“Well, we can.”
“And we decided never to try. You know what it was like for us. There’s no guarantee who we turned wouldn’t become dangerous.”
“Kit won’t be like them.” It was all he could say, all he could offer as an explanation. Nothing else could be said. He couldn’t have let her die without trying. Simple as that.
“Ah.” Sebastian sighed, the sound heavy with understanding.
“What do you mean, ah?”
“Come on, Rafe. You forget who you’re talking to. I know what you’re saying even when you’re not saying it.”
Rafe grimaced, flinching outright when Sebastian added, “So are you prepared to spend eternity with this woman?”
“Who said anything about eternity?”
“You turned her. She’s yours.”
She’s yours. The words gave him a thrill he shouldn’t have felt. His eyes drifted to Kit’s lips, barely registering his brother’s voice as he continued talking.
“You don’t turn someone and leave her to fend for herself. She’s your responsibility now.”
“I’ll see that she’s properly initiated.”
Sebastian chuckled, the sound deep, smug and knowing. He could almost see his brother giving him that leering wink he gave when a particularly attractive woman walked past. “I’ll bet.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter, little brother.”
“You mean you haven’t thought about doing her every which way? Come, be honest.”
“That’s not why I did it,” he replied even as he knew his answer acknowledged his brother’s assertion that he had thought about sleeping with her. Hell, he had.
Hell, why deny it? Sebastian would know he was lying. That was their gift, and their curse.
Kit had fascinated him from the start. And he wanted her. He couldn’t say whether he would have done what he had if he hadn’t wanted her so damned much.
At that moment, she arched off the bed, crying out and clawing her cheeks as if she wanted to tear the skin from her body.
“Shit. I have to go.”
“Sounds like you have your hands full,” Sebastian said in his ear. “Go for now, but I expect you to keep me in the loop. Call me. I don’t like any of this, Rafe. As a matter of fact, why don’t I—”
“I’m fine,” he bit out. “We’ll both be fine. Stay where you are. I don’t need a babysitter. I’ll call you in a few days.”
“Call me tomor—”
Rafe shut his phone, letting it fall to the floor with a thud as he dropped down on the bed beside Kit and gathered her in his arms.
Her cries tore at his heart. He tugged her hands down from her face, wincing at the long, bleeding scratches she had given herself.
Pulling her into his arms, he held her tightly as she thrashed, determined that she not hurt herself, determined that she survive this. Determined that this not be the end of her.
The end of them.
CHAPTER 20
Kit fought against sleep. It was like fighting free from a great thick fog. Her mind shook free of the mist, eyes slowly opening. She stared straight ahead, gaze fixed on wood rafters as she tried to make sense of where she was—and what had happened.
Lockhart’s face floated before her, and it all came back with blinding clarity.
Her hand flew to her stomach, meeting nothing save the cool cotton of a T-shirt. Grabbing the neckline, she peered down her shirt. Shadowed flesh met her gaze, breasts bare and trembling. No wound. No blood. Not a scratch.
Her gaze flew up at the sound of a door opening. Rafe stood at the threshold, fast-fading sunlight haloing his tall form, arms full of brown paper bags. A tantalizing aroma carried to her nose.
Squinting and shading her eyes with a hand, she whispered in a parched croak, “What happened?”
“You were…hurt.”
She nodded, everything flooding over her in a rush. The explosion of pain in her chest. Her burning flesh. Hot, unforgiving asphalt colliding with her back. And Rafe. His face looming over her, etched in panic—concern she could not credit. Hardly the reaction of a man determined to kill her.
“I was shot.”
He said nothing, simply stared at her.
“I’m alive,” she murmured, hands drifting down to her stomach again, feeling herself through her T-shirt. Not wounded. Alive. Incredible. Impossible.
“How?” she demanded, beginning to grow worried at his silence, at his unflinching stare, at the way she imagined she could hear his very heart beating a steady rhythm against his muscled chest. Crazy. “Did you take me to the hospital?”
