Page 146 of Hunt Me

54

Sires

David’s fist collided with Matilda’s jaw hard enough to snap her head sideways. The strike would’ve shattered human bone. Instead, she smiled as blood leaked from her mouth. She straightened slowly and rolled her shoulders, pacing in a circle.

A nagging tug she hadn’t quite learned how to ignore pulled her gaze up to her husband’s private quarters. He glared down at her with disdain, or admiration, or fear—it was difficult to decipher. She blew him a kiss and chuckled at the face he made. That time, she knew. It was unmistakable regret.

She tore her gaze from her husband and focused on her opponent. David stood several feet away with his eyes fixed on her and his broad chest rising and falling as he flexed his hands. A month after her rebirth, Dr. Blackwood’s experimentation had rebuilt David into something terrifying. The gauntness that had once hollowed his features was gone, replaced by thick muscle stretched tight across scarred skin. Even standing still, he looked dangerous, like a creature that was half wolf and half something else scratching at the surface, dying to release itself and decimate anything in its reach.

“You’re distracted,” he growled.

Matilda wiped blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. “You hit softer than I remember.”

David barked a laugh and came at her again.

Their bodies collided with enough force to make Luka press his forehead to the glass in concern. David’s hands caught her shoulders, attempting to drive her backward. She twisted sharply beneath his grip and smashed her elbow into his ribs.

Something cracked and gave way.

David seethed, and the sound reverberated deep in his chest, low and animalistic. His eyes flashed black as he seized her wrist and forcefully threw her across the makeshift ring.

Matilda hit the packed dirt shoulder-first, rolled once, and sprang upright before he could close the distance.

The vampire in her had settled over the last month like a second skin, strengthening everything it touched. She could feel it in the effortless way her body moved, in the unnatural precision of her balance, and the acute sharpness of her senses.

David charged again.

She ducked beneath his swing and drove her fist into his stomach with enough force to stagger him backward several steps. Before he recovered, she followed with another strike across his jaw. Then another until David caught the fourth, and his large hand wrapped around her throat. For a brief moment, they remained frozen there, his grip tightening while her fingers curled around his wrist.

“You pull your punches,” he rasped.

Matilda’s eyes narrowed. “Well… you are useless to me dead.”

A grin spread slowly across his face. Blood stained his sharp teeth.

“You couldn’t kill me if you tried,” he responded confidently before slamming her into a wooden support beam hard enough to splinter it down the center. The crack echoed through the empty field like the firing of a cannon.

Matilda hissed, more irritated than hurt, and drove her knee upward into his abdomen. David released her with a curse, and she used the opening, spinning behind him before locking her arm around his throat.

David laughed again, breathless that time around. “You know,” he managed, gripping her forearm as they struggled, “most queens spend their mornings doing embroidery.”

She tightened the hold until the muscles in his neck visibly strained. “Most queens are tiresome.”

With a violent twist, she threw him across the arena.

David crashed into the stone perimeter wall. Dust rained from the impact, but before he could fully recover, she was already moving.

She launched herself at him, and he barely caught her in time.

The collision sent them both slamming back into the wall with enough force to fracture stone. His hand tangled briefly in her curly hair as he shoved her away, and Matilda answered by dragging her claws across his chest, tearing fabric and skin with ease.

Fresh blood streaked across the scars already covering his torso.

David looked down at the damage and laughed under his breath.

“You’re enjoying this far too much.”

Matilda lunged again before he could react.