by Lara Adrian
“No,” she said. “I can’t go. I need to see Big Dave. I need to be sure—”
She broke away from him and dashed up the concrete steps and into the clinic, with Kade fast on her heels. The place was quiet inside, only the hum of the overhead fluorescent lights that tracked from the vacant reception area down the hallway toward the examination rooms. From the sparse look of the clinic and its lack of equipment, it didn’t appear that it was set up for dealing with much more than the occasional abrasion or vaccination.
Alex headed down the hall at a determined, brisk pace.
“Where’s Fran Littlejohn? She never keeps it this cold in here,” she murmured, at just about the same time that Kade was noticing the temperature, as well.
An arctic chill, blowing up the hallway from one of the rooms in back. The only one with the door closed.
Alex put her hand on the knob. It didn’t budge. “That’s odd. It’s locked.”
Kade’s warrior instincts lit up like firecrackers. “Get back.”
He was already standing in front of her, moving faster than her eyes could possibly track him. He gripped the doorknob and gave it a hard twist. The lock snapped, mechanisms were crushed to powder in an instant.
Kade pushed the door open … and found himself staring into the cold dead eyes of a Minion.
“Skeeter?” Alex’s voice was sharp with surprise, and well-placed suspicion. “What the hell are you doing in here?”
The Minion’s business was potently clear to Kade. On the floor next to Big Dave’s bed lay a large, middle-age woman—the clinic technician, no doubt. Unconscious, but she was still breathing, which was better than he could say for her patient on the bed.
“Fran!” Alex cried, racing to the unresponsive woman’s side.
Kade’s focus was centered elsewhere. The room reeked with the overpowering stench of human blood. Had it been fresh, Kade’s physiological response would have been impossible to hide, but the odor was stale, the cells no longer living. Nor was Big Dave, who lay on the bed, virtually unrecognizable for the severity of his injuries. All Kade needed was one whiff of the spilled, coagulating hemoglobin to know that the man was several minutes dead already.
“My Master was displeased to hear about the attack today,” the Minion said, his thin face pale and emotionless. Behind him was an open window, his obvious means of entry into the room. And in his hand was a bloodied pair of suture scissors that had been used to speed the consequences of Big Dave’s life-threatening wounds.
“Kade … what’s he talking about?”
Skeeter smiled at Alex, a deviant, rictus grin. “My Master hasn’t been too pleased to hear about you, either. Witnesses are a problem in general, you understand.”
“Oh, my God,” Alex murmured. “Skeeter, what are you saying? What have you done!”
“You son of a bitch,” Kade hissed, launching himself at the Minion. He took Skeeter down to the floor in a bone-crushing assault. “Who made you? Answer me!”
But the human mind slave only stared up at him and sneered, despite the punishing blows Kade delivered on him.
“Who the fuck is your Master?” He hit Skeeter again. And again. “Talk, you goddamn piece of shit.”
Answers eluded him. Some irrational part of him cast about and latched on to Seth’s name, but that was an impossibility. Although Kade and his twin were Breed, their bloodline wasn’t old enough or pure enough for either of them to create a Minion. Only the earliest generations of the vampire race had the power to drain a human to the brink of death, then take command of its mind.
“What are your orders?” He pounded the Minion’s grinning, bleeding, soulless face. “What have you told your Master about Alex?”
Behind him now, her voice broke through the violence raging in him. “Kade, please … stop. You’re scaring me. Stop this now and let him go.”
But he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t let the human who had been Skeeter Arnold go, not now. Not knowing what he was. Not knowing what he might be commanded to do to Alex if he was turned loose to carry out his Master’s wishes again.
“Kade, please …”
With a guttural roar, he grasped the Minion’s head in his hands and gave it a savage twist. There was a crunch of bone and sinew, then a hard thump as he let the lifeless bulk fall onto the floor.
He heard Alex’s sharp intake of breath at his back. He thought she might scream, but she went utterly silent. When Kade pivoted his head to look up at her, it wasn’t difficult to read the confusion—the complete shock—in her wide brown eyes.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said quietly, feebly. “It couldn’t be helped, Alex.”
“You … killed him. You just killed him… with your bare hands.”
“He wasn’t really alive anymore, Alex. Just a shell. He wasn’t really human anymore.” Kade frowned, knowing how that must sound to her by the stricken, confused look on her face. He slowly rose to stand and she took a step backward, out of his reach.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Ah, fuck,” he muttered, raking his fingers over his scalp. She’d been through more than her share of violence in her life; the last thing she needed was to be a party to more because of her involvement with him. “I hate that you’re here right now, seeing this. But I can explain—”
“No.” She gave an abrupt shake of her head. “No, I have to get Zach. I have to get help for Big Dave and I have to—”
“Alex.” Kade took hold of her arms in a light but unyielding grasp. “There’s nothing that can be done for either of these men now. And bringing Zach Tucker or anyone else into this is only going to make things more dangerous—not only for them, but for you. I won’t risk that.”
She stared at him, her eyes searching his.
In the quiet that seemed to expand to fill the room, the clinic worker Skeeter had knocked to the floor began to rouse back to consciousness. The woman groaned, mumbled something indiscernible.
