by Kita Bell
Brand frowned. Of course the kids in Boston hadn’t stood a chance. Joshua was one of the best fighters at Stronghold. But Brand also knew Joshua wasn’t angry at the kids’ lack of skill. No, Joshua was angry that the young blood tigers had risked drawing attention to the larger Kaspian community.
He was too. Brand was just better at keeping his head about these things. “Agreed. But we have other things to worry about at the moment. If Cateline was here – ”
“She’d say I sound like an ‘old râleuse,’” Joshua snapped. “But she’s not here, she’s shopping her little heart’s way through a Sakai-riddled Paris. And keep her out of this. I have enough headaches.”
Brand’s grin was slightly vicious as the other Kaspian slouched into the leather seat. “Who knows? Perhaps one of these days you’ll get hit on the head one too many times, realize she’s your amati, and go running back to her…”
“Fucking bastard. None of your business. You can’t sidetrack me so easily.”
Brand slanted a glance to where his cousin scowled at the window.
“I should have stayed,” Joshua finally growled. “We stopped the battle, but those kids have no idea what they are. What they could be. In Europe, the Sakai would have picked them off like fat geese. Here…” Joshua’s face reflected age, “they’re idiots and they all forget.”
Brand slanted a look from the corner of his eye. “Hierarchy, Joshua. There’s a reason for it. Reminding ‘those kids’ of their heritage is their Gens leaders’ job. Not yours.”
“Their Gens leaders are children too. Lazy children. They don’t know anything.”
Brand couldn’t disagree. Knowledge, garnered by immortality, weighed on all of the older Kaspian. As for what weighted on him…he ground his teeth, pushing against the old guilt. “Perhaps you should go back,” he said, focusing on the road again.
Joshua shook his head, brow creased in thought. “I have an errand at Stronghold.”
The interior of the car drifted into a brooding quiet. Snow began to come down, hitting against the windshield in thick, full chunks. Brand flicked on the high beams and turned up the radio, then yawned.
“Pull over,” Joshua said abruptly. “The next exit. Rest area’s there.”
“I was going through.” Brand fought the edge in his voice; they were both short on sleep, and had several days’ drive before they reached Stronghold. Now wasn’t the time to lose his temper.
“You’re not. You spent the entire last week negotiating with bloodthirsty tigers, trying to talk sense into a Gens full of imbecile children all the while conferencing Stronghold by phone. You didn’t rest – I did. So you sleep, I’ll drive.”
Joshua’s words were sharper than his tone; still, Brand let a low rumbling growl seep through the confines of the car. Claws shifted under his fingernails, prickling the skin of his fingertips.
“Seth sent me to watch your back. So I’m watching your back,” Joshua reminded in a logical tone Brand was far more used to hearing from himself. “Pull over. I’m too irritated to sleep. And I’m the reason we’re not taking a plane right now.” Joshua’s hatred of flying trumped everything else.
Brand tightened his lips.
His father was long-dead but he had taught Brand well: if it came to a fight, a tired Kaspian was a dead Kaspian. Brand couldn’t afford to let himself slip, to be lulled into the same sense of relative safety that had caused the Boston Gens’ blissful oblivion. There was nothing worse than forgetting.
Or remembering, for that matter.
Both were a curse.
His curse.
“You’re giving the report when we reach Stronghold. I’m not. So pull the fucking car – ”
“Who made you my goddamn babysitter?” Brand snarled as he veered off the ramp toward the rest stop.
“Seth. Your goddamn brother. He made me babysitter for the whole damned lot of you.”
To hell. Sleep now, punch him when I wake.
Eva picked her way through deepening snow as she made her way into the trees outside the crouching bulk of the Asylum. Ice soaked her sweatpants and snow swirled around her, but she wasn’t quite ready to discard her clothes or her human form. Despite the need to hurry, despite the icy temperature, she savored the feel of the earth beneath her toes. It had been too long.
She would leave tracks, but that couldn’t be helped. She needed to find a place to Change first. She didn’t know how she was going to get back to North Carolina, but she knew that navigating this forest would, at least, be much easier in blood tiger form.
