Dark Deceiver (16 page)

As she lifted the flaps, she felt a tingling of excitement she couldn't manage to quell. The sculpture was wrapped in Bubble Wrap. She lifted it carefully from the box and unwrapped it. In her hands she held what appeared to be a silver and green frog. Her heart leaped and then plummeted as her gaze fastened on the pair of etched stones that acted as his feet.

“How many?” Kade asked.

“Two.” She couldn't see any advantage to lying.

He thrust out his hand to her. “Let me see them.”

She handed him the frog and watched as he turned the small rock-encrusted animal over in his hands, cradling it with surprising care. Tension pulsed from his big body, palpable and unsettling. But not frightening.

The man was an enigma. Inhuman, certainly. Intense. But not cruel.

“Do you see more than two?” she asked.

“No.” Using the scissors, he carefully pried the two stones loose.

As he set the footless sculpture on the coffee table, she reached out and touched his arm. “Kade.” She raked her teeth over her bottom lip, suddenly nervous. “Couldn't you pretend you didn't find these?”

He covered her hand with his, his grip tight and unpleasant. Any kindness she'd seen in his eyes evaporated.

“Don't
ever
doubt my loyalty to my king.” His jaw clenched, throwing his cheekbones into hard relief. Making her pulse race with real fear.

“Kade, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—”

He cut her off. “Pull out your phone. I'm going to tell you to call Jack.”

Her heart lurched. “Why?” Without her consent, her hand began to dig around in her purse, searching for her phone, following his command.

“You're going to ask him to meet you here as soon as possible. Alone.”

“Kade, no.
Please
no. You don't need him.”

He dropped the three Esri stones into her purse. “I do. He wears the draggon stone around his neck.”

Her blood went cold. “Kade…” Autumn clutched at his hand. “You won't hurt him.
Please.
Deep down you're a good man. I know it.”

His eyes turned bleak. “You're wrong, Autumn. So very, very wrong. Now, call Jack.”

 

Autumn's hands were shaking, her mind screaming as her unwilling fingers punched Jack's speed-dial number. Kade paced the houseboat's small living room, his strides tense, his face as hard as granite.

“Kade, please tell me you're not going to hurt him.” He was setting Jack up, forcing her to call him into his trap so he could take the draggon stone.

As he swung by the sofa where she sat, his hand snaked out to clamp around her wrist, forcing her to obey his will. “Don't talk to me. Tell Jack you're not sure anyone else should see this until he's had a chance to look at it. Keep your voice calm, even and friendly.”

No.
The denial screamed in her head as the phone rang in her ear.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Jack. It's Autumn.” It was as if she'd been locked away while another soul took over her body. While everything inside her cried out in warning, her voice was just as Kade demanded. Calm and friendly as she relayed Kade's words.

“I'll swing by within the hour,” Jack said. “See you then.” The phone went silent with a click.

He was going to walk right into a trap that she'd help set!

A quaking started deep inside her, spreading through her body and down her limbs, driven by hopelessness and impotent fury. She wanted to beg him to reconsider. She needed to yell at him and rail at him for his betrayal and cruelty. And she couldn't say a word because of his order.

Kade took the phone from her hand and closed it, even as he kept a grip on her hand. “You won't leave this boat until I tell you to.” His voice was hard, without inflection. “Go pack a suitcase with clothes and whatever else you'll need for the rest of the week. Then sit on the bed and don't make a sound until I come to get you.”

When he released her hand, she rose as if pulled by a string, and moved to the small guest cabin on feet driven by a will not her own. Though her mind fought every move, she packed without thinking, without choice.

As she tossed clothes into her duffel, fear for Jack rode her, twisting her insides until she thought she was going to be sick. If only she knew the Esri death chant, all she'd need to do was get her hands on a matchbook and Kade would be history.

The thought chilled her. She was suddenly glad she didn't have the chant, didn't have to make that choice. Because as much as she hated what he was, hated what he was doing, she wasn't sure she could destroy the man who'd stolen her heart.

God, she was such a fool.

When her bag was packed, she sat on the bed and listened for Jack, unable to do anything else. A plane sounded overhead, following the Potomac in its descent into Reagan National Airport. The roar of a boat engine melded with the city sounds, filling her ears as she pressed her shaking hands together in her lap.

Tears trickled down her cheeks.

Kade, no. Please, no.

The seconds felt like minutes. The minutes like hours as dread formed a rock in her stomach the size of her fist. Footsteps on the dock shook her out of her trance of misery. Moments later, the boat gave a lurch that told her someone had come aboard.

No.

