Rush of Darkness (6 page)

He nodded in response to her question, saying, “He didn’t have much choice. The Consortium’s refusal to take action against the Casus has stripped them of respect. They’re now viewed as a bunch of frightened old men, too bogged down in politics to be effective.”

“So what’s this new group called?”

His mouth twitched again, and this time a crooked grin took shape. “That’s still under debate. Kellan suggested the X-Men, but it was quickly turned down. Aiden said the spandex would ride up his ass.”

That sounded exactly like something Ade, a tigershifter with a seriously sarcastic sense of humor, would say, and a soft burst of laughter slipped free, before she choked off the throaty sound, stunned that he’d been able to make her lower her guard. She fidgeted in her seat, unnerved by the way he was watching her, the heat in his eyes so warm she could feel a simmer beginning beneath her skin, her primal instincts reacting powerfully to the raw force of his masculinity, whether she wanted them to or not.

Needing conversation to steer her mind away from her body’s frustrating reactions, Raine broke eye contact and coughed. “So, um…what will you do when this is over?”

“You mean your hunt?”

Shaking her head, she wet her lips with a nervous swipe of her tongue. “The war.”

Even though she was now watching her fingers trace
the grain of denim across the top of a thigh, she could feel the heat of his stare against her profile, the intensity of his gaze nearly as compelling as the deep rumble of his voice. “I’ll continue to work with Kierland and the others.”

“You mean hunting?” Impossible to ignore the way her stomach twisted at the thought.

“I mean
helping,
” he corrected her, that deep voice edged with irritation. “I have experience, good or bad, Raine, that can be useful to the Watchmen.” From the corner of her eye, she watched as he turned his head to the side, his jaw like carved marble as he stared out the window into the starless night. “It’s time for the Collective to come to an end. But some things out there still need to be dealt with, and the Consortium can’t be trusted. Not after what they’ve allowed to happen with the Casus. Christ, who knows what other nightmares they’ve turned a blind eye to or hidden from the Watchmen? So there’s a helluva lot of work that will need to be done, even when the war is over.”

“Sounds intense.”

“I’m sure it will be.” His tone turned wry as he pulled a hand down his face and drawled, “But then, it probably doesn’t get more intense than this. Protecting a headstrong Deschanel on the hunt for blood is about as intense as it gets.”

She laughed, and his head came back around, his sharp green gaze locking hard on hers. At his questioning look, she said, “I’m sorry. It’s just ironic.”

He didn’t look angry, merely curious. “What is?”

She rolled a shoulder, as well as her eyes. “The way you spent over half your life killing vampires, and now you’re determined to protect one. Talk about a change of heart.”

Though she could sense his tension level was still high, another one of those slow, crooked smiles lifted the corner of his mouth. “Who knows? Maybe it’s penance for my sins.”

She sensed the deeper meaning to his words, and couldn’t stop herself from probing for more detail, needing to understand him in a way she couldn’t explain. Yeah, she could have fobbed it off to curiosity, but she’d have been lying, because it went deeper than that. Deeper than she was willing to admit. “So then you think that what you did while with the Collective was wrong?”

He leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes, arms crossed over his chest. For a moment, she didn’t think he would answer, but then he finally said, “You’ve seen inside my head, Raine. If you’re looking for an answer to that question, I’m sure it was in there.”

“To be honest, I didn’t spend a lot of time evaluating your emotions.” Her tone was dry. “I was a little too horrified by all the murder and mayhem lingering around in there.”

A hard, husky laugh surged up from his chest, and he rolled his head toward her, his voice a delicious rasp of sound as he said, “I’ll answer your question if you answer one of mine.”

Her pulse picked up a little, but then it always did
that whenever he was giving her one of those intense stares that said she had his complete and undivided attention. The train could have slid off the tracks and pitched straight into a ravine, and he wouldn’t have looked away. But she didn’t feel threatened by the predatory look. She felt nervous…flushed.

