Shades of Midnight (26 page)

The human police officer. Ah, fuck.

Panic drilled into the center of Kade’s being. “Alex, I know you’re upset and confused, but do not tell him any of this—”

“Too late,” she murmured. “I have to go now, Kade. Stay away from me.”

“Alex, wait. Alex!” The cell phone beeped as the connection ended. She hung up on him. “Goddamn it.”

He tried her back again, but there was no answer. Three rings, four … her voicemail picked up and he hung up.

Tried again. Same result.

“Shit!” Kade roared with anger, frustrated and raw with self-directed fury for what Alex had been through. Trauma he’d had a hand in, and which had likely lost him the one woman he hoped would be at his side for the rest of his life.

When he pivoted around, Tegan was standing there. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Kade gave a vague shake of his head.

“A female, obviously,” Tegan said. “The Breedmate from Harmony?”

Kade held the grim gaze of the Gen One warrior. “I am bonded to her. I love her.”

Tegan, also a mated Breed male, grunted. “There are worse things.”

“Yeah,” Kade agreed. “There are worse things. She thinks I betrayed her. I didn’t, but I wasn’t honest with her, and I let her down. She said she never wants to see me again.”

“Go on,” Tegan said.

“Alex knows about the Breed,” Kade said. “She knows about the Ancient, too. Shit, she knows everything. And I think she may have told it all to the state trooper stationed in Harmony.”

Tegan didn’t blink. His stare was bleak, calculating. Ruthless. “That would be unfortunate.”

Kade nodded, blew out a curse. “I think it’s too late to stop her. She told me she went to his house today. She’s upset, and scared. I think she might have gone to the human for help.”

“I see.” Tegan’s growl was so deep it was hardly audible. “Then it looks like we’re going to Harmony now. We need to contain the situation. And if need be, we’ll have to contain your female, as well.”

CHAPTER
Twenty-six

Come on, Luna. Let’s go.”

Alex sat on her snowmachine outside Zach’s house and waited for Luna to get situated in front of her on the sled. With her cell phone turned off after the repeated calls from Kade, Alex pocketed it and could only sit there for a moment in the snow-flurried darkness, willing herself to simply breathe in and out.

She couldn’t talk to him anymore. Not now. Her heart felt weak, and even as she’d been telling him to stay away from her, there was a part of her that wanted to let him back in, even though everything around her was in turmoil. Perhaps because of that fact, she still wanted the comfort of Kade’s strength around her.

She still wanted his love.

But she didn’t know if she could trust her feelings right now. Nothing seemed clear. Since meeting Kade, gone was her comfortable black-or-white, good-or-bad world. He had changed everything. He’d opened her eyes, and she could never go back to living as she had been.

She was changed forever, most significantly because no matter how much she wanted to fear him, to hate him for what he was, her heart refused to let him go.

Alex started up her snowmachine. She just needed to get away from everyone so that she had some room to think, and clear her head. She needed safe haven, and could think of only one place to find it now—Jenna’s cabin. In all the upheaval of the past few hours, her plans to check in on her friend had been derailed. If there was one person she could trust right now, Alex knew it was Jenna.

Behind her, the door to Zach’s house banged shut.

“Hey, where are you going?” he called to her, coming down across the yard at a brisk clip. “I said I wanted to take you home, make sure you got there safely. I don’t think you’re in any condition—”

“I don’t want your help, Zach.” Alex turned a hard look on him, disgusted to think she had ever considered him a friend. Worse, that she’d once allowed herself to be intimate with him. If Kade was dangerous because of the Breed blood that flowed in his veins, then Zach was a far more insidious threat for the way he was willing to use innocent people—to corrupt them and ruin lives—for the benefit of his own personal gain. “How much money did you and Skeeter make together over the years? How little value do you place on the people you’ve been sworn to protect and serve, when you’re willing to sell them out like you have?”

Zach glared. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Alex. You’re delusional.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, you are.” He stepped nearer. “I’m concerned you are a danger to yourself.”

