Free Hunting the Dark by Karen Mahoney Page A

other me – wouldn’t come back to haunt me later, but I’d worry about her then. Tonight I had to handle myself.
    But by then I was fully focused on the scene before me and had to swallow an explosive wave of nausea  . . . chased with bottomless hunger. ‘Crap,’ I whispered. ‘Crappity-freaking-crap.’
    It became immediately and horrifically clear that the vampire hunter wasn’t going to be answering my questions any time soon. All the effort Jace had expended trying to protect his dad’s old buddy now seemed pointless.
    Quinn was dead. Savagely, and very definitely, murdered.

Chapter Seven
Regular Superhero
    I stood looking down at the body and tried to hold back the visceral desire to fall to my knees and taste the man’s blood.
    This is what I had become. This is what I tried to tell Caitlín, no matter how much she still loved me and believed in me. I’m a monster, through and through, no matter how many jokes I crack and no matter how much I want it
not
to be true.
    Freshly killed human being? I could feel the disgust and desire mingling in my stomach and making my mouth water. My fangs extended and I had to dig my nails into my palms – hard enough to draw my
own
blood – just to resist the urge to feed. Hunger scraped me hollow and I almost gave in to her  . . . to Moth.
    I would
not
do this. I couldn’t let myself do it.
    ‘I’m not an animal,’ I whispered. ‘I will
not
be a monster. My name is Marie Katherine O’Neal and I’m better than this.’
    With trembling hands I fumbled my cell phone from my pocket, flipping to the photo I’d taken of Caitlín just the other day. I searched every detail of her face, gazed into those familiar, laughing eyes  . . . anything to get a hold of myself. Anything that might remind me of who I really am – or, at the very least, who I
want
to be.
    ‘Bring me back,’ I whispered to my sister’s static, smiling image. ‘Let me stay with you.’
    Slowly, the bloodlust began to fade. The ache in my gut remained, but at least my fangs had receded and I could look at the body again without seeing my next meal.
    I didn’t drink from humans. Not like this, not ever. I only fed from blood bags, ‘liberated’ from the local hospital – because that made it oh-so-much better, right? That’s what I told myself, anyway. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t lose control. I was still too new at all this, too vulnerable. Maybe I should rethink my dream of returning to college. Could I trust myself?
    Shaking my head to clear the primitive need buzzing in my head like a swarm of bees, I pocketed my phone and forced myself to kneel beside Quinn’s lifeless remains. His crutches were discarded close by and one of them was broken clean in half. There was a shotgun lying just centimeters from his hand – the kind you’d expect to see on a different kind of hunter – and a bloodstained dagger a little further away. Clearly, there had been a fight, but I needed to do better than that.
    I tried to figure out what had happened. How he’d died such a violent death.
    And, far more importantly,
who
had killed him. Probably the blood on that knife was a more than excellent clue, but it wasn’t like I could go all CSI and have it analyzed.
    I had no idea how much time I’d have before someone discovered the body. Would it be Jace who found his father’s old friend? Did Quinn have family, other friends who might pay him a visit when they didn’t hear from him? More hunters?
    Here was yet another person that Jace had lost. I couldn’t help thinking that, even as I fought for control over my baser instincts.
    I needed to get out of here, breathe the night air and separate myself from the blood, but maybe if I stayed I would find something useful. Something that might help Theo – and Jace. Some kind of clue. If nothing else, there might be a piece of evidence that linked Quinn to Nicole’s death – or a trail pointing toward someone else. Perhaps another hunter