by Dannika Dark
“Better,” she said in a calmer voice. “But I don’t make it a habit to hold hands with a stranger without knowing his name.”
He tilted his head to one side. “I’m Kane.”
“Is that your real name?”
He slanted a brow at her tone. “Yeah, why? What’s wrong with it?”
“Just sounds like an important name and you don’t look very—”
“Well, it’s my name,” he ground out.
Her soft brown eyes lifted up to meet his gaze. She showed poise, standing tall with a confident lift of her chin, even though Kane was a few inches taller. He’d never met a woman with such an expressive face, whose mind he could read just from a subtle quirk of her mouth. The palest of pinks colored the apples of her cheeks. It was a relief to see the blue dress without bloodstains, and it had a soft swish to the ends. Yet it was the shoes he noticed most of all. They were white sandals against vibrant blue nail polish. It stood out because she had been barefoot when he’d found her.
“Why are you here, Kane?”
“Do you know where here is?”
Her hip jutted out to one side and it was comical to watch her attitude surface, despite the fact that they were holding hands like a couple of lovebirds.
“It’s my head; I should know what it looks like.”
Kane looked around. “Lady, you sure have an empty head.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Oh, I’d love to see what’s in yours. Empty beer cans and adult magazines?”
“I don’t read porn,” he growled.
She smirked triumphantly. “So you’re not denying the beer.”
Few women had the ability to ruffle his feathers and she more than ruffled them, she plucked them out one at a time.
Her eyes lowered to the ends of his tattered jeans. “Why did you take off your shoes? It’s too cold in here to be wandering around in a pair of socks.”
“Can you wake up?” he asked.
She suddenly jerked her arm back and Kane lurched forward, losing his balance. He almost grabbed her dress and tore it off as he fell to his knees.
Women shouldn’t have such short tempers, he thought.
“I have a whole arsenal of imagination on hand,” she threatened. “Don’t get any ideas, because I can make this unpleasant for you. If I could wake up, I would have already done it, don’t you think?”
Kane dragged his eyes up the length of her body. He took his time doing it too. Long, silky legs disappeared beneath her thin dress and he imagined himself wrapping his hands around her narrow waist. The fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her dress didn’t escape his attention; it was enough to titillate the male mind. He’d never seen such beautiful skin—it just glowed.
When their eyes met, she sucked in a sharp breath and her cheeks turned a deep shade of pink. Man, if that wasn’t enough to make him shift uncomfortably on his knees. He got that look a lot because of his smoldering eyes—the kind that could undress a woman thread by thread until she was blushing and naked. Only now, Kane was the one who felt like blushing. She intimidated him with the way her body immediately responded to his gaze.
“What’s your name?” he asked her in a voice that was hoarser than it should have been.
She didn’t respond. Her tawny brown hair tumbled forward and framed her cunning face. Kane had never felt so exposed by a woman’s gaze.
“Well, if you won’t tell me your name, then why do I smell cookies? Are you really so bored in here that you’re baking?”
A change blossomed in her expression and all the anger withered away, replaced by an emotion he couldn’t read. “You can smell that?” she breathed.
He nodded, remaining on the floor. She seemed less intimidated by him in a submissive position and he wasn’t in the mood to fight off another frying pan attack.
Kane involuntarily smacked his lips, not realizing that the fragrance of sweets had awakened his hunger. He swallowed hard when he noticed that her eyes were fixed on his mouth.
“Do you have any family that I can call?”
She slowly shook her head and appeared fragile—like one of those little glass ballerinas on display in the gift shops. “How do you know about the cookies?”
Enough of this shit.
Kane shot up to his feet and glared down his nose. “Peanut butter cookies, to be exact. Give me the phone number of a relative and I’ll call them to come get you. Maybe they know a Relic or someone more qualified than me to pick your convoluted brain.”
A baseball bat appeared in her right hand and tapped against the white marble floor.
