For once in his life, he would risk everything. For Kit.
Later, he would examine when and how she had become so important to him that he could do such a thing, that he could ignore the advice his mother had given him and Sebastian time and time again over the long years.
No longer thinking, he moved his blood-soaked hand to her neck, covering the beat of her pulse, monitoring her life as it ebbed, a slow thread that barely jumped against her skin. He slid his hand from her neck, leaving a trail of blood on her golden flesh until he reached her stomach. Blood swam everywhere there. He felt dizzy from the cloying scent. Clots formed around the bullet hole, but still blood flowed, a river that could not be staunched until death took its final claim.
Slowly, so slowly, he could hear the thudding beat of his own heart in the close confines of the vehicle, he lowered his head, bringing his mouth down, down…
His nostrils flared, the sweet tang of her blood a heady, intoxicating thing. Empowering. Frightening.
“Kit.” The hush of her name fell from his lips, soft as a feather stroke. “Forgive me.”
No question about it. The next time she looked at him—if she looked at him again—it would be with the loathing he had hoped to avoid seeing in her lovely eyes. But that he could live with. Her death he could not.
His head swooped down, lips covering the bullet hole.
He gripped her with both hands, fingers burying in the soft flare of her waist, the blood making his hold slippery.
The serrated edges of her torn skin teased his mouth, and a part of him hesitated, horrified…excited.
He pressed his lips more firmly against the wound. With several deep, catlike strokes of his tongue, he surrendered himself.
He’d always been careful about crossing the line, of putting himself in a position where his demons might get the best of him and drag him into a hell from which he might never return.
With a tiny mewl of sound, she moved beneath him, thrusting herself closer, pushing herself into his mouth as though she would crawl inside him. A dangerous mix of hunger and desire spiraled through him.
One hand rose to delve in his hair, tugging him closer, seeking survival with an instinct that matched the primal force thundering through his blood, demanding he claim her.
With a groan, he opened his mouth wider, tasting her ravaged flesh, drawing out death, taking it deep inside himself, knowing it would have little power there.
A dark need ripped through him, intoxicating, staggering. Trembling against her, he forced his hands to gentle, his mouth to soften. Rafe gave, pouring all that he was into her—and hoping it would be enough.
“God,” he sighed, letting His name—his mother’s god—fall in the air between them, heavy and solemn. A benediction of sorts. A plea.
He had never been certain whether God heard his prayers, despite his mother’s insistence that he and Sebastian never give up on God, that God was there for them, that their existence mattered—no matter what they were.
All hard to accept when God had not been there for her, never heard her pleas. Both as a girl, and later as an old woman.
Still, he found himself praying, staring hard at Kit and praying as he had never prayed in his life.
God, let this be enough.
CHAPTER 18
Pulling back, Rafe swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, shoving back down the wild beastly lust burning through his veins. He dragged his gaze to her face, scanning her rock-still features, listening to the harsh sound of his breath fill the closed space.
A streak of blood marred the fragile curve of her chin, a shocking red against her tanned flesh. He ran a thumb over the stain, but it held fast. His gaze fell, surveying the damage.
The bullet hole decreased in size, growing tighter, shrinking, sealing itself before his very eyes.
Regeneration had begun. Her newly altered DNA was working quickly, just as he had hoped.
Her breathing evened, became less labored. He pressed a hand to her neck, satisfied to see that her pulse was growing stronger against the test of his fingers, no longer the light, skipping thread of moments ago.
“That’s it.” He breathed, the invisible band about his chest loosening. “Good girl,” he murmured, pushing a springy blond curl off her sweat-damp forehead as he examined her.
Positioning her on her side, he tucked her legs so the car door could close. He slid out from the backseat and shut the back door. Once in the driver’s seat, he gripped the leather steering wheel and dragged air into his lungs, containing himself, burying the beast back within, deliberately avoiding glancing at himself in the rearview mirror. Knowing what he would see.
The sight of his bloody hands was enough. Kit’s blood. So much covered him. And her. So much that she shouldn’t be alive.
It was not the first time someone’s blood stained his hands. But it certainly was the first time the sight ever gave him pause.
He wore Kit’s blood. Mortal blood. Not that of the lycans he felt justified in killing. He shivered, and glanced back at her stretched out on the seat. Mortal no more. Only precisely what she was—like him?—he had yet to learn.
It was the first time the blood of a Marshan colored his hands—if one did not count his mother.
He drove for a while, heading north, glancing over his shoulder and keeping an eye on her in the rearview mirror as he left Austin city limits. He needed to find someplace private, remote, without prying eyes. A place where they could hole up while she recovered.
He scanned the billboards lining the interstate until his gaze caught a sign for La Cantera, a lakeside resort twenty miles away boasting private, secluded cabins.
He veered off the interstate at the advertised exit and followed another sign, taking the road that led to the resort.
After forty-five minutes, he arrived in the small town. He passed a feed store with a dirt parking lot full of pickup trucks, a single grocery store, a restaurant boasting the world’s largest chicken-fried steak, and a mechanic’s with more boats than cars parked in its multiple garages.
