Bad Mouth

by Angela McCallister

  “Continue,” Olen said. His stance widened as he waited for Kade to speak. A moment passed while Kade calculated his odds against his father. Might have been a close draw if it weren’t for Evangeline. He could never take them both at once.

  “Why did you allow your staff subjugates to transform rather than execute them as you told me you had?”

  Neither Ancient appeared surprised. They’d either expected the question at some point or hid their reactions well. “We could not afford to lose any more vampires. It was for the good of the Legion. Our population was on a decline due to our…conflict with the humans. It was even worse after your foolish emotional blunder.”

  “My what?” Kade’s lips tightened against his fangs lest he bare his aggression, a sure invitation to scuffle with the older male.

  “You were never skilled at controlling your emotions. Even now you struggle for it.”

  “This is the story you expect me to believe? Why did you lie about it? You’re the goddamned Ancients. You could have ordered my obedience to your decision.”

  “Oh, darling,” Evangeline cooed. “You’d been brutalized by those hateful humans for so many of your young years. How could we not care how you’d feel knowing they were alive and well and protected by Immortalis protocol?”

  He didn’t even know the word care existed in her vocabulary. She was a venomous bitch who’d gut him if he didn’t bow when he entered. Their story sounded weak, but what other explanation could there be? They had been at war against the humans at the time. They’d also overfed themselves into a near famine, and their numbers had diminished faster than an inept gambler’s bank account.

  “Forgive us?” Her scarlet lips formed a pout.

  Kade barked out a laugh. “How about I take my leave of you instead?” He pivoted to go and then called back over his shoulder. “Do me a favor and don’t call on me for a while. A long while.”

  The door slammed heavily behind him as he stormed into the winter chill. It couldn’t make him colder than he already felt inside. He couldn’t decide which was worse, the subjugates completing transformation or that they were allowed to.

  With a snarl, he ran and then ran faster and faster until the trees became long green walls surrounding him. A howl ripped loose, taking some of the pain with it as it left his throat. He howled again and again as he headed back to the Towers. No doubt there’d be reports of banshees, Sasquatch, and chupacabra in the morning, but he didn’t give a shit. He wanted to take the world apart and the Ancients along with it. He wanted to rip out his soul and scour it clean. And more than anything, he wanted Val.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Val’s body tingled with a mix of apprehension and wrath as she rode the elevator to Kade’s penthouse. She hadn’t been able to wait another day to confront him. It had to be now, before dawn broke and he went to ground.

  She had no idea how he’d react when she confronted him with what she’d learned. With the evidence she’d gathered proving the transformations weren’t committed by rogues, she was a threat to the Immortalis, even though the human involvement in some of the bloodings threw a glitch in her theories.

  She stopped outside Kade’s door when she heard his raised voice. The door cracked ajar an inch or two, and she could hear him clearly.

  “I’m not asking you, goddammit!” He paused as if listening, but there were no other voices in the room. He had to be on the phone with someone. She swung the door open wider and slipped into the room.

  “I don’t care if someone was there. Look, I met with the Ancients tonight. They don’t know anything yet and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  Kade faced the balcony window, his bare shoulders tight with tension. His hair stuck up in all directions like he’d run his hands through it all night long.

  “No, motherfucker. No one’s touching Val,” he said. A lump formed in her throat. “She wouldn’t be a problem if you’d do your damn job.” She could hear a voice shouting over his handset, but couldn’t make out what the person said. Kade growled. “If you don’t kill Wallace tonight, I’ll go do it myself, and then we’ll all be fucked.” Another short pause. “Thank you. About fucking time.”

  And then the call ended. She didn’t have time to process what she’d heard. Tightening her grip on her satchel, she walked toward him feeling as if she were bleeding on the inside.

  “Oh, Kade,” she whispered as she drew closer.

  He whipped around and froze when he saw her. With a heavy sigh, he closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped and his head dropped toward his chest. “Fuck my life.”

  “Yes. Fuck your life.”

  His head jerked up in surprise, and then his teeth clenched. “How long were you—”

  “Don’t ask me that. You don’t get to figure out how much you need to explain to me.” Her lips began to tremble. “Who was that?” He opened his mouth to answer, but she cut him off. “It was Killian, wasn’t it?”

  His jaw dropped. “How do you know Ian?”

  “Who is he, Kade, and who’s Declan?”

  He shook his head. “How do you know about them?”

  “I’m asking the questions, and you’re going to answer them.” Her legs wobbled, but she held her ground. She had to keep control, at least until she returned to her apartment where she could fall apart. “I know about them. That’s all you get from me.”

  “Val, what you heard—”

  “I don’t want your excuses or your lies. I want the truth.” When he said nothing, she reached into her satchel for her phone. “I can’t believe I trusted you.”

  He stiffened, his eyes widening. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m calling the VLO. I have enough evidence to arrest you.”

  “Don’t!” He stepped toward her and instinct took over. She dropped the phone and drew out the GLOCK she promised Alice she’d carry. She’d never drawn it so fast, even in her dreams. It wasn’t much larger than her palm, but it was a loaded 9 mm and could cause some serious damage at this close range.

