Blood Dark (23 page)

Where he wasn’t the deceiver, the pariah, the outlaw. Where she wasn’t an agent. Where he wasn’t a vampire. Where it was just the two of them: Kane and Caitlin.

But that wasn’t how it was.

It would never be how it was. And she needed to accept that. She needed to face it and accept it.

She’d needed out of there. She’d needed out of the claustrophobia of the room, to feel the breeze, to breathe in air – not be submerged in the consuming density of his world.

One he was never going to let her in on.

Pulling away had been the hardest choice yet. Her heart had ached as she’d forced her head to overrule.

If he didn’t pursue her before she left the building, if he didn’t call her back in the next couple of hours, she knew she was on her own.

Completely and utterly alone.

T
he breeze whipped
around the compound green as Kane held Jask’s gaze, both approaching each other at equal pace. Less than five minutes after Caitlin had left, Kane had received the call.

‘Leila’s at the TSCD,’ Kane said as they drew eye-to-eye. ‘They’ve created a task force to combat the fourth species and they’ve pulled in all interpreters in the locale to help.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because Caitlin told me. But she knows, Jask. She’s worked out everything that happened that night.’

‘
How
?’

‘Because apparently the head of The Alliance has given herself up. Either she’s running scared from the murders or someone’s given her a shove. I don’t know which it is but what matters is that they led Caitlin to Phia and it didn’t take Caitlin long to work out the rest.’

‘Shit,’ Jask hissed.

His azure eyes were already laced with enough disconcertment not to need anything more added to it, but Kane knew he had no choice.

‘Caleb’s at the TSCD, too. He was taken in in the early hours of the morning. Obviously they had good cause to, now they have an eyewitness saying she saw what happened. It also makes the alibis defunct. Suspicion of covering up a murder after an illegal feed is more than enough to charge him. I need to talk to Phia.’

‘Why?’

‘Eden too.’

‘Eden’s out the back with some of the pack. Phia’s not in a good way, Kane. She’s convinced Leila going missing is her fault.’

‘You didn’t tell her I was on my way over?’

‘Not until I knew what you were going to tell me.’

‘Let me talk to her.’

Jask cocked his head for Kane to follow.

As they marched across the quadrant and up the steps, Kane surveyed the faces of the few male lycans dotted around. Their stances were strained, tentative, echoing the disconcertment amidst the pack pending the blue moon, the weight of it only adding to the oppressive atmosphere as they packed the last of all their belongings to leave the compound.

No longer held up by waiting to find their young, a number of the pack had already been transferred into safety over on the east side.

‘Corbin said he’d start distribution straight away,’ Kane remarked.

‘We have. All of the young have been treated along with over half of the adults,’ Jask declared. ‘Some have elected to enter the containment rooms in the next few hours until we get the remainder of what we need. The rest of us have opted for half-dosages to maximise distribution until then. It’ll at least take the edge off.’

‘
The rest of us
?’ Kane stopped at the top of the steps. ‘Tell me you and Corbin have taken the full dose?’

‘Corbin has.’

‘And you?’

Jask’s silence said enough as he moved to step forward again.

Kane exhaled tersely and grabbed his arm. ‘You
have
to take it. You have no choice.’

‘In place of one of them?’

‘For the sake of your pack.’

‘That’s why I have a beta,’ Jask reminded him.

‘You’re supposed to be safeguarding Phia.’

‘And I am,’ Jask declared, freeing himself from Kane’s grip. ‘But I’m also the only one in this pack who stands a chance of managing the change without taking anything at all. Knowing that, I cannot subject one of my pack to it in place of me.’

‘It’s been decades since you’ve had to control it. You don’t even know if you still can.’

‘And I’m going to get the rest of those supplies so it won’t even be an issue.’

He headed through the porch.

Kane shook his head as he followed behind him. ‘Sometimes your pack protocol sucks, do you know that?’

‘Everything about this sucks,’ Jask said, leading the way through the entrance hall, past the stairs and through the open double doors on the right.

Usually the dining area would be a hive of activity, now it sat like an empty church, or a school after the end of day bell had long finished.

There, at one of the middle tables, hands cradled around a mug, head bowed as she gaze down into it, sat Sophia.

