* * *
“I’m sorry,”Liv groaned, holding an ice bag to her head. “I thought I could fix everything for you by taking him out.”
I sighed. “Luka is a Drake. Royalty. You are a junior hunter—”
She peeled her lips back and sneered at me and I held up my hands. “Okay, but, Liv, you could have been killed if he hadn’t called me to get you.”
Liv frowned. “Why did he do that? I wouldn’t have done that to my assassin.”
She looked about as puzzled as I felt when it came to all things Luka.
I nodded. “I know. He’s different. It’s confusing. We’re just going to chalk it up to a flaw in the system.”
Liv’s frown deepened. “I don’t like thinking a vampire is a decent person.”
I chuckled. “Girl, you have no idea.”
“We need chocolate.”
“We most definitely do.” I walked to the fridge and pulled out the milk and chocolate syrup, then went for the Oreos. When Liv and I said chocolate, we didn’t mess around. Chocolate cookies dipped in chocolate milk.
After the fourth cookie, Liv looked sideways at me. “Maybe he’s … I dunno.”
I laughed. “Don’t try to figure it out, it will shatter your world. He’s Luka. He’s not evil. We just need to leave it at that.”
She nodded, taking another cookie, but there was a wild look in her eye, the same look that I probably had when I started to question my own sanity. It felt good to come to terms with the fact that Luka was just one of the good ones and it felt even better that Liv agreed.
I opened my mouth to say something else when Maz texted me.
Maz: Come to my office. I want to talk.
I froze, cookie halfway to my mouth.
Liv peeked over my shoulder and winced. “I’m sure it will be fine.”
Yeah right, she’d probably heard about last night and my running off. I was feeling too lost and too confused to really be scared. If she found out what was going on with Luka and I, there was nothing I could do about it.
* * *
I knockedon Maz’s office door and she called out for me to enter. Opening the door, I found her at her desk, reading theHunter Scriptures. Her giant computer monitor sat to the right, the glow casting a bright light across her face. I had idolized this woman so much, and now I didn’t even know if I could trust her.
“You wanted to see me?” I asked, stepping deeper inside the office as Maz set down her book and looked up at me with kind eyes.
“Come sit, dear.” She patted the chair in front of her desk and I nervously made my way past the large mahogany bookshelves and slipped into the brown leather chair. My gaze fixated on the furnace at the far wall of her office. I wondered how many of those kills were really necessary.
She followed my gaze. “You almost died in Portland. It’s normal after that kind of trauma to freeze up the next time you go hunting.”
I breathed a little easier. She thought that’s why I froze up? I nodded, but decided to dig a little deeper. If Maz was telling the truth with everything, then there was nothing to hide.
“Maz … I just have been thinking a lot lately about who we kill and why—I mean … not vampires in general of course, because I know they can be evil, but more specifically…”
I paused, trying to read her face, which was completely blank and devoid of any emotion.
“Well, there was a fifteen-year-old looking kid vampire at the raid last night and I … just started thinking maybe he didn’t want to be changed into a bloodsucker. He was human once, and…”
Understanding dawned in her features and she smiled. “Your moral values were tested because he looked too young? So innocent? Oh, honey, that’s a good thing. That’s your God-given innocence showing.”
I relaxed a little. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
