Knowing she had little choice right now, considering she was without phone or money, Caitlin walked away into the alleyway, rounding the block so she could approach her building from the back. The alleyway behind her flat was still shrouded in the semi-darkness of pre-dawn. It suited Caitlin just fine as she clambered up the fire escape until she stood by her window. She grabbed the spare key John and she had hidden under the window sill the day after they’d moved in together. Now armed with a set of keys to let herself in, Caitlin made a dash for the front door and punched in the security code as fast as she could with trembling fingers. She was rather grateful when she made it in without problem. She may be young but she wasn’t stupid. She was damn lucky not to have been attacked during her forced walk across town. She hopped on the elevator, and all she could think about as she got to her floor was her bathtub and how nice it was going to be to slide into steaming hot and bubbly water.
But as she unlocked then opened her apartment, she gasped. The entire place had been turned over. Furniture broken, drawers turned over, ornaments smashed, papers everywhere… Caitlin took a step forward. She startled at the crunch of glass underfoot. And suddenly, tears were flowing down her face. Just what was going wrong with her life? She leaned against the wall by the door then slid down it, sitting on the floor and not caring about the shards that might just pierce her skin. She hid her face against her knees, sobs muffled against her dress.
“Miss?”
The feel of a hand on her arm caused Caitlin to jerk back. The man put his hands up, smiling in a way that meant to be reassuring.
“It’s just the police, ma’am,” the man said as he fished for his badge in his coat pocket. “We’ve received reports of a disturbance at this address.”
Caitlin sniffed and waved a hand at the destruction around them.
“I assume you didn’t do this.”
“No,” Caitlin croaked through the tears clogging her throat. “Only just got back.”
“Do you have any idea if something’s been taken?”
The art student shrugged and shook her head. Caitlin frowned as she looked at the man now crouching beside her. He wore a dark suit rather than a uniform, and she could only guess her was an inspector of some kind. He smiled at her for a second or two then he broke eye contact, watching the room around them. He stood and picked up a ruined canvas. Caitlin’s frown became more pronounced. She kept an eye on him as he righted a few chairs then dropped into one.
“You’re an artist?”
“I try.”
“Where are you studying?”
“Boston’s College of Fine Arts. Majoring in painting and minoring in art history.”
“Right.” The cop tapped his leather gloved hands onto his thighs. “I’m going to call for some backup. Why don’t you come with me and sit in the car?”
Caitlin nodded, too numb to do anything more.
*
**
Ranael swore out loud when he got back to the bedroom, only to find it empty.
“Tiamat! Locate the Potential.”
“Initiating request.”
The archon turned on the spot, taking in the sights of the unmade made and the open window. More out of pragmatism than anything else, Ranael went to the window and stuck his head through the opening, looking up and down the alleyway. No sign of Caitlin. With another cuss escaping his lips, Ranael closed the window.
“Unable to locate Potential. Kashyk protocol has been re-activated.”
“Goddamn it!”
The archon pulled on his clothes as fast he could.
“Ready the engines. Scan the city for the trace I put on Caitlin.”
“Initiating request.”
Ranael laced up his combat boots while he waited. He had no choice now. Or rather he did, but he really didn’t like the options: killing the girl to force a Potential reset; or catching up with her to explain who he was and what was happening. If I was honest with himself, Ranael would rather choose the way that would keep Caitlin alive. He may have known her for only a few weeks, but he already knew she was a good person.
“Traces acquired. Interferences registered. Locating command reduced to general heading.”
That brought Ranael short. Traces? Plural? And interferences?
“Run wave ID on the traces.”
“Initiating request. Interferences registered. Trace one tagged to seraph Archon Ranael Pahadron. Trace two identified as non-seraph. Proceed with cleaning data?”
Damn it. Now he knew someone else was after Caitlin. But why?
“Clean the data then compare it with the locals’ tracking schemes. Widen the search if needed.”
“Initiating request. Interferences registered. Results expected in: seven days.”