The rap of knuckles on the glass sliding door turned her blood to ice.

No, Jack! Don't come in. Run!

She pressed her palms to the bed, pushing against the unnatural bonds that held her there with every scrap of power in her mind. If only she could get up! If only she could run out there and warn him herself. As she fought Kade's terrible control, her hands began to vibrate and warm.

Then, like a spark catching flame, the warmth turned hot and shot up her arms in a scalding spray, just as it had last night. Her mouth opened on a silent scream as the vicious flame tore through her chest, carving spirals of color through her vision. She arched her back against the pain, gasping for air as tears sliced down her cheeks.

Voices penetrated her agony.

“Hi, Kade. Autumn asked me to stop by.”

“Come in, Jack.”

Autumn heard the faint squeak of the sliding door closing. And a single, heavy thud.

Then silence.

Autumn's tears slowly turned to sobs.
Larsen, I'm so sorry. I'm so very sorry. It's my fault. All my fault.

So many mistakes. So many stupid moves. How could she have been so wrong about Kade? So wrong.

By the time Kade finally opened the door, her body had cooled, but her eyes ached, her head was throbbing and her heart lay in a broken heap in the middle of her chest. She blinked back the tears that blurred her vision and wished she hadn't when she saw the savage twist of his mouth.

He picked up her suitcase then grabbed her wrist with fingers vibrating with tension. “Come.” The command was quick and harsh.

He yanked her after him and through the living room so quickly, she almost didn't see Jack. But as they reached the door, there he was, sprawled face down, the bandages to his head and arm gone. Myrtle had probably healed him once she'd recovered from healing Larsen, but it was all for nothing. Jack's healed arm lay at an awkward angle against his unmoving, lifeless body.

Bitter tears rolled down her cheeks as Kade pulled her through the door. Sobs broke over her with silent pain.

“Put your arm around me and lean into me as if you're seeking comfort.” Though his words were brittle, Kade's arm slid around her shoulders in a mockery of the closeness they'd once shared. They walked slowly to the car, her suitcase by Kade's side. He'd told her to pack enough clothes to last until the next full moon and the opening of the dark gate between the worlds. As she'd packed that suitcase, the thought had gone through her head that he wouldn't hurt her. He clearly didn't intend to kill her.

Now, with a terrible clarity, she understood why.

She was his weapon. His lure.

One by one, he'd order her to call her friends and ask them to meet her. One by one he'd kill them.

When that gate opened, there would be no Sitheen left to stop Kade from leaping through with the seven stones of Esri. Their dark purpose, whatever it was, would be fulfilled.

All she'd wanted was to matter in some way. To help the Sitheen in this fight. Now, through her foolish, romantic gullibility, she was helping to destroy them. Through her, Kade had the means to lure the Sitheen to their deaths.

There was only one certain way to stop him.

With bleak determination, she knew what she had to do.

“N
ext!”

After returning from the marina, Kaderil had locked Autumn in his apartment and now strode into the deli on the ground floor, the events of the past hour flaying him like a whip. His betrayal of Jack. The anguish in Autumn's eyes. His betrayal of himself and everything he was.

His hands clenched into fists at his sides as barely controlled fury lent a menace to his every step, his every glance.

He pushed past the long line of patrons, shoving his way to the front of the line.

“Hey!” A middle-aged human male in construction clothes tried to hold his ground against Kaderil's aggression. “Who do you think you are?”

With lightning speed, Kaderil grabbed the front of the man's coveralls and lifted him until he was eye level, letting the full force of his fury blaze in his eyes. “Back off.”

Fear leaped in the human's eyes, his hands raising in quick surrender. “Yeah. Sure. Go right ahead.”

The line behind him disappeared. Even people sitting at the tables grabbed their food and left, watching him with a fear he'd never attracted from humans. Then again, he was a seven-foot monster capable of snapping necks with ease. They had reason to be afraid.

He shouldn't be around others in this mood. He wouldn't be if he hadn't felt the need to bring food to Autumn. Though Esri enjoyed and thrived best on food, they didn't need it to live the way humans did, and he had little in the apartment. She was his captive, bound to him until he went back through the gate. As such, he had to provide for her. Protect her. And, maybe, dim the anguish in her eyes.

“C-can I h-help you?” The youth behind the counter forced himself to meet Kaderil's ferocious gaze, earning a small measure of his respect.

“Fix me four sandwiches.”

“Wh-what kind, sir?”

“I don't care!”

