Kane glowered up at him, anger and hatred burning the pit of his stomach.
‘I mean, even I could see it,’ Rob added. ‘She was hot. If you like them rough.’ He laughed lightly. ‘I could hear her screaming. She spent her last few minutes begging for her life. Or maybe it was just for them to keep going. Harder, I’m sure I heard her yell,’ he said in a mocking voice. ‘Harder, boys. I still have some dignity left. I was nearly tempted to join in myself at one point.’
Kane buckled and wrenched in his manacles, unable to contain his fury.
Rob pulled back. ‘That’s more like it. Truth hurts, doesn’t it, Kane?’
‘You were a coward then and you’re a coward now.’ He twisted his wrists in the restraints. ‘Or you wouldn’t opt for these.’
‘I’m going to opt for a lot more than that before I’m done with you.’
Kane glared at him. ‘Don’t worry – I know what you’re capable of. I know all about what you’ve done in your quest to save your precious Caitlin. How honest have you been with her about how far you were willing to go? Only you boys know how to cover it up, don’t you? Just how much of that did you blame on me, huh? And you can keep asking all you want, but the only one with answers is me. That’s why she came after me. Frustrating, isn’t it? Not being able to help her. Me being the only one capable of doing what you can’t. Performing where you can’t. Every which way she needs. As deep as she needs.’
Rob slammed an angry punch into his stomach and then his side, once then twice then punched him hard in the mouth. ‘She told us where you were, Kane. So you’re not quite in as deep as you thought.’
Kane spat blood from his mouth. ‘I was in deeper than you can imagine. Than you could ever manage.’
Rob sneered and slammed his fist into him again. He shook his hand from the impact.
Kane winced. ‘You’ve never been enough for her, Rob. And you never will be. You failed her.’
‘Really?’ He cocked his head to the side slightly. ‘You think she needs you?’
‘You know it. I know it. She knows it.’
‘Until I tell her Xavier has a safe room. Well, more an apartment. It’s not much but it’ll do. What matters is that it’s blessed, protected and charmed to the hilt. Nothing is going to cross there. And that’s where Caitlin is going to be in a few hours, whether she likes it or not. Because I will keep her safe, Kane. I will save her from this. And from you.’
Kane frowned. If that’s what they were counting on, they were making a horrific mistake. He should have been panicking that his own leverage may have been gone, but instead all he could think about was Caitlin. ‘Is that what Carter promised you? Protection for her? When he doesn’t even know what the fuck it is? It’s fourth species, Rob. It’s like nothing you’ve ever come across before. And I promise you, nothing is going to keep it out.’
Rob lifted his hands to his nape as he marched away, trying to calm himself. He stepped over to the bench and picked up the nails. ‘That’s a chance we’ll have to take.’ He strode back over. ‘The same as we’ll have to take the chance Xavier never finds out we took you out of the equation once and for all.’
Kane looked him square in the eyes. ‘Think carefully, Robert. You kill me and Caitlin’s dead too. And you know it.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Caitlin heard the garage door open and footsteps crossing the kitchen. Footsteps she knew the rhythm of only too well.
Cupboard doors opened and closed, echoing through the open door in the far corner to her left. She heard the hiss of a percolator. A subtle aroma of coffee snagged the air.
‘Rob!’ she called out, yanking her wrist against the radiator for good measure. ‘Get yourself in here!’
Rob appeared through the doorway a second later. From the instant defensiveness in his eyes, her glare clearly spoke the volumes she’d intended. ‘You’re finally awake then.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I’ll go get us a coffee,’ he said, turning on his heels again.
Caitlin growled with impatience. ‘We don’t have time for this! You need to tell me where you’ve taken him!’ She waited a moment for a response. She heard the clink of ceramic. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
Rob strolled back in a minute or so later with two steaming mugs. ‘I heard you. You need to calm yourself down. How long have you been awake?’
‘Calm myself down?’ She yanked her arm within its cuff. ‘Get me out of this.’
