“In the fifties, I rode with a gang of eight men. We made our way up the Gold Coast, always hanging right, near the water.” He ran a hand through his hair and it reminded her of the way she always did so when she was nervous. “We always minded our own business.”
Katherine noticed that his accent had deepened and his expression had become unreadable. She watched the clouds swirl in his eyes as he went on. “Three of us were wolves; five were human,” he said. “We were camped at the base of Mount Beerwah one Autumn. That night, the other two wolves and I came back from a hunt –” Here he broke off and glanced up at Katherine.
She felt her face heat. But even as it did, her stomach grew cold. There was a growing sense of unease unfurling within her. It unraveled to greater lengths the longer she remained in Byron’s company.
Caige looked away again, took a deep breath, and ran the palms of his hands along his jeans. “When we did, it was to find three of the men dead. A rival gang had tracked us down, destroyed our bikes, and slit two throats before the others managed to wake up to defend themselves.”
He paused, but this time it wasn’t for her benefit. He seemed truly lost in what he was saying. Lost in the memory.
And Katherine couldn’t help but wonder whether it was actually real.
“My closest friend was a human. His name was Danson. He and his brother Mike had been riding with us for seven years. Mike was killed that night. Danson spent the next three years tracking down the men who’d done it.”
It wasn’t until Caige had stopped talking and silence filled the room that Kat realized she’d been holding her breath. Her body was a rod of tightness, her shoulders ached, and her teeth were beginning to throb where she had them clenched tightly together. She was literally on the edge of her seat. It was like she knew what was coming.
She knew.
“One morning, Danson found the men sleeping on the beach. His brother had been killed in cold blood. He could have done the same in revenge. But Danson was a man of honor. He called them out and there was a fight.”
*****
Byron’s vision blurred; the intricate pattern of the hotel room’s carpet disappeared to be replaced by the scene that was his memory from that night.
There was no wind, which was strange for the Coast. The nearby bonfire crackled on as if it had not witnessed the violence it had shed light on. Three motorcycles lay forgotten in the sand and two men lay dead. The third rested in Byron’s arms, his stark blue eyes piercing Caige’s heart.
“Why?” Byron asked. His voice was choked; his chest ached. “God damn it, Dan. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.” Danson had been obsessed with finding his brother’s killer. He’d thought of nothing else for years. He’d lost weight. He had once been the jokester of the group, easy going and laid back. But he hadn’t cracked a single smile since that night.
And now that he’d finally achieved what he thought he’d wanted all along – he was a dying man.
“It is what it is, bro,” Danson whispered. “It’s all or nothing. Always has been.” He coughed and blood pooled in his mouth. Byron tilted his head, allowing the precious liquid to spill to the sand beneath them. When he was finished, Danson turned back to him and his eyes clouded. “All or nothing, Weather Man. You gotta let me go.”
Weather Man. It was what Danson had called him because of the storms he’d claimed were always brewing in Byron’s eyes.
Byron finished talking and let the new and pregnant silence fill the cold air of the hotel room. When he found the strength to look back up at the woman who wanted to kill him and whom he knew was his mate, it was to find her staring at the floor.
“Revenge never ends well,” he told her softly. “Its fruition is a curse wrapped in the guise of a gift. The box is always empty.”
“What’s it to you?” she asked softly. Her voice sounded as choked as his had a moment before. He knew she was referring to her own need for vengeance. She hadn’t missed the double meaning. Again, she was a smart girl.
“Right now, it’s everything to me,” he said.
“Why?”
He waited a good half minute before responding this time. What he was about to tell her was very important. Finally, she looked up and met his gaze. He held her there and peered into her soul.
“Because you’re a dormant, Katherine. And I’m fairly sure you’re mine.”
Katherine stared at him in silence for a short eternity. So many different emotions flashed across her eyes, it was like watching a kaleidoscope turn. Her mouth opened, and then it shut again. Then it opened again. And shut. Her indigo gaze darkened to deep violet and then to a near black.
Finally, very slowly, she stood up and moved to the windows where the blinds and thick curtains kept the first rays of dawn at bay. She remained quiet as she pulled the draperies open and then slowly spun the long hexagonally shaped rod that controlled the blinds.
A shaft of weak light entered the room, stabbing at his eyes. He blinked and turned away a little. He was tired, he guessed.
But she wouldn’t answer him. He’d told her what was probably the single most vital thing anyone would ever tell her, and she was rewarding him with the silent treatment.
Suddenly feeling both exhausted and antsy, he stood and ran his hand through his hair. He’d been watching Katherine perform the nervous habit all night; maybe it was contagious. He moved to the oak armoire against one wall and opened it, once more marveling at the massive television screen hidden within. “I’m going to make some inferences,” he said, not looking at her as he spoke, “and you can stop me if I’m wrong.”
Still, she didn’t speak, so he went on.
“I’m guessing you dream a lot. And in those dreams, you see a wolf.”
