Blood Dark (7 page)

‘
B
ut the chosen
one
has
to be a Higher Order vampire,’ Kane said. ‘It’s the one thing the prophecy is clear on. It’s the one thing that can’t be changed. It
can’t
be Caleb.’

‘So all of this is coincidence?’

‘If it
is
Caleb, why is Leila still alive?’ Kane asked, turning to face him. ‘If it
is
Caleb and he had a serryn right there, why didn’t he kill her when he had the chance? What stopped him? Why let her go?’

‘Maybe he doesn’t know what he is. Or maybe he doesn’t know about the process. You said yourself it’s one of the most closely guarded secrets. If he’s not amongst the Higher Order for them to disclose any of this, maybe he’s clueless. Maybe he
is
just pursuing Phia because of the assassination attempt, fuelled even more by the fact she’s a serryn. Until we get our hands on Leila, we’re not going to know. Until then, you can’t go after him. You can’t be the one to kill him anymore, Kane.’

Kane hissed before he stepped away. He raked his hands back through his hair before grasping the back of his neck.

‘And if it
is
Caleb, Kane, and if he gets taken in over these murders and gets read by Caitlin, she could discover she has the pending vampire leader locked up in one of her cells. If she tells Sirius…’

Kane raked his hands down his face before slamming his hands against the wall, leaving his palms melding with concrete. ‘
Fuck
,’ he hissed again.

‘We have to keep Caleb out of there until we know for sure. You have to get that information to him. He has to get those alibis, Kane.’

And use Caitlin to do so; be the hypocrite crossing the very line he’d given
her
a hard time for crossing; have reason to keep her in the organisation he had already resolved to give her a final ultimatum to leave.

‘Either that or bring Caitlin in,’ Jask suggested. ‘Get her to read Jessie so we find out that way. But then you’ll know what you’ll have to do.’

Kane turned his head so he looked Jask square in the eyes.

He knew
exactly
what Jask meant.

‘And while I’m at it, why don’t I kill Phia too?’ Kane remarked. ‘No serryn, no Tryan. Let’s both cut our losses.’

Jask’s glower could have melted steel. He stepped away from Kane to bite back his own protective instincts before turning to face him again. ‘The difference is I love Phia. And Phia loves me. And we are going to make the best of this situation in any way we can. Are you telling me you feel the same about Caitlin? Do you love her, Kane? If you do, then tell me, because that changes things. Because then maybe I’d understand.’

Kane broke from Jask’s penetrative gaze – a gaze that was forcing him to answer questions he didn’t even want to ask himself.

‘More to the point, does she love
you
? Because however you feel about her, you have to ask yourself that question. This isn’t just about your kind; this is about all of us. This is about the
whole
of Blackthorn. You know, the Blackthorn you claim you’re here to protect? Are you really going to put that agent before your own kind?
Again
? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I don’t trust her. You heard what Caleb said – he sees it too. She’s the only one who can get close to you.’

‘I didn’t appreciate it from him. I appreciate it from you even less.’

‘Why? Because I’m questioning you? Your judgment? I’m entitled to, Kane. Sirius will stop at nothing to get to you, and that includes using Caitlin. She’s one of their best agents for a reason and she well and truly has her hooks in you if you’re even considering her over your own.

‘Her family, her loved ones,
murdered
your sister, Kane. You don’t even know if they’re locked away. You don’t even know if it was just a publicity stunt to save their lives. They could be hauled up in some fancy apartment in Summerton waiting our demise. The way I see it, she got everything she wanted – she saved her family, she ruined our plans, she got you to release her, she killed the soul ripper, she got her job back. And what did
you
get Kane? Not the justice Arana deserved. The justice my pack deserved.’

‘Which is why I’m still not done.’

‘Does she know that? What’s she going to do once she realises you’re not just seeking revenge but planning to bring the entire system down?’ Jask licked his lower lip as he scanned the room. Hands planted low on his hips, he looked back at Kane. ‘She’s a risk, Kane. A massive risk at a time when we need to keep them to a minimum.’

‘Until she’s useful for alibis.’

‘We have no choice. But then you’re going to have to cut your losses before it’s too late – now more than ever.’

Kane walked away and paced the room. Cutting his losses with Caitlin was
his
choice. And it sure as hell didn’t include killing her.

‘Did she tell you I threatened her?’ Jask asked.

