The Hunted (Blood Series Book 0)

By T. Lynne Tolles

The Hunted is a Prequel Novella to the Blood Series Books starting with Blood of a Werewolf. As an added bonus the first ten and a half chapters of the first book are included with The Hunted.
Devon and Blake have been running from hunters most of their adult lives. They're used to life on the run - so much so that they've got it down to a science.
Meet our brother duo before they venture to California and meet up with their destinies in the shape of the O'Rielly sisters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T. Lynne Tolles
• Release date: Mar 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301868315

T. Lynne Tolles

T. Lynne Tolles can be found most days, juggling one of two cat muses and a laptop, tripping over an ancient Newfoundland dog and washing a never-ending pile of laundry. When life doesn’t get in the way, she writes paranormal romances for new adults. Her passion for witches, ghosts, and vampires together with a light-hearted wit are reflected in her loveable characters and the adventures of mystery they unravel to find their happily ever after.

Book preview

The Hunted

Prequel to Blood of a Werewolf

Devon approached a black Audi TT in the badly lit parking garage and hit the unlock button on his keychain. He was fully aware that he was being followed by someone or something but showed no sign of that knowledge to his follower. This wasn’t the first time he had been in this kind of predicament; he and his brother Blake had spent most of their adult life on the run. Some that came after them were better than others, but when you lived the kind of life Devon and Blake did, you learned a few things along the way.

His pursuer—a heavy set man, badly dressed, with no agility whatsoever—was mediocre at best and Devon had detected him almost as soon as he had left his office building. Devon had reasoned that this man used his mass and strength to overcome his victims, not nimble prowess.

Devon could see his own reflection on the car as he reached for the door handle. Even as he feigned unawareness, his dark eyes searched for his attacker in the reflection. He caught just a glimpse of the lumbering man making a dash for him in the darkness.

Devon skillfully spun around as the heavy-handed man grabbed at him from behind. Devon was deceptively strong for his just under six foot tall, lean stature. He used his body weight in his spin to propel the briefcase in his hand into the face of his attacker. The weight of the laptop within served as an added kick to the man’s face, leaving him stunned and bloodied from a newly split lip.

Devon’s attacker quickly steadied himself and threw a punch. Devon sidestepped the punch, surprising the man, and slammed the opened door of the Audi into his body, pinning him between the car and door. When Devon pulled the door open again the man moaned, staggering forward where the door had been. Devon locked his hands together and slammed them down hard on the back of the man’s neck, rendering the man flat on the ground and out cold.

Devon grabbed his briefcase with what he knew contained a smashed laptop. He grumbled as he tossed it into the car onto the passenger’s seat, then jumped in and started the car before he’d even closed the door. Slamming the huge man’s body into the door had sprung the door’s hinges and it took three attempts to get it to close well enough that he could drive the car.

He slammed the gearshift into reverse and stomped on the accelerator, smoking the tires on the slick cement floor, and then threw the gearshift into drive and peeled out leaving only smoke and tread behind him.

Once out of the parking garage and into the streets of the city, he pulled his smartphone out of his jacket pocket. He hit a button and said, Text Blake.

The phone beeped and he said, 611, send. The phone beeped in response.

Over the years Devon and Blake had come up with codes to inform one another of impending problems.

911 meant, I’m in trouble. I need help, and the receiver would engage a GPS tracker programmer on their phone to locate the sender and head there to help.

811 meant, I’m in trouble at home.

711 meant, I’m in trouble, could use a distraction.

611 meant, I’ve been attacked. I’m okay. Meet me at the house.

This was the message he was sending to his brother now. It had been tested, used, and amended many times. If one brother made it to the house before the other, he’d pack his own stuff, then pack for his sibling if he hadn’t shown up yet. It was fast, well-practiced, and allowed them to get as far away from the impending danger as they could in a short amount of time. There were many variations to the plan and many predefined codes. It was rather like a playbook a football quarterback and his teammates would memorize for different patterns of defense and offense.

It saddened Devon that their lives had come to this—a bunch of codes, moving all the time, and always, ALWAYS there was the danger of one or both of them being killed. He wanted more of a life for his little brother—stability, a home, some place they could feel safe. He wished these things for himself as well, but this was the life they’d been dealt. No sense in wishing for things out of your control, he thought.

