Blood Promise (A SkinWalker Novel #4) (A DarkWorld SkinWalker Novel) (14 page)

"All those incidents made me realize that as much as I've been running from my responsibilities as alpha, I keep on doing things that make me responsible for others."
 

I gave a short laugh. "Did you know that Anjelo and Lily have both declared me their Alpha?"

Grams raised her eyebrows but didn't look shocked.

"Not entirely surprising," said Mom. "Both work with you, trust you, care about you."

I nodded. "Yeah. They certainly have contributed to my troubles."

"And where does Logan fit in?"

I shrugged. "Maybe he doesn't."

"Does he know he might not fit, and why?"

I shook my head. "He's struggling with his own issues. The last thing I want is for him to be bothered by my problems."

Mom laughed. "Really? This is how you think relationships work?" She sounded annoyed. "You finally accept that you are an alpha, that you can handle responsibility, and then you go and do something like this?"

Like what? "What? What did I just do?"

"You're finding reasons to bail on your relationship." Grams sounded as unimpressed as Mom. "Is there another man?"

I thought of Justin, but I hadn't given him much thought since Greer's funeral. I shook my head. "Nope. Nobody else."

"You sure?" asked Mom, her dark eyes piercing.

"What do you know?" I asked, finally suspicious.

"Justin came to see your father."

She
had
to be kidding. "And that was enough for you to think he was in the picture?"

"It was when he came to ask for your hand in marriage."

"For
Ailuros'
sake, Mom," I snapped, losing all patience. "That was premature of him. One conversation weeks ago and suddenly he pops the question? And to Dad not me?"

"When did you talk?"
 

"Greer's funeral."

Grams shook her head. "That boy certainly has bad timing,"
 

Mom smiled. "I know you had feelings for him."
 

"A teenage crush, Mom." I said, and stopped short. "How did you know about it?"

Mom opened her mouth, then closed it, her eyes flicking to Grams.

"Should have known," I grumbled, glaring at Grams. "What else did you tell her?"

Grams lifted her chin. "Whatever she needed to know."
 

I turned to Mom. "Do you have
any
idea how lucky you are to have a mother-in-law like her?" I jabbed a thumb in Grams' direction.

The two women shared a warm smile, but neither said a word. They didn't need to. Amid all the frustration and worry they shared a moment of happiness and I was there to witness it.

"So, can you get Dad to tell Justin to back off?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Already done."

"Huh?"

"When I heard, I told your father what I thought."

I laughed. "I'm guessing Justin was stupid enough to say I had no knowledge of his offer."

Mom nodded.

Idiot. "He has zero skills."

Mom nodded. "So you're sure you aren't interested in him."

I gave a swift jerk of my head. "I'm sure." I stared off into nothing for a moment, thinking about the kiss, thinking about the years I'd spent head-over-heels for him. "Another place, another time. Maybe. If Logan wasn't in the picture. Sadly, I only have eyes for one guy."

"Hah. I knew it," said Mom, pointing her finger at me. "Then what's all this about leaving him?"

The same things she'd walked away from Dad over, I supposed.
 

"I just want to protect him from all this drama. And . . . if I stay with him I can't be alpha. Then, if my people need me, I won't be able to help them."

"So you'd sacrifice your relationship for the possibility of your people needing you."

I groaned. "Mom you're making my head hurt."

She chuckled. "There is only one way to sort this out."

"What's that?"

"By ensuring the high council doesn't win. Our future
is
integration, even if it means just integration within the paranormal community for now."

Mom leaned forward. "We've been inter-marrying for centuries. It's always been accepted, even if it hasn't been publicly acknowledged or encouraged. When I happened along it was accepted and people just lived with it. With paranormals, the genes aren't watered down. They're amplified by each other."

Amplified genes. "Is that why I have both walker ability and tracking power?"

Mom nodded. "Omega managed to do some in-depth studies into gene-sharing. I guess the facility had its benefits."

I gritted my teeth. "Don't even joke about it." Just the thought of what Mom had been through in that facility made my heart hurt. "I still can't understand how Uncle Niko allowed it to happen."

"He didn't just allow it," Mom said "He performed any procedure himself. Said he didn't trust the other scientists, that they'd likely hurt me in the process. And he always made me comfortable. Sedated me if something was going to cause pain, never left me badly hurt."

"Stop it." I glared at her. "I can't believe you're making excuses for him." Even now she wasn't sharing exactly what had happened.

"I'm just being honest, Kai," Mom said. "Perhaps he had no choice. Perhaps he had to do it, so he treated me well. Whatever he did, he never caused me pain or discomfort. And he always seemed sorry."

"
Seemed
."

My tone was hard, and even when I realized that Grams was sitting across from us listening to us talk about her son, I didn't apologize for my attitude.
 

He might have been my Uncle, but he'd hurt us all. And even though Mom's words had struck me deeply--was there a possibility that Uncle Niko had done those awful deeds under duress?--I wasn't ready to give him a pass.

"I know it upsets you to talk about him, honey."

