The Complete Tempted Series

by Selene Charles

  But what she’d not understood because she’d not been there during Cain’s transformation was that ultimately the decision to turn had to be a berserker’s choice. It was the ultimate in evolution—survival of the fittest.

  Most Nephilim and human offspring never lived past their teen years; the pain of the transformation was too great a burden to bear. The weakest stopped fighting to hang on and simply chose death.

  Adam feared that the added stress of what Layla was doing now might actually have the opposite effect on Abel. Both his sons were made of strong stock—he’d felt deeply that both would ultimately survive their transformation from human to monster.

  Maddox continued to perform chest compressions on Janet’s now lifeless body. Pride demons never knew when to quit at anything, and unless Adam gave him the order to stop, he wouldn’t.

  Clenching his fist so tight his knuckles popped, Adam grunted, “Take off her bracelet.”

  Maddox turned bright golden eyes on him. “She could fade into the ether if we allow her to turn back to shadow now.”

  Adam’s nostrils flared as violence raged deep in his bones. “It’s also the best chance she has at healing. Her life is tied to my son’s. Maybe there’s a chance that if we can bring her back, it’ll give Abel some sort of strength.”

  “Yeah, but Abel’s isn’t tied to hers. He’s not pair bonded to her. This is a one-way bond, Adam. Saving her won’t save him.”

  “You don’t know that!” he thundered. “There is much we do not know surrounding the familial bonds of her kind. Do as I say. Now!”

  Suddenly Janet began to convulse, her lips turning blue and white spittle foaming from the corners of her lips.

  Maddox ripped the cuff—a metal object of power that helped a kanlungan to attain corporeality, as their natural state was only that of shadow—off her wrist. Immediately her form shifted, swirled with deepest threads of inky black until all that remained of her was a thick blanket of smoke.

  “Rhiannon!” Adam screamed, crying out to the only other kanlungan in the circus.

  In an instant her smoky form slipped under the doorway. Rhi must have been hovering close by. She was nothing but a swirling shadow of darkness that matched the one lying upon the bed.

  “Save her,” Adam ordered.

  A second later, Maddox was shoved off the corner of the bed, and Rhiannon’s smoke was covering Janet’s. The blackness of their entwined forms permeated every inch of the trailer, making it hard to see even an inch in front of his face.

  Adam held very still, hardly daring to breathe as the whipping intensity of that dark power swirled like a tidal wave around them.

  There was a spark of deepest blue, and then… all was quiet.

  Still.

  When the darkness lifted, it was to see Janet back in flesh form. Her skin was the rich coppery hue Adam had grown used to. She looked haggard and worn-out when she blinked open her eyes.

  “Adam,” she croaked in a voice grown thick with pain.

  He rushed to her side, grabbing hold of her hand. “I’m here, little one.”

  Her eyelids drooped, as though weighted down by millstones. “Safe.” She shook her head but didn’t have the strength to do much more than that.

  Still, he understood her meaning.

  Abel was safe.

  For now.

  Layla had come too damn close this time.

  He swallowed hard. “Rest now, Ja. Just rest and regain your strength.”

  She was fast asleep only seconds later. Rhiannon plopped down beside him on the bed, her head hanging heavy in her hands.

  There was deep purple bruising beneath her eyes and her skin, already so pale, was now almost tinted blue.

  Adam closed his eyes, realizing just how close they’d come this time.

  “Adam,” she said, and when he glanced at her, he saw a visible shudder roll down her spine.

  He’d been so angry with Rhiannon when it’d first been discovered that Abel was missing. But in reality, he’d been angry with himself for not seeing the truth sooner.

  Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, he gave it a gentle squeeze. “It’s night. You should sleep.”

  She bit the bottom of her lip tightly. His heart clenched. In all the mess of Layla’s betrayal, he’d lost sight of what it meant to be a good leader.

  “As to my part in all this”—his voice rolled wearily—“I am sorry for hurting you, Rhiannon.”

