Read Hunter's Prey: Bloodhounds, Book 2 for Free Online

yourself.”
    “I will.” But enjoyment was the last thing on her mind as she slowly climbed the stairs. Distraction was more like it—distraction from her responsibilities, from her loneliness.
    From the fact that Hunter would spend the next three days in another woman’s bed.
     
     
    When he heard Satira’s familiar footsteps echoing down the adjoining hallway, Hunter very nearly bolted.
    A coward’s response, perhaps, but Wilder’s self-control and patience seemed to vanish along with the moon. With only a sliver left in the sky, the man roared through the house more often than not, snarling at Archer or Hunter if either dared so much as look at Satira. The new moon’s fury might not claim them before sunset, but Wilder was riding an entirely different sort of rage now.
    Hunter was already backing up a step when she turned the corner and smiled. “There you are. I wanted to ask if you’d let me draw another vial of blood before we leave. Nathaniel should have enough, but it’s better safe than…”
    Her words trailed off with a frown, and Hunter realized he was shaking his head. His body recognized more quickly than his mind, apparently, how suicidal it would be to venture into the basement so Satira could put her hands on him.
    The girl’s usually cheerful eyes colored with worry. “No? Is there something wrong?”
    His voice came out a little rusty. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Satira. Not unless Wilder comes with us.”
    The wrong thing to say. He knew it the moment her worry changed to irritation. “I don’t need his permission to do my job,” she started, the words edged with enough bite that he wondered if being mated to a bloodhound gave the new moon sway over her temper too. “If you have a problem with me—”
    Archer appeared at the other end of the hallway, and Hunter felt relieved to see him for the first time in two days. “Archer. Tell her I can’t go into the workroom with her and let her touch me.”
    The other hound laughed. “Hell no. Satira, are you trying to get us killed? Now get. Go on.”
    She pivoted toward Archer fast enough to send her blonde braid whipping around her head. “Has every man in this building lost his mind? The new moon is still hours away.”
    He held his ground with a glower. “Is it, now? I reckon if you went to look, Wilder’d be getting set to head out.”
    That changed her anger to bewilderment, and she pivoted again and vanished back the way she’d come. Hunter opened his mouth, then snapped it shut as her footsteps returned. She poked her head around the corner and pointed a finger at Archer. “Could you draw some of Hunter’s blood for Nathaniel, then, if I’m not allowed to touch him?”
    “Ophelia can do it.” Archer’s lazy tone belied his sharp gaze. “She’s the one he wants touching him.”
    Archer’s voice shaping her name brought rage, a thundering anger as his vision danced in time with his throbbing pulse. “Fuck yourself, Archer.”
    Satira disappeared with a muffled curse, her booted footsteps falling so close together Hunter thought she might have actually fled. He hoped she had. It would make killing Archer easier.
    Archer grinned, apparently unconcerned by the danger. “What can I say, kid? You don’t hide your secrets very well. Is it the perfume? I admit, it’s some damn intoxicating shit.”
    The thought of Archer sinking his nose into Ophelia’s unbound blonde hair curled Hunter’s hands into clawlike fists. “Bite your fucking tongue, or I’ll rip it out.”
    “Make me, pretty boy.”
    Wilder stomped around the corner. “What the fuck is going on?”
    With the older bloodhound’s temper on edge and Satira’s scent lingering in the hallway, a sane man might have retreated.
    Hunter snarled. “I’m working up to killing Archer.”
    “Any particular reason?”
    Archer shrugged. “Kid’s a little touchy today.”
    Hunter’s fingers prickled, and he wondered if he could actually sprout monstrous