Underworld. When you live forever, time
and age are meaningless. I thought about how long it took Luke’s
father to find his mother. How long it took
me
to find her.
“For over one-hundred years, I have been looking for someone like
you but have never found her.” I hesitated telling her exactly what
it meant, that she was my One. I searched her expression, waiting for
any kind of reaction from her. Her eyelids were heavy and she
swallowed.

“And now?” Her
voice was almost breathless.

“And now I have found
her.”

I could feel the
magnetism pulling us together. The expression on her face I now
identified as desire. Her lips parted with a sharp intake of breath
when my gaze lowered from warm blue eyes to her mouth. A pink tongue
came out to lick her lips and she leaned slightly toward me.
She
wanted to kiss me.
Could she feel the same pull that we as
Hunters felt? Even though she was human, was that possible?

Realization came over
her and the spell was broken. “Well, where does that leave me? Why
do the Vasquezes want to kill
me
?”

I was so focused on
what she would think of me, that I had forgotten to tell her role in
all of this. “Have you ever heard of Delphine LaLaurie?”

Her mouth fell open and
she blanched. So she has heard of her. Maybe through some ghost story
or researching New Orleans’ history, but her familiarity seemed
more than that.

“Tell me Hayden.
She’s a ghost now and she wants me dead, right? That’s what this
is all about?”

“Yes. For some reason
she wants you. She wants you dead and she’s gone to the Vasquezes
to do it.”

Her jaw fell open, her
forehead creased with worry.

“Ana, you’re safe
with me. I would never let them hurt you.”

“But what about you?”

“Me?” I rose my
eyebrows at her.

“If this is your job,
aren’t you supposed to help them?” I knew what she was asking.
Why aren’t we trying to kill her too, if it’s our job? There was
no hurt in her voice, only calculated reason. Could I feel any worse?

“We aren’t like the
Vasquezes. It isn’t in our contract to harm people. We are
obligated to serve but will not hurt a human.”

“What do you do,
then, if you don’t kill?”

“We do kill, Ana.”
I had to look away when I corrected her. “I have killed many times
before. If it’s necessary, we
will
destroy. Everything about
us has been tailored to our job. If someone breaks a rule, then we do
whatever is necessary to keep things in line.”

“And what if you
don’t? Why can’t you just do nothing?” She lifted her chin like
it would be that easy.

“If we fail then we
are destroyed, and everyone and everything we have ever loved will be
punished to eternal damnation and banishment from this world. We have
never dared to think of the consequences, knowing what we could lose.
Now that I have you, I know that more than ever.”

Her face lightened at
this last bit of information.