Free Adam by Jacquelyn Frank Page B

not subscribe to the belief that there was any such thing as a decent Vampire.
    It was an attitude shared by his younger brother. Jacob had become quite an efficient Vampire hunter. Quite a notorious one at that, and Jacob ate up his glory just as he would sweet cakes and wine. He thrilled in the war with Prince Damien’s bloodthirsty little sycophants. The Vampires had proven that they hungered for bloodshed to relieve their boredom. After all, it was taboo and deadly for Vampires to drink the blood of other Nightwalkers, so they certainly weren’t doing it for nutritional purposes. No. The little bastards were simply out to entertain themselves with a few Demon deaths. Unfortunately for them, when they took on his baby brother, all they got was a world of hurt.
    Unfortunately for Adam, success was giving Jacob an ego that was becoming unbearable of late.
    Another good fighter and a friend of his was the warrior Elijah. He had to say that were it not for the infamy and skills of Adam’s brother, Elijah might have made a future Warrior Captain, the leader of all of the Demon King’s armed forces. But should the present Captain ever retire, it was most likely Jacob who would fill his position.
    At the moment Elijah was a highly ranked warrior who lived on the borders of the Vampire and Demon territories. He said it was to discourage Vampire raids on innocent Demons, but it was more likely so he could wake up every night and be immediately in the thick of battle. There was something of a friendly pissing contest going on between the warrior and Jacob. But it was a little like an apple competing with a pine cone. Elijah was a part of sanctioned battles orchestrated by the Captain and the King. Jacob was a bounty hunter, tracking down specific war criminals.
    The thought came to Adam’s mind because he was very close to the warrior’s holdings just then. In fact, he was almost upon them when a movement below him caught his attention. The sleek-moving shape was too fast and too nimble to be just any kind of forest creature. Curious, he quickly descended into the forest below. As always, the first thing to fill his awareness was all sources of water. Where they were located, which directions they were traveling, the volume of each body of water both big and small. Nothing was too insignificant, no information deemed useless. His senses ran high with the presence of a heavy-running stream nearby, its source coming from up in the high, snow-laden mountains. It ran swift and cold only a short distance away. As he neared it with the March moonlight at his back, he changed back into flesh until he could see his breath clouding on the still and chill air. Then he heard and saw what had drawn him there in the first place.
    Crouching down low to the forest floor, moving as silently as a breath, Adam peered through the nearby brush to see what manner of creature was running these woods in the darkest hours of the night. And because the moon was near full, its pearlescent light blanketing every inch of the water nearby, Adam could see with perfect clarity.
    It was a woman. She was completely nude as she waded through the freezing temperature of the night and the water. She was pale as alabaster, the moonlight no doubt playing tricks on his eyes, because he had never seen such white perfection before. She was almost aglow as she stood there splashing water up and over her long, luminescent legs, and he could see almost every inch of her was covered in gooseflesh. Most obvious was the hard thrust of dark mauve nipples, as they stood out at the tips of rather generous breasts. Her hair was black as pitch, at least when wet, and a natural curl seemed to ease its way through it. She had the overall figure of a painstakingly crafted statue, although she was a bit too thin at the waist and hips for his taste. But that didn’t keep Adam’s lips from curling in a smile of appreciation.
    She had to be out of her mind, bathing in such frigid