“Maybe not, but Joseph will turn them loose one day, and if we can capture some of them, we can try to save them,” Nathan replied.
“We’ll deal with that if and when the time comes.” Ronan leaned forward and pinned Killean with his unrelenting stare. “Why didn’t you come to me before taking this course of action to find her?”
“Because you would have tried to stop me,” Killean said. “And I couldn’t have that. There was no other way to find her. We were there, and we still have no idea where Joseph’s hiding place is. You would have done the same for Kadence.”
Ronan couldn’t argue that, and Killean knew it. There wasn’t anything Ronan wouldn’t do to save his mate.
“I believe what you’re saying, but you have to know I can’t let you live with the hunters and us,” Ronan said. “There are children and others who aren’t trained in fighting with us. I can’t put their lives at risk should you falter.”
“I understand,” Killean said. He’d expected as much.
Anger and sadness rose in Simone as she gazed back and forth between Killean and Ronan. Killean tried to hide it, but through their connection she felt his twinge of distress. “That’s not fair!” she blurted.
“Simone—”
“No!” she interrupted Killean before facing Ronan. “He sacrificed himself and everything that meant so much to him to rescue me! If not for Killean, I’d probably be one of those things by now. You have no idea what it was like in there or what they did to us. It could have gotten so much worse for me, but Killean came for me. You can’t punish him for that!”
Nathan and Kadence sat with their jaws hanging open while Logan and Asher looked as if she’d spoken some alien language they couldn’t begin to comprehend. They’d expected her to come back as a docile vampire, but she would never be docile again.
Ronan’s eyebrows were in his hairline, but the corner of his mouth quirked in amusement, which only annoyed her more. He could kill her before she rose from this table, and she doubted many who dared defy him survived, but she didn’t care. Killean deserved better than this. The other vampires looked either amused or as if she were a bug stuck to the bottom of their shoe.
“I knew the consequences when I left, Simone,” Killean said. “It’s not a punishment; it’s the way things must be.”
When she spun on him, the color was high in her cheeks, and her clover-colored eyes burned with indignation. He loved this fiery hunter with her protective and loving nature.
“But—” she started to protest.
“It’s okay,” he said as he clasped her hand on his knee and lifted it to place it on the table. “I made a choice, and I would do it again.”
A sob lodged in her throat. Because of what he’d done for her, he lost everything that meant so much to him, yet he still wouldn’t change anything. She hadn’t considered it possible, but she fell more in love with him.
I’m sorry, she whispered into his mind.
I’m not, he said without hesitation.
She rested her head on his shoulder. The others continued to stare at her as if they didn’t know who she was, but that was okay. She was very aware of who and what she was now.
Sitting up, she threw her shoulders back as she gazed at each of them before focusing on Ronan when he started speaking again.
“I’m not saying you’re not still one of us,” Ronan said to Killean. “But until we and you know for certain you can be trusted around others, this is what must happen.”
Simone ground her teeth but refrained from commenting. No matter how much she disliked it, Ronan was right. She completely trusted Killean, but he had to prove himself to them again, and she understood their protective nature. There were children involved, and hunters such as herself, who couldn’t defend themselves against vampires. Given some time, it would all work out, she was sure of it.
“Do you have somewhere safe to stay?” Ronan asked.
“Nowhere close by,” Killean said.
“You can stay here, or if you would prefer, the house behind the prison is available.”
Killean had been to the prison Ronan purchased and modified to hold Savages and purebreds. He’d seen the house behind the prison; it was small, but at least it wasn’t a construction zone like this place. He glanced toward the window and noted the lightening of the sky on the horizon. It didn’t matter; he wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
“The sun is rising,” he said.
Ronan glanced at the window and his brow furrowed in confusion before smoothing as understanding dawned. “I’ll keep the workers away, so they won’t bother you,” he said.
“Thank you,” Killean replied. “And Simone—”
“I’m not leaving you,” she interrupted.
He turned to face her. “It’s safer if you go with them.”
“We already discussed this; I’m not leaving you.”
Killean contemplated forcing her to go with them, but he couldn’t make her do something he wouldn’t do himself.
“Fine,” he said before turning to Ronan who was failing at his attempt to hide a smile. Declan didn’t bother trying to hide it; he smirked. Killean contemplated choking them, but that would only make him look like more of a Savage. “I’ll also need a vehicle.”
Ronan’s smile grew at the clipped tone of his voice. “I’ll have one brought over later and the car removed.”
“Thank you,” Killean said. “And if you have blood bags to spare, I’ll take them. I think it’s best if I stop feeding on humans for a while.”
He’d never been a fan of using a bag to feed and the feel of plastic against his fangs, but avoiding the temptation of a throat, and all that delectable pain, was best until he got himself under control. If he ever got himself under control.
“We have plenty to spare,” Ronan said.
