Free Masquerade (Vampires Realm Romance Series Book 10) by F E Heaton Page A

they were all enhanced.
    While a single enhanced hunter working on their own wasn’t a threat to most of his kind, a group of them working together could prove a problem for even a strong vampire.
    Sophis touched his shoulder. A shiver danced over his flesh, spreading outwards from the point her fingers had brushed and carrying warmth in its wake. Vivek frowned at the intensity of his reaction, how that simple brush of her hand had sent sparks like fireworks exploding from every nerve ending in his body and heated him down to his core in a split second, and then put it down to being in his true guise. It was his heightened senses that made him feel her touch as an electric shiver, not anything else.
    He opened his eyes and met hers.
    Another tremor raced through him, pounding in his blood like a drum, a beat that ignited a deep hunger in him that wasn’t thirst for blood.
    He stifled it and held his fingers up, revealing nine. She raised an eyebrow, stared intently at the wall and then nodded. Had she counted less or more the first time? A wrong count could prove disastrous. This wasn’t the last time someone would track hunters and tally their numbers before the Creator Day masquerade but it was imperative that they knew exactly how many they were dealing with at all times during the lead up to it.
    Vivek counted again, double-checking his figures.
    Four on the ground floor. Two of those were Aleksis and Izabella. He would recognise their signatures anywhere because they were so similar to each other—a trait he presumed was because they were twins. The other two were probably the men who had arrived after Aleksis. Three on the same level as him and Sophis. Two on the top floor, although one was in transit now, heading downwards. The other was very still and the signature was faint. Sleeping most likely. Perhaps Sophis had missed that one. Her senses weren’t as acute as his were.
    Nine.
    More than he and Sophis could deal with alone.
    Someone on the same level as him mentioned lords again. Two more voices joined it, both male and both speaking Czech. Vivek could speak the language fluently. He listened, picking out words in the muffled conversation.
    No one mentioned the ball but instinct said that these hunters were here because of it. They needed to report to Tynan and get him to send the elite guards out to scout for more hunters.
    The vampire hunter that was moving continued downwards and then reached the periphery of Vivek’s senses. Were they heading out?
    He signalled Sophis and she nodded, silently following him back through the building. Vivek paused at the door and quickly glanced out, his gaze scanning everything in under a second. No sign of the hunter. He led Sophis down the hillock and into the shadows of the tall industrial buildings. They moved swiftly on a direct path to the mansion but Vivek didn’t drop his guard. He monitored and mapped his surroundings with his senses, constantly on the lookout for more vampire hunters.
    Once they had filed their report, they would gather their men, return to the hunter base and eradicate them all, Aleksis and Izabella included.
    Vivek scrubbed a hand through his unruly black hair and glared at the road ahead. He couldn’t remember the last time there had been nine hunters in Saint Petersburg at the same time, and he had never seen more than three together before. There were no Section Seven bases in the area, unless the hunters had created one since his kind had last accessed their network or information about it had been hidden in the protected files.
    Enhanced or not, this handful of hunters wouldn’t stop the masquerade from happening. It was tradition, held every year to celebrate the recorded point in time when the first vampire had awoken on Earth and started to spread his gift. The ball was a single night in which the pure bloodlines cast aside their differences, donned masks, and threw away the rules. Those lucky enough to attend the masquerade were no