Reckless

by Selene Charles

  Grace had supposedly already taken him to her hotel room in town, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Anything?” Seth asked, standing immediately.

  Cain shook his head. “No. It’s loyal, or it’s been mind-swiped, I don’t know, but it’s useless.”

  “We should just shoot it and put it out of our misery,” Seth snarled, his silver eyes gleaming like mercury in the soft moonlight.

  Scrubbing fingers across his jaw, Cain shook his head. “It’s our only tangible lead to Abel.”

  Seth sighed. “I know, man. I know.”

  Of the twins, Seth was generally the more reserved of the two. That he’d let his own frustrations leak out was proof of the toll this nightmare had taken on everyone.

  “Frank?” Cain looked up, then glanced over his shoulder at the car lot.

  “No. All quiet here.” Seth nodded. “Eli still with the drone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m gonna go see if he needs anything then. You good?” Seth shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “I’ll be fine.” He grunted, already feeling ten times lighter just from Flint’s close proximity. The scent of her that’d bothered him so much just a few short days ago was hardly an issue anymore.

  “Cain, we’re gonna find them,” Seth said, just before turning.

  “Yeah, that’s what I keep telling everyone else.”

  Seth’s jaw clenched. They both knew the odds grew more and more slim each day.

  “Yeah.” With that, Seth turned, heading in the direction of his brother.

  Exhausted, spent, and needing a few hours of quiet with just Flint for company, Cain debated whether or not to knock, but then decided he’d wake her if he did and she needed sleep.

  He’d replaced the door earlier in the evening, swapping it out with one from an unused trailer. Easing inside, he glanced immediately to his left, finding her buried beneath a mound of blankets.

  Her rosy lips parted and her lambent flesh gleamed prettily in the soft lighting piercing through the window. He could make out dried tear tracks on her cheeks—she’d gone to sleep crying.

  Cain rubbed at his chest. He was so tired he wanted nothing more than to crawl into that bed with her, spoon her tight to his body and sleep like the dead. But the bed was really only good for one, and if he touched her right now, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to go to sleep.

  So he took a seat at the kitchen dinette and forced himself to be satisfied with just watching her. Her hair spilled over the white pillowcase like a glittering flow of blood and fire.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered softly, clamping his lips shut when she moaned and tossed to the other side. A section of the sheet crawled up, revealing the long expanse of a shapely thigh, and his lips twitched.

  She was wearing one of his shirts. He wasn’t sure when she’d found it, or who’d given it to her. But he recognized it as being one of his favorite workout shirts.

  His heart pounded out of his chest at the thought of losing her again.

  Daring to take a deeper breath of her, he waited for the confusing riot of emotions to blast him. There was a rich, earthy quality to her. She still smelled of thunderclouds, but Flint also smelled of budding life and dew.

  He trembled, fingers curling on the cheap tabletop as he struggled not to go to her, not to wake her.

  She moaned again. “Daddy, no.”

  That stopped his thoughts cold. Made him grit his teeth. Cain debated what to do concerning Frank. Pulling a gun out on any member of the carnival family was a crime punishable by death. No exceptions.

  Humans who knew too much were either given over to the Order or killed. Both of those scenarios were working against him at the moment. Cain didn’t even have to ask Flint to know that harming her dad was harming her and would ensure her eternal hatred of whoever did it.

  That didn’t negate the fact that Frank was a problem. A huge one.

  He trembled, thinking about her standing in front of the gun. She’d looked so fearless, so bold, his fragile little princess. And it’d been all Cain could do not to snap her father’s neck for daring to threaten his daughter the way he had. The rage inside him struggled against its instinctual need to defend to the death what was his. But he’d seen the way her jaw had quivered, the way her eyes had swam. The hurt Frank had caused tonight had been devastating to her, but he was still her father, would always be her father.

  So Cain had done the only thing he could—he’d held her as she’d sobbed, crying as though she’d lost something valuable and precious tonight.