Kane’s glare snapped across his shoulder.

Jask stared him down, his arms folded again. ‘Outside the courtrooms, after I had no choice but to give evidence. I told her either you finished her or I would.’

Kane knew why Jask was telling him. He knew he was testing his feelings. He knew he was reading his reactions.

And he knew, with it, he was proving a point.

‘It looks to me like she didn’t,’ Jask concluded. ‘Why would she not tell you that? What else is she holding back from you?’

‘This is not the time for us to be playing our own mind games, Jask.’

‘Exactly. I’m heading through the tunnels, Kane, and I’m taking Phia with me. Now that Tuly is back safe, Corbin’s ready to step into my position while I’m gone. We made contact with Leila last night. She won’t disclose anything over the phone, but she’s waiting for us. We’re going to bring her back here and we’re going to find out what went on between her and Caleb. And if he is the pending Tryan, we’re going to make sure she finishes the job and kills him.
Then
we’re going to bring down Sirius.’

‘You’re taking the tunnels to
Summerton
? And you’re planning on doing this when exactly?’

‘In the next few hours.’

‘
This afternoon
? And what about the small matter of you morphing in less than three days, Jask? You’re going to need to be contained in less than forty-eight hours. It’s going to take you anything up to eighteen hours to navigate those tunnels through to Summerton on foot, the same to get back. That’s if you don’t get lost. And that’s moving at a lycan pace.’

‘Which is why I need that exchange done by the time I get back.’

‘I’m the only one who has ever attempted those tunnels that far, Jask. Before you even get out of Lowtown, it’s a maze. Some of those routes are lethal.’

‘Jessie, Eden and a couple of my pack are coming with me in case I need back up. I need you to draw the route for me, Kane. If you want us to work together, let’s
really
–’

But Jask sensed it a split-second before he did.

A sensation Kane hadn’t felt since the soul ripper.

He could feel it in the gentle vibrations beneath his feet. The air suddenly felt thicker. Amidst the silence was a distant, subtle thrum.

They locked gazes simultaneously, Kane giving Jask the nod that he sensed it too. They stepped alongside each other in the open doorway into the neighbouring room.

It was stood in the shadows of the top far right-hand corner, by the only exit to the outer room. Masked by a dark cloak, seven-foot tall, what was visible of its vertical grasshopper-like legs beneath its covering spoke of a creature that knew how to leap. Its arms were held semi-aloft, its lengthy talons playing the air like a piano having already sensed their movement.

‘Vibrations,’ Kane mouthed to Jask. ‘It locates through vibrations.’

Vybers were vicious bastards and far more hardcore than a nilkim, primarily because they were smart, strategic, and never worked alone.

Kane switched his attention to the bottom left-hand corner of the room where he located the second vyber less than twenty feet away from them. In the other left hand corner, equidistant between the other two, was the third.

Kane licked his incisor as he braced himself.

The vybers were waiting for them to make a move. They
liked
to wait – in the shadows, in the dark, notorious for catching their prey by surprise.

‘Wood through the lung,’ Kane mouthed to Jask. He pointed above his right hip to indicate where, before cocking his head towards the discarded pool cues on the floor ahead.

Jask gave a single nod of understanding.

Their head movements had caught their predators’ attention, each of the vybers easing just a couple of inches in their direction.

‘Vigilant fuckers,’ Kane mouthed to Jask.

He cocked his head again for Jask to follow.

Three footsteps towards the pool table and the vybers were already crouching in perfect succession.

Kane glanced back across at Jask. Jask had the same understanding that they were going to have to make this quick. Against three, they both knew they were going to have to have each other’s backs as much as their own.

They turned back to back, both having picked their target – Kane the one by the door, Jask the one in the bottom left-hand corner. They’d both have an eye on the middle one. They needed to be swift, precise and brutal – things neither of them were averse to.

They lunged forward simultaneously, Kane grabbing the broken cue nearest him, Jask snapping the other over his knee a split-second later.

The vybers leapt and descended.

But Kane was too precise. Already braced with the cue pulled back, as soon as the vyber’s cloak blew back revealing the part of its abdomen that he needed, Kane thrust. The cue penetrated with some effort, the vyber’s talons swinging at Kane, brushing just above the hairs on his head as Kane ducked. Adding more pressure, he forced the cue deeper through the tough, reptilian skin.

