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THIRTY-ONE | BREAKING POINT
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56
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The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY-TWO | MISTAKE
I yanked myself backwards, stumbling in my sudden effort to avoid any and all contact with Cyrus’s lips. The damage was done – they’d touched – but a brush couldn’t be called a kiss, and my momentarily lapse in sense and reason could be forgiven, perhaps, if it was only a brush of lips, and not a kiss.“Callie,” he murmured, his tone laced with concern. I winced.“I’m sorry, Cyrus.” I took an uneasy step backwards. “I can’t do this.”“But you want to.” His voice had warped, the concern twisting into smugness. There was a tiny smile playing about his lips, too, even as his eyes softened with sadness. “I’m sorry for pushing you. I shouldn’t have.”“This isn’t your fault,” I sighed. His smile dropped.“I thought you would have let the blame lie wi
The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY-THREE | MYSTERY
“I can’t believe she’s dead.” I wrung my hands together, cracking my knuckles one by one. We’d failed her, and the guilt choked me. First Old Tim, and now Bethan.I couldn’t help but feel as though this was some sort of twisted punishment for my indiscretions with Cyrus. We’d not kissed, not quite, but the intention was there, and it was clear. By the time I’d got home I’d received a text message from Harper, too, and I’d shut my phone off without so much as looking at it.I’d parked hurriedly, desperate to get inside, to speak to my Dads and find out what, exactly, had happened to Bethan. But once I’d turned off the engine I’d found myself unable to move, my legs turned to lead and my muscles stuck.I’d dropped my head against the cold steering wheel, bumping my forehead and narrowly avoiding the angry pink line down the side
The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY-FOUR | BODY AND SOUL
I need to talk to you.That was all Harper’s text message had said. There were none of his usual spelling mistakes, none of his slang, and, worst of all, there was none of his warmth.I was in the backseat of my Dads' car, on the way to Torre’s house to view Bethan’s body. I had a stack of notes that Sierra had sent over to me, first thing in the morning. I’d asked if she’d wanted to come, but she’d turned her nose up at the thought of seeing a dead body up close and personal. I supposed that I would have been disturbed by it once, too, but now Bethan was presumed to be a dead vampire, rather than a dead human, I felt utterly unbothered. I’d seen hundreds of dead vampires since learning about the supernatural, and I’d cope when I saw this next one, too.In fact, the mystery surrounding Bethan and her apparent sudden reappearance as a vampire was the least of
The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY-FIVE | KINDLING
Seeing Bethan’s body, grey and bloated, in Torre’s house had been horrifying. Her fangs had protruded from her blue lips, and her glassy eyes had stared up at the ceiling, unseeing.Somehow, knocking on my own front door was worse.“Harper?” I called out, edging through the doorway as though some unknown force was desperately trying to yank me back out of it. My boots sounded too loud against the welcome mat, the thick soles clunking through the worn material and hitting the floor with little to cushion them.We’d messaged back and forth when we’d been making the arrangement to meet, but other than that we hadn’t spoken at all. The last message he’d sent me with any meaning behind it had been his cryptic I need to talk to you, and since then we’d both carefully avoided the subject. I’d found peace in the not-knowing, though I was certain that the words
The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY-SIX | SEAWEED
I was adrift, cast aside by the murmuring waves and the thrashing riptide. I thought of Ben, of the blood leaving his body, and I thought that this must be how it feels: the ebb of life, draining slowly away, leaving your fingertips cold and your heart numb.Harper knew. Of course he did; I’d loved him because of his sweetness, but he was intelligent, too, and more perceptive than I gave him credit for. Harper knew, and my world was crumbling around me.“Cals, look – I know there’s something going on with you and that guy.”One sentence, and my world was irrevocably changed.“There isn’t,” I said, but my shoulders were too stiff, and the words sounded false to my own ears. I sighed. “I… I don’t know what it is.”I’d almost been ready to admit to myself that my feelings for Cyrus were more than my feeli
The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY-SEVEN | COLD
My heart, too full, slowly emptied, turning barren and freezing over. No matter how sensible and right choosing Harper would be, it was undeniable that hearing about Cyrus being with another woman hurt.As I’d said to him, under the small grove of trees by the diner, this had become a choice. Now, Cyrus was slipping onto the losing side.I didn’t want to appear too disappointed. Not in front of Harp; not in front of anyone. It was, after all, my fault that things had even come this far.“I know you’re not that sort of girl,” Harper was saying. My brain faded in and out, catching glimpses of his words. I could see them in my mind’s eye, hazy as a late summer’s evening, but they did little to warm my icy heart.“You wouldn’t do something like this unless he tricked you,” he continued. “I know his type – ruth
