by Lara Adrian
He cuffed Logan on the shoulder and the two of them headed off without another word. Cain watched them go, waiting until they disappeared around a turn in the corridor before he let out the jagged breath he’d been holding.
He sent a glance toward the pool area, just in time to see Marina climb out of the water. Rivulets sluiced down her nearly naked curves and off the end of her blond ponytail as she padded over to retrieve a fluffy white towel from where it lay folded on a poolside bench. She began drying off, stroking the soft terry cloth over the tangled vine of roses on her arms and legs.
Cain scowled, staring through the glass. He knew he should walk away and leave her in peace. Damn it, he wanted to. Instead, he tamped down the hunger he hadn’t been able to hide from his brothers, then he opened the door and strode inside.
Marina swiveled her head in his direction the instant he entered. She looked startled that he was there, but she took her time wrapping the towel around her shoulders as if she refused to let the sight of him provoke her.
“Has there been news?” she asked. “The call I’m waiting for—”
Cain shook his head as he approached. “Nothing yet.”
“Would you tell me if there was?”
He exhaled sharply. “I’m not going to lie to you. You can trust me, Marina.”
Her chin came up, burgundy gaze unblinking and ready for battle. “The only thing I trust about you right now is the threat you made against me last night.”
He had more than earned the jab—and her doubt. He cursed under his breath. “I was angry and frustrated last night. For some reason, you seem to bring out the worst in me.”
“Is that what passes for an apology to you?”
“No. I’m not apologizing for what I said.”
She scoffed. “Of course, you aren’t.”
She folded her arms beneath the dampened towel that draped her and started to walk away from him. Cain blocked her, coming to stand directly in front of her. She stopped short, even though her expression said she would have preferred to barrel through him.
“Why are you here, Cain? Or have you come here to tell me I’m forbidden from using the pool without your supervision too?”
He almost chuckled, astonished by her tenacity. He’d never known anyone willing to challenge him at every turn, let alone a female. Marina might have been raised as a pampered mafia princess, but the woman staring back at him was a warrior to her core.
He was impressed, far more than he should be. “Jesus, you never back down from a fight, do you? You’re not a prisoner here, Marina.”
“Is that right?” She held out her hand, palm up. “Then I’ll be glad to take my phone and be on my way.”
“You’ll be dead on your own,” he pointed out, in case she hadn’t grasped that fact. “Your mission for your uncle is probably suicidal as it is. I know that’s not going to stop you. I heard your determination when you were talking to him.”
She didn’t deny it. Her hand slowly fell down to her side. “I would do anything for my uncle.”
Cain grunted. “I have no doubt. Does he appreciate just how much you’re willing to sacrifice for him?”
“Of course, he does.”
“You’re sure about that? Because it seems to me that you’ve got something to prove—even if you have to risk your life to make the point.”
Her brow furrowed as he spoke. “Without Uncle Anatoly, I wouldn’t be alive. He opened his home to my mother when she was pregnant and alone. After she died, he continued to raise me like his own child. I owe him my life. I owe him everything.” She glanced down, her voice softening. “And I want to be free from the Bratva as much as he does.”
She said it like a wish she had never spoken out loud before. It was almost a whisper, filled with a vulnerability that took him aback. Cain reached out, lifted her face. “You can have that right now. Safe passage for you to a Darkhaven anywhere in the world. If you want to escape your life in Russia, I can arrange it within the hour.”
“But only me.”
He nodded, and she stepped back, rejecting everything she’d just heard with a look that conveyed more than any words. “Do you actually think I would consider that? Abandon my uncle, the only family I have, to make a better life for myself? No, Cain. That’s not something I would do. Not ever, not for any reason.”
She didn’t voice the recrimination, but she didn’t have to. He could see it in her face. “I had my reasons, Marina. It was better for everyone that I left.”
“Better for you, you mean. But without the people who care about you, what else is there?”
