Katie's Hope (Rhyn Trilogy, Book Two) (2 page)

“Stupid cat,” she muttered. Rhyn leapt down
from the tree a few meters in front of her and sat to await her as
she slid and maneuvered the muddy trail. When she reached the other
side, he trotted forward. She followed, expecting him to disappear
into the trees at any point and reappear with a herd of deer
clenched in his jaws.

They ran through the forest toward the cliff,
then ducked deeper into the forest before the trees gave way at the
cliff. She stopped at the edge, where the trail was nothing but
mud. Puffing and energized, she paused for a breath when cold
fingers brushed her neck.

Darkyn.
He spoke to her, and his cold
presence was close. She jerked away, surprised, and slid in the mud
toward the cliff edge. Rhyn snatched her and wrapped his arm around
her, lifting her out of the mud and farther back onto the trail.
Almost immediately she wished he’d let her fall off the cliff.
She’d rarely seen him-- and never touched him-- since arriving a
few weeks ago. The warmth of their bodies pressed together made her
forget Darkyn, the cold, and the nightmare. The silence was thick
and awkward. She sensed him waiting to see what she’d do.

“Thank you,” she managed. “For coming with me
today.” His warm breath on her neck made her shiver, and she
instinctively tilted her head. His grip tightened around her, but
he didn’t bite her.

“Did you mean what you said?” he asked in a
husky tone.

“About thanking you? Yes,” she said.

“You know that’s not what I mean,” he
growled. “In your dream, you said-- ”

“I don’t know, Rhyn. I’ve got a lot to figure
out.”

“Fine. Then tell me you
don’t.
”

She sighed. She belonged here in his arms,
and yet she feared what that meant. She’d lose her sister, her only
family, and Rhyn hadn’t yet proven he could keep her safe.

“You can’t say it,” he said, satisfaction in
his voice. He turned her to face him, and she gazed up at him, once
again awed by his size, heat, and intensity. His silver eyes were
molten, his rugged jaw line shaded by two days’ growth. His hands
were hot on her hips and his body blocked the cold wind whipping up
the cliff.

“Can you?” she challenged.

“Don’t need to.”

“Rhyn-- ”

“I’ve done almost everything you asked me to
the past few weeks. I need a reward, before the demons in the
forest attack us.”

“Demons?” she echoed. Any fear she might have
felt disappeared when he rested his hand on her neck and brushed
her cheek, then her lips, with his thumb. Her blood was already on
fire from their bodies being pressed together, and heat pooled in
the base of her belly.

“I watch them watch you,” he said. “You draw
them out on your runs, and I kill them. We’re a good team.”

“Until the day you’re not there.” Her words
escaped before she thought to filter them. The sense of loss
returned. Warmth passed through his gaze, and the skin around his
eyes softened as he took in her expression.

“I win,” he said. He withdrew, and the cold
wind swept over her. She started after him, senses scattered.

“You didn’t get your kiss,” she objected, her
blood humming with need and frustration. She followed him back to
the trail. Her eyes swept over his muscular form, from his shapely
shoulders and wide back to the thick thighs outlined by the sweats.
He whipped out a curved knife from the small of his back and tossed
it in the air, catching it easily.

“You better start running. They’re coming,”
he said.

“You weren’t joking.” She eyed the forest
around them. It was quiet and cold.

“I don’t do much right, but I can kill
things,” he said. She turned to see him gazing at her again. His
eyes traveled to her neck and lingered. “Hate demon blood.”

Fear made the wind seem colder. She wasn’t
about to stick around for this one. She started past him. He
gripped her arm and pulled her against him once more. His kiss was
hot, demanding, and quick, his lips warm and soft. Just as her body
melded against his, he pushed her away. Stunned, she stared up at
him. His gaze was on some point in the forest. She heard them
coming, the sound of creatures crashing through the forest.

“Go, now,” he ordered. “Don’t stop running
until you’re back at the castle.”

Lust turned to adrenaline. He slapped her
backside to jar her into gear, and she bolted forward. The sound of
fighting erupted behind her, and she stopped before the trail
curved out of sight to see Rhyn standing over his first victim, a
demon in a jaguar form. He wiped the bloodied knife on its pelt and
straightened, meeting her gaze.