“Okay,” she agreed, figuring whatever he asked would be worth it, if it meant she could delve a little deeper into his psyche. Though she’d been resolved not to pry into his private life earlier in the night, they were now stuck with each other, thanks to that bloody Oath—and she never had been the type who could walk away from a puzzle until it was finished.

“Why you?” he asked her, lifting his head off the back of the seat.

“What do you mean?”

“Why does Westmore need
you
so badly? What’s different about your power?” His dark gaze moved slowly over her face, feature by feature, and she could feel a rush of heat burning in each place that it touched. “I don’t know much about the Alacea,” he admitted, staring at her mouth, before lifting his gaze back to her eyes. “They don’t commit a lot of crimes, so we’re not told much about them in the Collective. Do you all have the same powers?”

“Um…no. The Alacea are eclectic. Some can see into another’s thoughts, some can’t. Some can use their gifts on command, while others struggle for control. There’s no rhyme or reason to the way power is distributed, and it’s not uncommon for different powers to be held by
different members of a family. But usually only one form of sight is given, whether that’s into the past, the present or the future. Even in those rare cases where an Alacea
does
have two forms of sight, one is often much weaker than the other.”

“I know you can see into the past, as well as the present. So then your powers are…unique?”

“I guess you could say that. Especially since reading the present is the most uncommon of the three. But only my family knows that I have, or
had
, two strong forms of sight.”

“Then how did Westmore know you were what he needed?”

“He’d been searching for someone like me for months,” she explained, a bad taste filling her mouth as she thought of the man who had destroyed her life. “He had sent scouts out roaming the earth, spying on every psychic they could find. They could read our powers, and it turned out that I was exactly what he was looking for. It wasn’t the future that interested him, but the past…and especially the present, since he needed me to keep an eye on Saige Buchanan as she deciphered the maps.”

Saige was engaged to a shape-shifter named Michael Quinn, who was one of the Watchmen back at Harrow House. The woman was also a part of the Merrick clan, which had close ties to the war and were mortal enemy of the Casus. All three of the Buchanan siblings were working with the Watchmen, and they also each possessed a unique gift that had helped in the search for the Dark Markers.

Saige’s particular gift enabled her to “hear” objects, and she’d used this strange talent to decipher the encrypted maps that led to the places where the Dark Markers had been hidden. By using her Alacea powers, Raine had been able to “watch” as Saige deciphered the maps, and had then passed that information on to Westmore, enabling him to send the Casus after the crosses.

The one time she’d tried to lie about a Marker’s location, he’d had Rietta killed to teach her a lesson.

It was clear that Seth wanted to keep questioning her, but the conductor’s voice came over the intercom, announcing the next station stop at the German border, which was where they were getting off. Raine stood and grabbed her backpack from the overhead compartment, then stepped aside so that Seth could unfold his long body from the row of seats. He grabbed his own bag, and they exited the train a few moments later, the platform nearly empty since it was the middle of the night.

“You can grab a taxi and head on over to the Marriott,” she told him, hiking her bag higher onto her shoulder. “I’ll meet you there in about an hour.”

“Meet me there?” he rumbled, taking hold of her arm as he ground to a halt. “Just where the hell do you think you’re going?”

She could have lied, but decided to give him the brutal truth. If he didn’t like it, maybe he’d save them both from this complicated mess and go back to England. “I need to eat.”

“You told me you’d already eaten before we boarded the train in Paris.”

Raine made sure no one was close enough to overhear them, then said, “I need blood, McConnell. Not food.”

Surprise flickered in his gaze, before melting into a slow, glittering burn of anger. “Like
hell,
” he snarled, the low words nearly carried away by the cool wind whipping down the platform. “Is this some kind of stunt meant to piss me off?”

Sighing, she said, “I’m not jacking you around. Real food only does
part
of the job for me. I need blood to keep up my strength, and that fight tonight zapped more than I’d planned on losing. Plain and simple, I need more of the red stuff.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he muttered as he set off through the station, dragging her behind him as he headed toward the taxis.

“You’d rather I starve?”

