Though his brother and Shrader were both tall, with hard, muscular builds, Ian had Riley’s same dark hair, only shorter, and blue eyes, while Shrader had hazel eyes and thick, caramel-colored hair that fell to just above his shoulders, as well as a wealth of tattoos on his arms and hands.
“What are you two doing here?” he asked, glancing between the two of them.
It was Kellan who answered the question. “They said they needed to talk to you.”
Riley arched a brow as he stopped in the middle of the room. Crossing his arms over his bare chest, he threw Ian a sharp look of frustration. “And you couldn’t have called? You know damn well that with Malcolm dead, it’s too dangerous for you to be out wandering around right now. You’re a free meal to any Casus that has the balls to come after you. What the hell were you thinking?”
“We told him that, but he was determined to do this in person,” Aiden drawled, nodding his tawny head toward Ian, who sat with his left elbow braced against the high arm of the leather sofa, his left hand rubbing over his chin as he studied Riley’s face through dark, shadowed eyes. Angry tension poured from his big, powerful frame like heat coming off a towering blaze, filling the room with a sharp, electric presence.
Whatever was going on, Riley knew he wasn’t going to like it. He started to tell Ian to go ahead and spit it out, when Hope came down the stairs behind him in jeans and a T-shirt, instantly snagging the attention of every male eye. Her mouth was kiss-swollen, cheeks flushed, hair falling around her shoulders in wild, sexy disarray, as if she’d only taken the time to run her fingers through it and not a brush. Ian arched his brows at the obvious fact that she looked as if she’d been thoroughly ravaged, while Kellan and Shrader both snuffled warm, appreciative rumbles of male laughter under their breaths.
She murmured a quiet “Good morning” as she took the vacant spot on the love seat beside Kellan, her hands clasped nervously between her knees. Though he hadn’t spoken to Ian since getting to town, Riley knew that Saige had told him about Hope…and no doubt filled him in on their history. And while he didn’t think that Ian had ever known her very well, odds were he remembered her from school or around town. His brother took a moment to study her face, as though looking for remnants of the girl he’d known back in Laurente all those years ago, then slid his hawklike gaze back toward Riley. Narrowing his eyes, he drew in a deep, searching breath. “You’ve fed,” he announced in a low voice, the husky words making everyone freeze. Hope’s face turned bright red, her eyes going round with one of those deer-in-the-headlights kind of looks.
Riley responded with a curt nod, warning his brother with his eyes to drop the subject before he embarrassed her any more than he already had, but the guy apparently didn’t give a damn. “Shit,” Ian muttered, and Riley’s own eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“What do you mean by ‘shit’? I thought satisfying our hunger was a good thing. Isn’t that what you’ve all been nagging me to do? Now that I’ve finally done it, I can face Gregory as a Merrick and take him to pieces.”
Kellan looked from him to Hope, then back again, the corner of his mouth twitching with a grin as he gave a low whistle. “Oh, yeah,” he murmured. “You’re blasting out Merrick vibes like a beacon. They’ll be tripping over themselves to get to you now, whether you’ve found the Marker or not. The Casus will probably be swarming around this place by tonight.”
“Good,” he grunted. “I’m ready to end this.”
“Goddamn it,” Ian snarled, leaning forward and smacking his fist down on the surface of the table so hard that everyone’s mugs jumped a good inch…as well as Hope.
“What the hell is your problem?” Riley snapped. But his brother just sat there, looking ready to explode with some violent emotion, while the tension in the room cranked up another uncomfortable degree.
“I don’t suppose you guys brought the first Marker with you?” Kellan injected into the heavy silence, looking between the two men who sat across the table from him and Hope.
Shrader shook his head, saying, “Riley won’t be needing it, so we left it at Ravenswing, rather than risk losing it. Especially now that Westmore has his hands on the one that Saige found down in Brazil.”
Kellan arched his brows. “Why won’t he be needing it? What do you guys know that we don’t?”