The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY-EIGHT | FORGIVEN
“So,” Grace said, popping her bubble gum between words as she spoke, “you’re telling me that you love Harper – love him, but you aren’t, you know, in love with him anymore – but you like Cyrus. But,” she added, pursing her lips around the remnants of the pink bubble, “Harper saw Cyrus in town with another girl.”I nodded, leaning heavily against the counter. The diner had been busy all morning, but as the sun had come out business had petered off, leaving Grace and I alone on the floor, with only Giles in the kitchen.“Yeah,” I groaned. “I’ve basically been cheating on Harper. Now he says he still wants me back.” I paused. “Well, I can’t really even say basically. We… we kissed. Kind of. The intent was there.”“And last night you kissed Harper?” Grace raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow
The Hunter and the Vampire THIRTY-NINE | WHIPLASH
The sun was dipping low in the sky as I drove back to my Dads’ house. The diner had stayed quiet after the arrival of the Town Trio, and though I could have left early, I’d waited until the end of my shift to leave. I didn’t want to face the world awaiting me outside.Harper was expecting me to return to our house soon, but despite our kiss and his sweet forgiveness, I still felt as though something was lacking between us. Our relationship had been irrevocably changed by Cyrus’s arrival, if not by Cyrus himself. He had brought light to flaws and shortcomings that I had brushed under the carpet for too long, and, confused as I was, going back to Harper now felt wrong.But I didn’t want to go back to my Dads’ house either. There was nowhere I wholly belonged, now; there was nowhere all of my secrets were laid bare. Not one person knew the full truth of my lived experience, and it was exhausting.
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The Hunter and the Vampire 116 | EPILOGUE
I braced myself, lifting a bandolier weighted down with silver bullets and resting it across my chest. My knife was strapped to my ankle, a gun was slung low across my hips, and a silver dagger rested at my thigh.I’d laced my boots with resolve, each knot a promise. I was doing this for the right reasons. I was a protector, not a monster. The sword down my back was double-edged, both killer and saviour, but I wielded it with the power to choose. I would not allow myself to be what I had been, and what many of the others still were.Cyrus caught my wrist, pulling me close. Our lips met in a heated kiss, his tongue and teeth searing my core. Hands tugged the plait from my hair, and fingers tangled in the dark waves. My skin tingled with his touch, and bolts of lightning fractured down my spine.The bond between us swelled, crackling with glossy sunlight and soaring blue waves. The heat of Cyrus’s affection bec
The Hunter and the Vampire 115 | SWORD
Gaudy lights flashed above, drenching Cyrus’s face in bright reds and blues. With alcohol humming in my veins and his arms holding me close, I moved past the flashing, burning image of blood that overlaid the reality of the coloured, moving lights. Even as my mind whispered that it was blood, blood and pulsing blue veins, Cyrus swept me into a spin that threw aside my fears.I grinned at him before he pulled me in again. His joy brushed mine, intertwined within my chest. It didn’t lessen the ache that I dragged with me, but it smothered it, forcing the pain to submit.“As much as I like it when you curse and tease and fight,” he murmured, his lips ghosting across my ear, “you are truly beautiful when you smile, Callie.”Before I could respond, Cyrus tugged me around so that my back was pressed to his front, and his hands cradled my hips. We swung from side to side together, my steps cl
The Hunter and the Vampire 114 | LIGHTNING
I had to move on. At least, I had to try. And, though understanding and enacting were two different things, it was easier to try if I kept myself focused on the present – rather than my jarring, pain-distorted past, or the murky and indistinct waters of my future. Looking back brought forth only blood and terror, and I couldn’t see through the thick, cloying mist shimmering softly ahead. It coated my crumbling relationships, Cyrus’s vampiric nature, and my comparatively short lifespan. Behind, my Dad’s words had carved themselves into my bones and tattooed themselves onto my skin. I could taste Veronica’s fear with every swallow. The walls closed in around me whenever I was alone, and the neat, sharp clicks of Alice’s footsteps followed me around every corner. Even in Wiley Manor, a hotel so detached from my old life in Seafall, monsters found me in my sleep. Sleepy, soft kisses to my forehead, my temples,
The Hunter and the Vampire 113 | SANDBAR