He continued following signs, turning off the main drag and toward the lake and driving over a bumpy one-lane road until reaching a small wooden and red-stuccoed lodge. A quick glance back at Kit assured him she was still asleep.
He hopped out from behind the wheel. With a wary glance around him, he climbed in the back with Kit. Watching the rise and fall of her chest, he quickly changed out of his bloody clothes.
Dressed in clean clothes, he stepped out of the vehicle and sprinted inside the building. The bell over the door tinkled his arrival. Within ten minutes he had the keys and directions to a cabin the clerk vowed to be their best.
Back behind the wheel, he maneuvered the Hummer along a narrow path crowded with thick cedar and oak. Snatches of a glass-blue lake occasionally peeked through the tree line on his left. His heart rate spiked at a sudden moan from Kit. He knew Initiation could be difficult, the transition traumatic.
He accelerated, eager to reach the cabin.
“Kit,” he called, almost as though he expected her to answer him. He knew she couldn’t, yet still he talked, hoping some part of her could hear him. “You’re going to be okay. It will feel like you’re dying…” his voice faded and he blinked once.
Idiot. Probably not what she wanted to hear. Even if she could hear him.
The trees finally broke to reveal the lake. Sunlight glinted off its surface, bringing diamonds to life along its gentle wind-tossed swells. A few boats dotted its expanse. In the far distance, skiers chased one.
He rolled up before cabin sixteen, glad to see the considerable distance separating the single-story wood-and-rock house from its neighboring cabins dotting the lakeshore.
With a quick scan to assure himself no one was about, he swept Kit into his arms and carried her inside. Settling her on the bed, he pulled the shades shut on the cabin’s large front window, robbing them of the lakefront view. Submerged in privacy, they were enveloped
in cool darkness, and still he perspired. From the shock of all that had happened, he guessed. All he had done. All that would yet happen as a consequence of this day’s work.
Sighing, he hurried to the air-conditioning unit against the far wall. Although cool, he knew it needed to be cooler. Knew that the fever would soon grip her. He adjusted the dial. The unit rumbled, and icy air gushed from its vents.
He lowered himself onto the single king-size bed beside Kit, the mattress releasing a slight squeak at the additional weight. Except for the wretched state of her clothes, shredded and soaked in blood, she looked like a child asleep. A little girl with her curls tousled about her head, her elfen features relaxed in slumber.
Some of the color had returned to her face. He pressed the back of his hand to her cheek, wincing at the fiery sensation of her skin. The fever had already begun.
Crouching over her, he stripped her of her ruined clothing. After several trips to the bathroom, he managed to clean most of the blood from her with several wet hand towels and washcloths, pretending not to notice the delicate curves of her body. She didn’t make a sound as he worked, didn’t move a muscle. No matter that the memory of her body had been playing through his mind since they made love. Had it only been a night ago? He shook his head. It seemed a lifetime had passed since he discovered her naked at that roach motel.
A lifetime. And for him, a lifetime was truly long.
One hundred and twelve years, to be exact.
CHAPTER 19
Rafe awoke with a start, coming wide awake in an instant, senses alive, muscles strung taut as wires as his eyes adjusted to the darkness with ease.
It had always been that way for him. Sleep never came easily…or deeply. It was the same for his brother. Years of running, fleeing from town to town, staying one step ahead of their enemies.
Such an existence had taught them never to sleep too soundly. Never to grow too comfortable. Never to feel safe.
And to never trust. Only each other. Only their mother. No one else.
Letting people in, growing close to others, only invited pain. Pain could drive anyone mad. And madness was a luxury he could not afford. He needed to remain in control at all times. He’d promised his mother that, promised never to descend into the darkness, never to corrupt his soul.
And yet staring down at Kit, he let pain flow in, seep into that room, past the locked door, and he felt that control slip. Felt the dark beast stir in his heart, a dangerous rumble that threatened the safe life he had built for himself all these years.
Tearing his gaze from her, he reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. He scanned the room, keeping one arm around her, curled close to his side. Her body generated heat like an electric blanket. Still, he spooned his larger body against hers, needing to feel her, craving her as he had no right to. Needing to feel her heat, her breath, her live body.
She was all right. She was going to be all right.
It soon became apparent what had woken him. Sleeping alongside her, he was attuned to her every whimper, her every move, right down to the ever-increasing spike in her body temperature.
He felt her brow with the back of his hand. Dangerously hot. Flaming to the touch, hotter than any human body should be. Or could be and survive.
But then that was it. The heart of the matter. The very thing that could drive her from him forever. Make her despise him as she despised lycans.
She was no longer human. Initiation had begun.
He’d never gone this far before. Never known if he could. Hell, he still didn’t know what the outcome would be—whether she would survive past Initiation. She could still die.
Memories flooded him. He recalled what it had been like. The violence of it. The excruciating agony. Like dying, he imagined.
He lowered his hand to Kit’s neck. Her pulse thrummed against her neck in a rapid-fire tempo. Moist curls clung to her damp throat. Like moss on a rock. He swiped them away, wincing at her sharp little cry, well imagining the demons chasing her in her dreams.