Kane closed his eyes and shrugged off the sensation that crawled up his spine. Jask wouldn’t have felt it like he did. None of the pack would have. Even in those past three days the blood pumping through her had become more potent. And when she looked up from her mug as if detecting a vampire presence by a second sense, his jaw tightened as her gaze locked instantly on his.

Every instinct pleaded with him to kill her. As the chosen serryn, every iota of common sense told him to end her life while he still could. But he could feel Jask’s gaze burning into him – the lycan who he had now come to call a friend.

‘She’s getting stronger, Jask.’

‘So she tells me. Are you sure this is a good idea?’

‘I’ll be a couple of minutes,’ Kane said, meeting his gaze fleetingly.

Kane pulled up the chair opposite Sophia, her large brown eyes meeting his. She was paler than the last time he’d seen her. She’d lost a few pounds, and she didn’t have much to lose in the first place. Her fingers around her mug were tense, but those eyes still held the same gritty determination, the pupils of which constricted as she held his gaze.

Jask – her first line of defense – sat beside her, his arm over the back of her chair. ‘Leila’s safe,’ Jask told her. ‘She was taken in as part of some kind of researcher in a combat group against the four species. Caitlin told Kane.’

Phia’s attention snapped back to Kane. ‘She knows about Leila?’

‘She knows everything,’ Kane said, ‘but she hasn’t told anyone else.’

‘You know that for sure?’ Jask asked.

‘I do.’ He sure as hell hoped he did. Kane returned his attention to Phia. ‘You said some of The Alliance had survived – you, Dan, and maybe a couple more.’

‘That we know of.’

‘You said you were there watching that night when Jake killed Trudy.’

She frowned. ‘Yeah.’

‘And Dan.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Who else was with you?’

‘Just Abby.’

‘The one who headed you up?’

‘Yeah? Why?’

‘You’ve not heard anything more from her?’

‘No.’

‘But she could have made it? Be an eyewitness to what happened with Jake? With Caleb?’

Jask leaned back in his chair almost with a semi-slump.

Sophia looked across her shoulder at Jask before her troubled gaze met Kane’s.

‘And she’d know your real name?’ Kane asked. ‘And where you were staying whilst you served with The Alliance? There could be fingerprints to prove your identity? Where you’re from. Other members of your family?’

Jask shook his head slightly as he stared up at the ceiling, his teeth clenched.

Phia’s uncharacteristic silence said it all.

Kane shoved back his chair and marched back out of the dining area, leaving behind the rapid firing of Phia’s questions in Jask’s direction, the distress and panic clear in her tone as Kane headed out to the green at the back.

The training session was in full progress, the collection of pack members ploughing back and forth along the pitch with a speed and agility that Kane only ever witnessed in lycans. They were the best free-runners in Blackthorn. The cohesion of the team to the point where they second-guessed each other like a sixth sense also made them a lethal concoction. He’d seen them play for fun as much as training, but this had an edge to it, a dense atmosphere that meant they knew they were amidst a threat. The freshly dug graves in the quadrant were no doubt their reminder. Lycans never went down without a fight but, luckily for them all, Jask was as smart as he was powerful and therein lay his greatest strength and his greatest strategy. Jask and his pack were ready – they were simply waiting for the right time.

As he scanned the pitch, it didn’t take Kane long to spot the newcomer.

He was maybe mid-thirties, his dark cropped hair ruffled by the wind. His well-honed physique stood its own ground as he ploughed up and down the field amidst the lycans. Despite the graveness of those around him, Eden Reece seemed to be bringing an edge of playfulness, of humour, to the practice. Taunting as much as he was playing, he compensated for the former by the fact that, for a human, he played damn well.

But he wasn’t just human. The glow around him was too subtle to the naked eye of even the lycans, but unmistakable to a master vampire. It was a glow confirmed by what Jask had already told him about Jessie having saved his life by feeding him her angel tears – tears that would create in him an edge that would equate him in strength, speed and agility with his third species counterparts. Tears that would improve his self-healing as well as resistance to both illness and injury, even slow his aging.

It was the elusive permanent and non-retractable cure the humans had been seeking – the cure the Higher Order promised existed; the cure only Kane and the angels themselves knew of. Until Sirius had worked it out somehow.

He’d only ever seen a human consume angel tears once. It hadn’t ended well. But from what he’d heard, the sacrilegious act never did. Jessie must have been desperate.

Or she had no idea of the consequences.

