Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 05 (33 page)

Morgan was so angry she wanted to slap him. Hit him.
Make him hurt, the way he’d made her hurt all those years ago. The way he was
hurting her now. But she couldn’t do it, because she ached for him, too. As
ridiculous as the idea seemed that he could ever physically harm her, she could
see that he honestly believed it. That he didn’t trust himself to be close to
her. To care about her. Take a chance on her…

They both jumped as the cabin door suddenly banged
open, and Ashe stepped into the room, his dark hair and clothes dusted with
snow. Morgan shook her head a little, sending him a look that said Bad timing,
but he let out a tight, tired sigh, and murmured, “Sorry, sunshine, but I’ve
got news for the wolf.”

Kierland turned toward him, his expression one of
sharp, alert focus, and Ashe explained. “Your brother’s nearby. I caught his
scent while I was running a perimeter in the woods, and I followed it. Found
him at a camp a few miles east of here. There were some Kraven on site,
guarding him at gunpoint, but I masked my scent, so they never even knew I was
there. They also had some redhead with them, who looked like she was running
things, but she’s human.”

“Spark,” Kierland muttered, his gaze darkening as he
absorbed the news.

Ashe slid the Lycan a curious look. “Spark?”

“The human,” Kierland told him, his voice cold…hard.
“Her name is Spark. She’s a Collective assassin.”

“And one of the most heinous bitches you’ve ever met,”
Morgan added. “Was he—”

“Did you talk to him?” Kierland grunted, cutting her
off.

The vampire shook his head. “No. But I put myself
where he could see me. It looked like he recognized me.”

“He probably did,” she murmured. “He’s seen
photographs I have of the two of us together.”

Ashe acknowledged the explanation with a slow nod, his
piercing gaze moving between her and Kierland, and Morgan knew he was trying to
figure out what had happened between them. His gaze finally settled on the
Lycan, and he said, “I was going to try to get closer to him, but he warned me
back with a look. He’s not ready to be saved.”

“That’s too damn bad,” Kierland muttered, heading
toward his backpack.

“Wait!” she gasped, reaching out and grabbing his arm.
“Just stop and think for a second. This is exactly what Kellan wanted to
happen, Kier. You’ve got to let him do this his way.”

He looked down at her with an arrested expression, a
violent rush of color flaring across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose.
“You knew?” The soft words lashed with fury, and she flinched, watching his
anger shape itself into something dark and raw as he ripped his arm out of her
hold.

“Knew what?” she whispered, swiping her tongue across
her lower lip.

“Do not mess with me, Morgan.” He shook with barely
contained rage, a muscle ticking in the hollow of his shadowed cheek. “If he’s
as close as Granger says, you would know.”

She didn’t want to lie to him—wouldn’t—but she knew he
wasn’t going to believe the truth. And in the end, her silence condemned her.

“What is this?” he sneered, cutting an ugly look
between her and Ashe, who looked as if he wanted to take her into his arms and
protect her from Kierland’s anger, but knew better than to push his luck. “Have
the two of you just been trying to screw me over?”

“No! God, you know that’s not true,” she said
unsteadily, begging him with her eyes to believe her.

He ran his hand over the grim shape of his mouth,
looking as if he wanted so badly to have faith in her, but was afraid to. “Then
why the hell didn’t you say anything?”

“Because, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t paying
attention to where Kellan was last night.” The quiet words shook with emotion.
“I was too busy worrying about you. I didn’t realize his ‘pull’ was so close
until I woke up this morning. And then you…distracted me. I haven’t had a
chance to say anything. But I would have told you.”

He just stared at her, his tall, powerful body rigid
with tension, muscles hard and coiled, bulging as if he was going to explode
into movement at any moment.

With a deep, trembling breath, Morgan forced herself
to say the words she knew needed to be said. “We’re not meant to stop him. You
know that. We’re meant to be here waiting, close by, when he comes out with
Chloe and needs our help. But that’s all. You have to have faith, Kier, because
Kellan’s not going to fail. This is too important to him.”