Shrader leaned back into the corner of the leather sofa and glanced at Ian. “I think it’s time you go ahead and tell the big guy why we’re here,” he said.
With his elbows braced on his spread knees, Ian scrubbed his hands down his face, then cut his dark gaze up at Riley, and the uneasy feeling in his gut flared with warnings of something bad…something ugly.
His brother just kept staring, and Shrader sighed, saying, “Ian had a dream.”
Kellan snickered. “I thought that was Martin Luther King Junior.”
“Shut up, smart-ass,” Ian growled, glaring the younger Watchman into silence, while Riley absorbed the telling words. Though they still didn’t understand everything about Ian’s “gift,” it seemed that his dreams could sometimes be a form of precognition, enabling him to see things before they actually happened.
“So you came all this way because of some damn premonition,” he said in a low, raw-edged voice. “Why in God’s name didn’t the others stop you? What are they all doing?”
“Quinn tried, but he was no more successful than I was,” Shrader explained. “He’s back at Ravenswing with Molly and Saige. All three of them are working on the maps now, which I’m sure Saige has already told you. And Kierland has been called to Austria to stand before a special meeting of the Consortium. He’s on the plane as we speak.”
Riley knew that the Consortium was a sort of paranormal United Nations, comprised of elected officials from each of the remaining ancient clans. The Watchmen reported directly to the organization, acting as the Consortium’s eyes and ears around the globe. The shifters were forbidden to interfere in problems that arose among the clans, unless given special permission by the Consortium. Kierland and the others in the Colorado unit had broken that rule by stepping out of the shadows and making contact with Ian when his awakening had begun, which was probably why Kierland had been called forward. Riley assumed the opinionated Watchman would use the opportunity to go ahead and argue his position that the other clans could no longer stand by and allow the Casus’s return to go unchecked. He also knew that Kierland was trying to work out a way of sharing the Marker between the different Watchmen units, so that more Casus could be taken down. Though his plan made sense, especially as Saige continued to work her way through the maps and more of the crosses were found, no one had much hope that the Consortium would agree, knowing the issue would be argued and debated for so long, it would probably be a moot point by the time they came to any sort of decision.
He was ready to ask again what Ian had dreamed, when his brother finally moved to his feet. Standing in front of the sofa, his tall body vibrating with violent emotion, Ian said, “I thought I knew you.” The words were soft…bitter. “I mean, I know we’ve never been close. And I get that it’s my fault. I bailed. Left you behind to deal with everything back at home. But I thought we at least had respect between us, Ri.”
His stomach churned, but he managed to rasp, “We do.”
“Like hell we do,” Ian growled, suddenly taking a step toward him, his hands fisted at his sides. “Brothers don’t lie to each other. They don’t keep each other in the dark, especially not when it counts.”
The dread coiled tighter, like something constricting around his neck. “What do you want from me?”
“I want the truth!” Ian shouted, his dark features twisted in a grimace of fury. “Is that so goddamn much to ask?”
He didn’t respond. Instead, Riley uncrossed his arms and headed for the back door. But leaving the room meant turning his back on Ian, which was never a smart move. One second he was walking away, not wanting to have this conversation in front of Hope, and in the next Ian was gripping his sho
ulder, jerking him back around, getting right in his face. “Don’t you dare walk away from me!”
“I don’t need this right now.”
“If not now, then when?”
“There’s crap going on here that you don’t know about!” he roared.
“Because you won’t tell me!” Ian fired right back, shoving at his shoulders hard enough to send Riley slamming back against the door.
He sagged there for a moment, letting the door support his back, clueless as to what he should say…how to explain. It amazed him that the floor was still holding him up, when everything else around him seemed to be dissolving into a pile of shit. “Christ, Ian. I don’t want you to have to be a part of this.”
“I already am.” His brother lifted one hand, ran it back through the midnight strands of his hair, then slowly shook his head. “I know what you have planned. What you’re going to ask Kellan to do.”