“You mean a danger to your livelihood, don’t you?”

He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “As an officer of the law, I cannot in good conscience let you leave my custody like this, Alex. Now, step off the sled.”

She shook her head and gave the engine some gas. “Fuck you.”

Before she could take off, Zach’s hand went around her wrist. He jerked her arm tight, nearly unbalancing her. Alex glanced down in alarm to see that he had drawn his pistol from the holster belted around his waist.

She gasped in stunned terror, at the very same instant that Luna swiveled her big head around and clamped her jaws onto the arm that held Alex.

Zach hollered a pained cry. His bruising grasp fell away, and Alex, wrapping one arm around her beloved Luna to hold her steady in front of her on the sled, gave the snow-machine a thrust of power that sent it leaping into a fast escape.

She sped through the swirling curtain of snowfall, not daring to look back.

Not even when she heard Zach shout her name, followed by the buzzing whine of another snowmachine as he came after her.

The woman lay prone on the floor of the cabin, unmoving, except for the relaxed rise and fall of her breathing. She was tranced, unaware of the small incision he’d made in her nape a short while ago.

That careful incision now trickled a thin stream of blood as he crouched beside her and brought the edges of her delicate human skin together. He bent over her and licked away the coppery rivulet, then pressed his tongue against the wound and sealed the flesh closed.

His own body was mended, as well. The ultraviolet burns were cooled, his skin no longer festering with blisters and ripe with pain. The gunshot wounds in his thigh and abdomen were knitted tight with new, regenerated flesh. And the thirst that had been his fevered companion since his escape from captivity had, at last, subsided.

Now that his mind was clear, he had the opportunity to reflect, to consider what lay ahead of him.

More running. More hiding, struggling to stay one step ahead of the progeny that sought to either capture or destroy him. More of the same existence he had known since he and his brethren had taken their first step in this inhospitable human world.

He would survive.

But to what end?

While his instinct assured him he was far from defeated, his logic calculated that there was no way for him to ever win. There was no end in sight, only more of the same.

He and the other seven conquerors who crash-landed here so long ago should have been kings among the lesser, human life-forms that inhabited this planet. They might have been kings, if not for the uprising of their half-human sons. If not for the war that had left only him, his survival dependent on the treachery of the son who had secreted him away in a mountain cave.

He shouldn’t have been surprised that treachery awaited him once he’d been awakened.

After his period of hibernation, he had expected the world to be different, laid out like a bounty for him to feast upon. Instead he’d been shackled and starved, weakened by chemicals and technology he’d imagined would have been far out of the grasp of the crude humanity that existed when he last knew it.

Earth had advanced. It was nothing remotely close to the world he had left behind, but enough so that life here for him would forever be a trial. An endless monotony of days and nights, pursuit and retreat.

He wasn’t sure he had the will or the desire.

The woman lying before him was caught in a similar snare. He had witnessed her despair, and he had tasted her defeat in each pulse of her heartbeat as he had taken his nourishment from her. He tasted her loneliness, her hopelessness, and it plucked at something deep inside him.

She, too, was a warrior. He saw it in the few, scattered images in frames within her domicile. This woman in a human warrior’s uniform, carrying weapons and a look of determination in her eyes. That look was not gone, even when she’d been weakened from blood loss and terrified. She was still strong, still a warrior in her heart, but she no longer saw it in herself.

She, too, was lost … alone.

But where she had been prepared to give up in those moments before he intruded on her plans, his advanced genetic makeup would permit no such surrender. He was born a conqueror, born for war. He was the ultimate predator. Whether he desired it or not, his body would resist death to its final gasp … no matter how long it took to get there.

And he was also driven to see his enemies defeated, by whatever means required.

It was that drive that compelled him to take the measure he had a few moments ago with this woman lying unconscious, and wholly unaware, on the floor of the cabin.