Chapter Forty-One
Killean had assumed they would move to the prison after their first day in the asylum, but when Declan and Saxon dropped off a truck with a mattress, enough blood to keep them supplied for a month, and clothes later that first day, he and Simone never discussed leaving and settled into a rhythm in the old asylum.
While the workers were kept away, some of their tools and building materials remained. Unsure of what to do with himself during the day, Killean started repairing the room where they initially met with the others. What supplies he didn’t have, he ordered, and someone brought them to him as most stores closed by the time the sun set enough for him to go anywhere.
Simone helped him with the remodeling, but she spent a lot of time during the day bringing the gardens outside back to life. Often, he’d watch her from the windows as she pruned the overgrown plants into submission. The ones she couldn’t save, she dug out and threw into the woods.
He and Simone spent their second day exploring the asylum, and while some rooms could be the staging for horror movies, he saw the beauty in the old place and itched to bring it back to life. As time passed, he finished remodeling the first room and two others on the first floor of the sprawling place; all they needed was a coat of paint, and the rooms would be complete.
Their days fell into the natural flow of fixing the place up, teaching Simone how to defend herself, and taking breaks to make love. As she predicted, she was a fast learner, and her determination to perfect the moves he taught her never wavered. With time, she would be a lethal adversary.
At night they walked the grounds, or Simone practiced driving before they curled up together on the mattress still located in the first room.
Over the month he spent away from the battle against Savages and the threat of Joseph, Killean grew calmer with every passing day. He experienced a few more hallucinations, but feeding once or twice a day kept them at bay. It was more often than he fed before he became a killer, but he was acclimating every day. He’d grown accustomed to the bags though he far preferred Simone’s vein. He was impatient to put an end to Joseph, but he recognized this break was necessary to retain his sanit
y.
Dreams of blood and death haunted his nights, but when he woke to find Simone at his side, he was able to retract his fangs, and his bloodlust ebbed after a few minutes. He suspected the vivid images of tearing someone’s throat out was one more thing that kept some vampires Savage.
He told Ronan and the others about the dreams when they came to “visit” as Declan put it, but they all knew they were checking on him. He was fine with it, he understood their reasons, and even if he couldn’t hunt with them, he missed his friends, which was something he wouldn’t have believed possible before he left them.
He’d known that, as a Defender, he was part of something and they were his friends and family, but Killean didn’t think he’d formed any attachments he couldn’t handle losing. He’d been wrong.
Simone’s mother also came to visit them once a week. Awkward was a feeling he’d been completely unfamiliar with until the petite woman with graying auburn hair and piercing green eyes walked through the door.
It took her some time to warm up to him, but she’d been unfailingly polite. On her last visit, they discussed more than the weather by debating if a good pruning might save the pear tree in the garden. He figured it was progress.
He glanced over at Simone as she dipped her roller into the tray of paint before slapping it against the wall. Yellow paint speckled her nose, cheeks, and the bandana she’d tied around her hair. The baggy coveralls she wore hid most of her lush figure, but the sight of her warmed a heart he believed deadened before her.
He’d spent the years following the death of his family as nothing more than a walking zombie until she entered his life. Now, even with his constant battle against his more sinister urges, he’d never felt more alive or loved.
Setting his brush on the tray, he walked over and wrapped his arms around her waist before drawing her against his chest.
“You’re going to make a mess!” Simone laughed when he ran his finger over the roller in her hand before streaking paint down her delicate nose.
“That’s the point,” he told her as he turned her in his arms and started peeling the coveralls from her. He proceeded to use the paint to emphasize the beautiful dips and hollows of her body while she painted his.
It was almost nightfall before Simone dragged herself from Killean’s arms. When she stretched her arms over her head, the dry paint coating her skin cracked yet felt strangely pleasant. Killean propped his head on his hand as he watched her with love shining in his eyes.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
“I’m filthy, thanks to you,” she replied.
“I didn’t hear you complaining.”
“And you won’t next time either.” She bent to kiss his forehead and danced back when he tried to grab her. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Minx!” he called after her.
“You’re incorrigible!” she shot back as she strolled from the room.
“You wouldn’t have me any other way!”
No, she wouldn’t. Leaving the wood floors Killean had laid down in what she’d come to consider their room, she entered the foyer. The marble was cold beneath her bare feet as she padded across to the hall on the other side. They’d been here for a month now, but she still experienced a chill every time she entered a shadowed corridor. Simone swore she felt the eyes of those long gone from this residence staring at her from the shadows as she walked, but when she spun to face them, she never saw anything.
“You're an idiot. There’s no such thing as ghosts,” she muttered. And though she believed this to be true and had yet to experience any sign of the paranormal within the old building, the hair on her neck rose.
She’d learned enough history to know when this place was functioning it hadn’t been one of joy for those residing here. The residents had suffered here, and not just from whatever ailment landed them here, but also at the hands of those seeking to cure them. Maybe those with the supposed cure meant well, but in some cases, they’d done more harm than good, and she felt that lingering suffering in these corridors.
