“Okay. You can stay with me.”
A wry grin tugged at my lips. “I’ll get out before your mom comes home. Swear.”
Kat smiled at that. I got out of the SUV and jogged around to her side. Opening her door, I reached in for her. “What are you doing?” she asked.
I arched a brow. “You haven’t had shoes on this entire time, so no more walking.”
She opened her mouth as if she wanted to argue, but snapped it closed. I grinned as she scooted to the edge of the seat.
The front door to my house swung open, slamming against the clapboard like a gunshot. I spun around, my hands forming into fists as I expected the DOD to come rushing out.
But it was Dee.
Strands of dark curly hair streamed behind her. Tears glistened from her eyes and coursed down her cheeks. My heart started to sink even further, but she…she was laughing and she was smiling.
What the hell? Was Dee medicated? Not that there was anything wrong with that, but I had a feeling pills wouldn’t work on us. Maybe pot?
Kat slipped out of the car behind me, and I started to turn around to stop her. She was not going to walk barefoot on snow, but the door opened again behind Dee, and…
Holy shit.
I stumbled as the tall and thin form appeared behind Dee. The form drifted forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with my sister—our sister. It was him on the porch, a thinner, more disheveled replica of me. Dark hair, longer than the last time I saw him, curled against the sharp, high cheekbones. His eyes were green, but duller…haunted. But it was him. It was my brother.
“Dawson,” I croaked out.
Chapter 30
The house was quiet except for the low hum of conversation coming from the TV in the living room. Wind howled outside, battering the sides of the house as snow fell in thick sheets.
From the front window, I watched the wind whip the snow across the driveways. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been standing here. Definitely more than a few minutes. Possibly an hour. Tension crept into my neck.
I wasn’t alone.
Looking over my shoulder, I watched my brother enter the living room. His movements were stiff, as if he weren’t used to walking much. He probably wasn’t. I’d seen those cages, and I knew there was a good chance, a high probability, that he’d been kept in one of those. Knowing that, watching him ate away at me. He was still so gaunt, and in the past week the shadows under his eyes had darkened.
Dawson wasn’t sleeping more than a few hours here and there.
He also wasn’t talking. Not really. Not to me at least. He spoke more to Dee, but nothing like it was before.
My brother was a ghost of his former self.
So much anger churned in my gut. What they’d done to him had changed him, and the anger hadn’t faded. Not even when I went back to the warehouse Will had taken Kat to, where Dawson was probably held at some point, and I stripped the damn place bare of onyx. Doing so had filled me with satisfaction, but it hadn’t dampened the anger.
Pushing away from the window, I followed him into the kitchen. He knew I was there, but he didn’t acknowledge my existence. My hands curled helplessly at my sides.
Dawson stood in the middle of the kitchen, his head cocked to the side as he stared at the fridge.
“Hey, man, you hungry?” I asked.
He didn’t respond.
The helplessness doubled until it was a pound of lead in my stomach. “We have Lucky Charms,” I offered, knowing he’d liked to eat the marshmallows out of the damn cereal. “I can grab you a bowl.”
Pivoting around, Dawson walked out of the kitchen without saying a word.
“Or not,” I muttered. Taking a deep breath, I followed him once more. This time he was at the window I’d been at.
Dee was sitting on the stairs, the set of her face weary. It was almost two in the morning. Our eyes met, and I shook my head tiredly at the question in her gaze.
Was he talking?
Dawson’s shoulders rose with a heavy breath. The hum from the TV continued as the three of us stood in sad silence until he turned and headed up the stairs, passing Dee without a word. I heard his bedroom door close.
Maybe he would sleep now
Dee lowered her head, pressing her face into her hands. I walked over to her and sat on the step below her. “This is progress,” I said, almost wanting to laugh. “At least he was out of his bedroom and not in the woods.”
“What was he doing?” Her voice was muffled by her hands.
I glanced up at the stairs. “I don’t know. He went into the kitchen and I thought he was going to eat something, but he didn’t.”
“He ate some turkey yesterday, nothing more than a handful.” She lifted her head, letting her hands fall limp between her knees. “With him barely sleeping, I have no idea how he’s up and walking around.”
“He’s strong.” The words sounded hollow. “He’ll…he’ll get better.”