Now he moved back from her in grim consideration. Idly, he brought his left forearm up to his mouth and sealed the small cut he’d made there. His tongue swept over the faint indentation in the muscle beneath his skin as the wound closed up and vanished, as if the incision were never there.

As he got up and stalked to the other side of the room, he heard the approaching roar of gas-powered engines not far from the cabin.

Had they found him so soon?

Whether his pursuers were human or Breed, he couldn’t be sure.

But as he tested the newly regenerated sinew and skin of his arms, he smiled grimly, satisfied that he was prepared to meet any incoming threat.

CHAPTER
Twenty-seven

Alex flew as fast as she dared through the snow and wilderness on the way to Jenna’s cabin. She could still hear Zach behind her, gaining on her. Cutting a hazardous path back and forth, praying she might lose him in the nearly blinding storm, she hoped that the gun he’d pulled on her in town had just been a momentary lapse of good sense on his part.

But she’d seen the dangerous gleam in his gaze. He was furious, and he was desperate to protect his secret. Probably most of all from Jenna. But would he be desperate enough to kill Alex in the process?

The knot of dread that was lodged in her throat said he would.

Alex’s heart was beating like it wanted to leap out of her rib cage by the time she reached Jenna’s property. She skidded into an abrupt halt and killed the engine. Luna jumped off with her and the pair of them started running for the cabin’s front porch.

“Jenna!” she called. “Jenna, it’s me!”

Almost to the steps, Alex heard Zach’s snowmachine grind to a halt behind her. “Don’t take another step, Alex.”

Oh, God
.

“Jenna!” she cried. “Are you there?”

There was no answer. No movement of any kind came from inside the cabin.

Behind her, the soft
click
of the pistol’s hammer.

“Goddamn you, Alex.” Zach’s voice sounded wooden, utterly devoid of emotion. “Why are you making me do this?”

“Jenna,” she called again, quieter now, realizing the futility of it.

The cabin was silent. Jenna either would not, or could not, hear her. What if her earlier dread for Jenna’s wellbeing was accurate? Alex hardly dared imagine it.

Nor would she even have the chance, because Zach was apparently out of his mind and Alex was likely about to die here and now.

Then, from within the stillness ahead of her, Alex heard the faintest sound—a small moan, barely audible even as close as she was to the door. Alex’s heart gave a hopeful stutter.

“Jenna?” She braved the smallest step forward, one foot on the bottom step of the porch. “If you can hear me, please open—”

The gunshot rang out like a cannon blast behind her. Alex felt the heated whisper of the bullet as it sang past her head and lodged into the wooden doorjamb not even three feet in front of her.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, holy Christ
.

Zach had shot at her
.

Alex’s body froze with shock and a fear so deep and cold it left her shaking all over. She exhaled a shuddering breath and slowly pivoted her head, not about to let Zach shoot her in the back. If he was going to do it, then, by God, he was going to do it looking her in the eyes.

But no sooner had she turned than there was an explosion of movement behind her. Something huge blasted out of Jenna’s cabin in a blur of speed, splintering the door right off its hinges. Zach screamed. His gun went off again, the bullet ripping audibly through the thick, snow-laden canopy of pine boughs overhead.

Alex grabbed Luna and hit the ground, her face buried in the warm fur of the wolf dog’s neck. She didn’t know what just happened. For an instant, her mind struggled to process the guttural snarl and the sickening, wet sounds that followed.

Then she knew what it had to be.

Slowly she raised her head. The scream that crawled up to her lips died as her gaze locked onto a deadly creature that eclipsed anything she’d ever seen before.

The Ancient
.

Through the steady fall of snowflakes in the darkness, his amber gaze burned laser bright, searingly savage. He was naked, hairless, covered from head to toe in
dermaglyphs
so dense and intertwining they all but concealed his nudity. His enormous fangs dripped with blood—Zach’s blood, taken from the gaping hole that had once been his throat.

A terrible thought slammed into her: Had this monster also gotten to Jenna?

