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When Ransom Met Nyree
By Nalini Singh
Ransom was just glad it was after closing when the vampire smashed through the colorful stained glass doorway of a small community library in the Bronx. At least Ransom didn’t have to worry about civilian casualties—but he’d have to be quick.
This was a ground floor structure; if he didn’t pin the bloodsucker down then and there, the vamp would find another window through which to crawl, and they’d be on this run around New York all f*#king night.
Ransom hated running.
Just his luck it was part of the job description. “I’ve got your scent, you rancid assh#le!” he growled as he jumped through the hole in the glass, the shards crunching under his boots as he pounded his way over the hard-wearing carpet in the direction of the near-unbearable stench.
Having the nose of a hunter-born was not an advantage today.
The fetid odor wasn’t the vampire’s natural scent—no, that was passable. Some kind of cinnamon shit. Ellie would probably call it cinnamon bark infused with saffron or something else equally poetic, but that was Ellie.
Ransom tagged scents enough to track and didn’t bother with naming all the layers, but he hadn’t had to do even that tonight - not when the vamp had clothed himself in decaying animal skins. Man wasn’t yet in bloodlust, but give it another hour or two and capture would not be an option.
Ransom already had the execution-in-case-of-bloodlust authorization.
A high, feminine scream.
Which was when it struck him that the lights were on in the library and that despite the winter darkness outside, it wasn’t that late. Only about eight. Shit, did librarians hang around after closing to shelve books or do other librarian-type things about which he had zero clue?
Heart kicking hard, he went from irritated to lethal as he pounded toward the scream…only to come to a befuddled halt at the sight of a small, curvy woman in a long skirt and ruffled white shirt pounding the whimpering vampire over the head with what looked like an encyclopedia.
The really heavy kind.
One of the tomes, its spine broken, already lay next to the vampire—who was currently attempting to snarl but not quite making it before he got whacked over the head again.
“This! Is! A! Library!” the woman gritted out between hits, her black hair glinting in the light as she swung with all her might.
“I think I’m in love,” Ransom said to himself, only half-joking…right as the vampire snarled and swiped out—or tried to anyway.
Ransom’s crossbow shot pinned him to the ground on one side.
Striding over while the enraged librarian glared at the vampire and Ransom both, a lock of her hair falling out of its bun to kiss her cheek, he used another bolt to pin the vamp totally down. “Cool it.” A hard command. “I have an execution order with your name on it. You want me to use it?”
The vampire’s maddened eyes bulged, his fangs cutting into his own lips.
“For f*ck’s sake.” Ransom cold-cocked him.
Silence at last, the vampire unconscious. Hopefully, he’d be off the ledge when he came out of it, but if he wasn’t, Ransom would carry out the execution. There was no saving vampires in bloodlust; at least he’d given this vamp one last shot.
After retrieving his bolts, and slotting them into the sheath for later cleanup, he flipped the vamp over to hog tie him using his special technique that none of the bloodsuckers had ever broken. Only once the threat was fully neutralized did Ransom look back at the smoking hot librarian.
Arms folded over the book she’d used to brain the vamp, she was looking daggers at him out of eyes the color of his favorite dark chocolate, set in a softly rounded face, her skin a delicate brown. “Was that really necessary?”
Ransom raised an eyebrow. “Unless you wanted your throat ripped out, yeah.” She was cute, but man did she have no idea how fast the f*ckers could move.
“Why didn’t you just punch him in the first place?”
“Because I’m not keen on getting bit.” He tried out a grin—women always fell for his wicked grin.
This one tipped up her nose, her unusual accent becoming more apparent as she said, “Do you even realize how many books you’ve contaminated with blood spray?”
Making an argh sound, she put the encyclopedia on a metal cart thing, then went to pull more books off the shelf before she halted herself. “I need to take photos, document the damage for the insurance.” An arch glance. “Why are you still here? Take the vampire and go.”
The grin wasn’t working.
Ransom adapted, because even when giving him the gimlet eye, she was hot. And he’d never dated a librarian. “You have a giant hole out front. Stained glass window.”
She made a sound that was pure broken heart.
Gimlet eyes going soft and pained, she tiptoed around the vampire—and the blood spots—and made her way to the window.
Ransom followed her after making sure the vampire was down for the count. “That wasn’t me.” He held up his hands, palms-out, when she shifted her now-murderous gaze to him. “That was your friendly bloodthirsty monster.”
The librarian rubbed her face. “Who am I going to get to repair that at this time of night?”
And Ransom, who had zero building experience opened his mouth and said, “I can put up a board to block it off. Won’t take long to organize—I’ll call a Guild van to swing by and haul in the target.” It was a bad night for rogue vamps, so Sara had activated several mobile hunter-assistance crews. “I’ll ask them to drop by a hardware place on the way, pick up a sheet of that thin wooden stuff.”
That was how Ransom Winterwolf, feared hunter and a man who never had to spend a night in a cold bed unless he wanted to, ended up being glowered at for long minutes by a curvy little librarian while he attempted to bang in nails in the least demented manner possible.
