by Kita Bell
Brand hesitated. The hand that had been stroking her shoulders dropped down, almost seeming to trace her waist. Perhaps she was imagining it. “All of my family can.” Brand’s voice was rough as that amazing healing ability of his seemed to lap away the fresh pain in her back.
“Amazing,” Eva said softly. But it wasn’t the claws. It was Brand’s healing ability. I wish I had an ability like that. God, the ability to fix people. To help their pain. Even if it was just scratches.
The ability to just, well, do something.
His ability was always there for him, when he needed it, where he needed it. Hers…wasn’t.
Brand didn’t seem to think his ability was worth much, but to Eva it was wonderful.
Brand leaned closer. His breath tickled her neck, her hair; she could feel his strong body directly behind hers, barely touching, and yet…there.
Her arousal heightened and she shivered.
His hand withdrew. The rough cloth of the socks made another, careful sweep over her back, then away. Brand slowly lowered her sweater, his large hand grazing the curve of her back. Eva shuddered.
“There. We’re done.” Brand’s words were sharp, but his body – and his scent – were warm. He stood behind Eva, sheltering her from the wind and Joshua’s eyes as she gathered herself together again. Eva resisted the urge to sink into the curve of his chest, to feel that strength wrapped around herself, and stepped away.
She didn’t know Brand, not truly. Even if it felt as if she always had.
“I want you to go back to the car. Call Seth. Tell him that I’ll be delayed,” Joshua mocked Brand, his words just shy of a true Challenge. Then Joshua grew more serious. “And have him track my GPS. I expect you to pick me up come daylight, cousin. And drop Seth’s package off in the meantime. It’ll keep till I can get back for it.” Joshua slipped lightly into the night with a blood-soaked pair of socks in a gloved hand. His ability made it impossible to discern him from the shadows.
“You’re as fucking bad as Dmitrei,” Brand muttered to the darkness. For a moment he thought he heard Joshua’s laughter. Then Brand shook his head and turned back to the woman who stood with a bewildered expression on her face, her arms crossed in a shield before herself.
Eva looked lost.
Brand gripped her arm and tugged her back into the safety of the column’s shadows. “We have to wait,” he said quietly. “Joshua will lay a trail, and as soon as the Sakai follow that, we’ll double back to the car. I’ll find him in the morning. And if the police do find us here, neither of us have to worry – since both of us are human.”
Eva blinked. “But how…I mean,” he watched her confusion, “How will you know where to find him?”
“Seth,” Brand explained, pulling her out of the wind. Closer to him. His erection – which Brand suspected had become a permanent fixture since watching her Change – throbbed, and he gritted his teeth, keeping Eva to his side so she wouldn’t look down and notice. Or brush against him. “Joshua has a specialized GPS in his phone. He’ll text Seth when he needs a pick up, and Seth will call me with the coordinates. Then we will go find him.”
“Oh.” Eva’s brow furrowed in the darkness. “Seth is your brother, right? And I think Joshua said you had another brother…Khael? You already mentioned your sister…”
“All true.” Brand frowned at the topic, then shook his head. He wanted to reach out, to pull Eva against him and kiss the fear and confusion from her eyes. Or brush the smooth dark wave of hair back from the oval of her face.
He considered Eva for a moment, then did exactly that. The strands were silky between his fingers, fine. When he withdrew his hand, she licked her lips…and his gaze dropped to her mouth, that pink little tongue. Brand’s fingers tingled with the memory of her water-smooth skin beneath his palm, the feel of her slender spine, her delicate curved waist. He wanted to taste more, but not with his fingers.
“So the Kade Gens…” Eva hesitated, restarted, obviously searching for a topic. “I know it’s the oldest Gens, but…do you have a big family, Brand?” Her voice rasped. Brand pulled his eyes away from the temptation of Eva’s lips, back up into that extraordinary silver gaze.
“Yes.” Brand drew her clean scent into his lungs, trying to steady himself, then realized that the smell of the Sakai was fading. “Aside from my sister, I have three brothers. Living brothers. Khael, Seth and Dmitrei. Some extended family like Joshua. And,” he hesitated, debating with himself, “my mother.”
