by Lara Adrian
She had never been the kind of woman to melt at a man’s feet or surrender her good sense just because her body craved something it shouldn’t want and wasn’t going to get. She was used to calling the shots when it came to sex and relationships, not that she’d had either one—and certainly nothing lasting—in quite a while. She felt that lack more than ever being forced into the company of a powerful, darkly attractive man like Cain.
Which made the idea of staying under the same roof with him a bigger problem than she cared to admit.
He didn’t seem any more enthused with their current situation than she was. His surly mood had only intensified once they had arrived in the Everglades and met up with his fellow Hunter friends. Brothers, she mentally corrected. Brothers who hadn’t seen or heard from him in several years, from the sounds of it.
Marina couldn’t help but wonder why. An inexplicable softness opened up in her breast as she considered the hard male who had saved her life for no good reason other than he could. She wanted to believe that any tender emotion she may be feeling for him was merely gratitude, that her curiosity was perfectly natural and meant nothing. But deep down, she felt a yearning to know more about Cain.
As Lana led her farther into the heart of the sprawling residence, it was impossible not to imagine him living there. What had his life been like then? It was clear that he’d been close to Bram and the others, so why would he choose to avoid the people who were his family and the home he had helped build with his brothers? Whatever the cause, it had been enough to make him leave and not look back until he’d been forced to return because of her.
Lana’s glance lingered on her as they walked. “How long have you and Cain been together?”
“Together?” Marina nearly choked on the word. Lana couldn’t possibly think they were anything close to a couple, could she? “We are most certainly not together. We’re not anything to each other. We only just met a few hours ago.”
Hours that already seemed like days, and not only because of the shocking attempts on her life. Being forced into close quarters with him—being wholly reliant on him for her safety at the moment—was not something she accepted easily. All the less when the man she owed her life to was a surly, dominating Breed male who was no doubt every bit as lethal as the danger she’d barely escaped in Miami.
“Oh. I’m sorry to assume,” Lana said, tilting her head as though studying Marina in her silence. “It’s just the fact he brought you here, of all places. And the way he looks at you, I suppose I thought . . . well, never mind what I thought.”
She swept her hand through the air as if to dismiss the idea, but it had already taken root in Marina’s subconscious.
She had felt the heat of Cain’s stare on her as she walked away from him to leave the room with Lana. That stormy, kinetic energy stirred an answering turbulence inside her every time he looked at her. It awakened an unsettling sense of anticipation inside her, even when his gaze was dark with menace or flashing with aggravation.
Even worse, when those thunderhead-gray eyes were lit with smoldering heat as they had been out on the path through the swamp. Just recalling it made her blood run hot all over again.
She nearly groaned. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t ignore the man and his disturbing effect on her for as much as a moment?
She drew in a centering breath, then pushed it out on a short sigh. “Cain brought me here only because he said he had no choice. Someone tried to kill me tonight. If not for him, they would’ve succeeded.”
Lana sucked in a gasp. “Oh, my God. Bram mentioned some trouble in Miami, but I had no idea it was something as serious as that. I’m so sorry, Marina. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
No, she didn’t. She wasn’t the type to confide every little trouble to the nearest sympathetic ear. She solved her own problems and she never, ever complained. It was the Moretskov way, after all. Yet as she looked at Lana, the automatic denial of her offered friendship didn’t come.
Something about this warm, doe-eyed Breedmate made her feel safe, not only within the walls of the Darkhaven, but safe to share a part of herself as well. “I’ve come here to help my uncle in Russia. He’s involved in some . . . bad business back home. Dangerous business, involving some very bad men.”
“Oh.” Lana paused, a grave understanding tempering her gaze. “You’re talking about the mafia?”
Marina nodded. “Uncle Anatoly manages the finances for one of the most powerful factions of the Bratva. He’s been a part of it for as long as I’ve been alive. But he’s done with all of that now. I’ve been trying to persuade him for years to find his way out of the life, and he’s finally agreed to walk away. It’s not an easy thing. I’m the only one he trusts to help him escape.”