She only left him to it after she’d finished vacuuming the floor for glass shards, having already brushed the bigger pieces into a dustpan with her lush lips set in a downward curve. “This window made the building beautiful rather than just utilitarian.” Her heart in her voice. “The city will never pay to replace it with the same.”
She was gone before he could respond.
By the time he completed the job and walked over to her, she’d finished taking her photos, and was putting the blood-damaged books onto her metal trolley. “Thank you,” she said, the words begrudging. “I hope it keeps people out—at least there’s nothing much to steal here.”
“I can stay, keep a watch,” Ransom said, because now that he saw how many books she was having to remove, he felt bad. This wasn’t a wealthy part of the borough and even if insurance settled up, it’d take time to source all those books—Ransom didn’t have to be a reader to figure that out. “I’ve hung around worse places. Just show me the magazine section and I’m set.”
A snort. “I’m not sure you’re any safer than the vagrants.”
Arms folded, Ransom leaned against the shelf she was emptying. “Hey now, be nice. Guild hunters perform a necessary service”—a half-curve of his lips that always worked—“and look sexy as hell doing it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Watch while I swoon.” Another book slammed onto the cart. “If you want to be useful, Mr. Hunter, go get us some food. I need to make a few calls, and I was planning to head out to a local noodle shop for dinner before you came crashing inside. It’s down the block to the left.”
Ransom walked to out front of the library, the night air holding enough of a bite to it that he’d definitely need to grab his motorcycle jacket from his locker at Guild HQ if he planned to ride home.
Despite Nyree’s instructions, however, he didn’t head to the restaurant; he wasn’t about to leave the smartass librarian alone while the building was less than secure. Instead, he made a call to a friend who lived nearby and who owed him a favor.
“Thanks, man.” He bumped fists with the lanky former street kid a short half hour later, the bag of takeout in hand. “We’re square.”
“No, we’re not.” The friend who’d watched his back on the streets now looked like he wanted to give up his cushy career as an IT consultant, and knife him. “You promised me that part I needed for my new model, but do I have it?”
Ransom unzipped a lower pocket of his pants. “Oh ye of little faith.” He pulled out the tiny box. “Planned to drop it off to you tonight, but got called out on a hunt.”
Eyes shining, his buddy opened the box with care, and whistled. “We’re more than good, man. I’ll even bring you extra noodles if you like.”
After his friend walked off into the softly falling snow with his prize stored in his jacket, Ransom re-entered the library to find the librarian no longer by the shelves. Following the sound of movement, he tracked her to a back area that seemed to hold the librarians’ desks and computers.
She was scribbling a note on a piece of paper, a frown on her face, but glanced up when he entered. And took a deep breath, her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted. “I can smell the deliciousness from here.”
Down, boy. Ransom shifted to make sure his body didn’t do anything stupid—even if that expression on her face…yeah, he wanted to see that in a whole different context. “Do we eat here?” he managed to say, his voice rough.
“No, we have a little kitchen area.”
It really was little, their bodies coming into accidental contact when she turned too quickly after picking up paper napkins for them from the tiny counter.
Her breath caught, her body going motionless.
Ransom stepped back even though she smelled so, so good and he wanted to sniff at her neck like a ravenous wolf. “Sorry.” He liked flirting, liked playing sexy games—but the one thing he never ever did was scare women if he could help it. “Want me to bug out? I can keep watch from outside.”
A long pause, her expression searching…before her shoulders relaxed. “No, sit. Eat.”
They sat, their knees touching due to the size of the table. But she didn’t pull away this time, and when he began to slurp an abnormally long noodle that just would not end, she made a strangled kind of sound, then gave up and giggled.
Ransom grinned, noodle finally conquered. “I’m Ransom. Last name Winterwolf if you want to complain about me to the Guild. Or you know, if you want to cyber-stalk me before we go out.”
“Nyree Te Wiata.” Her lips were soft, her eyes dancing. “I am never going out with you. Hunters have a reputation.”
Ransom leaned back, his legs spread out on either side of hers since she didn’t seem to mind his proximity. Then he gave her the slow smile that had led to many a hot, tangled night. “Well now, I’m going to have to take that as a challenge, Ms. Te Wiata. Who knows, could be we’ll end up married, white picket fence and all.”
Nyree threw back her head and laughed, the sound wrapping him up in soft chains that his instincts whispered were dangerous. As if they were touching parts of Ransom he kept under lock and key.
Parts born in the hell where he’d taken his first breaths.
He shook off the sensation; sure, Nyree was tough and clever and sexy enough to ignite his hormones, but Ransom only did light and easy. The whole relationships-and-forever kind of thing was for other people, people who’d had a life far less messed up than his own. He’d stick to what worked, keep it hot and fun, no promises or demands.
After all, what were the chances of a librarian and a hunter making it beyond a couple of nights of sexy, sweaty play?
Yeah, no, this wasn’t dangerous.
Copyright © 2025 by Nalini Singh
If you'd like to see more of Ransom and Nyree, they're first mentioned in the very first Guild Hunter novel, Angels' Blood.
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