  The kanlungan nodded swiftly, then swiped at her tears, which shimmered wetly. “Can I take the car out for a drive later?” she asked. “I just need to get away from the circus for a while.”

  “Yes,” he said, “but not too far. If something happens to Janet again, we’ll—”

  “Don’t worry.” She placed a gentle hand atop the one he had on his knee. “She’s my first priority.”

  He nodded. “How’s Flint?”

  After checking Janet’s vitals one final time, Maddox got to his feet, his shoulders tight with weariness. “I’ll see you both later. Call me if you need anything else.”

  Then he traced from the room, leaving only a scent of sulfur behind.

  Rhiannon waited to speak until it was obvious Maddox was long gone. Her gaze was penetrating and knowing. “Flint’s not good. And call me crazy, but I’m not buying what you’re selling, Adam. She’s not hive.”

  He lifted a brow but said nothing.

  “That’s fine. You don’t have to tell us. In fact, I understand why you guys are hiding secrets now. But tell me this—is there anyone else I need to keep an eye on amongst our ranks?”

  Narrowing his eyes, he debated just what he should say. He wasn’t even sure himself, but there were a few someones he was carefully monitoring now.

  Thinning his lips, he said, “The humans. Ever since Flint’s return, I’ve sensed a sort of disquiet. Especially with Katy and Frank.”

  She frowned. “Her dad? What do you mean?”

  Adam had his suspicions about what might be happening, and if that were the case, they’d be disbanding the circus even sooner than expected.

  “Just keep an eye on them, but especially Frank. Report back to me about any anomalous activity you witness.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Anything I should warn Flint about?”

  “No.” He wiped his palms down his jeans, feeling as though he’d aged a thousand years in the days since Layla’s betrayal. “As I said, observe for now.”

  She nodded, then glanced one final time at Janet before muttering, “You think they’re gonna survive this?”

  He shrugged but said, “God, I hope so.”

  41

  Cain

  Leaning against his Corvette, Cain waited impatiently for Rhiannon and Flint to arrive.

  Seth dropped a hand to his shoulder. “You’ll be fine, man.”

  “You don’t know that,” he snarled. “I can barely stand to be around her without feeling this…”

  Words failed him. All he could do was squeeze his fist until his knuckles popped and fury began to rise. His anger was always so close to the surface now.

  He was volatile and moody, and most of it stemmed not from Abel’s absence—which filled him with intense guilt—but Flint’s near death, and not because he didn’t care deeply for his brother.

  What he felt was instinctual on every level and not something he could control.

  When Flint had woken up from her coma, not even the threat of the Order’s retribution could have stopped him from seeing her. For one brief second, he’d seen her smile and everything had been perfect. He hadn’t cared about the sleepless nights or the countless bouts of rage he’d suffered.

  Even Adam had had to step in a time or two, beating Cain to within an inch of his miserable life to get his demon under control. If she’d died, he never would have forgiven himself. A rager without his compass was a dangerous thing.

  He’d fought like hell to prevent it. Kept setting her aside, putting her at a distance, hoping ag
ainst hope that somehow he could stop the inevitable. All ragers had a compass. For Seth and Eli, it was each other.

  She wasn’t supposed to be his. Not only was it complicated to bond to a person, it was doubly so when they were a human.

  But then she’d been bitten by a royal guard, and the possibility of more had shone like a beacon inside his dark heart, and he’d done what he’d sworn not to do. He’d let down his guard, and she’d become everything to him.

  He’d planned to train her to develop her knife skills so that she wasn’t just another helpless mortal in a land full of monsters. Then the night of the prom had come along, and all his plans had crumbled to dust. Flint had vanished. Literally disappeared. He’d thought her lost forever. Until she suddenly wasn’t.

  And the relief had been overwhelming. He’d gone to her. Desperate to finally see her. To get her out of his system just long enough that he could give the search for his brother his undivided attention.