He twisted the cue hard before he felt the blow to his back, the middle vyber attempting to pin him to the floor with the strength in its hind legs.

Kane cursed in frustration as he just about retained his balance, only grateful that the other one had finally slumped to the floor. He swung his elbow back with all his strength, offsetting the vyber enough to make him topple.

Jask was a blur in the distance, the other vyber pinned beneath him, his boot on its throat, the other on its groin as he staked it two and then three times above its hip.

Kane lunged forward for the stake embedded in the first dead vyber, using all his strength to yank it out. But the middle vyber was back behind him a second later, its talons raking through his jacket, to the shirt beneath, skimming his skin.

Kane spun to face it.

He rammed the cue above its thigh as he simultaneously felt the vyber jolt forward.

The cue penetrating through the vyber’s back stopped an inch short of Kane’s chest as Jask rammed it in the exact same time as Kane had ploughed his cue into its lung.

Their eyes met past the creature’s shoulder as Kane twisted, and twisted hard, his teeth gritted, before the vyber slumped to the floor.

Jask stepped back, rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.

Kane exhaled slowly, his hands then low on his hips.

‘We’re losing time, Kane,’ Jask said, catching his breath, the evidence at his feet. ‘If this continues, if this escalates, this district is fucked. We have to stop this. Use Parish. Help Caleb get those alibis.’

I
t was
the third time Caitlin had used their system.

Kane had kept the ball in his court from the moment she’d returned to the VCU. He’d given her a phone with one outgoing number should she need him in an emergency (and he’d stressed
emergency
), otherwise he either came to her or she met him at the club.

After the metal shutter had been drawn back from the door and she’d had the quick once over from the eyes behind it, she’d been permitted to step over the threshold. If he wasn’t at the club, she’d be relocated to whichever of Kane’s dens he was occupying at the time. If she was followed, the trail would fall cold.

It was easy enough to do. His hang-outs were selected because of their warren-like set-up – impossible to get through without the warning message traveling towards him like falling dominoes, or certainly not in time for Kane not to have escaped through any numerous exit points. As well as him relying on his intimate knowledge of the area, the crowds were his barriers – a willing wall of defense, of denial, of protection as much about loyalty towards him as a loathing of the establishment trying to snag him. He subsequently moved like a silent force through Blackthorn – and never more so since Sirius’s threat.

Stepping inside the dark corridor, Caitlin was met by a broad-set vampire who dominated her by at least a foot in height. As on the previous two occasions, she was asked to hand over her gun and any other weapons, a further reminder that her return to the VCU had resulted in a severance of trust. It was another lashing for her desire to return to as normal a life as she could have mustered.

She was led towards the back of the establishment, taken left and then right down further dark corridors before her escort banged on a metal door at the far end. The viewing window slid open and closed just as rapidly before the door clunked open from the other side. The same thing happened a further twenty-feet along.

She was led left and right down two further corridors until she wasn’t even sure if she was in the same building anymore. One thing she did know: she wasn’t getting back the way she came without someone else’s say so.

Her escort finally came to a standstill outside the only door on the left. He knocked, a viewing window sliding open again, the door opening seconds later.

The night she’d gone to talk to Kane about Caleb, she’d been led to a warehouse-type room to find Kane there with three other males, all gathered around a table. They had been in the process of leaving; Kane in the process of folding up whatever large pieces of paper had been spread across the table. But, this time, work seemed to be the last thing on Kane’s mind.

She stepped into what felt like a private nightclub, instantly feeling dowdy in her plain pastel shirt and ignore-me jeans as she was left hovering whilst her escort moved through the dimly lit, smoky room to locate Kane.

She assessed the spiked, chrome heels of the woman who slipped past her, the long sleeves of her sparkling silver dress clinging to her slender arms, the fabric tight across her chest, revealing the bralessness that was confirmed by the low back.

Caitlin self-consciously adjusted her blazer-style jacket that could have been mistaken for masculine had it not been slightly nipped in at the waist. She touched her messy bun of hair, drawn back from her face for practicality.

More than ever she needed a reminder of the two weeks they’d had together because being back in his territory, his
real
territory, reinforced that this was not her world; it would never be her world. This was
Kane’s
world. This was what happened while she was tucked away at work. It reinforced how little she truly knew about him – how clueless she was about this side of him as she was about those who mingled around her.