He cut her a blistering glare from the corner of his eye. “You are
not
going off into the night to find some guy to fuck for food.”

Well, that was certainly blunt. And while it probably didn’t make a lot of sense, she actually liked that he didn’t censor everything that came out of his mouth when he was with her, the way his friends had, always afraid they would say something to upset her. Yes, she’d had horrific, ungodly things done to her, but she wasn’t going to fall apart at the sound of a swear word. It had been part of the reason she was so itchy to get away from Harrow House.

Pulling in a deep breath through her nose, she ran her tongue over her teeth and casually said, “For your
information, McConnell, I don’t have sex with my food.”

“Just…don’t say anything.” His voice was harder than before, his grip on her arm a fraction tighter, though she could tell he was trying not to hurt her. “I hate being lied to.”

“I’m not lying,” she argued, then kept silent as he pushed her into the back of a taxi and climbed in beside her. She stared out the window while he gave the name of the hotel to the driver through the sliding window, before slamming it shut, providing them a modicum of privacy, while the night’s darkness provided them a bit more. From the corner of her eye, she watched as he popped his jaw, a muscle pulsing hard in his temple. He looked…bleak, and she decided to give him the explanation he didn’t deserve. “I wasn’t looking for some
one
to feed from,” she said quietly. “I was going to find the local blood bank.”

His head whipped toward her so fast, she was surprised he hadn’t given himself whiplash. “Is that what you’ve been doing? Breaking into blood banks?”

With a shrug, she said, “It’s easier than it sounds. An internet connection can usually get me the information that I need, such as the name of the bank’s supervisor. Then it’s just a matter of locking into their thoughts, if I’m able to, and searching for the access codes to the alarms.”

“Clever.” His voice was soft…and there was maybe just a tad of admiration in his tone.

“I, uh, try to keep it simple.”

“Simple, but still too dangerous. It stops now.”

Her mouth flattened into a thin line of frustration. “You’re being unreasonable. And you’re also not the boss of me.”

Wow. And wasn’t it great that she now sounded like a bratty preteen?

“I’m not going to starve you, Raine. If you need blood, you can have more of mine.” She flinched in reaction, but he didn’t notice, his attention already focused on the knife he’d pulled from his back pocket. She knew exactly what he was going to do, this same scenario playing out time and again while they’d made their way across the Wasteland. The human had made it more than clear that he would
never
give her his vein. Instead, he lowered his window and emptied out the water bottle he’d pulled from his pack, then made a shallow cut in his strong, corded forearm and collected the blood in the empty container.

Christ, that smells good,
she thought, as the rich, drugging scent reached her nostrils, making her head spin.
And so unforgivably wrong.

But it wouldn’t stop her from taking what he offered. She couldn’t. Once that mouthwatering scent hit her nose, she was hooked. Now she needed it too badly.

He scowled as he handed the bottle into her trembling hand, those green eyes shadowed with grim, angry emotion. Part of her wanted to throw the blood in his judgmental face, but she greedily clutched the bottle in her cold fingers. Just before the rim touched her lips, her eyes flicked to the knife he still gripped in his hand
and she smirked. “You’d rather die than do this the easy way, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m sure the knife hurts a helluva lot less than your teeth.”

“It’s too bad you’ll never know for sure,” she murmured, and she could feel him watching her with piercing intensity as she lowered her lashes and drank deeply, letting the warm, succulent liquid flow down her throat, spreading through her body, slipping deeper…and deeper….

And all the while, she tried not to think about the past or the future…or how badly she wanted to sink her fangs into Seth McConnell’s masculine throat.

Saarbrücken, Germany
4:00 a.m.

I
F HELL EXISTED
on earth, then Seth had no doubt that he’d found it. They’d checked into their hotel a half hour ago, and all that’d been available was a room with a king-size bed, which meant he’d be cramping it on the love seat for the remainder of the night. But that wasn’t the hellish part. No, the part that had him twisted into knots, pacing the room from one side to the other, was the fact that he was alone with the vamp.