Once, Brand had possessed more siblings. More family. But it was easier not to dwell on them.
Instead, he watched the tension leave Eva’s body. The topic of family seemed to relax her. And Brand wondered if Eva wanted a large family. He wondered if she wanted children.
His children. Our children. Brand shook his head and felt like an idiot. Fuck, she didn’t even know what she was in for.
The scent of the Sakai cleared from the air entirely.
“We have to go,” Brand said abruptly, taking Eva’s fingers again. “The path to the car should be safer now.”
Eva gave him a tiny, almost trusting, smile. The bottom fell out of Brand’s heart. He leaned down so that they were on eye level, his face directly before hers. He looked at her lips again…considered them…and then restrained himself with the mental promise of Later. Instead, Brand peered into those searching silver eyes.
“Don’t worry, Eva,” he promised softly. “You’ll see your family again.”
He felt like an ass.
Eva studied the parking lot as they walked to Brand’s car.
It felt like someone was watching her, and yet…
There was a huddle of human drug dealers on the farthest corner of the lot. On the opposite side was a young couple; the woman was watching the male and laughing as he pulled a six pack from his trunk. She was holding a fuzzy blanket, and Eva watched as they both got back into the car, in the back seat. She looked away, feeling Brand’s presence at her side, holding her hand.
Perhaps twenty yards to her right two cops were getting out of a police car, glancing nervously around at the trees. Another cop car and a covert-looking animal control van were parked beside them. Eva flushed red, looked away – then frowned, glancing back.
“They’re going into the park. The Sakai – ”
Brand squeezed her fingers. “No. Dead humans create questions. Dead cops especially. They’ll be fine. Sakai are bloodthirsty, not stupid. They aren’t all that different from us, Eva.”
“They’re monsters,” Eva said fiercely, remembering the empty – yet warm – expression in Rohe’s eyes as the woman had cut into her arms, her throat, draining off her blood into vials. As if Eva had been some sort of blood dispenser. Or science experiment. She shivered.
Brand didn’t say anything.
Eva looked back at the cops. “They’ll be safe then,” she said, trying to convince herself as she watched a cautious human step out of the animal control van, cradling a rifle loaded with tranquilizers. Eva shuddered.
But Brand went still, and pulled her to a halt. His fingers tightened against hers painfully. And the sensation of being trapped pushed down on Eva as it had at Rohe’s. Eva panicked. She pushed against his arm, tried to pry her fingers from his …until she looked up, and followed Brand’s gaze to the farthest, darkest corner of the parking lot.
A man stood there, leaning casually against the trunk of a dead tree.
He was dressed in black, a dark leather trench falling to his elegantly crossed ankles. He wore black dress pants, a black silk shirt. His hair was the rich gold of a fallen angel’s.
He flicked away his cigarette. The glow of the embers seemed to match the piercing amber of his gaze. He had been watching them.
Her, actually. Watching her.
Slowly, the man stretched his lips to smile at Eva. His teeth were white, perfect, even.
The incisors were just a bit too long. The smile a bit too empty.
It was a warning, and beside he
r, Brand growled, clamping Eva to his side. The sound rumbled through her body, frightening her in a way that was completely different from the way the Sakai beneath the tree terrified her.
The Sakai uncoiled himself, and casually ground his cigarette beneath the heel of an expensive dress shoe.
He looked up from the cigarette and gave Brand a meaningful glance – glanced once at the handful of cops who had moved to cross the lot, forming a safe human wall between them – then gave a mocking salute with two gloved fingers.
He turned and disappeared into the trees.
Brand picked Eva up, ran with her to the car, and shoved her into the passenger seat through the driver’s door. Then he got in, started the engine, and pulled out of the parking lot.
“Put your seatbelt on,” he snarled.
Eva stared at him, trying to process what had happened. He had moved fast.