‘When you stop glaring at me like that, I will.’ He placed the two mugs on the coffee table before stepping over to join her. ‘Stop worrying, it’s all under control.’
‘What have you done to him?’
‘We’re talking to him, Caitlin,’ he said, lowering himself to the floor in front of her.
Unease clenched her stomach. ‘And what exactly does that talking entail?’
‘It entails finding out how to kill the soul ripper.’
‘He’s not going to tell you.’
‘He will.’
‘That information is the only leverage he’s got.’
‘And we’re using the only leverage we’ve got. He’s not going anywhere until we know.’
‘So where is he? Is that where Max is?’
She hadn’t heard a car pull into the garage, which meant Rob had been there the whole time she’d been awake and that was over an hour. He’d come from the garage. The garage led down to the wine cellar. The pieces slotted together quicker than Rob had time to respond. ‘You brought him here, didn’t you?’
‘Like we said, this is between us. Nothing to do with HQ. Don’t worry, he’s perfectly secure.’
‘In the cellar? Are you insane?’
‘It’s all in hand.’
‘How did you even get him across the border?’
‘In the trunk of a VCU car being driven by the head of the unit.’
‘You have to let me see him.’
‘No, what you have to do is rest. I re-wrapped your foot. How did it happen?’
For some reason a sense of resentment clawed at her that he’d undone Kane’s handiwork. ‘I sliced it in an alley when I escaped.’
‘How did he get you back?’
‘I bumped into one of Jask’s buddies.’
‘You’re lucky to still be alive.’
‘I know. No thanks to you.’
‘Get it off your chest,’ he said, standing again. He took the coffees from the table and brought them back with him.
‘You said you’d get me out of this,’ she said, yanking her wrist in the cuff again.
‘You haven’t stopped scowling yet.’ He sat back on the floor and placed her mug down beside her. He took a sip of his own before sliding over to sit against the wall alongside her.
‘And what are you going to do a few hours from now when he’s still said nothing?’ she asked.
‘We kill him. He disappears – no questions and no answers.’
Her stomach flipped. Dread at the thought of losing him, of it happening right beneath her, consumed her. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘I think you’ll find we can.’
‘Xavier wants him alive.’
‘Xavier will never know.’
She turned more towards him, curling her legs under her. ‘Rob, Kane is the only thing between me and the soul ripper. We need him alive.’
‘So he keeps telling us. Very convenient, isn’t it?’
‘Rob, please listen to me. You’re making a mistake. Whatever you’re doing to him, you have to stop.’
Rob took a sip off his coffee. ‘What are you most worried about, Caitlin? Us messing up your plans or is it him you’re concerned about?’
Caitlin frowned at the accusation in his eyes. ‘Don’t you dare judge me after what you did. After you’ve lied to me for all those years.’
‘I did it to protect you.’
‘I didn’t need protection. I needed the truth.’
‘And I’m telling you the truth now. Me and
Max will sort this out.’
‘The only one he’ll talk to is me. If he’ll even do that now.’
‘You were the one who called us, remember?’
‘Yes, to take him in so I could find out the truth for myself. Before I knew what you had done, before I knew about Xavier and his power craving. Or believe me, I wouldn’t have bothered.’
She snapped her gaze away, aware her frustration was clouding her judgement. Time was of the essence, and giving him a reason to keep her secured to the radiator was not going to help.
‘I didn’t just abandon you, Caitlin. I want you to know that. I meant it when I said I’ve been trying to find out what was responsible and how to stop it. We knew Arana was the cause of what happened to Rick, but we never expected it to come for Kathleen too. We tried to get answers, but couldn’t. That’s why I went further afield and moved to another locale. I never gave up on you; I just had no way of explaining why I was leaving or when I’d be back.’
‘So you left me with the excuse that we weren’t right for each other.’
‘Better that than looking you in the eye and keep lying to you. When you kept probing me about your suspicions that something was coming for you, I didn’t know what to say.’