Dee turned exhausted green eyes to mine. “I know.”
My smile was faint.
Hers was nonexistent as she whispered, “What did they do to him in there, Daemon? What did they do?”
There was no answer, none that I felt comfortable giving Dee, even though she knew everything now. Matthew had filled her in on what was going on with Blake—what he was, and what I had done to change Kat. Then I’d told her the rest, all that I knew about the DOD, and what had really happened on Halloween night. I told her about what Will Michaels had done to Kat and what he’d wanted from me. Dee had been shocked. Obviously. Because that was some legit insanity right there.
With everything in the open, Dee had been angry, but the relief of having Dawson back, having him alive, had left little room for the anger. For now.
Dee was hurt by the fact that I’d kept her in the dark, and she was devastated by the lies that Kat had told. I knew that it would take some time for her to fully get over it, but my sister was like…freaking sunshine at her core. She wouldn’t hold a grudge. Not even if it was a reasonable one.
As I sat beside Dee, both of us quiet in the stairwell, I thought about Adam. Hell. That hit me in the gut. And then I thought about Kat and the wrecked sound of her voice, the marks around her wrists and ankles that hadn’t completely faded yet. That slammed into my chest.
Following Dawson around had left little time for Kat. I knew she was a hundred percent understanding of that, but it still sucked not to see her. Being around her…well, it was peace in the midst of a violent storm.
A storm that had us all in a holding pattern, waiting for the DOD to spring on us.
Dee and I returned to bed, and I fell asleep around four and woke up no more than two hours later, wide awake and my heart pumping faster than normal. I stared at the ceiling for a moment, confused, and then I launched out the bed.
Kat.
Opal
Book 3 of the Lux series, as told from Daemon’s point of view.
Chapter 1
Shoeless and shirtless, I raced downstairs and out of the house, into the heavily falling white stuff. Snowed in at Winchester, Kat’s mom wasn’t home, but as I slipped inside, I immediately sensed another presence in the house.
Dawson.
What in the holy hell? He was here? I wasn’t exactly surprised as I climbed the steps. I mean, yeah, him here with Kat at six in the morning was freaking weird, but Dawson…he was freaking weird right now.
I walked to Kat’s bedroom. The door was open. Dawson was standing by the window overlooking the front yard, and Kat was in bed looking…hell, looking like I needed to be in there with her.
God, I missed her.
Her gaze roamed over my face and then dipped south before returning north. Her cheeks were slightly flushed.
“Are we having a slumber party?” I asked. “And I’m not invited?”
Dawson shuffled past me and out of the room. A few seconds later, the front door closed. I sighed. “Okay. That’s been my life for the last couple of days.”
>
Sympathy poured into Kat’s expression. “I’m sorry.”
Hearing the raspy quality in those two words made me want to punch something as I walked over to the bed. “Do I even want to know why my brother was in your bedroom?”
“He couldn’t sleep.” Kat paused as I bent down and tugged the covers. Kat grabbed the sheet, but when I tugged again, she let go. “He said it was bothering you guys,” she added.
I slipped under the covers, easing onto my side so I was facing her. “He’s not bothering us.”
A look of doubt crossed her beautiful face, and then she shifted onto her side. “I know.” Her soft gaze was on the move again, and I wished she’d get those hands involved. “He said I remind him of Beth.”
What in the hell yet again? I frowned.
“Not in the way you’re thinking.” Kat rolled her eyes.
“Honestly, as much as I love my brother, I’m not sure how I feel about him hanging out in your bedroom.” I reached over and brushed a few strands of her hair back behind her ear. She shivered at the slight touch, and I smiled. “I feel like I need to mark my territory.”
“Shut up.”
“Oh, I love it when you get all bossy pants. It’s sexy.”
“You’re incorrigible,” she said, grinning.
I inched closer, pressing my thigh against hers. “I’m glad your mom is snowed in elsewhere.”
She arched a brow. “Why?”
I raised a shoulder. “I doubt she’d be cool with this right now.”
“Oh, she wouldn’t.”
Shifting until there was barely an inch separating us, I let the peachy-vanilla scent that was all her surround me. “Has your mom said anything about Will?”
Unease crept across her expression, tipping the corners of her lips down. “Just what she said last week, that he was going out of town for a couple weeks on some kind of conference and visiting family, which we both know is a lie.”
