People were already milling in, parking and squealing excitedly at the thought of hanging out in a circus that catered to the damned.
Now that she knew, she found it completely ironic how honest their sign really was. Diabolique, circus of the damned. Cain had been right, when people didn’t want to see something, they wouldn’t.
Looking at the circus through new eyes, she stepped from the truck and studied the faces she thought she’d known. The jeweled-colored eyes of the performers, startling blue and neon greens. Not contacts.
She sucked in a breath as their smells bombarded her.
The green-eyed people smelled like dirt. Freshly turned dirt.
Blue eyes tended to smell more fresh. Like clean linen.
“Flint?” Janet grabbed her arm, startling her.
Janet pulled her in for a quick hug, her tiger-striped bodysuit glinting as a car’s headlights streamed in. A distinctive odor of char and smoke clung to her hair.
“Flint.” Her dad waved. “I’ve got to go and help warm the girls up before the show starts. You sure you’re okay?”
She nodded. “Fine, Dad.”
Then she turned to Janet, who was still staring at her with large, liquid-brown eyes.
Janet flicked a glance over her shoulder, then whispered, “Cain told me you guys spoke today.”
Flint turned her lips but didn’t say anything, terrified someone might overhear.
“You okay?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She sighed, taking a step away from Janet, from the confusing feelings she felt at the moment.
And not to mention the tiniest tendril of fear at knowing Janet could kill the same way she’d seen Rhiannon do it. The door to Adam’s trailer opened and out stepped the man himself. His eyes homed in on her immediately, as if he was already aware she was there.
Her heart tripped.
He was a demon.
She looked at him, expecting to see his face melt into something horrifying and hideous. But his eyes were the neon blue she remembered, and his features were still as hard and devastatingly male as before.
“I’m sorry.” Janet held out her hands in a defenseless gesture, dragging Flint’s eyes away from the stare-down. “I hope you know that no matter what, I’m still the geek who’s in love with all things manga and wants to make lots of babies with Sam Heughan someday.” Her smile was tight. “And I’m still your friend.”
“Flint, that’s your name, right?” A deep voice she didn’t recognize spoke to her from behind.
Flint turned. It was one of the blond surfer twins. His hair was a golden palette comprised of many differing shades of blond. This was the closest she’d ever been to one of them. Always before she’d just looked at them from her spot at the lunch table.
Up close, she noticed he was a lot more handsome than she’d initially thought. He had razor-sharp cheekbones, impossibly thick lashes, and the bridge of his nose was slightly crooked. She sniffed. He smelled like the world after a hard rain.
“Yeah.” She switched her overnight bag to her other hand.
“If you would come with me,” he said, his voice cultured. The bark wasn’t in his words the way they were with Cain, and even though he was gorgeous to the nth degree, he didn’t make her body want to melt into a puddle at his feet.
He gestured for her to precede him.
Flint looked back at Janet. She wasn’t sure why, maybe just to be told it was going to be okay.
Janet’s smile was grim. “Adam’s only got me doing one run tonight. Maybe I’ll see you later?” She sounded hopeful.
Flint nodded, then looked at the Abercrombie & Fitch model. “Where are we going?”
“To Cain,” he said, and that was enough to make the crazy nerves and tension zing through her blood like electricity arcing through metal. “I’m Seth, by the way.”
She gave him her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
And she knew what he was really asking was had she talked to her father. “No. I’m not stupid. Besides, for all I know I’m still actually human.”
He smirked, and she noticed he had nice teeth. “You still eating like you did at lunch today?”
She paused to let a child carrying a red balloon zip around her. They walked past the ticket booth. Seth waved to a woman inside. Flint couldn’t help but notice the way her eyes tracked him. The woman’s eyes were brown, so probably not a monster. If she only knew what she was trying to flirt with, she’d probably run screaming in the other direction.
Or maybe not, because she sure wasn’t doing that.
“You caught that, huh?”
“Eli thinks he knows what’s going on with you.”
Her heart stuttered, and it was hard to swallow. “And what is that?”
He jerked his head. “I’ll let Cain tell you.”
Then he was leading her to a trailer at the farthest corner of the gated enclosure. Everywhere Flint looked, there were signs of life. The scents of cotton candy and funnel cake saturated the air, but she could still smell traces of corn from the field over and the trickle of human sweat and musk laced throughout.
Her sense of smell was definitely getting stronger.
They got to a silver-bullet-style trailer and Seth knocked. A second later, Cain stood in the doorway and heat pooled hard in her belly.
He was wearing a white A-shirt and low-slung jeans. Each hard line of his arms was exposed to her greedy gaze. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to glance up. Again, no sunglasses.
Blue eyes, hard as chipped steel, stared back at her.
“You got your bag?” he asked, and that scratchy burr of his did things to her.
Crazy things.
Hot things.
She flushed and nodded, holding the bag up for his inspection.
“Come on.” He turned on booted feet.
Seth touched her lower back. “You first.”
Clumsy, she walked up the stairs and couldn’t squelch the ridiculous excitement of finally getting to see his real place.