“How are you supposed to do that?”
“By trading what’s in this briefcase for his safe exile.” It was the truth, right down to the secret data file concealed inside.
Lana glanced at the silver case. “Trade it with whom?”
“One of my uncle’s allies. The contact is supposed to call me with the meeting information once everything is agreed upon and in place for the exchange.” Marina frowned. “If my uncle is still alive, that is. I can’t be sure of anything now. One of the men who tried to kill me tonight was the captain of my own security detail.”
“One of them?” Lana’s dark brows lifted. “How many others were there?”
“The first was a sniper who fired on me while I was in the hotel pool. Cain jumped in from the tenth floor and pulled me out of the bullet’s path.”
“Did he now?” There was a note of curiosity in her response. Almost disbelief.
“He said he saw a vision of me being killed in the pool. He saved my life,” Marina admitted. “A few hours later, it was Yury who turned on me. He shot the rest of the men on my team, then held me at gunpoint. Apparently, he was working covertly with the sniper who escaped. Yury said he wasn’t going to let me make the exchange for Uncle Anatoly, even if he had to kill me to stop me. One moment I was staring into the barrel of his pistol, and the next I was watching Cain take Yury out with his bare hands.”
Lana let out a breath. “What an awful ordeal you’ve been through. I’m sorry, Marina.”
“It’s okay.” She shrugged, but her shoulders felt heavy. “I am alive and unharmed. I only hope the same can be said for my uncle.”
“I hope so, too,” Lana said. “Do you have some way to get in touch with him?”
“I have a satellite phone in my bag. It’s with the rest of my things in Cain’s car.”
Lana nodded. “I’ll send Bram to bring everything in for you. In the meantime, let’s get you comfortable in one of the spare rooms, then I’ll fix you something to eat.”
“Thank you.” Marina smiled, feeling grateful not only for the hospitality, but also Lana’s easy demeanor. To her surprise, a good deal of the night’s stress and exhaustion was lifting simply for being in the other woman’s company.
She followed her new friend on an abbreviated tour of the expansive home, which appeared to be laid out in a hexagon shape with various gathering places and social rooms spoking off a central corridor with tall windows that encircled a pretty, moonlit courtyard outside.
“All of the windows in here are equipped with UV-blocking shades during the daylight hours to avoid roasting any of the guys,” Lana explained with a wink as Marina slowed to look out at the dark palm trees and night-blooming flowers that beckoned on the other side. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
Marina nodded. A pair of carved-stone benches sat at the center of the lush garden space, providing a romantic alcove under the canopy of towering palms and the endless night sky overhead.
Lana walked over, resting her hand atop the large swell of her belly. “Bram made this little courtyard for me as a gift to celebrate the first year of our blood bond. It’s one of my favorite spots in the entire Darkhaven.”
Marina smiled. “I can see why.”
“The resident
ial wings are this way,” Lana said after a moment, gesturing ahead. “We always keep a couple of guestrooms open, so you can have your pick.”
Marina murmured her thanks as they resumed their walk along the corridor. Timber beams elevated every soaring ceiling of the sprawling, single-story compound, lending both a sturdy architectural beauty and an airy openness to a residence that had obviously been constructed for security and function, as well as entertainment. She and Lana passed a large theater room, then a library stocked with countless books and a fireplace situated in front of a cozy sofa and chairs. In another room was a billiards table and an old-fashioned jukebox. In the next, a sleek computer room and security operations center.
To Marina’s surprise, there was even an indoor lap pool.
“I didn’t expect everything here to look so . . . normal.”
Lana glanced at her. “How else would it look?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been inside a Darkhaven. I suppose I imagined something grim and lightless. Cold. Menacing.” She was thinking about how she’d been raised to think about the Breed, but all of those same words could just as easily describe her life back home in Uncle Anatoly’s house, where the Bratva was an insidious and constant danger in their lives.
