Final Kill (Cain University Book 3)

by Lucy Auburn

  Of course, along the way he leaves a trail of meat juices on the floor. What a dog.

  Wyatt and I switch off between holding hands and eating our food, a task that proves to be difficult at first but eventually becomes easy enough. Then it occurs to him that there are other ways for us to stay in contact while we eat, which is how we wind up kicking our shoes off and playing a disgustingly cute game of footsie beneath the table.

  The steak is amazingly juicy with a salty crust that melts in my mouth. Each potato is exactly what I dreamed it would be: fried to perfection, crisp and delicious with a bite of rosemary and plenty of fresh olive oil. What surprises me the most is how much I like the brussel sprouts, though I give the bacon and blue cheese credit for that.

  As we get deeper into the meal, I take sips of wine, and we chat at first about the zoo: the people watching, the animal watching, what they were all like.

  "Did you sense anything from their emotions?"

  "A few times. But wild animals are a little harder to peer into or control." Swirling my wine around in its glass, I consider some explanations as to why. "I feel like animals are easier to use my Affinity on if they've spent more time around people. Like... Killer and Penny are both domesticated pets, so that's pretty easy. But the birds are almost as easy, because they're around people all the time, eating food we leave around and singing outside our windows. Wild animals are hard. The ones at the zoo may spend plenty of time with their keepers, but their emotions are more distant. I'm not sure I would be able to do much more than tell you if a lion was hungry, sleepy, or angry, if that. I definitely don't think I could ever control one."

  "Probably a good thing." Wyatt shoots me a grin as he pours us each more wine. "The thought of Ellen Arizona with a tamed lion at her side, obeying her every command? It's the most horrifying thing I can think of."

  As we finish off our main meals and Wyatt clears our plates to make way for dessert plates, I feel the wine start to loosen my muscles, including my tongue. There are so many questions I have for him, but one nips at me most of all. It's the central question, the one that I'm burning up inside to ask.

  It takes another glass of liquid courage and a bite of cheesecake before I manage to blurt it out. "What was your first kill?"

  Freezing, Wyatt stares at me. Our hands are brushing together on the tabletop, and our ankles graze beneath the table, so I know it's not the stutter stopping him from speaking. Another kind of cat entirely has got his tongue right now.

  "I guess I should say who was your first kill," I ramble, grimacing immediately after saying it. "I just mean... you know mine. Everyone knows mine. And I can't stop wondering how it is that someone like you... I mean, someone so gentle..."

  "How I killed someone?" His face is carefully guarded, and I wonder if I've put my foot in my mouth so thoroughly that I'll never be able to remove it. "It isn't pretty, Ellen."

  As I point out, "Stories like ours never are, Wyatt. Including mine."

  He takes his wine glass and downs half the liquid inside all at once, then sets it down again and stares into the crystal bowl of it like answers to my curiosity are held within.

  Though it pains me to say it, I tell him, "You don't have to tell me. I mean, if you don't want to. I know that it's difficult. Maybe you're not ready. Maybe you never will be."

  In the corner, Killer snores, and something about it breaks the tension. Wyatt reaches across the table to squeeze my hand. He puts down his fork and finishes his glass of wine, grimacing a little as the bitterness of the grapes washes away the impossibly sweet and creamy cheesecake.

  "I want to tell you." His warm eyes seem to see straight through me and beyond, every nook and cranny of my heart and mind visible to him. "I'm just not sure where to start."

  "At the beginning?" I joke, smiling a little. "Just tell me whatever it is you want me to know. I promise not to judge. I mean, I hacked a guy into bits and pieces. I'm sure you've seen my mugshot, too. It wasn't pretty."

  "You're always pretty," he says, because of course he does. He's Wyatt, after all. "I guess I should tell you that my powers woke up when I was young. About sixteen, to be exact—I'm not sure if it happened before or after my seventeenth birthday, but it was close. That was months after I... after I killed my stepfather."

  I bite my lower lip, sensing where this is going. "I'm guessing that he wasn't a very good man."

