The Hunting

By L.F. Blake

It's been two years since Eric's lover disappeared without a trace. He's finally managed to move on, mostly by burying himself in work. That is, hunting down rogue werewolves. But he never did figure out how to forget the first and only love of his life. And he's never stopped feeling guilty for what he believes was his part in Jackson's death.

Only Jackson isn't dead.

When Eric's latest hunting assignment brings him to his old hometown, the place where he first fell in love with Jackson, he finds his high school sweetheart waiting for him, with one big problem: Jackson is a werewolf.

Torn between duty and love, Eric has one night to decide if he can stand to lose his lover again... by firing a silver bullet into his heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.F. Blake
• Release date: Sep 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370007882

L.F. Blake

L.F. Blake is a jewelry metalsmith, an amateur artist, a student of the tarot, and a lover of nature. She lives with too many houseplants, six furry children, and a large number of fish. Her first novel, The Far Away Years, was published when she was twenty-two. Her current work is set in the fictional city of New Berlin, where paranormal citizens outnumber humans, and darkness is always brewing.

Book preview

THE HUNTING

L.F. BLAKE

The following is a work of fiction. Names, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, events, or organizations, is coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

The Hunting

Copyright 2016 © by L.F. Blake

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition 2017

___

ONE

___

DEAD OF NIGHT, and the telephone screamed.

The first shrill ring ripped through the darkness of sleep. The second tore it away completely. Eric sat up, shoving back blankets with one hand and reaching for the phone with the other.

This is Morgan, he answered tersely, realizing as he spoke that it was the landline he’d grabbed. Against his cheek, the plastic receiver smelled of dust and disuse.

No one ever called the landline. He only kept it around for faxing; all the people who mattered had his cell number. So who would be calling at—he glanced at the nightstand, the alarm clock glowing red—quarter past three in the morning?

Silence on the other end of the line. Then a static sound like a deep breath exhaled slowly.

Hello? The hairs on the back of Eric’s neck prickled upright. Almost without thinking about it, he let his hand creep under the pillow to find his knife. Is anyone there?

The answer came as a low drawl. I’ve been thinking about you.

Eric’s fingers closed reflexively around the knife hilt. His heart gave one hard thud and stilled. Who is this?

You know who.

No.

Not possible, not after all this time, not now.

Why now?

Jackson, he said through clenched teeth.

The other man chuckled darkly. Did I wake you?

Where are you?

You’ll find out. I—

His voice cut off so abruptly, for a moment Eric thought he’d hung up. His heart began to pound again at a furious pace. "Jackson. Jackson."

I can’t talk now, Jackson said quietly. But I’m waiting for you. Don’t disappoint me this time.

Jackson, tell me where you are. Don’t you dare hang—

Sweet dreams, babe.

The line clicked.

Jackson?

No answer. Only more silence, and after a few minutes, the obnoxious blare of the off-hook tone.

Mechanically, Eric replaced the receiver. But he couldn’t move, or seem to form a coherent thought. Instead he sat in the center of the bed, holding the knife while his breath came too shallow, and he stared into the darkness of the empty room.

___

TWO

___

There was no point in going back to sleep. Eric didn’t bother trying.

Eventually the freeze on his brain loosened, and he crawled out of bed, dressed in the dark, and padded barefoot out into the kitchen to make coffee.

It had been two years since Jackson Reeves disappeared. Since Eric came home at dawn to find the apartment door open, the photographs and the wine glasses smashed, but not one object missing.

The only thing that had vanished was his lover of nearly a decade.

In the two years since, Eric had scoured every inch of New Berlin for clues to Jackson’s disappearance. For two years, he had crushed himself under the weight of grief, guilt, and loneliness while he brought himself to accept the fact that Jackson was dead.

He would have been better off dead.

There was no time now for more guilt or grief. Now he had to focus on the problem. Which was that Jackson was alive, and in all likelihood that meant he was no longer human.

And Jackson was waiting for him.

Where? And why now, after all this time?

Questions Eric didn’t yet know how to answer.

He was sitting at the kitchen table with his third cup of coffee and his fifth cigarette when the phone rang again. This time it was his cell, vibrating wildly against the coffee mug. He tensed, then relaxed as he recognized the number flashing across the screen.

This couldn’t wait until dawn? he answered, throat raw from too much smoke.

Crime waits on no man, Eric. Novak’s voice was obnoxiously cheerful for it being half-past four in the morning. Put your pants on and be in my office in ten. Scratch that. Meet me at the diner. I need some goddamn coffee.

Thanks, but my pants are already on. Eric took a long drag off his cigarette. You couldn’t call someone else. Sanchez maybe…

Hey, I thought you were saving up for retirement. A man of leisure by thirty, wasn’t that the plan?

Yeah, well. I thought I might cash in the vacation time I’ve got coming. Go to Ocean City, get a tan.

You’re tan enough, and Sanchez is on a job. Forget the vacation, Morgan. This one has your name written all over it.

Of course it did. He’d had a bad feeling from the moment