The Hunted Read Online Free Page B

had sliced through flesh as easily as a bread knife through butter.
    All I needed tonight was a couple of well placed slices and the beasts would be dead. They didn’t heal the way that a vampire could, or even the way that I could for that matter. Werewolf flesh was as vulnerable as a human’s, and any blow could be fatal. But tonight’s outcome depended entirely of course on whether or not they decided to tag team me.
    That could mean one of three things.
    Drain me dry of all my blood.
    Impregnate me with wolf spawn.
    Or tear my head right off my shoulders.
    Not exactly a pleasant thought. But it didn’t change the fact that if I wasn’t careful or controlled in my movements, it could easily happen.
    Crap why am I doing this again?
    I couldn’t even claim the last kill as my own because Lucas had incapacitated the beast first with his magic. I may have delivered the fatal blow that killed the last wolves that strayed into our territory, but it was only after they had been frozen to the spot with the Hevannatara spell. It’s not much of a challenge if the target in question doesn’t defend itself because it’s nothing more than a doggie popsicle. Was I even ready for this now given that once they sensed my presence there would be no magic to slow them down?
    You have to be.
    I blew out another chilled breath and decided to change my tactics. I could do this. I hadn’t spent the last four years getting knocked on my ass in training just to stand back and watch. After all, how was I ever supposed to learn the true thrill of a hunt or gain insight from the challenge of a worthy opponent if the opportunity was always muted?
    I could do this. Nay … I needed to do this.
    I needed to prove that the IMI had not been wasting their time on me and that I was in fact capable of defending human rights just as well as my family, despite the fact that sometime in the near future I would be a natural enemy of the clan. After all, I may have been human now, but that was not going to be the case forever and when that time came …
    All bets were off.
    I fingered the blade again and instantly felt better knowing that I was at least armed against these creatures should their senses stir and become aware that we were hunting them.
    Correction. I was hunting them.
    I certainly did not have the same magical abilities that the rest of my adoptive family had when it came to fighting these beasts, so I had to be circumspect.
    These beasts … What a joke.
    I shook my head in dry amusement.
    In so many instances I was just like the creatures that we were hunting this evening. I may not have had the blood lust just yet, but when my turning finally occurred on my eighteenth birthday, I was going to be just as blood driven and deadly.
    A beast to the core.
    That was certainly something that The Protectors were trying to change by conditioning me to fight against my own kin. I knew that it probably served their ends more than it did mine. I wasn’t stupid. But I also didn’t know any better either, having never grown up around anyone other than a Protector.
    The IMI had long since been training The Protectors in magical defence against the darker realms of the supernatural. Namely the Vampires and the Werewolves, but I had been the exception. Despite the fact that I was going to turn into a vampire on my eighteenth birthday, the IMI saw me as an opportunity to mould a weapon that might one day be of benefit to their side in the fight against the Vampires.
    I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that just yet. After all, I had never actually met a vampire before, so I could only trust in the judgement of my family and the other Protectors when they said that they were a race worthy of annihilation just like their creation …
    The Vân â tors.
    But if that was true, what did that say about me? Was I only worthy of life because they had raised me to fight for their causes? Or would I be just as expendable as the werewolves that we hunted