Averting his gaze, Rafe moved from the door, kicking it closed with his foot. The savory aroma from the brown paper bags reached her, distracting her.
He nodded, answering slowly, “No. Not the hospital.”
Her brow wrinkled in confusion. She eased herself up on her elbows. “How…” She shook her head. “I was shot, right?” She remembered the pain. The burning agony in her stomach. The white-hot fear, the sudden, absolute knowledge that death was at hand. She couldn’t have imagined that.
“Would you care to eat while we talk?” He set the bags down on a table near the window.
She eyed him carefully. Dressed in black from head to toe, dark hair disheveled, he looked like something out of Mission Impossible.
“I thought you might wake soon,” he went on to say, “so I got some food. Glad I wasn’t gone long.” He smiled mildly. A vague sort of smile that revealed nothing. “You woke sooner than I expected.”
She dropped her gaze to the bags in his arms. Surprisingly, she was hungry. Hungrier—she couldn’t help thinking—than someone recovering from a gunshot should be. But then she bore no wound. Nothing made sense. Shouldn’t she feel weak? Sore? Achy?…Something?
Beginning to think she had lost her mind, she tossed back the covers. “I could eat,” she allowed. Standing, she felt another need assert itself. Turning, she moved into the bathroom, sensing his eyes on her bare legs as she moved.
After emptying her bladder, she stared at herself in the mirror as she washed her hands, wondering what was different about her reflection. She looked the same—yet not.
She pressed her palm over her chest, felt the steady beat of her heart for a moment. Strong and persistent, it thudded against her hand. She slid her hand down, splaying her fingers over the thin cotton T-shirt, still marveling at the absence of a wound. Had she dreamt it all?
“You okay in there?” Rafe’s voice carried through the door. The deep rumble of it made the hairs on her arm stand on end. A tickle fluttered inside her belly.
Stepping from the bathroom, she observed him as he set the bags of food on the table. Tugging on her T-shirt, trying to make it extend past mid-thigh, she approached the table. “What happened to my clothes?”
He motioned to a leather chair. A small stack of clothes sat there. A neatly folded gray top and blue jeans. Before she could ask him about her clothes from earlier, he asked, “You like barbecue? They seem to have a lot of that around here.”
He nodded to the bags. A part of her longed to refuse the food, to demand answers first, but her belly rumbled in protest as he began to unload several items wrapped in white butcher’s paper. The tempting smell of smoked meat intensified her torment. Her stomach cramped in hunger.
“It’s Texas. We do barbecue,” she replied, lowering herself into a chair and shrugging lightly, as if the prospect of food mattered little to her. When he unwrapped a sandwich laden with thick slices of juicy barbecued brisket she had to restrain herself from snatching it up.
“Go ahead,” he encouraged. “You need the protein.”
Lifting the heavy sandwich to her lips, she wondered at this strange remark. “And why is that?” she asked before taking a bite.
He lowered himself into a chair across from her, an unwrapped sandwich before him. His demon-dark eyes fixed on her, steady and intent. “The calories are…important.”
“What are you ta
lking about?” she asked around a mouthful, her fingers pressed to her lips to cover the fact that she was talking as she chewed.
Instead of answering, he opened a container of creamy potato salad and handed her a fork. Accepting the container, she dug into the chunky potato-and-egg mixture.
“Here.” He pulled out a couple of liters of sports drink from another bag. “Hydrate yourself.”
“Yeah,” she murmured. “This could hydrate a small village.”
“Come on,” he directed.
She lifted the heavy jug and sipped. At the first small swallow of liquid, it struck her how parched she was. As he watched, she drank deeply, heedless of the liquid dribbling out of the sides of her mouth.
His gaze followed the trail down her neck, his dark eyes lightening, the centers glowing almost white as his look traveled over her flesh. Fire licked her cheeks.
