02 Blood Roses - Blackthorn (33 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

F
einith slumped into the back of the car. She dug her nails into the black leather seat, her scowl rebounding off the blackened-glass divide between her and her bodyguard.

She looked at her assistant’s reflection, could feel her expectant gaze boring into her.

‘I’m assuming it didn’t go according to plan?’ Hess remarked.

Feinith glowered into Hess’s expectant blue eyes before staring back at her own reflection.

‘Has he made further demands?’ Hess asked.

‘No.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Caleb Dehain fucked with the wrong Higher Order vampire, that’s what happened.’

‘He’s refusing to hand her over?’

‘Worse,’ Feinith remarked and met Hess’s troubled gaze. ‘She lost it. The stupid little bitch lost it.’

‘Lost it? What do you mean she lost it?’

‘What do you think I mean? How many ways would you like me to say it?’

‘You’re sure?’

Feinith raised her eyebrows, just on the cusp of using Hess as the punchbag she needed right then. And she might have if the woman hadn’t been so talented, so effective, so irreplaceable.

‘How is that even possible?’ Hess asked.

‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is finding out if there’s more of them.’

‘We know there isn’t.’

‘I meant of her. Sisters, Hess. I need to know if she has sisters. Because taken from her reaction when I mentioned it, I’d say she does.’

‘Give me her name and I’ll hack into the population records.’

‘I don’t have a name. But she’s not from here – that much is obvious, so she’s crossed a border somewhere.’

‘You want me to check the records?’

‘I want her name. I want where she’s from. I want to know everything there is to know about her family.’

‘Onto it,’ Hess said, flipping open her laptop.

Feinith leaned forward and banged on the glass for her bodyguard to pull out of the alley. She sank back in her seat. ‘Please tell me we at least have
some
news on Kane Malloy.’

Hess shook her head. ‘He’s still underground somewhere.’

‘Blackthorn is not a big enough place for me to start losing my temper over this, Hess.’

‘I’ve got the best on it. It’s just not so easy when we’re trying to keep things low-key. And this is Kane we’re talking about. But we’ll find him. If not him, Caitlin Parish should prove a hell of a lot easier. There are ways and means to everyone, as you well know.’

‘Exactly. I want you to book me a pass to the penitentiary.’

Hess’s attention snapped back to her. ‘I thought you were going to give Carter some space for a few weeks until everything dies down?’

‘Needs must, Hess. He’s no good to me locked in there.’ She ran her nails lightly over the leather seat. ‘And get me one to see that Rob as well. There’s something about that one,’ she declared with a smirk, her mood lifting slightly for a moment. ‘Something in his eyes.’

‘Are you sure that’s wise?’

‘It’s pointless being a part of the Diplomatic Unity if you can’t twist its purposes to your own ends, Hess. Anyway, if Kane won’t respond to my summons, he’s going to learn the hard way how I expect things to be done.’ She looked over her shoulder at the club. ‘Besides, there’s nothing like a bit of alpha-baiting to ruffle things up, and something tells me the delectable Kane Malloy is going to be of even more use to me than I first thought.’

Chapter Thirty-three

C
aleb sat down on the top step, his phone held against his mouth, his green eyes penetrating hers from across the bed.

‘At least now I know what the seduction was about,’ he said. ‘You needed consummation to finalise it, right? Proper little Black Widow, aren’t you?’

‘How did you find out?’

‘Jake told me.’

‘How did he know?’

‘It sounds like you’re not the only librarian in your family. It seems that on Sophia’s quest for vengeance, she decided a serryn would be the ultimate tool for The Alliance. Subsequently it appears Sophia knows just as much about serryns as her big sister does – except the fact she was one. Very ironic considering her mission. Alisha knew all about it. Apparently those two used to talk a lot.’

Leila felt a stab in her chest, the consequences of her secrecy slicing through her. She also wondered if that was what Alisha had been on the cusp of confessing to down in the club before they’d been separated. ‘How long have you known about me?’

‘Not before I bit you obviously. I may be many things, but suicidal isn’t one of them. I wouldn’t have known at all if Jake hadn’t come tearing up here to tell me. Alisha had let it slip whilst pleaing with him.’

‘Then it seems you owe Alisha for saving your life as well as saving Jake’s,’ she said. ‘That had better count for something.’

‘She didn’t save my life.’

‘She did. You said she sent Jake up here to stop you.’

‘I’d already stopped.’

Her pulse raced. Her heart pounded painfully. She held his gaze, but she didn’t dare utter the thoughts in her head. She’d had it thrown back in her face too many times to swallow her pride again.

‘It’s a shame you didn’t try to do the same instead of resorting to underhand tactics,’ he added. ‘Then maybe the outcome could have been different.’

‘I’d already be dead, you mean.’

He almost smiled. ‘Could your opinion of me be any lower?’

‘So what now?’

‘Feinith won’t let this lie, despite the warning I gave her. You won’t be safe anywhere. Anywhere but with me.’

‘So I may as well give up now – is that what you’re saying?’

