Moments of Malevolence (The Hunters Book 1)

“IS SHE AWAKE?” Louise asks from the opposite side of my front door.

I don’t invite her in because, frankly, I hate anyone coming into my home.

“Can I see her?” she asks, pushing her point.

“Yes, she can come in.” I hear Alaska yell out from the bedroom.

Louise smiles and steps in, carrying a backpack with her. When she walks into my house and guides herself straight to my room, I almost lose my shit. That is until I spot Alaska, who has a soft smile on her face for Louise.

I was never sure if they were friends or not—they always seemed a bit off. Or maybe it was just Alaska. Louise strolls in and sits next to Alaska on the bed and almost bounces as she does.

“I took your house keys from your locker and got you a few things,” Louise tells her.

“Thanks, I need to shower. I can feel the dried blood on my body and it’s pulling at my skin.” She attempts to sit up, and I’m at her side in an instant and reaching for her. She waves me away, but I grab the spare pillow and stuff it behind her back.

“The hospital let you go home already?” Louise asks.

“Yeah, under supervision,” Alaska lies. Smart girl.

“Who did it? Do you know?” she whispers to Alaska.

“Nope. It was dark, and I just remember feeling a sharp pain.”

“Oh God, what if they do it to someone else next?” Louise frets.

“I’ve got the surveillance videos. I’ll find the person before they do,” I tell Louise, and she looks up at me.

“Okay, that makes me feel safer. Thank you.”

Alaska rolls her eyes and goes to get off the bed. Louise stands, pulls the blankets down, and offers her a hand. Alaska takes it and puts her feet on the floor.

“Does it hurt much?” Louise whispers.

“Yes, a lot.” Alaska winces.

I step out to grab a waterproof dressing to cover her wound so she can shower. When I return, she’s already standing with her hand on Louise’s shoulder. I nod to the shirt she’s wearing, which is mine, and have to remind my cock not to get hard. Which it seems is always hard around her.

It’s making lying next to her in bed difficult, but not so difficult that I’ll interfere with her sleep.

Last night she fell asleep easily.

Even after she started softly snoring, I didn’t stop moving my hand on her arm. And today, my arm feels like lead, but it worked. And she slept, which was what she needed.

“I need to change the dressing,” I tell her.

“Okay, blood makes me sick, so I’m going to step out.” Louise points to the door as I drop to my knees. Alaska lifts the shirt and checks her body. She’s wearing my underwear and nothing else. Her skin still has some dried blood which is probably why she is complaining. I reach for her bandage, and she pulls back as I touch her.

“When I was a kid, it was my job to look after my brothers, not in the way you may think, in the way where if someone fucked with them, I would fuck with them.” Her eyes find mine, and I glance back to her stomach and start carefully removing the bandage. She flinches but doesn’t pull away this time. “As you can imagine, they were assholes. I mean… I guess I was too.” I pause as I open the new bandage. She’s watching me, waiting for more. “I even stabbed one of them once for pissing me off.” I smile at the thought.

“Why are you smiling about hurting your brother?”

“Trust me when I say that bastard deserved it at the time.” I chuckle.

“Why?”

“He threw a rock at my toe, and not just a small rock but one that took two hands to pick up. He crushed my toe. I got angry, and marched up to him, grabbed my knife, and stabbed him. He never took his anger out on me again. Kenzo never has, but Kyson’s always been a bit wild.”

“Your parents?” she asks.

“Non-existent. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they were there. Until they weren’t. I never cared for them anyway.”

“Are they dead?”

“As far as I know.” I haven’t looked into it, and I couldn’t care less. Just because you bring someone into this world, it doesn’t give you any right to them, especially if you do a shit job at caring for them. “Have you ever thought about looking for your real parents?” I ask.

“Nope. I don’t intend to either. I guess we’re similar that way.” I stand and step back. Her shirt falls back down, covering her body. “I need to shower.” I give her my hand, and she takes it without fighting me. I walk her to the shower, then reach in and turn on the faucet. I spin back as she pulls her hand away and attempts to remove her shirt, but she winces as she lifts her arms to pull it off.

“Let me,” I offer.

“I’m not having sex with you,” she blurts. I fight the smirk touching my lips at her outburst. “I can see you. You know that, right?”

I tear the shirt instead of trying to lift her arms.

She laughs and shakes her head. “We could have gotten that off without tearing it.”

“I’m rich. I can afford another one,” I tell her, then motion to my underwear she is still wearing.

“I can get that.” She pulls them down, stepping out of them before she treads into the shower. She doesn’t care that she’s naked in front of me now. “Did you sleep last night?” she asks as I lean against the wall, watching her. She grabs the soap and starts lathering it up over her body.

“I didn’t.”

“Why?” she asks.

“Because every time I attempted to stop touching you, you would twitch.” Her hands pause their washing, and she locks eyes with me. “And if I fell asleep, I could have rolled over and hurt you.”

“You never cared about hurting me before,” she points out.

“That was different. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was trying to please you, which, if you have forgotten, I did… Twice. Actually, you came more times than that.”

Those eyes that set my fucking heart alight turn away from me.

I take a moment to scan her perfect body.

“You make me angry. You…just you and all that you are,” she says. “We could never work. Not because I think you are fucking crazy, but because I am too. And two people equally as crazy as each other simply won’t work. It would be a disaster. I need a man who calms me, not one who tries to strangle me.” She steps out of the shower, and I hold the soft towel out to her. “And I would never ask you not to be who you are because that’s only asking for trouble in the long run. So why even attempt to commit now when we both know how it will end?”

“You don’t know how it will end,” I argue. “And I didn’t ask you to marry me. I want to fuck you and fuck you a lot.”

She laughs and shakes her head as she steps closer to me. I’m careful not to touch her or to hurt her.

“I see good in you, even knowing who you are and what you do. Tell me, Zuko, does the hunter love the hunt?”

“I do. Very much so,” I answer truthfully.

“And I want a normal life. As normal as I can get, that is.”

“No such thing. Only fools believe in that.” I open the bathroom door and see Louise sitting on the bed, waiting for us.

“Your house is boring,” she states matter-of-factly, making Alaska laugh and then grunt in pain.

“Shit, don’t make me laugh. That hurt,” Alaska wheezes.

“What’s wrong with my place?” I ask.

“It’s boring. You have barely anything here. And we know you have money because Alaska here spent it. Maybe you should have asked her to spend some of it on things for your house.”

“It’s very…” Alaska pauses to think of the right word as she sits on the bed, “Zuko,” she finally finishes, smiling.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

“It’s just…you aren’t flashy. You always dress in black. There’s never any color. Nothing you wear is flashy, yet we both know you have the money like Louise said.”

“I don’t need material things. That’s what gets people killed. I should know.”

Louise’s eyes go wide, and she stands from the bed probably not expecting him to admit that in front of her. “Okay, I’m going to go. Call me when you want to go home or if you need anything,” she says, waving as she walks out.

Alaska motions to the empty wall across from the bed. “You could at least have a TV in here.” She groans, obviously forgetting I took my television to her place.

Well, I guess I’m ordering a television.