Devon looked over at his briefcase as he set the smartphone on the armrest between the two seats. He shook his head and smirked, releasing a long, loose lock of his dark hair from his ponytail that swept across his cheek, tickling his nose. Damn…another computer, he thought with disappointment. Though he had gotten into the habit of backing it up daily, it was a rather expensive way to do battle and a pain in the neck to load and set up the way he liked, but it worked and it was better to have to replace his computer than be killed, leaving his brother to fend for himself.

A couple more turns and finally he was on the freeway heading to the condo. He stomped on the accelerator and felt the transmission slip easily into its last gear as he weaved fluidly in and out of the traffic. The tension and adrenaline waned as he took a deep breath and sighed with a little relief. Driving had always been relaxing to him. The sweet smell of leather, the purr of the engine, and a driver’s seat that conformed to him like it was an extension of his body giving him support in the turns—this was relaxing to him.

A few minutes later he passed a highway sign announcing the approaching exit when his phone chimed. He looked at it to see an emoticon from Blake—a semicolon and a capital ‘P’ responding to his displeasure at having to move on again. Devon understood Blake’s disappointment and felt the same.

Taking the long, sweeping off-ramp, Devon was making his way through streetlights and stop signs into the neighborhood they had barely gotten to know. This had been a short stint, less than three months. Either they were getting sloppy in covering their tracks or the hunters were getting smarter.

Looking back at the last two places they had rented and how they lived their lives, he felt sure that it must be due to sloppiness. The hunters they had seen lately hardly seemed like rocket scientists; however, he hadn’t really carried on any kind of conversation with the fellows. There’s not really time for small talk when you’re trying not to be killed.

It must have been those speeding tickets Blake got and that little run in with the Feds when he got caught hacking into the police and DMV database to clean up his driving record, Devon thought. Their uncle had pulled some strings with somebody important and gotten the authorities to drop the charges, but if the hunters were looking in the right place at the right time, they’d have had a straight shot to their front door.

It had been a scary time for them both. Blake was looking at hard time in federal prison and if that wasn’t enough, Devon would be on his own without a back-up. Blake could be a pain in the butt, but he ALWAYS had Devon’s back. Blake was known to be flaky—he admitted as much—but when it came to Devon, Blake was unfailing. He wasn’t as strong as Devon, but he was quick, wiry, and agile for someone so tall. Smart too—too smart for his own good. Devon always wished Blake would put that talent to good use, but so far it had almost landed him in an eight by eight cell with bars for a window.

I knew that fancy car of his would cause us trouble, Devon said out loud to no one but himself, shaking his head. He knew, though, it would be a long, drawn out war to try and get Blake to get another car. If Blake was anything, he was stubborn—stubborn as a mule. Devon thought back over the years and wondered just how many times he’d thought or said those words to his brother. Thinking about his brother’s stubbornness and the trouble it caused them put a faint smile on Devon’s face.

Devon pulled into the parking lot of the condo complex and backed into a spot that was not his own where he and his brother made sure the light was always broken. It made the black car almost invisible. Like a cat, Devon made his way slinking from one shadow to another until he made it to the familiar door. Without making a sound, he unlocked the door and quickly stepped in. He kept the lights off and moved silently through the condo grabbing this and that from here and there until he had assembled all that he needed—the necessities. The rest could be bought on the road or when they settled again.

So far so good, he thought. Often the hunters came in pairs and would be waiting for them back at their latest sojourn. Of course he wasn’t out of trouble just yet. With a pen light he continued on to Blake’s room, packing those things his brother had informed him were requisite to his needs. Some of the items Blake had told him not to forget seemed ridiculous to Devon, but he knew there’d been a few things he had requested his brother grab for him that may have seemed the same to Blake. Like the copy of War and Peace he’d put on his necessity list. What Blake didn’t know was that it wasn’t the book itself that meant anything to Devon, it was the flower pressed between the pages he had put there the day of their parents’ funeral. He had taken that flower from their mother’s coffin that day and deposited it in the book. It served no real purpose, the dry, frail blossom, but it was his last connection to their parents and he wasn’t willing to part with it, if he didn’t have to.

With bags packed and slung over his shoulder, he texted Blake another code informing him he had everything and was heading to the designated meeting place. As before, he kept to the shadows trying not to be seen. He was alert to anyone or anything that made a sound or posed a threat in his