Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) (38 page)

‘So we’re going to play it like that again tonight, are we?’ Dice declared with a grin as he nipped at her neck, sliding his hand up her inner thigh.

The woman clenched her jaw, her hands gripping the sheets tighter.

Eden could end it for both of the women. That would earn him bonus points with Pummel. That would secure what he needed. And he could get back to Jessie, get back to the task in hand.

He stepped over to the foot of the bed and looked down at the woman whose eyes remained downturned, Dice’s explorative hand on the other one now a blur in the corner of his eye.

The one who sat waiting for him unfastened the buttons on her sheer black blouse as if on autopilot, revealing her lacy red bra beneath. She leaned back on her elbows in a move that was clearly intended to be provocative, yet somehow defiant despite being victim to the inevitable. But her breathing was shallow, her chest rising and falling too rapidly.

As her eyes locked on Eden, he knew he’d seen that look before.

He’d been nothing more than a child at the time – small and weak. But his mind had already been opened to how bad, how dangerous, how scary the world was around him. He’d been a smart kid – observant, vigilant. Too smart to have not learned how helplessness felt.

He’d been alone in the apartment with his mother when they’d come around to collect the rent. He hadn’t understood the dynamics back then, but he had known there was something wrong by the look on his mother’s face. He’d also seen it far too many times to not detect when she was trying to be brave. Her glance in his direction had said it all. A routine visit had suddenly become about protecting him.

He couldn’t work out what it involved, just that the numbness in his mother’s composure as she disappeared with one of the rent collectors, the blank look on her face, had him squeezing his metal toy car so tightly that it had made his palm bleed.

He’d looked back at the guy who’d sat opposite him, grinning that same dead-eyed grin he’d seen on Pummel. He had chucked him a pack of mints and told him to chill out.

Something in Eden had snapped.

It had led to a swift clip around the ear, one that knocked Eden to the floor, splitting his head. Blurry-eyed, he’d got back up to fight. He hadn’t remembered anything else until he’d woken to his mother bathing his head. He’d seen she’d been crying. He saw the marks on her neck.

As nothing more than a kid, he’d learned there was no difference between the third species, proclaimed to be the enemy, and the real monsters – the human monsters – who had been in their home that night.

Monsters he would
never
be one of.

And he sure as fuck wasn’t that small, helpless child anymore.

He snatched his gaze across to Dice, now pinning the other woman beneath him, the slap to her face ringing around the dim, skanky room.

‘You don’t want to be doing that,’ Eden said, keeping his tone as calm and tempered as he could manage as he turned to face Dice. ‘Not if you want this to be over quick for you.’

Dice stopped, his fist already drawn back to, this time, strike harder. He looked back over his shoulder at him. Looked at Eden’s hip where he’d flicked his knife from its encasement. Dice exhaled tersely as if in disbelief, his glare quickly locking back on Eden’s again.

Wide-eyed, the woman beneath Dice took the opportunity of his distraction to wriggle out from underneath him, to back up against the headboard.

‘What the fuck is this?’ Dice asked, glancing from the blade to glare into Eden’s eyes. He eased off the bed to turn to face him fully. ‘Reece,’ he said, his tone dangerously low, his eyes darkening. ‘You don’t want to be doing this, buddy,’ he warned with the drawl of a patronising negotiator. ‘Just get back to the job and maybe we can pretend this little thing between you and me didn’t just happen.’

‘I can’t do that,’ Eden said, ‘just as I couldn’t stab you in the back or slit your throat from behind – because I want to look you in the eyes when I do this.’

Dice swept his tongue across his lower lip as he eased away from the bed. ‘You want to play the big bastard, huh?’ he said, his eyebrows raised, something between fear and outrage now in his wide eyes. ‘You want to take
me
on? Well, you’re dead here in Blackthorn,’ he said, slipping a knife from his own jeans. ‘I want to look in your eyes when
you
realise that.’ He looked back down at the knife Eden held. ‘You’d better know how to use that.’

Eden flashed him a hint of an insincere smile. ‘I was going to say the same to you.’

Dice made the mistake of making the first move. Two attack blows later, three defensive from Eden’s retaliation, and Dice was already looking even more wary. He backed up for a moment, rubbed the back of his knife-holding hand across his face, ridding himself from the faint perspiration already coating his forehead from the exertion, the stuffiness of the room, the adrenaline pumping in his veins.

‘Are you toying with me, Eden?’ Dice asked, his wary stance, the flare in his eyes making it clear to Eden that his own composure, his steady glare, was unnerving Dice even more than the display of his proficiency.

Eden gave him a small shrug of indifference. ‘I’m going to make it quick but it doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it.’

Dice took a small step back, bracing himself. ‘That’s one hell of a fucking poker face, Reece,’ he said. ‘Shame I’m going to have to slice it up.’

