Deadrise (Book 4): Blood Reckoning

by Brandt, Siara

  He forced himself to concentrate instead on the best plan of action for the days ahead. He needed to be thorough. He needed to concentrate on keeping them both alive, to be alert to every sign in the woods, no matter how insignificant. Not just because of some built-in survival instinct, but also because Cayla needed him. Without him . . .

  Not that she couldn’t make it without him. But she would have a better chance of surviving with him.

  As he stared up into the darkness, he told himself something else. He had to be the biggest fool that ever lived. He closed his eyes, telling himself one more time that he ought to have more sense. A hell of a lot more sense. Being attracted to Cayla was way beyond stupid. It was dangerous and it wasn’t like they didn’t have enough danger in their lives right now. In fact, it seemed like there was danger enough for a hundred lifetimes. He chided himself for his weakness where she was concerned. Because that’s how he saw it. As a weakness. One neither of them needed right now.

  “I’ll get over this,” he vowed silently to himself as he buried his desire for her into a dark, hidden part of his soul.

  But when he heard her sigh, his gaze shifted in the direction of the sofa. He caught a gleam of golden curls in the moonlight and a length of bare, shapely thigh that was not covered by her blanket.

  Her hair was pulled to one side, and the blond curls were tumbling down over the side of her pillow. He caught a faint drift of strawberries. He knew she had washed her hair earlier with a strawberry-scented shampoo. His gaze continued to wander helplessly over her womanly curves that, even under the blanket, were plain to see. He acknowledged that they were dangerous curves. At least to his peace of mind.

  Even in the darkness, he felt her eyes on him, felt the intensity of that clear gaze. And even in the moonlight, he could have sworn that her gaze slid lingeringly over him. Which lured him like a drug into a place he didn’t want to go. His reaction was immediate, if unwanted. Desire rocked through his body with an intensity that took him by surprise.

  It was something that he had no control over. He knew that. And it was something he told himself he didn’t want. Which wasn’t strictly true. In fact, on some levels, it was an out and out lie. But, he consoled himself, maybe there was no harm in a little fantasizing as long as she never knew about it. It was just a healthy male reaction to a beautiful woman. In the middle of the night. When they were all alone. Just the two of them.

  Except it was going to get frustrating as hell because he had no intentions of acting on his fantasies. Not even remotely. He might be horny as hell but he wasn’t completely without ethics. Or common sense.

  How long had it been? Too long. Way too long. But that was no excuse.

  It wasn’t just the sex, he admitted to himself. There was something else. Something even more dangerous. Apparently he wasn’t the callous, unfeeling jerk that she was constantly accusing him of being. He’d give anything to be just that at the moment. He had to make decisions that were not based on emotion. There was a heavy price to pay for mistakes. Even small ones could be instantly lethal. God knew that their very survival depended on his full concentration and his emotional detachment. Anything less than that could make him second guess himself, could make him think with his heart and not his head. Could get them both killed.

  “You’ll do things right, Dalin. You’ll do things smart. You always do.”

  “I thought I was a knuckle-dragging neander- ”

  “I wouldn’t be following you if I really thought that.”

  “Ah, so are you trying to say that you’ve decided to stop fighting me every step of the way?”

  “To a point,” she said cautiously, not understanding his sudden mood change. She could almost feel the tension between them and she didn’t understand it. They’d had a good day together. At least she’d thought they had.

  “I’ll follow you and I’ll trust you, but only to a certain point. I trust myself, too. Enough to let my own conscience guide me.”

  She had said that to him before and her words had led to a sobering realization for him, one that he was still trying to work through. He didn’t want her to be someone who would blindly follow a man rather than make her own decisions. He didn’t want her to yield up her very identity because she didn’t trust her own conscience. He didn’t want her to walk through life as a mere shadow of who she was supposed to be because she didn’t even have a clue that it was possible to trust herself.

  “Yeah, I know,” he breathed, voicing some of his frustration and tension. “You said that before. But it’s late and I’d rather not hear it all again.” He grimaced in the darkness. Did he have to sound like such a callous bastard?

  “You know what?” she flashed back. “Tough guys might be okay in romance novels, but in real life they can really suck.”

  He stifled an oath. “Romance novels? That’s good. But why doesn’t that surprise me? If you’re basing your opinion of me on romance novels, I gotta tell you, honey, you’re going to be disappointed.”

  After a huff or two, she remained a stiff shape in the darkness. But apparently she couldn’t maintain her silence. “I’ll tell you what is disappointing. Men that refuse to come out of the Dark Ages. Men that refuse to think that women are useful for anything beyond cooking, cleaning and- and- ” She sputtered something he couldn’t quite catch.

  “And what?”

  “And what?” she echoed. “You fill in the blanks. I’m through talking about it.”

  Through talking about it? She might be through talking about it, but he wasn’t through thinking about it. What had she been about to say? The thought kind of intrigued him.

  “I’m not discussing it any further” she declared as she pounded her pillow into submission.

  “Suit yourself.”

