by Sable Grace
She wiped the blood from her mouth and nose. “How would I know? I can’t shift,” she whispered, appalled at how much her body hurt. As Vampyre, she could tolerate a high amount of pain before giving in to the need to rest and heal. Shouldn’t a goddess have an even higher threshold? “I can’t go after her. I had to send the mutts in my place. That’s bullshit.”
“You did the right thing. The smart thing. Without ambrosia you’re—”
She shoved to her feet. To hell with this. She hadn’t yet lost all the powers that made her a tracer. It might take the last of her reserves, but damn it, she wasn’t sending a trio of puppies to do a bitch’s job.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she let her determination to follow Haven coax her into a near trance until she felt the slight tug in her abdomen and a surge of adrenaline in her veins. When she next opened her eyes, the world had become black and white. Her fur-covered skin rippled as she leaped over the driveway, following Haven’s scent as quickly as her four feet allowed.
She ran, but the continual flicker of energy nearly cost her the hold on the form over and over, and it took all her concentration to maintain it, making holding on to Haven’s scent all the more difficult. She tried instead for the scent of her dogs, and followed as best as she could in her half-handicapped state.
She wound around a Dumpster and squeezed under a fence leading into the factory behind the park. This must have been where Haven had been hiding out until the sun had set and it had become safe for her to come out and visit her father. Or maybe not. Maybe she’d adjusted to the Turning faster than anyone had considered.
She’d definitely been stronger than Kyana had expected, so maybe Haven could hold to Lychen form long enough to roam a couple of hours of daylight. Regardless, she couldn’t hold it as long as Kyana could. Drained or not, Kyana wasn’t going to lose her form unless she keeled over and died right there on the street.
If she could just follow Haven’s trail long enough for her to weaken and shift back, she could catch up to her and take her in.
But no sooner had the thought occurred to her than Haven’s scent vanished like a puff of smoke. Its disappearance was so sudden, it made Kyana’s head spin. She rocked back on her haunches, afraid to move.
She looked up. She was yards away from any building. The factory entrance was half a football field away. She shouldn’t have lost the trail here, in the middle of a street with nowhere to hide.
What kind of magic was Haven using to elude her? Charms? Potions? Both?
Silently chastising herself for not paying more attention to Haven’s spell crafting when they were living under the same roof, Kyana made her way sluggishly back to the trailer. They were going into that factory, but she wanted her opposable thumbs back when they did.
Her ears flattened to her head at the sight of her tattered leather pants and boots lying in ribbons on the driveway. Her tank top was unsalvageable, and she’d lost her change of clothes to barbed wire.
Lovely.
Ryker held out a wad of fabric so she could see it, then tossed it inside the open door of the trailer. “It’s all I could find inside, but I figured anything was better than nothing.”
Grateful for his thoughtfulness, she made her way back inside the metal heap, snatched the bundle of clothing between her teeth, and dragged it into the kitchen where she could shift and maintain a tiny bit of dignity.
She waited for her bones to adjust to her two-legged body, then unrolled the bundle of clothing and groaned. Men’s sneakers. Men’s jeans. A size XXL flannel shirt with two missing buttons near the collar. The only good thing was her daggers lying on the plaid, making the fabric look dingy.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She couldn’t intimidate a puppy in this getup.
Regardless, she dutifully put them on and half tripped her way to the bedroom behind her in search of a belt. The jeans slipped past her ass with every step, and the long fabric wrapped under each foot making grace an impossibility.
She dug through the drawers as quickly as she could manage and found a wide leather belt. Rolling her eyes at the horrible, rusted belt buckle that weighed more than she did, she slipped it into her belt loops. She had to puncture another hole to make it fit and then wrap the belt around her waist twice, but it would hold her pants up and secure her weapons, so it would work for now.
She rolled up the jean cuffs and slipped back outside, deciding to forgo the shoes. The damned things were about four sizes too big.
