“None whatsoever,” Kale murmured absently as he found himself staring down at the picture of Ashley sleeping.
God, she was beautiful.
“What about Jacob?”
“He’s doing a job for me,” Kale said, forcing himself to look away from his phone as he closed it only to find Izzy watching him.
“You mean the super-secret job that you don’t want me to know about?” she asked, blinking innocently at him as she popped a peanut butter cup in her mouth.
Narrowing his eyes on his best friend, Kale reached over and helped himself to another peanut butter cup before he shifted his attention to his phone, opened his messages, scrolled down until he found the one that he was looking for and did what he had to do.
“What are you doing?” Izzy asked only to whimper when Chris, who he was guessing had no idea that his mate had snuck out of bed in the middle of the night to play on her computer, walked into the room.
“It’s not what it looks like?” Izzy asked with a hopeful smile as her mate narrowed his eyes on her, giving Kale the excuse that he needed to call it a night.
After stealing the rest of her peanut butter cups, Kale grabbed his bags and made his way to the other side of the mansion. A few minutes later, he dropped his bags on the floor and dropped down on the bed with a groan. He was fucking exhausted, Kale thought even as he reached down and grabbed his iPad from his bag, deciding that it was time to come up with a different plan to find the little bastard when the app that he’d downloaded for the security system at the house only a few miles down the road caught his attention.
Curious, Kale opened the app and-
Found himself looking at a completely different house than the one that he’d left a month ago. There was furniture in every room, the rooms were painted, there were pictures on the walls, and…it looked like a home. Frowning, he pulled up the video feed for his room and was surprised to find the large room that he’d slept in while he’d been stuck taking care of Ashley now had a large bureau and matching nightstands, an oversized leather chair in the corner, a fresh coat of paint on the walls, and a quilted comforter on the bed along with a few throw pillows.
He swiped through the rest of the video feed until he found Ashley, wide awake, sitting on the couch with all the lights in the house turned on. For several minutes, Kale sat there, watching her, wondering why she was wearing headphones and a gasmask only to toss the iPad aside, telling himself that it wasn’t his problem.
Chapter 18
“What the hell are you doing?” came the question that had Ashley looking up from the movie that she couldn’t quite make out through the goggles on her gasmask to find Kale, who looked really pissed, walking into the house and-
“No, wait! I need those!” she said, moving to make a mad grab for the only things that had made the last few weeks bearable only to end up gasping as all the sounds and scents that she’d managed to block out suddenly slammed into her head, instantly bringing the dull headache that she was just starting to get used to back up to migraine level.
Slapping her hands over her ears, Ashley held her breath as she climbed off the couch and quickly made her way to the kitchen, stumbling along the way as she focused on getting to the fridge and forcing herself to drink more blood before it was too late. With that in mind, she took a deep breath and dropped her hands away, opened the refrigerator, grabbed one of the bags of blood that had been delivered last night as she did her best not to think about the thick, gooey substance that tasted like old motor oil. She tried to make her fangs slide down only to give up and settle for cutting the tip of one corner off a few minutes later when nothing happened, placed the tip in her mouth, closed her eyes, and she squeezed the bag, forcing the cold, gooey substance in her mouth, and-
“What the hell is this?” Kale asked as he snatched the only thing that was going to help away from her.
“A late-night snack,” Ashley said absently as she grabbed her headphones from his other hand and placed them back on, making sure the noise cancellation button was still on and sighed when all the noises that felt like they were tearing her head apart were suddenly dulled down to a manageable level.
Releasing a shaky breath, she reached for the bag of blood only to have Kale pull it back. “You were supposed to get shifter blood,” he said, pulling the bag closer to inspect it only to toss it in the kitchen sink with a look of disgust when he caught a whiff of the scent that she’d spent the last month trying to get used to.
“This is shifter blood,” Ashley said on a tired sigh as she grabbed another bag from the fridge and-
Sighed when he grabbed that bag and tossed it in the sink to join the other one.
“This isn’t shifter blood,” Kale said, sounding pissed as he pulled his phone out and started typing something.
“Yes, it is,” Ashley said, grabbing another bag from the fridge. “Shifter blood apparently congeals quickly. We tested it with Jacob’s blood to make sure.”
“That doesn’t smell like shifter blood,” Kale said with a look of disgust that really didn’t help with what she was about to do. So, she focused on the bag of blood in her hand instead, only to regret that decision because it was really disgusting. She didn’t want to drink it, but it was honestly the only thing that helped, so she didn’t have much of a choice.
Hoping to get this over with quickly, she cut the tip off and once again found herself glaring at Kale when he plucked the bag out of her hands and threw it in the sink. “I’m ordering you new blood. It should be here in a few hours,” he said, returning his attention to his phone as she grabbed another bag of blood and with a mumbled, “I can’t wait a few hours,” headed back to the living room.
“Why not?” Kale asked as he followed her.