She wasn’t sure if she should thank him for
protecting him or curse him for the kiss. He lifted his chin in
dismissal. Intent on fleeing him as well as the demons, she ran as
hard as she could back to the castle before doubling over to catch
her breath. Her eyes went to the number she wrote on her hand each
morning.

5

She had exactly five weeks left in her
bargain with Kris, the Immortal’s leader. She squeezed her hand
closed to hide the number and faced the forest, waiting for him to
reappear.

“What’re you doing out here?” Kris’s cool
voice made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

“Finishing up my morning run,” she
answered.

“You were told to take Ully with you.”

“I went with Rhyn.”

“You don’t have much longer here, if all goes
according to plan,” Kris said and moved beside her, his eyes the
color of tanzanite, his white hair the color of snow.

“I know, Kris.”

“You’re better off without him. That may be
the only good thing that comes of returning you to the mortal
world.”

She looked up at him, anger heating her blood
again. She’d never understand how Kris could treat his own
half-brother as he did. Rhyn was all she would take away from the
twisted Immortal world.

“Go inside. Ully’s waiting for you in the
lab.”

“I’m nothing but a means to an end to you,”
she muttered. “So tired of all this.”
At least I have
Rhyn.

She didn’t wait for Kris’s response but
trotted inside.

Rhyn lopped the head off the last demon and
wiped his knife again. He’d fed on the first one and was full but
not satisfied. No blood could sate him as his mate’s could, and he
hadn’t tasted her in weeks. Gabriel said she needed space. Kris
said she needed anyone but him in her life. She had no idea what he
wanted. For once, Rhyn was the only one who made any sense. His
blood still raged from their kiss. If not for the demons’
interruption, he and Katie would be doing a different kind of mud
wrestling.

He growled, irritated as much by demons as he
was with the cold weather. Snow fell in lazy, fat flakes, sticking
to his clothes and hair. He swiped at the flakes then braced
himself to change into his jaguar shape. Hot pain slid through him
as his body contorted into the new form. He released a sigh when
he’d transformed and shook snowflakes from his thick coat. He loped
along the trail through the forest and trotted into the park around
the castle, where the person he least wanted to see awaited him
with a glower and crossed arms.

“You had somewhere to be half an hour ago,”
Kris said.

His tone reminded Rhyn that coming here had
been Katie’s idea and no one else’s. He’d come to keep an eye on
her and, allegedly, to help his brothers on the Council, though not
even he believed he had a decent bone in his body.

“I thought it important for you to see our
father’s crypt,” Kris continued. “He’s been interred here since he
became dead-dead at the hands of your demon-mother.”

Kris waited for him to change forms. Rhyn
breezed by him, much warmer in his jaguar shape than he’d been in
his human shape.

Hell was a bitch, but at least it was warm,
he thought darkly.

Kris strode past him and led him through the
castle's ground floor, whose wide, carpeted halls felt nice on his
paws. The massive halls were chilly, with ugly stone walls and
wooden beams far above. Kris’s décor was similar to his
ever-changing eyes: jewel-toned drapes, pillows, and tapestries,
edged with gold.

Several people stopped to stare or skirt them
as Rhyn padded through, and one startled gasp drew his attention
briefly to a stairwell. A child-angel-- the first he’d seen in
hundreds of years-- gazed at him with large brown eyes before
darting up the stairs. He wondered what poor fool was stuck
babysitting the high-maintenance angel as he followed Kris.

“I’d prefer you didn’t act like such an ass
around here,” Kris muttered as one of the servants dropped a tray
of dishes at the sight of the massive cat.

Rhyn stayed in his form until they reached a
narrow, winding set of stairs. He changed shape before descending
behind Kris. They walked down and through an unused part of the
dungeons. Their path dead-ended at a large wooden door. Kris
produced a key chain from his pocket and unlocked the five locks
before pulling the heavy door open.

“You afraid Pop’s gonna escape?” Rhyn asked,
amused by the security.

“The magic lingering in our father’s blood
renders the ground here sacred. I’ve sealed off the crypt with
magic to keep Immortals from entering through the shadow world, and
installed locks for those who wander where they shouldn’t be,” Kris
said.

