And he would have reached his potential if the regulations hadn’t come. If he hadn’t been forced into a cage. Forced against his instincts.
Still been forced against his instincts.
But now that could change.
And he had nothing to stop him.
He lowered his head, his nails scraping through the wooden counter, leaving splinters in their wake.
Every temptation was laid out in front of him.
But he couldn’t do it.
He didn’t want to do it.
The power was in the pulling away. The power was in the self-control. The power was not in commanding others but in commanding himself.
He was not that uncontrollable lycan anymore – and his very hesitation was proving that to him. He was in control of himself.
He did deserve his alpha status – and this was why. What he had once lost, in those moments, he had now earned back. His deepest fears that he would lose it again were finally overridden.
He hadn’t tamed Phia – Phia had tamed him.
Because he couldn’t hurt her. No matter how much the wolf inside summoned him to act on his most basic instincts, he was incapable of hurting her.
Taking a steady breath, he leaned over her, his lips brushing her ear as he said, ‘We need to talk.’
Chapter Thirty
Caitlin Parish sat in her car, her forehead against the steering wheel, rain smattering the windscreen and beating rhythmically on the roof.
Too many times in the last few days she’d questioned whether she could go back to the unit. Whether she could face it again. Now, as she dried her eyes, she couldn’t help but question if she’d been wrong to be so belligerent as to believe she could cope.
Arguing with Kane for the three days leading up to her return hadn’t helped. And they’d argued fiercely. He’d stormed around and glowered and told her exactly what he’d thought of her wanting to go back out there, her resentment at his possessiveness only tempered by the concern in his eyes.
Because even in the short two weeks since the trial, so much had evolved between them, not least Kane gradually having become increasingly open emotionally. And it was when they had those moments, when he’d let her in, or even when she’d catch him secretly looking at her and he’d respond with a playful smile or wink, that she’d questioned whether she was willing to risk renewing a division between them that rejoining the VCU could potentially cause.
But her job was a part of her – part of her identity, her independence, her values. And not just that. Facing the aftermath was a matter of principle – not only for her, but for the very reason she’d exposed the corruption in the first place.
And she would not be intimidated out of doing that. As shaken as she felt, as humiliated, as repressed, she was not going to be beaten by a bunch of bullies who were still too opinionated to see beyond their own ignorance.
And it was because she was still so shaken that she knew she’d chosen right to stay at her own apartment for that first night back. She couldn’t let Kane see how she was – the effect the day had had on her – not least the implications it could have for the relevant members of her unit if Kane worked out why she was upset.
More so she knew that after a day like that, once he held her again, she wouldn’t want to leave his place at all. Not ever.
But she was used to dealing with things alone. Had spent too many years since her parents’ death dealing with things alone. And she couldn’t risk losing that part of herself. It was still early days with Kane. And no matter how intensely she felt for him, she’d still had enough moments of doubt not to give herself completely yet.
Because no matter how close they’d become, parts of him were still closed. He still didn’t talk about what he knew about the vampire prophecies. He still didn’t tell her why, back in the warehouse during his standoff with Xavier Carter – the now ex-head of the TSCD and mastermind behind the slaughter of Kane’s sister – he’d been so concerned by Xavier mentioning the name Feinith. Let alone what the vampire secret was that Xavier had claimed that same Higher Order vampire had disclosed to him. Instead, it seemed that when it came to vampire business, it stayed vampire business.
And the VCU, let alone this latest case, was her business. Those deaths were all linked. She just had to work out what that link was. Because if she messed up, it would be another reason too many for those same bullies to shake their heads and revel in their condemnatory smug smiles.
She looked across the car park as dawn encroached on the darkness. She’d have a shower, get some sleep, maybe get some food, and think things through in her own space and time.
Grabbing her rucksack from the back seat, she slammed the car door and took the back exit into the apartment block, ascending the stairs up to her floor two at a time.
She unlocked her front door.
And retrieved her gun from the back of her trousers a split second later.
She pointed the barrel directly at the intruder.
It took her a split second longer to assess there was another in front of her kitchenette to her right.
Another facing her in the sofa chair directly ahead of him.
Three males. All suited. None showing any reciprocal sign of hostility.
‘Caitlin Parish.’
Her attention snapped to her sofa chair – at the source of the dulcet male tones.
‘Or should that be Agent Parish? Where are my manners?’ He stood, his wrinkled grey eyes gleaming as they rested calmly on hers. ‘Please. Do take a seat. You’ve had a challenging first night at work from what I hear.’ He resumed his seat again. ‘Though I’ve no doubt it appears somewhat impertinent me offering you a seat in your own home. But as your home is nonetheless paid for from your salary, a salary that I pay, I guess we could argue it’s just as much mine as yours.’
Despite recognising him, though never having met him, she couldn’t bring herself to lower her gun. Instead, she warily assessed his silent companions. Companions she now understood were there to protect the older man who sat reclining in her chair again, one leg casually crossed over the other.
He took off his glasses, rubbed them with the handkerchief he’d taken from his top pocket, before tucking it back in again. He replaced his glasses and smiled. ‘Come now. You’re letting the cold air in.’
