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Then I’d just have to get that damn helmet off him and sink my knife into his throat… The thought of him gazing up at me as the life drained from his arrogant face gave me a shivery thrill.
He’d made me what I was, and now I’d be his downfall just as much as I’d been to the man who’d genetically fathered me.
Before I could reach the stairs, the Blood Hunter stomped toward them. I ducked back into the bedroom, knowing he’d come to me soon enough. Hiding behind the open door, gun at the ready, I tracked his footsteps through the upper rooms.
“Are you still skulking around on the roof like some kind of vermin? What the fuck have you done with her? Get out here and face me!”
He burst into the room I was hiding in. The second he stepped into sight, I fired at his thighs.
The bullets slammed into him… and rebounded, falling to the floor. The impact made the Blood Hunter stumble, but not even enough to bring him to his knees. As he whirled toward me, I realized with a chill that he must have been wearing Kevlar pants too. Fuck.
There wasn’t anything to do but throw the pistol aside and reach to snatch up another of my knives as I lunged to meet him. Bullets might bounce off the material he was wearing, but a sharp blade could stab right through it.
The Blood Hunter threw himself at me with more speed and force than I’d been prepared for. He smashed me into the wall so hard my fingers jerked away from the second knife’s hilt and the first trembled in my hand. I lashed out, heaving at him, focusing on his gun hand.
I managed to send his pistol spinning away across the floor, but he battered my wrist at the same time, forcing me to drop the knife. Then he butted me right in the face with his shatterproof helmet. The blow radiated pain through my entire skull and left my thoughts scrambled.
“Where is he?” the Blood Hunter roared. “What did he do with her?”
He rammed me against the wall again hard enough that I felt one of my weaker ribs crack. More pain splintered through my side. I’d expected him to be strong, but not like this, like a fucking train bearing down on me.
But then, I’d never fought an opponent who was anywhere near this angry before. Had that been my fatal miscalculation?
I wrenched myself downward and managed to dodge his next pummeling blow, but as I grabbed for my fallen knife, the Blood Hunter kicked me in the gut. I rolled to the side and pushed myself toward the weapon, and he pounced on me, slamming me into the floor like a tiger pinning its prey. The whack of his fist against my temple had me seeing stars, and not the good kind.
The Blood Hunter’s voice, no longer smooth and confident but desperately harsh, reached me as if from far off down a tunnel. That wasn’t good either.
“Did you think I’d go easy on you because you were my tool?” he snarled. “That’s all you are. A piece of equipment that’s outlived its usefulness. I don’t need you, and I don’t need your fucking skills. I can take any number of kids and train them in the same way as I trained you. Only this time, they’ll be better. I won’t let them experience the slightest shred of affection. I won’t let them escape. And if they fuck me over, I’ll kill them too and start again. They’re all expendable, just like you are.”
I couldn’t see anything but the vague impression of his eyes through the glass of his helmet, but the hatred in his tone spoke of how much he meant those words. He meant to kill me now, that was for sure. Aches were spreading all through my body where his limbs pressed into me. He wrenched one of my arms to the side so he had a hand free to reach for my throat, and I couldn’t resist him.
A different kind of resistance was building inside me, though. His threat woke up something feral within me. The thought of another child—any child—ever enduring the upbringing I’d gone through sickened me.
No. I couldn’t let it happen. Never again.
“You’re a monster,” I spat at him in a rough voice.
He paused with his hand resting against but not yet clenching around my throat. “You think so, do you?” he sneered. “You helped your father steal my daughter away from me, set him up to carry out his bloody rituals. You’re just as bad asheis. So don’t lay your judgment on me.”
My gaze darted around me and focused on the knife—my knife, lying just a foot away from my shoulder. If I could just shake him up enough that he’d loosen his grip and I could get my arm free…
I gazed up at him, letting my lips curl into a smirk. Even if my last gambit didn’t work, even if he beat me here, I’d still beaten him in ways he’d never forget. I’d turned the Hunter into the prey.
“Your daughter has been perfectly safe this whole time,” I informed him, holding my taunting smile in place. “She’s probably making cookies right now with the woman who’s looking after her with more care thanyouwould have ever given her.”
He sputtered a laugh. “As if I’m going to believe you and show you mercy if you spew some absurd lies.” But his fingers twitched around mine minutely.
I let out a chuckle of my own. “You’ve already bought into my lies. You really believed that my father was still alive? Fuck, no. I killed him myself weeks ago. But my crew and I wrapped you up in our little charade, we led you on this wild goose chase, we stripped you of every man you brought to protect you while you let us… Now you know what it’s like to be played like a puppet the way you did to so many other people. The way you did to me.”
The Blood Hunter stiffened as the shock hit him. It was only for a second, but that second was all I needed.
I yanked my wrists out of his hold. As one hand wrenched his helmet upward, the other closed around the handle of the knife. I shoved his head up and plunged the blade into his throat in one swift movement, so deep the tip scraped his spine.
Blood gushed down over me. The Blood Hunter gagged and spluttered. His weight sagged over me, and I heaved him to the side, tugging his helmet the rest of the way off at the same time. I stared down into his craggy face with a smile I totally felt now.
“Truth won,” I told him as his eyes started to glaze. “Love won. You made me into your tool, but I’ve become so much more than that, so much you couldnevertake away from me. And now I’m your hunter. Enjoy your time in Hell.”
His hand jerked against the floor, but that was his last jolt of life. A wet gasp spilled from his lips alongside the blood pooling under him, and then his expression went totally slack.
