Because there was always the chance that it could be his last.
Chapter 13
Cian knew he was dreaming, but he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t make himself wake up. Like someone who’d been bound and gagged, he was forced to watch the horrific scene play out in his mind without any way to stop it. The nightmare was from the last night he’d spent with Aedan, in the fortress home they’d taken in Romania, after they’d killed the owners and acted like the dark lords of the castle. Well, acting on his part, because he’d already known at that point that he could no longer keep living at Aedan’s side.
But his brother had believed. For Aedan, the monstrous reality of their lives had been no act.
On that particular night, Cian had come home earlier than planned, leaving Aedan in a nearby town, creating havoc at a local festival, drinking too much and fondling girls too young to be looked at with sexual intent, much less touched, plying them with liquor to make them forget their fears. His brother’s fondness for fresh-faced innocents was why Cian had started to draw away, as well as Aedan’s growing penchant for savagery and violence. The anger that Cian carried toward his father, and even his mother, was no longer driving him into the darkness, and as slivers of light began filtering their way into his consciousness, the way they lived simply became too much.
He’d slipped away from the festival without Aedan even noticing and wandered the halls in the ancient castle, restless and uneasy, knowing he would leave soon...and dreading the scene with Aedan when he did. Dreading even more the decisions he still needed to make regarding his brother’s future.
Before he realized where his feet were taking him, he was down in the lower part of the castle, walking stone corridors that were cold and damp, his path illuminated by the flashlight he carried with him. At first, he attributed the low whimpers to nothing more than the groans of an old building. But the deeper he traveled, the clearer they became, until he started following the odd noises. His heart beat with dread the closer he got, the stench of fear thickening in the cold, dark tunnels.
Then he found her, locked inside a rotting cell, the padlocked wooden door easily breaking with his strength as he smashed his way inside. The human girl was a small, shivering lump on the floor, and she only shuddered harder when he asked if she was all right. Such a stupid question, when the girl was clearly anything but okay. Choking on the unspoken curses crowding into his throat, Cian kneeled on the filthy stone floor beside her and moved her to her back as carefully as possible. She groaned, trying to push him away, and blood spattered his face as she struggled. He blanched the instant he realized the sprays of blood were coming from her throat. She’d been bitten there many times, the wounds left open and bleeding so freely he was amazed she was still alive. He clutched her tight to his chest and prayed he could get her out before Aedan returned, sick with disgust at what his brother had done. The girl was no more than twelve, and it was obvious she’d been horribly abused.
She was too out of it with pain, weakened by blood loss, to protest when he stood with her in his arms, her frail body like a doll’s, her short blond hair matted with blood and things he didn’t want to identify. He sniffed at her temple, relieved that while Aedan had fed freely on her blood, he hadn’t given her enough of his own to harm her. Then he hurried to get her out of the fortress, hiding in the nearby woods for several minutes, until he was finally able to get her name and address out of her. She lived in one of the local villages, and within half an hour, he had her home and in the care of her terrified, yet grateful parents.
There were tears, so many tears he felt as if he were drowning in them, and all the while, he kept thinking of the other mothers who had cried over the broken bodies of their children. Young men that Cian had killed over the years, simply because his anger had allowed Aedan to convince him it was their way. Their right.
“If you want her to live,” he told them, “get her to a healer and then take her away from here and don’t ever come back.”
When they asked how, he looked around their small cottage, and knew they were doomed without his help. He went back home and quickly retrieved enough money that they could travel halfway around the world and live comfortably for the next twenty years without ever lifting a finger, and brought it back to them. Then he loaded them on a bus that would take them into a bustling city, where they could make their way to a healer whom Cian knew could be trusted not to go to the authorities, before taking a taxi to the airport and flying out. That night, never to return.
Then he burned down their cottage, and destroyed the bus they’d taken, making sure there were no clues for Aedan to follow.
And after that, he went back to the cell. And he waited for Aedan. Waited for the battle he knew was coming. For the blood and the accusations and—
Enough! a deep, guttural voice roared inside his head, and he jerked awake with a gasp, sitting up in the bed, drenched in sweat, while his wolf’s rough voice echoed through his mind. Cian scrubbed his hands over his face and shoved his damp hair back from his brow, then sent a silent thank-you to the beast, grateful for its intervention. He’d had enough of that goddamn dream to last a lifetime.
Glancing around the sunlit room, he realized he was alone and a frown pulled at the edges of his mouth. “Sayre?” he called out, his voice still rough from sleep. She didn’t answer, and as he pulled in a deep breath, he knew she’d already left, since he couldn’t scent her presence in the cabin. Just that sweet, lingering trace of her that now filled every room. It was infused into his sheets and the very air. Clean and pure, while his own repulsive nature damaged everything he touched.
He showered until he’d damn near taken off a layer of skin, but still couldn’t shake the vileness of his memory. Recognizing that he was too raw and wound up to face her right then, he pulled on some clothes and his boots, needing to get out and get his head focused on something else. But his beast wasn’t happy about it.
She’s ours, you idiot, and you’re blowing it, the wolf snarled, losing its patience with him and the entire situation.
