Sunglasses at Night (Claws Clause 3)

Somehow, Hudson went from being a blood junkie to a blood dealer. The irony wasn’t lost on the former cop. But so long as Hudson paid for the blood and didn’t steal it, Adam could justify their arrangement.

He had to.

After he left the D.P.R, once he realized that the thirst wasn’t going anywhere, he called Hudson and left a message that he would need to refill his supply. Then, while he waited to hear from him, he decided to head back toward the downtown area of Grayson where Hudson lived.

He was overly familiar with this section of the city. Close enough to the abandoned trainyard where plenty of city-dwelling Nightwalkers made their nests, he did most of his patrols around this area. For some reason, in the past year, it seemed as if Grayson was turning into a paranormal hotspot. And not just the good, law-abiding kind.

Then again, maybe it was because, now that he was a Para, he was finally more sensitive to their existence in the rapidly growing city.

As a Nightwalker, Adam was sensitive to a lot of things that he hadn’t been before. His eyes couldn’t take the bright lights—hence the sunglasses he wore around the clock—and his ears picked up on sounds more than a few blocks away. Then there was this kind of sixth sense he had, helping him become more aware of his surroundings.

It was that sense that warned him that someone had been tailing him for the last half hour at least.

He wasn’t sure who it was, or why they were on his ass, but he wasn’t in the mood to put up with it. He kept his weapon low, his hand gripping the hilt so that he could use it if he needed to. So long as he kept it angled at himself, the edge of the blade held a soft silver glow. That made it nearly indiscernible by the humans swarming the crowded streets.

Perfect camouflage.

Grayson was Adam’s beat, first as a cop, now as a nighttime protector. He knew every alley, every corner, every street. When it didn’t take much to lose his tail, he figured his stalker wasn’t a local before immediately putting it behind him.

Another hour went by and he still didn’t hear from Hudson Moonshadow. Giving in to the thirst, he paid six bucks for a small synthetic blood smoothie at Bloodbucks, choking it down in a bid to get past the worst of the ache in his throat. It did its job, even if it left him unsatisfied, and he was just tossing the plastic cup when the familiar, rich, delicious scent of freshly spilled blood wafted past his nose.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Of all of his newly sensitive senses, the one that was the strongest—the one that gave him the most grief—was his sense of smell. As he proved earlier at the D.P.R., it didn’t take much blood. Just a drop triggered a reaction.

One sniff and he knew that it was more than a drop.

One sniff and he knew that he’d go to his knees to taste that blood.

One sniff and he knew that he wasn’t the only one who would react that way, either.

Lifting his sword, he held the weapon out, watching as the red glow started near the point before covering the entire blade. It crept its way up to the engraved hilt, pulsing in time to his heartbeat, glowing even brighter.

Just in case, he spared a second to aim the enchanted sword back at his chest. The red immediately bled out, turning silver again. Adam let out a sigh of relief. He didn’t trust himself—not with the thirst riding him—but he did trust the magic in his weapon. Until the night it glowed red when he pointed it at himself, he would know he wasn’t as big a threat as he could be.

He jerked it, again aiming out into the Grayson streets. It didn’t take long for the red to return. Based on how rich the color was, the man-eating Nightwalker it was pinging had to be nearby.

The blood carrying on the wind? It was maybe a street or two over from where he was.

That was as precise a guess as he could make, but between his nose and his sword, he narrowed it down pretty quickly. There was an empty side street, a kind of abandoned cut-through, exactly two cross streets away from the Bloodbucks where Adam had been. When he raced toward it, following his instincts, he appeared at the mouth of the alleyway just in time to discover that another Nightwalker had beaten him there.

He wasn’t alone, either. The big male Nightwalker was taunting its victim, looming over a cowering human woman who had given up trying to run, her back up against the brick wall, her hands splayed at her side. She had her blonde hair pulled up in a ponytail, wearing a pair of light blue jeans, a simple tank, and a pair of dainty Keds that triggered his memory more than anything else did.

Adam nearly dropped his weapon.

It was her.

As if on cue, his body went tight. Rigid.

Hard.

His body, and his cock, too.

In a heartbeat, he was whisked back to a couple of months ago. When he was first getting used to being a turned human, and when he was first going out on hunts to give himself purpose—and to keep from going completely rogue himself.

His first real hunt had been a favor for Hudson, saving one of his Donor friends from being a vengeful Nightwalker’s dessert. When he realized that he could still dole out justice while taking his frustrations out on murderous Nightwalkers, going out at night searching for the lost and deadly ones became his new normal.

He saved her once. Using his enchanted blade as a guide, he had found a Nightwalker about to drain this very same woman. Adam saved her.