“Because it hurts,” Ashley said, really hoping that he would take pity on her and leave her alone so that she could focus on not gagging.
“What do you mean it hurts?” Kale demanded as he dropped down on the oversized chair that she’d ordered with him in mind.
“It just hurts,” Ashley said, shrugging it off as she stared down at the bag in her hands, knowing that she needed to do this now before the warm living room air made the blood thicker.
“It shouldn’t hurt,” Kale said, sighing heavily as he rubbed the back of his neck as he took in all the changes she’d made over the past month.
“Well, it does,” Ashley said, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she watched his gaze slowly make its way around the room, pausing on the pictures of Ireland on the walls that she’d ordered after Jacob told her that Kale was born there before he continued taking in the rest of the room.
“You’ve been busy,” Kale drawled as he settled back in his chair and began drumming his fingertips against the armrest as he considered her.
“It gave me something to do,” Ashley admitted, wishing that she’d stretched it out longer since it helped pass the time. Reading helped and so did cooking, but right now, she was too exhausted to do anything more than sit here and stare at the television.
She’d always had problems sleeping at night, but ever since she woke up changed…
Memories that she’d tried to forget kept playing through her head, reminding her of a time that was better forgotten and left her terrified to close her eyes. The fact that she could see everything clearly in the pitch-black should have helped, but it didn’t.
It made everything worse.
There was no escape, no way that she could pretend that she was back in her horrible apartment, squeezing her eyes shut, praying that the noise she heard coming from the other side of her locked apartment door was someone trying to break in and not-
“Where’s Jacob?” Kale asked, drawing her attention to find him watching her closely.
Slowly exhaling, Ashley returned her attention to the bag of blood in her hand as she said, “He’s patrolling the property.”
“You’re not drinking enough blood,” came the announcement that had her nodding
absently because she’d figured that out on her own a few weeks ago.
For about a week after Kale gave her blood, she’d felt stronger, her head stopped hurting, she was able to breathe without pain, and eat without a problem, and then…
Everything started getting worse again. The shifter blood that he’d ordered helped dull the pain, but not by much. It didn’t help that she could only manage a few sips at a time. Kale’s blood had been incredibly rich, decadent, and had left her wanting more while the bagged blood left her trying not to vomit. It was disgusting. There really was no other way to describe the thick, gooey, slimy mess that she needed to consume for the rest of her life.
“I can’t drink any more,” Ashley said because she would probably vomit if she tried. Then again, since the blood began congealing once air touched it, she really didn’t have a choice. She normally managed to squeeze a few mouthfuls before the blood took on the consistency of day-old oatmeal and she was forced to grab another bag.
She’d considered asking Jacob for some of his blood, but…
She didn’t think that was a good idea.
Right now, she was here at the whim of a mate that she’d never met, which, unfortunately for her, was her best option at the moment. For the first time in her life, she didn’t have to worry about someone finding her and finishing what had been started over thirty years ago. She knew that she couldn’t stay here forever and that she’d have to eventually go back into the real world and start over again, but for right now, she was going to continue pretending that this wasn’t an incredibly stupid idea and stay.
She was going to-
“Come here.”
-panic when Kale bit into his wrist and reached for her.
“What the hell are you doing?” Kale found himself asking as he watched the woman that was making his life more difficult than it needed to be, grab the bag of blood that he’d wasted his money on and-
Gagged when the first drop hit her tongue only to squeeze her eyes shut, tighten her hold around the bag and-
Gagged again.
That was followed by Ashley pulling the bag away, taking a deep breath before she brought the bag back towards her mouth before she rethought that decision, took a shaky breath, nodded to herself, winced, whimpered, and groaned as she brought that bag closer to her mouth and-
Gagged again.
“I can’t do this with you watching me,” Ashley said as her shoulders slumped in defeat right around the time that Kale decided that he’d wasted enough time with this bullshit.
Without a word, Kale plucked the bag of blood out of her hand and brought it into the kitchen, where he tossed it in the sink to join the others and-
Sighed, just fucking sighed when she headed back to the fridge to grab another bag.
“How long did it take Jacob’s blood to start to congeal?” Kale asked, plucking the bag of blood out of her hands and tossing it in the sink with the others as he debated the best way to handle this. She couldn’t drink bagged human blood and the shifter blood that he’d paid a fortune for was useless. For a moment, he considered ordering demon blood, but he didn’t want to take the chance of drawing any more unwanted attention, so they were going to have to try doing this a different way.
“A few hours,” she said as he absently nodded, realizing that’s why Jacob hadn’t mentioned anything off about his blood the first time he gave it to Ashley since he’d drawn it that morning.
It made sense that their blood quickly deteriorated, Kale thought as he grabbed a coffee mug and set it down on the counter. Humans had hunted his species for hundreds of years, some of them hoping to wipe them off the face of the planet while others hoped to get their hands on their blood for a chance at immortality.