‘You don’t give up,’ he said, a hint of infuriatingly easy nonchalance in his eyes. ‘You never do. You could have stopped me, told me how you felt, instead of trying to kill me. All you’ve done is finally prove that, in the end, I was right all along.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘No?’

‘I know how I feel about you and yet I still couldn’t turn my back on what I was supposed to do, so how do you expect me to believe that
you
could?’

‘Because you’re so much better than me, aren’t you?’

‘I never said that.’

‘So what are you saying?’

‘I’m saying I gave you every reason I possibly could to stop this and still it wasn’t enough.’

‘You could have told me how you felt.’

‘Like you said, what difference would it make?’

He lowered his gaze for a moment before looking back at her. ‘I had a split second to make the decision before I reached the point where you’d never return. The point where I’d have no choice but to kill you one way or another. So unless you have lost it and I sensed it, my guess is I was feeling something for you that I shouldn’t have. But I can assure you that’s been fast rectified by the fact you tried to kill me.’

She glanced at the phone. ‘So there’s no guessing what call you’re awaiting. Why this is on my wrist,’ she said, exposing the cut.

‘We both need to be sure, Leila, and there’s only one way to do that.’

‘Full circle, right, Caleb? And what then?’

‘I guess the most logical option is that, if you’re still a serryn, we finish what we started. If you’re not, well, I guess I really need to up that search for Sophia. Whilst keeping Alisha on standby, of course.’

Leila’s stomach clenched. ‘You can’t do that.’

‘No? And why’s that, Leila? You have a very low opinion of me, remember? I’ve got to do something to live up to it.’ He looked down at his phone before placing it aside. ‘Unless we can come to some other arrangement.’

Unease coiled its way through her. ‘What kind of arrangement?’

‘We consummate now. Before the phone rings. Before we know the outcome.’

She frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Falling in love is easy, Leila. Trusting not so much. Especially not a vampire, right? Especially not me. A blood test is one way of proving how you feel, but putting your life, let alone the lives of your sisters, in my hands is a whole something else.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

‘We consummate it now, and I’ll give you those seven days you requested to show me you were right in what you said – that there’s another way. I’ll give you seven days to save yourself and your sisters. If you do believe you love me, if there’s even a chance you’ve already lost your serrynity, you know it’s the only chance they stand.’

‘Or if I’m wrong, I’m knowingly passing on a fate intended for me.’

‘I never said it was an easy decision, but I’m giving you the best get-out clause I can. It’s up to you whether you take it.’ He glanced down at his phone then back at her. ‘But that phone could ring at any point, so make your decision quickly.’

As rain smashed against the glass, she stared him down. It was a decision she came to all too quickly, despite the ache in her chest. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve proved myself enough. Now it’s your turn. You want me to trust you? Then give me something to trust you for. I can and I
will
find another way. The question is whether you want to take a punt on me, whether you care about me enough to give me a chance, to give both of us a chance. Or whether you want to take the easy option.
You
make the decision, Caleb.’

After his gaze lingered on hers for a painful few moments, he stood from the steps. He almost smiled, but she couldn’t tell if it was out of amusement or irritation. He stepped over to the door, his outline almost a shadow against the amber glow of the distant backdrop.

Leila got unsteadily to her feet. She crossed the bed, avoiding the lethal thorns of the roses. Scooping one up in her hand, she made her way up the steps behind him.

She stopped a few feet away.

‘I know you don’t trust a word I say,’ she said, as she thumbed one of the thorns. ‘But I
did
nearly stop you, Caleb. I did nearly tell you the truth. But I couldn’t. You once asked me, if I was in your place, what I’d do, and I guess I answered it. Despite how I feel, I was doing exactly the same for my kind as you were for yours. And underneath it all, it’s because, no matter how I feel about you, it doesn’t make any difference. You’ve won anyway. One way or another, you’ll get what you want and I’ll have nothing.’

She looked down at the rose and picked at the thorns on the stem, breaking them off one by one.

‘And yet I still love you, you irredeemable, impossible, arrogant bastard. And I hate you for it, but not half as much as I hate myself. I hate myself for understanding you.’ She picked off another. ‘I hate myself for seeing something I don’t want to see.’ And another, casting the thorn aside. ‘Something that makes this harder. Because I know what’s inside you, Caleb. And you can deny it all you want, but I know the real reason you despise me is because I’ve made you question yourself. And in that respect,
I’ve
won.’ She picked off the last. ‘So do what you want.’ She took the steps up towards him. ‘Turn your back on me or give us a fighting chance. It all comes down to how much you want to be with me.’

She stopped alongside him, held out the rose for him, the stem now free of all its threat.

‘But I will not plead anymore,’ she said, as she looked up into his sullen green eyes – eyes that could so easily break her. ‘I will not bargain. And I will not give you any more reason than I already have.’

She let the rose go, dropping it to his feet before walking away.

Walked away so he wouldn’t see the distress in her eyes, or the way her hands trembled. Instead she strode across the room, gazed out over Blackthorn, her back to him.

