by Sable Grace
Then, there was a loud squeal and she was thrown into the back of Silas’s seat. The trident fell from her hand, rolled on the floor by her feet. They were spinning. Around and around, until finally, they stopped, facing the direction from which they’d been fleeing.
“Duck!”
Silas’s scream was muffled by a loud thwack, and Kyana instinctively grabbed Kevin, shoved his head between his knees, then draped herself over him. Every window imploded, shards of glass erupting in an explosive shower around their heads.
As she carefully lifted her head to see if Ryker and Silas were okay, a momentary calm fell over the Humvee. A slash of blood fell over Silas’s right cheekbone, but otherwise, he looked fine. Ryker, on the other hand, was cussing up a storm, brushing glass from his lap even as he was lifting his hands to grip the metal around the broken window and lifting himself through the opening.
“Ryker, stop!”
She didn’t know exactly what had prevented their getaway, but she sure as hell didn’t want him out there facing it alone. Using Kevin’s curved back as a stool, she pressed her knee into him and shoved herself out the window after Ryker.
He didn’t acknowledge her, his gaze narrowed on the road. Her breath caught in her throat at the freakish event heading their way. A funnel tore over the streets, roughly six feet tall and four feet wide. Not huge, but sweeping street signs and trash cans out of its path as it hurled itself in their direction.
But what held Kyana’s attention was its brightness. Green and gold fireworklike lights spit out from the top, making it look like a sad little birthday cake.
“What the hell is that?”
Ryker folded his arms over his chest, looking less impressed than even Kyana was. “That, I believe, is Cronos.”
She sputtered. “You’re kidding.”
“Well, Cronos through Haven of course. Gods have the ability to screw with weather, and I’m guessing the devastating sort of weather was Cronos’s specialty.”
Relief kept her rooted in place. If Haven was indeed at the center of that whirlwind, then she’d made it out of that damned explosion.
“I would have thought he’d be bigger,” she muttered.
“Size matters?”
Kyana snorted. “Most definitely.”
The faint trace of a smile lit up the side of his face she could see. “Not in this case. Get in the car. I don’t want to see what that thing turns into when it stops.”
Together, she and Ryker jumped back into the Humvee, only to find Silas slumped over the steering wheel.
“Silas!” Kyana dragged him away from the wheel while Ryker scooted over them into the driver’s seat.
She glanced at the floorboard in the back and a groan escaped her. The trident was gone. As a sick feeling twisted her gut, she looked at Kevin in the backseat. When she saw his white face and bug eyes, she knew they’d fallen into a trap.
Silas moaned. Taking that as a sign that he’d be fine, she turned her fury onto Kevin.
“What happened!” she screamed.
Kevin said nothing, instead raising his arm to point over her head. She swiveled in her seat to look out the windshield. Haven stood some twenty feet away, and in her hands, all glowy and taunting, was the trident.
“Looking for this?” Haven smirked. Soot covered her from head to toe, making her look like more of a monster than should have been possible. Only the whites of her eyes showed through the blackness, eerie, whitish yellow slits encasing black pupils that flickered with such menace, Kyana actually flinched though an entire vehicle separated them.
She pushed Silas off her, ready to jump from the car and go after that damned conduit again. She’d been so freaking close! But the engine sputtered to life and she was thrown backward as Ryker smashed the gas.
She had an instant of regret when the Humvee sped toward Haven, but she kept her gaze focused on that trident. They plowed into her, but rather than sending her flying, it was the Humvee that lifted into the air and smashed onto its front bumper. Kyana’s head cracked against Silas’s as the vehicle righted itself. The hood now held a dent the size of Arizona, but Haven was unscathed.
She stood in exactly the same spot, a wicked grin on her face.
“Cronos, you son of a bitch,” she muttered.
“What the hell is she made of?” Kevin asked, finally daring to poke his head over their shoulders. “God, please don’t let her have me!”
“She doesn’t want you right now, ass hat.” Kyana’s gaze finally moved from the trident in Haven’s hand to Ryker’s face. “She should be dead or really hurt, but it’s like Cronos encased her in steel. How do we get that trident back?”
“You don’t.” Haven was closer now, her hands on the dented hood as she leaned forward a bit to peer into the broken windshield. She gestured down the length of her body. “He shouldn’t be strong enough to do this yet, but you really really pissed him off.” She smiled, her fangs flashing over her bottom lip. “Thank you.”
The funnel was gone, but there was a heavy wind circling Haven now. Her hair was blowing, her filthy clothes puckering against her body, then out again.
“You think you can stop us from finding the conduits by killing the psychics?” Haven roared. “My friends?”
Kyana blinked, gripping the dashboard until her knuckles cracked. Haven thought they’d murdered these people? Had she not seen the gruesome way in which they had been killed? Totally not her style.
“There are others who can show me what I need to see,” Haven continued, her black eyes glimmering, looking like tiny obsidian stones. “It will take me no time to return to St. Augustine, Kyana. How long will it take you?”