Alex closed her eyes, whispering a prayer for her friend and hoping desperately for some kind of miracle that might have spared her from the brutal savagery that had just befallen Zach.

Luna growled in Alex’s arms and the creature cocked its head at an exaggerated angle, staring at the animal. He started to prowl away from Zach’s lifeless body, a low growl ticking in the back of his alien throat.

Alex’s lungs compressed, squeezing out what little air was in them. She thought for certain the Ancient was about to kill her, too, but its questioning stare lingered for an agonizing few seconds. Time during which the distant buzz of more snowmachines carried on the wind.

Alex sent a nervous glance toward the sound.

When she looked back again, the Ancient was gone, nothing but the sway of a few low-hanging branches at the edge of the forest to tell which direction he’d fled.

The knowledge of Alex’s fear hit Kade like an anvil driven into his gut.

He and the other warriors were hauling ass on their snowmachines, nearly to Harmony when the feeling gripped him that they were moving farther away from Alex, not closer. He quickly redirected the group, leading the way along a game trail that rambled to the west of town.

Fresh sled tracks told him he was on the right path, but no more so than the homing strength of his blood bond to Alex, which pulsed more powerfully as his snowmachine chewed up the trail, heading toward a small log cabin up ahead in the dark a few hundred yards.

Kade’s heart soared that he had reached her, only to crash an instant later when the copper stench of human blood tickled his nostrils. It wasn’t hers—he’d know her honey-sweet bloodscent anywhere—but the idea that Alex was near any kind of death sent fear arrowing through his veins.

Kade goosed the throttle of his sled, but the damn thing was still too slow for his liking. He steered off the trail and ditched it, vaulting in a fluid leap before hitting the ground running, using every ounce of his Breed agility to reach her.

“Alex!” he shouted, speeding past the carnage in front of the cabin and glancing around only long enough to note the brutalized corpse of Zach Tucker and the splintered ruins of what had been the cabin’s front door. “Ah, God … Alex!”

He ran inside and found her on folded knees beside her friend Jenna, who lay on the floor of the darkened cabin. Kade flicked on a lamp, not so much for himself as for the two women. Jenna seemed confused, her eyes drowsy, her voice groggy as though she were just coming to after having been unconscious.

“Alex,” Kade murmured gently, his voice breaking with emotion.

She turned to face him then, and slowly rose to her feet. She took one hesitant step forward, and that was all he needed. Kade went to her and pulled her against him, wrapping her in his arms. He kissed the top of her head, so damned relieved to see that she was unharmed.

“Alex, I am so sorry. For everything.”

She drew back and glanced away from him. He could read the emotion in her eyes. The quiet uncertainty that said she wasn’t sure she could trust him fully yet. It crushed him to see that doubt in her eyes. Even worse was knowing that he was the one who put it there.

She led him away from Jenna, who was still murmuring incoherently, in and out of wakefulness.

Alex’s gaze held his with bleak calm. “It was the Ancient, Kade. He was here.”

He swore, though he was unsurprised, given the condition of the body outside. “You saw him? Did he touch you? Did he … ah, Jesus … did he do anything to you at all?”

She shook her head. “He must have been hiding in Jenna’s cabin when Zach and I arrived a few minutes ago. He exploded out the front door after Zach tried to shoot me—”

“What?” Kade’s blood went from the icy chill of his fear to the boiling heat of rage. If Tucker wasn’t already dead, Kade would have torn his lungs out. “What the hell happened? Why did that son of a bitch want to hurt you?”

“Because I realized what he was up to. Zach and Skeeter were in business together, dealing drugs and selling alcohol to the dry Native settlements in the bush. I knew something was wrong when I saw Skeeter’s cell phone and a lot of cash at Zach’s house today. He tried to lie about it, but I knew.”

“He picked the wrong person for that, eh?”

Her smile was faint and fleeting. “I don’t want Jenna to see …” She gestured toward the front yard as her words trailed off. “She’ll have to know the truth, of course, but not like this.”

