Forget About Midnight (13 page)

Brinley nodded, but he seemed unfazed by what he saw. There was something haunted in him. Humans were the worst kind of monster. I knew it on a surface level, but he seemed to know the true depths of what they were capable of.

“Whatever you are, there’s no way in hell it’s worse than the scum harming these kids,” he insisted. “They need help, and my hands are tied up in legalities. There’s nothing else I can do.”

I studied Brinley, finding something fascinating in his energy. It ran strong with determination despite being fragmented with the strain of emotional baggage. He loved the kids he spoke of. I could feel it emanating from him like the warm glow of a campfire. That spark could not be extinguished. It was inspiring.

“Brinley, you must understand that if you ask me to get involved, someone is going to die.” A thrill of excitement shot through me. It had been quite some time since I was approached to take out the trash. I didn’t count the hit job I’d done for the Doghead Alpha recently. That had been a job of necessity, not want.

There was no hesitation in Brinley. He merely nodded, accepting it. “Whatever it takes to keep these kids safe. I just wish there was something I could give you in return for your help.”

“Oh, I’ll be getting something out of it. Don’t worry about that.” Would I ever. Just the thought of hunting and killing a creep who defiled children got me excited. Some vampires preferred to kill at random, grabbing whoever caught their interest. It had always been in my nature to enjoy the hunt of one who deserved it.

“So there’s this girl.” Brinley scrolled through some photos on his phone before handing it to me. “Allie. She’s fourteen. On the streets. She usually checks in with me a few times a week, but I haven’t heard from her in almost two. I know she’s in trouble. I was hoping you could maybe check out her pimp’s place. That’s usually where she ends up. I would, but I can only get so involved before it becomes illegal. Trespassing, harassment. That kind of shit.”

A scowl marred my face as I stared at the picture. To think that the law would stop a caring human being from coming to the aid of a young girl was both sickening and scary.

Allie was young, but her dark eyes were like bottomless pits of despair. They made her appear much older than her age. Dark hair and light brown skin, she was lovely, other than the utter loathing in her expression.

“Get me an address. I’ll see what I can do. I can’t make any promises though.”

Brinley almost collapsed in his relief. Even as he slid off his stool, his shoulders slumped, and he sighed. “Thank you. Truly, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” It felt right to help him, but still I harbored some worry. What if I couldn’t? What if I only made things worse somehow?

Protector of Mankind
.

It didn’t matter. I had to try.

I stayed at The Wicked Kiss until the threat of sunrise drove me out, along with everyone else. Nobody had tried to mess with me though there were a lot of hard to read stares and not so covert glances. I was a little disappointed.

Getting into the Camaro thrust me back into the awkward and heartrending chaos that was my relationship with Kale. I spent the drive back to his house telling him about Brinley and his kids. It was a good way to distract ourselves from the real issue for a while.

“You should take Falon with you,” Kale said, stunning me.

“Why would I ever do that?” I studied him from behind a curtain of ash blonde. Was this his way of saying he didn’t plan to stick around?

Kale glanced over at me, his expression guarded. “You should have someone there to keep you from losing control and attacking the wrong person. Like the girl. I can’t overpower you anymore. Well, not for long anyway. But Falon can.”

“Yeah that’s what Falon needs,” I scoffed, “an excuse to use force on me.”

Kale didn’t respond. His hand was tight on the wheel, making his knuckles bulge. Something was definitely bothering him. And I knew what it was, for that same voice lingered inside my head.

The rest of the drive was spent in tense silence. A few times one of us attempted idle chatter only to have it die out. We pulled up to Kale’s house, and immediately I wanted to be almost anywhere else in the world. Not because I didn’t want to be with him but because I knew it was coming to an end and I wasn’t ready to face that.

Since we’d left the house and returned, it felt as if everything had changed. We’d awoken at sundown in each other’s arms, and now we returned at sunrise with a wedge driven between us.

We entered the house, closing out the approaching dawn. I stared around Kale’s home, finding that it didn’t truly have a loved, lived-in feel to it. He had no roots here, nothing to keep him tied to the city. Only me.

I wanted to go back to the previous day, when we’d made love with wild surrender, when the world outside the door had momentarily ceased to exist. Except that it did exist, and here we were, thrust back into it.