‘Max managed to stick around. He even married my mother.’
‘And he knew I’d left to find out what I could.’
‘So I was right – you had planned to come back all along.’
‘I’ve been back two months tracking him. I’d narrowed it down to three places he was most likely to be. Me and Max had planned to do it all undercover and then you got in sooner. But then Kane waiting for you in the corridor, Xavier getting involved, Kane taking you the night before I’d planned to take him were all complications that got in the way. If we’d pulled you out, if we’d told you the truth, Xavier would have known. We’ve needed to keep him on side. But that doesn’t matter now. What matters is you knowing I did not turn my back on you.’
‘Then don’t turn your back on me now and listen to me, please. You need me to talk to him. I can negotiate with him. I can offer his release to get him on side.’
Rob shook his head and took another sip of coffee. ‘No. You’re not going near him again.’
She wrenched her wrist in the cuff. ‘If you kill him, I will not make it through the night. Please let that sink in.’
‘What happened between you two, huh?’ he asked, his cool gaze settling on hers again.
She felt as though she’d been physically winded. She wasn’t even sure she knew the answer. She frowned. ‘Why, what did he say?’
‘Did you sleep with him?’
‘What business is that of yours?’
Rob exhaled tersely, his tongue meeting his upper teeth. He lifted the mug back to his lips.
‘That has nothing to do with any of this,’ she added.
‘What, you jumping into bed with the vampire you were employed to hunt? The vampire whose sister was responsible for the death of your parents? The vampire who wants to kill you, Max and me?’ His eyes narrowed coldly and accusatorily on hers. ‘That’s nothing to do with any of this?’
‘And what you did to Arana was perfectly justifiable was it? A means to an end? I never would have thought it, Rob. I never would have thought you were capable of those things. How could you stand by and let it happen?’
‘We did what we did for the good of this district.’
‘What you did was follow Xavier’s orders with no thought for morality or the lore.’
‘Kane doesn’t operate inside the lore.’
‘So if you can’t beat them, join them.’
Rob held her gaze steadily, not a glimpse of guilt behind his blue eyes. ‘You would know.’
In that moment she wasn’t just angry, she realised she wasn’t even sure if she liked him anymore. ‘I was handling it.’
‘Just like he was handling you,’ Rob sneered, the resentment clear in his eyes.
‘I’m the only one who can get through to him.’
He laughed derisively. ‘Oh, he’s got you right where he wants you, hasn’t he? He’s using you. He’s playing you. And I can’t believe you of all people are letting him. He wants you dead, Caitlin. He wants us all dead. And then he’ll bring down the TSCD. His rise to power will be overnight. He will rule this territory. Everything we have worked for, everything your father worked for, will be gone. What if this is it? Has that crossed your mind? What if he’s the key to these prophecies we keep hearing about? This vampire rise to supremacy. What if it starts with him?’
‘We don’t even know if they’re true.’
‘Can we take the risk? Caitlin, he wants only one thing, and that’s vengeance. You need to remember who and what you were before all this started and you need to get a grip.’
‘Don’t you dare patronize me. What makes you so sure you’re right? All your opinions are drip-fed by Xavier, just like mine were. But what do any of us really know about Kane and his intentions? What proof have any of us had? This whole mess was started by us, not him.’
‘So your parents deserved to die – is that what you’re saying?’
‘Did Arana?’
Rob stared at her, lost for words, but anger gleamed behind his eyes. ‘Look at you – going there determined to bring him down and coming out his advocate.’
‘I went after him to find out how to kill the soul ripper. I went after him because I had no other option left because I thought the only people I had left to care about didn’t believe me. If you’d told me the truth before all this, we could have worked together. Instead I went in there and all but begged him for his help. Do you know what that took? Tonight, Rob. It’s coming tonight. And if you and Max don’t let me deal with this, it’s taking me with it.’