  A quiet knock sounded at the door. Sniffing, he smelled the smoky scent of kanlungan.

  “Rhiannon?” He twirled on his chair, and the blond Russian came through the door with hesitant steps a moment later. She was hugging her arms, fingers idly rubbing against the olive-green fabric of her jacket. She’d been out on another hunt.

  Rhi had hoped to find another drone, but based on the obvious strain pinching her brows together, he figured she’d come home empty-handed.

  Her big blue eyes were huge as she stared at Flint. Cain fidgeted, wanting to tell her to leave, to go away and not look at her as though she were a monster. It struck him then that just a few months ago their situations had been reversed and Flint was the one who’d had to come to terms with the strange new world she lived in. It was only fair Rhiannon be given the same courtesy.

  He clenched his jaw, staying silent as Rhi took her time to look her fill. To see the sharp nails that were now more like claws. The shape of the eyes that angled down a little tighter, a little more exotically. The marking on her arm that moved and swayed as though with life.

  “Her skin gleams,” Rhiannon whispered sounding awestruck. “It’s the most beautiful thing I think I’ve ever seen.”

  His nostrils flared, and he immediately relaxed when he knew she’d not come to gawk.

  Sighing, Flint turned onto her side, smacking her lips sleepily.

  “Ssh.” Cain motioned for Rhiannon to follow him out the door.

  Chapter 14

  Flint

  She’d gone outside her body again. Dreaming. But not. A ghost, but present in reality.

  Except this time she wasn’t at the strange man’s cell. Instead, she stood on a hill. It was night and thunder and lightning danced all around her. The wind was alive with the snap of electricity and the sharp scent of rain.

  Trees with red tree trunks, thick as an elephant’s chest, seemed to tower into the very heavens, surrounding her.

  This time she was dressed in an outfit she’d never seen before. It was a smoky-gray color, the threads almost diaphanous in nature, flowing gracefully around her for ease of movement but cinched at the waist and ankles so that it wouldn’t get in the way.

  Both of her arms were exposed and the vines danced. The land around her booted feet crawled with thorny nature, curling almost protectively up her calves.

  “I feel you.” A deep male voice that rolled like thunder exploded behind her left shoulder.

  With a gasp, she twirled, only just realizing that in her hand was the same sword as before. She’d never used a sword in her life. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do with one, but she whipped it up with the practiced ease of a master, holding it steady in the direction of the green-cloaked figure.

  “Who are you?” she snapped, and her voice, it was different. “Where am I?”

  Richer. Fuller. Like his, only a little more melodic, but still with a thread of steel laced beneath it.

  She couldn’t see beneath the hood, nothing but a yawning darkness. But she didn’t feel fear, even though she probably should have.

  “An observer,” the rich voice said.

  The figure didn’t move. And even though nature itself seemed like it wanted to tear the fabric of this land apart, not even his robes shook. He was the still calm in the center of this world.

  “Why do you search for me?” he asked instead.

  Frowning, Fl
int narrowed her eyes. “I haven’t been. I’m not looking for you. I don’t even know who you are.”

  “He speaks of you,” the figure continued as though she’d not spoken.

  “Who?” she snapped, daring to hope that somehow he was talking about Abel.

  “Graham. The Green Man you visit every night.”

  Jerking, half terrified out of her mind, she shook her head. “Who is he? Why do I keep finding him? I’m looking for Abel. For my friend. Are they at the same place?”

  The figure nodded.

  And Flint almost fainted. She had been close to Abel all along. She hadn’t even realized it, but she’d been almost there. She had to tell Cain, had to alert the others—they needed to know.

  “Why do you care for their world?”

  “Their world?” she asked slowly, not sure what he was implying. “Their world is my world.”

  “No, creature, you do not belong there. You are a fae out of time, displaced. You have awoken. Do you not feel the call?”

  No. No she definitely did not feel the call.

  Those words were right there on the tip of her tongue, a hasty denial, an angry retort, but then... She felt the prickling of energy course from the earth beneath her and through her very bones.