We stood awkwardly in the living room, looking at everything but each other. Finally Kale said what we were both thinking. “We can’t keep doing this, Alexa. We crossed a line in the last twenty-four hours. Several lines actually. We’ve taken things too far.”

It hurt to hear him say it. But he wasn’t wrong. I’d gone off the rails since the turn, embracing the madness that came from a deadly combination of bloodlust and separation from Arys. Running straight into the arms of the man who shared my weaknesses had been a mistake, a beautiful, mind-blowing, spirit-shattering mistake.

“You let him get inside your head, didn’t you?” I asked, dragging my tortured gaze to Kale’s defeated one. “He has a way of doing that.”

I spoke of Arys with detachment, loathe to utter his name. It infuriated me that he’d gotten to Kale. If there was one person I wanted Arys to have no part of, it was Kale. He was mine.

Except he isn’t
.

“He doesn’t want to watch you lose your mind. Neither do I.” Turning away, Kale slid his jacket off and draped it over the back of the couch. He seemed to be having trouble maintaining eye contact. “I knew that, if we took it this far, it would be damn near impossible to go back to what we were before, and I did it anyway. Because I can’t fucking resist you. But it’s bad, my love. So bad.”

I mulled over the many thoughts that fought to be the first out of my mouth. All of the ways I wanted to respond felt wrong.

“I know,” I said, sitting heavily on the couch. “It’s bad. But it’s been bad for a while now, Kale. We were never going to be what we once were. It’s too late for that. I know what you’re going to say, but please, don’t leave just because Arys told you to. Don’t let him make choices for you.”

Kale fisted a handful of his short, brown hair and swore. “He offered me a place with Jenner, acting as your second in Vegas.”

“What?” My jaw dropped, and my fists clenched with the sudden need to hit someone.

I hadn’t heard that part of their conversation, having already fled the scene. Arys was so out of line. This time he’d really done it. The onslaught of anger took me from simmering to boiling over.

Unable to contain it, an explosion of red-hot emotion poured from me. Rather than flow into the surrounding environment, it traveled that direct link to Arys and hit him like a speeding bullet.

I felt the impact, felt him take the hit, and found grim satisfaction in the pain it caused. For a moment the mental door between us was open, and I braced for either a retaliation or an explanation. I received neither.

Arys merely took the assault, knowing what brought on such a vicious outburst. I could feel him inside his small house, secluded from the sun. In that brief moment inside his head, I caught a glimpse of the hell he’d been going through. I remembered that I didn’t suffer alone. The separation was breaking him down too.

I could feel him waiting, but for what I didn’t know. Another attack. A mental tirade. Arys was so calm and willing to take whatever I threw at him. Unable to deal with that reaction from him, I slammed the door between us, shutting him out once again.

My hands shook, and white noise rushed in my ears. The lights flickered. I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated on containing the excessive force threatening to tear apart my insides. The frat house had been too much too soon.

“Alexa, look at me.” Kale sank to his knees on the carpet in front of me and took my quaking hands in his. “Ground the energy. Come on, you know how to do this. Probably better than I do. Just let it go.”

The power arced from me to Kale, seeking to draw him in as well. Unable to resist my thrall, I felt him begin to fall under my spell. With a frustrated growl, I sought out the earth, letting my wolf’s link to it guide me.

With great effort I aligned my energy with that of the earth. Then with everything I had, I pushed the excess force into the earth. It accepted my offering, bringing me back to a state of balance. I opened my eyes to find Kale staring at me with something like relief and sorrow.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You don’t deserve the hell I’ve put you through. If you want to take off, I don’t blame you for that. But don’t feel like you have to go to Vegas. Don’t let anyone make that choice for you.”

Kale sighed and lightly bumped my chin with a finger. “I haven’t been fair to you. Punishing you for saving me was selfish and cowardly. I acted out because I couldn’t stand that we couldn’t be together. But I understand why now. We bring out the worst in each other. So maybe it’s better that I go, for a while. I’ll be your eyes and ears in Las Vegas. I will still be part of you, just at a safe distance.”

