Hunting My Vampire (Immortal Vampire #3)

Chapter 10

Jack

When I saw her I was taken aback. She was so pale and weak. She struggled to stand up straight. She needed supporting and I was about to demand to know what happened to her. Camila had warned me that the experience was grueling but I had not expected this.

The old man told me that her journey had been hard and that her soul was tired. She needed rest. I carefully led Kaya to the car.

She didn’t talk at all on the way back. Her eyes were open but it was like she was in a trance.

The old man had warned me of this. He had told me to take her to bed. To keep her warm and feed her good food.

He said her memory would be particularly clear for the next 24 hours and that I needed to get her to talk about it as much as possible, when she was ready.

But she was definitely not ready. Her pupils were wide and dilated.

We checked into the hotel where I had been staying the past three days. Fortunately, I’d thought ahead, booking a suite with a private elevator so that we would have privacy and comfort. The bathroom was spacious with a huge tub sunk into the ground. I drew a bath for her, made her go into the bathroom and told her to undress.

She nodded but it was like she was somewhere else. I feared she wouldn’t come out of this trance.

After a few minutes, I heard the sound of water splashing and knew she had gotten into the water. I thought of the old man’s words to me when I had come to fetch her.

He’d tapped the spot between his eyes and kept saying words I didn’t understand.

He struggled to find the right words.

“Special,” he finally said. “Her mother too.”

Then he said, “Sho’qa’i”.

“Some say, witch. Powerful female energy, … can defeat darkness.”

I didn’t know what that meant.

The one thing I did realize was that there was something about Kaya and where she came from, her background. Everything that had happened to her, had been for a reason. The acts of violence, the accident even, nothing was coincidental. She was on some kind of mission, although she didn’t seem to know it yet.

After about an hour, I knocked on the door and asked if she was all right.

“You can come in,” she said in a quiet voice. I opened the door and found her sitting on the steps outside the bath, dressed in a robe.

“What can I get you to eat?” I asked. “The old man said you must eat.”

She waved her hand, dismissively. “Anything, whatever.”

I went to order room service and then went back to her, leading her to the bedroom and tucking her into an enormous four-poster bed. I wanted to get into bed with her, to put my arms around her but I didn’t want to scare her. It was clear to me that she had not fully returned from her trance world.

“Can you talk about it yet?”

She nodded.

I sat down on the foot end of the bed.

“It wasn’t a vampire,” she said slowly. “That attacked my family? It was… a skin walker.”

“What?”

“It was… sudden… and vicious. Like a wild animal that jumped and ripped us apart. It didn’t want to eat us. It wanted to kill us. I saw this shape transform into a person, who walked away.”

“Someone walked away?”

She nodded. “He had changed into this… thing… to do this. But I had survived. I was not meant to survive.”

“How do you know?”

She appeared to be thinking. “I don’t know but I do somehow.”

I said, “The old man said you were sho’qa’i. Do you know what that means?”

She shook her head. “But I will find out.”

“Your parents don’t have family you know of?”

“They were estranged from their families. I don’t even know where we came from before the time in the wilderness.”

When the food arrived, Kaya tried to eat but she was weak. She took a few bites and fell asleep.

I lay on the bed next to her, thinking about what she’d told me.

When she woke up in the night, screaming, I took her into my arms and comforted her, stroking her hair and telling her everything was going to be all right.

“What do you mean?!” she called out, crying wildly. “Nothing is all right! I am remembering all these crazy things. I don’t even know what to do with all of it!” I kept stroking her hair until she fell asleep again.

When daylight came, I closed the curtains and checked in with Natania. I had a few emails to answer and to look into. I spoke to some of our teams around the country, checking in on various projects.

Around mid-day, I looked in on Kaya. She was still asleep. She was clearly exhausted.

I decided to google the term sho’qa’i.

I found out that it was a native American word that meant different things in different tribes. It basically was someone who had supernatural powers or abilities. A witch. But also, a protector. Someone who was strong enough to stand up to evil forces.

It fitted with everything that Kaya had told me about herself. Except for her special abilities. I had no idea what these could be.

I wondered if the trauma that had befallen her as a child had somehow blocked this gift, put up a kind of wall.

My phone rang and I picked it up.

“Hey, stranger,” came Charlotte’s seductive voice. “Long time no hear?”

I thought we’d broken up and couldn’t figure out why she’d call me.

“I thought maybe you wanted to go away over the weekend?”

Before I could say anything, she interrupted, “I know we’re not together or anything but we can still have fun, right?”

She sounded flirty and upbeat but I detected the desperation behind the cheerful tone.

“I’ve met someone else, Charlotte, it’s over.”

When I put down the phone, Kaya was standing in the doorway, watching me.

“You’ve met someone else, have you?” she asked with a small smile, lifting one eyebrow. It was the first time that she seemed a bit more like her old self.

“Well,” I said. “Sort of, you know.”

She walked up to me, still dressed in her robe, her slim feet bare on the tiles

“And who might this mystery lady be?”

She sounded completely normal, well-rested and calm, but I had to be careful.

“I think you have an idea,” I said.

She was right in front of me, close enough for me to see the tiny mole on the swell of her breast as it disappeared into her robe. I was beginning to lose focus on the conversation, aware only of an incredible urge to slip that robe off her shoulder and kiss her.

But then she walked past me to get some grapes off a fruit platter on the table.

“Thank you for looking after me these past few days,” she said. “You really have been amazing.”

I gave an exaggerated shrug. “Anything to please the lady.”

“But you’re a busy man and I have been anything but nice to you,” she reminded me.

"You’re worth it,” I said to her, meaning every word. “You really are. I’d do anything to prove it.”

The mood between us changed. The flirty vibe, the sexy talk, it all disappeared. She flopped down on the sofa and dropped her head in her hands.

“I’m a mess, Jack, you don’t want to get involved with me.”

I sat down next to her and put my arm around her shoulders.

“But I do, don’t you get it? I don’t care who you are or what happened to you. I want us to be together, to give this a shot. We’ll figure it out along the way.”

She looked up at me, tears swimming in her beautiful black eyes.

“We will?”

“Of course! Life is so messy; it is so fucked up. You never know what is coming your way. But there is something between us, something real, you can feel it too, right?”

She was kissing me then. Her soft mouth on mine. Those luscious lips seeking me out and her delicious tongue darting in and out of my mouth as my arms closed around her in an embrace that I did not want to leave. Ever.