“Let’s go.”
Silas looked up from where he crouched beside Haven’s father. “What about him?”
Kyana shrugged. “He’ll live.”
She was only half hoping she was right. If he was really the reason Hope had died, if he’d really beaten Haven’s childhood out of her, he deserved whatever fate awaited him after they left.
Part of her wished they’d come five minutes later so Haven could have finished him off.
Kyana knew all too well about abusive fathers. It was a shame she’d never known they’d shared that particular bond. She couldn’t really fault Haven for not sharing her past. She’d never told Haven about hers either.
“Ky?” Ryker rested his hand on her shoulder and shook her lightly. “Silas asked where we were going and if you needed him to scry for Haven again.”
“We’re going to check out that factory where I lost her scent.” She looked up at the starless night sky. “Hope you brought a flashlight.”
Not that Ryker or she would have any trouble seeing in the dark, but Silas would be an accident waiting to happen. Maybe bringing him hadn’t been the smartest idea.
“You’re going to get my ass kicked aren’t you?” Silas complained as he helped Haven’s dad stand. “We should wait till the sun comes up when she’s weaker.”
“Are you turning into a wuss?” she asked, glaring at Silas. She turned her attention to Haven’s dad. She wasn’t sure if she’d kill him as a favor to Haven, or if she could force herself to go against her instincts to use him as bait to get Haven to come after him again. “It’s not safe for him to come with us.”
Silas raised an eyebrow. “Thought we were all protect-the-humans now.”
“For him I’ll make an exception. Besides, he’s been fine here for two weeks. Dark Breeds don’t seem to want him either. Take him inside and let’s go.”
Silas glanced at the man barely standing beside him. “How did you avoid the Dark Breeds, anyway?”
Blood oozed from the older man’s lip as he cracked them open to speak. “The factory . . . I was hiding . . . there. Haven. Haven brought me here.”
So that’s what she had been doing when they’d linked. Damn. Maybe she hadn’t gone back there after all. Maybe since she’d gotten what she’d wanted from the place, she had no further use for it.
No. Haven would have to go back there. The trident had been in Kyana’s vision, and Haven hadn’t had it here. She had to have left it in the factory.
Ignoring Ryker’s intense stare, Kyana moved around the back of the lot to study the tall brick building. She should’ve known he wouldn’t take the hint to stay put. He had something he wanted to say and he wouldn’t rest until he’d spoken his mind.
“What?”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Dandy.”
He stiffened at the sarcastic sting of her words. “I don’t mean physically, Ky. I wouldn’t have let—”
She spun on him and thumped her fist in the middle of his chest. “You take your orders from me. I thought I made that clear before we left Olympus. You will do nothing where Haven is concerned. Do you understand me? You’re not a tracer. Your job is to bring her in after I subdue her.”
“I’m not to interfere unless your life is at risk.” Ryker held up his hands, but a flicker of cold steel flashed in his eyes. “I know you think you are, but you’re not completely in charge yet, Ky. Artemis and Ares are still my bosses.”
“Fuck that,” she spat, loathing that he was r
ight and that, technically, there wasn’t a damned thing she could do to stop him from taking Haven down without her say-so.
He reached for her, but wisely dropped his hand before she had to remove it at the wrist. “You’re more important than Haven. Protecting you, keeping you alive, is my priority.”
Because she was a Chosen.
Bullshit.
“So if she’d had the trident with her, you would have killed her tonight?”
“I don’t know, but I’m almost certain you wouldn’t have.”
So much for their truce. Whatever soft, gooey emotions might have been growing inside her these last weeks hardened to bitterness. This was why things would never work out between them.
Ryker had the ability to dig so deeply into what made her tick that at times like this, she hated him for it. How was she supposed to give herself completely to someone who could piss her off so easily?
And if he dug far enough, he’d see she wasn’t as strong as she claimed to be, see what she’d come from to get where she was. What then? Would he look at her the way he’d looked at Haven today?