Clearing her throat, she fought down the rising heat in her face and murmured, “I thought we were going to talk about what happened today. In the parking lot. That bastard Lockhart shot me.” Her hand dropped to her stomach. “Or not,” she muttered. She shook her head and snorted lightly. “Guess not. That guy couldn’t shoot the broad side of a barn. Did I fall and hit my head or something?”
How else could she have imagined being shot? Imagined the hot asphalt at her back. Rafe leaning over her. The sweep of death’s cold hand over her cheek?
“Or something,” he muttered so low she barely heard him.
“What?”
“Not today,” Rafe murmured, his voice still low. “You weren’t shot today.”
She leaned forward in her chair, shaking her head, confused at why he’d emphasized today.
“But I was shot?”
Rafe dragged a hand through his hair. The locks fell back in place as if he had not touched his hair at all. “Look, Kit, this is complicated.” He stretched his neck, rotating it in small circles.
Lifting her sandwich, she took a bite. Swallowing, she wiped barbecue sauce from the corner of her lip and studied him. “Since I met you, everything has gotten complicated. That’s nothing new.” Setting her sandwich down, she gave him her sternest stare. The kind her grandmother used to give her and Gideon if they dared act like the children they were and intrude on her life. If they dared to be anything more than invisible. “Lay it on me.”
With a heavy sigh, he began, “Nothing happened today. You’ve done nothing but sleep…today.” He motioned to the rumpled bed as if that were evidence enough.
“What are you talking about?” The way he’d stressed today made her nervous.
He shifted in his chair. “You slept the day away. And yesterday. And the day before that. Today is Wednesday.”
“Bullshit.” She shook her head and released a nervous little laugh. “That’s impossible.” A knot grew in her chest at his stoic expression. “I would have woken up. It’s impossible to sleep that long.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Normally it would be.”
“What do you mean normally? What are you saying, Rafe?”
“You’re not normal anymore.” The lightness from his dark gaze had long since fled. Obdurate black gazed at her. Eyes so dark, her reflection could be seen in them. Bleak, desperate.
Tossing down her napkin, she leaned back in her chair, narrowing her gaze on his impassive face, on the hard, unyielding lines that her palm itched to slap. “What are you telling me?”
“All right.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest, his face hardening as if he were about to perform an unpleasant task. “The reason EFLA wants you dead isn’t because you’re a rogue hunter.”
She leaned forward, ready at last for the truth, knowing all along he had been holding out on her. At last, she would have her answers.
“It isn’t?” Her stomach clenched and stirred with an unsettling flutter. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure she wanted the truth.
“It was easier to let you believe that.” He released a heavy sigh. “In the grand scheme of things, EFLA couldn’t give a damn about sending out their special agents to assassinate a couple of rogue hunters. They’ve got bigger prey to hunt.”
She had always thought the same thing. Thought it rather silly for them to care so much about her and Gideon. To demand their deaths when they were hunting like enemies. Bigger prey to hunt. But that meant they saw her as the bigger prey? A shiver chased down her spine. Why?
“But they do want me dead. And Gideon.”
“Yes.” The words dropped as heavily as a stone from his lips.
“Why?”
“You’re a descendant of the Marshan line. A female descendant. As far as EFLA is concerned, you’re a dangerous commodity.” His gaze narrowed sharply on her. “Doubly so because you place yourself in the sphere of lycans.”
She shook her head. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
She had never heard the name before—not that she knew anything about her family’s genealogy. Her grandmother certainly wasn’t interested in the subject. If either of her parents had been, they had not lived long enough to share the knowledge with her.
“It will. It does.”
Shrugging one shoulder, she asked, “So what if I descend from this Marsan line.”
“Marshan,” he corrected her.
“Again, what’s any of this supposed to mean to me?”
“You have never heard of the Marshan Prophecy?”
“No.”
“Cooper knew. He knew your family was descended from the Marshan line. It’s why he saved you and your brother all those years ago. And it’s the reason he’s dead now.”