“Yeah, well, it’s important to me, too,” he muttered,
turning away from her.

“What are you doing?” she asked, watching as he knelt
down on one knee and began searching through the weapons pack, pulling out two
handguns and several rounds of ammo.

Without looking at her, he said, “I’m going after
him.”

“Didn’t you just hear me? You can’t!”

“Like hell I can’t,” he growled, moving back to his
feet. He set the guns and ammo on the room’s only table, then pulled on his
jacket and slid everything into the pockets.

Trying to control the tremor in her voice, Morgan took
a deep breath and said, “After all that he’s gone through to get here, do you
really think this is what he would want? You coming to his rescue? He has a
plan, Kier. He’s a grown man and a helluva soldier. Let Kell do what he thinks
is right.”

“He could get himself killed!” he snapped, turning
around to face her.

“That’s a possibility. Yes. That’s always a
possibility. But it’s his choice,” she argued in a husky voice, their gazes
locked together in a fierce, explosive battle of wills. “Please, Kierland. For
once listen to someone else and stop thinking you know what’s best for
everyone.”

He shuddered with rage, but didn’t say anything, and
she could only shake her head, her shoulders weighted with disappointment as
she realized nothing she said was going to make a difference.

“Have fun trying to talk some sense into him,” Ashe
muttered, a resigned note of disgust in his deep voice as he headed toward the
door, obviously deciding that he’d heard enough. “I’ll be outside if you need
me.”

The door closed behind the vampire, and Morgan waited
for Kierland to say something, but he didn’t. He just stood there, his body
held in a tight, rigid stance, his big hands fisted at his sides as he stared
at the door.

“Are you really just going to walk away and leave me
here alone?” she asked, forcing her chin to stay high, when all she really
wanted was to slink away into a corner somewhere and lick her wounds.

He cut her a dark, cold look from the corner of his
eye. “You won’t be alone,” he muttered. “You’ll have the vamp, same as always.”

“God,” she whispered, blinking against another
frustrating spill of tears. “I’ve been so stupid, haven’t I? I actually
thought, after last night, that you were…that you might care about me. That we
might finally have some kind of chance together. But you’re never going to let
that happen, are you, Kier?”

“Don’t make this about us.” He ground out the words,
his eyes narrowing with rage. “This is between me and Kell.”

“No.” It was strange to hear her voice sounding so
thin, so hollow, as if all the life had just been drained right out of it.
“This is about you, Kierland. It’s always about you.”

He made a low sound in the back of his throat that
sounded more like the animal than the man, the green of his eyes glowing with
fury within the darkness of his face. “You don’t know what the hell you’re
talking about, Morgan.”

Her breath shuddered past her lips, the tears coming
faster, in a hot, unstoppable rush as she wrapped her arms over her chest,
trying to hold herself together. “I know I loved you, Kier. I loved you so much
that I almost died when you introduced me to Nicole. I loved you so much that I
hated you for being with her. And that’s why I ran to Ashe. Because you broke
my heart, and you didn’t even know it.”

“Damn you.” His body shook with a hard, violent
tremor, as if he was struggling to stay in control. He shoved his hair back
from his face with shaking hands and snarled, “That’s a lie and you know it!”

“It’s not,” she told him, shaking her head, unable to
stop the flood of words as they came pouring out of her. “I’d spent months
waiting for you to ask me out, and you never did. I thought you were just
waiting for me to get a bit older, for my birthday to come around, and
then…that was when I met her. When you introduced me to Nicole. I didn’t…I didn’t
just lust after you, Kier. I loved you. And it broke my heart when you brought
her to meet me. Like a slap in the face, which was what I’m sure now that you’d
intended, so that I would know you were off-limits. So that I would leave you
in peace. And your plan worked, because I went to Ashe that night. You just
didn’t know about our relationship until later, because we hadn’t told anyone.”