  But apparently she wasn’t through discussing it. After a long silence, he heard, “Today was the best day I’ve had in a long time.” There was a plaintive note in her voice now. She must have gotten her emotions under control.

  He sighed inwardly. She knew how to get to him. She surely did. She knew how to diffuse his anger in an instant, knew how to make him forget why he was angry in the first place, knew how to turn him inside out with a word. Or a look. Or a smile. Or a simple heartfelt admission.

  “Thank you for everything,” she said, ruthlessly tearing down his defenses even further. “All the little things may not have meant anything to you, but they meant something to me.”

  Lord, he thought, please don’t let her cry. Because he’d already found out that he had no defenses against her tears after the incident with the dog.

  “They’ll always mean something to me,” she sniffed.

  Damn Dalin, Cayla thought to herself. It might still a dangerous, chaotic world out there, but this day had been a treasured moment in her life, something she would keep with her for as long as she lived, however long that might be. But even as she damned him, she realized another truth there in the darkness. She wanted to be closer to the man. Even though it made no sense at all.

  You didn’t always have second chances in this world, so, without saying a word, she got down from the sofa and laid down on the floor next to him. It was a bold thing to do, but something was on the verge of spilling out of her, something vaguely forbidden, and yet it was something distinctly thrilling.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t want to sleep alone.”

  His reaction to her nearness, or perhaps to her words, was immediate. He threw his blankets off and sat up.

  “What- ” He sounded like he was strangling on something. “Are you doing?”

  “I’m doing what my heart is telling me to do,” she said so softly that he could barely catch the words. It sounded like she was talking more to herself than to him.

  “Your heart is telling you to sleep next to a jackass?”

  “I told you before. I don’t really think that of you that way. Or- or any of the other things I called you.”

  “Maybe you
should.”

  She ignored his words and the anger behind them. “I don’t want to sleep alone,” she repeated simply. “I feel safer when I’m close to you. I guess you never talked half the night away at a slumber party and shared your deepest, darkest thoughts. This is like that.”

  No it wasn’t. Not for him.

  He made a low growl of protest deep in his throat. But he laid back down beside her, finding that he had no will to abandon her, not even emotionally. As he lay there unmoving, he caught a trace of strawberries again, but this time it was accompanied by the perfumed scent of her skin.

  “Blues,” she said out of nowhere.

  “What?”

  “You asked me earlier what I would paint if I could. I would paint the sky,” she said. “So I would need blues.”

  “Why . . . the sky?”

  “Because it’s the only place that’s still untouched by all the bad things. All you have to do is look up and- ” She was gathering up her blanket and snuggling so close to his shoulder that she was touching him.

  To Dalin, the touch was like an electric shock sizzling through his body. “What difference does it make what you paint?” he burst out, fighting her, fighting what she did to him. “Or even what colors you use. You think any of that matters anymore? You think anyone is ever going to see what you paint?”

  His anger was building again. Inexplicably. She felt the latent energy simmering just beneath the surface. She should be afraid of it, repelled by it, she knew. So why was she experiencing that strange undercurrent just below her own surface that ran deep, like an ocean current?

  “I know you’re upset for some reason. But please don’t take it out on me. And please don’t take today away from me. I just want one perfect day. I want to feel what it’s like to be normal again.”

  “Nothing’s normal and I don’t know why you don’t get that yet,” he said, brutal in his honesty.

  She rolled over onto her back, closer to her own lines, but staying there beside him. “I just didn’t want today to end.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s probably close to midnight right now, Cinderella. So technically it’s about to end whether you want it to or not.”

  She felt her own anger mounting now. She didn’t have to take this from him. She didn’t deserve it. She rolled back over onto her side, her eyes narrowing with an accusing look that speared him even in the darkness. “So you’re telling me you never wanted something you couldn’t have?”

  He stared at her without uttering a single word.

  Her persistence was maddening. And her anger could be a dangerous thing. He got that instinctively. Without saying a word, he got up abruptly. He went to the window and stood with his hands on his hips, looking outside. The moon was out and it lit up the night with a silvery radiance. The stars were out, too. Millions of them were twinkling in the darkness.

  He’d wanted to escape from the disruption she caused inside him, but she was relentless. She followed him to the window.

  “The ravines keep it safer here,” he said, trying to ignore her. “So do the fences. But I’ll check things outside again to make sure there are no surprises while we’re sleeping.”

  He stepped out onto the porch away from her and surveyed the moonlit landscape for a while. When he couldn’t stall any longer, he went back inside.

  She was still waiting silently, watching him from beneath her lashes while her arms were crossed over her chest.

  “If you’re not going to sleep on the couch, I’ll sleep there,” he informed her in a short, emotionless voice. “It’ll be a hell of a lot softer than the floor.”

  “I don’t want you to do that,” he heard behind him. It brought him to a halt halfway across the room.

  “What are you going to do? Stop me?”

  “I might.” Was that determination he heard in her voice? The woman was unbelievable.

  “And just how are you going to do that?” he asked as he turned to face her.

  “By asking you to please stay on the floor next to me.”

  She had no intention of making this any easier for him. Not by a long shot.

