Dark Veil (16 page)

Letting his eyes close again, Cade shut out the outside world, closing his ears and his mind to everything. He pictured a stark, white room, the one where he and Phoenix could go to and connect in their minds. He called out for the young
wolf,
asking him to respond, but it was like searching in the darkness for a speck of dust. Phoenix was nowhere to be seen.

A good few minutes passed with Cade deep in his mind, desperately searching and calling for the
wolf,
pushing himself beyond his limits despite the weakening effect of the silver coursing through his system.

The door to the room they were being held in suddenly burst open, and Cade felt Gemma jolt from behind him. He stroked a thumb over her knuckles in the hopes of calming her and she grasped his fingers more tightly. He swore inwardly. He hated feeling helpless when it came to protecting his mate—worse so when his mate was carrying his child.

“He’s still out of it? How much did you give him?” Cade recognised the voice immediately. Patterson was the key representative and alliance between
Humans
and
Others
. Power and money defined him, as well as his hate for
Others
and his belief that
Humans
were the superior race. Despite this, however, he had shown enough acumen so far as to know that starting a war with
Others
might not be the smartest move.
Humans
may vastly outnumber them and hold powerful weapons, but the strength and danger of an
Other
was not to be scoffed at or taken lightly.  For every fifty
Humans
, one
Other
was needed to take them down.

Did Patterson have any idea he had just kidnapped the
Other
alpha’s daughter? Cade would bet his life he did—nothing would be accidental or pure luck with Patterson.

Something metal rattled against the bars. “Hey,
wolf
boy, wake up.”

Cade opened his eyes slowly and fixed them on the well-dressed diplomat. He looked out of place standing there with his expensive suit and shoes and groomed hair. Patterson moved in closer, but made sure to keep a safe distance from the cage. Perhaps he wasn’t a complete idiot. “With what right do you hold us prisoners here?”

Patterson gave a faint smile then inclined his head at him. “You are free to go,” he said smoothly, his face giving away nothing.

The
Human
next to him bashed his bat against the bars, the thud reverberating around the cage. “Hey,
wolf
boy, you can go,” he jeered, but Cade kept his eyes fixed firmly on Patterson. He didn’t for a minute trust Patterson or believe he had gone to all this trouble to catch them, just to let them go this easily again. 

“I’ll leave it in your capable hands. Don’t screw it up,” said Patterson to his lackey and then turned and left the room without sparing Cade another glance. Cade got to his feet slowly, all his senses on high alert. He heard Gemma’s shaky breath as he rose, but he dared not take his eyes off Patterson’s minions. Losing sight of a threat for even a second was never a wise thing to do—it could prove lethal.

“You’re letting us go?” Gemma breathed hopefully.

The
Human
scum laughed unpleasantly. “Your boyfriend can go, sweetheart,” he drawled, his eyes roving over her lasciviously, “but not you.” His grinned widely, showing off a set of yellow, crooked teeth. “You’ll stay here and keep me … company.”

Cade roared and hurled himself against the bars, his arms shooting out from between them and grabbing for the man. “You stay the fuck away from her,” he snarled.

The man sprang backwards and chuckled. “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of her.” There were two men in the room. Cade could take them, silver bat or not, they’d have to kill him to get him to leave her there.

“How shall we do this?” one of the men asked. He had a deep accent, one that was from the east—not too bright then.

“Cade, just go,” Gemma beseeched him softly. “We have a better chance of making it if you are free. You can come find me. It’s no help to us if we are both stuck in here.” She spoke so quietly that only he could hear her words with his enhanced hearing. He inhaled deeply, then stepped back close to her again, snaking his hand through the bars and cupping her face in his hand. He didn’t know if he should tell her that they had no intention of setting him free. He stroked the smooth skin of her jaw with his thumb and she turned her cheek into his palm.

“I’m not leaving you, Gem. Don’t ask me to.” His hand fell from her face and he slumped to the ground weakly. He leaned against the bars, breathing heavily, his head slumping forward.

“Cade,” Gemma cried out in alarm, reaching through the bars for him.

“He’s been out of it for ages. I think you gave him too much of that shit.”