‘Sirius Throme,’ she said, though she could hardly believe that the head of the Global Council, the overseer of every Third Species Control Division in every locale, was sat in her apartment.
The suit to her right held out his hand towards the sofa as an indication, more so an instruction, for her to step inside.
‘Come, come,’ Sirius said again, as if ushering in a dawdling child. ‘Bates,’ he said, addressing the suit by the kitchenette, ‘make Caitlin a coffee. Milky. No sugar. That is still your preference, I assume?’ he asked jovially as he looked back at her.
But it was a joviality she found unnerving, let alone the fact he knew such a basic fact about her.
But then the Global Council knew everything. Or certainly everything about anyone they were interested in.
‘There’s really no need for the gun,’ Sirius added. ‘As effective as you are with it, the two gentlemen either side of you are equally as effective and would have already proved it. But, as you can see, that’s far from my intention. So, please,’ he said, indicating towards the sofa opposite him, ‘do sit down.’
With one more glance at the suit to her right, she reluctantly lowered her gun. She stepped inside only to have the suit hold out his hand to remove it from her. Resentfully, she relinquished her weapon.
‘Lovely little place,’ Sirius declared.
She sat down on the edge of her sofa, placing her rucksack, her spare gun within, at her feet. Heart pounding, she wasn’t willing to let her guard down for a moment. As pleasant as he was trying to be, Caitlin’s well-honed instinct was screaming it wasn’t going to last. ‘What are you doing here, Dr Throme?’
‘I’ve come for a chat
, Caitlin. It is okay if I call you, Caitlin, I assume? I feel like I’ve known you such a long time. And what with all this unpleasant business of late, I feel like I know you even more.’
‘Well, Dr Throme, I don’t know you, so you’ll have to excuse my wariness.’
‘There’s no need to be wary.’
‘You’ve broken into my apartment.’
‘It was the best place for us to chat in private.’
‘Chat about what?’
Bates placed the coffee on the table between them.
‘Tell me,’ Sirius began, his fingers steepled at the base of his thin lips as he examined her gaze unflinchingly, ‘what was it like returning to work today?’
‘Fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘Fine.’
‘Many thought you wouldn’t appear.’
‘Many don’t know me very well at all.’
‘I think your recent actions clarified that.’
‘Am I in some kind of trouble, Dr Throme?’
He laughed lightly, but it didn’t reflect in his eyes. ‘In trouble for telling the truth?’
‘Isn’t that usually what gets people in my position into trouble?’
‘Oh, you are delightful,’ he said, his smile fleeting. ‘Tell me, how are things with you and Kane?’
Her stomach somersaulted, her mouth dry. ‘Now it’s my turn to excuse my manners, Dr Throme, but I don’t believe that is any of your business.’
He pressed his lips together, creating a more forced smile as he swiftly scanned the room. ‘You’re clearly as direct as they say you are’
‘I’ve never been one for small talk.’
He unbuttoned his suit jacket at the same time as dismissing his companions from the room. As they closed the door behind themselves, he eased back into the chair again, one elbow resting on the arm whilst he tapped his forefinger against his lips.
She struggled under the steadiness of his gaze, the silence oppressive.
Until he stood abruptly, thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and strolled around the room.
‘I know it was hard for you,’ he said, ‘after your parents’ death.’
‘Is there anything you don’t know about me?’
He glanced across at her. Sent her another fleeting, insincere smile. ‘I’d say not. At least I thought not, until you threw me the Kane Malloy curveball. I never quite saw that coming. Just as I never quite saw you standing up in court to testify against your own. But then I know how persuasive Kane can be.’
‘I did what I had to do.’
‘Oh, of course you did,’ he said, turning to face her. ‘Absolutely.’
He stepped up to the threshold of her bedroom and peered inside, the intrusion escalating her indignation. He turned to face her again, with another faint smile. ‘This is where Kane took you from, isn’t it? Right out from your bed.’ His eyes flashed. ‘Under the cloak of midnight. What woman in her right mind wouldn’t be swept away by such a debonair action?’
‘Dr Throme, either you get to the point or you’re going to have to start excusing my manners even more. See this apartment as equally yours or not; I’m going to kindly ask you to get the fuck out of it if you don’t tell me why you’re here.’
He smiled again. ‘My, my, Kane has rubbed off on you. You’re even starting to sound like him.’
‘Somehow I don’t think he would have tolerated your intrusion as much as I have.’
‘Yes, he really is quite the law unto himself, isn’t he?’
‘Dr Throme…’
‘I want him once and for all, Caitlin,’ he said. ‘And you’re going to help me.’
Her pulse picked up a notch, her hands clenching in her lap as Sirius’s steady gaze seeped coolly into her. Every part of her that felt a fierce sense of protectiveness towards Kane sparked. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you left Kane alone?’
‘That’s just it, I can’t. Especially now. Especially with what you’ve shown us.’
