title: Together To Join
author: Ivie, Jackie
description: WE KILL FOR PROFIT
  NO REFUNDS.  NO EXCHANGES.
  THE HUNTER
  Garrick Wolfgar Von Holstaad is the perfect vampire hunter.  Deadly.  Accurate.  Heartless.  He’s the best weapon in the ongoing fight with the Vampire Assassin League, and he knows it.  Taking out mated pairs is his specialty and if this woman would just cooperate, he’d add another patch to his collection…
  THE PREY
  Angelique du Previer is an innocent in a large world.  Always has been.  She finds it difficult every time she has to feed.  The last thing she wants is trouble.  But then she finds her perfection.  Her mate.  The one man who can make everything right again.  If he’d just stop trying to kill her.
  THE CATHARSIS
  Garrick’s stuck, and it isn’t her bonds that do it.  She shouldn’t be pretending to be a real woman.  She’s dead.  Decaying.  Ugly.  He uses these words as a shield, but even they seem powerless against her.  He’s never felt like he does with her.  And he wants more…
  -excerpt-
  “Oh. Good. You’re awake. Then maybe you could help me, instead of just lying there.”
  “With…what?”
  “Finding your transmitter.”
  That’s exactly when he knew. This wasn’t an afterlife, it was an earthly hell. And he was in the hands of the vampire lady. Nearly naked and feeling weaker than a babe. About the only thing he had left was his transmitter.
  “In…my shirt pocket.”
  “I already checked. You have lots of noxious things in your pockets, but nothing that sends a signal.”
  “Noxious…?”
  “You know very well what I’m talking of. Holy water. Crucifixes. I’d ask what the dirt is for, but I don’t care. Just about everything in every compartment of every pocket held a potion to destroy or incapacitate your victim.”
  “What…victim?”
  “Me.”
  “Oh. Right.” What a joke his life was turning into. She wasn’t the victim here. That much was obvious.
  “So where is it?”
  “What?”
  “Your transmitter.”
  “I…don’t know what…you’re talking about.” And he really needed to find some strength. He couldn’t even get a full sentence out.
  “Every hunter has a transmitter. To bring others in…for the kill. That’s not going to happen, understand?”
  He huffed out a breath that carried amusement.
  “I’m going to slice these skin-tight briefs off you next.”
  What could be the knife blade touched his thigh, creating ripples of goose bumps in its wake. Garrick reacted without thought, gripping at her wrists to stop her. And then he got the shock feeling again, sending him into an arch of agony as it slammed through him, stopping his heart and making every cell react with pain. His fingers immediately loosened, releasing her, while he fought for breath.
  “Silly man.”
  Cool fingers slid up his abdomen, sending such relief he nearly wept. Every vestige of pain evaporated at her touch. Garrick relaxed back onto the earth again. She was on her knees, her fingers radiating something that soothed and protected, and healed. He didn’t dare watch. He was afraid to.
  “You can’t harm me, remember?”
  He grunted.
  “That looked like it hurt. Bad?”
  “Screw you, lady.”
  “Oh, I don’t think that hurts. I mean, I’ve heard it hurts the first time, but probably not as bad as all that.”
  Oh no. She did not just say that. She couldn’t possibly be a virgin. No. He refused to acknowledge it and ordered his body not to react to it. She was a living corpse. Probably centuries old. It would be like humping the dead to take her. Worse. She was cold. Unattractive. Decaying just like the place she’d taken him to. He wasn’t attracted to her. He couldn’t be. And why the hell did she just have to tell him that?
   Why is this happening? Why now? And why to me? He didn’t say it aloud, but she answered anyway and Garrick caught his breath at the surprise.
  “You’re my mate, Garrick. It isn’t optional, you know. You need to stop fighting it.”
  “What if I…don’t want it?”  He’d say a prayer later. He still had his voice and it didn’t sound like he was going to cry.
  “What makes you think I do?”