Blood Dark (3 page)

If only being with her wasn’t now the biggest chink in his armour. Which is why he had to keep his distance from her – in public at least.

Kane sauntered back across the rooftop. He placed a cigarette between his lips and cupped his hands to light up.

As he felt the vibration in his back pocket, he removed his phone to receive the call. ‘Yeah?’

‘Kane, it’s Corbin.’

Kane came to a standstill, exhaled a stream of smoke into the morning air as he glanced up at the now-muted light as heavy clouds masked the sun. ‘I was on my way to see you.’

‘Good. Because we have an unexpected visitor.’

Kane’s chest tightened at the tension in the lycan’s voice.

‘Caleb Dehain,’ Corbin declared. There was a moment’s silence. ‘Caleb Dehain has just turned up at the compound.’

‘
W
hat the fuck
is
he
doing there?’ Kane asked.

‘He brought Tuly back.’

Despite the great news that the last one of the stolen young was now back safely, there was still tension in her father’s voice.

‘Is she okay?’ Kane asked.

‘She’s fine. A little shell-shocked, but fine. She’d escaped from the south with the rest but she got lost. One of Caleb’s men found her in a back alley.’

‘Has he come alone?’

‘The pack has checked out the periphery; he’s alone,’ Corbin declared. And for the pack’s beta to have been the one making the call, there was no need to guess where their leader was. ‘We’ve kept lookouts. No one will get within a mile of the compound without us knowing.’

‘Jask is with him?’

‘He’s keeping him in the outer room.’

‘Phia?’ Kane asked.

The last thing Jask’s pack needed, the last thing anyone in Blackthorn needed, was Caleb discovering that the woman he had spent the last few days hunting – the woman who had been a part of an assassination attempt on both him and his brother Jake – was hidden in lycan territory. Worse, that Jask was sharing his bed with her – with a serryn, a rare witch deadly to vampires.

‘She hasn’t got a clue he’s here,’ Corbin said. The moment of silence was painful. ‘I wish I could say the same for Caleb. He knows we’ve got her, Kane.’

Kane dropped his cigarette-holding hand to his side, his relaxant now feeling numb in his fingers.

‘Tuly told him,’ Corbin added.

Fuck
, Kane mouthed as he closed his eyes, tilted his head up to the sky.

‘There was a girl at Caleb’s club. Tuly opened her mouth without thinking. She didn’t know any better, Kane. She said she looked like Phia, smelt like Phia …’

‘Leila?’

‘No, their younger sister, Alisha. Kane, if Caleb knows we have Phia why has he handed Tuly over without bargaining?’

It was anyone’s guess. Caleb wasn’t just a closed book; he was closed library.

‘What has he said?’ Kane asked.

‘Practically nothing, that’s the thing. He’s just sat waiting.’

‘For what?’

‘For
you
. He said he wants you to join him and Jask.’

Kane’s spine prickled.

Caleb Dehain was daring to summon
him
.

And Caleb knew he’d have no fucking option but to respond.

He exhaled a stream of smoke into the polluted Blackthorn air as he looked across the street, the muted sunlight glinting off the broken glass of the building opposite. An eerie quiet surrounded him to the point he could hear his own intermittent breathing, the cool breeze refreshing on his skin.

‘Is Jask okay?’ Kane asked.

He knew Corbin understood what he meant by that.

‘It’s fucking tense in there, Kane. But, yeah, you know Jask: he’s playing it cool.’

‘Do what you can to keep it that way,’ Kane said as he headed towards the edge of the roof.

Despite it having crossed his mind that Caitlin may try to get up there to see him, that he could spare a few minutes to at least check on her, the latter was no longer an option. With yet another complication adding to an increasing list already needing his attention, his responsibilities to Blackthorn were taking over. Since Sirius’s threat, things were moving fast with no sign of abating.

Caitlin was going to
have
to come second.

He scanned Morgan’s car some forty feet away, still lying on its roof. The milling bodies below were increasing in numbers. In the distance, he could hear the emergency vehicles approaching. He’d be able to merge with the crowd easily enough.

‘I’m on my way,’ Kane added as he turned on his heels to head towards the section of caved-in roof. ‘I’ll take the tunnels. I’ll be with you in thirty minutes.’

C
aitlin knew
, for the creature to have appeared from nowhere and then disappear into nothing again, it had to have been of the same ilk as the soul ripper – the soul ripper that had killed her parents and had once been coming for her. That meant, whatever the creature was, it was fourth species – and Kane had either killed it or sent it hurtling back to the fourth dimension where it belonged.

The only thing that had prevented Morgan challenging her about the owner of the arrow was the urgency of dealing with the aftermath first. And now that the medics had finished tending to her, Morgan’s distraction as well as the distraction of everyone around her granted her the opportunity to sneak into the building from which Kane had shot the creature.

Logic told her he’d be long gone, not least because of the threat of increased TSCD presence – that and the deep-rooted feeling in her gut telling her, despite him saving her life, all was still not forgiven.

The growing distance between them, especially since her return to the VCU, had almost taken them back to the start. From the second she’d told him, Kane had closed in on himself. He’d been angry with her for not specifying that was her intention. She’d been upset over his assumption that she wouldn’t return to work. The truth was they’d both got caught up in each other in the days that had followed the court-case; the two weeks they’d spent alone together in his underground haven both avoiding the day they’d have to face reality again.

And the reality was that he was still the VCU’s most-wanted vampire and she was still one of their agents.