“If it was too much, he’d be dead,” the one with the deep accent said. He unhooked the keys from his jeans and cautiously opened the cage that Cade was in. He didn’t go all the way in, but extended the bat forward and prodded Cade. Cade murmured in response and pushed the bat away. The
Human
laughed. “He’s fucked, look at him. I say we just bag him and dump him like the others.”

Gemma gasped. “What do you mean? You said he’s free to go.” Her voice was bordering on hysterical.

The one behind had a gun out, ready and aimed at Cade. The
Human
with the bat inched in, little by little, ignoring Gemma’s cries and pleas as she clutched at Cade through the bars. “Please don’t hurt him,” she wailed. “I’ll do anything. Please. I’m begging you.”

“Let go of him,” he barked at her.

“No … please,” she begged him.

With a grunt, he stepped closer and tried to grab hold of her arm to yank it off Cade. Before he could so much as lay a finger on her, Cade’s arm had shot out and seized him by the throat. He got to his feet slowly, claws digging into the man’s flesh as he steadily squeezed and threatened to crush the man’s windpipe. The bat dropped to the floor with a thud as the man flailed weakly. Gurgling, his eyes grew wide in fear and terror as he stared into eyes that had gone
wolf
. 

Shouts and blasphemies came from outside the cage, and the one holding the gun raised it and pointed it at Cade.

“You shoot me and your friend is dead,” Cade growled, his voice dangerously close to his animal. “My claw is the only thing keeping him from bleeding out. You shoot me and he’s fucked.”

The
Human
raised the gun higher, cupping his hands together to steady his shaking grasp. “Fuck … fuck …” he chanted. He slowly edged forward and grabbed the keys from the lock. “Leave them …” Cade demanded, but the man was already hastily backing away with them and heading for Gemma’s cage. It was Cade’s turn to swear now as he pushed the
Human
he had hold of forwards and advanced on the gun-toting one. He had found and unlocked Gemma’s cage before Cade could reach him, locking himself in with Gemma.

“What are you doing?” she sobbed as he aimed the gun at Gemma.

“Seems now we have a little bit of a problem here,
wolf,
” he said. “Let him go and she doesn’t get hurt.” When Cade didn’t move, he stepped forward and aimed the gun at Gemma’s head. “Down,” he barked at her, forcing her down onto her knees. His eyes flicked from her to Cade. Cade stayed where he was, at the gate with his claws still digging into the wheezing
Human’s
jugular.

Cade’s
wolf
bubbled at the surface like a raging bull waiting for the gate to open as the
Human
ran a knuckle along Gemma’s cheek. “You can kill him if you want, but you ain’t getting in here. All you can do is watch,” he sneered, licking his lips.

Cade roared, baring his teeth. “If you touch one fucking hair on her head, I’ll …”

The
Human
leaned in, ran his hand down to her collarbone. “You’ll do what?” Gemma’s features were tight with fear, and Cade knew her fear was mainly for him and their baby. She was afraid that the slightest wrong move would put the baby at risk, and that was enough for Cade to finally believe that she wanted this child just as much as he did.

“Let her go,” he ordered, his
wolf
going crazy inside.

“What do you think you can do other than watch me?” His hand opened around Gemma’s throat, and she lifted her hands to stop him. “Don’t even think about it,” he said to her. “Let go.”

“Fuck you,” she rasped. Furious, the
Human
brought his hand down across her face, smacking the butt of the gun into her cheekbone. She cried out and slumped to the ground.

“Gemma,” Cade called out.

“That is not how we play,” he said to her. “Now tell your
wolf
to back the fuck off.”

Gemma laughed. “Do you think that I can make him do anything?”

The
Human
leaned in closer, his face in Gemma’s as he sneered. “Maybe you can't, but perhaps this will.” He lowered the gun, not to her throat or her chest, but down to her abdomen. She inhaled shakily, terror in her eyes as he pushed the nozzle of the gun into her flesh. “Tell me, do you think an unborn baby can survive silver poisoning? Now tell the
wolf
to let go.”

She didn’t need to. Cade let go of the man and he fell to the ground clutching his neck and sucking in lungfuls of air. Cade held his arms up in the air as a show of surrender. “Okay, you win. Don’t hurt her,” he ground out.

