Blood Dark (29 page)

T
he night air
washed over Kane as he sauntered around the circumference of the building. He leaned back against it and gazed ahead at Lowtown through the chainlink fence before sinking to the ground.

‘Hi.’

Kane looked across his shoulder to see Tuly stood hovering at the corner.

‘Hi back at you,’ he said, before looking back ahead. He stubbed out the cigarette he’d been smoking. ‘No telling,’ he said, giving her a wink.

She smiled, flashing him her lycan canines. ‘If I can smell it, they can smell it. That’s how I found you.’

She sat beside him, her knees drawn loosely to her chest, mirroring him, the breeze blowing wisps of fair hair from her face as she looked ahead for a few moments.

She dropped her knees so her legs were crossed and, in her lap, opened the book she’d carried under her arm.

Kane glanced down at the picture. ‘Your work?’

She nodded. ‘This is Corbin,’ she said. ‘Solstice.’ She pointed to the other pictures in unison with the end of her colouring pencil. ‘Me. Jask. Phia. Eden. Jessie.’

‘Eden and Jessie, huh?’

‘They’re our family now. They helped me and the others.’

‘So I hear.’

She looked up at him. ‘And did you hear that I helped kill a fourth species?’

‘Sure did,’ he said, holding his fist towards her.

She bumped her tiny fist against his.

‘You’ve got warrior blood in you, kid.’

She smiled as she continued colouring. ‘I know.’

‘So you’re going to grow up to be a great lycan leader one day, huh?’

‘If we make it.’

Kane felt a snag in his chest at the solemnity of her words – at a weight too heavy for someone so young to be carrying. ‘Who’s your father?’

She squinted up at him, her confusion clear. ‘Corbin.’

‘So there’s no question you’ll make it, right?’

She smiled.

‘Anybody who tells you otherwise is talking bull –’ He stopped himself abruptly. ‘Crap.’

She bit into her bottom lip as she suppressed her smile. ‘I know what you were going to say. They’re just words.’

‘Yeah, well, tell your parents that.’

‘Phia swears all the time. Then she always adds on “sorry” every time I’m stood there. She makes me laugh.’

‘You like her?’

Tuly nodded as she continued to colour. ‘So does Jask.’ She puffed out her lips. ‘A
lot
,’ she added, her eyes theatrically wide as she met Kane’s gaze briefly. She turned back to her colouring. ‘She makes him smile. When she’s not making him scowl.’

‘That’s what happens when you care about someone,’ he said, resting his head back against the wall. ‘They drive you crazy.’

He could feel her eyes burning into him.

‘I can draw you in it too, if you like,’ she said.

Kane exhaled tersely. ‘No, it’s all right, kid. My family days are over.’

‘Then why are you here?’ she asked.

She held her inquisitive and probing gaze steadily on his as she awaited his response.

‘Wow,’ he said, just about managing to break away. ‘They should have you heading up an inquisition.’

‘What’s that?’

‘For you, a gift by the seems of it.’

‘So you don’t have a mate?’

‘Not one as nosey as you are, Tuly Saylen,’ Jask said, leaning against the wall. ‘You’re giving Solstice a heart attack. Back to her, please. You’ve got a couple more things to pack before you go.’

Tuly sighed and got to her feet. She sent Kane a smile over her shoulder before she disappeared around the corner.

‘Inquisitive kid,’ Kane said, maintaining his seated position.

‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’ Jask looked down at the cigarette. ‘Are you polluting my territory, Malloy?’

‘You either want me to be useful or perfect. I can’t be both.’ Pulling his knees up, Kane scooped up a handful of stones, opening his palm towards Jask as he came to sit alongside him where Tuly had been. He threw a stone through the chain-link fence, it skimming clean through the gap before the next one rebounded back at him.

Jask grabbed a few, following suit. Chucking them at the holes, he cleared them every time.

Kane exhaled tersely off the back of a smile as he fleetingly met Jask’s triumphant gaze.

Jask shrugged. ‘Comes from being the superior race,’ he declared with a playful taunt.

Kane flashed him another smile before he looked up at the dense sky, at the moon trying so hard to break through a matting of ominous clouds.

‘So I assume from your somewhat solemn expression that it
is
him?’ Jask asked.

