‘I need to talk to you. Please, sit down.’
Jessie backed up slowly, before perching on the edge of the sofa, remaining wary as he retained his stance at the door.
‘This is definitely it?’ he asked, holding the chain up. ‘This is what binds you?’
The unease was back in her chest as her heart lowered itself to its knees in the hope she hadn’t been wrong to trust him. ‘Is that why we’re here? So far away from the row? Did you want to prove it?’
‘In part.’
‘You didn’t believe me?’
‘I needed to be completely sure.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I need to be completely sure you’re bound to me.’
Jessie squeezed her hands together in her lap. ‘You didn’t need to take it, Eden. I told you I was going to help you. I gave you that vial…’
‘But having this means you can’t hurt me, doesn’t it?’
She frowned. Her stomach clenched in discomfort. ‘Why would I want to hurt you?’
‘I need to talk to you, Jessie. I need to explain a few things.’
Her heart beat so heavily her chest ached. She kept her gaze steadily on his as the prospect of betrayal created fissures in her heart. ‘What have you done?’ she asked quietly.
‘I’m not a con,’ he said.
It wasn’t a shock. She was surprised how little a shock it was. But her true question came out with a reluctance that she knew reflected her lack of want of the answer. ‘Then who are you, Eden?’
‘I work for the Third Species Control Division. I was hired especially for this case.’
The room faded into darkness. Hearing the declaration grace his lips – lips she had kissed, connected with, come to believe – caused her veins to clog with the force of her thickening blood. But for a moment, beyond the fear of the reality that faced her, there was only one word she could focus on. ‘Hired?’
‘I was sent here to get you – undercover.’
If she could have stood, she would have, but her legs were immoveable. Her palms burned as her nails dug into them. She glanced at his forearm.
‘Fake,’ he confirmed. ‘I even got to choose them. I probably got a bit carried away but I had to make myself stand out to Pummel somehow.’
Her gaze snapped back to his. ‘This was all a set-up? You got close to me for a job?’
His expression was as unreadable as if the mask was back. Only she knew this was the real him. The face she’d come to trust, to know, to understand, to care about – that had been the mask.
‘I’m a Curfew Enforcement Officer.’
She closed her eyes for just a second as she reminded herself how she felt was not the crisis here. The crisis was far greater than the betrayal, the deceit. ‘I knew it,’ she said quietly. ‘I knew you’d try again.’
‘Try what again?’
Her gaze snapped to his. ‘Don’t act innocent. Not now.’
‘Jess, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m talking about the fact that earlier wasn’t the first time I’d been snatched. A couple of weeks ago, I was knocked out cold right outside the lock-up. They hit the wall trying to escape with me in the back of a car, just like that van did. It killed them outright. They weren’t cons though. The device one had in his jacket isn’t from around here. They know about me, don’t they? The authorities know about me.’
He nodded, but his eyes were dark again in their pensiveness. ‘But I knew nothing about that attempted kidnap. I promise you.’
She finally found the strength to stand. ‘I don’t want your promises; I want that necklace. You have to let me go, Eden. You know the consequences if you don’t.’
But Eden remained composed, unflinching at the door. ‘There are other things I need to explain first.’
‘Things you were too much of a coward to explain without that necklace in your possession?’ As he dared to hold her gaze, to maintain the connection that now felt severed, she snapped. ‘You lied. You lied to me.’
‘I haven’t lied.’
‘You hid the truth. Same thing.’
‘I had no choice.’
‘The little girl – Honey – was she a part of the lie? Something you could manipulate me with? Like you’ve manipulated me all along?’
‘She’s real, Jessie. They used her as the hook to get me in here – to persuade me into this suicide mission. So, yes, they know about you. Pummel was recognised and questions were raised as to why he hadn’t aged as much as he should have. They told me they didn’t know what you were. I was to find out and find out how to get you out. If I delivered you to them, they offered to save Honey’s life in exchange.’
‘In exchange for them locking me in their Facility and throwing away the key?’
‘Of finding a cure.’
‘For the good of mankind, huh? You’ve played me all along.’
‘No. That’s what I need you to understand. I came in here for one reason and one reason only – and it has never been about delivering you to them. I know how fucked up the system is that I work for, Jess – now more than ever after the last couple of weeks. I know about the corruption. You must have heard of how they sent Caitlin Parish right into the lions’ den to get what they wanted. I’m not stupid enough to think I’m any different. I’m as expendable to them as she was.
‘Sirius Throme was the one who hired me. But there was no way he’d let a grunt like me in on a powerful secret like you and let me live. He was never going to help Honey. I knew how it was going to work: he was going to have me take you to him and then he’d kill my family. I’d die if I failed, I’d die if I succeeded.
‘But Sirius made the biggest mistake thinking I would help them find a way to fuel their unjust system further; thinking I’d give them even more of an excuse to reinforce this elitism that’s crushing one too many of us. I came in here with the attitude that they can go and fuck themselves – I was out for my family.