“I was saving the tour of the coffin room and torture chambers for later,” Lana said, her smile wry with amusement.
Marina winced. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound rude and ignorant.”
“You don’t.” Lana tilted her head. “You’re a Breedmate, but you don’t know many Breed?”
“None. I’ve lived with my uncle since I was a little girl and my mother died. It’s hard to meet people outside your own social circle when you’re surrounded by nannies and tutors and bodyguards. Uncle Anatoly is overprotective, even now.”
“Ah.” Lana lifted her chin. “I grew up in one foster home after another, so I never had those kinds of problems.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Not quite nine years. I had a little art studio on Key Largo. Bram came in one night as I was getting ready to close the shop. He bought a few pottery pieces I’d made, and we talked for two hours. The next night he came back and bought more. On the third night, he invited me to the Darkhaven on the pretense of needing my help deciding where to place everything he picked up. It didn’t take much convincing for me to stay overnight. By the morning I realized I never wanted to leave. We’ve been together ever since.”
It was a sweet story, one with a happy ending that was only going to deepen with the arrival of the baby Lana carried. Marina couldn’t deny that she was touched, even a little envious, of the simple, yet idyllic life the other Breedmate seemed to enjoy.
She had never longed for a husband and babies, especially not when having either one meant having them under the yoke of the Russian mafia. And regardless of the birthmark she bore, when she thought of sharing her life with someone, she had never allowed herself to imagine it might be with a Breed male who would want to bind her to him with an unbreakable blood bond.
A vision of Cain’s enormous fangs bared in battle rage as he ended Yury’s life sprang to life in her mind. Those diamond-bright daggers could tear out her throat in an instant. The thought chased a shiver through her veins, followed by a rush of heat she refused to acknowledge.
“Was Cain also living here when Bram brought you home?”
Lana nodded. “Cain, Bram, Knox, Razor, Logan. This has been their only true home since they escaped their collars.”
“Sorry?” The term was unfamiliar. It also put a knot of ice in her breast. “What do you mean, collars?”
Lana gave her a sober look. “You probably don’t know about that, either.” Her tone was tender, yet edged with a hatred that still simmered beneath the surface of her steady calm. “All of the Hunters were fitted with unbreakable polymer collars as soon as they were old enough to walk. The collars were equipped with ultraviolet light in order to prevent any of the Breed boys and men in the program from trying to escape the laboratory, and to make sure they stayed obedient and emotionless. If a Hunter tried to run, if he disobeyed or rebelled in any way, Dragos or his enforcers would detonate his collar.”
“My God,” Marina murmured, the cold knot turning into a leaden weight on her heart. She couldn’t picture someone like Cain—a massive, lethal force of nature—being shackled to a collar that could kill him on a whim. How had he and the other Hunters managed to exist under the conditions Lana described? How had any of them not gone mad or simply given up? Horrified, she drew in a shallow breath. “And I thought the Bratva were merciless monsters. This Dragos sounds far worse.”
Lana nodded solemnly. “He was. Thankfully, he’s been dead for two decades and there were many Hunters who found their freedom once the program’s command center was destroyed and their collars fell away.”
“All of them half-brothers like Cain and Bram and the rest of the men who live here?”
“Yes. Hunters all share the same father, an otherworlder who’d been held captive by Dragos in his lab. He used the captive Ancient to father Breed offspring on dozens of Breedmates who were also being held prisoner by Dragos until they were rescued and he was killed.”
Marina exhaled a strangled sound, disgusted by each new detail and overwhelmed with pity for all of the lives Dragos had destroyed in his madness. “Where are the others? You said there were more Hunters who escaped the program. Where have they all gone?”
“No one knows for sure. Some may not wish to be found. Not all of them will be able to adjust to life on the outside of the lab. To hear Bram describe it, there were many Hunters who had little hope of reclaiming any of their humanity even after they were freed. Others fled the program like wild animals, dangerous and unhinged.”