The coldness that had seeped inside her converted to an icy grip. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about what happened that night in the warehouse a couple of weeks ago,’ he said, tucking his hands in his pockets as he strolled over to the window to gaze out into the dawn light. ‘When Kane met with Xavier Carter. I’m talking about the footage I saw – at least until the soul ripper got too close and the electromagnetic interference temporarily screwed up the recording. I’m talking about the fact that my soldiers, the ones the soul ripper dragged the souls out of, still remember a great deal of what happened that night.’ He turned to face her again, now just a dark outline. ‘Most of all, I’m talking about the fact you’re still alive.’
Caitlin didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t utter a word despite her pounding heart thrumming in her ears.
‘Vicious, aren’t they?’ he said. ‘Those soul rippers. I use the plural as I’m assuming there is more than one still out there. Just as I’ve no doubt there are countless more of the time-shifting, dimension-hopping, intangible-when-they-want-to-be blighters we’ve come to call the fourth species.’ He continued his stroll around the room. ‘Arana Malloy certainly knew what she was doing setting one of those on your family. My hat is off to her at having acted so lucidly under pressure. Strapped to that post by your father, watched on by your now stepfather, let alone your charming ex boyfriend. Seeing those lycans scratching at their cage, itching to get to her.’
He fell silent for a moment as he stopped to gaze out the next window.
‘But that appears to be a Malloy family trait – calmness under pressure,’ he added. ‘Getting even in the end. I really am brimming in admiration that Kane bided his time these past fourteen years, let alone the poetic justice of doing so to use the very creature his sister’s killers’ actions evoked, to get back at them.’ He turned to face her again. ‘Or should I say “us”?’ His fleeting smile told her all she needed to know, all that she’d expected from his presence: that there was always another above pulling the strings. Or casting a blind eye. Both were the same in her opinion. ‘Do you know why we really turned up the heat on finding Kane Malloy? Has he told you that yet?’
‘Why don’t you tell me?’
‘Clearly not,’ he said with a smirk – one that grated deep into her insecurities about Kane’s lack of disclosure. ‘I didn’t think so. And tell me, do you question why you’re still alive? Have you asked him that little gem?’
‘Why don’t you get to the point, Dr Throme?’
‘For decades we’ve dabbled in these blood experiments, tried every way we know to bind the Higher Order’s blood with our own. Ploughed countless resources into the promise of a stronger, fitter, healthier, immune human race as a result. Yet more than seventy years later, still we cannot find the adhesive to make the binding permanent. Every time, the human body eventually rejects it like a bad transplant. An act of nature some would say, or an act of God – keeping that divide between them and us.’
‘I am more than aware of the problems with the research, Dr Throme.’
‘But do you know how fearful the Higher Order are that we’ll go back on our deal with them and abandon them to Blackthorn with the rest of their kind? Which is why, some decades ago, they disclosed that a master vampire would know how the bloods could be bound. And, of course, we all knew who Kane was by then.’
Kane had said nothing. Nothing at all. And if that was the secret Xavier had been referring to, the secret Feinith had disclosed, it made no sense why he wouldn’t have mentioned it. ‘And you believe them. Which is why there has always been a no-kill order on him.’
He stepped back over to the sofa chair. ‘Can I let you in on a little secret?’ He drew his trousers up his thighs slightly before perching on the edge of the seat. ‘That’s not why I want him at all. You see, I think much bigger than just the Higher Order’s blood. Because even if we did find the adhesive, what then? And there’s always that risk that we are dabbling in the
sacrilegious. We’ve all got to meet our maker one day. If you believe in that. Personally, I’m not sure I want to run the risk. No, I don’t want to be like them, Caitlin, I want to be more. And then came Arana – the curse she inflicted on your family opening up a whole new possibility.’
The ache in her chest intensified under his gaze – a gaze that caused her to question the rationality behind those stony eyes.
‘I’ve always been fascinated by this whole soul and shadow difference,’ he continued, ‘ever since our psychics first picked it up as a core difference between our species. Then, when they read your parents’ dead bodies and claimed that their souls had been removed and held alive in some other dimension, I have to admit I was rather excited.’
Her stomach clenched, a little spark of anger igniting. But she held it inside, even if not from her tone. ‘I’m glad one of us was.’
She needed to hear him out. She needed to hear everything he had to say. Everything that could explain the maniacal look in his eyes as he dared to utter such cruel words.
‘Whether you believe in faith or science, an afterlife or a dispersal of energy, the existence of the fourth species, what happened to your family, proved that soul removal can be controlled. More importantly, as I sit here looking at you, after what Kane did, I see the evidence that you can have your soul removed and survive on this plain. It was the link I was looking for, and here you are.’
Flashbacks of the monster that had killed her family, that had come after her, wrenched her gut. ‘You want to find a way to summon the fourth species?’
He laughed. ‘No, no, I’m not insane, dear girl. But I do want to know how Kane did it. Because I want to make use not of the Higher Order’s blood, but of what we have. Our bodies are weak, are our burdens, whereas our souls are our strength. A fact proven by the latter potentially outliving the former by centuries, even longer, if we can make it happen.’
‘You want to remove souls?’
‘I want to transfer them – just as Kane did for you. Imagine, the minute our bodies become weak or damaged, being able to transfer ourselves – every memory, every thought, every piece of knowledge – to a younger, fitter, healthier duplicate of ourselves.’
Blood Torn (Blackthorn Book 3) Page 35