  “What do you want, Cayla?”

  “I want to feel close to someone.”

  “And since it seems like I’m the last man on earth . . . ” His voice trailed off with a resigned sigh, and maybe a hint of sadness.

  “No, even if you weren’t,” she breathed quietly but very deliberately.

  She stepped closer to him and wove her fingers with his. They had held hands before, but it had always been when they had to during some desperate escape. Right now, it felt like something else entirely.

  “It isn’t midnight yet,” she said.

  “This isn’t right,” he protested weakly.

  “It feels right to me. And I’m not blind. I can’t help but see the way you look at me sometimes.”

  “Then you’ve been misreading things. I’m not- attracted to you.” But he didn’t sound convincing. Even to himself.

  “Maybe this is the right time to make a pact. To agree never to lie to each other.”

  “I’m not. Lying. You’re just wrong about this.”

  “I’ll admit that you’re probably a lot wiser than me about some things, Dalin. But you’re dumb about others.”

  “Not about this.”

  “Then you’re a coward. You’re afraid to admit that you have feelings for me.”

  “I’m not afr- ”

  “I know,” she interrupted him, repeating what she’d heard from him before. On more than one occasion. “You’re not afraid of anything. But the truth is, you are terrified of feeling something for me, of being close to me. Because if you allow that, then if I am gone one day- ”

  He stepped forward so swiftly that he caught her unaware. She was immediately wrapped tightly in his arms. “Don’t talk like that,” he muttered against her hair. “Just don’t.”

  At the very same moment that she had recovered and was letting herself lean into him, he released her abruptly and drew back again. He didn’t say a word. He just stared down at her as she took a step closer to him and her hands crept up to his shoulders.

  She shook her head. “Don’t you know by now that we have to face whatever it is that we’re afraid of?”

  With a frustrated gesture, he raked the dark hair back from his face and shook his own head. “I don’t want to think about that.”

  “When we face those things, when we allow ourselves to feel our emotions, the good and the bad, we reach deeper into who we really are, who we were really meant to be. I have to believe those things still matter. To deny our feelings, to be afraid and give up and give in to the fear is death. I choose life. And sometimes that means taking risks.”

  “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but every day we’re on this earth is a risk.”

  “Yes,” she agreed and nodded soberly. “And I’m willing to risk even more.”

  He knew then. She wasn’t talking about flesh hunters. Or bad men. She was talking about this thing between them. She had finally laid it out in the open for both of them to see.

  He fought acknowledging it, even as he was aching for a release that he wanted so badly that for a terrible moment, it seemed stronger than his will to resist. And it wasn’t just a physical release. It was more. So much more. He struggled to keep his walls in place and not let them coming tumbling down in a heap around him. Because- Because if that happened, could he put the walls back in place again? Or would it destroy him?

  The witch was brutally persistent. She wasn’t about to spare him. “You’re afraid to even talk about it?”

  He made another feeble attempt to keep her at a distance. “Damn it. I don’t want you. You’re not my type. I like a woman who knows what she’s doing, who has experience.”

  “Well, I don’t see too many of them around here at the moment.” And then she just stood there, not saying anything, just waiting. Maybe for that honesty she put so much faith in. But couldn’t she see? He couldn’t even give
r her that. He would always disappoint her.

  Whether she meant it to be or not, he didn’t know, but the lingering gaze beneath her lashes, suddenly seemed provocative and sensual. It sent a rush of need slamming straight through him.

  Still, gathering all his will, he held back, poised at the edge of a precarious precipice, afraid of what the fall might do to him. No doubt she had some fairy-tale image of romance left over from childhood. A vision of a knight on a white horse who would come and rescue her. Couldn’t she see-

  “Even if you were the last man on earth . . . ” she began again, letting her words trail off suggestively.

  “I’d disappoint you,” he finished for her.

  “Shouldn’t I be the one to decide that?”

  She didn’t wait for permission. Her hand began a lazy exploration of the hard, sculpted muscles of his chest. Then her palm slid down over his flat, washboard belly.

  He sucked in a slow breath. Then he groaned deep in his throat. Just like a man who has just realized that he is hopelessly lost, and helplessly pinned in place like that pathetically-struggling moth. How much more was he supposed to take?

  He must have made a heroic effort to reach deep inside for strength to free himself, because his will suddenly, and without warning, reasserted itself. His iron-like fingers closed around her wrist, stopping any further exploration of her hand. “Stop,” he said in a raspy voice.

  She looked up to see that his jaw was clenched and that his eyes were tightly closed. He wasn’t fooling her. He was trying to maintain control over the situation, but he was waging a losing battle and they both knew it.

  “You really don’t think about me this way?” she asked in a dangerously-sultry voice. “Because I- ”

  He cut her off like his life depended on it. “You’ve misread- things. I don’t feel the same way.”

  What he did next defied all rational thinking. He braced one hand on the wall behind her. Why he should do that, he had no idea. It brought him in even closer proximity to her sweetness. Madness beckoned. Reason fled as he braced his other hand on the wall.