Flirting with Danger Bk 1

It had been several months since they had first contacted Moran with the problem of confronting the girls, Moran having to stay where he was because the hunt had lasted longer than planned. Connelly and Ivan had been scared, confused, and nervous almost to the point of insanity. But Moran had calmed them down with his advice and they had kept in contact with him since then, getting updates on the progress of the hunt.
They were all in the dining room while Amelia, Mira, and Aubrey prepared breakfast. The dining table was in the corner of the room next to the stairs, beside a pair of French doors. Mathias was in the chair next to the foot of the table closest to the kitchen, while Alister was at the head, back in his usual moody demeanor. Connelly sat on his left with his back to the French doors, fidgeting with his fingers, while Vincent helped Aubrey with the sausage, eggs, and pancakes, and Ivan leaned on the end of the counter and looked down in concentration. Connelly looked over at Alister with slight worry.
Things hadn’t been going well since Mira’s return. She had come back acting weird, going back and forth from being happy and angry about everything and paced even more in her room than normal. She and Alister had hardly spoken a word since she came back and Alister was worried there was something she wasn’t telling him. While Connelly on the other hand, thought she was finally cracking. He had always told her being angry at everything would make you insane eventually, and it seemed to be coming true.
But along with this thought, were the thoughts of how Louis was disrupting Kota’s happiness. He just wanted to pommel Louis for how he was torturing Kota. Alister too felt the same way, though he was more inclined to do it because he wasn’t directly tied to Kota like Connelly was. Though Connelly knew Alister wouldn’t do it because he didn’t want to ruin his newly found friendship with Kota.
“So? How is everything going?” Mathias asked Ivan as he sat, anxiously staring at him. Mathias had asked Ivan just two minutes earlier for him to ask Moran how things had been going with the hunt and seemed too stressed out to wait.
“Well, there’s some good news, bad news, and even worse news.” Ivan said, sitting back in his chair.
“What’s the bad news?” asked Alister.
“Well, the bad news is that we lost some people in the hunt, but the good part of that is that the losses were less than last time.” Ivan said, a smile lifting slightly to his lips.
“What’s the good news?” Connelly asked, looking up at Ivan.
“Moran is coming and will be here within the next few hours. He’s going to be staying with us for a while though. He said he wanted to see how everything played out. But the worse news is that he’s afraid he might be being followed.” Ivan said and looked at them all.
“Followed?” said Aubrey, tense fear in her voice as she almost dropped a pancake. Vincent wrapped his arm around her waist and whispered comforting words into her ear.
“Does he know by who, or maybe he can guess?” Mathias asked and Ivan was quiet for a moment, asking Moran.
“He says he’s almost sure it’s Rudi.” Ivan said, looking at Mathias. The whole room grew tense at the sound of his name, anger and hatred flowing through them all. Aubrey was flipping over another pancake and when she heard his name, she tensed and set the pancake flying to the ceiling. Amelia gave Aubrey a stern look and she smiled apologetically, while Alister and Connelly covered their mouths to hide their smiles.
“Rudi?” said Mathias, utterly appalled.
Rudi was a Transylvanian Vampire, which meant that he killed humans and was on the top of their more dangerous enemies list. He had always been involved in every hunt that had sprouted up for their kind. He also had taken a particular interest in Aubrey and Mira, wanting more females to breed with. And in fact he had almost succeeded in snatching Aubrey at one such hunt, but Vincent and Alister managed to save her just in time.
Rudi had also offered Connelly and Ivan a part in his crew at one time. “You two are a rare find, you know that?” he had said. “One of you controls the person’s emotions and movements and the other can read their minds and implant thoughts. A very dangerous duo and something that I would love to have on my side.” But the twins declined savagely. Rudi though didn’t seem to mind that either. He said he liked a challenge and had yet to find a more testing enemy until then.
“Well, that makes the situation we’re in even more dangerous.” said Mathias, looking down worriedly with a hand on his chin.
Connelly looked down and thought of Kota, the danger he had now put her in, and hated himself for it. How could he do this to her? How could he be so stupid? He had put the one person he most felt for in the most dangerous situation a human could be in. He had basically just killed her. He sighed and put his head in his hand.
The memory of them kissing and dancing came to his mind. Her beautiful blonde hair glowing in the sunlight, her soft smile and sweet laugh, her tender and innocent mind. They had just overcome a major hurtle and she was happy, but not for long. She would most certainly die now, in the cruelest way possible.
“Sue too.” said Ivan, looking down painfully. Connelly looked at him and sighed again. And Sue too. Oh, what had they gotten themselves into?
“I don’t know what we were thinking.” Ivan said as he sat beside him and closed his eyes, burying his face in his hands.
“You were thinking you loved them.” said Amelia, looking at Ivan and Connelly both. “We can fix this. We can get through this and still keep them safe.” she said and they both looked at her, questions in their eyes.
“How?” asked Connelly. “How are we supposed to keep them safe when Rudi could be anywhere?” His eyes were wide with fear for Kota and it pained Amelia to see them like this.
“We can do it.” said Mathias. “It’ll just take some work and we’ll have to be very careful.”
“But what do we do?” asked Ivan, just as anxious as Connelly.
“We will consult Moran when he gets here, but don’t ask him until then.” said Mathias, looking at Ivan when he said the last part. Ivan nodded and looked down.
“What about this slayer?” said Aubrey, looking from the twins to Mathias and Amelia.
“What about him?” asked Mira, not caring anything about him. She came over to the table, setting down the biscuits, and then sitting beside Alister with tension between them, though it seemed to lessen since Alister agreed with her on this.
“If anything he’d only make things worse for us. Not only will we have to find and kill Rudi, but we’ll have to keep a watch on the slayer too, as well as keeping the girls safe.” said Alister, not hiding the fact that he thought this slayer was just a nuisance.
“No, I mean he could help us.” Aubrey said, but Alister cut her off.
“Help us? How could he help us?” Alister let out a laugh at the thought.
“Well if you would just listen to me, I would tell you.” Aubrey snapped, looking at Alister sharply. Mathias looked at Alister, telling him to be quiet, and then looked back to Aubrey.
“He could help us by hunting or tracking Rudi.” she said, but before she could finish, she was once again interrupted.
“That’s what you have us for.” said Mira, looking at Aubrey and then to Mathias.
“I’m the tracker and Alister is the hunter. We could take care of him without the help of some slayer.” Mira said the word with disgust.
“Or,” Aubrey said, looking at Mira sharply, “since he’s close to Kota and Sue, he could keep them safe.”