The problem was the blood had to come directly from the source and even then, there were no guarantees that it would work. So many things could go wrong, leaving the human praying for a quick death, but the ones that tried stealing shifter blood…
They didn’t stand a chance.
Kale could still remember the English villagers’ excitement when they’d spotted the massacred bodies of what remained of his Pack. They were the reason why the villagers had been willing to pay twice the tax to live on that land. They’d been a rich Englishman’s guard dogs, ensuring that no one, not even the invaders that had terrorized the rest of England for hundreds of years, bothered them. Conn and the English bastard had made sure that the villagers knew exactly what they were from the start. They’d waited until the harvest festival, making sure that it fell on the first night of the full moon when the Pack could shift before they’d made their presence known. They’d invited neighboring villages, men who were a threat to their Master’s rule, and the local Sentinel couple.
They’d killed the Sentinel couple before they’d reached the castle and once they were out of the way, they’d made sure that it was a festival that no one ever forgot what they could do. They’d torn men, women, and children apart until the screams for mercy had turned into bloodcurdling screams and Kale had been helpless to do anything but watch from the gallery above as his Pack sealed its fate.
Once they’d shown the villagers what they could do and made sure that tales of that night would spread across England, the Pack had stepped back and waited while their new Master made his demands, letting everyone know the price for walking out of there alive. They’d all happily paid. The villagers had celebrated their new protectors while the survivors from the other villages had struggled to hold it together, promising everything they had and more.
It hadn’t taken the villagers long to figure out that they were immortal. Kale had seen it in their eyes whenever they watched them, saw the way fathers and husbands encouraged their women to whore themselves for a chance to be one of them. The villagers had been more than willing to sell their souls for immortality, so when they’d spotted the Pack helpless to do anything more than struggle to take their next breaths, they’d attacked.
They’d grabbed bowls, cups, and buckets, anything that they could get their greedy hands on and collected as much spilled blood as they could and when that wasn’t enough, they began draining bodies, slitting throats of those who were dying and hanging the dead, determined to get every last drop of shifter blood until even that wasn’t enough, and then, they came for him.
They’d torn Aine from his arms and carried her to join the others hanging from the trees before they’d grabbed him and-
“Are you okay?” came the softly spoken words that tore him from a memory better left forgotten to find Ashley watching him through green eyes full of warmth that almost made him forget what she was.
Chapter 19
“Is there a reason why you won’t stop glaring at me?” Ashley asked, not bothering to look up from the cup of blood in her hands as she released a shaky breath, really hoping that she didn’t react like the last time.
“I’ve got a few questions that I need to ask you,” the man that loved to glare announced, making her bite back a sigh.
“Of course, you do,” Ashley murmured as she raised the cup of blood to her lips and-
Did everything in her power not to moan.
God, it was so good, Ashley thought, painfully aware of the man watching her every move. Thankfully, it wasn’t uncontrollably groan-worthy good, which meant that she could finish off every last drop of blood without having to worry about embarrassing herself. As soon as she was done, she placed the empty cup down on the coffee table and slowly exhaled as everything stopped hurting.
Now she knew without question that the solution to her problems was fresh shifter blood, Ashley thought as she pulled off her headphones and placed them on the table next to the mug. Unfortunately for her, that was going to be a problem once she was on her own.
Then again, Ashley amended when she caught the murderous glare aimed at her, something told her that it was going to be a problem now. Kale was barely here, which meant that she was going to have to ask Jacob for-
“You
’re not drinking from Jacob,” Kale bit out, making her frown in confusion even as the man in question walked into the house completely naked and headed for the kitchen with a murmured, “How’s it going, Asshole?”
She was going to have to start leaving a change of clothes by the front door for him, Ashley thought with a sad shake of her head as she watched Jacob walk into the kitchen and-
Grabbed her box of Fruit Loops.
She’d been looking forward to having them for breakfast tomorrow morning and the bastard knew it. When he saw her watching him, his lips pulled up into that taunting smile that was going to get him bitch-slapped one day as he made a show of eating her delicious sugary cereal, knowing that she wasn’t going to do anything about it.
He was like the annoying little brother that she’d never wanted, Ashley thought as her eyes narrowed on the large bastard as he headed upstairs and-
“Careful,” Kale bit out evenly, reluctantly pulling her attention away from the man that enjoyed tormenting her for his own entertainment to find Kale watching her through silver eyes.
“He’s not going to hurt me,” Ashley said absently as she bit back a disappointed sigh. She’d really been looking forward to the artificially flavored, sugary treat for breakfast.
“No, but your mate might not appreciate finding out that you’re looking at other men,” Kale drawled, making her frown as she looked back at him and…wow, did he look pissed.
“Are we talking about the same mate that I’ve never met, has no interest in me, and can’t be bothered to acknowledge my existence in any way?” Ashley asked, blinking innocently. “Are we talking about that mate?”
Jaw clenching, and wow, did that look like it hurt, Kale bit out, “You’re mated.”
Unstoppable Page 11