  She was elemental, born of the mother’s ancient bosom to a regal and elegant race of people so vastly superior to the animals that dwelled outside of fae.

  The vines rubbed like a puppy’s tongue along her thighs and she sighed, feeling whole, full, the cracks in her soul not so heavy or aching. She trembled as Katy’s words floated back to her.

  Snapping her eyes open, she burned with shame and shook her head forcefully. “I need help. I need to save them. Abel. And Graham.”

  Flint wasn’t sure if she’d said that to appease this fae, but the moment she said it she knew she would try.

  “Please. Please tell me where they are.”

  He cocked his head. “Your mother had no power. I came to her, and she was dead inside. But you, I sense greatness. Raw and untapped, a deep wellspring of it. There is so much inside you. I can teach you. I can mold you. Only come to me.”

  He held out his hand.

  “No.” She said it quickly, and yet she’d taken three steps toward him. Realizing what she was about, Flint forced herself to stop. To look down. But the need, the desire to run to him, burned through her.

  “You are of us, little guardian. Abandon them.”

  Guardian. Was that what she was? But a guardian of what? She licked her lips. “I can’t.”

  “You are fae.”

  Snarling, her gaze locked where his should be. “And so is Graham. So why aren’t you helping him?”

  “Graham chose his way. He abandoned his people. Do not make the same mistake.”

  Nostrils flaring, wishing she had the guts to smack this fairy ghost, she shook her head. “So it’s all or nothing? Go to you or never learn who I really am?”

  “Open your eyes, faeling, and recognize who you truly are. You wish to help the animals, so be it. For now.”

  Lightning cracked down at her feet, thunder snapping so close that her ears rang, and with a shriek she dropped the sword. When she glanced up, the stranger was gone.

  “Wait,” she screamed, disoriented by the thick stench of ozone wafting through the trees. “Did you just threaten me? Why? Come back. You tell me why, dammit!”

  But there was no answer.

  Flint twirled on her feet, searching for any sign of the stranger, but was stopped short by a sight fifty yards below.

  Her eyes widened, recognizing the image of the red-haired man.

  What she was watching, it felt like a movie. Like an image of something that’d happened before. The colors were fuzzy and the scene staticky. Heart hammering wildly in her throat, she could hardly breathe, barely move, as she witnessed the execution of a monster she’d never seen before in her life.

  “Oh God.” She moaned, slapping a hand to her thigh. “Wake up, Flint DeLuca. Wake up.”

  The thick, metallic stench of blood saturated her nostrils.

  ~*~

  Cain

  Rhiannon and Cain stepped out of the trailer. Hopefully Flint would sleep through the rest of the night, but when she mumbled and rolled yet again, Cain figured he wouldn’t get so lucky.

  Closing the door gently behind him, he then took a seat on the bench. Rhi sat beside him.

  She looked like a mess. Her hair was unwashed and uncombed. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her clothes looked as though they’d been lived in for longer than three days.

  “You look like crap,” he said without preamble.

  She snorted. “Yeah, well I feel like it too. I just... I wanted to come check in on her.”

  Cain sighed. “She’s as good as can be expected.”

  “She looks different. Prettier, I think.” Her smile was thoughtful.

  He grunted. “She was always pretty.”

  Licking her front teeth, she stared up at the stars. “Could you have seen any of this coming, Cain? What your mom was gonna do? Flint? Abel?” Her voice was a weak thread at his brother’s name.

  Turning in slightly so that his knee bumped hers, he gave her a small smile when she looked up at him. “We will find him.”

  Her bottom lip trembled.

  “Eventually we’re going to get that drone to talk. We’re gonna find Abel.”

  She shook her head, her fingers idly toying with her baggy sleeve. “I have these horrible nightmares. Janet’s dead and so is he. It’s just... unceasing.” She sucked in a sharp breath, and he heard the tears she fought to keep inside.

  Cain didn’t know what to say to make any of this right. Because there weren’t enough words in the world that could.