And when her gaze followed the escort’s path, those insecurities were exacerbated.

Kane was sat engrossed in conversation with a male who sat on the sofa opposite. But it was the female curled into the chair between them that captured her attention.

She was the type Caitlin had always imagined Kane to be with: sophisticated, elegant, with the added edge of unashamed sexuality – and not to forget stunning. They looked right together, not least from the way Kane leaned forward, his arm resting on the arm of her chair, his hand hovering above her thighs with an intimate edge of familiarity as they all laughed together.

Harder to take was how comfortable they looked in each other’s company. There, Kane could be himself, a fact confirmed by him exhaling cigarette smoke into the dim surroundings as he relaxed amongst his own.

And it knotted Caitlin’s stomach in a way she knew it shouldn’t have.

The female looked in her direction just as the escort interrupted them, and met Caitlin’s gaze with a mutually curious assessment. The female took a mouthful of drink from her glass, playing it over her painted lower lip as she gave Caitlin a steady once over, before resting her head of long, thick black curls back against the chair.

But the minute Caitlin’s eyes locked on Kane’s a familiar bolt of excitement shot through her.
Instantly it was as if there was no one else; that it was just her and Kane, and the crowd around them didn’t exist.

Caitlin withdrew her hands from her jeans pockets, watchful as he grabbed his jacket, his beer from the table. He placed his cigarette back between his lips, and headed towards her.

He cocked his head for her to follow him out of the room.

They had a rule from the outset: no show of affection, no public show of any relationship beyond the official, and that even included amongst his most trusted who made it into those back rooms. But what she had just witnessed made that rule feel tougher than ever.

As she followed him down the length of the dark corridor, his proximity made her spine tingle, a rush of heat coating her chest. Her gaze wandered the breadth of his shoulders within his grey T-shirt, traced down the sleeves clinging to his biceps, back up to his short, dark hair, and she wanted only to touch him.

Instead she gripped her bag strap as he led her left.

It was a small room – slightly musty, just a hint of weak three-o’clock-daylight streaming through the elongated window tucked in the far right hand corner of the room.

Stepping over to the table, Kane extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray. He never smoked around her anymore, unless they were in the open air. He didn’t explain why, but she knew: the smoke had no side effects on him, but he knew the effects on her. To her, it was another sign he cared. The fact it wasn’t even open for discussion even more so.

And the fact he still stuck to his self-inflicted rule was the only reassurance he offered her amidst his otherwise almost-frosty reception.

She slipped off her coat, hanging it over the back of the chair along with her bag and her empty shoulder holster, before she pulled out a chair and sat down.

‘Present for you.’ He placed the little pot of ointment on the table as he turned his head to exhale the last of the smoke away from her. ‘It’ll help with the war wounds.’

Choosing the chair opposite, he rested his foot on the crossbar of hers in a possessive move that had her pulse racing more than she needed right then. And as his eyes met hers square on, she felt the breath snag in her throat, her heart skip a beat.

Taking a momentary break from the intensity, she reached for the pot and unscrewed the lid, hints of tea tree escaping. ‘Was it just the arrow that worked this morning or was it laced with something else?’ She looked back up at him as she resealed the lid. ‘Because clearly you knew how to tackle it.’

‘Still on the clock, Parish?’

She instantly regretted her ice-breaker question. ‘Just curious.’

He rested his forearm on the table, his hand, inches from hers, a major distraction. A hand that had explored almost every inch of her; fingers that had caressed and stroked and teased and taunted, exploring in a manner as unashamed as their owner. Those sexy short-nailed fingers that had been deep inside her, bringing her so much pleasure and arousal those past two weeks.

She wanted to reach out for his hand, to run her fingers over his. But the formality of the table added to the distance, the empty holster behind her a reminder. The truth was, aside from him saving her life and the little pot of ointment, there was no reassurance for her to make any kind of move.

‘It
is
kind of my job,’ he said. ‘Though I don’t usually have to perform under so much pressure.’ His gaze lingered on hers. ‘Or with so much at stake.’

Her heart skipped a beat at the inference, as if it had been shocked back to life.

‘I was a bastard to you this morning, Caitlin. I know I was out of order.’

Just hearing him say her name, let alone the unexpected warmth in his words was enough to make her hold his gaze, to hold on to that moment however long it lasted.

