Free Stake and Dust (Stake and Dust series, Book I) by Karen Michelle Nutt

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Cassandra who kept pace with him as she examined the matchbook as
if she'd find a clue. He didn't note anything out of the ordinary
about the matches, but he recognized the name of the place printed
in bold letters.
    The establishment proved a favorite among the
vampires and other preternatural beings, a legit place with nothing
underhanded going on there—at least as far as he knew. At Bygones , vampires didn't have to pretend they didn't sport
fangs and could order blood drinks without question. He'd been
there a time or two, but he found some of the company dismal. Woe is me, I'm the un-dead , didn't suit him. He really
detested whiny beings, vampire or not. They needed to get over
themselves and move on. Gotta love yourself before you can love
someone else. He was a big believer in that policy.
    "Have you been to this place?" Cassandra
asked as they walked away from the boardwalk and headed toward the
street where Bygones was located.
    He'd been to the establishment, but he didn't
think it wise to share the tidbit with her. "I've been by it." He
wanted to question the bartender there, but he wasn't sure if it
would be a wise idea for her to go inside with him. The clientele
would know she was a hunter just by her stance alone. It would make
them leery to dole out information. Heck, they might even hide the
vamp they were looking for purely on principle.
    "You've been by the place?" Her lovely brows
furrowed and he had the urge to smooth the lines away with the pad
of his thumb.
    "What aren't you telling me?" she asked and
looked him in the eye.
    She was good. Never missed a beat when it
came to hunting. "It's a place where hunters aren't exactly
welcomed. They'd think we'd gone mental for just stepping foot
inside."
    She gave him one arched eyebrow now. She had
many expressions and he looked forward to learning each and every
one of them. Arch eyebrow meant: 'Are you kidding?' and in a
sarcastic manner of speaking.
    "Why hasn't the place been shut down then?"
she asked, but he knew what she really meant. Why were the
preternatural beings left to live?
    "They mind their own business," he told her.
"If they watch their Ps and Qs…" He let the rest of the sentence
trail off with a shrug.
    She glanced at him with a tilt of her head.
"Out of curiosity, are you okay with the policy you just
spewed?"
    "About not offing the preternatural beings
and asking questions later?"
    "Yeah."
    He could lie and say he was a bad-arse hunter
out to kill all beings not considered human. Too many of the
hunters had that backwoods, narrow-minded view – where Otherworldly
beings were concerned anyway. He went with telling her the truth.
Their whole relationship couldn't be based on lies. "Not all
preternatural beings are bad news," he said. "Just like not all
humans are good upstanding individuals either. There's plenty of
them who should have been offed a long time ago, but human laws
prevent such vigilante pursuits." He held his breath waiting to see
if she'd blast him with righteous hunter bull crap.
    "You sound like my brother, Derek."
    Not exactly the answer he thought she'd give
him. "Is that a good or a bad thing?" he asked upon reaching their
destination.
    "I think highly of my brother," she said and
pushed opened the door to Bygones, and entered.
    His lips curved as he followed her inside. He
really liked this hunter.
    The interior of the place held an old world
feel to it with sconces on the walls and the overhead lights were
faux candle-lit chandeliers. Of course all fixtures were electric
and not the flickering lights of a real flame.
    The scent of coffee hit his nostrils first.
Not a surprise. Preternatural beings liked their coffee as much as
the humans did. An espresso was one of the favorite drinks among
the werewolves. They tended to drink large quantities of the stuff
as if amped up on caffeine would make their overly charged persona
even better. He'd known more than a few werewolves. Truly, they
should avoid the