Kade nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

As they spoke the rest of the warriors roared up to the cabin on their sleds. Kade went out to intercept them, informing them that the Ancient had been there just a short while ago and that the victim outside was the brother of Alex’s friend.

Chase and Hunter fell in to perform a discreet cleanup, while Tegan and Brock walked with Kade back inside.

“This is Alex,” he said, making quick introductions to the two warriors. It was difficult not to touch her as he explained what had occurred before they arrived, just to reassure himself that she was whole and unharmed.

“Are you and your friend all right?” Tegan asked, the Gen One’s voice deep with respect despite the fact that he’d come there to assess a situation that had gone from mildly screwed up to fucked up beyond all recognition.

“I’m okay,” Alex replied. “But I’m worried about Jenna. I didn’t see anything wrong with her, but she doesn’t seem quite right to me, either.”

Tegan glanced at Brock, but the big warrior was already heading over to have a look at the woman across the room.

“What’s he going to do to her?” Alex asked, worry creasing her brow.

“It’s all right,” Kade said. “If something is wrong, he can help her.”

Brock smoothed his hands over Jenna’s back, then gently swept aside her hair and placed his dark fingers against the wan paleness of her cheek. “She’s been tranced,” he said. “She’s coming out of it, though. Gonna be fine.”

Chase and Hunter strode into the cabin and looked to Tegan. “The yard is cleared. The two of us can start searching the area for the Ancient’s trail.”

Tegan pursed his lips, blew out a sharp sigh. “He’s miles away from here by now. A needle in a haystack. We’ll never catch him in this wilderness. It’s not like we can track the son of a bitch across the whole damn interior in this blizzard.”

Kade felt Alex’s gaze light on him. “What about Luna? If you used your talent with her, would she be able to help us track the Ancient?”

Tegan eyed the wolf dog that had come over to nuzzle Kade’s hand. “It might be our best shot, man.”

“Yeah, I can do it,” he said, “but what about the rest of you? Are we all going to run with her, fully loaded with weapons in case we catch up to the bastard?”

“I can fly you,” Alex suggested.

“No way.” Kade shook his head. “No fucking way. I’m not going to put you any farther into this whole thing than I already have. That’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”

“I want to do it. I’m not going to leave Luna, and I can carry all of you in my plane while she tracks the Ancient on the ground.”

“It’s dark, Alex,” he bit off harshly. “And it’s snowing like a bitch.”

“I’m not seeing your point,” she countered. “And the longer we stand here arguing about this, the farther that creature can run. That’s a risk that
I’m
not willing to take.”

Tegan leveled a questioning look on Kade. “She’s right. You know she is.”

Kade slanted his gaze to Alex, seeing in her eyes all of the courage and determination that had made him fall in love with her in the first place. The fact was, the Order needed her right now. He was proud of Alex and petrified at the same time. But he exhaled a low curse and said, “Yeah. Okay, let’s do this.”

“What about the human?” Chase asked, gesturing toward Jenna. “We’d better scrub her before she sees anything more than she already has.”

When the ex–Enforcement Agent started to walk toward her, Brock wheeled his head around, fangs gleaming behind his lips. “Back off, Harvard. You don’t touch her. Got it?”

Chase paused at once. He gave a negligent shrug and withdrew as Brock turned his attention back to the human female.

As the tension in the cabin subsided, Alex kneeled down beside Luna and wrapped the wolf dog in a loving hug, whispering something to her before she looked up at Kade. “All right, she’s in your hands. Promise me you’ll be careful with her.”

“I promise,” he said, meaning it completely.

As Alex moved away, Kade took Luna’s chin in his palm and met her intelligent gaze. He established his connection with the canine’s mind, then gave her the silent command to show him where the Ancient fled.

Alex had her arms crossed over her chest, one hand pressed to her mouth, as Luna took off running from the cabin and into the swirling snowstorm outside.