“Fran,” Alex said, turning back to help the older female.
Kade blocked her path. “She’ll be fine.”
With Alex watching him warily, he went to the woman’s side and gently placed his hand over her forehead. “Sleep now, Fran. When you wake, you’ll remember none of this.”
“What are you doing to her?” Alex demanded, her voice rising as the clinic worker relaxed into his touch.
“It will be easier for her if she forgets that Skeeter was here,” he said, ensuring Fran’s mind was scrubbed of the assault on her and any recollections she might have of Kade and Alex being present, as well. “It will be safer for her this way.”
“What are you talking about?”
Kade swiveled his head to face her. “There is more to your monsters than you know, Alex. Much more.”
She stared at him. “What are you saying, Kade?”
“Earlier today, out at the cabin, you said you trusted me, right?”
She swallowed, nodded mutely.
“Then trust me, Alex. Ah, fuck. Trust no one but me now.” He glanced back at Skeeter Arnold’s body—the Minion corpse he was now going to have to lose somewhere, and fast. “I need you to go back outside. You can’t say anything to anyone about Big Dave or Skeeter or what happened in here just now. Tell no one what you saw in here, Alex. I need you to walk out there, go back home, and wait for me to come to you. Promise me.”
“But he—” Her voice choked off as she gestured toward the broken body on the floor.
“I’ll take care of everything. All I need is for you to tell me that you trust me. That you believe me when I tell you there’s no reason for you to be afraid. Not of me.” He reached out to stroke her chilled cheek, relieved that she didn’t flinch from him or pull away. He was asking for a hell of a lot from her—far more than he had a right to. “Go home and wait for me, Alex. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
She blinked a couple of times, then took a few steps backward. Her eyes were bleak on his as she inched toward the open do
or, and for a moment he wondered if her fear would prove too much for her now.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I trust you, too, Alex.”
He turned around and listened as she walked out and left him there to clean up his mess alone.
CHAPTER
Seventeen
In one instant, her world had suddenly shifted on its axis.
Alex walked away from Kade, surprised that her legs were functioning when her mind was spinning with the illogic of what she’d just witnessed him do—not only to Skeeter Arnold, but also to Fran Littlejohn. Was it some type of hypnotism he’d used on her, or something more powerful than that to make the woman bend so easily to his will?
And Skeeter …
What did he mean, saying all those strange things to Kade, talking about how he was carrying out orders from his “Master”? It was crazy talk, and yet Skeeter hadn’t seemed crazy. He’d seemed very dangerous, no longer the small-time drug dealer and all-around loser she knew him to be, but something deadly. Something almost inhuman.
He wasn’t really alive anymore … just a shell.
He had killed Big Dave in cold blood, and Kade had snapped Skeeter’s neck with his bare hands.
Oh, God. Nothing was making sense to her.
There’s more to your monsters than you know, Alex.
Kade’s warning echoed in her head as she stepped out into the lightless cold of the afternoon. How could any of this be happening? It couldn’t be happening. How could any of this be reality?
But she knew it was, just as surely as she had always known that what had happened all those years ago in Florida was reality, too.
Trust no one but me now.
Alex wasn’t sure she had any choice. Who else did she have? What Kade had just done—everything he’d just said in the clinic—had left her with more questions than she was prepared to ask. She was terrified and uncertain, more than ever now. Kade was dangerous; she’d seen that for herself only a minute ago. Yet he was also protective, not only of Alex herself, but of Fran Littlejohn, too—a woman he didn’t even know.
In spite of all he’d said and done just now, Kade was a solid anchor in a reality that had suddenly cast Alex adrift. It was his strength and trust that buoyed her as she stared at the small crowd still clustered in front of the clinic. The dozen-plus faces she had known for so long now appeared to her as strangers as she unobtrusively slipped past them. Even Zach, who glanced over when she had just about made it to the outer edge of the throng, seemed less a friend than a source of doubt and unwanted complication.
His eyes narrowed on her, but she kept walking, desperate to get out of there. “Alex.”
An arrow of sudden, cold panic stabbed her. Zach was the last person she needed to see right now. She pretended not to hear him, walked a bit faster.
“Alex, hold up.” He pushed his way through, catching her by the sleeve of her parka. “Will you wait a damned minute?”
Given no choice, she paused. It was a struggle to keep her expression neutral as she faced him. There was no containing the tremble that swept her body while Zach scowled at her in the dark.
“Are you all right? Your face is white as a sheet.”
She shook her head, jerked her shoulder in an awkward shrug. “I’m just a little wrung out, I guess.”
“Yeah, no shit,” he said. “Listen, I’m sorry I was short with you before. Things seem to be going from bad to worse around here lately.”
Alex swallowed, nodding. He didn’t even know the half of it.
Trust no one but me now … Tell no one what you saw in here, Alex. Promise me.
Kade’s words drifted through her thoughts as Zach watched her expectantly. “So? You’ve got my undivided attention, for the moment at least. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Um …” Alex fumbled for a reply, feeling oddly unsettled by the way Zach seemed to peer at her in speculation, maybe even suspicion. “I just … I was concerned about Big Dave, of course. How is he? How do you, um, think he’s doing?”