He glanced at her, but her back was to him, so he couldn’t see her face. He wondered what she was thinking. “I’m also guessing that the biggest, fastest and strongest men you meet always fall for you.”
It was normal for the alphas of several races to be attracted to a dormant. It wasn’t just wolves who knew the perfect mate when they saw one. Katherine Dare was a catch even by human standards. By werewolf standards, she was irreplaceable. He was betting that the Huntress had been approached by a good many hopeful males in her life.
But it was the Hunter in her that he was assuming had been affected the most by the very special gene that gave her blood that very special scent. “And most of all, I’m guessing that not a single werewolf you’ve ever killed laid a hand on you.”
“They never had the chance,” she shot back immediately.
Byron’s ears pricked. He caught the wary tremble in the back of her voice. She was listening to him. And what he was saying terrified her. “Oh?” he asked softly, treading with more care now that he knew there was a chance the truth might just get through to her. “You move faster than a wolf then?” he asked. “That’s very impressive.”
“I don’t,” she said, turning to face him. There were daggers in her dark blue eyes, but her cheeks were flushed with trepidation and a thin sheen of moisture had broken out along her brow. “But my bullets do.”
Byron noticed that she was also trembling. Anger could make a person shake, but this was something more. He took all of this in, studying her with a growing sense of trepidation. The sun was still stabbing at his brain through his eyes, making concentration more difficult.
He was about to ask her to close the blinds when he suddenly scented it and froze. It was the smell of cooking meat. But it was coming from within the room.
In fact… it was coming from the windows.
Byron straightened and his gaze sharpened, along with his other senses. That was when he caught the rapid flurry of Katherine’s beating heart and the shaky, pain-filled sound of her soft breathing.
She was in pain.
Byron scanned her form, stopping when he got to her hand where her long tapered fingers still held the rod that opened and closed the blin
ds. They were red.
Burned red.
“Fuck,” he said, rushing forward with blinding speed. In a surreal split second, he realized what was happening. It hit him all at once, a domino-effect of information that rattled him to the core. He was jerking Katherine away from the windows and pulling the curtains shut just as the door to the hotel room came crashing open behind them.
Byron spun around, but not before several Hunter guns were discharged. He knew what he would be feeling just short milli-moments before he felt it. The bullets split his skin and muscle and, once they were settled deep inside, they released their insidious poison.
He had seconds to act. Maybe less. With his last remaining consciousness, Byron fell to his knees and looked up at Katherine Dare, who was staring at both him and her hand with wide eyes. There was a dawning comprehension in those eyes.
Good, he thought. It would reinforce the incredible importance and truth of what he was about to tell her.
“The blood I gave you is tainted,” he told her, his voice already weakening. The poison worked exponentially fast. “Vampire… blood,” he whispered. “Stay… out… of….” He fell forward, barely succeeding in catching himself. His eyes closed, but he managed two final words. “The sun.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Boy’s Club”
Kat’s world was tipping on its axis. She was sliding off of it; it was a strange sensation. She wanted to hold on, grab anything near her, as reality took the Earth and turned it upside down.
Hard truths were almost never gradual; they were sudden and stark and painful, and that was how it felt as Katherine felt the sun sear her hand and replayed Byron’s words in her head. It all made horrible, horrible sense now.
The way she’d had to fight off dumb-fuck jocks since she was a teenager. The way she’d been dreaming of a wolf with black fur and gun metal eyes. Even what Byron had said about the wolves she killed was true. None of them had ever harmed her.
Yes, she’d been fast. But she’d been fooling herself by thinking that she’d simply always won the upper hand. No. Wolves were mad-fast and brutally efficient and if one wanted you dead, your chances of surviving were on the low end of the scale. And yet, here she was, very much alive and breathing.
She’d even tried to kill herself and a wolf – the very same wolf she’d been trying to kill only moments before – had saved her life.
These realizations had raced through Katherine’s mind as she’d opened the blinds at the window. She was so numb with the exceedingly cruel possibility of what he was suggesting – that she might be a dormant – and the chance that it might be true, that it took a while for her to feel the discomfort in her hand.
It wasn’t until Byron had pulled her away from the window that she’d realized it was burning. Badly.
She had been shaking from the pain and hadn’t even known it.
And now she stared down at the thick, blistered, red line that ran across the knuckles of her right hand and thought about Byron’s vampire princess. He’d told her that she had given him blood for the last fifty years to keep him young. Werewolves aged slowly anyway, but vampire blood… if there was such a thing…
There is, she thought as she looked up in time to see several male Hunters cuff Byron’s wrists behind his back. There was a resolute surrender in the tone of her inner voice. It was surrender because she knew then – in that moment – that everything Byron had told her was true.
Byron had been a prisoner for the last five decades. He’d tried to escape twenty years ago only to be taken again. And it wasn’t Byron who had killed her father.