The
Human
hollered for help and the door to the room opened and Cade waited for the inevitable. Something whacked him hard on the back of his head and Cade collapsed to the floor. The world went dark as someone pulled a sack over his head, yanking a cord around his throat and tightening it. So many hands, so much noise, so much shouting. His
wolf
was coming loose now—his hands shifted and he felt his bones move and start to realign. His growl echoed so loudly in the room that it was hard to hear anything above the sound.

He had to get to Gemma, to his mate, to his child.

“I’m fucking dying,” the
Human
Cade had held rasped.

“Hold your hand over it and apply pressure, you idiot,” someone else shouted.

Another blow to the gut knocked the wind out of Cade and made him double over, wheezing. Someone grabbed hold of his hands, pulling them behind his back and forcing them into an awkward, painful position. He fell to his side, grunting as someone bound his hands in that position, sending pain through his shoulders and his neck all at the same time. It felt like his arms were going to be ripped off. The wolf tried to come, tried to shift, but his arms were the wrong way and they would surely pull the
wolf’s
chest in half if he even tried to shift. Cade’s rib cage bulged, his sternum pressing tightly against his skin. Someone hit him again and he went down once more. Blow after blow came until he couldn’t feel them anymore. His skin felt numb, every ounce of pain that he felt blurred into nothing. His mind swam, drifted away to the white room. He could hear screaming, but it wasn’t his own, it was Gemma’s.

He tried to shout back, tried to speak, but his voice was gone, he couldn’t breathe. Hands pulled him to his feet and pushed him forwards, making him run. “Gem—,” he uttered through the cloth over his head.

She screamed his name back, guttural sounds filled with pain. His
wolf
howled, its cries desperate. He was pushed onto his side, onto something hard, but he was moving fast ... on wheels.

Cold air blew over his skin and the smell of something wet, damp and musty filled his senses. They were underground—somewhere dark and damp. But as they moved on, he picked up another scent, something familiar.

Phoenix …

All at once it was there, the scent, a piece of home in the place of horror and death. He tried to grasp onto it, but just as fast, the scent had gone and he struggled to make out if it was real, or just a passing memory.

The clank of a large, metal door opening, and then they were outside—the breeze was faster, colder against his skin. Whatever he was on, a trolley of some kind, stopped suddenly as it hit something, and then he was tilting, head first. He started to fall, and he instinctively pulled himself into a ball, not knowing where he would land. He held his breath, ready for impact.

He landed on his back, something smacking him hard and knocking the wind from him. It was cold … freezing.

He was in water.

He was tied up.

Water started to fill his mouth.

Chapter Twenty

Phoenix stayed in the car and watched as Stephen and Raven walked off into the sunset like heroes —something that he would never be. He watched them with a mixture of contempt, envy and fear. He would never be like them, and they would never treat him like one of them. Not fully. Not really. Not like he actually belonged and had a place in their world. He would always be the one left behind, the one seen as having a weakness because he had once been
Human
—the one who needed protecting.

He watched them wander off into the danger that was beyond those hedges. Would they even come back? They were the last threads of his life—he’d be left alone again, the outcast of two worlds, living in some kind of limbo and waiting to die or find his place. Whichever came first. It didn’t matter what he did or who he was. Would he ever fit in or be seen as something other than the little half-breed.

Cade …

The very thought of him brought about so much inside Phoenix. It pulled heavy against his chest. In his mind, Cade was slipping away into darkness—their white room was nothing more than an empty chamber now. The man who had saved his life and given him a home had disappeared into a dark cave, and Phoenix had no idea he was ever coming out again. The still
wolf
was fading.

What would happen to Phoenix if Cade died?

Phoenix curled his fingers tightly around the door handle as the thought rose unbidden to his mind. The
Others
wouldn’t protect him forever. He was the burden in their lives—he was a burden in Cade’s life. All he had brought him was problems and tribulations, he thought gloomily. It would be better for everyone if he just left.

He could run again—he knew how to do that. He’d be long gone before anyone even noticed. Maybe they wouldn’t stop him even if they knew. He’d made it this far—made it into the woods that day. He could make it again.

Stephen and Raven had stopped at the edge of the hedgerow that surrounded the property and were talking for a moment, Stephen pointing in different directions as they made plans for them to split up and search. Phoenix would never be one of them. He would never stand there and be called upon to be the fighter. Even from this distance, Stephen and Raven’s large frames emanated dominance, power. They knew their place in this world—they
had
a place.