Strange, that in all the time he’d known her, they’d never once been behind a locked door together. Always before, there had been friends nearby. Watching. Listening. Ready to be there if she needed them.

Knowing damn well that he made her nervous, Seth was relieved, if not a little annoyed, when she sat down in the middle of the bed with her backpack, pulled the wavy mass of her long hair over one shoulder, whipped out her laptop and began typing away, doing God only knew what—and completely ignoring his presence. Of course, it gave him the opportunity to simply watch her, his gaze never wavering from the delicate angles of her
face as he paced…and paced, the carpet no doubt wearing thin beneath the soles of his boots.

Though he hated to admit it, she looked better for the blood he’d given her, color blooming in her cheeks with a soft, youthful glow. A glow he couldn’t help but feel strangely proud for putting there. He’d used the first-aid kit he always traveled with—in his line of work, the thing was constantly needed—and wrapped a bandage around his arm, but the shallow cut still throbbed, reminding him of those quiet, intense moments in the back of the taxi. As he’d watched her drinking his blood, it’d been impossible to control his body’s reactions. His heart had hammered like a bitch, his cock hardening to the point he felt light-headed. Though his mind obviously had trouble coming to terms with her “liquid” diet, his body had no trouble reacting to the provocative idea of her taking sustenance from him.

Or was he simply experiencing relief at the fact that he’d been able to keep her from going out and finding her meal elsewhere? After all, he knew the Deschanel were hardly without means. They had “feeders” in every city of the world—men and women who gave of their blood freely. Most were from clans who were allies of the Deschanel, though he’d heard of humans filling the prestigious positions. They were more than well compensated for their work, often earning millions a year.

And it wasn’t always their blood that they offered, but their bodies, as well.

If what Raine had said about finding a blood bank was true, then there had to be a reason, and Seth couldn’t
help but think that she didn’t want to get close enough to anyone to feed directly from their vein. But if that was true, then why did she take such exception to the fact that he refused to allow her to bite
him?

And why am I asking myself this question, when I already know the answer? It’s obviously a matter of pride. She knows I won’t ever allow it, so she makes those comments simply to irritate me.

Or…was it something else entirely? Could she honestly—

No! Damn it, that’s enough!

Knowing he was only going to twist himself into knots if he didn’t get his mind on to a different subject, he said, “So who are we hunting in Germany? Seton?”

She stiffened with a little gasp, her expression so rigid she looked ready to crack as she set her laptop aside. “How do you know about Seton?” she demanded, pressing her back and shoulders against the headboard. “Were you gossiping with the others? God, you’re all like a bunch of schoolkids!”

Seth knew, from talking to Kellan and Chloe, that Seton was the Casus bastard who’d overseen Raine’s punishments while the group had been imprisoned, carrying them out at Westmore’s command.

“We weren’t gossiping,” he muttered, raking his fingers through his hair like he did when he was tense, which seemed to be his usual state these days. “I was just…worried. I wanted to gather as much information as I could.”

Her nostrils flared. “My private life is none of your
goddamn business, McConnell. You have no right gathering
information
about me, and you can’t shove me under a microscope just because you feel like it. I’m not the subject of one of your Collective hunts!”

Narrowing his eyes, he quietly said, “I’m not hunting you, Raine. I claimed that Oath because I’m trying to help.”

“Oh, right.” Breathless laughter shook her chest, while a flat smile twisted the corner of her mouth. “How can I keep forgetting that the vampire killer has had a change of heart?”

Seth stopped pacing at the foot of the bed, his muscles corded with strain as he held her furious stare. “Damn it, what do you want to hear?” His voice was getting harder…grittier, the words ripping out of him against his will, scratching like barbs in his throat. “You want to hear that I’m sorry for what I’ve done? That there’s a part of me that feels like a monster for all the Deschanel that I’ve cut down in cold blood? Then fine, I do. It’s a screwed-up feeling, but it’s one I’ve got to live with. You happy now?”