The inside was surprisingly clean, but sparse. There was a built-in couch affixed to one side of the wall, a small TV, a kitchenette with hotplate, and college-style fridge. There was also a bed. Large enough to fit him, but definitely not made for more than one sleeper. She’d expected to see lots of black but was surprised by the metal sconces affixed to the walls. They gleamed gunmetal silver and drew her eye because of their stylistic design.
“Nice,” she mumbled, not sure what she should say.
He sat down on the couch; Seth went to the bed.
“Where’s Eli?” Seth asked.
Cain pointed out the window. “Adam put him on guard duty tonight.”
“Ah.” Seth glanced between her and Cain as an uncomfortable silence stretched between them. “My part’s done—I’m gonna find Eli.”
With a wave, he was out the door, and now she was really uncomfortable. In the bunker, it was easy to talk. It felt like a world secluded, private, and a million miles away from humanity.
But this was his house, the place he laid his head at night.
She glanced at the bed.
“You can set your bag down,” Cain said.
“Huh? Oh, right.” She dropped the bag, looking around, not sure what to do next. “So what now?”
He beat the wooden bench frame of his couch with his hands. “How about you sit. Want something to drink?”
“Sure,” she said a little too quickly.
Grinning, he walked to his fridge. “Got water and a can of root beer Abel left here last night.”
“Soda.”
He tossed it to her; the cold of the can seeped into her heated flesh.
“How are the cravings?” He grabbed a water and walked back to his spot on the small couch.
Flint popped the top slowly, letting out the air so it wouldn’t fizz everywhere. “Terrible. I had three tubs of pasta for dinner tonight.”
Rolling her eyes in
disgust, she drank the soda. He eyed her as she wiped the back of her mouth with her fingers. She wished suddenly that she’d thought to shower and change before she got here. Not that it should matter, but he looked so good and she felt so not right at the moment.
His smell was everywhere.
“Smells like pine in here,” she said, taking a smaller sip of her soda.
“You’re still human, princess.”
Relief crashed through her. “Seriously? I was kind of worried.”
He shook his head. “We’ve got a rack of books kept in a vault, books on every creature of lore. Only the queen’s bite can strip you of your mortality.”
She shook the can, surprised she’d finished it. “So what’s up with me? Why am I eating like this?”
He took a long draft of his water; she watched, enthralled, as his throat worked up and down. A hot feeling gathered in the pit of her stomach and sank deep into her bones.
“From what Eli learned, you are changed. You have heightened abilities. Things you were good at before are magnified. You ran up walls, now you can run up them faster—”
She smiled. “I had the nose of a bloodhound…”
“Now you can smell better.” He nodded.
It made sense.
“So no fangs?” she asked, touching her canine. “No freaky eyes?”
He set his water bottle down. “The venom’s in you though.”
“Which means?”
“We’re not sure. Generally we don’t let one of you live long enough to find out. I have no idea what you can do, can’t do, what will happen, has happened. All we do know is that the final transition can only come through the queen’s bite. Without it, you’re still technically human. I’m assuming that the desire to eat more stems from the fact that your metabolism is operating at an extremely high level at this point.” He shrugged.
She glanced at her lap, studying the dark fabric of her jeans, not really thinking about much of anything. Today had been a roller-coaster ride of emotions: disbelief, shock, fear, pleasure. She was still numb.
“Princess?”
Flint sighed. His look was searching, but she couldn’t make out what he was thinking.
A song blared through speakers, and then the ringmaster’s voice boomed through the night. She jumped and grabbed her chest. “Loud much?”
He lifted his brows. “One of the perks of living in a circus.”
She snorted, “Yeah, but the circuses we worked with never had loudspeakers throughout the entire fairgrounds.”
“That’s Adam for you.”
He was acting nice again, which was weird, but not at all displeasing. Deciding to push it and see how far he’d be willing to share, she asked, “Have you lived with him your whole life?”
“No.” He sat up straighter. “Mostly I lived with my mom. But once the change happened—”
“She couldn’t deal with you?”
His grin made her heart get all squishy.
“Bad enough going through puberty, even worse when the demon blood triggers insane mood swings. No, for the sake of everyone, I had to be sent away. So Adam took me, and we left.”
“Oh, so they’re together, still?”
He nodded; a strange look flitted over his face quickly.
“Sorry.” She shrugged, feeling stupid for assuming. “I just thought… well anyway, doesn’t matter.”
“Just do what I do and don’t try to understand it. Works better that way.”
Was he making a joke? Serious Cain? No way, she must have imagined the twinkle in his eye.
“Anyway.” He jumped to his feet. “I want to try something with you.”
Immediately her heart seized and she couldn’t help stealing a look at his bed. The bed she was currently sitting on. Her thighs shook a little.
“What?” she said, voice suddenly grown scratchy.
His lips twisted into a full-blown smile, and it was like getting smacked in the back of the head. Her eyes widened.
“You have a dirty mind, princess.”
“What?” she squeaked, cheeks flushing hotly. “I do not.”
“I want to see what you can do.”
“Excuse me?” She lifted her brows.
