Must Love Hellhounds

stretched out his legs and tipped his chair back against the table, eyes intent. “Bill James.”
    It was a punch to the gut, a fucking knife to the heart. “How do you know about that?” Nobody but the three hunters who’d gone after him—and Simon, of course—knew about Bill. To the others, he’d died a hero, been given a full Guild funeral.
    Deacon continued to watch her with absolute, unwavering focus, a calm that made her wonder if the man ever let go. “My name is Deacon, but most people know me as the Slayer.”
    She stared. He wasn’t joking. Fuck.
    Pushing off the door, she walked very quietly to the bed and sat down on the edge. “I thought they made you up. Like the bogeyman.”
    “The Guild recruits and trains some of the deadliest men and women in the world. We need a bogeyman.”
    She shook her head. “Ellie’s never going to believe I met the Slayer.” It was a joke, the name. Taken off a television show. “The Guild really has a hunter whose job it is to hunt our own?”
    “Only when necessary.” He didn’t speak again until she raised her head. “And you know it sometimes is necessary.”
    “Bill was an aberration,” she said. “Something snapped in him.” The other hunter had taken to killing children, savaging them with an inhumanity that made her gorge rise even now.
    “Hunting our own is a rare thing,” Deacon acknowledged. “But it happens. That’s why there’s always a Slayer in the Guild.”
    “Why didn’t you track Bill?” Because it was Elena who’d had to kill the older hunter. Sara had been determined to do the gut-wrenching task—Bill was her friend, but he’d been Ellie’s mentor. But Bill had attacked her with a tire iron in an ambush none of them had seen coming. She’d been unconscious before she hit the ground. And her best friend had had to knife her mentor to death.
    He looked at me as if I’d betrayed him, Ellie had said afterward, her face splattered with Bill’s lifeblood. I know he had to die, but I can’t stop thinking that he was right. His blood was so hot.
    “Sheer bad luck,” Deacon said, dragging her back to the present. “The situation went critical so fast that I couldn’t get back in time—I was on the other side of the world.” He didn’t move, a predator at rest.
    “Hunting?”
    “Business,” he said to her surprise. “The Slayer’s rarely called for. I’m a weapons maker by vocation.”
    “Deacon? Wait a minute.” Pulling her bag across, she unzipped it and grabbed her crossbow. The familiar, stylized D stared up at her from the bottom of the stock. “This is your work?”
    A small nod. “I make tools for hunters.”
    “You’re the best there is.” This crossbow had cost her a mint. As had the bow she adored. “And you slay in your spare time? Nice.” Shaking her head, she put the crossbow back into the bag. “How come I’ve never heard of you personally?”
    “It’s not a good idea to be friends with the people you might one day have to kill.”
    “A lonely life.” She hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but she couldn’t imagine that kind of an existence. She was no social butterfly—not yet, anyway—but she had a core group of friends who kept her sane and balanced.
    “Slayers are chosen from the loners.” Raising his hands, he undid the first few buttons of his shirt. “Do you want the shower first?”
    She wanted to lick her lips, that’s what she wanted to do. The man’s skin stretched golden and strong over that muscular physique, and she could see dark curls of hair in the open triangle of his shirt. Her body tightened . . . expectant, ready.
    Cold shower time.
    “Thanks,” she said, getting up. “I’ll make it quick.”
    Deacon just nodded as she grabbed her gear and hauled ass. The Slayer was delicious, no question about it, but she wasn’t in the market for a lover. Not when she was about to make the biggest decision of her life. A decision that might make her existence even lonelier than Deacon’s.
    Male hunters were macho idiots—and she meant that in the best way—as a rule. Playing second fiddle didn’t come easily. And it didn’t get much more second fiddle than being the Guild Director’s man.
     
     
     
    Deacon finally unclenched the hand he’d fisted the instant he sat down in the chair. Sara Haziz was not the woman he’d been led to expect. Simon had some explaining to do.
    “Brown skin, brown eyes, black hair, my ass,” he muttered under his breath. The woman