‘It’s him,’ Kane said as he removed the paper from his back pocket and handed the sketch of the symbol to Jask.

Jask gave out a heavy sigh as he rested his head back against the wall. ‘At least we know. What now?’

‘She’s offered to help.’

‘Caitlin?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Help how?’

Kane looked ahead again as he threw another stone through the fence. ‘By threatening Caleb to find out where the supplies for you are. By getting Leila and Alisha out of there.’

Kane knew the silence echoed the same chain of thought in Jask that he’d had the second Caitlin had suggested it.

‘But you’re not considering this?’ Jask asked.

‘Put this entire fucking district in her hands at a time when she trusts me least? Now that she knows everything?’

Met with Jask’s silence, Kane threw another stone through the fence and then another.

‘But?’ Jask asked.

Kane chucked another stone through the fence, this time with a little more force. ‘The only alternative is to invade and give Sirius what he wants.’

He felt Jask’s gaze linger even after he’d looked away. ‘There’s more to this. What’s getting to you?’

Kane stood up, stepped up to the chain-link fence, wrapped his fingers through it. There was a mist lingering over Lowtown, fuelled by the pollution that sometimes moved on it. It gave the district a stoic air, the threat of rain darkening its summit, the blackened windows glinting in the distance.

‘It’s not just about the risk of what she can do,’ Kane explained, ‘it’s about being the one to send her in there. When I went to see Shiver, she didn’t only tell me there was no other way to close the dimension, she told me Caitlin wasn’t going to make it to the end of this.’

‘To the end of what?’

‘She didn’t specify. But she said when the time comes, my kind are going to need me; that I was better cutting my losses now. That means it’s before everything kicks off which sounds fairly fucking imminent to me. So what if by involving Caitlin, I put her in the firing line? What if she dies because of me, just like Arana did?’ He rested his forehead against the cold metal. ‘What do I do, Jask? How do I make this decision? How do I choose between Blackthorn and her?’

‘Do you love her, Kane?’

Yes
felt like the easiest, most natural word to fall from his lips.

But he couldn’t say it.

The silence lingered.

‘I saw her kissing Morgan tonight.’

‘You think there’s something going on?’

‘I think I wouldn’t blame her. She’s spent so much of our relationship being in the dark. I fob her off. I’m selective with what I tell her. I give her no reason to think I believe in her at all. Caitlin needs that intimacy. She needs that trust.’

‘You’re justifying her kissing another guy?’

‘No. But Morgan was there for her. He was there when I wasn’t. Because that’s how it is: I
can’t
be there for her. I can’t be with her
and
do what I need to do here. But I can’t let her go either, Jask.’ He looked across his shoulder at him. ‘So you tell me, because I’ve never been in love before: is that what love is?’

‘You see her kissing another guy and you’re still intent on protecting her, of putting her before your own? Sorry, buddy, but it sounds like you’ve got it bad to me.’

Kane tore his gaze from the view in the distance to look back at Jask.

‘And what if I’m wrong about her? What if you were right at the beginning? What if she
is
playing me? I’m talking about the entire district, Jask. My entire race. Yours.’

‘Kane, you read people better than anyone else I know.’

‘I didn’t that night in the corridor. I didn’t see myself being pumped with hemlock. I didn’t see her as being one step ahead then.’

‘Maybe she
is
playing you, Kane. Or maybe she’s giving us the best chance of stopping the vampire uprising, of closing that dimension, without Sirius knowing a thing. Whatever decision you come to,’ Jask said, stepping up alongside him, following his gaze to the district beyond. ‘I’ll back you. But we don’t have long. If we’re going to raid, we need to get a plan together. Now.’

K
ane returned
to the chamber to find Caitlin in the same position, her knees to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. She looked up as, this time, he closed the door behind him.

He sat beside her, the leg nearest to her outstretched, the other slightly bent as he rested his forearm on it.

He let the awkward silence consume the short distance between them for only a few moments.

‘I should have said I’m sorry about Max. I know he was all you had left of your family, Caitlin.’

She met his gaze only fleetingly before she brushed imaginary threads from the edge of the sweater he had given her. Tamara’s sweater. ‘And I’m sorry what happened to Tamara.’

As he met her gaze and held it, he had no doubt she meant it. ‘We’ve all lost people in this, Caitlin.’