She’d convinced herself she could do it: that she could be with him
and
be an agent. Convincing him, however, that her return to the organisation that had murdered his sister was not throwing everything back in his face, was another matter.

It hadn’t helped that less than thirty-six hours back into the job, she’d crossed the line of keeping business and pleasure separate by turning up to question him about Caleb Dehain. Her punishment had been the look in Kane’s eyes that she had dared ask.

She hadn’t seen him since.

Now, Caitlin shouldered her way through the corrugated iron gap into the abandoned building. She waited a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the muted light of the boarded-up factory, warily assessing the unsettling array of skeletal machinery remains that were dotted around the room like discarded robotic mannequins, their backdrop the muted voices and footsteps echoing from beyond the wall of opaque glass behind her.

She removed her work phone from her jacket pocket and placed it on the worktop nearest the door. Whether she was being tracked by her own or not was irrelevant, she wasn’t taking any chances of being followed.

Gun poised, she cautiously made her way forward; her heart already applauding and her stomach flipping at the slight chance he was still there. The chill of the dusty room was offset by the warmth that rushed into her chest amidst thoughts of the prospect.

Seeing the central metal steps in the distance, she checked over her shoulder again. Her heart pounded a little harder, a coating of perspiration breaking out in her palms.

She edged closer to the steps, one foot silent after the other. The rusty creak as she ascended the first step froze her for a second, her grip tightening on her poised gun. But there was no responsive movement in the shadows. No sound.

She ascended towards the exposed level above, warily scanning an unnerving array of objects to hide behind. Because whether she liked to admit it or not, the shock of the incident with the creature was still dominating her thoughts.

As her foot reached the first-level floorboards, she flinched at the almost-silent thunk in the distance.

She calmed her breathing and assumed the full defensive position with her gun as she approached the room the sound had travelled from.

Catching sight of the shadow inside, her finger tightened on the trigger, her lips parting in preparation for the routine warning.

But her heart pounded for all the right reasons as the daylight from the gap in the roof exposed him.

Kane held his arrow at anchor-point in her direction, his legs spread in a confident and poised stance.

The impact of seeing him again, those navy eyes locking on hers, stunned her to silence.

‘Still running haplessly and unassisted into dangerous buildings, Agent Parish?’

The rasp in his familiar voice made the hairs on her arms prickle to attention, her pulse race.

She instantly lowered her gun. ‘And still lurking in dark corners, Kane Malloy?’

He offered her a semi-smile that made her heart jolt as he placed the arrow back in his quiver.

Closing the gap between them, he gently knocked her chin upwards with his knuckle so he could examine the graze. ‘No permanent damage?’

The show of concern warmed her in a way she hadn’t felt for too long.

Fortunately her arms had broken most of the fall. She shook her head, the tenderness of his touch triggering the deepest need for him to hold her. But it was still there: that distance in his eyes, even amidst the fleeting demonstration of affection. ‘Unless you include Morgan suspecting that the arrow belonged to you.’

‘A bit of fallout was unavoidable.’

‘What the hell was it?’ she asked.

‘A nilkim. Fourth species.’

‘What did you do to it?’

‘Sent it back where it belongs.’

‘I’ve never seen anything of that scale before.’

‘They’re rare.’

‘Then what was it doing here?’

‘A glitch in the system maybe.’

‘So there could be
more
of them?’

‘Fuck knows. Let’s hope not. They consume at a rate of knots once they get going.’

He cast a vigilant glance over her shoulder – but she knew it was about more than the threat of another fourth species.

‘Thanks for saving me,’ she said, needing to open the dialogue.

Because he
had
saved her. And she was going to cling to it amidst his increasing indifference.

His eyes met hers again. ‘I couldn’t let it loose on the streets, could I?’

The look, coupled with the dismissive words, tore through her. Her chest knotted; a response failed her.

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, brushing past her.

‘
W
ait
.’ Caitlin caught his wrist as he drew level with her, her eyes snapping to his across her shoulder. ‘Don’t do this, Kane.’

He could hear her heart pounding. He sensed the urgency in her grip.

‘I need to see you,’ she added. ‘
Properly
.’

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, and seeing her up close reinforced it. Worse, it reinforced a sense of guilt he wasn’t used to feeling. Master vampires were meant to be alone; that was how it was. And this was the reason why.

He could see in her eyes that the strain was taking a hold. There were dark circles forming beneath them. The tension in her neck and shoulders, in her whole composure, was equally telling. Sometimes he forgot she was human, that unlike the occasional handful of hours sleep his kind needed, a lack of it eventually took its toll. Clearly she’d barely slept since Sirius had made his threat; and he had no doubt it wasn’t helping that he was still keeping her in the dark as to what he was doing about it.

It wasn’t fair to her. None of it was fair to her.

But he had no choice. He couldn’t risk Sirius finding out that, despite it looking on the surface like he was doing nothing about his threat, beneath ground word was spreading amongst his most trusted. Deep in the underbelly of the east and north of Blackthorn, there was already a hive of activity. Even in those past two days, small communities were being rounded up and were already becoming familiar with the tunnel systems he had assigned them having distributed maps to his key links. There were going to be two types: hideaways for the more vulnerable; and battle routes for those who were going to retaliate when the time came.

Given more days, Kane could guarantee turning most of Blackthorn into a ghost town in less than fifteen minutes of the alarm being raised. He was working towards it but, with no guarantee of when Sirius would strike, in the interim they needed to remain focused on saving or preparing as many as they could.
That
needed to remain his priority.