Free TheBrokenOrnament by Tianna Xander Page A

the wall, wasn’t it?”
    Shaking her head at her foolishness, Cherie pocketed the wooden figurine and turned back to the tree and unplugged it. Feeling exhausted, she headed back to her room. The tree could wait another day. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed and cry herself to sleep. Again.
    Tomorrow she could take the ornament back to the antique shop where she’d purchased it and see if the old man could fix it. After all, he said he was the one who had encased the hand-carved piece inside the glass in the first place. If anyone could fix it, he could.

Chapter Two
    Hunter moved silently through the darkened city. He knew he must be careful. There were slayers about and he was weak. Not feeding for a long time could do that to his kind. Eating helped, but not much. It helped his body make more blood, but it could never make enough. He needed to supplement it.
    After nearly a month of living like a human, he needed to feed. If he didn’t do so soon, he mightlose control and kill someone. After seven hundred years, that was unacceptable. Killing was for rogues and the untrained. His one and only kill had been an accident when he was a new change. He didn’t want to do that ever again.
    Guilt assailed him at the memory. It was a life taken too soon. A son lost, a father gone forever. He stopped, leaning against the rail, looking out at the lighthouse. Nothing could change what he had done, and as much as he hated the memory, Hunter never wanted to forget it. The memory gave him strength. It also gave him the discipline he needed to prevent himself from succumbing to the blood lust ever again.
    The look in the man’s eyes as he’d attacked, the screams of the man’s son as he drained his victim dry, were something he hoped he would never forget. They were memories he both welcomed and despised.
    Melancholy stole over him as he walked the streets, looking for a likely donor . Four, five women passed. At first their scent drew him, but he backed off each of them with a frown. Was every damned woman in the city pregnant? Had this been seven hundred years ago, he might have thought there was something in the water, but he knew better than that now.
    How the times have changed you, old man.
    As usual, the smell of the ocean drew him. He walked along the waterfront for several blocks before he stopped, leaned against the rail, and stared out at the gleaming waves. The boardwalk was full of holiday lights, but it was late and they were dark. The people of the city slept, like most were wont to do in the wee hours of the morning.
    That was why he hunted during this time. With so few people out and about, there was little worry of getting caught, especially if he fed in the shadows. Perhaps one day he would feel comfortable enough to exit the closet and declare himself vampire. Then he could use bagged blood at the special blood banks set up especially for them. Until then, he would continue to feed off the hoof, as it were. He dismissed the one bag of blood Oberon gave him when he got here. He didn’t know why, but he’d left it in the mini fridge in his room. Was he hoping a maid would find it and take his choice to remain in the proverbial closet out of his hands?
    The moon shone down on the water, lighting the waves. The sea foam appeared to glow in the moonlight as the waves crashed on the shore.The tide was coming in and it brought change with it. Hunter inhaled deeply. Yes, there was definitely change in the air.
    A movement to his right caught his eye and he turned just in time to miss the head of an axe as it swung past his head, hitting the metal rail with a clang.
    “Die, you vampire scum!”
    Hunter grasped the man’s arms, looked down into his fanatical expression and sighed. “You intended to kill me, this night.” He stared into the muddy brown eyes of the man who would have killed him, had he been human.
    The man was drunk. Hunter could smell the alcohol on him. Why did humans