Riley locked his jaw and stared into Ian’s glittering eyes, a vein beginning to throb in his temple.
“What?” Kellan asked. “What’s he going to ask me to do?”
Ignoring the Watchman’s question, he said, “It has to be done,” in a low, emotionless tone that seemed to infuriate Ian even more.
“Like hell it does. What are you thinking?”
His mouth twisted with a bitter smile as he said, “I’m assuming that in your little dream, you didn’t hear the explanation I give him when I make my…request?”
“What request?” Kellan burst out with impatience. “Would someone tell me what’s going on?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what kind of reason you have,” Ian growled. “Nothing could make me believe that your idiotic plan is the only answer. It isn’t going to happen.”
“If Kellan doesn’t do it, I’ll find someone else who will.”
His brother sneered. “Yeah, well, they’re going to have to get through me first.”
He stared into his brother’s eyes, doing everything he could to avoid looking at the others. To avoid looking at Hope. “Stay out of this, Ian. It has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me. You’re my goddamn brother, and after everything we’ve been through, I’m not about to lose you like this. I want an answer, and I want one now.”
A choked laugh grated against Riley’s throat, and he swallowed, trying to breathe down the shivering heat that was rising up inside him. Lowering his gaze to the floor, he could feel each heavy, hammering beat of his heart as he said, “You left.”
“Left? Left what, damn it?”
He pulled in a deep breath. Slowly let it out. “Home.”
Silence…and then Ian said, “I asked you to come with me.”
“And I couldn’t,” he rasped, rubbing his damp palms into his thighs, the wood grain of the floorboards blurring as his eyes went hot. “You knew that. And Elaina, her obsession with the Merrick never stopped. She just became more desperate to know what was coming…to see a glimpse of our futures.” Lifting his head, he held his brother’s bleak stare as he said, “And what you didn’t let them do to you, our mother begged me to let them do to me, hoping she could get her answers.”
Ian flinched, his expression pulled tight with dread. “Please tell me you told her no,” he said hoarsely.
Riley rolled his shoulder, cutting his gaze to the floor again, aware of the others staring at him…the weight of their gazes burning against his skin. “At first, yeah. But then I just got tired of fighting her on it. And I was afraid that she’d try to use Saige, who was still so young. So I finally let her hold the ‘vision’ ritual with that group of quacks she hung out with, just to shut her up.”
“What happened?” Ian asked. “Did they hurt you?”
“Naw, nothing like that. And it worked, which totally blew my mind, since I’d thought they were out of their freaking skulls. But they held their little ceremony, and I saw…”
“What?”
“I saw the future,” he said in a low voice. “I saw what I would become.”
“Christ, Riley. Just spit it out.”
“It wasn’t pretty. Hell, it was…” He took another breath, finally forced it out. “I become a killer.”
“Of things that deserve to be killed,” Ian grunted. “That’s what we’re all becoming.”
“I wish.” He laughed, the sound painful and stark. “But it’s worse than that. I can’t control it when I change. Not like you and Saige. The rage, the aggression, it gets the better of me. Takes me over. And I become as bloodthirsty as the things we’re fighting.”
Breath-filled silence, and then Ian whispered, “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true,” he breathed out, doing his best to control the tremor in his throat. “I saw it with my own eyes. You and Saige, you’re able to handle it. But when I’m forced to face the Casus, I…Hell, I don’t know. It’s like my rage overwhelms me and I just lose it. I saw myself killing. Brutal, bloodthirsty, and they weren’t all monsters. I think…Christ, I think they were just people.” He lifted his gaze, forcing himself to hold his brother’s furious, tormented stare. “If you care about me at all, Ian, you won’t let me turn into that. You won’t let it happen. You’ll do the decent thing and kill me before you let me hurt anyone.”