The kid grabbed two small loaves of bread, cut each in half, and began slapping various kinds of meat on the four rolls with surprising dexterity. As Kaderil watched, an odd buzz began to tingle along his skin. So faint, at first, that he thought it just a memory of the power he'd raised with Autumn last night, the first time by accident when he'd inadvertently taken her virginity, the second time when he'd cruelly forced her to raise the power with him, then realized her mortal body wasn't built to withstand such force.

As he stood there, watching the kid toss cheese on the meat, the buzz grew steadily more insistent until he was certain he was feeling true power. Power he and Autumn alone could raise. He turned, searching the now-empty deli for sign of her even as he knew she was locked in the apartment four stories above, where he'd left her.

The buzz grew worse. The power was rising.

Kaderil's pulse tripped. He'd felt the power buzz over him like this in the houseboat as Jack had arrived. He'd suspected Autumn was fighting her prison, but the power had only lasted a few seconds before dying. Was she once more fighting to escape the control he'd placed over her? And what if she succeeded? He wasn't sure how long his control over her would last when he wasn't close by.

“Hurry,” he growled at the youth.

The buzzing continued and he started to sweat. What was she doing? If she didn't stop soon, she was going to injure herself. Her mortal body was too fragile.

He felt the tingling on his skin slowly ebb and he expelled the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. She'd given up at last. But no sooner was the thought in his head, than the buzzing returned, but not as strong as before. Wavering, as if the one raising the power were growing weak.

She was going to injure herself!

He turned and fled the deli, knocking aside a young couple trying to enter as he pushed through the door. He ignored the elevator and ran for the stairwell, taking the stairs five at a time. That wavering buzz continued, his pulse jumping another notch with every passing second. Had she somehow become trapped in the power?

He burst through the door into the empty living room and ran to the bedroom. His heart lodged in his throat at the sight of her on the floor, her arms and legs flung wide from a back arched in agony. Tears ran from her eyes into the hair tumbling around her face.

Her head swivelled toward him with painful difficulty, her eyes filling with a frantic desperation as she pressed her palms to the floor and once more engaged the energy. Her face contorted as a torturous moan escaped her throat.

She'd done this to herself.

“Autumn, no!” He fell at her side and pulled her hands from the floor. “What are you doing? You're going to kill yourself.”

But her eyes rolled back, her expression one of utter defeat. “I'm…trying. Dear God, I'm trying, but…I can't. I don't have the courage.”

Understanding hit him like a fist to the gut. She was
trying
to kill herself. Because of him. Because of Jack.
What had he done?

“It wasn't your fault.” He shook her hands lightly, not wanting to cause her more pain even as he struggled with his own desperate anger that she'd nearly ended her own all-too-short life. “You couldn't have stopped me.”

“I meant to stop you…from killing the others. Larsen. Charlie.” Her silent tears turned to choking sobs. “But I can't…keep it up. I can't…make myself.”

Sudden understanding crashed into him, nearly driving him to his knees. She wasn't punishing herself. She was trying to
kill
herself. In drawing the power when she knew it would harm her, she had been attempting to sacrifice herself so that he couldn't use her to trap the others.

Just when he thought he was beginning to understand these humans, they astounded him anew.

Yet her sacrifice was for nothing.

He held her hands lightly as he stared down into that pale, bejeweled face that was becoming far too precious to him. “You will not try to kill yourself again.” He released one of her hands and laid it gently at her side while he rubbed the back of her other hand with his thumb. “Feel no pain.”

Her expression eased, but not enough. Her back remained arched and rigid, filling him with a remorse as deep and bitter as the Forest of Nightmares. With his finger, he brushed a loose tendril of hair from her damp cheek.

“Is it any better?”

“I'm so hot. As if I'm burning from the inside out.”

Real fear raked claws down his heart. What damage had she done to herself in her wayward attempt to end her life? Her mortal's body was too weak.

He squeezed her hand. “Be cool, Autumn. Cool the fire inside you.” If this didn't work, he was going to have to get help, though he doubted human doctors would know how to save her.

His anxious gaze roamed her face, watching for sign that his commands were helping. Slowly, he felt the heat and tension recede from her hands and body. Her back relaxed and she sank to the floor.

“Better?”

“Yes. N-no.” With a violent shudder, she turned onto her side and curled into a shivering ball, taking his hand with her. “So c-cold.”

His command to be cool was taking her too far. “I release you from my commands, Autumn. All of them.” With his free hand, he brushed the hair back from her face. He'd vowed to leave her unharmed, yet from the moment they'd become one, he had done little but hurt her.

Despite his freeing of her body, she continued to shake. He had to find a way to help her.