‘I’m going to have to give evidence against you,’ she declared, not meaning to bring it up so abruptly. But right then, it was all she had to offer him as she grabbed hold of what she guessed was his white flag. ‘They want me to recount what happened between us those three days you held me. They don’t know anything about the last couple of weeks, of course. They suspect, but…’

She reached into her jacket for the photograph she’d printed from the system.

‘They’ve got someone new assigned to your case. I’ve met her. Her name is Meghan Yale. She was handpicked from another locale. Very successful, very efficient, very focused. Pretty too.’ She handed him the photo. ‘In case you want to watch your back.’

She waited for his reaction to the photo but, with nothing more than an impassive glance, he cast it aside on the table.

‘I know a part of you doesn’t trust my reasoning for returning to the VCU and I get it,’ she added. ‘But this stuff with Yale is a prime example of how being at the VCU can be as much about looking out for you as doing my job. I just wish I could convince you so we don’t have to go through this body search each time I come to see you; so you don’t look at me with an edge of suspicion every time I ask you a question about what’s going on. My return to the VCU wasn’t a rejection, Kane, any more than it was a lack of faith in us being able to make this work. If you hadn’t closed down on me, we could have talked about it.’

Kane folded his arms. ‘We did talk about it.’

‘For all of five minutes before you got defensive and shut down.’

‘There was nothing more to discuss. You’d made your choice.’

‘Because I couldn’t stay in that bubble, Kane. At some point I had to return to the real world.’

‘So you said.’

‘Those two weeks with you were the best of my life, but what if in another two weeks time, another month, or six months, two years, we find out we can’t be together, or you change your mind? You could stay in the life you know and I’d be left with nothing.’

‘So you risk what we have now because you’re preoccupied with a future that might not happen.’

‘I
have
to safeguard against the possibility, Kane. I would be crazy not to. What if something happened to you? You lead a dangerous life. You’re not some accountant in Summerton. And you’re still the TSCD’s most-wanted vampire.’

‘So you bailed to get the best of both worlds.’

‘Like you’re thinking of bailing because I won’t do what you
order
me to do?’

The hint of Kane’s smile was back but there was also mild rebuke in his eyes, a hint of defensiveness in the tension in his arms.

Worse, he did nothing to deny her accusation.

It sparked something inside of her.

‘I know I’m not easy to get close to,’ she said. ‘We both knew we were coming into this damaged. But I have given more of myself to you in these past two weeks than I have ever given to anyone. So don’t you fucking
dare
sit there with your arms folded like you’re the only injured party in this. This was not an easy decision but I
had
to do it.’

He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, his eyes penetrating deep into hers. ‘What’s the
real
reason?’

She pressed her lips together as she breathed steadily through her nose, breaking from the intensity of his gaze for a few moments.

‘Come on, Caitlin – let’s hear it. Why did you really go back to the bastards who murdered my sister? Why would you want to work for an organisation like that, let alone with shit pay and a crappy apartment and no hope of any prospects now you’ve been between the sheets with me?’

She looked back at him. ‘Have you not been listening? It’s about more than that.’

He leaned back in his chair, his arms folded again. ‘That’s right – it’s about your independence and your self-respect. That’s why you work for them. That’s why you went back even after Sirius laid down his threat. That’s why you rushed back there the same day.’

She stabbed the tabletop with her index finger as she leaned forward. ‘Because if I hadn’t, it would have convinced Sirius there was something between us. I did it to protect what we have. Like
you
asked me to.’

‘And set yourself up in the firing line because you care
that
much about me.’

‘Because caring leads to tough decisions, Kane.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t fucking patronise me about tough decisions, little girl.’

Something inside her took over rational thought, her own walls for self-preservation springing up again. ‘The clichéd four-hundred-year-old-vampire card, huh?
Seriously
?’ She shook her head as she stood. ‘I came here to try and sort this, but I can’t talk to you when you’re like this. And I’m not going to say something I’ll regret. Find me when you’re ready to discuss this properly.’

She grabbed her coat, her holster and her bag and marched to the door.

She yanked it open, stepping out into the corridor. She looked down towards the noise, forgetting in the heat of the moment that there was no way back through the doors and corridors beyond that. She looked left at the end of the corridor to the boarded-up window, nothing but a staircase to the left.