He didn’t have an answer for that. For the first sixteen years of his life, all he knew was killing and discipline. After escaping Dragos’s labs, he’d gotten a taste of family and home with his brothers here at the Darkhaven they built.
And yes, he would have given anything for them—right down to his final breath.
He still would.
Yet, selfishly, he’d turned his back on all of them eight years ago out. He’d been a coward to abandon the people who cared about him the most. Including Knox. Especially him.
He held her defiant stare. “We’re not here to rehash my failures or all the ways I’ve let people down. I won’t live a day without blaming myself for Abbie’s death and the pain I caused everyone who loved her.”
“You think you failed Abbie? How are you to blame for what happened to her?”
This wasn’t at all a topic he wanted to discuss, least of all with Marina, but he knew enough about her to realize the only way to steer her away from the subject of his ignoble past was to push straight through it.
“I let myself care for her, and in the end it cost Abbie her life.” He saw Marina’s gaze flicker with confusion and maybe something even more tender. He scoffed. “She’s dead because by letting her into my heart, I failed to protect her. It’s a mistake I’ll never make again.”
Marina seemed surprised by his admission. Hell, he surprised himself by saying the words out loud. It was the first time he’d uttered them. Too late to take them back now.
She studied him too closely, seeing the cracks he’d always been able to hide behind a shield of cold menace and solitude.
It took a moment before she spoke. “Lana told me what happened. How a tractor trailer lost control in a big storm that night. How could any of that be your fault? You didn’t kill Abbie.”
He exhaled a bitter chuckle. “Tell that to Knox. He’s got every right to hate me.”
“Why? Cain, it was an accident.”
“One I saw in a vision weeks before it happened.”
Her mouth went a bit slack. “You saw Abbie’s death? The same way you saw mine?”
“The same way I’ve seen dozens of deaths. Random people. Strangers. And sometimes I see the last moments of people I know . . . people I care about.”
“How awful for you, Cain.” She swallowed. “I can’t imagine what that must be like for you.”
He scoffed. “Do I look like I need sympathy?”
His words were deliberately sharp, and they served their purpose. Marina inched back and pulled her towel a little tighter around her, as though his cruelty chilled her. “Did you tell anyone you saw the accident that was going to happen? Did she know? Does Knox?”
“I didn’t tell anyone. Knox found out . . . later.”
A bleak understanding filled her gaze. “You mean, after she was gone.”
She reached for him then. Her fingers came to rest lightly on his forearm, sending the warmth of her touch all the way into his marrow. Heat licked through him and he drew away from the contact on a low growl. “Fuck this. I’ve said enough. I don’t need to explain anything more.”
But true to form, Marina refused to retreat. “What about Abbie? Did she know how you felt . . . about her, I mean?”
“Christ, no.” He bit off the reply, irritation flaring hot in his field of vision. “She was in love with Knox and he adored her. I’ve never claimed to
have much honor, but I wouldn’t have stooped to that. I would’ve died before I crossed that line.”
“But he knew. Didn’t he?” She studied him too closer. “Knox knew how you felt about her.”
“I think he probably guessed as much the night of the accident, when he found me cradling her bloody, broken body in the wreckage.”
“Oh, my God.” Marina’s face fell, abject misery in her whispered reply, as if she could feel the depth of his shame.
There was more to the story, but he’d said enough. He’d accomplished what he needed, had extinguished her pity and added more bricks to the wall he was determined to hold in place between them.
Her silence stretched. “Anything else you want to know?” When she said nothing, he tossed her a cold, satisfied smile. “Didn’t think so.”
He pivoted away and started for the door. He was less than ten paces away from his escape when her voice called out behind him, clear and crisp with challenge.
“It this the way you handle every situation you don’t want to face? By walking away from it?”
He stopped. Stood in mute, rigid fury as the sound of her bare feet padded closer. She walked in front of him, the towel abandoned somewhere behind her. All that covered her from his flashing, transformed eyes was the skimpy black bikini that his fingers now itched to tear to shreds.
