9|The Hunters

In their cabin in the secluded part of the woods, Samuel and his small band of vampire hunters were still reeling over their failure. They all hurried to their little corners and busied themselves with cleaning their weapons, getting them ready for the impending war with anyone who dared stand in their way. 

"We'll get it next time," he told the other four. 

He was referring to the piece of the Chaos Star they'd tried to get from Sonja. But even as he said the words, he knew he wasn't convincing anyone. The Youngbloods' magic was far more powerful than they remembered. They'd heard rumours floating around town about Luca's return and his plans to free his brother, and they knew the vampire would need the Chaos Star to break the seal. Rather than tempt fate and leave the star in the hands of the witches, they'd decided to take matters into their own hands. They already had Carmella Long's piece. They just needed the rest. The idea was to destroy the star before Luca got his hands on it.

"We have to get it soon. Word is Luca plans to be out of Shadowbrooke in a month, two tops. We don't have much time," Björn frowned as he gently kneaded the back of his neck, his shaggy blonde hair as scruffy as his days-old beard.

"I still don't see why we can't just storm Luca's nest and get rid of him," Ava added from her lone position on the armchair, playing with her weapon of choice—a custom made handgun enchanted by Luann.

Samuel watched her for some time, glad it wasn't loaded, as she passed the pistol from one hand to the other and twirled it in the air, before letting it drop in her lap. The last thing he needed was the shit popping off. He didn't have to fuck Ava to be in tune with her moods. She was as transparent as the flimsy curtains hanging on his murky windows. She was properly agitated at the moment, and he wished he could make her feel better. He understood her feelings of anger and anxiety all too well. But storming Luca's nest was a terrible idea for so many reasons. For one, they didn't know how big his alliance was—if he even had one—or how prepared he was.

But, the most important reason for not going after Luca outright was the pact they made with the town's elders when they were granted permission to go into the hunting business. They couldn't attack without provocation.

Samuel closed his eyes and laughed bitterly. The rumbling roar in his throat was the bitter sound of disillusionment and regrets. This wasn't what he wanted. His reality was way off the mark from his dreams. All their realities were not what they had envisaged.

They weren't always hunters. But the night of the Delacroix court changed all their lives, when they suddenly found themselves in a war they were ill-prepared for. Now, twenty years later, there were thousands of them, from Shadow Brooke to Briardale, men and women dedicated to eradicating blood drinkers. 

The Cause, as the hunting movement was known, wasn't limited to exterminating vampires. Over the years, there'd been a steady increase in reported attacks on witches and werewolves in some parts of the country. But so far, Shadowbrooke only had a single enemy, and they all had to band together to fight him.

"Samuel, are you even hearing me?" Ava asked, her words coming out fast and hard, a clear sign she was anxious. "I say we should go in guns blazing. Take them all by surprise. They're not expecting us."

"You know we can't do that. We have to wait for Luca to attack first. We can't just go after him without proof or a plan," Samuel explained, and it wasn't something they all hadn't heard before.

"Yeah, yeah, the pact with the witches," Ava said before running out of the room, leaving the other four with stunned looks and worried frowns on their ageing faces.

"I'll talk to her," Melissa offered from behind her laptop, but made no immediate attempt to go after her as she pushed her tortoiseshell glasses up the bridge of her nose. When she finally plucked up the courage to leave her seat, Samuel stopped her. 

Going after Ava wouldn't do. He knew his wife wanted to be alone. She was taking Luca's return harder than all of them. They all lost someone that night, but she lost the most. Her entire family was wiped out, and she was only fifteen. Ava would have been ripped limb to limb like her parents if it wasn't for her quick-thinking father, who'd hauled her up the attic when they heard the chaos outside their place.

Days after the attack on the town, it had damn near killed Samuel when Ava described in great detail the horror she'd witnessed when she watched from her hideout in the attic as the fledgelings fed on her parents and tore apart their limbs. He'd never felt such fury as he did back then. Looking back now, her devastation was what pushed him into the hunting business.

An hour passed, and the others drifted to the round table in the open plan dining room for a friendly round of poker. Samuel wasn't in the mood for card games. He excused himself and went in search of Ava. 

He found her in the backyard, warming herself in front of the fire pit, their go-to place for getting rid of stuff that shouldn't, couldn't be traced back to them. 

He paused behind her and draped his arms around her, whispering as he held her close to him, "It's okay. Nothing will happen to you, I promise." 

Ava wailed and shook in his arms, her fearful thoughts coming out in spurts and stutters. Samuel listened patiently and allowed her to get it all off her chest.

"It's happening again. I can feel it. Luca coming back like this means he's ready to open that door. We can't let him. We don't know what will come out of there." She sniffled on his chest, and he agreed wholeheartedly; Luca couldn't win.

"Listen to me; we'll do everything in our power to stop him," he promised her as he turned her around to look at him. 

"Including Cadence?" she asked, searching his face. 

Samuel hesitated. Cadence was not part of the deal. They couldn't touch her. The witches would unleash hell on earth if they did.

"She is the last piece of the puzzle. Luca can't have her blood," Ava clutched his face in her cold hands and forced him to look at her.

Samuel knew what she was asking of him, and he didn't agree with her. 

Like Ava, Cadence was just an innocent bystander, a victim of circumstances. But at that moment, with his wife gazing up at him, expectation flashing in her green eyes, he would have given her the world if she'd asked.

"Including Cadence," he said as he took her lips in a torrid kiss.

It wasn't long before they were sprawled on the ground, their bodies glistening under the moonlight, grass blades, and fine grains of sand grating Ava's back as she accepted his carnal thrusts. They clung to each other, reaffirming their promise, wishing they could stop the train wreck. But all the signs were pointing to an explosive end.

It was inevitable.