Eden licked the underside of his teeth through his open, fleeting smile. ‘Then get on with it and stop playing with me, Dice. I’m starting to think you’ve got more of a taste for me than you have for these two women here.’

Dice bared his teeth. He lunged forward. Three more attack strikes, one superficially slicing through Eden’s T-shirt, and Eden plunged the blade deep into Dice’s side. And twisted.

Dice’s knife clattered to the floorboards as he hung on Eden’s blade like damp clothing on a washing line.

Eden’s grasp on the back of his head was brutal as he withdrew his knife to puncture him again, this time taking out a major organ.

Dice was already losing consciousness and, just as Eden wanted, he was looking him right in the eyes. Only there wasn’t an iota of regret that stared back at him.

‘Fucking dues,’ was the last thing Dice said, managing a glimpse of a smile before he slumped to the floor.

Eden let him fall as he retracted his blade, stared down at him for a moment, letting the tension in his chest ease.

He glanced back at the woman Dice had been attacking just as her eyes widened.

He spun around in time for the other woman thrust the blade deep into the left side of his abdomen, her eyes lost and feral as they locked angrily on his.

Only this time there was no near miss like the first night. This time Eden knew a major organ had been hit. He wrapped his arm around himself, fell to his knees, barely able to hold himself up on one braced arm as blood soaked through his T-shirt, masking his palm.

There was a scampering of feet around him, some tugging back and forth as if one was more reluctant to leave than the other, their whispered voices ones of panic.

And they left him.

Left him slumped alone on the floorboards as they made their escape.

J
essie shoved
open door after door, barely registering what she was seeing inside, only that there was no sign of Eden.

She elbowed her way along another corridor, ignoring disgruntled complaints, yanking her arm free of anyone who tried to grab her, not even making eye contact with the leering drunkard who stepped purposefully in her way before she knocked him out cold with one blow of her fist.

Ballet flats padding over floorboards and the occasional curled rug, she shoved the door open to her left.

She stared at the floor in the dimly lit room, the focal lamplight creating a sense of walking onto a stage mid-act. Because detached from reality was how she felt as she stared down at Eden’s lifeless body face down on the floor, at Dice’s just a couple of feet away.

Slamming the door behind her, Jessie fell to her knees beside Eden, her hand clasping the back of his head, her heart pounding.

Her pulse rate picked up a notch as she detected the sweat on the back of his neck, his skin cold and clammy beneath her palm, his breathing rapid and shallow.

‘My guardian angel,’ he said with a hint of a smile, his tone low, quiet and pained as he barely opened his eyes. ‘We
must
stop meeting like this.’

As he attempted a deep, steady and clearly uncomfortable breath, she rolled him onto his back as gently as she could, but Eden still winced despite her best effort.

Only then could Jessie seeing just how pale he was. She gently lifted his T-shirt to see the blade wound. She slammed her hand to her mouth. He’d been struck in the spleen – badly. His skin was already purple from the uncontrollable internal bleeding.

But he was conscious. For now.

She felt his pulse, as rapid as his breathing, his eyes unable to focus.

‘Not stabbed for years – then twice…’ He took another unsteady breath. ‘…in one
fucking
week.’

‘You can hear me?’

He gave a small, involuntary groan but he managed another hint of a smile despite his frown. ‘I’d know that sexy voice anywhere.’

He was still semi-coherent, which was the only good sign right then. She knew it wouldn’t be long before the confusion set in.

‘Eden, you’ve got severe spleen damage,’ she said, moving her hand from the back of his head to clasp his cold neck. She fought back the tears of panic. ‘You’re haemorrhaging.’

‘So what’s the bad news?’ he asked, another hint of a pained smile gracing his lips despite his eyes being closed.

She glanced back at Dice. Looked across at the beds. It had potentially been an ambush, the Grace sisters now long gone.

‘Jess,’ he said, forcing his eyes open, the colour draining from his skin at an alarming rate. ‘Do your stuff, yeah?’

She flattened her palms to the floor, her nails raking wood. It wasn’t enough. With that much damage, there was no way her blood would be effective quick enough. It would only delay the inevitable.

She jammed her fist into her mouth to fight back the tears as he closed his eyes again.

But he wasn’t delirious enough yet to not pick up on her hesitation.

A tear trickled down her cheek but she knew even
that
wasn’t enough.

‘Jess?’ he asked again. He tried to ease up onto his elbows but quickly slumped back to the floor, cursing almost unintelligibly beneath his breath.

‘No,’ she said gently, trying to conceal her panic. ‘Don’t move.’ She leaned over to his ear, brushed her fingers through his hair. ‘You wait for me,’ she whispered. ‘Do you hear me? You
wait
for me, Eden.’

He frowned, her gentle kiss on his cheek clearly confusing him further.

