Red (13 page)

He nodded. “And they’ll see you.”

I straightened as my lungs stopped feeling like wrinkled fruit left too long in the sun. For some reason, he sounded every bit as upset over that as he had at the possibility that we might get skewered and devoured by a manticore. His eyes closed briefly as we heard the distinctive sound of footsteps crashing through the forest toward us. “Too late,” he whispered.

And then he kissed me.

A kiss implied an introduction, a kind of conversation unwinding between two people. Usually two people who could actually stand each other’s company. This was like being thrown into the middle of the ocean when you’d never even set foot into a creek before.

He spun me around, pressing me against the stone wall as if even gravity was too much of an interruption, as if he couldn’t spare a single scrap of energy for standing, not when he could be kissing me. My knees wholeheartedly agreed. Gravity ceased to exist; the fire burning in the woods, the monsters breathing in our scents, none of it mattered.

It was just our bodies, already flushed from running, breathing each other. Air was unnecessary, dust and ash. His mouth was every kind of sweet drink and every bite of dessert I’d ever had. It was chili peppers and chocolate, cinnamon candies, cherry cupcakes. We tasted each other, hip bones touching, hands sliding over skin. I was burning, but it was an entirely different kind of fire. I nipped back, eager to make him forget himself like he was making me forget everything that wasn’t his mouth. I’d never reacted like this before, never truly felt as if I was made of fire in this way. He made a sound in the back of his throat, kissing me harder. I was nearly dizzy with all of the feelings and sensations crowding inside me. I wondered how there was space left for my bones, for my very blood.

I’d forgotten why we were actually there until the gate creaked open beside us. Ethan ended the kiss leisurely, as if we’d been doing nothing all afternoon but this. He turned his head to look at the security guard, but his hands were still caging me against the stone, his body still shielding me. “What?” he asked lazily.

The guard cleared his throat. “Trouble in the woods, sir. Best to stay here.”

Ethan smiled, and it was all insolence and satiation. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.” He leaned down and kissed me slowly, teasingly.

The guard cleared his throat again, hiding a grin. When we were alone, Ethan straightened abruptly. “He’s gone,” he said, stalking away.

I stared at him, lips tingling. He kept walking. Even though my body was sighing, my brain went straight into name-calling. Bastard. You didn’t just kiss a girl like that and then leave. Asshat.

He stopped under the mermaid fountain and looked over his shoulder. I wondered if I’d said that last one out loud. He raised an eyebrow. “Are you coming, or what?”

I pushed away from the wall. “Only because I have a few things to say to you,” I muttered. “And you have a hell of a lot to answer for.”

We didn’t go back to the castle, like I’d assumed. Instead he went through the herb garden off the back of the kitchen, into a grove of pine trees growing in a circle. The needles scratched our arms as we pushed our way into the quiet, private center. There was a plastic bin under one tree. “You can’t tell anyone, Kia.” Ethan didn’t turn around to face me.

I felt absurdly disappointed. I shouldn’t have been surprised. In his world he was the son of the lord of the manor and I was a servant’s granddaughter. He’d never pretended to feel otherwise. He’d saved my life, and I might have saved his back, but he didn’t know that. He didn’t know the fire was my doing. And anyway, saving each other didn’t equal frolicking in the wildflowers and singing cartoon hearts.

“Fine.” I crossed my arms over my chest, striving to sound nonchalant. I’d die before I let him know I could still feel his kiss. “It was just a kiss, Ethan. I’m not hiring a skywriter, so get over yourself.”

“What?” He turned around, frowning. I raised my eyebrows. “Oh.” I could have sworn the tips of his ears went red. “That’s not what I meant.”

Now I was the one who felt like blushing and I wasn’t even sure why. “What then?”

“The manticore. The zoo.”

Right. “Like anyone would believe me.”

“You especially can’t let my father know that you saw it. He’s very…private.”

“Yeah, but he’s actually consistently nice to me. Unlike you, I might add.”

Ethan advanced on me so suddenly I instinctively took a step back. His hands closed over my shoulders. The lazy smirk was gone, the haughty arrogant glare. He went from breeze to storm without warning. “Please believe me, Kia. He can’t know.” He looked a little wild. “He
can’t
.”

“What the hell is going on? What is that place?” The numbness from the shock of discovering a zoo of monsters and then being attacked by a manticore wavered under the fear he was trying to hide. I was back to being a smart-mouthed girl covered in bruises and dirt and stinking of smoke.

He let go of me and jerked a hand roughly through his hair. “Dad’s always been into exotic animals.”

“Snow panthers and rare white tigers are exotic animals. This is something else entirely.” I remembered what he’d told me about Abby rescuing Holden’s peacocks. My eyes widened. “Abby knows,” I realized slowly. “That’s why she’s here. Why she gave up being a vet.” Why she left her granddaughter to move hundreds of miles away.