“I was thinking about my grandma,” she murmured. “But no one has ever…”
Kane jerked her hand to snap her out of whatever fog she was in. “Friends?”
“No, we’re not,” she replied sharply, brown eyes narrowing to slivers as she looked defiantly up at him.
“What I mean is do you have any? I’m guessing by the way you give introductions with a fucking cast iron skillet, that the answer is no. If you raise that bat, I’m not going to play nice,” he warned.
Her voice raised a pitch. “Well, if your definition of playing nice is feeling up a helpless woman—”
“Helpless?” He snorted. “Lady, you’re about as helpless as a rabid porcupine.”
That’s the last thing Kane remembered.
Chapter 3
When he awoke on the floor beside the bed, it was with one hell of a sore face. Yet, it was the blow to his ego that hurt more than his eye. He’d been in his fair share of fights, but had never once gone down for the count. That woman could have been a prizefighter.
After working the kink out of his neck, Kane got up and went into the living room. It didn’t appear that Mr. Butcher had entertained visitors very often, judging by the deplorable condition of his house. The plastic cup on the coffee table contained black mold floating on top of whatever liquid it once contained. He sat on the squeaky sofa and leaned forward, glaring at the porno magazine beneath a dirty plate with dried ketchup smears. The page that was dog-eared had a woman strapped to a bed with tape over her mouth. Kane turned his eyes away and twisted a clump of hair between his fingers.
Maybe the best thing to do was to just leave her and call the cops. Kane tightened his lips and shook his head. If they found out that she wasn’t human, they’d turn her over to a bunch of scientists to play with.
“Shit.”
Abandoning her was out of the question. He wouldn’t be responsible for putting this woman in the hands of some Pulitzer Prize winning wannabe.
Kane absently tugged at his earlobe and looked around. The walls had a yellowish tint—probably from the cigar smoke. In front of the small television was one of those green swivel chairs that looked like a garage-sale purchase. A huge stack of DVD cases filled a bookshelf next to the television. He remembered the duct tape on the kitchen counter and didn’t want to imagine what was on those videos.
Kane’s gloved finger traced along a rip in the knee of his jeans and he shivered when the air conditioner kicked on. Everything about the house was frigid, like an empty grave.
He muttered a curse while rubbing his sore jaw. Stealing the car had been a royally stupid idea and now he was trapped inside a serial killer’s house. He couldn’t call a cab because the last of his money was sitting inside a paper bag by the newspaper stand.
The fabric of his thick socks stretched when he wiggled his toes. Kane suddenly remembered the comment she’d made about it being cold in there. He sprang up and crossed the room to a thermostat mounted on the wall beside a faded photograph of an old woman. Duct tape held the box together. When he slid the lever five degrees warmer, the air immediately shut off. He wandered into the bedroom with the hall light shining in from behind.
Dirt covered the soles of her feet. The thought of what that sadistic animal had done to her burned like a hot coal in his stomach. Why would any man inflict that kind of cruelty on a woman for his own pleasure? It disgusted him, es
pecially knowing that most Breed were far more protective of women than humans seemed to be.
He flexed his ungloved hand and draped a thin blanket over her slender legs. How could someone so feminine have so much fight in her? He’d never seen such an angelic face—she glowed, and he thought about how radiant she must have looked in the sunlight.
The bleeding had finally stopped—a good sign. Head wounds could be messy if they were deep enough. Kane knew this because after a night of drinking when he was twenty, he’d wound up on the receiving end of a wine bottle held by one pissed off Mage. The bartender had thrown them both out and Kane ended up on the list—the one that all Breed places keep of people who break the rules about fighting on the premises. Some turned a blind eye if they were paid enough, but most of them didn’t give a shit who you were.
Stitches were definitely in her future.
An idea crossed his mind and he sat beside her on the bed, stripping away his left glove.
“Let’s see you take a swing at me this time,” he said with a smirk. Kane held both of her hands—nice and tight.