  He’d seen the wild mane of red hair, and there’d been nothing else.

  Until he’d scented her.

  The queen had done something to her.

  Consciously he recognized she wasn’t his enemy, that she was still his Flint, but instinctually everything inside him told him to kill. Just being around Flint triggered his monster. She was his compass, but now she was also his ruin.

  “Then why are you here?” Eli words snapped him out of his dark thoughts. “If you don’t think you can handle being around her, then we need to go now.”

  Staring up at the starlit sky, Cain shook his head. “I have to be around her.” He said it slowly, side-eyeing the twins before quickly glancing back at the navy canvas.

  Crossing his arms, Seth blew out a heavy breath. “Your compass.”

  “Yeah.” He finally admitted what they’d probably known for months. “She is.”

  “That sucks hard, man.” Eli shook his head. “But I feel ya.” Eli’s jaw popped from side to side. “If anything ever happened to Seth, I’d probably murder the whole world.”

  The more computer-nerdy of the two twins, Eli had been acting more broody than usual lately. Berserkers by nature weren’t a generally trusting lot and rarely shared their feelings with just anyone.

  “Look.” Seth moved forward and said, “If we see you stepping out of line, we’ll stop it, okay. You can trust us.”

  “You handled the separation at the tent today though…” Eli nodded.

  “Just barely. The breeze was strong, and even so, I had to bail after a while. Why did the queen do this to her?” he ground out.

  “She’s your mom, man, can’t you figure it out?” Seth asked.

  Snarling, he shoved away from the side of his car and stalked toward the base of a large tree. “Not anymore she’s not. Not after everything she’s done.”

  The twins jogged to catch up to him, taking either side as they moved in step with him.

  “You think you can kill her?” Eli asked softly.

  Cain curled his fist as fury moved like toxin through his bones. He couldn’t lose his head. Not now. Not with Flint coming to meet him in a little bit.

  He needed to be calm for her arrival or he’d never make it through this.

  Breathing deeply through his nose, he calmed the noise in his head just enough so that he could speak. “I don’t know, man. I…”

  Just then he saw an image of himself tearing into Layla the way he had with her minions, and it was a blow to his heart. Made his head spin and his throat tighten.

  She wasn’t just any monster.

  She wasn’t a stranger.

  Wasn’t a faceless name anymore.

  Layla, the woman who’d given birth to him, to Abel, was the queen.

  Throwing a mental shield up before the thoughts could take him down any lower, he snarled, “I don’t know.”

  Just then a set of high beams turned onto the dirt lane, and his heart kicked up a notch. His palms grew moist, and the tissue in his arms began to throb with blood flow.

  Taking a deep breath, he stared back up at the stars.

  “Even if you don’t trust yourself, you can trust us,” Eli whispered as though reading his thoughts.

  Cain nodded as the hunter-green Volvo parked beside his black Corvette and the girls got out, dressed as they’d been earlier in the day. Rhiannon stood in front of Flint with her arms braced wide, blocking her from his view.

  “You good?” Rhiannon asked with a slight hint of an accent. Whenever she got anxious about anything if he listened real close, he could always catch a trace of her demonish creeping through.

  The night was calm; the breeze that’d been around all afternoon wasn’t anymore. The curl of Flint’s familiar scent mixed with something else entirely made him quiver. Locking his knees in place, he didn’t move from where he stood. The strange scent was growing stronger.

  He’d always been able to smell Flint. Where he couldn’t smell hive or many other creatures, her smell of thunderclouds had called to him from the moment he’d first seen her. But now there was something warring with it, something richer, deeper, and far more beguiling. It was like rain-drenched soil mixed with the exotic perfume of waxy flower petals.

  He wanted it even as his rager rejected it for not being hers alone.

  “I’m fine. But… I’m going to need you guys not to get too close. Just in case.”

