Would she let him hold her? Let him take away the fears that made her feel unwelcome and separated from everyone else? He thought he had already done that.
“Cara...” he called out. “Please find me. Let me help you.”
He heard sounds that his brain processed as trampling feet, headed his way. Vampires, he now knew, didn’t make noise when they moved, so this was someone else. See, Cara. I am learning.
Two cops walked forward with their hands on their weapons, wary of meeting up with anyone in the dark after that body had been found.
“Landau,” he called out to them. “Miami Metro.”
“Detective Landau?” one of them asked.
“One and the same,” Rafe said.
He recognized both of these guys when they got closer, though he didn’t know their names. The taller of the two cops spoke first. “We’ve been over this park twice and found nothing other than a couple of people making out near the boulevard. There are three more officers sweeping the eastern portion. Our guess is that if there is something to be found out here, it will have to be in the daylight. Flashlights just don’t cut it on a night like this.”
The cop glanced over his shoulder. “You going out there anyway?”
Rafe nodded. “My team is somewhere in the east, running along the edge where the factories are. No doubt they will meet up with your guys, if they haven’t already. I got a late start on this and have to join them.”
The tall cop pointed to a spot beyond where Rafe stood and said, “That’s your wall? Where the body was found?”
“My family’s place. I don’t live there.”
The cops shared a glance that told Rafe they might be wondering what kind of privileges a detective coming from such a prominent family might have had. But that wasn’t Rafe’s concern. Beat cops and detectives didn’t always get along, and the fact that these two might envy his background and his rank was no big surprise.
“Thanks for the sweep,” Rafe said, passing them in a few easy strides. “It’s my turn. See you boys later.”
Though he wanted to sprint, Rafe waited until he was out of the cops’ view. Once in the clear he took off, following the scent of wolf that wafted to him from the north, instead of the east, where it would have been expected.
Breathing in the scent, feeling his body respond with a shiver of pleasure, Rafe smiled. “Got you,” he said, and changed direction.
Chapter 27
She didn’t usually get winded, but Cara’s breath came in gasps and flutters as she headed north. Her body shouldn’t have hurt now that she was in the clear, and yet it did. Most of those leftover aches had nothing to do with shape-shifting or leaping from third-story windows, however. They were centered in the place where her and Rafe’s bodies had connected. She still felt the flames.
With her claws, she swiped at the trees she passed as if marking her territory and staking a claim. In truth, this was her lover’s land. He oversaw everything, and now he also owned her body. What about the portion of her soul that wasn’t occupied by spirits? Would Rafe find space there, too?
He was following her, as she figured he would. He’d want to comfort her when she didn’t deserve it. Seeing that memory of her father and mother in the room had spooked her. Her father’s ghostly, colorless skin and her mother’s inky-black hair spread across the sheets were big reminders that the two of them were a species apart from the Were world she was trespassing in at the moment.
Rafe was just a werewolf, and not even Lycan. He possessed no freakish traits other than a dire need to protect what wasn’t protectable. While she...well, she was a Kirk-Killion and should have known better than to fall for a good guy.
“Cara. Let me help you.”
The messages Rafe sent hurt her and made her want to let him catch up. She would have liked another session on the bed or anywhere else they could have conceived of. But if she kept her distance from Rafe, she might be able to get more insight on who desired her the most... Rafe, or the monsters.
She whirled when she heard Rafe speak to someone else and was again stabbed by jealousy. Cara clung to the bark of the tree beside her, needing to ground herself. Humans also roamed this park tonight, and she was in half-wolf stasis.
“You deserve better, Rafe. I’m sorry it’s too late for you to have that chance,” she whispered to herself.
The approach of a Were nearby made Cara turn her head. This wasn’t Rafe. It was someone else whose vibration was familiar because of the Were’s relation to her lover.
“Alpha,” she said, dragging her claws from the bark.
Dylan Landau came toward her with a kind of grace only pure-blooded Lycans possessed. The alpha had found her when she hadn’t wanted to be found. Possibly he could smell his son’s essence, mixed with hers.
“There’s no need to take this on by yourself,” he said calmly, maintaining a polite distance of several feet.
“Isn’t there?” Cara countered.
“We will find the culprit who harmed the human. We always do.”
“The pack is strong,” she agreed.
The way Dylan Landau was intently eyeing her reminded her of Rafe. It felt to her as if this alpha also had the ability to read things in her that very few others could.
“What’s done is done,” he said.
So, he knew what had happened in that attic room. She had feared that he might.
“Against your wishes and the wishes of my family,” Cara returned.
“We had no preconceived notion about what might or might not have taken place when you two met,” he said. “You’re both strong individuals with your own minds.”
“And yet if there was the slightest chance of an unanticipated connection developing between Rafe and me, why did you invite me here?” she asked.
“We invited you here to fulfill an old promise.”