Walking alongside Lana, Marina wondered where Cain fit on that troubling spectrum. He was no monster, of that she was certain. But he was a hard, lethal man. Forbidding and detached. Cold and emotionless, especially when it came to her.
At least, he had been until the moment they almost kissed out in the swamp.
Her entire body still felt strangely electric following that charged instant when Cain’s lips had started to descend on hers. Warm heat licked through her veins even now, uninvited. Unwanted.
As for him, all he appeared to feel toward her from the moment they left Miami was enraged. If possible, after their near-kiss on the path outside, he seemed beyond furious, and even more regretful that he’d stepped into the midst of her problems.
Not that she had asked him to.
And not that she wanted him continuing to insert himself into her troubles now, either.
Lana paused outside the open door of a spacious guest room decorated in calming neutrals and sumptuous, soft furnishings with an elegant, yet casually tropical feel. “Here’s the guest room I think you’ll like best. What do you think?”
Dominating the room was a king-size bed with a woven-rattan headboard and a cushioned bench at the foot of it. Crisp white linens and mounds of fluffy pillows looked like heaven to her tired eyes and weary body. Marina stepped inside, practically sighing as she soaked up all of the inviting details.
“The room is beautiful, Lana. Thank you for letting me have it.”
“You’re welcome. There’s an en suite bathroom over there, and the closet is yours too. Please, make yourself at home, Marina.”
She nodded, setting the briefcase on the little bench as she strode further inside the room. On the walls were a handful of framed photographs and art. One painting in particular drew Marina in for a closer look. It was a whimsical piece, rendered in bright, bold strokes.
Marina couldn’t help but smile as she looked at the folksy mermaid seated on a rock beneath a crescent moon and an indigo sky pierced with stars. Long, curly red hair spilled all around her pale skin and fish-scaled turquoise tail. Sweet freckles dotted an impish face with big blue eyes and red lips fashioned in the shape of a heart. No one would mistake the work for any
thing but amateur, but there was something special about the playfulness and charm of the artist’s eye. Whoever painted it had a natural, compelling talent.
“I always smile when I see this painting, too,” Lana said, drawing up beside her. “My best friend made it. We went to one of those silly wine and watercolor places one night as a joke. My painting was as terrible as you might expect after three glasses of Chardonnay, but Abbie’s . . . well, as you can see, she had a gift.”
“Abbie.” The conversation between Cain and his brothers upon their arrival replayed in Marina’s head as she glanced at Lana. “I heard Bram and the others mention her name tonight, before you came into the room. Your friend and the Hunter who’s not here now, Knox, were together at one time?”
Sadness moved over Lana’s expression. “Abbie and Knox were madly in love. She was a Breedmate, too. Like us.” Marina flinched inwardly at the reminder of the birthmark she wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge, but she said nothing as Lana continued to speak. “I’d never seen him so happy. She was too. They were practically inseparable, and everyone knew it was only a matter of time before they announced they were going to be blood-bonded. Knox had all of these plans for a romantic getaway as a surprise to her.”
Marina frowned, trying to reconcile this version of Cain’s brother to the one who’d been described as a menace, even a threat, to those around him. According to the other Breed males here, losing Abbie had done that to him. “What happened, Lana?”
“One night there was a terrible storm. It came up unexpectedly while Abbie was leaving the hospital where she worked. Her car broke down on the highway. A tractor-trailer lost control in the rain and high winds. There was no visibility that night. The truck driver didn’t see Abbie’s car in time to avoid her. She died on the scene.”
“Oh, no.” All the air left Marina’s lungs on a weighted sigh. “How awful. I’m so sorry. For you, and for Knox.”
Lana gave a wobbly nod. “Abbie’s death impacted all of us, especially Knox. But I feel for Cain too.”
“Cain?” Marina couldn’t hide her confusion. “Why him?”