Byron had given Kat his blood to save her life. It had only been a small amount, but apparently it had been enough. His blood was tainted – he’d said so himself. It was tainted because it now carried vampire DNA. It was probably the reason for her short bout with stomach sickness several hours earlier.
Byron Caige wasn’t just a werewolf any longer.
And she was no longer just a dormant.
With a nearly audible click, everything inside of Katherine slid down and locked into place. She straightened, looked her “saviors” in the eyes, and steadied her nerves. “Cover him,” she ordered. “Make sure no sunlight touches him.”
She had seniority in this situation. Kat had nearly been the Hunters’ next leader. She had command of the situation, and if anyone in the room questioned that command, so help her God, she was going to kill them.
The Hunters eyed her for a moment, their faces filled with just enough indecision that she could tell they were wondering whether to question her authority. But apparently they decided against it. It may have been wartime for the Hunters, but in broad daylight and while surrounded by their comrades, they weren’t going to buck the system. Not yet, anyway.
One of the Hunters nodded and pulled the comforter off of the master suite bed beside them. He quickly draped the blanket over Byron’s unconscious form and then commanded his companions to help him secure it.
“Take him to the electric company,” she instructed. There was a three-story building in San Francisco, near the wharves, that had no windows. It was officially an electric and gas company. However, anyone traversing its outer walls for what was hidden inside and underneath would be treated to the truth. The “electric company” was the code name for Frisco’s Hunter headquarters.
She didn’t know what else to do. Now that she was staring down at his sleeping form and the truth was sitting like a lump of coal in her gut, she wished she had never called in the troops. If she didn’t maintain absolute control over the situation, they would kill Byron. Or worse – they would hurt him a whole hell of a lot and then kill him.
She couldn’t chance any of the others noticing her change of heart. She couldn’t ask them to leave now that they’d done their part. It would never work. Ordering his transport to headquarters would at least cement her position in their eyes. Once they were there and they were alone, she would figure out what to do next.
In the meantime, she had another pressing matter to deal with. The sun wouldn’t only harm Byron when it struck; it would rip into her as well now. Kat’s throat felt dry as she thought of this. Her head began to throb. She couldn’t fathom not being able to go out in the sunlight – but the wicked, smarting line across her hand was testament to that. She didn’t know whether the damage was permanent or whether the effects of the sun in this manner would fade as Byron’s donated blood cycled through and out of her system.
But at the moment, if she went outside without substantial protection, she was going to make the neighborhood dogs howl for barbeque.
With that in mind, Kat headed for the bathroom and its complimentary robes. She was going to look like a crazy person and her fellow Hunters would no doubt question her actions, but it would be better than leaving a steaming cloud of bacon smell behind her.
*****
Malachi Wraythe was not like other warlocks. His was a dark magic borne of a powerful secret. That secret had seen him to the position of warlock king centuries ago, and now it would obtain for him the otherwise unobtainable.
His daughter had been killed, her body decapitated and burned beyond recognition. There was no salvaging what he had lost in her; her murderer had known what they were doing and no magic in the world would return the life to her veins. His angel was gone.
His wife had been abducted, stolen from the chambers of her gold-gilded prison while he and his men fought the seemingly endless barrage of magic and might that had taken down his empire. Where she was and who she was with remained a mystery; her being was shrouded in someone else’s heavy cloak of legerdemain. He couldn’t get through it. She was gone.
There was little left for Wraythe. There was no recourse remaining but revenge. And so, as it was all he had, it was what he wanted more than anything in the world.
“You claim to have something of value to us, Lord Wraythe.”
Malachi looked up, pull
ed once more from the swirling vortex of his dark thoughts. The vampire king sat at the opposite end of the table, his impenetrable gaze at once sending inescapable chills across Malachi’s skin. “I do,” Wraythe managed.
“I’m listening,” the vampire king said. He was a vessel of calm – as if he possessed no lungs with which to breathe and no heartbeat within his chest. However, vampire lore was mistaken in this assumption. Vampires very much lived and breathed, and their warm, beating hearts could even break.
The vampire king was king through the acquisition and display of immense power. It was how every sovereign of every supernatural race came about his or her position; the royal titles were almost always “up for grabs” and spurned endless competition. The Akyri queen, Olivia – his stolen wife – for instance, was queen because she was the sister of the Akyri king, a lecherous young man with four wives and an unquenchable appetite for both black magic and dangerous sex.
The vampire princess, Malachi’s daughter, had borne no relation whatsoever to the vampire king. She’d simply been the very powerful daughter of the warlock king and the Akyri queen, which had promised her an influence other female vampires lacked.
Now that she was dead, another female vampire would no doubt attempt to claim the position, and a battle of undead proportions would be waged within the vampire race. But Malachi could not have cared less. All that had ever mattered to him as far as vampires were concerned had been destroyed.
All, that was – but this.
“I can give you the wolves on a silver platter,” Malachi said. His voice was weighted with mourning, soft and hoarse and devoid of depth. “The secrets of their waning existence,” he went on. “And all you would need to reverse their demise.”