“What promise, exactly, is that?”
“Your father asked that you be allowed to assimilate with other Weres when your time came. I thought we told you this.”
“My father left with my mother in order to keep the monsters away from your doorstep,” Cara said.
Dylan Landau nodded. “Don’t think we didn’t realize and appreciate that at the time.”
“Monsters are my middle name,” Cara said. “I don’t belong here any more than my parents did. I believe I have already proven that a few times over.”
“Perhaps. But maybe they left for other reasons as well.”
“Such as?”
“The desire to protect any offspring they might produce.”
Cara stared at the alpha, who spoke again.
“None of the monsters that were left after that last fight at Fairview actually left Miami. They merely went deeper underground, showing themselves now and then by adding to the city’s body count. Some of us had to make sure that they remained a secret. We have dealt with the problem as best we could.”
Cara tucked her claws inside with a sting and a brief internal whisper. An idea formed in her mind that she wasn’t sure she liked, and yet she had to mention it to the Were responsible for so many lives.
She said slowly, “Was I to come here to help with that? Dig up those monsters? Bring them out of hiding so they can be dealt with in a more effective manner?”
Cara breathed out before continuing. “Could that have been part of the reason you would honor an old promise by inviting someone like me here? We were to help each other? Each of us was to benefit by my visit in some way?”
“Yes,” Dylan Landau said. “I suppose that was the gist of the plan.”
“How do you feel about it now that your son is involved?”
“The only thing your connection with him proves is that your parents were right in the belief that you could assimilate and fit in here, with us.”
She almost smiled. �
��You truly believe that?”
He nodded. “I do, and I am obviously not the only one who does.”
The plan had been a good one, Cara agreed, until Rafe had found her on that beach. Who could possibly have expected the result of that one evening spent with him, away from all this?
Rafe was speaking to her now, messaging her along selective channels. But his father had more to say.
“Now that you know about old promises, what can we expect?”
She said, “I don’t know.” But she did know, of course. Her bond with Rafe was unbreakable—Rafe had told her. Theirs was a deep connection and would last forever.
Her gaze traveled upward to the alpha’s handsome face—a face whose chiseled features Rafe shared. Other than Dylan’s silver hair, the two of them could have been brothers.
It’s too late, she thought again. I can’t live without Rafe, and it might kill us all if I try to live with him.
“Cara?” Dylan’s voice brought her back to the conversation. He was waiting for her decision when there was no decision to be made. None that she could have made, anyway. The only way to avoid the bond she and Rafe had formed was if one of them were to die, and she had no intention of letting that happen. So she had to make the best of things and do her part. She had to honor that old promise, no matter what.
“Rafe has a sadness tucked inside,” she said. “I can feel it when I’m with him.”
Dylan nodded again. “He once liked a woman who was killed by a monster none of us saw. Maybe you can understand why he wants to protect you.”
“She-wolf?” Cara asked, knowing Dylan would follow her question.
“Human,” Dylan replied.
“Then they could not have...”
“There was no real bond. There couldn’t have been, you know.”
Rafe had lost someone he had cared for, and that was the source of his fierce protectiveness for her. Weres didn’t as a rule condone human-Were matings, but the alpha across from her couldn’t have objected to his son’s previous preference, since Dylan had also married a woman who had at one time been human. The difference was that Dana had already become a wolf when she and Dylan had met and bonded.
“Imprinting,” Cara said, testing out the word.
“Hell of a thing,” Dylan returned. “Wonderful when it happens to the right combination of souls.”
Unless one half of that combination is like me. Cara didn’t say that out loud. What she said was, “Yes. Hell of a thing.”
“Shall we return? Go home?” he suggested. “There are humans in the park tonight, along with the wolves. Keeping you out of sight might prevent anything else from showing up unannounced.”
She hadn’t considered that, and should have. She didn’t have the freedom to do as she pleased in Miami. Dylan was right to be wary.
“There are ghosts at the house,” she confessed. “For me, whatever might show up out here is easier to manage.”
Dylan raised an eyebrow in question.
“Though there might have been hunters here, as you tend to believe, and although a werewolf could have done the damage that human sustained, it seems like the work of a demon. And where there is one demon, there are always others. Many others.”
“Demon.” Dylan’s tone darkened. A shadow crossed his face.
“That’s the monster your shooter took down. A demon came for me and took a timely bullet that missed my head.”
Dylan said, “Bullets are never timely, Cara. What you’ve said changes things dramatically.”
“You didn’t know about the demons?”
“No,” Dylan said. “I did not.”
“Do you still want to take me back, behind walls that would never be able to keep a demon out?” she asked.
Dylan Landau didn’t immediately answer that question. His attention was torn by the sound of others approaching. Humans, by scent. The alpha gave her a look of warning and moved toward them.
