And yet, despite the fact that Kierland obviously had doubts about the kill being a rogue vamp, it didn’t mean he had to admit as much to the cocky-assed vampire standing before him.
“Come on, Granger. How can you be certain it wasn’t a Deschanel kill? You know how easy it is for those of your kind to lose their…perspective.”
The vampire snorted. “That’s pretty rich coming from you, Scott. Considering rogue wolves gnaw their victims to the bone.”
“And your kind drains them dry,” he countered, his voice going softer as his temper sparked like kindling. “In either case, a life is lost.”
“And we could keep going round and round with this bullshit, but I’m not looking to waste what little’s left of my night on arguments. My first purpose in approaching you was to make it clear to the Watchmen that we’re not responsible for the killing.”
Wishing like hell that he hadn’t quit smoking—seeing as how he was jonesing for a cigarette so badly he could taste it—Kierland tilted his head a little to the side, his eyes narrowed on the vamp’s handsome face as he tried to get a read on him. Though he hated the Deschanel with a passion, he had to admit that he’d never actually met a vampire who wasn’t beautiful in a cold, deadly way. “Why do you even care what we believe?” he rasped.
“War is coming,” Gideon replied in a low rumble. “We intend to play a part in it.”
“Do you, now?” Kierland murmured, lifting his brows. “I find that hard to buy, considering how the Deschanel have never given a crap about anyone but themselves. What’s your interest in the Merrick’s war?”
“Have you forgotten that four nesting grounds have been massacred by the Collective? Have you ever seen a murdered vampire, Watchman?” A low, humorless laugh fell softly from Gideon’s lips. “But of course you have. After all, when the clans refuse to take care of their own business, the Consortium often calls on their pets to take care of the monsters. I’m sure the killing of a Deschanel isn’t a memory that would fade, seeing as how it’s such a colorful sight. Now, imagine what it’s like looking out over a blood-covered field that’s littered with the decapitated bodies of innocent women and children.”
Raking one hand back through his hair, Kierland swore softly as the macabre scene took shape within his mind, making his stomach turn. The Collective was an army of human mercenaries who sought to purge the world of every nonhuman species that walked the earth, their tactics as brutal as they were merciless. In an ironic twist, the army had partnered up with the Kraven and the Casus in exchange for information that would further their ends. As a result, dozens of Deschanel families had been slaughtered in their ancestral nesting grounds. Located throughout Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, the grounds were ancient, sprawling castlelike communities where families lived for security, the lands protected by powerful magic that kept them hidden from the world—until their trust was betrayed.
Clearing his throat, Kierland slid the vamp a grim look of regret. “The nesting grounds had slipped my mind.”
“Yeah, well, the locations of those nesting grounds were given to the Collective by Ross Westmore.” The man’s hatred and rage were unmistakable in the huskily spoken words, though his deep voice remained eerily quiet. “You know that as well as I.”
And the Deschanel obviously wanted revenge, he thought, reflecting that this could easily get ugly. Not to mention complicated as hell. “So because of the nesting grounds, you want to join forces with us?”
“We’re not asking to become a part of the party.” The vampire’s dry tone suggested that he knew damn well Kierland would never agree to work with the Deschanel. “But we’re willing to help you learn more about the things you don’t know,” he offered suggestively. “Willing to get you information that you’re going to need.”
Certain there had to be a catch, he asked, “And just what would you want in return?”
“That brings me to my second purpose.” With his hands still buried in his pockets, Gideon straightened away from the street sign and stepped forward, narrowing the space between them to no more than a few feet. “If you find Westmore before we do, we want him.”
“We?” Kierland asked, acutely aware of his beast’s repulsion at having the vamp so near. “You mean the Deschanel?”
Gideon shook his head. “This is a personal matter for my family, considering our positions and the fact that we had cousins who died in the massacre. My brother and I intend to deal with Westmore alone.”
Fury scraped down Kierland’s nerve endings like a blade, and it was a physical effort to keep his fangs from descending. Taking an aggressive step forward, he ignored the wolf’s vicious snarls vibrating inside his skull and got right in Gideon’s face, going nose to nose with him. “You’ve got a lot of balls,” he growled, longing to throw the first punch, “thinking I’d agree to anything that involves Ashe.”
Granger’s lips twitched with bitter humor. “You’re not the first man who’s accused me of that, but I’m sure as hell not going to show them to you, Lycan. And yeah, I think you’ll cooperate. You need this information too badly.”
“I don’t need anything that badly,” Kierland drawled with a mean smile. “And your brother can go screw himself for all I care.”
The vampire’s eyes narrowed, until nothing but a thin slice of gray burned through the dark veil of his lashes. “Regardless of how you feel about Ashe, you know the code. It’s our right to destroy the ones who have turned against us. We intend to keep searching for Westmore, doing everything we can to find him. But we want this deal, in the event that you get to him first.”