“Why feel sorry?” The gray of her eyes turned silver, glittering like streaks of lightning. “We vampires all deserve it, right?”

“A lot of them did.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and locked his jaw, forcing the graveled words out. “Others…I can’t be so sure.”

His husky admission had obviously surprised her. Her mouth dropped open a little, her tawny brows pulling
together over eyes that were stormy with disbelief, and he actually felt his face start to flush with heat.

What the hell am I doing?

Clearing his throat, Seth turned and stalked toward the window. He braced one hand high on the frame and stared out at the pinkening skyline, the sun finally making its early-morning climb, fighting its way against the darkness, while he wondered why he couldn’t just keep his mouth shut around her. Yeah, he’d lived with things he knew were wrong during his years with the Collective, but he’d made excuses, not wanting to admit that his entire life was built on a steaming pile of hatred and prejudice. But that didn’t mean she was going to understand…or forgive him.

“What’s going on, McConnell?” He could hear the thread of confusion in her soft words. “You still owe me an answer to that question I asked you on the train. Do you honestly regret all the blood you’ve shed in the name of the Collective Army?”

“Not all of it,” he muttered, rubbing his free hand against his stubbled jaw. “But revenge is an ugly thing, Raine. Be ready for what it does to you. Because if you give in to it, you might not like what you become.”

For a moment all he could hear was the soughing sound of her breaths, but he could feel the stormy heat of her gaze burning against his back, and he steeled himself for her response, knowing damn well that he wasn’t going to like it. “I’m sure that’s true, but it doesn’t matter. I’m willing to sell a piece of my soul if it means making the Casus pay for their sins.”

“A piece?” A wry laugh slid bitterly from his lips, and he dropped his head forward, his fingers digging into the wooden window frame with so much force, he was amazed it didn’t crack. “More like the whole fucking package.”

“You don’t think a man like Seton should pay for his sins?”

“I’m not saying that.” Of course the bastard needed to pay. Just thinking about the son of a bitch made him want to rip something apart with his bare hands—but he didn’t want Raine being a part of that. She’d already been through enough ugly crap to last a lifetime. “All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t have to kill yourself to make it happen. Even if it is only a part. You’ve already suffered enough.”

“Yeah, well, I happen to believe that it’s his turn to suffer.”

“So then it
is
Seton we’re here for?” he asked, looking over his shoulder.

She shook her head, and he could see the exhaustion in her eyes that she was trying so hard to conceal. “Not yet. I’m saving him for the end. I figure he and Westmore will be together, so I’ll be able to take them out at the same time.”

“Can you read him?”

“No. And he knows it.”

A
T HIS QUESTIONING LOOK
, Raine wet her lips, forcing herself to hold his gaze as she explained. “When they were torturing me, I was asked questions. Ones that I
couldn’t always answer with a lie. I admitted I couldn’t read Westmore…or Seton.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know. Bad luck? I hated them the most? Whatever the reason, they’re blank to me.”

“So it’s not only your loved ones you can’t see?” he asked in a gritty rasp, his eyes darkening. “It’s also the people you despise?”

“Sometimes,” she murmured, pulling her knees into her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

He looked back out the window, his posture rigid, and Raine realized what he was thinking. She could no longer read him, so the logical conclusion was that it was because she hated him. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that wasn’t true, but she bit back the words, knowing no good could come from it. Better to let him think what he would. She was already too drawn to him, slipping deeper into dangerous territory with each second that went by.

She shivered, rubbing her hands down her arms, her skin suddenly too tight for her body, and was actually grateful for the distraction when he came right out with his unspoken question, even though it was going to mean admitting things she’d rather have kept to herself.

“Why do you think you can no longer read me?” He took a deep breath, the hand he’d braced at the edge of the window clenching into a powerful fist. “Is it because you hate me after seeing the things I’ve done in the past?”