Stephen’s trained mind was razor-sharp and he had a confidence that Phoenix could only dream about. Phoenix was just … nothing.
Human
. He would always be this way. His body could grow, his muscles eventually shape and tone and his bulk transform to man, but he would never be like Stephen and Raven. Even Raven, a part stray, had a place and a purpose in this world. They were both wanted and needed.

Phoenix scowled at himself in the mirror at the centre of the visor he had pulled down to keep an eye on Andy. Childish blue eyes stared back at him, filled with innocence and weakness. The scar that ran through Phoenix’s eyebrow was more vivid today, alive with colour and pain. He’d never be accepted if Cade died.  Two fathers—two species—and he would ruin them both. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.

Andy coughed, startling Phoenix and pulling him from his thoughts. He automatically gripped the door handle harder and mentally chastised himself. He needed to stay focused.

He glanced back towards the hedgerow—Stephen and Raven had disappeared from sight now. They were off doing what was needed of them, and he was sitting in the car because they couldn’t take him with them. He was too weak and too much of a problem. He didn’t blame them really—he’d not want him tagging along, either.

They were different. They were
real
men—real men who didn’t kill their mothers and cause their fathers to hate them. Phoenix crushed the handle in his hand and stared at himself in the mirror with hatred. He clenched his jaw and turned away abruptly, not bearing to look at his pathetic reflection any longer.

If Cade dies …

Andy was still coughing. Wheezy whistles punctuated the onslaught as he tried to breathe, his face turning red from the effort.

Phoenix twisted around in his seat. “Are you okay?”

The man in the back strained forward against the binds that held him in place, the ropes pulling tighter and digging deeper into his flesh. 

Phoenix should have just gone, he knew it. He should have got out of the car and run when the thought first came to mind. That was his problem, wasn’t it? He never acted, never did what was right. He just stayed there and let everyone die around him. This man was going to die. He was going to sit in the back of the car and choke to death.

“Untie me,” Andy spluttered. “Fucking untie me, half-breed. I can’t breathe.”

The name grated against Phoenix. “No.”

He wanted to. He twitched in his seat to lean over and let the man go so that he could deal with whatever this cough was. But that would just be a trick … wouldn’t it? A ploy to let the stupid
wolf
who had once been
Human
fuck up. Andy would get away and then Phoenix would be screwed, exposing him for what he really was—a failure.

He should have just left before he let any of them down—before they all ended up looking at him with the same hatred that his father had yesterday. He could already see it in some of them—Trevor especially. It wasn’t Cade’s father’s fault, he mused. The
Other
just wasn’t good at hiding it.

But Malcolm and Emily? They would see eventually. Malcolm only spoke to him when he had to, and Emily probably only tolerated him, too.

He should have left.

Andy coughed harder, the blood vessels in his eyes started to burst. Phoenix started to panic. Maybe he should go around to the back and hit Andy on the back. But as Andy retched and coughed and choked, all Phoenix did was sit and watch like some helpless half-breed that they all believed him to be.

“Let me out,” Andy wheezed through another coughing bout. “Untie me.”

“I can’t.”

Spittle flew from Andy’s mouth and saliva ran down his chin and dripped onto his shirt. He threw his head back, panting to catch his breath—getting ready for the next round. Perhaps he wasn’t faking it, Phoenix thought nervously.

Andy shot forward suddenly, his eyes bulging like those of cartoon characters in children’s comic books. He was sure they were going to explode any second, images of flying eyeballs and blood splatter vivid in his head.

This time, Andy’s strangled cough was followed by a spatter of blood from his mouth. His chest rattled and expanded with a thud. Phoenix looked on in horror as blood began to pour from his eyes, nose and ears. It stained his cheeks, dark rivers of red mingling as they flowed down his face, his collar growing dark with it. It soaked through the top of his shirt, painting the fabric crimson. Andy opened his mouth through the agonising pain, but all that came out were thick, guttural cries masked by the gurgling inside his chest. “Shit.” Phoenix fumbled for the handle of the car just as the car’s doors all flew open at the same time. Blood splayed across the seats and windows and hit Phoenix as Andy’s arm was ripped clean from his body from the violent force of the car doors opening.