Freaking manipulative asshole. “He obviously planned ahead so no one would question his absence.”
Her lashes lowered. “Do you think he’ll come back?”
I ran my knuckles down her silky soft cheek. “He’d be crazy.” But Will Michaels was already proven to be crazy.
Kat opened her eyes. “About Dawson…”
Pressure clamped and settled on my chest as I drew the back of my hand down her throat. “I don’t know what to do.”
Her breath caught.
My hand drifted over her shoulder, then down her arm, under the covers. “He won’t talk to me, and he barely talks to Dee. Most of the time, he’s locked up in his bedroom or out wandering the woods. I follow him, and he knows, but he…”
“He needs time, right?” She kissed the tip of my nose. “He’s been through a lot, Daemon.”
I smoothed my hand to her hip. “I know. Anyway…” Lying in bed with Kat, I didn’t want to focus on anything but her. Not now. We had a few precious moments when it was just her and me, and nothing else. I shifted toward Kat, rolling her onto her back. My hands were braced on either side of her head, holding my weight off her as I hovered above. “I’ve been remiss in my duties.”
Kat’s stormy gray eyes softened.
“I haven’t spent a lot of time with you.” I kissed her right temple and then her left. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about you.”
Her hands settled on my upper arms. “I know you’ve been occupied.”
I traced a path with my lips over the arch of her brow. “Do you?”
She nodded.
Moving my weight to my right arm, I lifted my other hand and cupped her chin, tilting her head back. Our eyes met. “How are you dealing?”
“I’m dealing,” she said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
I swept my thumb under her full bottom lip. “Your voice…”
She cleared her throat with a wince. “It’s getting much better.”
It really wasn’t getting better. I moved my thumb to her jaw and chased the stubborn line. “Not enough, but it’s growing on me.”
Kat smiled, catching my heart. “It is?”
I nodded and then kissed her sweetly, a soft taste of what I wanted. “It’s kind of sexy.” Then again, I found everything about her sexy. I kissed her again, this time deeper. The tip of my tongue teased the seam of her lush mouth. “The whole raspy thing, but I wish—”
“Don’t.” She clasped my cheeks. “I’m okay. And we have enough things to worry about than my vocal cords. In the big scheme of things, that’s nowhere near the top of the list.”
I arched a brow.
Kat giggled and then sobered. “I have missed you.”
“I know. You can’t live without me.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Just admit it.”
“There you go. That ego of yours getting in the way,” she teased.
I kissed just below her jaw. “Of what?”
“The perfect package.”
I snorted. “Let me tell you, I have the perfect—”
“Don’t be gross.” She shivered, though, and I chuckled, having a feeling she really wanted to know about my “perfect package,” and I had no problem going there with her.
I slid my hand off her hip to her thigh. Hooking her leg around my hip, I loved the soft catch in her breath. “You have such a dirty mind,” I teased her. “I was going to say I’m perfect in all the ways that count.”
Laughing, she looped her arms around my neck. “Sure you were. Completely innocent, you are.”
“Oh, I’ve never claimed to be that nice.” Lowering my hips to hers, I swallowed a rough groan as she inhaled sharply. “I’m more—”
“Naughty?” Kat pressed her face into my neck, her chest rising against mine. “Yeah, I know, but you’re nice under the naughty. That’s why I love you.”
I love you.
No way would I ever grow tired of hearing those three words. They made me shudder. Made me want to gather her up and keep her safe. Made me want to be a better…being for her. Rolling onto my side, I folded my arm around her waist and held her tight to me.
She wiggled, lifting her head. Her concerned gaze met mine. “Daemon?”
“It’s okay.” My voice was thick with unspoken emotion. I kissed her forehead. What I should be doing was figuring out where Dawson had roamed off to. If he’d gone out into the woods or back to the house, but that’s not want I wanted to do. I wanted this with Kat. “I’m okay. It’s…early still. No school or mom coming home, yelling your full name. Just for a little while we can pretend that crazy doesn’t wait for us. We can sleep in, like normal teenagers.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Me, too.”
“Me three,” she murmured, snuggling against me until the front of her body was plastered to mine, and I really liked that. I could feel our hearts beating in perfect tandem.
Sleeping like this would be heaven. I drew my hand down her