He appeared stunned. Frozen. Then he shook it off, his
lip curling as he growled, “Why him?”

She swiped at the tears under her eyes with her
fingertips, her voice trembling almost uncontrollably. “Because I knew he
w-wanted me, unlike you. He wasn’t afraid to admit it. And because he’d always
been kind to me.”

“Kind?” he snarled. “Christ, Morgan. He just wanted in
your pants.”

“You’re wrong,” she argued. “Ashe was a true friend to
me, Kierland. I refuse to feel guilty about our relationship, because he’s been
one of the best, most loyal friends I’ve ever had. But the truth is that I
ended up with him because you broke my heart. Because you were too afraid to
take a chance on me. Because you thought you knew what was right, and you
weren’t willing to let anyone else have a say.”

A heavy silence fell between them, the kind that
stretched out and made the room vibrate with tension until she could barely
breathe, and then he gave another hard shake of his head, his brows pulled
together in a deep vee. “It doesn’t matter,” he muttered, hunching his
shoulders as he shoved his hands back into his pockets. “I don’t even know why
we’re arguing about it. Jesus. What’s done is done. You fell in love with Ashe
and forgot all about me. It was obvious to everyone that you were crazy about
him. Devastated when he left you. Whatever you’d felt for me before, it wasn’t
as strong as that. So none of what you’ve claimed changes anything now.”

He looked scared. Sounded scared. And it was that
fear, she realized, that would always keep him away from her.

“So that’s it, then?” she asked. “You’ll still keep
Ashe between us, because that’s what suits you?”

“I’m not keen on being second choice,” he grunted, his
stony expression as hard as his tone.

“You’ll only see what you want to see, won’t you?”

He’d turned away from her, his hand already on the
handle of the door. “He still wants you, Morgan.” Deep, guttural words, rough
with strain. “He obviously regrets walking away from you. Once I step aside,
you can have what you want. What you’ve always wanted.”

Staring at the rigid set of his shoulders, she fought
for her voice, and finally managed to say, “You think you have it all figured
out, but you don’t know anything, Kier.”

“I know you can’t go back and change the past. I lost
you, and I’ve learned to live with it.”

“Of course you have,” she whispered, and a choked,
kind of broken-sounding laugh fell from her lips. Or maybe it was a sob. She
was too destroyed to tell the difference, a strange, shivering tremor beginning
in her chest that was threatening to spread through her entire body, breaking
her down. “You don’t need anyone, right, Kier?”

“What the hell do you want from me?” he demanded in a
hoarse rasp, his shoulders shaking.

It hurt, she thought, giving your love to someone.
Cutting a piece of yourself off and offering it to them. But even worse was the
knowledge that it didn’t matter. That they wouldn’t let it matter.

“I want something I can’t have,” she muttered, giving
him back the same words he’d said to her.

A low, gritty laugh, and he yanked open the door.
“Trust me, Morgan. He’s yours. You’ve wanted the vamp for years, and now you’ve
got him. He won’t walk away from you again.”

“Wow. Congratulations, Kier.” Impossible to hide the
bitterness in her tone. Not that she tried. “Once again, you’ve got it all
figured out.”

The door had already slammed shut behind him as Morgan
sank to her knees in the middle of the room. “Too bad you’re always wrong,” she
said brokenly, and then she buried her face in her hands.

Thursday evening

KIERLAND CREPT THROUGH THE forest like a shadow,
careful not to make a sound. He knew he needed to focus on the present, that he
needed to stay sharp, and yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about Morgan. About
the pale, devastated look on her face when he’d turned his back on her in the
cabin and walked away.

Christ. There were a thousand things he wished he’d
said to her before he’d left, but he knew it was better this way. There was
nothing she could say to change his mind. They would just keep hurling the same
arguments at each other, getting nowhere, while Kellan’s life hung in the
balance.