‘And now we’ve lost each other.’

As she looked deep into his eyes, he tried so hard not to break away first but her eyes burned too deep, the intensity behind them reaching depths he’d once thought he’d lost access to.

A time before her.

Before Caitlin.

And his heart ached with that same intensity as the look in her eyes as she awaited his confirmation.

‘You were right,’ he said, ‘about us not standing a chance.’

‘Did you care, Kane?’ she asked, her eyes glossing. ‘Was
any
of it true?’

This time he met her gaze and he held it. ‘It was all true.’

‘Just not worth the fight, huh?’

‘Just not enough of a priority,’ he declared.

She bit into her bottom lip as she fought back the tears; as she looked away so he wouldn’t see.

‘Master vampires are supposed to be free to conduct their duties,’ he said as he watched her brush a tear from her cheek, her head still turned away from him. ‘I was pushing my luck taking you back to mine that night after we spoke in the porch.’

‘Then why did you?’ she asked, her curtness betraying the hurt, her head snapping across her shoulder so she could look him square in the eyes.

‘If I’d known then about how close the prophecy was, I probably wouldn’t have.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘You told me you loved me.’

‘If I did, I would have let you go.’

She frowned and shook her head slightly as she looked to the floor ahead before looking back at him.

‘Still sure you want to help my cause?’ he asked.

‘It’s all of our cause, Kane. When I said I can get what Jask and his pack needs, I meant it. And when I said I can get Leila and Alisha out, I meant that too. I want this dimension closed as much as you do. Why would I not?’

‘So you have a plan?’

‘Of course I have a plan.’

He knew she wouldn’t have been sitting there panicking or wallowing. After what she’d seen, Caitlin would have spent every spare second working a way out.

A massive part of him wished she hadn’t; a massive part of him that didn’t want his feelings on the line any more than they already were. Because it was easier to hate her. It was loving her that was tough.

And it was loving her, a selfish love, that had him saying what he shouldn’t have said.

‘There’s something you need to know if you’re considering going back in there,’ he said. ‘Something you have a right to know.’

C
aitlin didn’t
like the way Kane dropped his gaze. She liked the way he exhaled even less.

‘When I was trying to find other ways to close this dimension,’ Kane said. ‘I was told you weren’t going to make it to the end of this.’

As his navy eyes locked back on hers, her pulse raced, a light perspiration coating the back of her neck, a light-headedness sweeping over her at the gravity in his voice, more so at the sorrow in his eyes.

If ever she doubted it, it was there.

He cared. He
did
care.

Suddenly growing old didn’t seem so scary. Suddenly the prospect of any of those extra moments with Kane seemed even more precious.

‘The end of
what
?’

‘This war. Whatever is coming. There’s no future in it for you, Caitlin,’ he said, the gloss in his eyes making her bite back her own tears. ‘I think you have a right to know there’s nothing for you to gain out of this.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘I told you: you have a right to know.’

She frowned. ‘You’re considering letting me do this. But you’re hoping I’ll back out.’

He tongued his incisor beneath his closed lips as he looked away again.

Caitlin knelt up to face him. She caught hold of his jaw, forcing him to look at her. His gaze was steady, resolute. ‘You know I can do this so why?’ she asked. ‘
Why
are you hoping I won’t?’

Kane caught her wrist, removing her hand. But he kept a hold of her, his gaze buried deep in hers.

‘I know it hurt,’ she said, ‘me believing the things that were said about you. What I think about you matters to you, doesn’t it, Kane?’

‘And you were right to try and get some semblance of a normal life,’ he added. ‘You knew it wouldn’t last. We both did. But I don’t regret a second. And I wish I did because that would make this easier, but I don’t regret one moment we had together, even the bad ones. Better a bad moment with you than a good one without you. I wasn’t kidding when I said that ankle bracelet was a family heirloom. It belonged to my mother. My father gave it to her. It was one of the only things I had left of her. I retrieved it from the aftermath of the fire. I wanted Arana to have something to remember her by. She treasured it.’ He paused. ‘I know you think I’ve used you, but in those two weeks we had together I was more myself with you than I’ve allowed myself to be with anyone. That’s why I gave it to you. All I regret is what it’s doing to you now. But I have to put Blackthorn first. I’ll always put what I am first. That’s why I can’t be with you. So decide if you still want to go through with this,’ he said, as he stood again. ‘And find me when you’ve made your mind up.’