“You’re going to be fine,” he murmured. He stared at her starkly. “You’ll hate me, but you’ll be fine. I promise. I’ll see you through this, Kit.” See that the beast, the darkness, never overtakes you.
Even as he thought this, he wondered how he could ever make such a promise. Kit alone would decide her fate.
Moving off the bed, he settled himself in a deep armchair. He covered himself with a throw and sank into the chair’s depths. Propping his feet on the edge of the bed, he watched her. Waiting. Knowing it would be days before she woke.
At that moment, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He dug the phone out and read the sender’s information, instinctively knowing before he looked who it would be.
With a grimace, he flipped the phone open. “Hello, Sebastian.”
“What’s happened?” His brother wasted no time getting to the point.
Rafe sighed. He shouldn’t feel surprised. As brothers, as twins, they were close. “Your timing couldn’t be better, little brother.”
“You’ll never let me live down those five minutes, huh, big brother?”
“With you, I need every advantage.”
Sebastian chuckled in his ear. “I’ve missed you, brother. When are you going to give up this stupid game you’re playing with EFLA? You could make a hell of a lot more difference with me than working for those bastards.”
As long as he remembered, Sebastian only ever referred to EFLA as bastards. A sentiment Rafe did not disagree with, but unlike his brother, he was able to control his animosity in order to meet his goals. Goals that weren’t very different from Sebastian’s. They just followed different paths in reaching them. Whereas Rafe had infiltrated EFLA’s ranks, Sebastian preferred to go it alone, hunting lycans independently. And that is where their objectives differed. Sebastian was content simply to hunt and destroy lycans. Rafe wanted to do that and more.
“Yeah, I’ve missed you, too. It’s been too long.”
“Seven years.”
Seven years already? He didn’t monitor time too closely. Not when years rolled by like days, frequent and unnoted.
His gaze fell on Kit tossing restlessly on the bed. That was what had led him to this moment. To her. He had wanted to help her. Others like her. Others like his mother.
From where he sat, he could see the fine sheen of sweat coating her skin. He rose, tossing the throw aside and walking to the bathroom. He just hadn’t anticipated helping her quite like this.
“Rafe? You there still?”
Returning to Kit with a wet washcloth in his hand, he replied, “I’m here.” He pressed the cloth to her warm forehead, and murmured, voice laced with derision, “Oh, I think I might be making a difference. More than I ever planned.”
For better or worse.
A heavy pause stretched before his brother spoke again, repeating his first question. “What are you talking about? What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” he hedged, reluctant to confess the truth, knowing how Sebastian would react. The same way Rafe would have reacted had his brother been the one to attempt turning someone.
Sebastian’s voice scratched roughly on the air. “You forget whom you’re talking to. Something has happened. Something big. I can feel it.”
He couldn’t pretend nothing had happened with their damned bond hanging thickly between them, humming across continents, linking him with his brother whether he willed it or not.
“Where are you?” Sebastian demanded, beginning to sound genuinely worried.
“Texas,” Rafe answered, glad for one simple, un-complicated question.
“What in hell are you doing there?”
“I go where I am told.”
Sebastian snorted in his ear. “Right. What’s EFLA doing in Texas?”
“I’m part of EFLA’s assimilation efforts in North America.”
“You mean they’ve done it? They’ve really expanded the operation. Great. Just what we need. More of those fuckers
dealing out their brand of justice.”
Rafe did not need to hear the sarcasm in his brother’s voice to know how Sebastian felt about EFLA. The organization had killed their mother. Butchered her long after she had carried out the much-feared prophecy.
“Sorry, brother. I find it hard to believe you’re making a difference by helping EFLA expand itself.”
“No?” he queried, watching as Kit tossed onto her back with a moan, the sound low and terrible, raising goose bumps on his arms.
“What was that?”
Kit’s face contorted in her sleep, her delicate features twisted with the dark agony that he recalled from his own Initiation.
“I’ve done it.” His words fell softly, almost inaudible.
Heavy silence met his hushed proclamation. Then: “What?”
“That thing we’ve always talked about. Always wondered about.” His hand tightened around his cell. “Remember, Sebastian?”
Their mother had made it a point to educate them on lycans. Desperate for them to understand the powers and limitations of the soulless creatures. But they had been left with questions concerning themselves.
He watched the rapid rise and fall of Kit’s chest. Her breathing fell harshly in the room as she fought her fever, fought the demons in her head.
“Rafe? Are you there?”
He gave his head a small shake. “Yes. I’m here.”
“Shit.” A gust of breath followed Sebastian’s expletive. “It really worked? Who? How?”
“She was another assignment.”
“And you turned her?” Sebastian broke in, his voice accusing. “You never turned any of the others. How did it happen? You didn’t attack her, did you?”
“Hell, no!” he cried, hot indignation sweeping through him. “What do you think I am? A fucking animal? EFLA tracked her. She was shot. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Yes, you did. You could have let her die rather than take such a risk.” Sebastian’s voice lowered, grew grave. “We talked about this. We never knew if we could even turn someone—”
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