  Wyatt grimaces. "You wouldn't be wrong about that. Though the older I get, the more I wonder..."

  He trails off for so long that I'm not sure if he forgot his trail of thought completely. "What is it? What's wrong?"

  Sighing, Wyatt runs a nervous hand over the top of his head, smoothing the black stubble of his hair. "I was such an angry teen. Maybe I saw him through my own lens. Maybe he had his reasons to be angry... my mother was no saint."

  "You can tell me about it."

  "They used to fight." His voice is wrung out and tired. "He said she talked to other men too much. She was too flighty. He didn't like the way she spent her paychecks. But also sometimes she yelled at him. She used to tell him that he was gross and ugly, that his hair was balding and no one would ever love him like her. I don't like to think about it too much, but... my mom was mean. Maybe she had her reasons for it. God knows he fucking deserved it."

  In a voice that feels like it was drawn from the very depths of my soul, I tell Wyatt, "No woman is a perfect victim."

  "Yeah."

  "She probably reached the end of her rope."

  He nods, looks down and away, then back at me with some effort. "When I think back, though, I can never remember who started the fights. Which one of them slapped the other first. All I remember is that I loved my mom and I hated him. I was sure he deserved it when I punched him in the head. I didn't think I was strong enough to actually..."

  "You didn't mean to, then," I fill in the blanks. "It was an accident."

  But Wyatt shakes his head, jaw clenching, his shoulders rounding down in disapproval. He admits shakily, "I wanted him to die. I just didn't think I would be the one to actually kill him."

  I thread the fingers of both our hands together and pull him towards me, wishing I could scoop him up and hug him tight—but he's so big I would need a crane to do it. So instead I do the best I can to comfort him despite the fact that I'm probably about one-fifth his size.

  "It's not your fault," I tell him, hoping that one day, maybe, he'll believe me. "You were trying to protect your mother. And yourself, I'm betting. I know your heart, Wyatt—you wouldn't have hurt him if he hadn't pushed you."

  Grimacing, he says, "He used to yell at me at the top of his lungs. Some stuff about my mom, or how annoying he thought I was, but also... he'd tell me to shut up." He imitates his stepfather's bellow. "'She the fuck up!' I used to tell my mom stories to distract her from the chaos and the pain. Before bed, when he was up late drinking and watching sports, she'd have me sit next to her and make up fairy tales. He was so angry about it. Sometimes I wonder if my weakness is him punishing me from beyond the grave, twisting my tongue in ways he didn't used to be able to."

  Tongue sticking, I ask, "What happened to your mom?"

  "She's in prison." There's a faraway look in his eyes. "After... she tried to protect me. The body..." He shakes the memory off. "I was only sixteen, so they put me in juvie at first. But I was so strong. Then stronger. And my weakness developed... they thought maybe I was slow. Put me in an institution. That's where the doors came to me. I stepped through them without another thought. Meanwhile, my mom is still locked up for just trying to protect me."

  "Maybe we can go visit her sometime."

  "If she even wants to see me," he says morosely.

  "She does," I reassure him, leaning forward to delicately kiss his cheeks. "Trust me when I say that you should spend as much time with your mother as possible, no matter what you think has come between the two of you. As soon as we're able, we'll go see her together."

  We finish our cheesecake a
nd wine. Killer falls asleep and starts dreaming, kicking his legs and making little woof sounds that make us both laugh. After dinner is over, Wyatt shows me to a little private nook in the restaurant, a break room with a long sofa. He throws a quilt on it, and together, for a while, we learn how to be patient with each other's bodies, how to enjoy them without any rush.

  When we get back to campus, I feel a strange lump in my throat that I have to swallow around. It's not until I've passed through the gates and beyond that I see him standing in the shadows, cane at his side, watching us silently as we return from our date on Earth.

  Grayson Hughes has been looking for me. Missing me, even. I can sense it.

  He wants to know when we'll get to wrap our legs around each other next.

  So do I, I realize with a start.

  Soon, I promise his shadow mentally, as Wyatt delicately kisses me and we say our goodbyes before parting. Very soon.