She breathed in the claustrophobia of the chamber, accepting feelings she had no intention of suppressing.

She stood up abruptly. ‘You know I’ve made my mind up. Nothing will change it.’

He stopped a couple of feet from the door.

‘Even if you didn’t care what I think,’ she added, ‘even if you weren’t stood there now hoping I’d say no so you can keep me here, I’d still do this. I know who you are, Kane. I don’t need anything but my instincts to know. So you can stand there with your dark armour all bashed and battered, I know what lies beneath. All I regret is that I ever doubted it. That’s why I love you, Kane. I’ve always loved you.’ She said it before she could allow herself to hesitate. ‘So don’t break the habit of a lifetime now. Don’t you dare do the decent thing and walk out of here. Don’t let Morgan’s lips be the last I might ever feel.’

He turned to face her in the shadows of the room.

Her heart pounded as he closed the gap between them seconds later. He toyed with the hair at her shoulder for a moment, his gaze downturned before he pushed the strands behind her. He cupped her neck, slid his cool hand up to her jaw, brushed his thumb across her lips as he met her gaze. His touch was mesmerizing. The absorption took over. The pain was intense at the sense of inevitable loss, exacerbated by that touch – the fatal reminder of how it felt when it felt so right. But she wasn’t going to step away – she was going to live that moment to the last.

Possibly the last time she would be with him.

As he slid his other hand down her arm to her hip, as he pressed her back against the wall, her abdomen clenched as it always did in response to his touch.

His lips met her more lightly than they ever had – once, twice and then three times tilted at various angles as if he was tasting every part of her before he slid his hand up to the nape of her neck. He coiled his fingers lightly in her hair as he closed his lips over hers more firmly, applying just enough pressure to cause her to catch her breath as his slow and controlled kiss switched to deep and consuming, no air left between them as he pressed his hard body to hers.

And as his lips caressed her neck, she pressed her hands to his chest, the power beneath it only inciting her most basic needs further as if some tiny concealed switch had been flicked.

Her heart skipped a beat at the intensity behind his eyes as he looked back at her. The possessiveness leaking into them only stirred even deeper feelings in her darkest depths.

H
er breaths were ragged
, her heart pounding.

All he knew was that he needed to feel close to her, he needed the reassurance of her body against his.

Making love to her would have been easy, except that was when the thought of losing her hurt the most: when he was reminded of how he felt afterwards. Because that was always the difference with her. It wasn’t just that the sex with her felt like sex with no other – it was the lingering warmth in his chest when it was all over that made it so unique with her, so special. It was that sense of intimacy beyond the physical. It was that completeness he felt inside. It was the way that, instead of simply being sated, he wanted to grab hold of her and pull her close, make her smile, laugh even, make her feel wanted, to make her know what she meant to him.

And that last time they had been together, when she’d let him feed, had been perfect. The perfect final time. And he didn’t want anything to spoil it.

His hands relished in the inward curve of the small of her back, the faultless curve of her behind, the smoothness of her skin heated against his cool hand as his hand encompassed the delicacy of her throat as he held her back against the wall.

And he closed his eyes at the sheer bliss as he closed his lips over hers again. He entwined his hand in her hair again as he forced her to look him in the eyes.

Because he needed her to know, he needed her to understand even if it was still unspoken between them. He needed her to believe what she meant to him.

As she pressed her lips to his, his heart skipped a beat. It took all his strength not to speak. Because he knew it had to be the last time he tasted her, the last time he felt her warmth. And the pain of it, right then, rendered too much of him numb.

He brushed his lips over her ear as he longed to say it. It felt like the most natural thing to say it. He’d already said it so many times in his head on so many occasions. Three simple words that came from somewhere deep, somewhere uncontrived, inside him.

Three simple words that, like the uttering of a spell, would finally bind them in an irrevocable way.

The fact she’d never asked him to tell her since that time in the porch, had no expectation of him telling her, didn’t seem to need him to tell her, only made his need to do so greater.

But he couldn’t. Even as the intensity spilled out of him, he couldn’t do it.

Instead, he whispered
I love you
inside his own head before he pulled away.