Excerpt of Hunt Me by Shiloh Walker

"Hello, gorgeous."

The low, rich purr of her voice was enough to have Drew Quentin shifting in the miserable, busted chair. He also had to fight the urge to smile as he reminded himself he’d decided to ends things with one Dakota Coulter, the sexy, mysterious brunette.

He wanted her, he was halfway in love with her…and she refused to so much as give him her damn phone number.

He could have handled that.

But the cop in him was a little bit disturbed by the fact that Dakota Coulter had a past that was just a little too mysterious. Oh, her background check held up—too well, actually.

Something about her just had his instincts quivering.

She wouldn’t open up for him.

"Drew?"

He closed his eyes. "I’m here, Dakota."

"Having a rough night, sugar?"

The compassion in her voice all but gutted him. Damn it. This would be so much easier if she didn’t care—so much easier if he wasn’t in love with her.

"Yeah, you could say that." He rubbed his temple. He shouldn’t answered the damn phone. But shit, it wasn’t like he could avoid this forever. Feeling somebody looking at him, he looked up. Saw Nicole staring at him. Nicole Halloway, the local DA with the pretty blue eyes, sweet smile and dynamite body.

She was there, she was steady…she was everything Dakota wasn’t. She was the reason he needed to break things off with Dakota. He liked Nic. Cared for her—a lot. Thought maybe it could be more. But not if he was obsessed with a woman who wouldn’t ever hang around for longer than a night or two.

"I guess you’re not up for meeting me after work, huh?" Dakota sighed. "That’s cool, sugar. I understand. I’ll look you up—"

"No." He continued to star at Nic. He had to get this done. "We can meet. I…I’ve been needing to talk to you anyway, Dakota."

Now Nic’s brows arched up over big blue eyes. She knew he’d been seeing another woman, knew he wasn’t going to get serious until he’d been able to break things off. It was time he did that.

Even if it did feel a little like he was ripping out his own kidney with his teeth. Or even his heart.

*

Sighing, Dakota ended the call.

Something in Drew’s voice had her heart aching.

"We need to talk, huh, lover? Yeah. I’ve heard that line before." Then she tipped her head back, staring up at the nighttime sky. Granted, she hadn’t heard it much in recent years. Not since she’d slid into a crazy little world where vampires, werewolves and other things went bump in the night. Sometime back in the 70’s, she thought.

Yeah. She smiled absently, some echo of fondness trying to lift the melancholy settling over her heart. But it wouldn’t budge. She’d been kind of happy about coming to Asheville. Now? Not so much.

She was a Hunter without a territory or Master. Her random circuit had her rambling all over the east coast. She often ended up in this area, and she’d been just fine with that. Because this area held a lot of appeal for her, namely in the fine form of one Asheville city detective…Andrew Michael Quentin…Drew.

Drew—the cop who was getting ready to dump her.

She glanced down at her clothes, remembered she’d planned to change before she saw him. "Screw changing."

She was going shopping.

If he was going to dump her, she was going to show him in vivid, glorious detail what he was missing.

Maybe it would make her feel a little bit better.

Although she wasn’t particularly counting on it.