“I can’t believe you’re even considering this.” I leaned in to press my face to his in a wolfish nuzzle. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.” His soft chuckle both warmed and crushed my heart. “I think it might actually be good for me. And I know it will be good for you.”

I kissed him, a desperate act that exposed how weak he made me. I didn’t care. “I can’t imagine how you leaving me can ever be a good thing.”

“I know,” he murmured against my lips. “That’s why I have to.”

I lay in Kale’s bed, staring at the dust motes playing in the stray beam of light that found its way through a small crack in the blinds. It was nowhere near enough to be a danger, just a mockery of what I’d lost.

After a minute of staring at the shard of light, my eyes began to sting, and I looked away. Kale had fallen into a fitful sleep beside me. He’d tried so hard to reassure me, insisting that maybe Arys’s idea wasn’t so bad after all. No, it wasn’t bad, just cruel.

Arys wanted to separate me from Kale. My dark vampire was so headstrong, so certain that he knew what was best. He didn’t stop to consider what I wanted. He so rarely did.

I pondered his motives, wondering how he’d gotten Jenner to agree to take Kale back to Las Vegas. It didn’t strike me as something Jenner would voluntarily do. The thought of Kale in Jenner’s club didn’t sit well with me. Yet I knew there was trouble in Sin City and that Kale would be a valuable asset there. I was torn, hating that my reasons for wanting him to stay were entirely selfish and despising that I knew deep down it was better for us both if we parted.

The more I lay there thinking about it all, the more crazy I drove myself. Finally I slid out of the bed and went to fetch my phone from my shoulder bag in the living room. There were several missed calls from my sister and a handful of voice messages that I ignored. I selected a number from my contact list and listened to it ring.

“Did you miss the memo that said vampires usually sleep during the day?” Jenner’s voice was thick with sleep. “Damn, girl, it’s only noon. What do you want from me at this ungodly hour?”

“I want to see you. Tonight. Alone.” I paused so he could absorb that. “Do not tell Arys. If you do, I’ll do something dreadful to you.”

Jenner made a sound somewhere between a snicker and a scoff. “You mean like enthralling me so I crave you until my eventual demise? Oh wait, you already did that.”

“Get over it. Will you meet me, or do I have to spend the rest of the day plotting to harm you?” I had already reached my capacity for guilt with Kale. Perhaps one day I’d have some to spare for Jenner.

He gave an exaggerated sigh. “When and where?”

After we hung up, I listened to the messages from Juliet. In a frantic tone she demanded to know if I was aware that Arys had killed several FPA agents and wounded Briggs. She insisted that we speak and begged me to return her call.

I rubbed my forehead, stressed out by the panic in my sister’s voice. Whatever Arys had been up to recently, it wasn’t any saner than what I’d been doing. He was losing it, and I was willing to bet he didn’t even realize it. At least I knew I was going mad.

As nice as it would have been to plead ignorance and go on as if I knew nothing, I couldn’t leave Juliet hanging. So I called her next, hoping that she wouldn’t pick up. Very chicken shit of me, but other than Shaz, she was the one person I feared most seeing me now, as a vampire.

“Alexa?” She answered on the second ring. Awake and alert, there was nothing in her tone to indicate she’d been asleep. “Is it really you? Are you ok?”

“Yeah,” I said, cringing as my voice cracked. “It’s me. I’ve been better. Tell me what’s going on.”

Juliet didn’t require any prodding. She began to talk a mile a minute, detailing Arys’s recent behavior. Apparently he’d been busy. Not only had he baited Briggs into a deadly trap, he’d manipulated her into sharing some info, which she would not disclose to me.

“He messed with my head, Lexi. He made me tell him things and—” She broke off, swallowing audibly. There was disgust in her tone when she continued. “He made me want him. Like sexually. It was sick.”

I smothered a laugh. It shouldn’t have been funny, really. Arys was clearly up to no good. But it was just so obvious how little experience Juliet had with vampires of Arys’s caliber. Her telling of it bordered on comedic.

“Was that your first time being enthralled by a vampire?” When she only made a noise as a response, I added, “If it makes you feel any better, you got off easier than most who encounter that side of Arys. He’s not a threat to you, Juliet.”