So would evading Rohe.
Eva hadn’t Changed to tiger form in two months, so it would not come easily. It would be rough, wild, and leave her vulnerable. Well, more vulnerable. Eva shivered.
She stopped beside a thick tree that had fallen over a hollow, just out of hearing range of the Asylum. Rohe’s guards were strong – too strong. Whatever they were, they weren’t Kaspian…but they had possessed a Kaspian’s hearing.
The log lay beneath the semi-shelter of the tall pines. It was crusted with old ice and new falling snow. Eva cringed as she pulled the hospital shoes off, then her sweatpants; she hastily removed her sweatshirt and bundled everything together on the log. “Hurry,” she muttered, breath puffing out in a cloud as her teeth chattered. “Just hurry. Don’t think about it.” Her nipples stung, her skin burned like cold fire. She could handle freezing temperatures better than a human, but not by much.
Eva was shaking, hunched over for warmth by the time she reached inside herself and tugged at that internal cord, pushed that internal, mental trigger, that allowed her to Change into blood tiger form and back.
It was almost too easy.
The Change thrummed through her mind – but it was a low, halting sound, unsteady from disuse – then it vibrated through Eva’s sense of self and out into the world around her. Gold, then scarlet light sparked out from the edge of Eva’s vision, before it narrowed, shimmering as it turned back on itself.
On her.
A dry hot rush of pleasure coursed through Eva’s body, pulsing through every fiber of her being, through her palms, the soles of her feet, up through her legs and arms to catch and tighten around her breasts, her throat, her thighs. Her injuries flared to life with the Change, flaring hot like fire where Rohe had bled her arms, where the man from 113 had wrenched her wrist, down into the near-frozen tissues where her toes were buried in the snow. For a blinding instant, everything intensified – sight, sound, scent, taste. Pleasure and pain compounded in halting wild steps, building upon fear and a thirsty desire. The world was coming together inside of Eva, and her flesh was too swollen, too tender to contain it all –
– and then it did. She Changed.
Eva collapsed on the ground, exhausted. But everything was alive.
Her tail twitched, her legs were shaky. Everything was warmer, sharper in blood tiger form. Eva opened her eyes, and the night and falling snow jumped into perfect focus. She raised her right paw, flexed it as she tested the injury to her wrist to feel how it would pull at the muscles of her right leg. She would have to be careful, to take it easy. Then Eva stood and picked up her clothes with her teeth.
The scent of copper and hyacinths curled through the still night air and Eva froze. Danger. Rohe’s scent.
Eva’s heart contracted, her stomach tightened. She whipped around, searching for the threat. Unused muscles strained, and her tail struck the snow from the log, leaving her scent behind on the rough wood, a clear trail Rohe guards would follow. She snarled her curse.
A muffled footstep landed, perhaps twenty paces to her back. A voice hissed over an intercom to her left. Directly ahead came the sharp grate of metal on metal…
…thunder shattered the snow-filled night.
Burning pain clawed along Eva’s back, eating into her tendons and muscles as hot blood spilled like acid into the undercoat of her fur, stinging and hot until it froze along the outer hairs of her coat. It felt as if she had been stab
bed, whipped, branded, but Eva knew she had been shot.
She snarled her pain and twisted toward the shelter of the trees. The rough voice of a guard rose behind her, the harsh click of metal readying to fire again…
The sound of a slap, of crushing bone. A sharp scream as blood scent bloomed into the night like dye in water.
“Retrieve it alive,” Rohe’s flat voice drifted through the forest from Eva’s left, cutting like a frozen blade. “Use the venom.”
Rohe. Eva’s mind steadied. She didn’t wait.
She ran.
It felt as if she ran for hours, for days, with Rohe’s hunters crashing after her. Eva could hear their pursuit, smell their odd, muted scents on the downwind. She ran west toward the safety of humans, heedless of stones beneath her feet, of her exhaustion, or her injuries. When she stumbled on a small, hard, road she followed it. The trail smelled of asphalt, exhaust, and humans, which covered her own scent – but they found her anyway.