“Seatbelt,” Brand snarled again. Eva swallowed, and pulled the buckle around herself as they sped out onto a highway. Not wearing a seatbelt was how her uncle had died. That, and a broken neck.
And then Eva started to shake. She felt tears pushing at her eyes, and pushed back. Somehow, she kept them away. She felt miserable.
“He is Rohe’s,” Eva whispered, turning to look at Brand, searching out his face in the darkness. She needed to see his face. And she wished, suddenly, that he didn’t look so tense. So angry. She needed something from him, but she wasn’t sure what. All she knew was that she couldn’t stop shaking. “He was at the Asylum. With me. And the man from 113. And Rohe,” she repeated again. “He was always with Rohe.”
“I guessed.” Brand’s voice was taut. “He was a fucking Winterbourne. That’s the only thing that saved us from a fight. That and the witnesses.”
Eva blinked at him, not understanding. “Saved us…Winterbournes don’t fight? They aren’t very…” she searched for right word, finally came up with “Powerful?” But somehow, that didn’t seem correct. It didn’t fit with the man beneath the tree.
“No. Winterbourne Sakai are very powerful. Most of them are fucked up in the head. And they like to play with their prey.” Brand’s words were a low, grim rumble. “And Eva, this Winterbourne has decided to play.”
Her hands started shaking again. “He’s…from somewhere in Europe,” she said, scrambling to remember anything she had ever heard, or witnessed, about this particular Sakai. “I don’t know – I don’t think he ever drank my blood. His name is Corin King.”
“Never heard of him,” Brand snapped. But somehow, he seemed relieved by that.
Eva relaxed a little into the warmth of the leather seat. “Rohe called him her personal Strategoi.”
“A Strategoi?” Brand’s whole body tightened.
He slammed his fist through the dash.
Chapter 4
After dropping Joshua’s package off on the doorstep of an obscure address in the downtown district, they went through a drive-thru, then Brand stopped to switch out the car’s license plates on one of the dark side streets. Eva stayed in the interior, watching Brand with wide eyes as she devoured her fourth hamburger. She had already cleaned the dried dirt off her face with water and napkins from the drive through. When Brand got back behind the wheel and started the car, she seemed drowsy.
“The drive-thru lady really didn’t like you,” she murmured, looking sleepy and adorable and as if she was trying not to laugh at him. “I think she thought you beat me.” She lightly touched a healing bruise on her cheek. Brand shifted in the seat, trying to ignore a growing – and seeming perpetual – hardness as he passed her his coat for warmth.
“Corin King didn’t like me much either. He would have noted the plates at the park,” Brand responded, pulling out onto the road again, then cursed himself as he watched the smile disappear from Eva’s eyes.
“I need to go back to North Carolina,” she said quietly, looking down at the drink in her hand. “To my own Gens. But every time I think of that, I wonder – what if they follow me there? What if they find Rainey?” Then, much more quietly, “I don’t even know why they took me. I was…one moment I was jogging and everything was fine – and then the next…I was…” she shuddered, then looked up at Brand. “Why did Rohe take me?”
He winced. “When she spoke, she didn’t give you any clues?”
“She just…wanted my blood. I think I was the only Kaspian there…I thought the man from cell 113 was one too, but I was wrong. She wanted my blood and she liked…knives. She liked it when people…” Eva looked away from him, out the dark window. Her face was haunted, and she had a death grip on the plastic drink cup before she jerkily put it in the cup holder. “She likes making people afraid.”
A surprised respect moved through Brand. Whatever else Eva was, she was strong. She was a survivor.
“I won’t let her get to you, Eva,” he promised quietly.
She shook her head, not looking away from her reflection in the dark window. “I’m not from your Gens. You don’t have to help me. All I’ve brought you is danger.” She hesitated. “I don’t know why you even bothered to search me out at the park. Thank you. But I don’t understand why.”
Brand glanced away from the road and at Eva, considering his words. He didn’t think Eva was prepared to hear the answer to that question any more than he was to tell her. He cleared his throat and told – if not the truth – then a truth. “I wouldn’t have left anybody behind in your situation.” They paused at a stoplight.