When his eyes snapped open, one pissed off woman was turning her mouth to the side. It wrinkled up her lips in the most amusing way and he flashed a devilish grin at her as she tried to free her hands.
“No more hitting,” he said in a serious voice. “What’s your name?” Kane noticed in his peripheral vision that she was slowly tapping the toe of her shoe against the floor. His lip twitched.
“Pocahontas.”
“Well, in that case, it looks like I’ve captured me a squaw.”
“How’s your face?” she asked, shifting her hip in a way that caught his eye.
Kane sniffed out a laugh. “As handsome as ever.”
She rolled her eyes and blew a strand of hair away from her face.
“Let’s sit down,” he suggested, already moving to sit Indian style and pulling her down with him. It was too awkward to stand there like a couple of school kids holding hands. This way, they were at eye level, not to mention that he wouldn’t have to dodge her temperamental knee.
She reluctantly followed his lead, sitting on her left leg. “Why didn’t I just die?”
His breath caught unexpectedly at the vulnerable bend in her voice. Her brown eyes turned sadly to the floor and Kane immediately regretted the harsh words he’d said to her. This was just a girl who’d gotten herself mixed up with the wrong guy—her anger and fear were understandable.
“What’s your Breed?” he asked in a thick voice.
“Sensor.”
He almost broke the link. “You don’t transmit like a Sensor; I’m not picking up anything.”
“That’s because I’m defective,” she said, averting her eyes.
Clearly, it was a sensitive topic, but he’d heard of such things before. Some of them were dead receptors, unable to collect emotions. Some could transmit, but with only a vague awareness of the quality, so there were a lot of pissed off buyers. Intolerance was an unfortunate reality among Breed when it came to imperfections.
Kane relaxed his grip and lowered his voice. “Defective in what way?”
Her fingers flexed, but it only tightened their grip. “Meaning I’m a dead transmitter—a one-way channel.” Her jaw punched out, as if daring Kane to make fun of her. She didn’t appear to be ashamed of it, just used to the intolerance. “I can pick up emotions all I want, but there’s no point. No one can feel me,” she said, stressing the last word.
That was a big deal, too. Kane knew the disdain she must have faced in the bedroom when the men discovered the sex wasn’t going to meet their standards. It was something he strongly related to since most Sensors didn’t give him the time of day when they found out that he wouldn’t share. Sex was another little perk when it came to their gifts because they would exchange the experience during the act. You could feel each other’s pleasure and it intensified the rush.
He sighed, compelled to tell his own story. “I’m… I don’t know how to explain this.” Kane was about to spring something personal on a woman he’d just met—something that he didn’t talk about with others. “I can’t handle touching anyone. I pick up way too much shit and can’t shut myself off from drowning in it.”
“That’s the first thing you learn to do as a child,” she said in disbelief.
His voice became abrasive at her remark and he started putting up his wall again. “Well, no one ever taught me. I’ve heard about Sensors being able to disconnect from the emotions—”
“Not disconnect,” she corrected. “It’s learning how to desensitize yourself so you don’t become overwhelmed. It’s kind of like a numbing agent during the exchange. Why didn’t your parents show you how to do this?”
“Are you going to tell me your name or do I get the honor of making one up for you? Because I have a few words in mind if you want to hear them,” he chided.
Her luminous eyes nailed him to the ground. “It’s Caroline. But I don’t go by that; everyone calls me Carrie.”
A lump formed in his throat and desire consumed his body like a raging inferno. How could a name elicit such an intense reaction? The kind that made his heart stammer in his chest to the point where he coughed to make sure it was still beating. The unanticipated attraction he suddenly felt for her startled him. The softness of her small hands linking them together and the intensity of her gaze filled his chest with warmth.
Kane lifted his eyes and his anger crumbled away. “Caroline,” he whispered. “That’s pretty.”