Her throat tightened at his words. “He died protecting me?”
Rafe nodded.
She released a shuddery breath. A part of her had always resented Cooper—his closeness with Gideon had, at times, made her feel inferior, alone, a secondary consideration to both of them. But he was the reason Kit and Gideon were alive today. He had been there, arriving moments before their mother turned to kill them both. And now he was gone. Dead. Murdered.
And if Rafe were to be believed, he was gone because of her. Because of some prophecy about which she knew nothing.
“Why?” she demanded. “What’s so wrong with descending from this family?”
“You’re descended from Étienne Marshan, born approximately A.D. thirty. You’re descended from him—before he became the world’s first lycan. You’re descended from his child, Christophe Marshan. A single child who escaped, who was not infected with his father’s curse.”
Kit stared, unable to speak, struggling to wrap her head around what he was saying.
Rafe leaned forward in his chair. “Do you hear what I’m saying, Kit?”
She nodded dumbly.
“You share DNA with every lycan in existence.” His voice scraped the air, grating her frayed nerves. “A female of the Marshan line can successfully procreate with a lycan to create a new species of lycan. A hybrid, neither fully human nor fully lycan—a dove natu. Loosely translated to mean double birth.”
“Bullshit.” The word exploded from her mouth at missile speed. “You want me to believe that I’m a potential”—she groped for the right word—“carrier for some prophetic species?” A damned brood mare for the bloodthirsty monsters she had made it her mission to hunt? She closed her eyes and shook her head, suddenly unable to look at his handsome face. To look into his eyes, to see the truth there.
He went on as if she had not spoken, penetrating the wall she struggled to erect between him and his horrible words. “A dovenatu can assume the strengths of both humans and lycans.” Softly, he added, “Unfortunately, the dovenatu can also assume all the weaknesses, too. The flaws.”
Flaws. The flaws of lycans were many. Horrific and numerous.
Opening her eyes, she asked sharply, “Meaning?”
“A dovenatu can be evil.”
“Can be?
“They possess free will. Like any human. It’s possible that a dovenatu could be a
scourge on mankind. And for that possibility, EFLA is determined that the prophecy never come to pass.”
The image of her mother as she had last seen her—the only way she remembered her: a monster who killed her husband, who tried to kill Kit and Gideon—flared through her mind. He was telling her she could give birth to one of those creatures? The very thing she hunted? Never.
He nodded. “But a dovenatu can be good, too. Free will, remember? They don’t have to be like lycans.”
Good? Nothing remotely similar to a lycan could ever be good. As far as she was concerned, a dovenatu would be as bad as a lycan. And she would never bring one of them into the world. No matter what he said. She would never let herself produce such a child. Not if she had to tear it from her womb herself.
A flash of heat seared her cheeks, scalding. Her pulse grew to a hammering beat at her neck, blood pounding loud as a drum in her ears. A sense of forbidding swept over her. She shook her head fiercely at his explanation. “I’ve never heard any of this before. You expect me to believe—”
“Kit, I know what I’m talking about,” he broke in, his voice hard, inflexible. His dark eyes scanned her face as swiftly and intently as a hawk.
She held his stare, her mouth drying. A sick premonition swept over her. The tiny hairs at her nape stood on end.
“How? How do you know?”
His eyes drilled into her, the darkness sinking into her very soul, grabbing her heart in a tight vise. “I know,” he repeated. “I know because I’m the very thing EFLA is so afraid you will bring into this world. I’m a dovenatu.”
CHAPTER 21
No!” She shoved back from her chair, sending it toppling to the floor behind her.
Heat washed over her, blistering fire over her skin. Only her heart felt cold. Deadly cold. She’d slept with him, for God’s sake! Her stomach churned. He had deceived her in a way she could never have fathomed.
Shaking her head, she said again, her voice a harsh whisper, “No.”
In that instant, she didn’t know what she was denying. The existence of some prophetic hybrid species? Or that he was one of them.
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