Immortal Craving: Immortal Heart (9 page)

Kat fell against her door, her breath coming in shallow, unsteady breaths. Tears threatened, prickling in her emerald eyes.

It was not possible!

She pushed off the door and moved to the bathroom mirror. A gasp stifled the threatening tears. There staring back at her were glowing eyes—glowing, green eyes. She knew that intense feedings could cause the appearance of glowing eyes in
Succubi
and
Incubi
, but not like this. They were freaking green flashlights shining from her face.

It meant one thing as far as she knew. She opened the front of her robe to reveal the pale outline of a small infinity
sign atop a pair of wings just below her left breast. She’d never seen a true mate marking, but from what she’d learned there were no two the same. However, she knew that they looked like tattoos and while this little mark was only an outline, she had no doubt that her true mate marking had just appeared on her skin and it meant just one thing.

Kat shook her head, glaring at her own reflection with eyes that had faded to their normal amount of shine.

She’d only been twenty-four when Kale turned her over to Darion. A year before her body would have even begun to call for her true mate. She was well within the range now. She had wondered from time to time why she hadn’t felt the call for her true mate—why she had never started her
Mata—
why she hadn’t struggled through a feeding frenzy.

Now she knew; the proof was staring her back in the form of a magical tattoo. She had already found her true mate all those years ago. And now all it took was one moment of weakness, one earth-shattering orgasm, for her body to recognize the man who was meant to be hers for eternity—a man who had betrayed her and thrown her away.

It was ridiculous and crazy, but she shed her robe, grabbed a washcloth and scrubbed her skin nearly raw in an attempt to remove the mark.

This could not really be happening to her. Life could not be this cruel!

Kat nearly leapt from her skin when Kale called to her from the other side of her bathroom door.

“Kat?
Are you alright in there?” Kale asked, a soft quality to his voice that she wasn’t convinced he still possessed.

“Go away, Kale,” she said, trying to hold back the fear and anguish she was feeling.

“I don’t think so,
Kitten
. We need to talk.”

Grabbing her robe and cinching it tightly to her body, she threw the door open and glowered at him.

“I told you not to call me that,” she all but screamed at him.

Kale didn’t flinch at her anger. He merely arched his brows and smirked at her.

"Not quite the emotions I’d expected from you, usually a good
romp
calms you… and I
know
that was good.”

He knew he wasn’t the only one who thought it was beyond good. He nearly lost it himself out there.

“Fuck you, Kale,” she snarled. “Get the hell out.”

Kale continued to stare at her, surprised, but only slightly angered, by her attitude.

“For a brief moment out there in that living room, I swore I glimpsed some of that Succubus I used to know. What happened to that carefree, beautiful creature? Was it really all an act back then? Where’d the Kat I used to know go?”

“An act?” she scoffed.
“No, that Kat loved you but she was beaten and raped out of me,” Kat said, not making eye contact as she pushed past him in a hasty retreat out of her room.

Kale stood dumbfounded. He may have been angry, even furious at one point, with Kat, but he had held his belief that she had a least cared a little. But he was nowhere near prepared for her to
admit she had once loved him. Even more so, he was murderous and beyond incensed to think anyone had believed that they had the right to touch her in any way.

Kale turned to follow her. It was time all their truths came out. He found Kat standing at the open front door, her head hung in defeat as she was held up by a wall of magic.

“
Kat,
” Kale said her name softly as he resisted touching her, his hand hovering over her shoulder. “We need to talk.”

“Why do you care now? Fifteen years later, Kale. I was doing fine; I was coping.” Her words were stifled by the lump forming in her throat.

She was serious. Fifteen years was a long time and though she had been free of the torture that came with being Darion’s slave for many years now, she had yet to say it out loud… she had been raped on a regular basis and had been beaten nearly as often.

Kale didn’t know what to say without sounding like the bastard she had accused him of being.

Uh, because I want answers.
Mmm yeah, that would go over well. She could add selfish ass to the list of insults to throw at him.

Kale turned her so she faced him, lifting her chin and brushing her wavy blonde locks off her tear-streaked cheeks.

“Why’d you do it?” she asked with so much emotion it ripped at Kale’s very soul.

“Do what?” Kale asked, his thumbs moving over her pink cheeks.

“Give me to that monster.”

Kale stared at her, his thumbs stalling on her beautiful face. Her high, striking cheekbones, her full lips, and doe eyes begging for him to explain something he didn’t even understand.

He didn’t know what she meant. Did she think he hadn’t lost it when he was told she’d been executed? He didn’t understand what she had expected him to do.