‘As you can see, he has all the basics,’ Jask said as he stepped alongside Kane. ‘He’s quick, strong, agile and fearless. Most importantly, he’s smart and he thinks fast on his feet. We’ll continue to hone his skills. It won’t take much.’ He recaptured Kane’s attention, the concern clear in his eyes. ‘But you can see why if Sirius does have an army of them, this is going to get tough, Kane.’

Kane looked back across the pitch. A team of unknown quantity demonstrating what Eden did right then, except loaded with destructive intentions, was almost unthinkable.

He was distracted from the action only by a figure on the other side of the pitch, her vibrant glow standing out against the landscape.

Her lack of wings was proof enough that Jessie wasn’t a high class of angel. This girl was definitely an envoi. Envois were the librarians amongst the soldiers – a mere messenger and bottom of the pecking order as far as a race that judged physical power and prowess over knowledge was concerned.

Except this one had also been judged as doing something incredibly wrong for her to have been banished by her parliament – her memory erased, a bind placed around her neck that would kill her if it were ever destroyed. A bind that meant she was enslaved to the person who owned it or the location it was held, given freedom to move and be herself only if she had possession of it.

‘And Jessie?’ Kane asked. ‘How’s she in combat?’

If she had survived fifty years trapped in the most notorious row in Blackthorn, she had to have something about her. These were an interesting addition to Jask’s pack and, potentially, their side.

‘She’s rusty but, again, it’s all there.’

Spotting them, Eden headed over to Jask’s summons, Jessie not far behind.

Pulling level, Eden squarely met Kane’s gaze before giving him a swift once over with an easy confidence.

The guy certainly had balls.

‘You’re ex-TSCD,’ Kane said, reciprocating Eden’s swift assessment, ‘but Jask tells me you’re okay which is the only reason we’re talking right now.’

There was a subtle upward curl to Eden’s lips. ‘And there was me thinking you were planning on asking me for the first dance.’

Balls indeed.

Kane frowned. ‘Say something funny next time and maybe you’ll manage to dig out my sense of humour.’

‘Then clearly I’d best come up with something hilarious. And an extra-deep shovel.’

Eden’s smile hinged the side of cocky, but the glint in his eyes was anything but confrontational. His fearlessness was as likable as the honesty his eyes emanated.

Kane looked to Jask stood beside him. ‘Does he use this smart mouth on you?’

‘He uses his smart mouth on everyone,’ Jessie said. ‘It’s good to meet you, Kane.’

Her eye contact was direct but she didn’t have that air of aloofness or arrogance that usually came hand-in-hand with her race. More to the point, if this angel was offering to help them, she was clearly far different to everything he had come across in her kind before.

He already had the feeling he was going to like her as a result.

‘You too,’ he said before re-addressing Eden, someone else he had the feeling he was going to like. Maybe. ‘We need to talk. Inside.’

C
aitlin sat
at her desk with the door closed. The paperwork spread out in front of her.

She clutched the phone that Kane had given her, her thumb hovering on the call button.

But she wasn’t going to be tempted. Neither was she going to sit there and do nothing.

Caitlin tucked her phone into the inside pocket of her jacket, which hung on the back of her chair. She stood up. She grabbed the most significant pieces of paper before shoving the rest in her drawer.

Morgan could tell her off later about overstepping the mark. For now, she needed to get to the conference room. Leila knew what had happened that night. More to the point, Leila could know if, and how, Kane was involved.

She could maybe even know what Kane meant about the risk of keeping Caleb inside.

Meghan knocked and peered around the door. ‘Have you got a few minutes?’

Caitlin gathered the papers she’d need into a pile. ‘It’s not a good time, Meghan.’

‘I’ll be really quick.’

Caitlin slumped back in her chair by way of conceding.

Meghan re-closed the door behind her, creating the sense of intimacy she was clearly hoping to obtain. She eased comfortably into the seat as if Caitlin’s room was simply an extension to her own office, and placed the laptop onto the desk.

‘By the way, thanks for bailing on me last night,’ she said as she lifted the lid and scrolled through, seemingly too preoccupied to dwell despite the intended sarcasm. ‘I want to run something by you.’ She turned her laptop to face Caitlin. ‘It’s a testimony from a young woman called Bea Coombes. She came in a week ago apparently. After seeing cuts on her back, her mother insisted she come in to the point of bringing her here herself. I won’t make you sit through it all – just a short section.’