“Get out,” Dad hissed, his face contorting. Shadows crept across his cheeks and nose, distending it into something twisted and evil. Fear filled my gut, and I stepped backwards. My hands trembled as I reached for the door.My fingers turned to claws as I scrabbled behind me. Dismay rose in my throat as I flattened my palms, feeling desperately for the door. I turned slowly, knowing before I saw it that the door was gone.I was trapped. The windows shuttered, and my Dad loomed before me. Paps cowered at his side, shrunken and rat-like with front teeth that slipped from beneath his lips. As I watched, they sharpened into points and became fangs.My feet skidded under me, slipping on something wet streaking across the floorboards. I looked down to get my bearings, to get my balance, and bile clung to the back of my mouth. It wasn’t just something wet. It was blood.Flames shuddered acr
The Hunter and the Vampire 112 | RIFT
The drive to the hotel was quiet, but comfortably so. Perhaps because there were no words that could have made the situation any easier, Cyrus and I allowed the silence to swallow us whole. He rested his hand on my thigh, a steady pressure that kept me grounded enough that thoughts of shoving myself out of the car and rolling across the road – just so that the physical pain overshadowed the emotional for even a moment – seemed nonsensical.Without him there, I wasn’t entirely sure what I would have done. I heard my Dad’s last words to me on every inhale, and I saw the dull look in my Paps’s eyes with every exhale. I breathed, but it didn’t make me feel any better.Get out. Get out. Get out.The sun was just starting to break through the clouds as we pulled in to a car park, nestled alongside a shaggy stretch of woodland. I turned to Cyrus, confusion drawing my eyebrows down. H
The Hunter and the Vampire 111 | BLOOD MOON
My back stiffened. Any attempts at lounging went out the window the second my Dad entered the room. I curled my hands into fists, digging my nails into the soft, broken skin of my palms.His face was shadowed. I ached to go to him, to bridge the gap between us. He’d placed a blanket on me as I’d slept mere weeks ago, and now he was staring at me as if I was a stranger. My breath latched in my throat as I tried to speak.“What is your decision?” I asked. My voice did not sound like my own.“This has not been easy for me, Callie. For us. You have made it incredibly difficult.”I stood on shaking legs. There was a softness to him beneath the hard shell that forced his mouth into a downward tilt. It spilled out rarely, but it was there.“I am sorry for what I have done,” I said. “But I do not regret it, nor do I wish to t
The Hunter and the Vampire 110 | FAMILY
The world collapsed in on itself as I waited for the door to open. My right hand remained curled in a loose fist, raised against the wood, knuckles bared. I flexed my fingers and, slowly, lowered my hand.I focused on my breathing, caught in that everlasting moment. With every rise and fall of my chest, I could feel the passage of time. It had to be moving. I was not trapped here.I turned halfway back towards Cyrus, needing to see him, to reassure myself that he was still here with me, when the door finally opened. I caught a flash of hair so dark it shone blue even in the dim light, and then hard arms were pulling me inside.“Callie,” Paps breathed, his body warm and unyielding as he held me close. “Oh, thank God.”I stilled against him, my arms at stiff angles by my sides. My heart leapt – he seemed glad to see me – even as it twisted and tangled, knotting itsel
The Hunter and the Vampire 109 | NOSTALGIA
“You know,” Cyrus said, his tone carefully casual, “I could do the same for your Dads – and the other hunters, too.”He set down the photograph he’d been holding, the wooden frame knocking against the hard surface of the kitchen counter. I didn’t have to look to know which photo in particular he’d been about to pack into my old, worn suitcase, scraped from years of overuse.The day had dawned slowly, the sun hiding behind blank white clouds that had grown grey as they had settled into the sky. The kitchen was dim, though Cyrus’s eyes still somehow glittered like stars on a calm sea as they met mine.I sighed, shoving the last of my cutlery into the same wicker basket I’d used to move my utensils to and from university for the last three years. It smelt faintly of fruity cider, and my nose crinkled slightly at the faded red stain down its side.
The Hunter and the Vampire 108 | HARPER
“Harp?” I called out. It was the first time I’d spoken to him since our argument. I’d heeded his wishes; as such, I had no idea if he’d even still be at home. I hoped he was. Whether for me or for him, I longed to offer him this chance to move past this. I had ruined myself. I didn’t want to destroy Harper, too.“Callie?” Harper thundered into the hall, eyes wide, chest heaving. “I – I went to find you, and you were gone.” He pulled me into a crushing hug, pressing me tightly against his chest. “Fuck. I was so worried, Cals.”My heart ached. “I’m sorry.” My voice sounded tiny.“I – I thought–“ he spoke wildly, the words spilling out between panted breaths. “I thought you were – oh, shit,” he swore, and then pushed me away, holding me at arm’s length to appraise me. &ldqu
