The Vampire Hunter. Michele Hauf
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The only thing Zoë knew about Kaz was that his mouth knew exactly how to fit against hers for maximum pleasure.
And that the heat of his body felt like a fantasy in which she was granted everything she had ever desired.
It never worked like that in real life. Not even with a healthy dose of magic tossed in for good measure.
But never in her life had Zoë felt so connected to a man she didn’t even know.
Sighing into the kiss, she tilted her body towards Kaz’s aggressive stance, and as their hips met, he drew his fingers down her spine, coaxing her even closer with his touch. Chest to chest, she melted against his heat and strength. He made her feel delicate and pretty and so, so desirable.
A girl could become bewitched by such a kiss. And a bewitched witch was a rare thing.
MICHELE HAUF has been writing romance, action-adventure and fantasy stories for more than twenty years. Her first published novel was Dark Rapture. France, musketeers, vampires and faeries populate her stories. And if she followed the adage “write what you know,” all her stories would have snow in them. Fortunately, she steps beyond her comfort zone and writes about countries she has never visited and of creatures she has never seen.
Michele can be found on Facebook and Twitter and at www.michelehauf.com. You can also write to Michele at PO Box 23, Anoka, MN 55303, USA.
The Vampire Hunter
Michele Hauf
Contents
Prologue
The thing came at him so quickly, Kaspar had little time to react beyond putting up his arms to block the crazy long teeth that gnashed for his neck.
He’d been minding his own business, digging in the garbage behind Madame du Monde’s dance studio. He’d found a broken chair and had screwed off one of the wooden legs. If he whittled down the serrated edge he might use it as a weapon. Call it a sixteenth-birthday present. Living on the streets a guy needed all the protection he could get.
But after nearly two years of street life, he’d usually seen the attack coming. This maniac had lunged at him from out of nowhere, and it was as if he were on drugs because he growled and shoved Kaz to the winter-wet tarmac, then jumped on top of his chest, compressing his thin rib cage with a hard knee.
Twice as big as Kaz and dressed all in black, the attacker snarled, revealing teeth that belonged on a monster. Kaz yelped and swung the chair leg before him. The man batted it away.
“No way!” Kaz yelled. Using all his strength, he managed to kick the crazy guy off him, leaped to his feet and swung the weapon wildly. “Get away from me, you creep!”
“A tasty little boy,” the guy muttered like some kind of menacing villain a person only saw in the movies. “I can smell your blood. Starved for sustenance as you are, I’ll squeeze a few drops from your skinny neck.”
The man lunged for him, gripping Kaz’s shoulders and sinking sharp teeth into his neck. It hurt so bad, worse than all the times his dad had used him as a punching bag. Kaz kicked and yowled; he didn’t want to die. He was too young. He may not have much to live for, but—no, it wasn’t going to happen this way.
Pushing the thing off him tore the long, pointed teeth from his neck. Kaz whined at the pain, yet he didn’t take his eyes from the attacker. His blood dripped from the maniac’s mouth. With a hungry smirk, the thing again lunged.
Without second thought, Kaz swung around the chair leg, jamming the serrated end into the guy’s chest. The creep growled and swore at him, cursing him with all the bad words Kaz had learned to use to vent his anger, and then some.
And then a blast of ash formed where the guy had been speared with the end of the chair leg. Dark gray flakes formed the shape of a man, then sifted to the ground, leaving behind a pile of clothing—and no vicious attacker.
Swinging down the hand that still clutched the chair leg in a painful squeeze, Kaz stumbled backward, hitting the steel garbage can in a clatter, and slipping to land on his butt.
“What the—?”
Another man swung around the corner of the brick building, gripping the wall to stop his running pace. He wore a plaid vest over a fancy shirt and pants, and looked like one of those rich guys Kaz always saw escorting pretty girls in and out of shops on the Champs-Élysées. “You got him, kid?”
Got him? Got what? What was that thing? It...it had dissolved right before his eyes. There wasn’t even blood in the pile of ash. Human beings didn’t do that. And it had—Kaz slapped a hand over his neck—bitten him.
The