‘What has this got to do with me?’

‘Bea worked at an oddities store in Blackthorn under the employment of a witch called Tamara – an associate of Kane Malloy. Malloy visited the store on the night in question.’

Meghan pressed the enter key and the still image switched into action.

The young woman’s eyes were red raw, a tissue scrunched in her hand as she used it to wipe her nose.

‘What were you doing at the time he came in?’ the female voice echoed over the speaker.

‘I was doing some cleaning. Polishing the talismans that Tamara sold. Kane asked for her. I called for her on the phone and got back to what I was doing.’ Bea took a deep and unsteady breath. ‘I felt uncomfortable straight away. I knew who he was. I mean everyone knows who Kane Malloy is. He was looking at me …’ she hesitated, looking at the interviewer as if for reassurance ‘…
inappropriately
, you know?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Just staring at me. I was relieved when Tamara came out.’

‘What happened then?’

‘They disappeared into the back room. I’m not proud of it, but I crept down the hallway to hear what was going on. I guess I was anxious. I overheard him ask about me; asking Tamara if I was a feeder.’ Her eyes widened. ‘I’m not. I never have been. But I heard Tamara say he could try if he wanted to. She …’ she hesitated again. ‘She said she’d like to watch.’

Caitlin’s heart skipped a beat, her attention flitting from the screen only to see Meghan’s somber expression. Her gaze was lowered as she listened.

‘What did you do then?’ the female voice asked.

‘I panicked. I got my stuff together. I wanted to leave straight away.’ Bea rubbed her tissue under her nose again. ‘But by the time I’d got to the door, he blocked my way. It was like he came from nowhere.’

Bea became jittery, her eyes darting around the room as if mid-recollection.

‘It’s okay,’ the voice said over the speaker. ‘Take your time.’

Caitlin squeezed her pen a little tighter in her lap.

‘The things he said to me … they were just …’ Bea sighed. ‘I’d rather write them down.’

‘That’s fine, Bea. Whatever makes you more comfortable.’

‘He wouldn’t let me leave. I told him I wasn’t interested. I didn’t come on to him or anything. I told him to leave me alone but he wanted me to do things. When I refused, he got nasty.’

Caitlin looked away for a moment before forcing herself to reface the screen. She knew she was looking for every little nuance that Bea was lying. And she hated herself for it.

‘He …’ She wiped the tissue under her nose again. ‘I passed out. When I woke up, I was on the floor. I could hear him and Tamara. He was doing things with her in the other room. I used my chance to escape. I ran all the way home.’

Meghan leaned forward. Despite the continuation of voices over the screen, she closed the lid.

Caitlin’s palms were damp. She couldn’t bring herself to meet Meghan’s gaze. Not yet. Because what she heard on that screen was not the Kane she knew. The Kane she heard of on the screen was the Kane of the numerous reports; the numerous unsubstantiated reports.

And it was yet another blow her heart could do without.

‘This is Bea’s full statement of what happened that night,’ Meghan said solemnly as she laid the sheet of paper down in front of her.

Caitlin skimmed it. She knew which key words she was looking for. The sickness intensified in her stomach at seeing them.

She took a moment before she looked down the bottom of the page at the location of the incident.

And her stomach wrenched.

‘Like with so many accounts, it’s her word against his,’ Meghan said. ‘What we do have though is her claim this happened on the day Kane first took you, Caitlin. It would really help if you could recall if he disappeared at any point those first few hours – maybe long enough to have gone to the shop? From where you were located at the time, it could have been just a couple of hours. Did he leave you alone at any point?’

According to the address on the statement, Tamara’s shop wasn’t all that far from the den Kane had kept her in. The entire incident could easily have taken place in those couple of hours before he returned to her after he’d pinned her down on the bed. After she had goaded him. But he hadn’t been able to take his frustration out on her because, just like Meghan had said, when it came to her, he’d had to be on his best behaviour.

The sickness in the pit of her stomach swelled to the point she could taste bile at the back of her throat.

‘Caitlin?
Did
he leave you alone?’

Caitlin forced herself to meet her gaze. She felt as though the insides of her head had turned to mulch.

‘Yes,’ she eventually said, as if some other voice had said it for her. ‘Yes, he did.’

Meghan nodded. She hesitated for a moment. ‘Caitlin, did he mention anything to you about this? Did he make any reference to it at all?’

