The Last Vampire Hunter

Chapter 50

Alaric

Fucking Philip. My Maker. The Vampire who condemned me to this half life. He's the one she chose to be intimate with. The bastard. The thought of it just made me sick. The anger rose again, causing me to growl again.

To his credit, Callum was quiet beside me as I darted around trying to find some scent, some sign of the fucking Vampire who'd infiltrated our perimeter and jeopardized our homebase. I found the tree where Aliana had been pressed against. The ground where their bodies had met.

Aliana's scent was evident everywhere, the soft lavender permeating the air at every breath. Her dainty footprints leading to and from the clearing, along with Dog's paw prints were visible, but the Vampire? No. Any sign of him was so faint as to almost be non-existent. How? How had he done this?

"I can only vaguely smell him. No footprints. No sign of him. I don't get it?" Callum looked up. "Some sort of potion, maybe?" I nodded. "Maybe. The Council's resources are deep. Perhaps they've confiscated potions and kept them or perhaps their high tech labs have created something new. Either way, there is nothing here."

I kicked a stone in frustration. "So. Now we have a problem. The Vampire came damned close to our cabin. He could easily follow Aliana's scent...or any of our scents. Honestly, I can smell a little of all of us around here. We've been operating under the assumption that no one would find us here. Now..we need to decide. Take a chance that King Nicholae is on his way with a battalion to end us or hope Philip keeps our location a secret and keeps Aliana safe."

Callum was silent for a moment. "I think our time here was coming to end anyway. We're already on alert because of the trap. It might be time to move on. The next Cabin is almost ready. I say we go now and we can work together to finish up the rest of the work." Callum was right. It was time to move on. The problem is that Philip could follow that Mark, which meant we either needed to kill Philip or find a way to remove the Mark.

I kicked another stone. "Fine. It's time to move." Callum put his hand on my shoulder. "Alaric. You were unnecessarily harsh with Aliana. She made a mistake, but she didn't need you to humiliate her that way. She's confused. She has a Vampire Mark on her, controlling how she feels and...she's been living with them for nearly a year. She just turned seventeen. She's still a kid. You need to cut her a break."

I gave him a sheepish look. He was right. I was angry because she'd slept with Philip, but it was an anger motivated by jealousy...a jealousy I had no right to feel. "Her birthday's tomorrow, actually."

He smiled. "Come on. Let's go."

We returned to the cabin. Sawyer was busy drying out the tub in the back. Kate was standing next to him and they were chatting. The fact that she was touching his arm and flipping her hair as she chatted, didn't go unnoticed. He'd noticed Sawyer's scent on her as well. It seemed Kate might be moving on.

I looked and Aliana was nowhere to be seen. I closed my eyes and took a long whiff. The trail of her scent led to her room. I could make out her soft even breaths. She was asleep.

Sawyer tipped the tub over to let it finish drying out and walked over to us. His face was impassive as he approached us. Kate's face was just the opposite. She looked at me and her eyes showed disappointment...and sadness.

For a while now, she'd been doing some heavy-handed flirting with me. I admit, I enjoyed the attention. Kate was funny, bright and sexy. I haven't acted on her advances, because Kate is Callum's daughter and Callum is my best friend. He asked me to stay away from his daughter and I've done my best to honor that.

Then Aliana joined us. Kate was immediately jealous and suddenly she was following me around like a jealous wife. I didn't have a moment to myself. What made it more annoying was that her jealousy was unfounded. To my dismay and slight annoyance, Aliana made absolutely no move to flirt with me or show me any interest at all. She was just as likely to spend her time with Sawyer or Callum as me. In fact, the stupid wolf got more action than I did. I rarely got a moment alone with the girl except during training and even then Kate was skulking around in the shadows waiting to pounce.

"Where is she?" I asked tiredly. I had directed the question to Sawyer, but it was Kate who answered. "She's asleep." I nodded not looking her in the eyes. I was going to walk away when she grabbed my arm. "I figured you would want to know. I gave her some tea laced with Levonorgestrel." I cringed at that.

"Right....thanks." My jaw was tight. She was right. Aliana could have become pregnant. The Levonorgestrel would ensure that a pregnancy wouldn't take. "She doesn't know. But...someone ought to talk to her about the chances for pregnancy."

I raised my eyebrows at that. "I don't intend for her to get another opportunity to meet with Philip again." She smirked at my words. "Yeah. Well. She may have more to worry about than just Philip now, wouldn't she?" She couldn't hide the bitterness in her voice.

I didn't say anything, causing her to shake her head and walk away. I looked at Sawyer. "Any chance you can speak with her about taking a contraceptive?" Sawyer raised his brow? "Umm. Ok. But, I'm not going to force her into anything. If she doesn't want to take it, I don't think it would be right to trick her into it. And I'm going to tell her about the Levonorgestrel."

I nodded. "Ok. Her choice." I turned to walk away and he grabbed my arm. "You should know. Ani was pregnant with Alexander's child. He unknowingly caused her to abort the child when he lost his temper and beat her." The anger rose inside me at the thought of it even as the bile came to my mouth. "Alexander asked me to keep it from her...I did. And now, there's no point in her knowing about it. But, I promised myself I would never do that again. I'm not the one you come to if you want to keep secrets from her. What Kate did...taking the choice away from her...that wasn't fair."

My jaw tightened. "I got it." He nodded. He let go of the arm he was still holding and I walked the short distance to the door of her room. I opened the door. She was asleep, lying on her side, her face slightly turned up. She was so beautiful. So innocent looking it was hard to believe she had just been with my archenemy. What was more. I realized I was angry because she had chosen him over me.

I looked at the large black mass that lay next to her, its head resting on the curve of her waist. Dog looked up at me with inquisitive eyes, it's head tilting slightly as if waiting for me to explain why I was just standing in the doorway staring. "Stupid wolf." I muttered. The dog whined slightly, yawned, snuggled deeper into the crook of her waist and went back to snoring. "Fucking stupid wolf." I muttered again.

I closed the door. I promised I wouldn't go near the girl until she was eighteen. Just one more year. I closed the door and turned to my room. As I did, I noticed Kate sneaking into Sawyer's room. I guess she got tired of waiting for me. Surprisingly I wasn't upset or even annoyed. I was relieved.

I closed the door while visions of Aliana floated in my mind. It appeared it would be another long and lonely night, haunted by only one thing...deep green eyes.