“I don’t understand, Kat. You went to
Darion.” Kale spoke the almost accusatory statement, and yet it felt wrong. Something was scratching at his memories. Some things just did not add up and were nagging at him—Kat’s anger towards him, her telling the
Trow
to let him go in that alley, the fear in her voice that very same night, the fact that she was now living in the Human World—none of it truly added up. What web of lies had been woven around them?

“Kat, what happened that day? Where were you when we were supposed to meet at the lake?”

“What?” she asked, confusion mixed with a hint of anger.

“What happened? I went to the lake to meet you. Where were you?” Kale asked softly.

“Darion—he had me in the dungeon.” She seemed to be finding her strength again. The tears had stopped and her posture was more erect then slouched in defeat as it had been.

Kale’s gaze hardened, even he could feel it… She was with
Darion when she was supposed to be meeting him. Anger wanted to rise in him, but he was going to get to the bottom of everything that had happened that day.

“Did you go to him and tell him that I was waiting for you?”

Fire flashed behind her eyes and slowly turned to something altogether different. “Of course not! Why would you ask me that?”

“Because a
Pixie
working for Darion met me at the lake instead of you.”

“Why would a
Pixie
come looking for you?”

“To lead me onto
Darion’s land so he could capture me.”

Kat’s head started shaking. “No, no, Rowan and you went to
Darion and told him that I bewitched you.”

It was Kale’s turn to shake his head, though much slower than Kat had. She was nearly manic while he was calm. The light of reality was blinding him. The thoughts he’d shared with Cree were apparently right on the money… If
Darion was searching for
Succubi
, Kat was the perfect trophy for him. Darion had probably known about them for some time before he took her and put his plan into action. Kale took a deep breath—knowing he would need to remain calm or he was going to burn the Dark Fae leader down.

“No, Kat, Rowan and I did not go to
Darion.” Sadness infused his words. “I went to your home, where Darion and his men were waiting for me, at which point they took me. Rowan and my brothers came for me. Rowan convinced Darion to release me.”

Kat stared at him, searching for any sign of deception in his words. She searched for a hitch in his tone, a flicker of his gaze, or a line of trickery on his face. There just simply wasn’t any. He wasn’t lying; he wasn’t covering up. He was bearing the truth he had spoken of earlier. But
Darion wasn’t known to simply let someone he had tossed in his dungeon go.

“
Darion let you go? Just like that?” There was accusation in her tone and she needed to hold on to it.

They were both running a gauntlet of emotions.

“Rowan promised a war if he did not.”

“You thought I set you up?” she asked softly.

Kale felt every bit the bastard she had called him. He had denied the words Darion spoke at first, the words that meant his Kitten had deceived him, but over the years he had no choice but to move on and accept what was.

“Yes,” he final admitted.

“I thought you knew better, but you were never able to look past my being Dark Fae—my alliance was always in the back of your mind.”

Kat grasped his wrist and pulled his hands from her face. “It was never going to work,” she whispered so softly he could barely hear her.

“Kat, wait,” Kale said as she moved past him.

“No, Kale, just leave it alone.”

“Let me pose one question to you.” She stopped, her back to him as he continued. “You believed Rowan and I went to Darion and turned you in, right?”

Kat closed her eyes. Why had she been so stupid?
Why had she believed anything her King had told her?
She should have known better. She should have gone to Kale, to find the truth after she had escaped. But she hadn’t. She had believed the lies she’d been told about the man she had claimed to love. With her back still to him, refusing to turn and look at his stunningly handsome yet still baby face, she nodded slowly.

“Seems neither of us had enough faith in the other,” he said before heading out the front door.

Lothar
sat across from Jake, the
Trow
. His fingers tapped in a repeated, dull rhythm. He was bored. The only words Jake would say were,
‘I want to talk to Katarina’.
They’d been here for nearly four and half hours and that was all they had gotten from him.

“I want to talk to Katarina,” Jake said again.

Lothar nodded. “Yes, I know, and I told you to answer my questions and then you can talk to her.”

Jake sneered at him. “And I told you I wouldn’t answer any of your questions until I talked to her.”

“Then we’re at a standstill. So now the question is—what to do with you… either return you to Darion or you can become a guest of the Light.”

Jake’s eyes showed fear for the first time in the hours he’d spent in Hawk’s Eye’s ‘conference room’.

“I’ll go out on a limb and guess you don’t want to go back to Darion,” Lothar said with a smile. “I’ll be back.”

Cree smiled as he watched
Lothar through the one-way mirror.

“Nicely done,” Cree said to
Lothar as he joined him in the observation room.

“Did you see the fear in his eyes when I mentioned
Darion?”

Cree nodded. “Yeah, I imagine you could feel it rolling off him.”