Cara hung back until she heard Dylan’s greeting. Then, seeing an opportunity to help with this investigation, which would in turn get this park back to normal for a limited time and perhaps help the pack accept her role as Rafe’s mate, Cara melted into the shadows as if she was one of them...and slipped silently away.
* * *
Rafe saw his father talking to the cops. He would have closed the whole area off to everyone if he could have and afterward burned the damn park down. This place had been the bane of Weres for years and a death trap for humans who ignored the danger. It made every detective on the job wary, every damn night, and put werewolves in jeopardy each time a full moon came around.
He sensed that Cara had been near his father and wondered what he had missed. When he heard his father shout, Rafe’s chills returned. Something was wrong, and he knew what had happened as surely as he knew his own name.
Cara had given his dad the slip. She hadn’t just run away from him. She had fled from everyone.
“What the hell are you thinking?” he said aloud. He muscled up to his father when the cops disappeared, and said roughly, “What did you tell her?”
The alpha wasn’t intimidated by his tone. “I told her it was okay, and about the old plan.”
“What else?”
“Nothing we hadn’t told her before.”
Rafe rubbed a hand over his face. “We have to find her. I have to find her.”
“There are more important things in need of our attention. Cara mentioned demons. Plural. Hell, as if vampires aren’t bad enough.”
If Cara had brought a demon out of its hole, they really did need to burn this place down.
“You might not realize what you’re up against if you go after her,” his father said.
“On the contrary, I have a pretty good idea about that,” Rafe countered.
“Yes. I suppose you do,” his father said.
“I’ll help you find her,” Cameron said from behind them.
“You’re needed here, Cameron. You called in the body. They’ll be asking you for more details and may take more statements,” Rafe’s father said. To Rafe, he added, “I’ll come with you to search for Cara.”
“No need. I know where she’d go.”
“There are several reasons to worry about that,” his father warned, deciphering Rafe’s thought.
“So there are,” Rafe muttered. As he spun around on his heels, Rafe repeated the phrase to himself. “So there damn well are.”
Chapter 28
Cara remembered all the cars in the Landau garage and would have taken one if she knew how to drive. Then again, getting out of the Landau compound alone, with a borrowed car, would have been a nightmare. And she’d had one too many nightmares lately.
The body that had been dumped at the base of the Landaus’ wall had been meant as a warning—not for the wolves inside those walls, but for her. It was a none-too-subtle reminder that though she had changed locations, there would be plenty of danger wherever she went unless she relinquished the dark spirit she housed.
She was a danger magnet. Coming to Miami and involving others in her trials had been a mistake. The plan that had been set in motion after all this time had been terribly shortsighted and flawed. She would never be like these Weres, even if she tried.
There would be more deaths. She had been warned about the next one that would soon come. Would it turn out be another mutilated body? This one a Were?
Sooner or later, Rafe and his family would come under careful scrutiny. The Were species couldn’t afford that kind of close attention. She owed this pack for adhering to promises their former alpha had made, and she owed them for at least trying to accept her. Everyone would be safer if she left Miami, but leaving was no longer an option. The thought of never seeing Rafe again made her sick.
Her only option was to stay in Miami and go renegade...sneaking away to fig
ht the dirty battles on her own. She could warn the pack each time the Banshee wailed for someone near to them, even when that would be breaking another set of rules. Pack protected pack, and Rafe was now the central core of hers.
That acknowledgment didn’t prevent the rumbles of inner protest against the current situation, though. Jumbled thoughts came and went, most of them about Rafe and about how, for a time on that bed, she had experienced what it must be like to feel normal. In Rafe’s arms, she had experienced the sublime, and she could look forward to more of that if this pack survived the oncoming tide of monsters.
“Rafe. I’m not sorry we met. I can’t be sorry about what we feel.”
She sent that message to Rafe without meaning to. She had been thinking about him for too long and too hard. Their bond would ensure that he heard her. He would now know what she was doing and where she would go.
“Don’t come after me. This is something I must do.”
Would he see this latest defection as an act of selfishness? Or that she hadn’t liked what happened in that attic room?
Rafe soon responded, “I can be with you, help you. Wait for me. Let me do this. Give me a clue.”
Cara erected a mental wall and reinforced it with continued conscious effort. Then she cursed and backed it up with a growl that tickled her human throat.
How would she manage the distance, let alone getting to an unknown location, if she had to traverse the miles on foot? Daylight wasn’t too far off. Sunlight would make shape-shifting out of the question. Shifting required darkness and had been born of the secrets darkness hid. She had to hurry, shift now, somehow find her way.
A breeze, warm and steamy, ruffled her hair. The scent of wolf the breeze carried offered no comfort now. She had to find a way out of the Landaus’ gates without being seen. The dark spirit was urging her to get going, perhaps for reasons Cara didn’t yet know anything about.
Out of a whole host of sounds going on around her, Cara picked out one as being significant. The slamming of a car door.
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