He ground his jaw, understanding the wolf’s anger. But he knew they needed more than a life-mate connection to make things work. Nature could only add so much to the equation, and the cold hard fact of the matter was that he was most likely missing too many elements that were needed to complete it. And, God, did that piss him off.
Shoving the infuriating thought from his mind, he went outside and sniffed the air as he searched for any sign of Aedan, same as he’d been doing for days now. He didn’t think for an instant that his brother had given up. No, Aedan was simply biding his time, no doubt loving the way they were all walking around on pins and needles, looking over their shoulders at every sound, just waiting for him to make his appearance. The security patrols were running like clockwork, but it didn’t ease his tension. If Aedan wanted in to the Alley, he would find a way. Cian just had to be ready for him when it happened.
Heading down his porch steps, he looked toward Jeremy and Jillian’s place, figuring Sayre was over there. Trusting her to be smart and stay inside the borders of the Alley, he decided to head over to Sam’s. The merc had told him he could stop by anytime if he wanted to talk over possible strategies for dealing with Aedan, and this was as good a time as any. Sam had apparently had some experience dealing with vampires in the past, and he was a good sounding board. Cian ended up spending the next few hours there, while they came up with a couple of extra security ideas that he planned to talk to Brody about as soon as the Runner got back from checking on his wife and kids up in Shadow Peak.
Hoping that Sayre would be back at the cabin by then, Cian told Sam he’d catch him later and headed back over, calling out her name as he shut the front door behind him. She didn’t respond, and he frowned, wondering if she were planning on avoiding him the entire day. Even though the idea irritated the hell out of him, he knew he’d been doing th
e same damn thing to her, and so he forced himself to give her the space that she needed. Using the time to check in with some of the informants he kept out in the field, hoping they might have heard of any sightings on Aedan, he didn’t actually start to worry until lunchtime came and went, and she still hadn’t made an appearance.
Standing at his front window, he stared out into the quiet glade, and wondered if Jillian had told her about the link between him and her loss of control over her powers. Was that why Sayre hadn’t come back to the cabin...and to him?
Determined to talk to her about it, he’d just opened his front door and stepped back onto the porch when Jeremy came running up, his expression set in a fierce scowl that had Cian’s heart pumping with dread. “What’s going on?” he asked in a voice that was hoarse with fear, a thousand horrible scenarios running through his head. “Where’s Sayre?”
Jeremy’s scowl deepened. “She isn’t with you?”
“Hell no, she isn’t with me!” he snarled, his gums burning as his fangs prepared to drop, his beast roaring with fury.
“I don’t know where Sayre is,” Jeremy told him, talking fast. “She was with Jillian until a half hour ago, and we thought she’d come back here. But I just got word that one of our scouts has been found with his neck broken over on the east border.”
“Shit!” he growled, spearing his fingers into his hair so hard that it stung, his mind racing. The only sure way to kill a Lycan was to either behead him, or sever his spinal column. And Aedan knew that.
Though he wanted to throw back his head and bellow with rage, Cian knew he didn’t have the time. Lowering his arms, he told Jeremy to get everyone mobilized and searching for Sayre. “Make ’em spread out, but they need to go in pairs. Do not let anyone try to face him alone. And whatever the hell you do, don’t underestimate him. He will cut you down without a second thought.”
“What about you?” Jeremy grunted. “Who are you pairing up with?”
“I’m not,” he muttered, moving too quickly for the Runner to stop him. Heading toward the east border, he caught Sayre’s intoxicating scent not far from where the scout had been found, as well as the rancid odor that belonged to his brother. Moving with inhuman speed as he followed the scent trail, Cian was more terrified than he’d ever been in his life. He could recall moments as a child when he’d been frightened—the most memorable the night he’d learned about the vampire part of his nature, and realized he wasn’t what he’d believed himself to be. But even that life-changing moment hadn’t come close to this.
Though he followed a crazy trail through the woods that Aedan had clearly laid out to screw with him, the route like something a child would take while playing a game, Cian managed to find them within minutes of picking up her scent. The location was a small clearing the Runners had used for training purposes back before the war against the Whiteclaw, far enough from the Alley that no one would hear him if he howled. But he knew they would be able to follow the same trail that had brought him here—just not as quickly. Sayre sat straight-backed on a fallen tree trunk at the far edge of the clearing, while Aedan paced back and forth in front of her, his crimson eyes narrowing in hard and tight on Cian the instant he stepped out of the surrounding woods.
“See, Sayre,” his brother drawled with a sickening smile. “I told you it wouldn’t take him long to track us. It’s that bestial nature of his. Like a dog with a bone, he could probably follow your mouthwatering scent straight into the depths of Hell.”
Ignoring the asshole, Cian locked his worried gaze with hers. “Are you okay?”
She nodded stiffly in response, then immediately returned her attention to his brother, watching him the way someone never took their eyes off a snake that was preparing to strike. There was a nasty bruise forming beneath her right eye, and the corner of her lower lip had been busted, but he couldn’t see any other marks on her. Not that the ones she had didn’t matter. They made him want to rip the monster’s heart out of his chest and then shove it down his throat, making him choke on it. But he was infinitely thankful that they weren’t worse—that she was alive and breathing.