She knew, because she heard the hunters’ voices rise, heard that chilling click of metal on metal again…and felt the thick bite of a needle through the frozen blood on her fur, lancing just below her ribs.
Her legs stopped working. Her breath stuttered, lungs refusing to work fast enough. Eva panicked, her heart exploding in her chest as she Changed – faster than she had ever Changed before – back into her human form. Eva stumbled, falling to her hands and knees as she turned toward Rohe’s henchmen. The darkness was rising up to claim her, sucking her into unconsciousness with a terrifying speed.
There were three shadows in the tree line, three odd faint scents. Eva collapsed on the frozen asphalt, ice and gravel scraping into her side as her limbs gave out entirely. She fixed her gaze on the forest.
The sound of a gun, a terrified scream – then silence.
As Eva faded into unconsciousness, she thought she saw the man from cell 113 come to stand over her. His eyes were dark gray, the color of storm clouds. He might have said “You owe me,” as he touched the side of his mouth, wiping blood from his lips – then crouched down, plucking out the needle they had shot her with. Light flashed from the road and he raised his head. He bared his teeth at the oncoming vehicle. No. Not teeth. Fangs. Fangs. Eva panicked, terrified at the immobility of her body, terrified of him, even as her eyelids forced their way closed.
Rainey, she thought. Rainey. She wanted to go home to her sister.
And this…
Tranquilizers weren’t supposed to work on Kaspians.
“Shit!”
Brand woke as Joshua swerved and slammed on the breaks; the car’s tires slid against the ice so that he was forced to grip the seat, instinctively bracing for impact. “What the…?”
The road was small and dark, a far cry from the interstate. Trees were everywhere and snow from the waning blizzard obscured the night. So help him if he got us lost…
Brand kept his voice calm even as the car fishtailed across the road. “Joshua. Where are we?”
“Fuck!” Joshua snarled again, twisting to look out the rear window as the vehicle skidded to a halt a bare space from the tree line, “Supposed to be in Europe. Not here. Not supposed to happen here! Not while I’m – ” Joshua choked, then ripped the door open, already gripping one of the long knives he kept hidden beneath the leather coat.
Brand seized his cousin’s arm and almost got his fingers sliced off; frigid air blew into the warm interior. “Explain.”
“There’s a goddamned Sakai!”
They were both out of the car and running through the storm.
But when they got to the point Joshua indicated, all they found was a naked female lying in the snow. Brand tested the air. Scratch that: a naked Kaspian female. Unconscious, half-starved, and bleeding. For a moment Brand thought she was dead as he crouched beside her, but then her breasts rose and fell, and he found himself staring at them like a cub fresh off Initium. He shifted his gaze and tested her pulse, a faint jolt travelling through his fingers when he touched her smooth skin.
Scrawled onto the ice beside her were the words, “Take her and RUN.” It was written in blood. Her blood.
“What happened to you?” Brand muttered, and couldn’t help but gather her to himself as he searched for less obvious wounds. There were cuts on her arms and shoulders that almost looked…surgical. Her feet were bleeding and crusted with dirt and ice; someone had shot her. Deep inside, a nameless sensation gathered: savage rage or pain or fury, Brand didn’t know. Whatever it was, it was dangerous.
Yet, as her light clear scent rose to greet him, that dark emotion became tinged with…anticipation.
Lust. Desire.
“There are two dead Sakai back there.” Joshua prowled out of the trees, brushing snow off his face as he came to stand beside Brand. “Doubt she did it. Looks like they were taken out by one of their own.”
“You’re certain?” Brand slid back a fragile eyelid, trying to see if she was responsive, then sucked in a breath. Silver. Her irises were silver. They weren’t even focused and his blood was rising, his balls were tightening.
Fuck. What the hell was wrong with him?
Hell, she was naked and lying by the road in a snow bank.
Brand shook his head at her, trying to stamp down his unaccountable lust. Just what the hell did you get yourself into? Maybe she’d just come off a Change. That would explain the nakedness. But not the cuts.