“I'm going to lift you, Autumn. Tell me if I hurt you.”

Her head nodded jerkily.

He scooped her up and stood, her quaking body tight in his arms. Then he carried her the few feet to the bed and laid her down as gently as he could. The moment he released her, she tightened once more into a ball. With aching uncertainty, he watched her.

“Are you still in pain?”

“N-no. Just c-cold.”

Cold he could do something about.

Kaderil kicked off his shoes and lay beside her, pulling her against him and wrapping his arm tightly around her. She stiffened at the contact, but didn't pull away.

A shudder went through him as he held her shivering body against his and buried his nose in the fragrant scent of her hair. Though he hated the weakness, he knew he needed this closeness, this contact, probably more than she did.

As he held her, her shivering slowly ebbed, to be replaced by a shaking of a different kind. A shaking that tore his heart to shreds as he recognized the sounds of her crying.

“Autumn…don't. I won't hurt you.”

“I d-didn't want to die. I tried to be strong, but I d-didn't have the courage.”

With a sigh so deep it burned his eyes, he said, “I should have told you the truth.”

“What truth?”

He pulled her closer. “You weren't the coward. I was.”

“B-because you killed Jack?”

Her anguished confusion twisted like a cold ball deep in his gut. “Because I didn't.”

She stilled in his arms. “I saw him.”

“I knocked him out and took the draggon stone, then I stood over him for more than ten minutes trying to find the strength to do what I was sent here to do. To kill the Sitheen. The enemy.”

“Don't lie to me about this, Kade.
Please.
” Her words showed him her vulnerability as much as any he'd ever heard from her.

“I'm not lying.”

A great, hard shudder tore through his body as his mind flayed him with accusations of failure. Not only hadn't he had the strength to carry out the mission he'd been sent to do, a mission that should have been simple for the Punisher. But once he'd failed, he hadn't the courage to admit his failure to Autumn so that she might have been spared her own darkest hour.

What if she'd succeeded? What if he'd been too late to save her? She could have died because of him.

The tension slowly left her body. The quaking ceased and her breathing turned deep and even. Kaderil held her close as she slept, feeling a deep welling of regret for what he'd put her through, even as he drank of this false closeness like a man too long without water.

For a few short days, she'd been his. Warm and loving, touching him freely and gifting him with her trust and her smiles. For a few short days, he'd understood, for the first time in his life, that the root of true happiness was closeness. Trust.
Love.

Things he could never have with her now that she knew what he was. Things the Punisher could never have with any woman. But it would be infinitely harder living his solitary life now that he'd seen a glimpse of what he'd been missing.

How had he so lost himself? He was the Punisher. The dark blood. The one feared by all, and had been for centuries. A man without conscience, fulfilling his duties without qualms.

But here, in this place, with this woman, he felt only regret at the things his mission called for him to do. Only relief that he'd failed.

With a fierceness that startled him, he wished the pretense could be the truth. He wished he could be the human, Kade Smith, with Autumn at his side. With Jack and the others, his friends. He'd never had friends before. He'd never realized what pleasure there was in the smiles and simple touches of that kind of acceptance. How hard would it be to go back to fear, now that he knew that warmth?

He was the monster to them now, too. The monster they must try to slay. He never could, nor would, be anything else. Lost in his misery, he clung to Autumn as she slept, storing these moments, these last vestiges of warmth, for the endless loneliness ahead. When she finally stirred, he feared she'd pull away, casting him to the cold. Instead, to his amazed relief, she rolled over and laid her head on his shoulder.

Kaderil lifted a hand to stroke her soft hair that looked like flame, yet felt as cool as water beneath his touch. “You're awake.”

“Mmm-hmm. Have you enchanted me?” she asked sleepily.

“No more than you've enchanted me. Why?”

“Because I'm not afraid of you anymore.”

Her simple words brought a sweet pressure to his chest. “I've hurt you so many times, yet never once did I mean to. I would never hurt you intentionally.”

“I know.” Her head tilted until she could see his face. Eyes grave, she asked, “Did you really not kill Jack?”

“No, I didn't kill him.”

“Did you mean to?” she asked softly.

“Yes.” He tucked her head back against his shoulder, unable to watch her eyes as he explained. “What I told you last night was the truth. I was sent to retrieve the draggon stone and kill the Sitheen who knew of it. When Larsen was shot, I saw the stone hanging around Jack's neck. Last night, at Myrtle's, I knew the time was right to attack.”

“You were going to kill him then? When they'd just been reunited?”

He felt a rueful smile tug at his lips. “Would waiting a day or two have been kinder?”