Without even a glance in Dice’s direction, she exited the room, closing and locking it behind her.

It was breaking every rule. It was breaking every ounce of sense beyond what she was feeling. But she was not losing Eden that night. She was
not
losing him on some grimy floor in that hellhole row.

She ran back down the hallway, back the way she came, shoving aside anyone who got in her way. With the attic door rebounding off its hinges, she crossed to the window she’d entered by. She clambered back up onto the roof. She sped across the rain-soaked tiles, slipping to her knees at one point before quickly getting back to her feet, the rain smattering against her face, soaking her T-shirt to her chest.

She reached the end of the row, clambered back through her bedroom window.

She fell to her knees by her chest of drawers and yanked the bottom one from its rungs. She felt around for a couple of the vials, clenched them in the palm of her hand as she got back to her feet. Tucking them both in her front pocket she climbed back out of the window, back onto the roof.

Her heart pounded, rare perspiration coating her palms. She moved at a speed she hadn’t used for decades, thinking only of getting back to him, of refusing to let him die alone – not least with the belief that she had left him.

Because she would
never
leave him, not by choice.

Her chest ached. Tears poured down her cheeks – tears she didn’t have time to collect. Darkness consumed her at the very thought of living without him, of what lay ahead. Because she could not lose the light now – her bright, compelling spark in the darkness: her Eden. That light was
not
going out.

She slipped back through the window into the attic room. She yanked open the door. She ploughed back down hallway after hallway, everything a blur around her.

Unlocking the door, she fell back to her knees beside him, one hand cupping his neck as she lowered her cheek to his mouth.

‘No!’ she said through gritted teeth. Heart wrenched from her body, her tears washed his lips as she felt the absence of breath. ‘Don’t you dare leave me, Eden Reece!’ Not now that she had finally dared care again. Not now that she had found something to fight for. ‘Don’t you
dare
leave me.’

E
den woke
to a gentle hand stroking through his hair. He opened his eyes to look directly into Jessie’s.

A smile, albeit faint, curled Jessie’s lips as she continued to stroke his hair as his head rested in her lap. ‘Payback,’ she said.

He looked up at the smoke-stained ceiling, across at the beds to recall where he was, the last thing that had happened.

‘But I’m afraid the T-shirt didn’t make it,’ she added.

He looked down at his bare chest but there was no blood there anymore; there didn’t even seem to be a scar. More significantly, there was no pain. The superficial wound Dice had inflicted was gone too. This time the dose had been powerful. This time she’d had every intention of saving his life.

He looked back into her eyes, unable to find the words to thank her.

She held up two vials by way of explanation. ‘Angel tears,’ she said with a small shrug. ‘More potent than my blood. More potent than any blood.’

He eased into a seated position to face her. Not only did he not feel any pain; there wasn’t the slightest hint of discomfort. He stared at the empty one before looking back into her eyes. A strange sensation coursed through him like a fresh breeze on a humid night, like a replenishing sleep after a hard day. It hadn’t just healed him, it had done something more. And he had he feeling he knew what.

‘Permanent?’ he asked.

She nodded.

He almost didn’t want to ask, for fear of what she would say. ‘A cure?’

She nodded again.

‘Fuck,’ he hissed quietly.

That’s
why Sirius really wanted her. If The Facility had those little tubes of iridescent liquid, Sirius already knew. And he wanted more.

‘A cure humans can never get their hands on,’ she added. ‘That’s why my kind have to stay secret. That’s why we didn’t out ourselves with the others. If our existence is proven, what we can do, this whole set-up would be permanently eradicated – but not in a good way. If they realise that all this stuff they’ve got set up trying to find a cure using vampire blood could be a waste of time, that the Higher Order are stalling while they wait for their leader to rise, it will give the Global Council the perfect excuse to destroy all but my kind.’

But the secret was already out. What Cass had showed him proved that Sirius already had others like her.

The bastard was collecting angels.

Further unease crept through him. ‘The Higher Order aren’t going to want you outed either, are they? Are you in hiding from them too?’

‘The only thing that sustains this set-up, that keeps the Higher Order in the privileged position they’re in in Midtown, is talk of this adhesive. They have as much reason to keep our existence secret as we have.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘To kill us if we’re found.’

A toxic combination of fear and rage simmered deep in his core. ‘Is that why, even if you could escape from Pummel, you can’t leave the south?’

‘We’re impossible to mask from them. You can’t see it, but the third species can – the glow that surrounds us. The energy field.’

‘So you’re not just hiding from the Global Council the Higher Order – you’re hiding from the other third species in this district?’

‘They know our discovery is a threat to them.’

‘Yet you were still thinking of going near Jask Tao?’

‘I have no choice.’

He edged closer along the floorboards to sit thigh-to-thigh with her, facing her. He cupped her neck. ‘But this cure, Jessie, what your kind can do – that could also bring an end to all this in a good way.’