He was painfully aware of Hope making a thick sound of surprise…of Kellan and Shrader cursing to themselves, but he couldn’t look their way, not wanting to face their expressions. Not wanting to see the disgust he knew Hope must be feeling now that she knew she’d given herself to a monster…a killer.
“There’s got to be another way,” Ian argued.
“There isn’t. I had already realized it was time to suck it up and deal with it, when I learned you’d headed back to South Carolina to face Malcolm. When the Watchmen showed up and told me what was happening, I knew the time had come. I’d do the damn thing myself, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to once I’ve lost my control. And the only reason I haven’t done it before now and eaten a bullet is because I’m a stubborn bastard and want to take as many of the Casus out with me as I can, before I go. I know it’s a hell of a thing to ask of you, but I need your promise. If it…If it happens, I need you to make sure that I’m put down.”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Ian growled. “God, Riley, you’re the most righteous man I’ve ever known. The idea of you turning…” He shook his head, his voice a gritty, graveled rasp as he said, “It’s impossible. Whatever you saw in that goddamn ritual, it isn’t going to be like that.”
“But if it does happen,” he said through clenched teeth.
His brother vibrated with a gripping tension, then finally gave a jerky nod, relenting for the moment, and Riley leaned back against the door, feeling as if a weight had been lifted off his chest. Ian might not be happy about it, but he trusted him to make sure that the right choices were made.
“So if we end up not having to off ya,” Shrader drawled with his typical pain-in-the-ass sarcasm, “are you gonna bring Hope here back to Ravenswing?”
The leaden weight that had begun lifting from Riley’s shoulders suddenly crashed back down, nearly bringing him to his knees. His gaze gravitated to Hope against his will, the expression on her beautiful face making him feel like the biggest bastard alive. A stark, wrenching blend of fear and anger and betrayal. Her mouth trembled, her skin too pale, as if everything had just drained right out of her. Already, she was closing down. Locking up.
Swallowing against the knot of emotion in his throat, he said, “She isn’t coming back.”
Ian took a step forward, demanding his attention, and he dragged his gaze away from Hope to refocus on his brother. “Once the Marker is found, you need to come home, Riley. Until the war is over, it’s too dangerous for you to stay here with Hope. The Casus will just keep coming for you, one after another. You guys need to be somewhere safe. Somewhere you’re not having to look over your shoulder every hour of the day and night.”
“I won’t be going anywhere,�
� he rasped, holding up his hand when Ian started to argue. “And even if I was, Hope still wouldn’t be going with me.” Not that he wouldn’t have wanted her to. He just knew what his future held, and didn’t want her anywhere near it. If a miracle happened, and he faced the Casus that night without losing control…that didn’t mean he was in the clear. Didn’t mean that it wouldn’t happen the next time…or the next. Sooner or later, that damn vision was going to be a reality, and Riley had no doubt it would be that night. Somehow, he just…knew.
His brother glanced at Hope for a moment, a dark expression of disbelief carved into his features as he looked back toward Riley. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he muttered. “How could you involve her in this—feeding from her—if the thing you two have got going isn’t permanent?”
He opened his mouth, ready to tell his brother to mind his own business, when Hope suddenly headed for the stairs, saying, “I think…I think I should go now.”
With his heart all but pounding its way out of his chest, Riley watched her quickly climb the stairs, feeling as if she was taking a part of him with her. The good part. The worthy one. Throughout the night, he’d kept waiting for the moment when she was going to open her eyes and come to her senses. Tell him to get lost. That she wanted nothing more to do with him. He’d tried to brace himself for it—only, the wrenching moment never came. Instead, she just kept giving of herself, so freely, so sweetly, accepting every part of him, no matter how dark or hard or aggressive.
He wanted to go after her so badly, the need was like a physical thing raging inside his body, but knew there was nothing he could say to make things right. No rosy spin that was going to erase that gutted, devastated look on her face. Instead, he just stood there, leaning against the door with his gaze glued to the empty stairs.
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