‘It’s not taking you, Caitlin. We have a backup plan. Xavier has a safe haven for you where you’ll be protected from the soul ripper.’
It took a moment for what he’d said to sink in. ‘What?’
‘Xavier has kept it over our heads to stop us retaliating against Kane. If we got nowhere with Kane, we knew we had it as a backup.’
‘A haven?’
‘A small apartment. Fully charmed and protected.’
‘And beyond that apartment?’ The look in his eyes said enough. ‘There would be no beyond the apartment, right?’
‘At least you’d be alive.’
‘I either die at the hands of the soul ripper or spend the rest of my life in a make-shift jail?’
‘Until we find the answers we need.’
She stared back across the room. ‘I can’t believe how clueless I’ve been to all this.’
‘I’ve already been scouring all our resources these past few hours after you gave us the name,’ he added. ‘There’s still nothing.’
‘Because you haven’t found anyone archaic enough – no one with as archaic a bloodline as Kane.’
‘We will find a way to kill it. I promise.’
And for as long as they believed that, they wouldn’t need Kane. They wouldn’t need her to have any communication with him. She wouldn’t get a chance to explain herself. She wouldn’t even get a chance to see him again. Her heart wrenched. He’d be slaughtered right beneath her. The world suddenly seemed like a painfully empty, dark place.
‘Let me read him,’ she said. ‘Take me to him. It was the one opportunity I didn’t have back in his den but I can do it now. I’ll find the truth. I’ll find out how to kill it.’
Rob shook his head. ‘I can’t let you do that. I’m not having whatever darkness is inside of him inside of you.’
‘It’s not your place to make that choice for me.’
‘I told you I would keep you safe and that’s what I’m doing.’
Fury and panic simmered – resentment that he dared continue to take her decisions away from her. ‘I need to see him.’
‘And I am not having you blemished by him.’
‘Blemished?’ She exhaled curtly. ‘It’s a bi
t late for that.’
She saw his eyes narrow, his attention distracted only by more footsteps crossing the kitchen.
Her attention snapped to the door.
Max appeared in the doorway. He looked composed, calm, but he was tired. She could see it in his expression, in his sallow face. He gave her something of a placating smile before stepping over to join them. ‘How are you doing?’
She held up her wrist, it clinking against the radiator. ‘What do you think?’
‘Any progress?’ Rob asked.
Max shook his head.
‘You’ve got to let me in there,’ Caitlin said. ‘I told Rob. You have to let me read him. It’s the only way.’
Max nodded. ‘I know. We might not have any choice.’
She heard Rob’s subtle intake of breath, felt his tension escalate despite him being a foot away. He pulled himself to his feet. ‘We said we’d talk about that.’
‘The clock’s ticking, Rob. It’s an option we need to consider.’
Caitlin’s heart pounded. ‘It’s a good option,’ she cut in. ‘It’s our only option.’
But the men’s attention was firmly locked on each other.
‘We said that was a last resort,’ Rob said, his voice low.
‘It is. He isn’t going to break. There’s nothing more we can issue other than to kill him.’
Her stomach wrenched. ‘What do you mean, issue? What have you done?’
‘You don’t know the risks,’ Rob said, his attention from Max not wavering.
‘She’s the best shadow reader I know. We have to try.’
‘Isla failed.’
‘I can do this.’ She stared from Max to Rob and back to Max again. ‘You owe me this chance.’
Max broke away from the glare in Rob’s eyes. He took the release device from his pocket and stepped towards Caitlin.
‘Think about this,’ Rob said firmly, catching his arm.
‘I’m only doing it because I have to.’ He pulled his arm free and lowered to his haunches. He slid the device across the cuffs, the anti-magnetism releasing Caitlin from the binds.
She rubbed her wrist. ‘You’re doing right, Max,’ she said, looking deep into his eyes.
‘She’s exhausted,’ Rob cut in. ‘She needs to rest.’
Blood Shadows Page 27