For a moment Kierland thought his hatred would actually get the better of him, the wolf punching against his insides, eager to act on the rage that continued to seethe beneath his surface. The only thing that held him back was the vampire’s eyes. The gray was darkening, proof that Gideon hadn’t fed before approaching him. In the world of the Deschanel, that was a sign that he’d come in peace, and not aggression. The vamp would still be capable of giving Kierland a hell of a fight, but he’d purposely constrained his strength as a show of good faith—one that Kierland couldn’t ignore, no matter how badly he wanted to.
Taking a deep breath, he retreated back a step, needing to put a little breathing room between them as he struggled for control. “You know, word on the street has it that the Deschanel treat the Kraven like slaves,” he pointed out with thick sarcasm. “When you look at it like that, you can hardly blame them for revolting.”
“I didn’t say that their lot in life was fair,” Gideon muttered, his rough tone cut with shades of anger and frustration. “But as Förmyndares, my brother and I have a duty to protect the interests of the Northern clans.”
Though he wanted to argue the point, Kierland knew the bastard was right. It was the duty of the Deschanel Förmyndares, or Protectors, to destroy any threats to the vampire clans. And considering how much he knew about the Deschanel, Westmore was definitely a threat. “You still haven’t told me what you have to offer,” he muttered before easing back another step, needing to put a little more distance between them if he wanted to keep the wolf from taking over and going for the vamp’s throat. “This information you think I need so badly. What is it?”
“The Markers,” Gideon replied, his pale eyes holding Kierland’s hostile stare. “There are things you don’t know about them. In truth, they’re not all that they seem.”
“Meaning?”
A low, bitter laugh rumbled up from the vampire’s chest, his expression shadowed by something ugly and dark. “Meaning that no good deed in this world goes unpunished, Lycan. Or haven’t you learned that by now?”
A scowl pulled Kierland’s features tight. “And just what the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that your precious Dark Markers are far from perfect. The Deschanel Elders believe that in order to pour the necessary power into those little bits of metal, the Consortium had to travel into places that you righteous bastards
would never think of going. They had to meddle with things that were better left alone.” Taking his right hand from his pocket, Gideon rubbed his fingers against the shadow of bristle that roughened his jaw. “In short,” he rasped, “they had to go begging to the darkness.”
“The darkness,” Kierland echoed, noticing that from where he stood, only half of Gideon’s face was actually illuminated by the moonlight, while the other half remained shrouded in the shadows. Darkness and light. Although duality was a common feature among many of the clans, the trait was especially strong within the Deschanel, whose very natures were a dichotomy. A trait that made them complex friends…and dangerous enemies. “Are you actually going to stand there and tell me that they used dark magic to make the Markers?”
Gideon shrugged, the casual gesture pulling the black silk of his shirt tight across his muscular chest. “It’s all about compromise,” he murmured. “Sometimes if you want something badly enough, you have to lower your morals to get it.”
“They wouldn’t have,” Kierland argued in a low voice, the horrific idea burning its way through his brain like acid.
“Oh, but they would.” Gideon’s mouth twisted into a wry shape that didn’t quite make its way into a smile. “And they did.”
“If you expect me to believe that, then you’re going to have to show me proof, Granger.”
“I have a feeling you’re going to have your proof soon enough,” the Deschanel told him as he stepped back, retreating once more into the thick shadows that blanketed the far side of the street. “Something is coming, Lycan. Something that has the Deschanel Elders worried, and the whispers are beginning to spread like wildfire. It won’t be pleasant, but I’m willing to get you the answers you need, in exchange for Westmore.”
“What do you mean something’s coming?” he snarled. “The Casus are already here.”
“Remember the murdered Watchman, Scott. The Casus aren’t the only evil that wants a piece of this world. Not by a long shot. And if you want to survive,” Gideon drawled from the murky shadows, the darkness swallowing his form like an eager, hungry mouth, “you just might have to sell a bit of your lily-white soul to make it happen.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Kentucky, near the Ohio state line
THERE WERE TIMES when “hell on earth” wasn’t simply an expression. Times when a man created his own misery in this world, simply because of the decisions he made. Decisions that led to circumstances that were not only torture, but a painful, living extension of his nightmares.
Kierland had given Aiden a book about it once, but then that was Kierland Scott for you. The unofficial leader of their Watchmen unit was always trying to help the others through the nasty minefields of their emotional issues, without ever tackling his own. Personally, Aiden thought it was an “avoid and deflect” instinct, but Kierland had just told him off when he’d offered the advice.
The Lycanthrope liked to dish it out. He just didn’t like to take it. Still, Aiden had read the book and found a certain element of truth to it. For the moment, his own personal hell was being stuck inside a car with a human female who sorely tested his control and an adorable child the monsters wanted to get their claws into. He could have passed her off to Kellan and Noah, removing himself from the situation, but he hadn’t. No, he’d chosen this version of hell, and now he was just going to have to deal with the consequences.
Of course, Molly was to blame, as well. He’d bloody well known that having a woman for a friend was going to be trouble, and now look at him.
Friendship was something he never offered to women, for the sole reason that friendship gave them ideas. The kind that could seriously screw with a bachelor’s peace of mind—and ones that a man like Aiden had neither the desire nor the intent to ever fulfill. That alone was reason enough to keep his relationships simple and to the point. The point being that he needed women for physical release, but had little use for them beyond sex. While he might leave them humming with pleasure, it was a God-given fact that he always left them.