No. This was never going to work. Once this job was over, so were she and Ryker.
“You think you could have stopped her from shifting and getting away?” she asked, knowing she was taking more of her anger out of him than he deserved.
Ryker was duty-bound. His place in the Order came before everything else. She’d known that from the moment she met him. So why was it bothering her so much now?
She plowed on, preferring the anger to the gnaw of guilt and frustration. “I seem to remember you trying to blast her with your Jedi mind power and it didn’t work either. If you have all the answers, then what’s our next step? How do we find her? The trident?”
The compassion in his eyes settled a bit of the ire boiling in her gut, and that pissed her off even more. She wanted to be angry right now, damn it. She wanted this to be as personal for him as it was for her.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, his voice low and steady.
They’d come to a crossroads.
There was nothing else to say except “Give me your word that you won’t kill her.”
She didn’t know how long they stood matching each other glare for glare. Neither was willing to back down or to admit the other just might be right in his views . . . or at least have a right to them.
“You know I’ll have to stop you if you go after her,” she said. “Whatever it takes.”
“If it comes to it, I hope your judgment will be sound enough that I won’t have to do anything.”
This time when he reached for her she didn’t glare him down, but when he put his hand on her waist, she pushed him away. As much as she wanted to lean on him, she couldn’t. It was only going to be worse if she kept letting herself daydream about what could happen if she believed the way he seemed to that they were supposed to be together.
When Ryker didn’t make another move to soothe her, she knew the argument was over. He wasn’t going to give in and neither would she. Still, she believed he wouldn’t step in unless he saw absolutely no other way to prevent her death.
He’d kill Haven before he stood by and let her kill the new goddess, but otherwise, he wouldn’t interfere.
He lowered his head and looped his thumb in her belt loops, drawing her into him again. She stepped back, but when he tangled his fingers in her hair, she wanted nothing more than for him to kiss her. Her pride wouldn’t allow it, however, and she lowered her face, forcing him to press his lips to her head instead.
Later, she would tell him whatever this was between them was over. Right now, she didn’t have the strength for it.
As Ryker slipped his fingers from Kyana’s hair to under her chin, he wished that he wasn’t one of Ares’s sentinels. That he was just a normal man who could comfort this woman who’d pricked her way beneath his skin. The fact that she wouldn’t even look him in the eye right now told him she was sorry she’d ever let him get as close as he’d gotten, and that pissed him off more than anything she could have said directly to him.
He pulled her closer, burying her face in his neck, and winced as he felt her hands push against his chest. With a sigh, he dropped his arms and released her.
Their jobs always seemed to be in the way of their future—whether she acknowledged that future or not.
Silas stepped around the side of the trailer and Ryker waited for him to make a smart-ass comment, but the Witch wisely restrained himself.
“You sure I can’t talk you out of going into the big, dark, scary building at night?” Silas asked.
Kyana smoothed her hair over her shoulder and jostled herself back into business mode. “I think you’ve been hanging out with your pouty girlfriend for too long. You’ve become as pansy-assed as she is.”
Silas laughed. “I’m just a realist. I’ve discovered that fighting is more fun if you actually see your opponent’s face when you ram your fist into it. And Sixx isn’t pouty or a pansy. You’d be surprised how well her body—”
Kyana elbowed him in the stomach and shut him up.
Silas slipped his arm lightly around her shoulder, and the searing sensation of jealousy ripped through Ryker’s stomach.
When Silas glimpsed his face, he shrugged. “Lots of debris in this field.” He pointed at Kyana’s bare toes. “Thought she might want a piggyback ride.”
“If anyone’s giving her a piggyback ride, it’s me,” Ryker grumbled.
“I don’t take piggybacks from anyone.”