  I think he hears my thoughts , and I wonder what he's thinking in return.

  His voice bubbles inside my head, soft and silken like a lover's embrace.

  Sooner rather than later, Arizona. I'm going to bend you over and show you what I can do without this limp of mine. You better save room in that bottomless pit you call a stomach, too—I won't be pushed to the back burner, ever.

  I raise a brow in his direction, smirking a little. There's real lust in his voice as it pushes inside my head.

  So I promise him, Very, very soon.

  And head off to bed, enjoying the weight of his gaze on my backside as I take the stairs up towards Eve's dorms.

  If this is what it's like to have more than one man at my beck and call, I can't say that I mind. Especially now that much of the jealousy is being replaced by passionate promises to thoroughly screw my brains out.

  A girl could get used to this.

  Chapter 23

  "Time to get up!" Pots and pans are banged together right above my head, mere inches away from my face. I can't see them, but the sound is unmistakable. "Get up, motherfucker. Out of bed!"

  Groaning, I pull a pillow over my face. "I was up late last night."

  "Not fucking in my bed, I hope." Eve's voice takes on a singsong quality. "I have a sur-priiiise for you! We're going somewhere important. So you gotta get your lazy ass out of bed right the fuck now."

  I groan. Pull the pillow down further over my ears. But I can't drown out the sound of those pots and pans banging together. My best friend is fucking relentless, the monster. How dare she.

  "Fine, fine!" I roll over and attempt to narrow my eyes in the general direction of her surely-gloating face. Penny walks up from the foot of the bed and stands on my chest, helpfully lending her eyes so I can glare at Eve properly. "What the hell are you torturing me for anyway?"

  "You're going to meet the Shadow Fold."

  It turns out all of Eve's drama and caterwauling was about getting me out of bed so she could make me over.

  Apparently I'm not very good at doing my hair, makeup, matching my outfits together or... anything, really, even before I lost my eyesight. At least according to my type A friend. She's determined to do me up and dress me like some kind of doll.

  At least she's good at it. As she puffs the last bit of powder on my skin, Eve turns me towards Killer and makes me stare at myself through his eyes—a bit like looking into a mirror, only more surreal.

  I look, of course, absolutely stunning.

  Taking some of the credit: genetics has more than a bit to do with it. Can't paint a masterpiece on a canvas made out of solid shit. But Eve has more than put her work in. My normally messy, wavy blonde hair has been styled into ringlets just the right side of fashionable. The eyeliner and mascara she used make my lashes pop, while the warm tones of the perfect eyeshadow gradient pulls the icy blue out of my eyes. My eyebrows somehow exist—quite a feat for a mostly-natural blonde. And she's actually carved cheekbones out of my face with the smart application of a powder brush, some bronzer, and a pinkish blush.

  "Well?" Eve taps her foot at me impatiently. "I dragged your ass out of bed to make you look less like a sewer rat. The least I should get in return is a little bit of a compliment."

  Pulling on the tight buttons of the blouse she put me in, I admit, "I look great. At least as far as I can tell."

  "Obviously."

  "But this outfit is... a lot. Are these slacks? Is this what wearing slacks feels like?"

  "My god. There's no hope for you. Come on—we need to get going. I'm always at least ten minutes early for Shadow Fold meetings, and this is a big one. I'm introducing you to everyone—and I do mean everyone. I won't let you make me late."

  Rolling my eyes, I motion for Killer to heel at my side and follow Eve down the stairs of her place. This would all be easier if I had one of the guys with me so I could use my actual eyes, but I'll have to make do without. Eve says this is a one-on-one meeting; and she flippantly told me that my weakness won't matter once I'm in a room of powerful people who all have one.

  "Your blindness is just proof of what you can do," she said—and Eve would know, since she can't tell a lie. "Besides, they invited you. Not you and your four little boyfriends. That's way too many people to bring. Don't even try claiming you could take just one of them—we all know that would just cause trouble."