But it wasn’t just the ones that Aiden got hot and sweaty with who could turn into trouble. He was fast discovering that having a simple, platonic relationship with a woman created its own set of issues. And when you made that woman a human female like Molly, who happened to possess the ability to talk to ghosts, the problems coalesced into one huge, irritating pain in the ass.
Case in point: his current situation. Aiden had never so much as even lip-locked with the pretty little blonde who was set to marry Ian Buchanan, a man Aiden now considered a friend as well as a colleague, and yet here he was, simply because Molly had called and asked him to find Olivia Harcourt. Of course, she’d been backed up by Hope Summers, her soon-to-be sister-in-law. The bloody women had finagled their way into Shrader’s heart and he’d somehow found himself becoming “friends” with them. It was enough to make a hardcore son of a bitch’s stomach turn.
And Molly had had no qualms about sending “her buddy Shrader” on her quest.
Frustration rode him hard, and he could feel the same sizzling emotion vibrating off Olivia as her car ate up miles of highway. Now that he was driving and she’d had time to sit and think about everything that had happened, he was sure she’d put together a long list of questions for him about her stepsisters, but they could hardly have that conversation now, while Jamie was in the backseat, not quite asleep yet. Needing something to drown out the buzz of lust and restlessness in his brain, he finally reached down and turned on her radio. The latest Kings of Leon began playing from the CD player, and he smiled. “At least you have better taste in music than you do in cars,” he drawled.
As she looked toward him in the shadowed interior, Aiden could feel the heat from her gaze touching quietly upon the sharp angles of his profile. It swept across the high slash of his right cheekbone, skimming down the surprisingly straight line of his nose—considering how many times it’d been broken—until it settled warmly against the corner of his mouth. His beast reacted to the visual caress with an impatient stretch, as if to remind him of its hungers. Not that he was in any danger of forgetting them.
“There’s nothing wrong with my car,” she finally replied, the slight huskiness of her words settling like a ball of fire in the pit of his stomach, the heat spreading out to his extremities, burning beneath his skin. Even his goddamn fingers and toes were prickling.
Forcing himself to focus on her words, and not the million and one other things he wanted to be doing to her at that moment, Aiden bit down hard on the inside of his cheek until the pain helped him calm down a little. “Yeah?” he managed to snort after a moment. “Doesn’t seem to be much right with it, either.”
“Did I momentarily space out and miss something? Because I don’t recall asking for your opinion on the subject.”
He whistled softly under his breath before flashing her a cocky smile. “You’re quite the puzzle, aren’t you?”
She appeared baffled by the question. “Is that supposed to make sense to me?”
He shrugged, flicking the windshield wipers on low as an easy rain began beading against the glass. “Just that you’re not easy to peg. To figure out. I mean, you’ve gone from being scared to death of me tonight to mouthing off like a little hellion. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying it. It’s somehow oddly refreshing.”
“Glad to be so entertaining.” Her tone was dry, her posture tense as she crossed her arms over the heavy swell of her chest.
“Well, you’ll fit in great back at Ravenswing. Molly and Hope are gonna love you. Hell, they’ll probably even ask you to join their little human sisterhood.”
“And who are Molly and Hope?” The sudden, unmistakable edge to her words had him smiling again. “Your girlfriends?”
Aiden gave another low whistle, strangely enjoying their easy banter. “You think I’ve got two women living under the same roof? Impressive.”
“I can’t say that it would surprise me,” she murmured, shaking her head.
“The Buchanan brothers?”
“Ian Buchanan was the first Merrick to awaken, followed by his sister, Saige, and then his brother, Riley. Molly is set to marry Ian any day now. They were supposed to get married last month, but had to postpone when things started getting crazy. Hope is engaged to Riley, but I don’t know that they’ve settled on a date yet. And the last I heard, Saige is marrying Quinn, one of the other Watchmen in my unit, on New Year’s Day, though he keeps claiming that he’s gonna drag her off to Vegas before then because he doesn’t want to wait that long.”
“Wow. It, um, sounds like there’s going to be quite a few weddings taking place around there.” Hooking her hair behind her ear, she looked away and stared silently out the passenger’s side window, making him wonder where she’d wandered off to in her head. The Kings of Leon’s lead singer had just finished belting out another husky chorus about lust and loneliness when she turned back toward him and spoke in a soft rush, as if she was in a hurry to get the words out. “So how did you end up getting stuck with the job?”
“The job?”
“Protecting me and Jamie.”
Well, hell. Aiden ran his tongue over his teeth, fighting the urge to fidget like a guilty kid. “What makes you think I didn’t volunteer for it?”
She didn’t answer right away, as if she was giving some careful thought to her response. The next song had already wound to a soulful conclusion, the tires eating up another long stretch of country road, before she finally said, “You just seem like the last man someone would send to look after a schoolteacher and a child.”
Scowling, he lifted one tattooed hand to his long hair. “Well, I can’t do anything about the tats,” he muttered. “But I’ll be sure to get a haircut so you think I look respectable enough to be seen with you.”
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