“It was tangible in there. He’s afraid of his leader.”

“It’s not surprising.” Cree crossed his massive arms across his chest. “
Darion views defection as the highest form of insult—any Dark Fae that is here without his express permission is asking for severe punishment.”

“There’s something about this guy. I don’t know, Cree. I didn’t feel anything but genuine concern and then fear from him. He’s worried about Kat and he’s afraid of
Darion.”

“I agree,” Cree stated.

“Do you see anything—any info you’d like to share?”

Cree sighed. “It’s a weird thing. When it comes to anything concerning Katarina, I’m blind to it.”

“Still nothing?” Lothar said, shaking his head as he watched Jake sit like a stone statue on the other side of the mirror.

“Nothing.
I saw Izzy coming. I saw the issues with Esperanza coming. I see random things in our day-to-day lives. Hell, I know secrets about all of you that I’d rather not be subjected to.” He chuckled. “But Katarina and all things concerning her are just beyond my reach.”

“So what do you want to do with him?”
Lothar nodded towards Jake on the other side of the glass.

“That room is light tight. Let him sit on it for the night and we’ll go back at him a few hours before dawn. Maybe he’ll feel like talking then.”

Lothar nodded, slapping Cree on the back as he pulled his cell out. “I’ll give Kale a call and see if he’s gotten anywhere with Kat.”

Cree dipped his chin. “I’m going to head back and check on Rowan. Bain and
Izzy aren’t far from here. Call me as soon as you learn anything new.”

“Sounds good,”
Lothar agreed as he dialed Kale.

****

Trevan
stalked the halls of Hawk’s Eye Security, looking for Lothar. Lucas had called him in—they had more questions. He’d given too few details and now he had to tread lightly. The offices were quiet. It was long past closing time.

Lucas stood, arms crossed, waiting for him outside one of the conference rooms.

“You know, you can’t stay pissed off forever, Lucas,” Trevan quipped as he stopped in front of the former Marine.

Lucas cracked a smile. “I’m irritated, not pissed… You should have
come to me. I may not be Fae but I could have helped you.”

Trevan
clapped Lucas’s shoulder. “I know, but you didn’t need the headache, so why am I here?”

“The guys detained a Succubus and
Trow earlier. We haven’t gotten anything from them, but we hoped you could tell us if you recognize either of them. Come with me.” Lucas moved into an observation room where Lothar was finishing up a phone call. Trevan’s eyes drifted to the one-way mirror, a heavy sigh pushing past his lips as he caught sight of their
detainee
.

“That wasn’t encouraging,”
Lothar said as he slid his phone back in his pocket and grabbed a file from a corner table. He produced a picture of a very pretty blonde.

“His name is Jake and this is Katarina, the Succubus we found him with.”

Trevan looked at the picture and nodded.

“You know them,”
Lothar stated.

“Yes, he’s one of
Darion’s former guards.”

“And is she the Succubus that’s been helping you?”

Trevan nodded. “Yes, she told me about Darion and has been working to help me find the Succubus responsible for the dead humans.”

Lothar
nodded. “And how’s that going?”

“She was in the process of locating the remaining three she had lost contact with.”

“You do realize that we need to locate all of them, don’t you? They cannot stay here without registering with us. These are our laws—some of the very few that the Light and Dark have agreed upon.”

“I understand. What of him?”
Trevan nodded towards the one-way mirror.

“That depends on him. He won’t answer any questions. He just continues to ask for Katarina.”

Trevan nodded. “Let me talk to him.”

Lothar
opened himself up to Trevan. He was genuine. There were no inklings of deceit—he was resigned to help now. “Go ahead,” Lothar finally said.

Jake’s eyes widened as he watched
Trevan move to the table and take a seat across from him.

“Hey, Jake.”

“You set her up!” Jake accused, his hands slamming down on the table and his stare hard as stone.

Trevan shook his head. “No, I didn’t. Jake, just listen to me. I had no idea they had found you two, or that they had detained you, until just a few minutes ago. I tried to keep her and the other
Succubi
safe, but I couldn’t keep a lid on the dead humans. We need to find the Succubus responsible.”

“Let me see her!” Jake
yelled, his obvious frustration and fear for Katarina finally breaking him.

“I’ll see what I can do, but first you need to help them.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Did she get in touch with the other
Succubi
who fled to this world with her?”

Jake’s face revealed defeat as he answered, “I don’t know for sure. I know that she cleared Gwen, Zoe, and Amber—that’s it.”

“That’s good.” Trevan smiled. “Sit tight and let me see what I can do.”

Lothar
was on the phone again when Trevan returned.