As Tiamat started with its new mission, Ranael sat back on the couch. Caitlin was an art student. What could the local law enforcement want with her.
“Silver Custody authorization incoming.”
Ranael gritted his teeth but got up. He jacked his personal holocom into the mainframe and downloaded the data pack. He swiped through the files quickly, confirmed his orders, and grabbed his coat.
“Send me whatever you find straight to my holocom.”
The archon didn’t wait for the supercomputer’s acknowledgment. If there were people after Caitlin, he’d better make sure he found her before they did. A quick check on the screen of his holocom confirmed Caitlin seemed to be heading home. Given the time, there were only a few other places could go. He set off on foot, running straight across the city and toward Caitlin’s flat in hope of spotting her in the streets. He wasn’t sure how much of a head start the girl had, but he’d guess she’d heard his conversation with Ariuk and gotten spooked. She’d been amazingly quiet during her escape.
Ranael shook the thoughts out of his head and continued to run. It was the early hours of the morning by the time he made it to Caitlin’s. He was going to get up there when he spotted Caitlin coming out of the building, a man following her. He frowned, watching the man as he smiled and opened the door of a car, perfectly parked right outside the building. The car had a portable police light on its roof, but Ranael had been around this part of East Boston enough to know it wasn’t that easy to find a space this early in the morning.
Suspicions running high, Ranael retreated into the shadows of the opposing alleyway and set about pairing his holocom with any electronic devices the man carried on him so he could record his conversations. He wasn’t disappointed when, after securing Caitlin in the car, the man stepped away and reached for his phone. Even as he punched the numbers, Ranael was listening in. The call was answered almost instantly.
“Have you got it?”
“Couldn’t find anything in the flat that registered. But the girl has just come back.”
“You scanned her?”
“No. Didn’t want to arouse suspicions.”
“Okay. Bring her back and we’ll deal with her at HQ.”
“Right.”
That was all Ranael needed to hear. He moved even before the man had ended the call. Ranael took off across the street. Caitlin’s warning shout came too late for her fellow Terran. The archon rammed his shoulder in the man’s mid-section. Breath driven from his lungs, the man staggered back two steps. But he obviously had training because it took him only an instant longer to react. His knee came up and smashed into the side of Ranael’s jaw. The archon grunted and smirked as his fist came up, landing the perfect uppercut on the Terran. The man stumbled back again.
Both men registered the sound of a car door opening and closing. Neither stopped nor turned to watch the woman. But Ranael knew he needed to act fast if he didn’t want to risk losing Caitlin again. He surged forward. Two punches and a roundhouse kick, and his opponent was on the floor. Ranael turned around just in time to see Caitlin taking off down the street. Ranael took a few seconds to slow the pursuit: he took the Terran man’s phone and slashed one of the tires with his boot knife. Then he was off
after Caitlin.
CHAPTER SIX: Flight and Fight
Caitlin refused to turn around as she ran, legs pumping and heart squeezing in her chest. She made for the river as fast as she could, ducking in and out of the familiar streets of her neighborhood. She went as far as jumping a few garden fences. She knew of a couple of spots where she might be able to hide and still see Ranael coming. What the hell was going on? The thought bounced around her head in time with her strides. In the space of just a day, she’d discovered that she could still fancy a bloke even after the whole Adam affair, and then that bloke had turned out to be some kind of… Actually, she wasn’t quite sure what Ranael was. But from the glimpse of his martial skills, he wasn’t someone you wanted to be on the wrong side of. She hoped the police man would be all right.
The thought skittered from her head as she hit a muddy patch after vaulting a fence. She went tumbling down and she landed on her side with a muffled shout. She scrambled in the mud for purchase and pushed to her feet, ignoring the pain in her wrist as she continued running. Forearm cradled to her chest and tears streaming down her face, Caitlin made it onto the street. She smiled through gritted teeth as she spied the bushes along the street to her right. She dove into the shrubbery, ignoring the prickles and thorns that scratched at her clothes and skin. She hunkered down behind a small tree, shivering. She tried to gulp in air, attempting to calm herself. She could hear police sirens in the distance, and she hoped they were coming for her. The two-tone vibration of a police chopper overhead was another rather comforting sound, although her mind refused to entertain the possibility of founding an open space for them to spot her.