  I tried to tell her they're not my boyfriends, but she ignored me completely and started putting foundation on my face like she was painting the exterior of a house in dire need of it.

  The truth is, though, I don't know that the guys aren't my boyfriends either. It's hard to say one way or another, which makes me nervous that the answer isn't what I would expect it to be. It doesn't help that I find it harder and harder to be without them, whether that's because of my weakness or my growing feelings—I can't tell the difference. Even now, as I follow Eve with Killer at my side, I can't shake loose the nagging feeling that I'm somehow betraying them by leaving them behind.

  So of course as we head around the corner I hear the distinctive tap, tap, tap of a certain high-end cane hitting the ground. I can practically feel Grayson's presence long before Killer sees him or Eve nudges me in the side with an elbow.

  "I know you tore off a bite of that," she says, making me roll my eyes in her general direction. "What he any good in bed? I'm guessing you were on top."

  "His weakness goes away when I touch him," I remind her in a low voice, already feeling warmth suffuse my cheeks. "Hush and don't embarrass me."

  "It's Grayson Hughes. Who gives a shit if you're embarrassed in front of him?"

  I do, I realize. Things have changed between the two of us so swiftly that I still have whiplash about it. We're not just acting differently towards each other, either—it's like we're two completely different people now, locked in a strange new dance. The Grayson Hughes I've gotten to know more recently isn't the one I first met or fought with down in the arena.

  "Ellen. You look..."

  He stops further down the hallway, glancing at Killer then back at me. It's disconcerting making not-quite-eye-contact with someone through your dog's body. Like video chatting with someone, never quite able to make eye contact.

  Eve nudges me forward, hand on my back. "How does she look? Tell her, Hughes. Preferably by staring straight into her eyes. Maybe take her hands in yours and make it happen."

  Shooting her an annoyed look so palpable that it makes me shiver, he tells Eve, "Stick to your own business already."

  "Isn't this my business, though? Ellen is my best friend. And she lives with me."

  I nudge her. "Go... take Killer to pee. He has a full bladder. I can tell."

  "Mmm-hmm. Don't make me late to our meeting. I budgeted in an extra ten minutes for Ellen Time, but even so..."

  "Just get already." I motion sharply towards her. "I promise you won't be late late to the meeting. On time is perfectly normal."

  Eve grumbles as she takes Killer to the courtyard so he can relieve himself. He trots gamely along beside her, happy to
go with his favorite meat-dispensing fairy goddess. She even slips him a piece of freeze dried meat out of her pocket. I swear, if I'm not careful Eve will steal my seeing eye dog from me just by virtue of having more food on her person.

  "Your best friend is very protective." Grayson's cane lightly taps the ground as he moves closer to me. I swear, I can almost hear his heart beat faster—or maybe I'm just listening to my own pulse. "I heard you're going to get to rub elbows with the Shadow Fold soon. That must explain the outfit."

  "Is it fetching?"

  "You look amazing. But it's... not you." Lowering his voice, he says, "Don't tell Eve, but you kind of look like you were shoved through a look-a-like machine. If I saw you from the back, I'd think you were her with bleached hair."

  I laugh. "I haven't gotten a good look at myself, honestly. KillerVision isn't the same as my real eyes."

  "Can I?"

  His fingertips brush against my sleeve. "Yes," I tell him, voice raw with a kind of need that wakes up only when I'm around him. "Please, do."

  There's a slight desperation to Grayson's movements as he takes my hand. I feel the same echo of need in myself. It's strange to admit that I'm drawn to this man, after every wrong step we took at the start and how tense things were, but it's true. Just the press of his fingers to mine feels like a deep inhalation after going far too long without air.

  As my vision sparks to life, his face unfolding in front of me, I feel a slight tremble at my feet. It's not my imagination or the nervous butterflies in my stomach rumbling—the quake is real, based on the way Grayson's brows fold inward and dust swirls in the air around us.

  "What was that?" His voice is alarmed. "We're not above a tectonic plate. An earthquake shouldn't even be possible. This is a pocket dimension, for fuck's sake."