“My Gens would have,” Eva sighed, turning to look at him again, a painful honesty in her silver gaze. “They wouldn’t have even thought twice about it. Well, my sister’s not like that. But almost everyone else is.” Which made Brand wonder if Eva’s Gens had done that to her before – left her behind; he gripped the steering wheel.
“Brand?” she asked curiously, yawning as she snuggled down into the seat, “Why are we in Ohio? Did you have to…make a stop or something…before going to North Carolina? Like you did with that box you left off for Joshua?”
Fuck. She was so damned trusting.
He didn’t look away from the road when he said, “Yes.”
Damn, he hated lying to her.
“How many hours before North Carolina? I’ll pay you back for gas mileage, I swear. And…if Rohe is after me, you and Joshua should stay away. You could get into trouble too.”
“Don’t worry about that, Eva,” he murmured. “Just let me worry about that.”
It wasn’t until after Eva curled up under his leather coat and fell asleep that Brand parked the car in a dark alley in the warehouse district and looked at his sleeping passenger.
The dim light from the bar a block away streaked her abraded cheek, painting it soft gold. He reached and brushed the strands of hair off her face, then leaned back in his own seat and sighed.
Generally, he was an honest man. He admitted that he wasn’t overly forthcoming with his own secrets or the Gens’ business. But tonight he had told more lies to his amati than he was comfortable with.
Hell, he wasn’t really comfortable lying to Eva at all. Sooner or later all of it was going to blow up in his face.
As long as later came in a place and situation that he could control. At the moment, Brand was far from his home, far from his Gens, and on the road with a woman who was likely to run the first chance he got to tell her the truth – not to mention they all had to avoid a handful of Sakai.
Hell, so much for a routine drive back to Stronghold.
Brand felt the headache coming on and leaned back into the seat, temporarily closing his eyes.
He’d made another enemy tonight. Perhaps even drawn the unwanted attention toward Stronghold that his family had avoided for years. Because, Brand was certain, Corin King didn’t lack for resources.
Hell. A Strategoi. There were only four of them in the world, and they were the best of the best. No one dared claim the title who hadn’t earned it.
And by aiding Eva, Brand had placed his own family in the path
of one. Joshua was out in the ice and snow somewhere, evading Sakai. Back at Stronghold, Seth was running illegal hacks on the names Brand had sent. It seemed, Brand thought, nothing ever stayed the same. Or stable.
He had been born in Spain. Then wars had come and their family moved to France, lingering until their home was destroyed yet again. After a few years, his family scraped themselves together enough to travel to French Louisiana, where they lost another home. Finally, they arrived at Stronghold, this time building the structure from the ground up, constructing a goddamned fortress; they had been determined to keep out the blood and death that had plagued them so far.
And they had. For the most part, the Sakai had chosen to remain with their Houses and Shadowlines in the Old World. Those few who cared to remember the Kaspian’s existence forgot. Sometimes they were made to forget. Sometimes they were killed.
So his family had found safety in the New World. Then other Kaspians came and established small Gens, small green pinpoints in the map Seth kept, dotted along the American continents. And those other Gens, those younger Gens, learned to live by forgetting.
Brand couldn’t blame the younger Gens. He would forget if he could, too.
He exhaled and clenched his fist on the steering wheel. He looked at Eva, then away. He didn’t have the luxury of forgetting. Remembering was who he was.
And Eva was young. One of those born in America. Perhaps she was too young to understand.
That didn’t stop him from wanting her.
From wanting her…or from remembering what a goddamned liar he was.
Brand’s phone vibrated. He pulled it from the dash and answered without looking.
“What?” he growled.
“It would have been preferable if you had called me, but I need information,” Seth said, his deep voice concise as always. There was the faint clatter of keys in the background, and Brand could envision his brother sitting in his office chair, typing out queries on the computers at Stronghold. “To begin with, Rohe’s supposed to be in Rome, not the United States. And Corin King should be somewhere in Russia. Are you certain it was them?”