The questions felt clumsy on her tongue, especially when her heart was still banging from everything she’d witnessed in the clinic.
Zach’s expression turned a bit more scrutinizing. “You saw him yourself, didn’t you?”
She shook her head, not sure she could deliver a convincing lie.
“Didn’t I see you go inside—you and your, ah, new friend?” He leaned on the word, unnecessarily hard. “Where is he, anyway? Still inside?”
“No,” she said, all but blurting it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Kade and I were out here the whole time. He just left.”
Zach didn’t quite seem to buy it, but before he had a chance to press her further, the clinic door opened and Fran Littlejohn came out onto the stoop. “Officer Tucker! Where’s Zach? Somebody call Officer Tucker right away!”
Alex stared, weathering a rising feeling of dread as Fran’s head bobbed, searching the crowd.
“Over here,” Zach called. “What is it?”
“Oh, Zach!” The clinic technician heaved a sigh, her thick shoulders slumping. “I’m afraid we lost him. I’d just given him another dose of sedative, and I turned away for what couldn’t have been more than a minute at most. When I looked back just now, I saw that he had passed. Big Dave is dead.”
“Goddamn it,” Zach muttered. Although he spoke to Fran, he shot a tight glance at Alex. “No one else with you in there, Fran?”
“Just me,” she said. “Poor Dave. And poor Lanny, too. God bless them both.”
As a wave of soft murmurs and whispered prayers traveled the crowd, Alex cleared her throat. “I have to go, Zach. It’s been a long day, and I’m really tired. So, unless you have any more questions—”
“No,” he said, but the look he gave her was guarded, filled with a reluctant acceptance of everything he’d just heard. “Go on home, then, Alex. If I need you, I know where to find you.”
She nodded, unable to dismiss feeling oddly threatened by his comment as she turned and walked away.
Some five miles out of Harmony, deep in the frozen wilderness, Kade shrugged the burden of Skeeter Arnold’s lifeless body off his shoulders and dropped it down a steep ravine.
He stood there for a moment, after the Minion’s corpse had tumbled out of sight, letting the bitter cold air fill his lungs and steam his breath as he stared out at the vast nothingness all around him. The sky was dark overhead, the snow-covered ground glowed midnight blue under the afternoon starlight. In the distant woods, a wolf cried, long and lamenting, summoning its pack to run. The wildness of his surroundings called to Kade, and for one sharp instant, he was tempted to give in to it.
Tempted to ignore the chaos and confusion that he’d left behind him in Harmony. Tempted to run from the fear he’d put in Alex, and the unpleasant business of the truth that he would have to deliver to her when he got back.
Would she despise him for what he had to tell her?
Would she recoil in horror when she came to understand his true nature?
He couldn’t blame her if she did. Knowing what she’d endured as a child, and now, having seen him kill a man before her eyes, how could he possibly hope that she would look at him with anything more than fear or revulsion?
“Ah, fuck,” he muttered, dropping down into a squat on his haunches at the edge of the ravine. “Fuck!”
“Problems, brother?”
The unexpected voice, the unexpected familiarity of it—here, of all places, now, of all times—shot through Kade like a current of raw electricity. He vaulted to his feet and spun around, his hand reaching automatically for one of the blades he wore on his belt.
“Easy,” Seth drawled slowly, inclining his head to indicate the precarious edge of the ravine directly behind Kade. “Better watch your step.”
Kade’s fury spiked as he took in his twin’s unkempt, shaggy appearance. “I could say the same thing to you … brother.”
He kept the knife gripped in his
fist, pivoting around, cautiously following Seth as he strolled toward him to peer into the ravine. Seth grunted. “Not the most savvy way to dispose of a kill, but I suppose it won’t take long for the scavengers to find it.”
“Yeah, you know all about that, don’t you?”
Seth looked at him, Kade’s own silver eyes—his own face—staring back at him as if in a mirror. Except Seth’s short black hair hung limply in dull, matted hanks, his cheeks and jaw sallow, the skin shadowed with grit and grime. His face was leaner than Kade recalled, on the verge of gaunt. He looked strung out, and there was a feral glint in his heavy-lidded gaze.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he demanded. “How long have you been carrying out your sick killing games?”
Seth chuckled, dark with amusement. “I’m not the one dumping a human into a snowy grave.”
“Minion,” Kade corrected him, though why he felt the need to explain was beyond him.
“Really?” Seth arched a brow. “A Minion, all the way out here in the bush … interesting.”
“Yeah, I’m all atwitter,” Kade said. “And you didn’t answer my fucking question.”
Seth’s mouth curved at the corners. “What would be the point, when you already know what I’m going to say?”
“Maybe I need to hear it from your own lips. Tell me how you’ve been stalking and killing humans ever since I left Alaska last year—hell, it’s been going on for a lot longer than that, hasn’t it?” He ground out a sharp hiss of disgust. “I found something you might recognize. Here—”
He dug the bear tooth charm out of his pocket and tossed it at his twin.
“Now you have a matched set,” Kade said. “This one, and the one you took off the Native man when you killed him last winter.”