If Marina felt any measure of the dangerous ire she was stoking in him, she gave no indication at all. Standing toe-to-toe with him, her breast heaving with her outrage, she faced him head on.
“I’m supposed to trust you to protect me when I can’t even trust you to finish a conversation with me?”
Color rose in her cheeks as she berated him. At the base of her throat, a vein beat frantically.
Cain licked his lips, preternatural impulse he couldn’t control even if he tried. His fangs erupted from his gums, the sharp points digging into the cushion of his tongue.
Marina put her hands on her nearly naked hips. “Nothing to say, Cain?”
“I’ve got plenty to say.” A growled reply, as rough as gravel in his throat. “You won’t want to hear it.”
“Try me.”
“Wrong answer.”
“You don’t scare me, Cain Hunter.” She hiked her chin up as she said it, sending that long ponytail swinging against her bare spine. Cain caught it in his fist. Twisted the damp, golden rope around his clenched fingers. Her head tipped back with the pressure he exerted, making the smooth column of her neck arch under his face.
“You want to know the truth, Marina? I wish I had left you on the curb outside JUSTIS. I wish I never would’ve seen your damn mark, because now I can’t walk away and forget about you. Do I wish I could? Fuck, yes.”
She swallowed, eyes locked on his. He should have released her, but instead he pulled her against him and inhaled, dragging the scent of her warm wet skin—and the unique roses-and-spice scent of her blood—into his aching lungs.
“I wish I was the kind of male who could walk away from you. I wish like hell I had more honor, because despite the mark that should be enough to make me keep my distance—despite the fact that you’re withholding information that might yet get you killed on my watch—the only thing I can’t seem to do where you’re concerned is walk the fuck away.”
Her breath sawed out of her in shallow pants as he held her ruthlessly against him. Desire coursed like lava through his veins, burning every last thread of his control. She trembled, her soft curves crushed into the hardness of his body. Her lips parted on a wordless gasp.
He stared at her mouth, wishing she would tell him to let her go. Hoping like hell she wouldn’t. His mouth curved when she couldn’t seem to find any words at all.
“Now, who’s unwilling to finish a conversation?”
Before he could think better of it, he bent his head to hers and took her mouth in a slow, deep kiss. There was no gentleness in it. He had none inside him now that Marina’s lips were caught under his. He had been craving this kiss from the instant he laid eyes on her.
And she kissed him back with equal fire and desperation.
Arousal lashed him with each stroke and sweep of her tongue against his. On a snarl, he unwound his fist from her hair and smoothed his hand along the sinuous line of her spine. She moaned as he gathered her hips against his, the ridge of his erection grinding into her abdomen, inflaming every cell in his body with the need to claim. To conquer. To fuck.
“Cain,” she murmured into his mouth. Another soft moan, then a sharper cry when his fangs grazed the tender flesh of her bottom lip. “Cain.”
It took him a second to realize she was stiffening in his arms. She pulled away on a strangled cry, the back of her hand flying to her mouth. Her eyes were wide with uncertainty, wine-dark pools rounded in mounting alarm.
She stared at his fangs, which he knew loomed like daggers behind his parted lips. The heat of his amber-lit eyes bathed her face in an unearthly glow. Her stricken expression cooled him off as effectively as a bucket of ice water.
She was terrified. Of him.
Of what he was.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” she murmured, flinching out of his reach. She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
She swung away from him, visibly shaken as she hurried for the door.
“Marina, wait. Fuck.”
He started to go after her, then realized it was better if he let her go. Better for both of them.
Keeping his distance was the kindest thing he could do for her. Especially now, when a taste of her kiss had only ignited a deeper hunger. One he wasn’t sure he’d be able to resist.
Forcing himself to stand there, he bit off a curse and watched her dash into the corridor outside.