“We should just toss him in the deepest hole
in Hell.”

“I don’t expect
you
to understand what
it is to care about someone else.”

Rhyn said nothing. His brother had no idea
the depth of emotion even a half-demon could feel. When he’d looked
into Katie’s eyes and dared her to admit she didn’t love him, he’d
seen everything he needed to know. He didn’t feel like the
half-demon bastard he was when he was with her.

“Pay your respects, brother, while I allow
it,” Kris said, and pushed the door open. The chamber beyond was
dark, lit by the soft glow of a single torch beside a clear
sarcophagus. Rhyn’s eyes lingered on the body on the altar before
he took in the seven statues of descending size surrounding the
altar.

Kris lit another torch to shed light on the
murals on the floor. There was one beneath each statue representing
a continent. The largest statue was Andre, their eldest brother who
had recently become dead-dead, standing over Europe. Kris was next
in size, standing on a mural of North America.

The smallest statue was Rhyn as a child of
five or six, standing on Antarctica. He circled his statue, barely
recalling his life growing up. Each of the Council That Was Seven
was represented, dutifully overlooking their father’s corpse. Rhyn
faced the sarcophagus, surprised to see his father looked as he had
when he last saw him thousands of years before. Their father had
Andre’s dark skin, and his hair was grey at the temples. His
features were most like Rhyn’s: heavy and roughly hewn, while his
body was lean like Kris’s.

“This might interest you more,” Kris said in
a cold voice.

Rhyn bristled and turned. Kris lit another
torch to display a darkened case on the wall. Rhyn’s fists clenched
as he took in the beheaded, dismembered body hung for spite on the
wall.

“My father’s killer,” Kris said, taking in
the demoness’s body.

“You kill my mother,” Rhyn snarled. “Yet
you’ve never come after me.”

“Andre killed your mother and kept me from
destroying you as I should have,” Kris replied. “You’re a cancer on
everyone around you. Andre was too kind to kill you. Even Katie is
better off without you.”

Rhyn heard without listening, instead taking
in the tortured features of his mother’s face. He’d gone from being
tormented by his own mother to the
affection
of an abusive
father who regretted ever having him. What small maternal instincts
a demon could have had led her to destroy the man who took her son;
then she in turn was killed by Andre.

Andre had taken Rhyn in when he was five and
he fled his bullying brothers when he was ten. Andre, however,
unanimously approved Rhyn’s petition to be recognized as a son of
their father when he was old enough, despite his brothers’
objections.

“They both deserve what they got,” Rhyn said.
“Andre alone has ever shown me any kindness.”

“And look where that got us all. If he’d
killed you, he’d be alive and Katie would be safe.”

“Safe?” Rhyn echoed. “You’d force her to
become your mate.”

“I wouldn’t force a human to do
anything.”

“But you’d hold her down and take her blood.”
Rhyn’s voice lowered dangerously and he faced his brother. Kris
fell silent. “Did you think I didn’t know?”

“She told you.”

“She didn’t have to.”

“I didn’t intend for it to happen,” Kris
said.

“You’re no better than Sasha,” Rhyn said.

“And she’s better off with you? You have
nothing to offer her.”

Rhyn faced his mother again. The words were
too familiar. Katie had said the same. He hadn’t even been able to
keep her safe when they were together, and he had nothing-- not
even a home-- to give her.

“Don’t destroy anything while you’re here,”
Kris said and left.

Rhyn ignored him, turning from the mother
who’d never wanted him to the father who’d wanted him dead-dead.
He’d had one friend in his life, Gabriel, and his mate, a woman
tough in spirit but vulnerable in flesh. He didn’t belong here with
Kris’s kind, yet she was safe. People around him had a way of dying
horribly, and he wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it, now that
it mattered. He wished Andre had stuck around a little longer, so
he could’ve asked him what to do.

He sensed the entrance of another before his
companion spoke.

“She looks like the Council, dismembered
beyond recognition.”

Rhyn snorted and faced Sasha, the brother
charged with governing Australia, and the first to abandon the
Council in favor of serving the Dark One. Sasha was lean and pale,
his gaze turquoise.