  He cocked his head, but stopped his approach. “You think you can get a bullet out of there and into where it counts before I could take that from you?”

  “I think I can try,” she said. But she didn’t want to try, and not only because he’d made a good point. You did have to be a perfect shot to hit a vampire in a fatal way, but she didn’t want to shoot him, despite her sensible self screaming for her to kill those sweet feelings she had for him.

  He threw up his hands. “Fucking hell, Val!” He threw his phone across the room. It hurtled through the open doorway and hit the thick columns outside with a fatal crack, the pieces skating across the balcony. “You have no idea what’s at stake here. You’re completely blind.”

  “I think I see things just fine. I see you involved with murder and conspiracy to commit murder against humans and vampires. I see that you’re a liar.” Her voice hitched. “I see that you used me.”

  His hands went to his hips. “I wasn’t—” He stopped on his own and shook his head. “I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

  “Now that is a lie,” she murmured, “because you already have.”

  He didn’t apologize. Instead, he turned back to the balcony, letting the silence stretch. Nothing he could say would fix this. He would go to detainment, and the VLO would request execution as punishment. Her free hand went to the ache in her chest. He turned back to her, a grim expression on his face. Whatever decision he’d come to, he wasn’t thrilled with it.

  “I have many things to tell you, but I need more time. Come here tonight and you’ll have answers.”

  “Tonight? Kade, I have to call the VLO. They won’t wait.”

  “But you can wait.” He dared a few steps toward her. Her grip tightened on the gun, but even so, she began to lower the weapon. “Don’t call them yet. I need time.”

  “Why? So you can plan an escape?”

  His lips curved up in a bitter smile. “Do I strike you as the kind of man who would run from some
thing?” He came closer, and the scent of him plugged directly into her memory. “Come to me tonight and I’ll tell you everything. Just fourteen hours. Please, Val.”

  She never thought she’d hear that word from Kade. Tucking her gun back into the satchel, she walked past him and stepped out onto the balcony. Her boots crunched on the tiny plastic pieces of cell phone. She felt him follow her out.

  “You saw the Ancients tonight?” she asked softly. He moved to the railing next to her.

  “I did. They gave me some bullshit about dwindling vampire population and something about trying to spare my feelings.”

  She half turned to him. “Kade, I’m—” No. She wasn’t going to apologize, and she wasn’t going to feel bad for him. He’d been about to murder another vampire out of spite. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but there’s only one person who can give you the answers you want, and you were about to murder him.”

  He frowned. “I don’t know if I can be in the same room with him without tearing him apart.”

  “We have a little over an hour before dawn.” She forced him to meet her gaze. “If you go now—with me—I’ll wait to call the VLO.”

  His expression darkened. Her hands went to his forearms, and his gaze went straight to that point of contact. His tension seemed to melt like the early frost on a sunny morning.

  “I’ll go.”

  She handed him her cell. “Now call off the hit before your answers die with him.”

  While Kade called his assassin friend, Val ducked into the bathroom. Her hands shook more than a mouse in a snake pit. She washed under barely tolerable hot water, trying to get the warmth back into her fingers. She knew better than to trust Kade, but she’d put her trust in him again. Trusting him not to run. Trusting him not to kill anyone. Trusting him not to harm her. She nearly jumped from her skin when a soft knock came at the door.

  “All right,” he said when she opened the door to him. He started to reach for her but then dropped his hands to his side. “Let’s go. Car’s waiting.”

  They didn’t talk on the ride to Wallace Dannon’s house, which was thankfully short. Kade’s gaze stayed on the road past the front windshield, but she doubted he paid attention to anything out there. After the last meeting with Wallace, she wasn’t sure any amount of talking could prepare him for round two.

  Before he slid out of the car, he turned to her. His age looked out from his eyes, his face heavy with sadness. “Nothing the VLO does can be worse than this.” His voice dropped to a low murmur. “Before…all this. After dealing with the Ancients, I needed you.”

  Her arms ached to comfort him the way he needed comfort. The desire nearly overwhelmed, but she denied it as she denied the familiar burn of tears under her eyelids. Letting him in wasn’t an option until she had answers from him about the murders.

  Wallace nearly choked on his own tongue when they entered the sitting room his subjugate led them to. He gestured toward the short couch near the bar and sat a good distance away on the recliner across from them.

  “How can I serve, my lord?”

  Kade said nothing, his eyes glowing brighter in the dim lamp light. She would have to conduct the interview for him. He was struggling, and she couldn’t blame him.

  “Mr. Dannon, we’re not here about what you witnessed at Lake Washington,” she began. The man licked his lips repeatedly, and his anxiety began to pluck her nerves. “When you served the Ancients, you and the other staff subjugates performed unspeakable acts against your own prince.”

  Wallace couldn’t make eye contact with either of them. He seemed to shrink in his seat. “We never wanted to torture him.”

  A deep growl came from Kade. She didn’t look at him but put her hand to his arm. “But you did, Mr. Dannon, and now I need to know why.” She kept her voice calm even though her insides were more like a spin cycle. Wallace took a long time to answer.

