Shadow Hunter (The Execution Underground) by Kait Ballenger Page A

willing to risk your life. I can see your pain over your brother, and I can’t imagine how painful losing your parents to vampires at such a young age was, but there are few things worth throwing your life away over, and your family wouldn’t have wanted you to throw it away over them.”
    Her heart stopped, and her eyes widened. How did he know about...?
    She swatted his hand from her face. He froze as she stepped away. “How did you know that?” she rasped. “How did you know my parents were killed by vampires, too?”
    He didn’t respond.
    No. No. It couldn’t be.
    Damon Brock. Damon Brock. The words fell out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “Has anyone ever called you B?” No. She didn’t want to know. She couldn’t know. It would ruin everything.
    Damon flinched as if she’d struck him.
    Before she knew what she was doing, she rushed forward and shoved his chest as hard as she could. He didn’t even stagger. “Do they call you B?” she yelled.
    Tears poured down her face. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t. No. She pummeled his chest, but he didn’t move, didn’t defend himself. “Did he call you B?” she screamed.
    The muscles in Damon’s throat strained as if he could barely choke out the words. “He called me B because my last name is Brock. That’s why I signed the letters that way.”
    All sound, all movement, all feeling...stopped. Her hands shook at her sides, and her heart thumped against her chest, the sound of her own blood throbbing in her ears. Every inch of her body went numb.
    Mark had always referred to his partner as B. She never knew it was the letter for a last name. She always assumed it was his first initial.
    “B’s an amazing fighter, Tiff. I wish you could meet him. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to watch my back.” He nudged her in the shoulder. “Good-lookin’ guy, too. Maybe you’ll find a hunter like him someday and then I won’t have to take care of you anymore.” He grinned.
    Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. If he’s anything like you I’d kick him to the curb.”
    Mark met her eyes. “Seriously, Tiff. He’s a good man.”
    Mark’s voice rang in her ears—the day he’d asked Tiffany to write to B. His fighting partner. The man he’d looked up to when they no longer had a father. Mark had said B had been like an older brother. His best friend.
    Something inside Tiffany snapped. No. No. No. No. No. No. She had not slept with the man responsible for her brother’s death. She hadn’t lost her virginity to him. She sobbed, sobbed as she hadn’t sobbed since she’d buried the last person she ever loved, the last and only person who had ever loved her, only three months earlier.
    “How could you abandon him?” She choked on her own tears, barely able to speak. “Why didn’t you save him?”
    She stumbled backward, and Damon grabbed hold of her wrists, holding her up so she didn’t collapse to the floor. Her whole body shook as she looked up at him.
    A single tear ran down his cheek, and the pain on his face was staggering.
    “No!” She wrenched away from him. How dare he cry on Mark’s behalf? As if he hadn’t been capable of saving him? “Don’t you dare act like you cared about him! He trusted you and you let him down, and now he’s dead because of it.”
    Damon’s hands clenched into fists, and his pain was so palpable she felt it in her bones.
    Tears continued to roll down her face, drenching her cheeks. “He looked up to you. He loved you, and you let him die in Caius’s arms.”
    Damon’s fist collided with the wall so hard plaster fell to the ground, and she felt the force of the blow in her feet. He threw another punch. Dust flew through the air as he released his rage. Then his head snapped toward her.
    “You think I don’t blame myself for his death every day?” His ice-blue eyes blazed with anger, pain, sadness, remorse. He strode to her and grabbed her shoulders, staring hard into her gaze. “You think I