He snorted. “Mind out of gutter. I mean I want to take you to the woods, test your new abilities. See what you can do.”
The thought of running and jumping made her heart thrill in ways a bar of chocolate couldn’t at the moment. To let loose, feel her muscles burn, and breathe the clean night air.
But being alone with him… in the dark. It was one thing in his bunker—there she felt safe. But out in the open, what if another bug thingy attacked them? What if a whole swarm of them did?
He called them the hive, said they operated like one… didn’t hives attack in swarms? Was he strong enough to handle that many?
“I don’t know. I really have a lot of homework to do. I’m barely passing Wickham’s class as it is.”
“You can do it later.” He shrugged on a light gray sweater.
“Shouldn’t you be out there with Eli and Seth, or working the circus?”
His eyes narrowed as he shoved his fists into his pockets. “Now that you know what I really am, you’re scared of me? Is that it?”
He sounded angry.
“No.” She jumped to her feet. “I’m not scared of you. Should I be?”
Red glinted in his eyes for a brief moment and her pulse thumped.
“Yes.”
Feeling more daring than she probably should, she sauntered up to him. “Well, I’m not.”
He stepped into her, forcing her to either back up and thus exposing her words as nothing but a lie, or share his space and breathe. She stood her ground. His finger grazed her jaw and her lashes fluttered.
“Then if you’re not scared…” He lifted a brow in challenge.
A hank of brown hair slipped into his eye. Pulse pounding so hard she could taste the adrenaline on her tongue, she reached up and pushed it back. The contact of his skin on her fingers was like a jolt of lightning. She swallowed hard. His irises grew and gleamed with a molten red sheen.
“Let’s go,” she said.
They were back in their woods. Flint laughed as she raced about midway up the trunk of a large oak before gravity forced her to flip back to the ground.
Cain stood below, watching as she ran from tree to tree, at one point climbing up the base, latching on to a trunk and swinging blithely from branch to branch until she came to the top and could peer down at him.
“I feel amazing,” she called. It was crazy, but she literally felt like she could run forever.
“Come down here, princess.”
Cain was leaning against a tree, ankles crossed, staring up at her and looking more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. Like he might actually be enjoying himself.
She eyed the ground, considering the jump (at least thirty feet) and quickly decided against it. She might be able to run for hours, didn’t mean she’d fall without breaking bones.
Climbing down, she hopped the last foot and grinned from ear to ear, dragging a curl of hair that’d escaped her ponytail behind her ear. “Pretty impressive.”
“I’ve seen better.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m sure you have, jerk-off. Why don’t you show me something then, since you seem to think that was nothing?”
“I’d hate to fracture your puny human ego. I’ll pass.”
She rolled her eyes. “Admit it, Cain, you’re embarrassed. It’s okay.”
He chuckled. “Are you baiting me?”
She tucked her cold hands into her pockets. The wind had whipped up at some point. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was slightly chilly. Add to that she was sweaty from jumping and running, and she couldn’t stop the cold that zipped through her and made her shake.
Cain was by her side in a second. “You hungry?”
He was so big, blocking most of the wind from hitting her, and he smelled good. Better than the woods t
hey were surrounded by. Flint was beginning to suspect the smell was uniquely his, not a result of him tramping through the trees, but his unique scent.
“Always,” she groaned.
“I’ve got some rations in the bunker.”
She cocked her head. “Only if you show me what you got.”
His lascivious smirk brought a hot flush to her cheeks.
“Now whose mind is in the gutter?” she asked with a voice grown breathy.
Snorting, he walked over to the tree she’d just climbed. Looking straight at her, he slapped the trunk. He didn’t bum-rush it, didn’t pull back and flex his hips, throwing all his weight and momentum into it, just slapped it.
The sound of groaning, cracking wood reverberated like gunshot around them. Which was impressive all in itself, but then with one final moan, the tree swayed and dropped like a stone—slicing jaggedly down the middle—to the ground.
His smirk was both sexy and infuriating.
“After you,” he said, still wearing the smug look on his face.
“Show-off,” she muttered.
Then he reached beneath his shirt and pulled out a wicked-long Buck knife and handed it to her hilt first. “Somebody might have mentioned to me that you’ve got skills when it comes to knives and swords. I’m interested to see it for myself.”
Her lips twitched when she took the blade from him. The steel was finely honed, and when she flicked the tip of her finger against the edge, she hissed as a thin band of crimson blossomed open. Rolling her eyes, she flicked the blade up in the air, grabbing it smoothly before it fell to the ground.
“I might know a thing or two. What exactly do you want to see?”
Lifting a brow, she could have sworn she’d seen a look of pride flash across his face. Of course, it was probably totally in her head, but whatever. She chose to go with pride.
“Mm.” He turned, squinting one eye as he glanced around and then jerked a finger out, pointing at a dark notch of wood in a tree ten yards or so away. “That. Hit it dead-on. Or at least try.”
“And what do I get if I do it?” She grinned, still flipping the blade around her hand.
It’d been a while since she’d played with knives. But just like tightrope walking and parkour, it wasn’t a hobby she’d entirely given up on either.
The Complete Tempted Series Page 20