Silas laughed. “Someone really needs to teach you that you’re a woman and showing those attributes outside of the bedro—”
Kyana shot the Witch a deadly stare that silenced him as quickly as her elbow had, but Ryker could finish Silas’s statement for him. Surely he was kidding, though. The bedroom? There was definitely a flirtatious relationship here, but Ryker couldn’t see Kyana hooking up with someone like Silas.
Why? Because he’s nothing like you?
He scowled. Kyana wasn’t exactly his type, and he was willing to bet he wasn’t hers. If they weren’t being forced to work together, would the constant need for her have subsided by now?
He considered that for a moment and decided that the answer was undoubtedly no. The effort she put into fighting for her friends was exactly what he wanted in a woman. The compassion she displayed for Haven today, even if it was buried under an exterior of steel, proved she wasn’t the hard-ass everyone else saw her for.
She was exactly his type in exactly the right package. Strong, independent, with a creamy soft center you had to dig deep to taste. His type, indeed.
He pressed on behind Silas and Kyana. None of that mattered now. When this job was done, then maybe he could think about what should and should not be between him and Ky. But right now, he had to make sure she did her job, so he wouldn’t be forced to do his.
He’d still give Kyana the space and time she needed to try and subdue her friend, but if it looked like she couldn’t complete her task, or if Haven attempted to flee again, he’d have to step in.
That thought soured his mood even more. If he was forced to step in, it wouldn’t matter what fate had decided for their future. There would be nothing left between them if he was forced to kill Haven.
“You know we can’t just leave her dad here to die,” he grumbled, forcing himself to stop mooning over what might or might not happen. “We have to get him help just like we get everyone else.”
Kyana shrugged. “We’ll come back when we’re done in the factory. If he’s still there, maybe I’ll think about saving him. It would be a pity for a Dark Breed other than Haven to sink its teeth into that ass—”
She stopped abruptly and Ryker knew she’d caught a scent as she lifted her head and sniffed the wind. Ryker smelled it too.
Silas’s face lost all traces of humor. “Dark Breeds?”
“Yeah, and something a hell of a lot worse,” Ryker muttered.
If Haven was still here, sh
e wasn’t alone anymore.
Chapter Ten
The door to the abandoned factory hung by one rusty hinge. It was a relief to find a place they could easily access, though as they stood on the steps, Kyana was pretty sure Ryker and Silas didn’t want to go inside any more than she did.
“Dear God, what is that smell?”
Finally, Silas was able to detect the stench Ryker and Kyana had picked up halfway across the debris-littered field. It was familiar, sulfuric, and as nasty as unclean ass. Kyana had smelled it on the key to Tartarus when she’d been assigned to lock Hell back up, as well as in the room at the Healing Circle from which Haven had escaped after Kyana had turned her.
Given those two associations, that sulfuric stink was putting a knot in Kyana’s stomach now.
“I’m not sure,” she said, taking her first tentative step inside. “But I’m starting to think it might be Cronos.”
The sulfuric stench was overpowering enough to hide the real scents of the factory, which Kyana was beginning to suspect would have been foul with or without Cronos’s presence. Already she could see the hooks hanging from the ceiling, the dried blood, the carcasses left to rot weeks ago when the world had gone topsy-turvy. “Think it’s a meatpacking plant. But that stink isn’t from this place, it’s from the people in it.”
“Well, it can’t be Cronos. He’s still dead,” Ryker said, stepping beside her. His eyes swirled red as he honed in on his ability to penetrate the darkness.
“Haven’s seeing him, remember? Now they have the trident too. I’m guessing Cronos is more than just bones now. A spirit maybe.”
She studied the large, nasty room. That piggyback ride Silas had offered wasn’t looking too bad right about now. She looked at Ryker. “I still have my natural immunity to disease and infection, right?”
He nodded.
Kyana sighed and began the tedious chore of picking her way to the stairs without losing a toe.
“Hello. I don’t have any such built-in defenses,” Silas grumbled. Ryker and Kyana ignored his complaints and he finally followed behind them, muttering under his breath.