  “We hated what we had to do.”

  “That’s a fucking lie,” Kade said, his words barely more than a snarl. Wallace’s head snapped up. He looked directly at Kade this time with pain and regret in his eyes.

  “You don’t understand. You weren’t only a vampire to us. You were a born vampire. You were everything we admired, everything we worked so hard to be, everything we dreamed we’d become. My lord, we worshipped the air you walked through.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “We only did what we had to do, and when that wasn’t enough for the Ancients, we were violently punished.”

  “The Ancients?” she asked. “They knew?”

  “Who do you think made us do such terrible things?” He looked aghast. “We would never have dared to raise a hand against a vampire. We wanted to be one too badly for it to ever cross our minds.”

  For a moment silence filled the room. A terrible, unbelievable silence as the truth sank in. When she finally found her voice, it came out in a horrified rasp. “You’re saying the Ancients ordered all of the subjugates to torture Kade?”

  “Yes, and they made sure it happened. They made sure no one made a move to bond with the boy. And poor Annette,” he said, his voice breaking. “She couldn’t take it. She loved him more than anyone.”

  “Who was Annette?” She prodded him when he didn’t answer. “Who was she, Mr. Dannon?”

  “She was his surrogate.” He dared a look at Kade again. Kade, dark and frightfully silent, looked as if he were on the verge of implosion, his hands fisted on his thighs and his hellish eyes overwhelming the light in the room. “We were…close. The Ancients never turned her as they’d promised.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “When the Ancients took her, she was only a teenager. They chained her and forced the pregnancy on her, but after a few months they didn’t need to. She’d fallen in love from the moment she first felt him move, and after his birth she fed him herself. But then they began to keep her away from him. They were starving him. At first, she’d sneak in to him, but they caught her and sent her away.”

  “You said they never turned her.”

  “Yes. They killed her when she refused them.” He hung his head. “No one tried again after that. We just did as we were ordered.”

  “Did they ever say why?”

  “Never, and no one dared ask.” He frowned. “But they made it clear that he wasn’t to know their involvement. The punishment had to come from humans, always from humans. No one could harm him after they were turned.”

  With a roar, Kade jumped to his feet, towering over Wallace. Val’s heart leaped into her throat. Would she have to witness the Legion’s murder? She didn’t have the strength to restrain Kade in such a fury. Wallace cowered in his seat, making no move to defend himself, but Kade gripped the sides of his head and fled the room.

  “Oh, Kade,” Val whispered. “What are you going to do?”

  Wallace’s eyes widened. “Will the Rex find out about this? That I’m telling you this?”

  “No, but I don’t think that’s what you should be afraid of. Count yourself lucky.” She probably shouldn’t be telling him this with Kade in such a state of mind, but she wanted to make sure Wallace watched his back from now on. “If you hadn’t told the truth, you might have come to a grisly end tonight.”

  Val raced outside, expecting to find the car gone along with Kade. Instead, the vehicle had received the brunt of Kade’s wrath. Crumbling glass hung around the seal of the rear window and littered the demolished trunk, which caved all the way to its floor like a semi had dropped into the center of it. Kade prowled along the driveway, his movements coiled with tension. He returned to the car when he saw her approach and had to wrench open the misshapen door to let her in. She wondered if it was drivable, but it started and they were on their way back to downtown Seattle.

  Aside from the wind whistling through the damaged rear glass, the ride to her apartment building began as silently as the ride to Wallace’s. Then Kade took a deep breath and locked his gaze on the passing scenery. The urge to hold him battered her.

>   “Kade, I saw the text you got from Killian,” she said to distract his painful thoughts. “I wasn’t trying to spy. I thought it might be important.”

  He turned to her reluctantly. “It was from Ezra, and it was important.”

  “Wallace was supposed to die then, wasn’t he?”

  “He was lucky he had company all night.” His lips tightened. “I know you think that was about revenge, but it wasn’t. If it were, I’d have done it myself.”

  “Then what was it about?”

  “I told you I’ll have answers for you tonight. I have to…do something first.” The glow of his eyes dimmed and his voice grew husky. “The text. That’s why you were upset.” When she nodded, he turned back toward his window. “I’m such a fool.”

  The car came to a stop before she could say anything and he stepped out to hold the door for her. The faint glow of sunrise crept over the horizon.

  “Will you make it back in time?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” His deadpan tone showed her more than she wanted to see. She had hurt him maybe as deeply as she hurt. But he’d have to care about her to feel like that. And if he did care, why would he use her and lie to her? “I’m old enough to survive the sun. Would anyone give a shit if I didn’t?”

  It mattered to her if he didn’t, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He disappeared into the car and rode away while her words sat on her lips.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sunlight still blasted through the penthouse when Kade awoke. Guess the debilitating rays weren’t adequate to quell his anguish enough for a long sleep. Last night had been the worst of his four hundred seventy-two years.

  He didn’t want to admit he cared about his parents. He’d always loathed so much about them, even as he fought to near death for them over the centuries, down to blood and bones on occasion. Everything he did now was ultimately for them and for the Dominorum—things he did that would end in his execution now that Val knew some of the details.