  “Why hasn’t she come to us? Why is Layla just dragging this on? I think that’s the worst part about all this. She knows where we are. It’s not like we’re trying to hide. I can’t figure out what her end game is, and it’s killing me.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve wondered that myself. I haven’t asked him, but I’d bet all the money in the world that Adam’s not leaving because he’s hoping she’ll make the first move. All traces of her are gone.”

  Rhi sighed. “I’m not gonna lie. I sorta feel like that drone we’ve got shackled back there was just bait. Like more of a trap. Like she’s dangling a carrot out to us to keep us distracted from actually gaining a solid, working lead.”

  Cain had wondered the same thing for days now. Adam was hesitant to leave, fearing that if they did then Layla would miraculously come up from whatever hole she’d buried herself in, but Cain wasn’t buying it. His gut told him the hive was long gone and every day that passed made finding Abel that much harder.

  Blowing out a deep breath, Rhiannon gave herself a hard shake and then said, “Maybe Flint will be the wild card.”

  His brows rose. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because she’s an X factor, something Layla knows nothing about.”

  He snorted. “I’m sure she does. Even if she doesn’t know what Flint is exactly, she knows she’s not human. She’d have known that the second she bit her.”

  Her blue eyes looked worried. “Why did she do this, Cain? Why did she turn on us this way? I just can’t even.” Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes. “None of this makes any sense.”

  She swiped at her cheeks with angry, jerky movements, her light eyes beginning to glow with the flicker of flame. “We’re fighting shadows. There’s nothing here anymore. You know she’s left. I know she’s left. Abel’s not here, he’s not anywhere close to here!” Her shrill voice rent the night like the explosion of an atomic bomb.

  Cain shook his head, ready to tell her to keep it down, but it was too late.

  Immediately the flicker of lights emanated from within darkened trailers as his friends and family peered outside.

  A second later, Flint’s door swung open, and she stepped out, rubbing one foot atop the
other as she frowned down at them. His baggy workout shirt fell all the way to her knees—the thing was two sizes too big for her, but she looked adorable anyway.

  “What are you guys doing?” she whispered.

  It was well past three in the morning.

  “You should be sleeping,” he chided.

  Sighing, she shook her head. “I woke up, and you weren’t there.”

  Rhiannon made to stand. “I’m sorry, I really should—”

  Flint walked down the steps slowly, and Cain’s breath lodged in his throat at the play of colors shimmering on her skin as she moved. Even Rhi sucked in a sharp breath.

  The vivid red of her hair stood out in sharp contrast to the mother-of-pearl sheen of her. She seemed completely unaware of any of that as she thumped her butt down onto the space between them and sighed.

  Body running hot and cold, Cain had to grit his teeth and remember where they were and that Rhiannon was probably not at all affected by Flint’s new body the way he was. But then he recalled the eyes in the windows, and with an angry snarl yanked the shirt he was wearing over his head and thrust it at her.

  “Put that over your legs, Flint.”

  Frowning, she glanced at his white tee, but then just as suddenly seemed to understand.

  “Jealous berserker,” she whispered lightly, and for just a moment, he smiled. For a second she’d sounded like the old Flint.

  Patting it firmly across her knees, she asked, “Better?”

  It only covered her halfway to her calves, but at least it was something. He grunted.

  Flint drove him crazy, even when she wasn’t trying to.

  “Bad dreams?” Rhiannon asked her a second later.

  “Dreams.” Flint shrugged, then nibbled on the corner of her lip and glanced at Cain with large eyes.

  Immediately he understood she wanted to say something to him but didn’t want to do it while they had an audience.

  “Let’s go back inside your trailer,” he said, getting to his feet.

  Rhiannon got up, turning as if to leave, but Flint shook her head. “No, you can stay, Rhi. It’s just... I don’t want to talk about this out here where too many ears might hear.”

  Rhi thinned her lips, picking at her thumbnail almost nervously. “You sure? I don’t mind.”