Thunder crackled overhead, and Haven threw her arms into the air while Kyana and Ryker shimmied back out of the window to grab her. The smell of gasoline smothered the scent of death in the small town, and before she could pull her body free of the vehicle, there were flames. Kyana barely had time to react before the hood of the Humvee shot up in a blaze.
Wild laughter surrounded them from all sides, and then Haven was gone.
Chapter Fourteen
“Get the human!” Kyana strained against the Humvee’s door in an attempt to get Silas out. The door creaked, but opened only an inch, the side of their vehicle damaged more than she’d realized. She summoned what little remaining Vampyric strength she still possessed and ripped the door from its hinges, sending it sailing overhead to impale the heart of a palm tree.
She reached for Silas, but his body had become wedged when the collision with Haven had shifted the driver’s seat, pinning him against the high center console. The denim encasing his bent legs smoldered from the heat of the motor and the ever-growing flames.
If she ripped him out of the vehicle, he’d be torn in two. She could dismantle the metal that had become a cage around him, but that would take care she didn’t have time to give. He didn’t have the healing powers she and Ryker possessed. If she hauled Silas out of the Humvee too quickly, she’d kill him. However, if she took the time required, he’d die in the explosion. Already the flames were bubbling the green and yellow paint on the dash. She needed to cool the Humvee off. Needed a hose or . . .
Gods have the ability to screw with the weather.
Ryker’s words bounced around Kyana’s head as she stepped away from the vehicle and stared at the sky. If gods could screw with the weather, surely that went for goddesses as well.
She imagined a hurricane dropping buckets of rain down upon them. The skies darkened. Thunder rumbled. It started with a light drizzle, but the two drops of rain that splattered against her head gave her enough hope to dig for more.
Her skin zinged and her blood grew hot—a sensation she hadn’t felt as a Vamp in centuries and made her feel more alive than she could ever remember. The sky opened up, and a torrential rain exploded down upon them, dousing the flames and filling the air with thick, black smoke.
They weren’t in the clear yet, but she was pretty sure the Humve
e wouldn’t explode. Reaching around Silas, she placed her hands on the console. She tucked her head toward her chest in an effort not to inhale the stench of burning flesh and shoved. The metal and motor refused to budge.
With a curse, she quickly checked to make sure Silas was still breathing before vaulting over the roof. Her bare feet barely found traction on the wet grass before she jerked open the passenger door, leaving it swinging from its hinges.
Placing her foot above the back tire, she wrapped her fingers around the console. It took several attempts before her rain-drenched hands could find the dexterity needed to pull the large chunk of steel away, careful not to let the torn metal slice through Silas’s ever-paling skin.
When her hands could easily fit between Silas and the console, Kyana moved back around the Humvee and extracted him from the wreck, setting him carefully on the wet pavement.
Kneeling beside him, she rested her cheek against his chest. The steady beat of his heart calmed the rush of adrenaline warming her blood. Suddenly, she was very cold. Shivering. Icy.
She gently ran her hands over his legs. The warmth coming from beneath the denim caused her hands to quake. Though the thick fabric had protected him some, he’d still been burned.
“I need my bag,” Silas groaned, finally coming around. She reached inside and snatched the pack from the floorboard before returning to grab him by the collar. She dragged him across the street where Ryker was propping up a rather stunned-looking Kevin.
“I—don’t want to—do this anymore,” Kevin said, gripping his chest.
She kinda hoped he was having a heart attack.
She shot her gaze to Ryker. “Can you get us another vehicle?”
“Yeah, you got them?”
She studied the pale-faced duo on the ground and nodded, her heart finally slowing to a less painful tattoo. “Yeah.”
“Back in a minute.”
He disappeared around the corner, giving her the chance to catch her breath. When Silas rubbed his head and opened his eyes, she fell onto the ground beside him. He tried to rip the denim away from his calves. Failing, he looked up at Kyana. She sliced his pants with her dagger from hem to knee and carefully separated the edges. His legs were red and covered in nasty bruises, but it didn’t appear as though anything was broken or burned too badly.
Once she’d helped him dig through his bag and apply a cooling salve to his wounds, she asked, “What the hell happened back there?”
It took him a minute to look capable of any kind of speech, then he finally said, “Distraction.”
Well, that explained everything. “Elaborate.”
He pulled himself up to lean against the wall of the brick building behind them. “When you and Ryker left us to confront that funnel, Haven appeared in front of us. She knocked us out. Bait and switch.”
“She took the trident,” she muttered, feeling like every kind of fool for leaving it in the car in the first place.
“Lovely,” Silas rubbed the back of his head. “I think I’m sitting your next adventure out.”
Kyana was beginning to wish she could too.
Chapter Fifteen
Cassadaga was as bereft of working vehicles as it was living citizens. Kyana, Silas, Ryker, and Kevin walked the circumference of the entire town twice before finally giving up and settling in to rest in one of the few buildings still intact. A local occult bookstore. They’d agreed that by the time they found a car and drove back to the portals in St. Augustine, Ryker’s powers would have returned anyway.