It had felt like a lifetime since she had arrived there. The life she led before then now felt like some vague memory – a life before Caleb. Caleb, now tangled in her every waking thought.

She rubbed away a tear of frustration as she waited for the call that would tell her whether she died at his hand or one of her sisters did. She could only hope the blood that pumped through her was serryn blood – the first time ever in her life that she wanted and needed to be one of them.

She felt him approach even before she saw his reflection in the glass, his scent reminding her of intimacies she desperately needed to forget. Goosebumps pooled over her skin, her spine tingling at his proximity.

‘That was quite a proclamation,’ he said.

She kept her gaze ahead. ‘It’s the truth. And you know it.’

He stepped alongside her, pushed a few loose strands of hair behind her ear.

She kept her hands clenched by her sides, her bare toes curling against the wooden floor at the gentleness of his touch. She tried to calm her breathing, her heart pounding as he slid the back of his fingers down over her neck.

She dared to look across her shoulder to meet his gaze – eyes that drew her in just as easily as they had the first time she’d looked into them.

He rubbed her tear away. Stepped in front of her. Held up the rose. ‘You’re supposed to tear the petals off to find out if someone loves you, not the thorns.’

‘You’re supposed to tell me it’s all going to be okay.’

Her heart jolted as he gently ran the back of his hand down her cheek, over her shoulder. ‘This is Blackthorn, Leila. Nothing is ever going to be okay here.’

‘I think it can be. And you can make that happen, Caleb. We both can. You can make that happen by trusting me.’

He dragged the petals of the rose slowly across her collar bone. ‘The ever optimistic world of Leila McKay,’ he said.

‘Whom you know not to underestimate.’

He dropped the rose onto the sofa behind him, before sliding his hands to her hips, pulling her to him. ‘You want me to prove you can trust me? Then don’t fight me. Let me do this.’

She frowned with unease as he slid his cool hand around the back of her neck.

But she’d challenged him. She’d demanded it and he had risen to it.

‘You’re asking too much,’ she said.

‘And you’re not? I will grant you seven days, Leila. I give you my word. If that proclamation was the truth, you’d be a fool not to take this chance – and you know it.’

‘So why not just wait for the results? Why do this?’

‘You know why.’

And as he pulled her close, right then all she wanted was that moment. If it was all going to end, she needed just that one moment with him: her beautiful green-eyed vampire; her intense, sullen, powerful Caleb. Caleb: the vampire who held her body, heart and soul right in his hands.

He kissed her gently on the neck before tracing his lips back up to hers, slipping both hands into hers to interlace his cool fingers with hers.

She’d pull back, she told herself. If one inkling of doubt took over, she’d pull back. But for that moment, it felt too right.

❄ ❄ ❄

Caleb caressed Leila’s lips with his as he pulled her closer. Her warmth was enrapturing. The softness of her body, the ease with which it melded against his own, only made him crave her more.

And this time he’d allow himself to crave her. He slid his mouth down to her slender neck, her pulse beneath his lips bringing the most tortured part of him out. But he would enjoy her. He would make her forget everything. For those moments, it would be only about them. He’d grant them both that.

He lifted her with ease, wrapped her legs around him, and carried her back down onto the bed.

Pulling down his trousers and shorts, he eased into her, just enough to feel the tension ricochet through her body again. It felt just as thrilling – her every reaction playing out on each held or shallow breath.

She had to know how vulnerable she’d made herself and in those moments she didn’t seem to care. Something inexplicable had happened between them and he had never felt it more. Something forbidden. Something they fought in equal measure. But more than ever, neither of them could do anything to hide it.

She tensed again as he eased his way inside her completely.

Arousal shot through him, her acceptance pushing him to the edge hard and fast. He instinctively thrust, her nails digging into his neck, her tremor inciting him further.

His need for her was too great to take it steady. Her responses telling him she was aroused enough for him to turn up the momentum.

And at that moment, it was as if every part of him and every part of her was seeping out, intermingling, entwining irrevocably as she instinctively started to relax, allowing him in deeper.

Caleb thrust harder, wanting her to think of nothing but him, of him inside her, being a part of her in an act that was sacrilegious to them both in its intimacy.

Because that’s what she was – intensely and intimately his.

He slid his arm beneath the small of her back, encircling her waist as he kept her tight against him, tilting her up slightly to allow himself in deeper, pressing one hand above her head, interlacing their fingers again.

As he felt her hand clench his, he thrust again, her shallow, curt breaths almost too much for him to bear, her nails digging deep into his hand as he lowered his head to her neck again.

He thrust deeper and deeper, her body trembling, a sensual perspiration coating her thighs, her neck, her hips. He tilted her further up to him and thrust again, finally filling her to the hilt, Leila gasping with the force.

He gazed down at her neck, her heart pounding at a powerful rate, her pulse impossible to ignore.

He had to bite her. Never had the desire been greater. Feeding as he sated himself. Sated her. Making her his totally and utterly.

He felt the tension flood his body, every nerve ending burning. He was on the cusp and he knew so was she.

He quickened his pace, escalating in time with the surge through his body.