I was still trying to process that when Sloane eased between the branches. “A little help here?”

I blinked at her. “Sloane?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re naked.”

“Ouch. I noticed.” She shivered lightly. There was blood on her feet and leaves and twigs in her hair. Ethan was already lifting the lid off the bin and tossing a dress at her. She caught it and dropped it over her head, taking his place by the container. She rummaged for a sweater and socks and a pair of moccasins. “That manticore’s a bitch,” she said, pulling out a bag of beef jerky. “I’m
starving
. I hate shifting in this weather.”

My brain made the kind of noise a car makes when it stalls.

Sloane tore into the dried meat, her eyes the same blue as the eyes of the wolf.

“
You’re
the werewolf?” Just when I thought my head might stop spinning. “But…it’s daylight.”

“The moon’s visible today,” Sloane said. I couldn’t tell what she was feeling. “I
have
to turn when it’s full, but there’s more to it than that. If I have strong emotions under moonlight, I can’t always control the shift.”

“You’re a
werewolf
.” It needed to be said again.

“Isn’t she caught up yet?” She looked at Ethan accusingly.

“Little busy, Sloane.”

“Yeah, busy making out.”

“Shut up,” Ethan muttered. “We had to.”

Sloane and I both turned to stare at him. Something about our expressions must have warned him. He winced. “Excuse me?” I said calmly.

“Oh, Ethan, duck,” Sloane advised through a chortle.

“That kiss saved your life,” Ethan insisted.

Sloane choked. I tilted my head. “Did it really?”

Ethan groaned. “What is it about you that makes me an idiot?” he muttered.

I smiled for the first time that day.

“Look, no one can know you saw the bestiary, or the manticore. Especially my dad.” He glared at Sloane. “Back me up.”

“He’s right,” she admitted begrudgingly.

“He usually thinks so, anyway,” Tobias agreed. I hadn’t even seen the branches move—he was just suddenly there in the grove. I jumped but only a little. There wasn’t any room left for any kind of surprise. Ethan and Sloane nodded at him.

“Is this a Cabal thing?” I asked quietly.

“How do you know about that?” Ethan demanded.

I shrugged one shoulder. “I saw you guys. The night of the fire.”

“We’re not Cabal,” he said fiercely. “Not like the others, anyway.”

“Is this why there’s so much security around here?” I asked.

Sloane nodded. “Not exactly legal to trap and hunt like this, unless it’s a private game reserve, and even with a thousand acres, you never know who’s about.” She tore through beef jerky with her teeth, her tone bland. “As a representative of the game community, I wish animal control would shut this place down.”

“But then they’d know you exist,” I said quietly.

“Exactly,” Sloane replied, equally quietly. Our gazes met. She knew why I was so sympathetic to her fear. I didn’t want to be hunted or tested, either. “They can’t know you know, Kia. Ever.”

“I figured.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Ethan said. “The Cabal has ways of dealing with the uninitiated finding out about them.”

“Like?” I just knew I wasn’t going to like this.

“Like my aunt Simone,” he replied. “She accidentally found out about Dad’s bestiary. He tried to train her for the Trials, to fix it before the Cabal found out.”

“But the Cabal always finds out,” Tobias said. “So be careful.”

Sloane slipped away between the trees. Tobias followed, going in the opposite direction, but he kept looking at her. I wondered if she noticed.

I curled my hot fingers into my palms and sat down hard on the ground. “Cabal, monsters, Sloane’s a werewolf, sinister plots afoot. Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Ethan said silkily. “How’d you start that fire?”

Chapter Twenty

Ethan

I could tell by the look on her face that she assumed I hadn’t noticed. She was probably really good at covering her tracks. But I was a tracker. She shoved her hands behind her back. “The fence must have shorted out.”

I arched an eyebrow. “The fence had some help.”

She rubbed her arms as if she was cold then stopped abruptly, wincing. I caught a glimpse of her palm, red and raw looking. I grabbed her wrist. “What the hell, Kia?”

She tugged free, frowning. “It’s nothing.”

“You’re burned.” It surprised me how angry those marks made me. She shouldn’t be hurt.

“It always does that,” she said. “It’ll be fine in a few hours.” She fished a small vial out of her pocket and sprinkled oil on the burns. The smell of lavender wafted around us.

“You should go back to the city,” I blurted out.
Suave, Blackwood.

“That’s not exactly an option.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s just say I wore out my welcome.” Her tone was brittle. “The same way I’ve done here, apparently.”

“I didn’t mean that,” I said. I decided not to remember the feel of her lips under mine. Easier said than done. I could still taste her: fire and sugar. It was like mythical fairy food—one taste and suddenly you’d rather starve than try anything else. “Look, it’s not safe here.”

“You’ve said that already,” she pointed out. “It doesn’t matter. I can look after myself.” She paused. “Well, mostly. You saved me from that manticore. So thank you.”