“I don’t know why I can’t read you, McConnell. But
it isn’t because of hatred. I might find it…difficult to accept you, and the things you’ve done definitely make me angry, but…even though I know that I
should,
I don’t hate you for them.” She lowered her gaze, staring at the swirling pattern of the bedspread, and made an admission that should have made her burn with shame. “To be honest,” she said in a quiet voice, “if I were in your place, I probably would have done the same things. That wouldn’t have made them right, but I don’t think it would have stopped me.”

He turned as she lifted her gaze, his expression mirroring his surprise. “You really believe that?”

With a stiff shrug of her shoulder, she said, “Aren’t I doing something similar now?”

“Yeah, but the Casus are a bunch of evil bastards who deserve to die.”

“And after what happened to your family, you felt the same way about vamps, didn’t you?”

“I did. But do you know what I finally learned?” His voice got rougher, and she could feel the raw force of his emotions blasting against her like a hot wind. “I learned that I can’t hate every vampire for what was done to my family. And no matter how many kills you make, Raine, you won’t be able to change what happened to yours.”

“I know that,” she told him, more than a little shocked by the honesty of their conversation. For two people who hadn’t known each other long, and who had so many reasons to be enemies, they spoke with a candor that was more than a little unsettling. “I’m not trying to change
what happened. I’m just trying to find a way to live with it, the same as you did.”

He swore under his breath, and began pacing again, his bristling, restless energy seeming too much for the room to contain. “If not Seton, then who are we here for, Raine? If we’re going to do this thing, I need to understand the plan.”

“There are three more that I want, before Westmore. Seton will be the last of those three, and to find him I’m going to have to find the Kraven. But the next one I’m going after is named Schultz. He’s here in Germany.”

“And what about Spark?” he asked, shoving his fingers through his hair so hard that it would have hurt if the blond strands hadn’t been cut so close to his scalp.

Spark was a Collective assassin who was working with Westmore. The female soldier had once targeted Raine for attack during her imprisonment, but Kellan had managed to turn the assassin’s attention on him instead…and had taken a gruesome beating for it. Just thinking about it made Raine feel sick to her stomach.

Forcing the words past the knot of guilt in her throat, she managed to say, “Spark might be a bitch, but she had nothing to do with Rietta’s death.”

“But she nearly got you raped again.” His tone was so graveled it reminded her of a Lycan. “Kellan told me what happened.”

“But this isn’t about me. It’s about what they did to my sister.”

“Even so, I still think we need to be careful where Spark’s concerned. She’s been holed up in Budapest for
months now, but we’ll know if she moves. The Granger brothers are still running personal surveillance on her.”

Ashe and Gideon Granger were two Deschanel vampires who were working with the Watchmen, same as Seth. Watching Spark was a simple assignment for guys of their experience, considering they were
Förmyndares
—specially trained vampires who protected the Deschanel clan—but the brothers had personal reasons for wanting to get their hands on Westmore and had hoped the assassin would eventually lead them to the Kraven leader.

The Grangers were also wonderfully gorgeous, and infinitely more suited to a woman like her, but Raine wasn’t interested in them. Despite their outrageous appeal, it was McConnell who’d held her attention from the very beginning—which meant she obviously had something wrong with her wiring. Yeah, she had no doubt that he’d make some woman incredibly happy one day—but that woman sure as hell wouldn’t be a vampire.

The soldier came to a stop at the foot of the bed and pushed his hands into his pockets again, his gaze locked with hers, and Raine was thankful that he hadn’t been able to read the direction of her thoughts. “Do you think Westmore knows we bugged her?” he asked, still thinking about Spark.

Before they’d escaped the Wasteland, the Watchmen had managed to capture the assassin. They’d let her get away, but only after they’d tagged the backpack that she always carried with an electronic tracking device. To
cover their plan, they’d told her she was being released so that she could deliver a message to Westmore, demanding that he show in two weeks’ time at the Eiffel Tower, ready to hand over the three Dark Markers in his possession. The Kraven leader hadn’t shown, but then, they hadn’t expected him to. But they were disappointed that the assassin obviously hadn’t been allowed to join Westmore at his new hiding place, which would have led Seth and his friends right to him.