Thankfully, the one remodeled bathroom was the second door off the hall, and she didn’t have to be in the shadows for long. Stepping into the bathroom Killean remodeled, she flicked on the switch to illuminate the crème walls, black marble counters around the sink, and the tan tiles of the shower stall. She stepped into the shower, slid the door closed, and scrubbed the paint from her skin before exiting.
Opening the cabinets beneath the sink, she removed two towels and wrapped one around her hair and the other around herself before emerging from the bathroom. A cloud of steam followed her out the door.
When she walked back into their temporary bedroom, she discovered Killean standing by the nearly floor-to-ceiling windows he recently installed. The original windows had been much smaller, but Killean had knocked out more wall space to make room for these. Now that it was dark out, he’d thrown open the heavy drapes to welcome the night.
In the glass, his reflection was almost serene. She stopped to savor his lean, well-muscled body splattered with paint and bathed in moonlight. She’d come to love this brazen, harsh, powerful, tender man more than she ever believed it was possible to love someone.
The scar on his face and the one on his chest had faded a little, something he attributed to their bond, but they would never disappear entirely. He received them too early in life for them to vanish entirely, but unlike his outer scars, Simone knew Killean’s emotional scars healed with every passing day.
Killean’s head turned toward her, and he smiled. Once so rare, those smiles were becoming a daily occurrence that brightened her life far more than the sun could.
Eventually, his old life with Ronan and the others would resume, but she hated the idea of anything intruding on the reprieve from the real world they’d been granted in this lonely place. And she wouldn’t let him return until he was ready. She didn’t want to risk him returning to the war too soon and losing all the progress he’d made in coming to terms with his past and the actions he’d taken to save her.
“It’s a good night for a walk,” he said as he stepped away from the window.
“It is,” she agreed.
She dressed while he went to shower, and when he returned, he pulled on some clothes, looped his arm through hers, and led her out the door. They wandered into the gardens that had become a labor of love for her. Before being taken, she was learning to grow food that could be harvested for her husband’s dinner. Now she worked in the garden because she enjoyed plunging her hands into the earth and getting them dirty.
When he discovered her growing love of plants and her interest in learning more about them, Killean ordered her books on plant ID and care. She was enjoying studying those books to learn more about the different species and the proper way to prune and care for them. She had a talent for bringing plants on the edge of death back to life, and she took pride in her developing skill. Under her hands, the garden was flourishing again.
Simone rested her head on Killean’s shoulder while they strolled the path she’d cleared this week. Orange daylilies and red roses lined it. Behind them, and staggered throughout the landscape, was a various assortment of plants, some of which were in bloom. The full moon illuminated the cracked and uneven bricks beneath their feet and the owl watching them from the branches of an oak tree.
“It looks amazing,” Killean said. “You’ve done wonders here.”
“I think I’ll be able to save the magnolia tree and those azaleas,” she replied as she pointed to the struggling bushes that had been buried beneath vines until today. “I’m not sure about that cluster of rhododendrons, the bittersweet was deeply entangled in them.”
“If anyone can bring them back to life, it’s you,” Killean murmured as he kissed her temple.
Pleased by his confidence in her, Simone squeezed his arm. “I know our time here is only temporary, but I don’t want it to end.”
“Neither do I,” Killean admitted, but the end would
come.
Chapter Forty-Two
“I’ve brought more blood,” Declan announced when Killean opened the door for him. He hefted two cotton bags in the air to show he meant what he said.
Killean scowled at him as he remained behind the door, hidden in the shadows while the early morning sun streamed across the foyer. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Time to get your lazy ass out of bed,” Declan replied as he sauntered into the foyer with Saxon following him.
“We just finished a patrol,” Saxon said. “And we’ve received word some of the hunters spotted Joseph last night.”
Killean’s irritation over them arriving so early vanished. The end of his and Simone’s reprieve was coming sooner than he expected. “Where?”
“At a bar in Plymouth,” Saxon said.
“Are they sure?”
“Yes.”
“Shit.” Killean closed the door behind Saxon and leaned against it. “Were any of the turned hunters with him?”
Declan set the bags on the ground before facing him. “They only saw Joseph, and they lost him before they could learn if anyone else was with him.”
“Shit,” Killean said again.
“That about sums it up,” Declan agreed.
“I need back in the fight.”
“Not our decision to make.”
Declan strolled over to the stairs and settled onto one. Drawing his knees up, he propped his elbows on them while he studied Killean.
“What?” Killean asked, annoyed by Declan’s scrutiny.
He’d long been aware Declan possessed an ability none of them did. What that ability was precisely, he didn’t know, and he didn’t care when Declan focused it on someone else. However, he didn’t like Declan’s piercing attention directed at him.
“You are happier and calmer,” Declan said. “It’s good to see.”
“That’s because he’s finally getting some action,” Saxon said.
“Don’t talk about her like that!” Killean snarled as he took a threatening step toward Saxon.
Bound by Darkness: The Alliance Series, Book 3 Page 26