The Hunter by Theresa Meyers Page B

working.
    Maybe he just needed to talk to her, find out she was no different than that scheming shape-shifter China McGee. But before he could speak, she turned those unnaturally bright green eyes on him. They bored straight through him, stealing the breath right out of his lungs, making the words on the tip of his tongue fade into nothingness.
    “Have you killed every child of the night you’ve met?”
    Her question shocked a little sense into him. He tore his gaze away from hers and stared straight ahead into the dark tunnel ahead. “Almost every one.”
    “So, one escaped the great Colt Jackson?”
    He shrugged, thinking of how he’d narrowly wriggled out of the rubble at the bank, leaving China behind for the authorities. Better they put a shape-shifter in jail than him for trying to steal Diego’s safety-deposit box. “I wouldn’t exactly call it an escape, and neither would China McGee.”
    “A woman?” Her brow arched.
    “I wouldn’t call China McGee exactly a woman. She’s a shape-shifter.”
    “So you’ve had a relationship with a supernatural?”
    “I wouldn’t call what China and I shared exactly a relationship.”
    “Well, obviously you are intimate enough to call each other by your first names, and she was helping you.”
    “More like helping me by helping herself.” Diego had been a Hunter in the same generation as Colt’s pa. His safety-deposit box supposedly held a clue to the location of a map, which would lead to another piece of the Book hidden south of the border. China had brought the information to him in exchange for payment. He’d told her he would pay her when he got hold of Diego’s safety-deposit box. Not that it was his problem now. He had his pa’s part of the Book to track down. Remington could get the box from China, decipher the clue, and find a way to get hold of that map, and it would probably be a whole lot smoother and more legal than blowing a hole in the back of the bank.
    “And you left her behind?”
    Colt locked his unflinching gaze on hers. “Absolutely.” He held no illusions about China. Anything she did was for her own benefit. And while attraction had flared between them, it had always been tempered by wariness and distrust. He’d yet to meet a Darkin he could trust. They’d screw you every single time. His chest ached as he thought of how often his family had suffered at the hands of Darkin, and Colt grew irritated with himself at how his common sense seemed to dissipate around Miss Arliss’s considerable charms.
    He had to be better than good as a Hunter. If he was going to bear the name Jackson within the Legion of Hunters, he had to be just as good, just as sharp, as both Winn and Remy. Being the youngest wasn’t any kind of excuse for being softheaded around a female Darkin, no matter how tempting she seemed.
    He’d already given his brothers a reason to taunt him when he’d been bested by China. He sure as hell wasn’t about to listen to them tell him Pa had wasted his training on him because of another Darkin who seemed too good to be true. The shaft narrowed, forcing him to walk close enough to brush shoulders with her. She slowed her steps, causing him to slow too.
    She turned into him, setting the oil lamp down beside them and placing her dainty hand over his heart. The heat of her touch seeped through his shirt, making him break out into a sweat. “Am I mistaken in thinking there’s a heart in that broad chest of yours?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said, his voice solid, despite the increased pace of his heart beneath her hand. “I’m a Hunter through and through.” His groin throbbed with a beat that matched his pulse. Hell, he didn’t need a heart to want a woman, did he? But this wasn’t a woman. This was a succubus, he sternly reminded his libido. Duty. Honor. His family name among Hunters , he recited in his head.
    She stepped in closer to him, the flare of her hip grazing his erection. She made a sound deep down in her throat,