After he’d returned so nonchalantly, bringing her food before tinkering with his bike.

She frowned. ‘No.’ She shook her head as if to shake some sense into herself. ‘No, he didn’t.’

It was Meghan’s turn to frown as she studied Caitlin pensively. ‘Caitlin,’ she said, her voice quiet, soft, her eyes brimming with concern. ‘Did he show any signs of such aggression to you?’

Caitlin felt her hackles rise, her defenses kick in. ‘No,’ she said firmly.

‘Did he ever hurt you in a similar way?’

Caitlin snatched back a breath. ‘No.’

‘Even though you previously mentioned there were a couple of occasions when you had to ask him to stop?’

‘It wasn’t like that. They were different.’

The concern in Meghan’s eyes intensified. ‘Different, how?’

Because she had asked him to bite with the intention of using it against him, of using it as a way out.
She
had been the one who’d nearly got carried away in the moment.

She
had goaded him on the bed.

‘I …’ And even as the words played through her head, alarm bells started ringing at a painful volume. ‘I provoked him.’

‘You
provoked
him?’

She exhaled steadily. She closed her eyes for a moment before looking back at Meghan. ‘It’s not how it sounds. Have you spoken to Tamara? Have you got a statement from her?’

‘We spoke to her, yes. Caitlin, do you think Bea’s lying? Was that your first instinct? That this is yet another in a long line of lies and elaborate set-ups in order to convict him?’

It was like a fist to Caitlin’s stomach. She swallowed hard against her tight throat. She looked down to see her hand was trembling, her knuckles white.

‘Caitlin,’ Meghan said softly, recapturing her gaze. ‘I’m on your side. I want you to know that. I want you to know that I get it. I’ve seen where he held you. I felt the claustrophobia, the windows boarded up, affecting your sense of time. It would have created quite the intense situation. In such an intimate space, emotions become heightened. He was your only contact. Was the only voice you heard. Victims talk about it all the time. You lose sense of perspective. Three days can feel like three months especially when there’s only two of you,
especially
when there is an attraction. I know the time you spent with Kane Malloy is the most contact you’ve had with anyone in years– ’

‘I do
not
fucking have Stockholm Syndrome!’

Meghan’s eyes flared. She recoiled a couple of inches. ‘And when denial is
your
greatest defense it becomes
his
greatest defense too,’ she eventually remarked softly.

And she’d spent so many years using lack of prosecutable evidence to reinforce her beliefs of multiple conspiracy theories surrounding him. Her justifications had been reinforced as she’d seen the other side of him those two weeks: the playful side, the gentle and attentive side.

Except now tendrils squeezed the life-breath out of her. Because if Bea
had
been telling the truth, that side of Kane that she had seen was a lie – just like the glimpses he’d given her to get her to surrender her soul had been. Another two weeks was nothing for someone who had waited fourteen years.

Caitlin swallowed harder than she would have liked. ‘If we’re done …?’

Meghan held her gaze for a few moments before dropping it to gather up the laptop. She stood, tucking it under her arm. ‘If it’s okay, I’ll get something together to the effect that Kane left you alone in the property. Would you be willing to sign it? It might never make it to court, but it would help Bea if it did. You know yourself, there is so little corroboration out there to support some of Kane’s victims. Anything will help.’

Reluctantly, Caitlin nodded.

‘I’m sorry,’ Meghan said as she gripped the handle on her way out. She looked over her shoulder. ‘I genuinely didn’t mean to upset you. Thanks for your help.’

And she left.

Caitlin turned her head towards the window, her trembling fingers held to her lips. The tears couldn’t stay back any longer. Instead, they trickled down her cheeks, leaving a taste of salt on her lips.

She didn’t know what was worse: the prospect that she had got him so wrong or that her tears clearly meant she could believe him even capable of something so horrific. Because that’s what Bea’s written report had been: horrific.

She flinched as she glanced across her shoulder to see Tyrell standing in the doorway.

She swept away her tears but as she met his gaze, the palpitations came hard and fast as he seemed to be struggling with what to say.

‘I’m sorry, Caitlin. I guess the message already got through?’

She wasn’t aware her mouth had turned dry until she tried to swallow and couldn’t.

Her insides twisted and coiled at the look in Tyrell’s eyes.

‘What message?’