She turned her head to the side and parted her lips, touching her chin to her bare shoulder. Passion filled Caroline’s face—the kind he only saw on a woman when he buried himself deep inside her and she came undone.
Then again, maybe he was just misreading her.
***
How do you politely tell someone to get the hell out of your head? Carrie was having a difficult enough time dealing with her situation, let alone having to contend with a stranger forcing his way inside her mind.
Kane wasn’t deterred when she lashed out at him more than once; he kept coming back for more. She was still shaken from the assault and his unexpected appearance put a fright into her.
But it wasn’t until he said her name that the anger dissipated. His tone was so intimate that she had to look away. There was a craving in his voice that made her feverish, a thickness in his timbre that filled her arms with goose bumps.
No one called her Caroline, and certainly not the way he did.
Earlier that evening, Carrie had been watering the ferns on her patio, watching the nine-year-old next door blowing bubbles onto the street from her balcony. The couple that lived there fought constantly, so Carrie would leave small gifts inside the empty flowerpot for Jesse—their little girl. It was a short reach through the bars with only a foot between balconies.
The sidewalk chalk was a mistake. When the mother saw a garden of beautiful flowers drawn on the concrete, she made her daughter scrub them away. After that, Carrie left simple things like bubbles and freshly baked cookies, and only when the babysitter was in the living room blaring her heavy metal music. Jesse never spoke, but she would smile sometimes and peek at Carrie through the railing. She was a shy little thing.
There was just enough light in the sky to make it to the diner and back home before it became too dark to walk the streets alone. One of those flame broiled hamburgers with fries sounded fantastic. The guy behind the counter had a crush on her and usually threw in a free vanilla milkshake with three fresh cherries. He knew that it would keep her there a little longer, because Carrie would sit at the counter and eat them before she headed out. He was nice, but a little young for her taste. Still, she loved how his eyes would light up when she walked through the door, and maybe that was one reason that she stopped in once a week and flirted with him through small talk.
He never did ask her out; maybe he was too shy. Carrie always liked a take-charge guy, so it was probably for the better. She was a softy when it
came to the romance movies—not the ones in modern times where they meet in a bar and a tumultuous relationship ensues, but the ones with knights and men of honor. However, the bigger issue with the guy at the diner had nothing to do with his personality. He was a human, and that was a big no-no.
Carrie had dated a few Sensors, but once they found out about her defect, they left nothing but skid marks. Most of the men approached marriage like an arrangement, selecting a woman with the best skills. Where’s the romance when they’re appraising you like a car on the showroom floor? And her engine wasn’t a six cylinder, but only a four. No one wanted a disabled child, so men were selective when choosing a partner. Then there was the whole sex thing. Sensors all but demanded transference in the bedroom—it heightened the experience like nothing else. She could receive just fine, but they couldn’t.
That was always the deal-breaker.
On the way home from the diner, Carrie crossed the dimly lit street, sipping on her vanilla shake. A stray dog’s toenails clicked on the sidewalk behind her and alarm ran up her spine. He might have just been hungry for the burger in her sack, but it wasn’t easy to distinguish Shifters when they were in animal form. Wolves and dogs were particularly troublesome because they ran in packs. In any case, it wasn’t on her agenda to get rabies, so she cut through a corridor, hoping to shave off some time.
The deliciously cold milkshake numbed her lips and she curled the warm paper bag against her chest, staring at the chain link fence that blocked her inside the vacant parking lot.
“Lovely,” she muttered, turning on her heel. A pebble rolled inside her sandal and she tapped her toe on the broken concrete to shake it out. The sun had already set and she was anxious to get home before her favorite show came on.
Carrie cautiously glanced around and blew out a breath when she noticed the dog was nowhere in sight. As she headed back toward the corridor, a white sedan crept around the corner from a back entrance on her left. She was alone and felt acutely aware of the slow speed of the car. Her heart ticked nervously against her chest when a bald man cranked the tinted window down. He was stocky and sweating profusely.
