Evelise couldn’t help the wild grin that spread across her face. She hoped you shoved her against a wall or something equally dramatic. She’d been getting bored of playing detective with you.“Was I wrong?” she asked, enjoying this far too much. “It’s true. You’re the reason they’re dead.” She shrugged like she wasn’t purposely trying to set you off.

Normally Evelise had slightly more tact when it came to dealing with hunters, but you were an exception. You needed her and that made her want to mess with you more. If you wanted your revenge, or whatever you rambled on about, you weren’t going to randomly stab her with that silver dagger strapped somewhere on you. You hunters were all same. Evelise didn’t think a single hunter had enough brains to truly cause her any threat—she hadn’t survived over a hundred years for nothing—but you were slightly more interesting than the last one.

A few years back a male hunter had made it his goal to kill her. Said she drained his wife, mother, or something. She couldn’t remember the details now—he was incredibly boring. Most men didn’t pique her interest. Too many of them thought she would be an easy target because she was a woman. Evelise loved watching the fear in their eyes as their life bled from them.

Maybe that was why she found you much more interesting. Women had always caught her attention more. Their blood was so much sweeter. You’d yet to give her a taste despite it being part of your agreement, though. Evelise could only be patient for so long.

“Had you been there that night,” she hummed, trailing off. She didn’t need to finish. You hadn’t mentioned blaming yourself, but she knew guilt must’ve been eating you alive. Why else would you ally yourself with the very thing you hunted? Had she been any other vampire, she would’ve butchered you on the spot. But she lacked the ego many came with. Evelise felt very little loyalty toward her kin.

She wet the tip of her fang. “Who was it that died again? I can’t recall.”

For once she wasn’t lying. Evelise knew you wanted revenge against the vampire that’d killed someone close to you (a partner? a child? a sibling?), but the reason escaped her. Information she deemed dull never stuck, unfortunately. Evelise was meant to find the vampire—a nearly impossible task considering you had no idea what they even looked like, but she would find out—and not kill innocent civilians while the partnership lasted. Hence why she was meant to be feeding off of you. She did have a habit of lashing out when she was hungry. Really her attitude was your fault.