Or the unconsciousness.
“Last I checked, Kaspian don’t drink blood. These two were drained.” Joshua scowled, coming toward him. “Are you going to pay any attention to that note? Or are you going to sit there all night and stroke her hair like she’s your goddamned amati until both of you get hypothermia and die? Real romantic, Brand. You need to get out of the office more often.”
An awareness deep inside Brand twisted and stirred to attention at Joshua’s words…Brand froze, his fingers tangled in the female’s hair, his entire being focused as time seemed to slow:
Amati.
Amati.
It couldn’t be. And yet…
“No,” Brand muttered shaking his head. And yet, as he crouched over the female, something odd was taking place inside him. As he pulled the woman’s fresh scent into his lungs, a deep and wild instinct stirred in the depths of his soul, around that area where he reached to pull forth the Change. Already what he felt was more than protectiveness, different than desire, and yet…
“Shit.”
His amati? Here?
Brand stared at the roadside then closed his eyes, and – no matter how much he loathed doing so, he called upon the multitude of stolen memories he possessed – but only one individual’s memories could help him right now: his brother, Khael’s.
…she is pliant in the cool grass. But starlight reveals too much: blood on her lips, need in her wide copper eyes. He closes his heart, grinds his teeth as he pulls forth cold reason against the sudden sensation, repeating his time-old mantra: she cannot be my amati, for I have no amati. An amati for me is a fairytale, a myth. No. Not mine, he growls aloud, yet those words only sparked a wild hopeless rage that coupled to his growing desire…
Brand snarled and opened his eyes, ripping himself from the ancient memory of Khael’s despair. Seven-hundred years had passed. Seven-hundred goddamned years since his brother had lost his amati and Brand had lost the woman he loved like a sister.
Brand carried the guilt for that every day of his life. Not only did he carry the guilt, but thanks to his ability, he carried Khael’s memories as well. And if there was one thing he knew, if there was one thing those memories had taught him, it was that he didn’t want an amati – he didn’t need an amati. Carrying the sole memory of his brother’s despair was hard enough. He didn’t want that despair to be his own.
He didn’t want those memories to be real. He didn’t want those memories to be his.
He never had.
And yet, holding this female, his body hardened and he felt a faint pulsing of need. A desire
to nibble the soft skin of her neck, her body – her perfect breasts. He wanted to sink his teeth into her most delicate flesh, to Marque her. “Fuck.”
Brand growled and dropped his hand from the dark waves of her hair to slip an arm under the female’s shapely legs as he stood; her body was bone-thin and light against his, and he held her tightly, trying to give her some of his warmth. “She needs a healer. And this situation needs to be assessed immediately,” he snarled at Joshua, his whole world spinning on axis.
An amati. His amati.
The old memories weren’t his, but he recognized the need he felt. The desire, the sheer fierce protectiveness – that edge of dangerous wild. All for a stranger.
All for this woman.
Fuck, he was rattled.
And yet, every time disbelief edged in, instinct and memory edged it back out.
Joshua shook his head, not realizing Brand’s world had just been upended. “Not tonight. We’ll send someone to assess later. I’m tired, you’re tired, we have no resources, and our current safety’s worth shit. I say we do what the note suggests and leave. We’ll find out who she is when she wakes.” Joshua hesitated, an odd expression in his eyes as he studied Brand and the female, then he shook his head and started for the car. “I’m still driving.”
“Like hell you are,” Brand muttered halfheartedly, glancing at the dark trees. He didn’t smell Sakai. Not close anyway. But he wasn’t trusting their safety to that. Her safety to that. They needed to leave.
It hit him as he followed Joshua: an odd knowing, an almost – goddamn – prescience.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
He shook his head, fiercely, trying to be logical – and failed.
Fucking unsettling. It wasn’t just that she was naked and attractive in his arms. Or that there was a wary, sensual curve to her lips that enticed him, made him want to see how far that wariness would last. No, it was different. Her scent, maybe? Those eyes? Brand frowned, tightening his hold around the fragile body. He didn’t know.