‘All Sirius had done was give me a way out, a reason to no longer be a part of the system I despise. From the beginning I had intended only to come in here and get that cure for myself. I planned to use it to help Honey, then I’d bring my family across the border into Blackthorn, away from the authorities who’d be looking for them. We’d be no worse off in Blackthorn than in Lowtown. It would be no different to what I’d grown up doing – ducking, diving and surviving. But I didn’t expect to develop feelings for you. I didn’t expect it to become as much about saving you.’
‘Then why not free me? Why take the necklace? Because you thought your confession meant I would turn on you?’
‘I couldn’t be sure, Jess. I’m standing here telling you that I’m everything you hate. You have every reason not to believe me. You have every reason to disappear from here. I didn’t want to lose you, Jess. I didn’t want you to leave thinking I’d betrayed you.’
She hovered on the spot as she stared deep into his eyes.
‘I needed to warn you,’ he said, ‘in case you did choose to leave, that I think Sirius Throme orchestrated the kidnap of those lycan young; that he sent me here the night they arrived for a reason. I don’t think the two are coincidental. I think those lycans were his backup plan should I fail. If I didn’t make it, my bet is he was going to turn the exact same threat on Pummel as I did: to tell Jask where they were. He gave me three days, Jessie – three days to return with you. Once those three days were up, he was coming in to get you one way or another.’
‘Using the same army?’
‘Maybe. He’s expecting me in the next couple of hours.’ He closed the gap between them. ‘You’re not the only one he knows about. Your tears – I’ve seen something similar before. Someone I know works at The Facility showed them to me. She let it slip one night that she had magic in a tube. She wanted me to try a little. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to why.’
Her heart pounded, her breathing shallow. ‘They already have us? They already have my kind?’
>
‘And my bet is they know what your tears can do. I think they’re building a superhuman army to invade, Jessie.’
Something that would swim permanently in their veins and bond with the very fabric of what they were – renewing, strengthening, honing and perfecting. An army of them was unthinkable – the power behind the human invasion, any chance of succeeding, finally making sense.
She stepped back over to the sofa and perched on the edge before her legs gave way. ‘This can’t get any worse.’
He crouched in front of her. ‘Jessie, you said two others tried to take you. Is it possible they had been watching you enter the lock-up?’
She stared at him. ‘Why?’
‘Is it?’
A surge of panic consumed her. ‘Yes.’
‘Could they have seen those drawings like I did?’
Her pulse almost flatlined again.
He caught hold of her hands in his. ‘I think whoever preceded me saw your visions and reported that back. I think Sirius Throme wants to wipe out the third species, but I think the only way he can do that is to take out his opposition. He wants the vampire leader, Jess. I think he wants you because he knows you’ve seen who the vampire leader is.’
Her jaw fell slack. ‘He wants me to be shadow-read.’
He nodded. ‘And for that he needs you alive. He needed you out of the row safely so he could get the upper hand quietly without anyone suspecting. If he wants a cull, the absence of the prophesised leader will weaken any third-species retaliation.’
‘But killing the prophesised leader by any other hand than that of the serryn will keep the fourth-species dimension wide open and we will all lose. Eden, this could be catastrophic beyond what even I had imagined. I have to find that leader. I have to warn them too.’
‘You said something happened between the leader and the serryn that shouldn’t have.’
She nodded.
‘Jess, but what if the vampire leader knew of the consequence? What if that’s why they didn’t finish the job? What if they wanted to unleash the fourth species against us – or the threat of it, at least? What of they’re planning on using them to help defeat us and then kill the serryn, sealing the fourth dimension afterwards? What if they resolved to either win or wipe everything out in the process?’
‘They’d have to be a genius,’ she said. ‘They’d have to be one hell of a calculating, cold, heartless – not to forget totally fucked-up – genius to even attempt it.’
‘Or hate humans, hate the system that binds them so much that they’re willing to take it down no matter what? What if they’ve seen the same visions as you have and think they’ve got nothing to lose? What if they already know they’re up against a human leader insane enough to do the same? We’re talking about a head-to-head war with two leaders hell-bent on winning and everyone else caught in the crossfire.’
‘Eden, we have to go to Jask. Maybe even talk to Kane Malloy or Caleb Dehain. We have to persuade them all against an uprising. The Global Council will have no justification behind an attack if we don’t retaliate, if we’re not seen as the aggressors.’
‘Do you not get it? They can portray whatever they want as going on in here and anyone outside of this district will believe it.’
She broke from the intensity of his gaze to stare at the wall before she looked back at him. She needed him to say it. She needed to watch him say it. ‘So you promise me – you promise you didn’t bring me here to hand me over.’
He reached out to brush her ringlets over her shoulder. ‘I brought you here because if we don’t have another conversation beyond this, I need you to know that you were a commodity to me, but these past three days with you, even in that abject shithole, have been the best I’ve ever had. They’ll stay the best I ever have if you choose to walk away from me now.’ He spread the chain between his hands to lower it down over her head, letting it fall against her chest before gently scooping her hair from its confinement.
She could barely believe she was saying it. ‘You’re letting me go?’