CHAPTER 11
Marina rushed into the corridor, her heart hammering in her breast. Had she lost her mind? She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment and all she could see was Cain’s face, transformed from human to something otherworldly and lethal. She brought her fingers to her mouth and all she could feel was the graze of his fangs against her tongue.
She had seen the change come over him before, but never like this.
Never when he was holding her in his arms, kissing her with hunger that awakened a similar craving within her. Something that went deeper than physical desire. Something that spoke to a part of her she didn’t dare acknowledge.
It shook her, how powerfully she wanted him.
It terrified her.
And if she hadn’t broken away when she had, she knew she wouldn’t have found the strength to resist him.
Not when every racing beat of her heart was vibrating with the need for more of Cain’s touch, his kiss, his dark, unearthly passion.
Even his bite.
“Oh, God.” Marina moaned and picked up her pace.
The strings of her bikini top dangled loose against her spine. She hadn’t even noticed Cain had nearly unfastened the feeble knot. She reached behind her, struggling to fix it as she ran. With her head down and her focus distracted, she didn’t realize there was a wall in front of her.
An immense wall made of immovable, hard flesh and bone.
Marina crashed into it at full speed.
Or, rather, him.
Not Cain. Not any of the Breed males she’d met.
She had seen her fair share of intimidating men over the years. Vory soldiers. Bratva bosses. Not to mention Cain and the three other former Hunters in this Darkhaven who made all of those thugs and crime lords pale in comparison. But this massive Breed male skewering her with an emotionless ice-blue stare threw off a coldness like nothing she’d ever witnessed before.
She stepped back at once, retreating out of arm’s reach of him, even though he didn’t move at all. Not even a flicker of muscle reaction to her unintentional body slam or her mute backpedal.
Under the crown of his military-cut, short brown hair, his rugged face remained unfazed, unreadable. His bluish-gray eyes traveled over her and her state of undress as if she were inanima
te, simply an obstacle blocking his path.
“You must be Knox,” she said, feeling ridiculous in her bikini and not a little on edge in front of the male. “I’m Marina.”
She didn’t bother to hold out her hand. He didn’t seem the type for polite introductions, and part of her worried that if she offered him a limb he might only snap it off. His chilling gaze narrowed on her as he drew in a breath through flared nostrils. His lips peeled back from his teeth and the tips of fangs on a snarl. “I can smell my brother on you.”
She swallowed. “Cain’s, um, just down the hall. We were . . . talking at the pool.”
It sounded lame, even to her. Not that Knox seemed to care.
Those unfeeling eyes made another slow perusal of her body again and the flush that was still riding her cheeks from Cain’s kiss. When he spoke, his deep voice scraped out of him like a growl.
“I’ve never been one for sharing, but maybe I should make an exception. I’m sure my brother won’t mind.” He grunted coldly. “Way I see it, the son of a bitch owes me that much.”
Marina inched back another step. As she did, she felt a sudden gust of energy rush past her. It was Cain, moving faster than she could track him. He seemed to materialize out of nowhere, appearing in the space between her and Knox. And he was in a rage unlike she’d ever seen in him before.
Without a word of warning, he shoved Knox. The big vampire shot backward, massive shoulders and spine slamming into the side of the corridor. Concrete crumbled around him, dust and pebbles crumbling from the enormous dent hollowed into the wall from the impact.
Knox grinned, his blue eyes hot with sparks of amber. It was the first sign of any emotion he’d shown and it was pure murder. “Welcome home, brother. About time we finish what you started.”
He flew at Cain. Fangs bared, the two big males crashed together in the middle of the corridor, locked in an instant battle for dominance. Knox plowed Cain into the opposite wall, the force of the blow sending jagged cracks in all directions. An instant later, it was Cain who took control. Propelled by sheer preternatural might, he drove his brother like a wrecking ball into the wall a second time, hard enough to make the floor shake beneath Marina’s bare feet.