When he returned his full attention back to Aedan, his brother lifted his hands and showed him his raw, blistered palms. “I’m sure it will make you happy to know that the little witch gave me a hell of a jolt when I grabbed her.”
“Too bad she didn’t fry your psychotic ass to a crisp.”
“Aw, I love you, too, big brother.”
“Cut the bullshit, Aedan. What do you want?” he asked, studying his enemy as he came farther into the clearing. The boy who had been his brother, and was now a maniac, looked so familiar, and yet, different. It’d been years since Cian had seen him, and he knew he’d been right to warn the others not to confront him. They might be badass Lycans capable of ripping grown men in two if it were needed, but Aedan—Aedan was something else entirely.
His hair was still dark as pitch, so black it looked blue in the hazy afternoon sunlight, but instead of the longer cut he’d always worn it in, the thick mass was now shorn close to his scalp, making it easy to see the metal he wore in his eyebrows and ears. Though he was several inches shorter than Cian, only just reaching six-one, his whipcord-lean physique was more muscular than it’d been before. His once naturally pale skin was now ghostly white, most of it on display since he wore nothing but a low-slung pair of jeans that barely covered his lean hips. And those crimson eyes that burned with hatred would make it impossible for him to go out in public without dark glasses covering them. Not to mention the short, thick black talons that curved over the tips of his fingers, pointed and lethal.
But what was truly disturbing were the tattoos that covered every inch of skin on his arms and chest. They were horrific scenes of murder and sexual abuse, the victims’ eyes shocked wide with fear and pain, their mouths hanging garishly open for their bloodcurdling screams.
“What do I want?” Aedan drawled, pulling Cian’s attention back to those feral, blood-colored eyes. “I think that’s obvious.”
“If you wanted her dead,” he grunted, “you would have already killed her.”
“Oh, she’ll die eventually. But...well, to be honest, this is more enjoyable than I expected it to be. Watching you worry and squirm. It would be a shame to end it too soon,” he crooned as he stepped closer to Sayre and ran his hand down the gleaming fall of her hair. “So consider this visit a little gift to myself,” he added, his thin lips spreading in a wide smile. “I got to spend some lovely alone time with your woman, and now you know how easily I can get to her whenever I want.”
Hoping like hell that Sayre would keep her mouth shut and let him do the talking, he said, “She isn’t my woman, Aedan.”
Stepping away from Sayre, and closer to the place where Cian stood, his brother tsked. “Come now, Cian. Lying doesn’t become you. It never did. Even when you were a sinner, you managed to be noble.”
“There was nothing noble about the way we lived.”
Aedan gave a snide rumble of laughter. “God, you’re boring.”
“And you’re insane.”
“At least I’ll get the girl in the end, and not you. That’s only fair, don’t you think? Since you took my sweet little Elizabeth from my dungeon and stole her from me.”
“Do you scent my mark on Sayre?” he growled. “No, you don’t. Because I haven’t claimed her, Aedan.”
“Just because you haven’t had the balls to make it official doesn’t mean this beautiful little piece of ass isn’t yours.” Tilting his head back, he flicked his tongue out like a snake, then looked at Cian and laughed. “I can taste the possessiveness coming off you in the air. It’s thick in your blood, brother.”
“What does any of that matter if I have no intention of ever making her mine?” he countered. “You’re wasting your time.”
Aedan smirked. “I’m afraid I don’t agr
ee. I think you want her so badly it’s killing you, Cian. Fucking ripping you to pieces.”
His hands flexed at his sides, his claws beginning to prick his fingertips. “You’re wrong, Aedan. I’ll protect her because she’s innocent in all this, the same way I’ve protected others from you in the past, like Elizabeth. But you’re letting your madness cloud your judgment.”
“You didn’t protect Elizabeth from me. You stole her!” Aedan roared, his body rapidly changing, preparing for battle, as his temper got the better of him. The instant his fangs released, nearly two inches in length, his skin turned milk white, as if every ounce of blood had drained from his veins. Against that corpse-like background, the macabre tattoos looked even sharper, the violent scenes writhing as his muscles rippled. He was raw power, cut and lean and horrifically lethal, and Cian wondered how it’d taken him so long to see it when they’d been young. Had he been blinded by their joint hatred of their father? Or had it been the love he’d once held for Aedan that had made him such a fool?
He hated to admit it, but it was most likely the love. Despite what Aedan’s birth had meant to his mother—a devastating sign of his father’s betrayal—Cian hadn’t been able to do anything but love the boy who had been nothing but scrawny limbs and shaggy hair. A familial love, which was the only type he’d ever been capable of feeling. And it’s not like he could have blamed the boy for their father’s infidelity. Aedan had had no one, and so Cian had taken over the role of protector.
Instead, he should have taken his head when he’d had the chance, but he’d been too weak, and he put the blame for that weakness where it belonged. On his love. If that right there wasn’t a blinding endorsement for how that particular emotion was something he wanted no part of, he didn’t know what was.
You know nothing, his beast muttered. You never have.
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