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Chapter One

Varown h

That was the hard truth vampire hunter Shane Hewitt learned when I chucked hiym ere in He bounced when he landed and slid with a squeal I couldn’t tell if the sound was fro on the polished hardwood

I winced Not very fitting of a deadly forood fight, but he was outone easier on him, but the fact of the matter was I wasn’t here to coddle him, I was here to help keep hieriatric elephant,tallish again, I leapt fro steadily in h black-heeled boots

"Do you knoas able to do that?"

Next to me on the bleachers my human ward, Nolan Tate, timidly raised his hand Nolan was about six feet tall and built like a college linebacker Seeing hih I were really a teacher was so endearing my heart swelled Too bad my question was meant for Shane I touched Nolan’s shoulder, and he put his hand down

"Because you’re a freak of nature?" Shane growled

I had to laugh because he was ht I was a freak because it was unheard of for a Tribunal leader, one of the three most powerfula disrespected, no-rank, human bounty hunter In reality, my freakishness ran much deeper I was a vampire, sure, but that was only half the story The other half olf,as a mere handful of people knew about what I was--and Shane wasn’t one of the for"

Once upon a tietting zero respect froues and obey their every whim Since then I had become one of them, and now my ohims were those to be obeyed It was sort of surreal what could co one bitchy blonde vampire

Shane wiped a dribble of blood off his chin If he wanted to live to see his thirty-third birthday, he was going to have to start listening tome less I had a whole new appreciation of what a hardship it had been for my mentor, Francis Keats, to put up with me when I was a rash sixteen-year-old

When Shane didn’t reply right away, Nolan shifted nervously beside me He knew I had a notoriously short fuse and was even shorter on patience Nolan seemed to appreciate my lessons, whereas Shane often acted as if he felt they were beneath him

I cleared my throat and kept my voice calm like I had to in Tribunal sessions "Shane Tell er thanat his scuffed motorcycle boots

While it took cojones for hi for a different response "No, that’s not the reason Why was I able to throw you?"

Nolan went to raise his hand again but appeared to think better of it and scratched his head as a halfhearted cover-up My less-obliging student tro his tender jaw

"I didn’t see the second swing co"

"That’s the first part of it, yes What else?" I sat down between Shane and Nolan, waiting for the former’s reply while the latter watched us in rapt silence Nolan had been an incredible find in a bar full of would-be vae, but he had a survival instinct that was more finely tuned than anyone I’d ever er brother, and it made me especially protective of him

"I don’t know"

"Then you’re dead Think, Shane I’ this to be cruel, trust otten up at all"

He stopped touching his face and took off his leather jacket One of the studs had bitten into ut I used to think the jacket was a prop to bolster his bad-boy iic to it Personally, I wore h recently it had taken an unfortunate sith hed a little too dra ive oad hi off--his eyes widened, and I knew he’d figured it out "When I went to counter the blow, I leaned back You took advantage of rinned at hi, how could he have prevented the counter?" Nolan asked