‘Under the power, under the influence of The Global Council? The Council that set all this up in the first place and condemned us without trial? Do you really believe that? The prospect of “beating the system” is something humans have hankered after since the very beginning and they will trample over anything along the way. Discovering what we can do will only bring out the worst in your kind. We’re not the threat – humans are. Your kind is a threat to us all – even to yourselves.
That’s
why I have to be able to trust you with this.’

‘Shit, Jessie,’ he said with a heavy sigh. ‘You’re not exactly free of complications, are you?’

She frowned. ‘A thank you would suffice.’

The coolness of her lips as he took them to his was a much-needed sensation, their willingness evoking a stirring deep in his chest. He closed his eyes, relaxing into the sensation of his tongue gliding gently over hers before he pulled back.

‘For trusting me,’ he said. ‘And for saving my life.
Again
.’

‘You didn’t kiss me like that last time.’

‘Sometimes I wish I had.’ He smiled. ‘All that foreplay was a killer.’ He glanced back at Dice. ‘How did you find me?’

‘Pummel said he’d sent you to kill the sisters. I knew where they hung out. I think it was Pummel’s final test. He wants to involve you in selling those kids on. He wants to use your contacts. Eden, this is getting more problematic by the minute.’ She too glanced back at Dice. ‘What happened? Was it an ambush?’

As her eyes searched his, he knew he couldn’t lie to her. ‘It was me.
I
killed him.’

Silence descended on the moment like a weighted shroud.

‘Why?’ she asked, the question feeling strangely naïve against the sordid backdrop.

But he could see in her eyes that her question wasn’t one of lack of comprehension – it was one of wanting to understand
him
more.

This was the next step – potentially the removal of his mask altogether.

‘I couldn’t do it, Jess,’ he said. ‘And I couldn’t let him do it either. You would have had to have been a saint not to kill him – and we both know I’m no saint.’

Her eyes flared with concern. ‘But did anyone witness it?’

He nodded. ‘Before they hightailed it out of here. What is it with manners around this place?’ He smiled despite the abandonment still grating on him, but he too knew the gravity of it if word got back to Pummel.

‘We’re going to have to move quicker,’ she said. ‘And hope word Pummel doesn’t find out in the interim. Eden, you’re going to have to get the young out of here now. Hide them somewhere a couple of miles from here. Find Jask. Tell him you have them.’

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

‘Forget the necklace, you don’t have time. We have to keep the young safe. It’s the only chance we stand of stopping this. I can get away long enough to meet Jask away from here. If he knows we saved his young, we could reason with him. If I explain the full extent of what could happen…’ Her soft, delicate hand coiled around his and peeled his fisted fingers open. She placed something in his palm – something small, cylindrical, cold – before closing it again. ‘For Honey.’

He opened his palm to look down at the other glass vial she’d been holding, at the iridescent liquid contained within.

‘Get the young out of here, take that to your niece, and meet me back in the lock-up in a few hours. I need you to not let me down, Eden.
Please
don’t let me down.’

He tightened his grip on the vial as he looked back into her eyes, knew what it had taken for her to trust him with it. Knew he couldn’t tell her that he already held some back just in case. Not yet.

He cupped the back of her neck, rubbed his thumb gently along her jaw, hesitating for a just a moment longer. But he needed her to know. He needed her to understand just how much she could trust him.

‘I lost my mother the day before my thirteenth birthday,’ he said. ‘She’d been attacked – not by the third species, but by humans. She never came out of the coma. They switched the machine off as soon as the finances stopped. I lost my father a few weeks later after he plunged into a downward spiral he couldn’t get out of. I don’t know what left me with the more bitter feeling – that in a world obsessed with the threat of the third species, it was my own kind that tore my family and my life apart; or that my father didn’t deem what he had left worth fighting for.

‘I spent a long time after that making sure I could never love anyone that deeply, so selfishly deeply that I would forsake all else just to be with them. I wasn’t willing to lose myself like he did, to become weak, to care that much that I felt like I was nothing without them. I was scared of becoming less of what I was by falling for someone – of making myself feel that vulnerable again in a place I couldn’t afford even an iota of it. Instead, I kept my focus on what I needed to: survival for me, which meant survival for my family. I wanted to succeed where he had failed.

‘But I get it now. He wasn’t weak; he was grieving. Loving her that much wasn’t a choice. Just like I didn’t choose to fall for you.’

Her eyes flared, her lips parting slightly as she stared at him.

‘It hasn’t made me weaker though, Jess. If anything, you’ve made me stronger, even more determined. I’m not scared of it anymore. I’m not scared of it because of you. So before I get back, if it even crosses your mind that I’m going to abandon you to this place, you remember that. We need that home run, Jessie. Don’t you give up on me now.’