The bookstore contained only three tall shelves of books that looked older than Kyana. Each volume was coated in a fine layer of dust behind glass, locked cabinets, and just at a glance, she could tell they were valuable. She wished the store she’d found Haven in hadn’t been demolished in the explosion. At least then maybe they’d be able to look for some clue as to what Haven had been doing there. But here, in this untouched bookshop, there was nothing to do but sit and wait. Wait and sit. It was enough to drive a Lychen, Vampyre, goddess to suicide.
Perched on the edge of a reading table, she stretched her neck, peering over her shoulder at Silas, who’d curled into the corner to sleep on the other side of the room. Haven’s dad was finally asleep, his snores a rude reminder that he was here and his daughter wasn’t. Ryker had disappeared into the office section of the shop to try and refocus after the chaotic day they’d had. She couldn’t blame him. Refocusing sounded like heaven.
Technically alone now, she felt the silence was beautiful and refreshing . . . until Kevin snored again, breaking her moment of calm and rattling the windows.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and she turned to find Ryker standing just outside the office watching her.
“What?” she grumbled.
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “You’re beautiful.”
“Oh.” That certainly hadn’t been what she’d expected him to say. “Thanks?”
Chuckling, he eased onto the table beside her, his hand falling casually on her thigh as though it belonged there.
“So surprised at such a small compliment,” he said.
It was her turn to shrug. “Beauty really isn’t my priority these days.”
As her gaze fell to her torn, baggy jeans and sooty, ripped flannel, she chuckled. “Besides, beautiful isn’t exactly the word I’d use. Not right now.”
He took her chin in his fingers, his touch so soft she would have thought she’d imagined it if not for the momentary feel of the callus on his thumb. “I’m not talking about your clothes. I’m talking about you.”
He pressed a light kiss to her nose, making her feel like both a six-year-old child and a sexual woman, and all thoughts of pushing him away were forgotten. She was supposed to be ending this thing between them, and yet, all she wanted to do was curl up against his chest and let him hold her. Let him keep telling her things like this.
“What about me?” she heard herself ask. Her cheeks burned hot as she realized she was fishing for more—a moment of humanity that she so desperately needed after everything inhuman she’d encountered these last few days.
His finger trailed down her neck and rested over her breast. “This.”
“My breasts?”
His smile was crooked, his dimples deadly. “Your heart. You’re chasing down your best friend in order to save a race you have no use for.”
“I don’t hate humans,” she defended.
“You should. They’ve never done a damned thing for you.”
Kyana forced herself to meet his gaze, afraid that if she didn’t, it would tell him too much. “They’re no different than Dark Breeds. There are some worth my time. Others don’t even deserve my efforts to kill them.”
It was true enough. A few weeks ago, she’d pretty much believed all humans were more monstrous than the Dark Breeds they hadn’t known existed. But since then, she’d met a few that had gotten under her skin and warmed her toward the race. Like Hank, the retired cop who’d helped them track down the Order members responsible for killing the Chosen. And his adoring wife and their sweet son. They deserved saving, and Kyana had to believe there were other humans out there who did as well.
Uncomfortable with the personal direction this conversation had headed, she stood and walked around the table to the bookcases behind them. She could feel Ryker watching her as she studied the titles. Taming a Demon. The Spirit Inside You. Herbs and How to Use Them.
“Taming a demon?” She laughed. “That’s rich. Do they think you can stick one on a leash and have it do your bidding?”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, the musty scent of paper and words swirling up her nose, intoxicating her. “Gods, I love that smell.”
“Dust?”
She smiled. “Books. There’s nothing like it.”
Ryker watched Kyana trace the glass case with her finger, leaving a clear path in the dust. Typical, he thought. Just when the conversation turned personal, she changed it. She wasn’t a coward by
any means, but when it came to dealing with real issues, she wasn’t just yellow, she was freaking neon.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a book lover.”
“I told you before I liked to read.”
“Yes, but liking to read books and savoring the scent of them are two different rungs on the ladder of book geeks.”
“I’m not a geek. But when you can’t watch television or mess with a computer or even listen to a radio, you need some sort of entertainment to fill the downtime. Besides, book worlds are the only places I’m guaranteed to find decent human beings, aren’t they?”
“Tell me why you hate them.” He eased off the table to face her directly, knowing she wasn’t going to like his pushiness.
But these days, moments of quiet to talk were scarce, and he was praying for one small morsel of her now. One small truth that would prove she trusted him. He’d felt her pushing away today, and knew she was going to break the connection they were making. So be it. If she felt she needed to run from him, fine. He’d figure out how to deal with that. But first, he wanted to see how far beneath her skin he’d gotten, and if she could admit even one secret of her past, it would tell him a lot.
“I already told you, I don’t hate them,” she said, her back still turned to the bookcases, where he could see her reflection in the glass. She wasn’t really looking at the books anymore, but her pride wouldn’t allow her to turn around.
Her gaze met his in the glass and quickly returned to scanning the books.
So that was it. She wasn’t going to offer him anything. He was going to have to pry it out of her, confess that he already knew about her marriage and the abuse she’d taken as a young girl. And when he did, she’d hate him as much as she hated her abusers.