  “Cain?” Flint’s whisper pricked his ears and made him want to groan with need even as the veins in his forearms pulsed.

  Swallowing hard, he reached into his pocket and drew out his cell, along with a burner he’d bought cheap at the store earlier.

  “I got you a phone, Flint. Only a few of us have the number.” He handed it to Eli, who took it from him and walked over to her to hand it off.

  Her lips twitched as she took it from him.

  Eli grinned back, ruffling the hair at the crown of her head.

  Cain’s eyes narrowed. If that’d been Seth, the wildness inside him might not have taken too kindly to witnessing such an affectionate gesture. It wasn’t that Cain wanted to control Flint.

  He didn’t.

  But unless he got his mark on her, she was a free woman, which made his monster insane. Because so far as the berserker in him was concerned, Flint was his. Like a dragon who coveted and cosseted its jewels, that’s how he was with her.

  And even as his instinct continued to demand they take that final step, common sense screamed at him that bonding in and of itself was an archaic, antiquated method of shackling down a compass. Maybe back in the dark ages these crazy feelings would have been acceptable, but Flint was a modern woman. She didn’t need a man to survive. Once upon a time, having the protection of a berserker’s fealty would have been enough to get a compass to acquiesce to the demands of the beast, but thanks to the invention of guns, it wasn’t all that difficult to bring even the worst of monsters down.

  The last thing Cain wanted was to take away Flint’s right to make up her own mind. Even if the waiting left him agonized.

  He blew out a heavy breath—being petty and possessive was the quickest way to lose her. And he wouldn’t do that. Ever.

  She stared down at the phone. “I already have a phone, Cain.”

  “This is our own private line and untraceable. I’m not taking any chances.”

  “Thanks,” she said softly, and his heart clenched.

  Cain joggled his own phone at her. “I hate to ask you this, princess, but can you go about a hundred yards off and then call me?”

  “I hate this,” she muttered, peeking at him from between Rhiannon’s arms. She still hadn’t budged an inch. Like a good soldier, Rhi would guard Flint with her life. But not just Rhi; Eli had positioned himself close to her as well.

  “C’mon. Let’s put a little space between you and Godzilla,” Eli said, tossing a grin back at Cain, knowing he would hear, then gripped her by the elbow and led her back into the wooded area. Rhiannon followed close on their heels.

  Flint glan
ced back at him once with the same kind of intensity that’d first attracted him to her.

  “I’ll give you guys some privacy.” Seth started to move off in the opposite direction, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “But if I see your eyes turning red, I’m taking you down. Got it?”

  “Yeah. I got it,” Cain said, having already taken several beatings in the past few days. Turning, he headed back to his car, opened the door, and slid down onto the passenger seat with a bone-weary sigh.

  Not that locking himself inside the car could really hold him, but it cut out the smell, and in case anything did happen, it would give Seth a few extra seconds to subdue him.

  His phone rang a minute later.

  “Hey,” she said when he picked up. “So this is weird, right?”

  “You know, my day sucked. But hearing you now,” he admitted softly, “at least it can end on a good note.”

  There was a gasp on the other end of the line, and he swore he could almost hear her smile as she said, “How long do you think you’re gonna have to stay away from me?”

  Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he stared out the window. “I dunno. At this point, I’m just hoping that maybe once my beast gets used to the new smell it won’t make me so manic.”

  “Grace seems to think my final metamorphosis won’t take much longer before it happens.”

  “Yeah, about that.” He ran fingers through his thick hair. “Grace is your grandmother. Why didn’t I know this already?”

  She sighed. “Probably because I didn’t know it myself.”

  “What?” He frowned.

  “It’s a long story. And part of the reason why I told you we needed to talk.”

  Drumming his fingers on his pant leg, he dipped his head. “It’s too late to break up with me, princess, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  He had meant for it to come out as a joke, but his stomach clenched at her continued silence. Not for a second had he thought that was what she’d meant this morning.