‘Freeing you. Not letting you go.’ He rubbed his hand tenderly down her shoulder. ‘You’d better know what you’re doing, Jessie. And whatever that is, just don’t let Sirius get his hands on you,’ he said, his eyes locking on hers again. ‘Or I will rip that whole fucking division down single-handedly.’
She studied his gaze, her heart pounding again at the passion in his tone – the sincerity. ‘And what are you going to do?’
‘Find somewhere safe for my family. I went to collect them while I was gone. As I’d suspected, Sirius had them under watchful eye. I guess once he finds out, there will be no going back. I’ll work out the rest from here.’
‘You gave Honey the cure?’
He nodded.
‘And it worked?’
‘ I hope so,’ he declared.
She looked down at where he’d dropped his hands between his spread thighs. She reached for them, taking them into hers, rubbing her thumbs over his. She looked back into his eyes. ‘So you make your plans and I make mine.’ Even saying it was tougher than she’d imagined. ‘And we go our separate ways?’
He exhaled tersely, glanced down at where her hands held his. He interlaced their fingers before looking back into her eyes. ‘The only ones who hunt as well as vampires and lycans are Curfew Enforcement Officers, Jessie.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m just saying.’
She raised her eyebrows slightly as her lips curled into a hint of a smile. ‘Saying or threatening?’
‘Whichever you’d prefer. I’m game for either.’
‘That added bonus I gave you makes your strength equal to mine, not greater.’
He bit into his bottom lip as a smile graced his lips too. Lips that took their cue to lower gently to hers, his mouth warm, familiar, comforting as he tasted her slowly and tenderly.
But as he moved to pull away, she grabbed a hold of his T-shirt to keep him close, her hand pressed against his heart so she could feel it pound beneath her fingertips as she spread her thighs around him. And she kissed him back with as little urgency as he had kissed her, her fingers eventually coiling in his hair.
Her breath caught in her throat as she looked in his eyes to see only reciprocal impatience for more, betrayed as much by the hardness pressing against her sex, the grip of his hand on her neck, the increase of his breaths.
Her heart skipped a beat as she felt his hand between them, heard the clink of his belt buckle. He unfastened her trousers, yanking them down along with her underwear before he lifted her thighs either side of his, lowered her to the floor beneath him.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck as he thrust once, then twice before filling her completely.
She could do nothing to prevent the groan escaping her lips, the shot of pleasure sending an electrical charge to every nerve ending. Beneath her fingertips she could feel the change. As strong, as solid as he had been before, there was a new tension in every movement, a strength that matched her own – a strength that was as exhilarating as the connection forged.
‘An incentive to come back to you?’ she asked, as she caught his gaze.
‘I was hoping that telling you I think I love you would be enough for that.’
Her heart skipped another beat, her fingers digging into his arms as she gazed deep into the intensity in his eyes. ‘Think?’
‘I’ve never been in love before to know. But if this is how it feels, I’m glad I waited for you.’
Her heart leapt as she searched his eyes. ‘I think it’s the first time for me too.’
He stilled inside her for a moment. He swept his thumb back along her jaw before clasping the nape of her neck. ‘Partners, right?’
She nodded. ‘In every way.’
This time his lips met hers as he thrust again.
And his lips barely left hers as he pinned her hands back to the floor with a power and strength that was now indicative of him, his fingers interlacing with hers and squee
zing as he brought her to climax, brought himself to climax, the room spinning with the force of the sparks bursting behind her eyes. Sparks that kept bursting behind her eyes as Eden drew out her orgasm, and his, to the point of exquisite pain.
Once it had finally started to ebb, she wrapped her arms around him, keeping him close, placing a tender kiss on his neck.
She lay consumed by him for a few more moments, until reality inevitably struck again. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you want to take this on?’
‘Or let Sirius and that fucked-up system win?’ He looked back into her eyes. ‘What do you think?’
She reached up to gently caress his lips with the tip of her thumb. ‘You’re incredible, do you know that?’
His eyes flared. She could have sworn that she detected a hint of a blush in the shadows of the room.
‘And I get the feeling I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface,’ she added. ‘Honey’s lucky to have you. She’s right to see you as a hero.’
He broke from her gaze, but he couldn’t conceal the glimmer of glossiness in his eyes. He cleared his throat playfully as he looked back down at her. ‘I do believe the technical term now would be superhero.’
She laughed, but it was fleeting. ‘It scares me, Eden – what Sirius has planned.’
‘You and me both.’ He kissed her on the lips once more. ‘So let’s go and do something about it.’
39
An eerie quietness had descended on the row following the fourth-species attack. Plenty of cons had returned to examine the aftermath, some revelling in macabre humour and morbid fascination at the shrivelled corpses that only hours before had been partying alongside them; others clearing up the mess of the stampede, the chaos the arrival had caused. Worse, from what she was overhearing, some had come from other rows to take a look, to take advantage of spoils where they could. But despite the milling bodies, the row still felt like all the life had been drained out of it, the atmosphere void of gravity as if the very air around her still tingled from the unprecedented supernatural invasion.
Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) Page 40