Phoenix stared at Andy’s lifeless body, bile rising to his throat.

Before he knew what was happening, he was being pulled from the car and launched onto the dirt. Instinct and Stephen and Cade’s training instantly kicked in, and Phoenix rolled over and tried to spring to his feet. A vicious kick to his ribs had him sprawling on the ground again. He grunted and looked up at the three large men that stood over him threateningly. A movement to the side caught his eye as a tall, slim woman with long, black hair approached him. He squinted to see better, still winded from the blow to the ribs. She was pretty, older, and definitely
Other
. 

She propped one of her high-heeled boots onto his chest and pushed him back onto the ground. Tilting her perfectly made-up face to the side, she sighed as she studied him. “Handsome little thing you are,” she crooned. “What a shame.”

One of the men hunkered down next to him, his face an impassive mask.

“What do you want?” Phoenix ground out, glaring at him, and the woman from above him chuckled.

“Ooh, handsome
and
feisty. I like that.”

With lightning speed, the man’s arm shot out and something sharp pricked Phoenix’s neck before he had a chance to stop him.

His hand flew up to cup his neck while trying to hit the man with the other. His limbs grew heavy and his head fell back with a thud. Darks and greys slipped into the edges of his vision, and everything around him started to blur. 

All he had needed to do was watch the car and he couldn’t even manage that. The world started to collide. He had failed, he thought dejectedly just before his entire world went black. 

When Phoenix opened his eyes, he was surrounded by darkness. He was lying on something hard and cold and fabric. He rolled onto his back, but the place was confined. The surface where he lay wasn’t flat or smooth. It had metal ridges and above him was another sheet of metal. His body bounced and jolted suddenly, making him land sharply on his shoulder. He was in a car— in the boot of a car. He rubbed at his neck where they had jabbed him. How long had he been out? He didn’t have a clue, but they were moving. No longer at the house.

Great.

Not only did he not fit in, but now he was incompetent. He lay on his back, his knees twisted to the side because the space wasn’t high or wide enough to have his legs up or stretched out. Now what did he do? Wait again, for them to save him and get him out like they always did?  Maybe this was why he didn’t really fit. Maybe this was why they saw him as weak.

There was nothing in the boot with him. No tools, nothing to bang or to smash his way out. He pressed his palms firmly to the roof of the lid, but it was locked. He couldn’t do anything with the mechanism. It was housed in metal, and even if he could get to it, he didn’t have a key.

The car was moving fast. It went over bumps in the road, which rattled through there back and jarred him. He put his hand out to steady himself and tried to keep his head up, but they went over something big in the road and his cheek smashed off the floor of the boot as his head whipped to the side. Pain throbbed lanced through him, sending lightning through his skull.

He was stuck.

Phoenix lay in the darkness a moment, stilling himself and his mind so that he could think logically about this. There were ways out of this, weren’t there? He had read enough that he should have come across something. The boot wasn’t in total darkness—light came in from the gaps around the panel that held the car’s lights in place. Phoenix shoved a boot against one of them and it moved an inch. He pushed his back against the interior of the car to give himself some leverage and raised his foot again and waited. When the car hit another bump in the road, he slammed his foot against the panel. It took six good kicks for the panel to become dislodged, and when it did, Phoenix moved himself around and pushed the panel out.

He could see the road. It sped by as he peered out. He pressed his face to the hole he had just made and the light panel swung down. They were in no place he recognised. The road was just that … a road. There was nothing along the way. Nothing to tell him where he was or how far they had gone. There were no other cars on the road. No one else there. And no point in yelling.

Suddenly, the car veered to the side and started to slow when the tyres hit what sounded like gravel. Something beeped and hummed, and then Phoenix heard the mechanical sound of rollers and doors. The car stopped, but the engine was still running. Phoenix held his breath, then the car moved again. They were going down. The car came to another stop and the driver cut the engine. One … two … three doors opened. Phoenix shoved himself back into the boot and waited.

The boot opened after a few minutes. The man standing there was probably around Cade’s age, but he had a receding hairline. Phoenix felt half of his face work, the other half seeming numb.

The man angled his head as he looked at Phoenix. “A real half-breed,” he beamed. “I never thought I would see the day.”