I stepped closer to her because I couldn’t seem to help myself. She was so different from the other girls I knew. She wasn’t polished or elegant. She was fiery and raw and totally distracting. Summer had been focused, but also gentle, breakable. The quintessential obedient and good daughter.

Summer.

I stepped back, feeling suddenly guilty. “You saved me, too,” I admitted. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had saved me. “So take some advice, Alcott. Stay under the radar.”

She rubbed her face. “I’m still not convinced this isn’t some weird dream.”

“I wish I could tell you it was.”

Her smile was quick, but it was more powerful than any of the weapons currently concealed on my person. “So you guys just hang out and hunt monsters?” she asked dubiously. “Can’t you go to the movies like regular people?”

“Our parents are the ones who started it,” I said. “We’re the ones who have to clean it up. If we don’t keep the creatures contained, they can roam far enough to do real damage.”

“That hiker with the missing arm,” Kia said. “It was in the paper.”

“Exactly.”

She tilted her head, suddenly looking amused. “You’re like Bruce Wayne.” I blinked, confused. She blinked back. “That’s just sad,” she said when I didn’t look any more enlightened. “Batman,” she explained. “Millionaire hot guy by day, vigilante by night?”

“You think I’m hot?”

She blushed so deeply her cheeks matched her dyed streaks. “
No.
”

I knew I was smirking, but I couldn’t stop. “If it helps, I think you’re hot, too.”

She squirmed. It was cute as hell. “Can we focus?” she mumbled.

“But this is so much more fun.” For a moment it was just the two of us in a circle of trees with the last of the autumn sun sending golden arrows between the boughs. It was almost simple, a blush, a flirting smile. I could forget we were both covered in dirt and bruises. I could even forget about my dad’s obsession, about the monsters lurking everywhere around us.

Until her next words hit me like the flat of a sword.

“I guess I’m not quite as crazy as I thought,” she said. “That ice monster was real.” She shivered. “I’m not sure that’s comforting.”

I went cold, as if the ice monster had crept between us. The fairy-tale castle turned into my dad’s castle again. Arrows were arrows, not sunlight. The girl in front of me could die.

I grabbed her shoulders. “Ice monster? When? Where? Tell me!”

“Ethan?” She sounded calm.

“What?” I snapped. I needed to know every single thing she knew about the ice monster. I thought of Colt lying broken in the forest, of the tubes running into his nose and his braced legs.

“If you don’t let go of me, I’m going to kick you really hard.”

I released her so suddenly she stumbled back a step. “Sorry. What did you mean about an ice monster?”

“That night Colt got hurt,” she said quietly. “When you were in the woods smearing each other with blood.”

I was taken aback. “You saw that part, too?” She was better armed for our world, apparently. It was wrong to think about how hot that made her.

“Yes,” she said. “A little bit. I was kind of distracted.”

“Kia,” I said as patiently as I could. It still came out like a growl. “Tell me exactly what you saw.”

“A lot of white hair, black fingers and lips, like it was frostbitten. Or covered in old blood.” She grimaced. “Great, I hadn’t thought of that at the time. Could that have been blood?”

“Maybe. What else?”

“When it breathed, it was all ice and snow.” She shivered, remembering. “I was caught.”

Fear for her was sour in the back of my throat, jagged in my stomach. I hadn’t even known she was in trouble. I’d failed her, like I’d failed Summer. “How did you get away?”

“I burned it,” she said. “At least, I think that’s what happened. You saw it, too, didn’t you?”

I nodded jerkily. “Right after Colt was injured.”

“Colt didn’t just fall out of a tree, did he?”

“Not exactly.” She’d figured out fire could hurt it. We hadn’t known that before. It made sense, though. And now it would pay for Summer and for Colt. And for cornering Kia in the woods that night.

“Is this about Summer?” Kia asked, watching me carefully. “You think that thing killed her?”

She knew more than she should. “Maybe,” I said again, noncommittally.

“What is it?”

I slapped at a low-hanging branch, scattering pine needles. “We don’t know.” I pushed my temper down, shoved it aside for later. “Thanks to you, I finally know a little more. I can hunt it now.”

A foghorn pierced the air. Two short blasts, one long. Kia jumped. I reached for my cell phone before it had even started to vibrate. “Now what?” Kia muttered. “Dragons? Rabid unicorns? Leprechauns?”

“It’s a warning about the compromised fence,” I told her. “If we used sirens or regular alarms, the cops might come.” I took a knife from the bag of extra weapons we had secured in one of the trees. “I have to go.” I brushed past her, stopped when we were shoulder to shoulder. “You have to be careful, Kia. Do you understand? Promise me you’ll be careful.”

She nodded. When I was nearly out of the grove, she spoke again.

“You be careful, too,” she said, softly enough that I wasn’t sure she meant for me to hear.