"I heard what he said about me," I said softly. "When they captured me, drugged me. He stood at my bedside and spoke about me to Greer so impartially, as if having an alpha in his clutches was a strategic benefit to his research, never mind that the alpha happened to be his own flesh and blood."

"He spoke to Greer?"

"Yes, they were the only two people in the room."

Mom and Grams exchanged a long look. "Then," Mom said, "have you considered that his comments to Greer would have been an act?"

I didn't understand. "Why would he have been acting?"

"Because Greer was aligned with Brand and maybe even Widd'en?" Mom spoke softly, kindly, as if she knew that reminding me of my sister's relationship with Brand, a notorious drug-peddler and walker of questionable sanity who believed himself free to feed on humans, would hurt.

And that Greer's loyalty to the Wraith Lord would still be a raw wound. Widd'en had been intent on taking over the human world, and I'd spent my time killing wraiths who'd been taking over innocent humans. Little had I known that I'd merely been putting out brush fires, and that the firestarter himself had gotten my sister and uncle under his control.
 

"You want me to consider that Uncle Niko was being manipulated the entire time?"

"Maybe not the whole time. In the beginning maybe he was the instigator. But I suspect things got quickly out of hand."

I remained silent, absorbing her theory. It was odd having my inner confusion turned into words, and by Mom of all people.

Then Grams broke the silence. "Forget the past for now. Let's talk about the present. Where have you been?"

Reality check. "You're not going to like it."

"Do tell," said Mom and they both leaned forward.

I told them about promises and massacres--both bloody--and of mind-melds and assassinations--both sickening. And when I finally finished, I waited.

"What the hell were you thinking?" demanded Mom, her face pale.

Grams made no comment and I knew why.

I faced Mom. "I needed to save Greer. The seal was the only way because she'd stolen yours."

Mom shifted her gaze from my face to Grams. "That reminds me. I still have to deal with you for giving Kai my seal in the first place."

I bristled. "It's not Grams's fault, Mom."

"Grams can defend herself thank you very much," said Grams, a pleasant smile on her face. She seemed totally unaffected and not in the least bit guilty. She definitely didn't need my help in her defense.

Mom ignored both of us. "And a blood promise? Do you even know how serious that is?"

"I do now," I said drily. "I have to kill someone. And the fact that he's someone I want to kill definitely makes this the easiest blood promise to fulfill."

Mom sat back, troubled, her forehead creased, her skin pale, and I waited for the explosion.

"So what do you need from me, Kai?"

My eyes snapped to Gram's face across the coffee table. "What do you mean?" I was very aware of Mom, so still beside me.

Grams smiled serenely. "You clearly need information before you can take the next step. I'm assuming you have your young man already probing Omega for information."

I nodded, unable to resist her smile. My young man indeed. "So you want to do some probing of your own?" I asked.

"It wouldn't hurt. I personally haven't heard anything but we usually don't know things that don't pertain to us directly, or when they're classified."

"I think knowing about the existence of a man who kills paranormals a dozen at a time affects all of us directly, classified or not. I'd think there'd be a worldwide warning issued so we're all on the lookout for the danger."

Grams shrugged. "I can't even begin to assume what Omega would want to do about such a situation. They have their protocols. We have ours. And right now we need to know what's going on."

"Won't you be endangering your position?" I asked, suddenly afraid for Grams. "What if someone catches you?"

"There isn't a damn thing stopping me from looking for information except where I need a high level security clearance. I have a few ways of getting around security."

"Grams, you devious devil you." I grinned and Mom did too. She'd sat there so long without saying a word, but if she could still manage to crack a smile then maybe she wasn't too pissed off with me.

Grams nodded then shifted forward on the couch, patted her knees, and shoved to her feet. "There's no time like the present," she said, striding to the coat-rack to grab her bag. "I'll be back soon."

"Can't you access the mainframe from here?" asked Mom. "Going in in person may get you in more trouble if it sets off any alarms."

"Actually, being here would be worse," I said slowly. "It would be more compromising since both you and I are here."

"Good point," they said together.

"Have you returned to Sentinel yet?" I asked Mom.

She gave a small shake of her head. "Not yet. They've insisted I take some time to recuperate. I'm meant to head in for debriefing and testing next week."

"Perhaps you should start tomorrow?" suggested Grams. "I'm beginning to think it would be best to have more of us on the inside."
 

Her pointed look at me was sharp enough to draw blood. "What? You want me to come on board now? Won't that look suspicious?" I still hadn't told them about the Elite Corps offer.

Grams shrugged again. "No more suspicious than
not
joining all this while makes you look."

"What's suspicious about me refusing to join?" I asked. "My relationship with Logan?"

Mom put her hand on my forearm. "Your associations will always be judged, honey. If you decide to join Sentinel now, getting inside with the purpose of infiltration is no better reason."

"In that case there's no better time to join Omega," I said softly.

They both stared at me in silence. For once I'd managed to shut the both of them up with one sentence.

Always a first time for everything.

I'
D
BEEN
TO
L
OGAN
'
S
HOTEL
only a few times in the last couple weeks, purely because I didn't like hanging around in a place owned by Omega.