The slap of booted feet onto the road had the young woman freeze in her movements, a hand pressed against her mouth in an effort to muffle the sound of her breathing. She didn’t even dare breathe a sigh of relief as the sound went straight past her. Instead, she waited a few minutes before extracting herself from the scrubland. Pain throbbing in her arm, she crossed the street as quickly and quietly as she could and crossed the park until she stood by the river. Chest heaving, she pulled her necklace over her head, the jade pendant held firm in her hand, the silver chain dangling from her fist. With a deep breath, she raised her arm, closed her eyes, and threw the stone as far as she could.
She waited to hear the splash of the stone hitting the water. It never came. Caitlin opened her eyes and whimpered as she saw her pendant hovering in the air, glowing green in the darkness before the dawn. The young woman let herself drop to her knees, holding her injured wrist to her chest as more tears fell down her face.
“What do you want from me?” she whispered.
The stone seemed to pulse with an inner light and Caitlin reluctantly brought her open hand under the stone. Its glow faded and it dropped into her palm. Caitlin sat back on her heels, her gray gaze fixed onto the piece of jade. It felt warm to the touch. And like before, she felt at peace with it within her grasp. And she knew it was irrational, because there was still a man looking for her. A man who had not hesitated to beat up a police officer.
“Caitlin.”
The woman whirled around to find Ranael standing there, hands help open in front of him and watching her with his golden gaze.
“How…”
“The Potential,” came his calm answer, “has protections. It can scramble most wavelengths: electronic, sound, light, even mind waves and chemical trackers it seems. It makes it hard to track at times. But I have studied the interactions between your mind waves and the Potential’s protection system. I can track some of the irregularities this interaction emits. It won’t tell me precisely where you are, but I can get a general heading. And then, I’ve been watching you long enough to know you like coming here.”
At that, Caitlin took a step back. But Ranael didn’t move. Not that he had to: she had nowhere to run.
“Take the stupid thing,” Caitlin said suddenly, holding her hand out for him.
“It’s not that simple, Caitlin,” Ranael said.
But Caitlin growled and rushed at him, thrusting the necklace into his chest. Ranael caught her before she could move away. She cried out as his hand clasped her injured wrist. He froze and gentled his hold on her, his gaze fixed onto the discolored skin around her joint.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Let me go,” Caitlin said as she tried to pull away from him.
Caitlin looked into his amber eyes and she felt it straight away: the attraction that had been present since she’d set eyes on him yesterday.
“Why me?”
“Because it chose you,” Ranael said as he let one finger graze against the piece of jade.
Caitlin shook her head minutely, but Ranael said nothing more. The young woman fought against the pull of his magnetic yellow-brown eyes.
“What are you?”
The whispered question left Caitlin’s trembling lips in the brightening morning dawn. She watched Ranael’s right eye twitch, and she wondered if the man before her would strike her for asking a question, as Adam had once done. But his gaze remained calm and somewhat soft as Ranael held her in his embrace. Caitlin inhaled slowly and felt her eyes close and her body relax against her will. And she let her head fall forward until her forehead touched his shoulder. The thumping of the chopper’s rotor blades cutting through the air came closer, and both Caitlin and Ranael looked up.
“We need to get out of here, Caitlin.”
The art student frowned and made to pull away, but the man before her didn’t move as he watched the chopper coming closer. His eyes glowed for a moment and he cursed before he turned to her.
“Listen to me. The man at your flat, he wasn’t a good guy. And those people up there, they’re not here to help you either.”
“What are you talking about? That man was a police officer.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“He showed me his badge.”
Ranael rolled his eyes now, and started to walk through the park and away from the chopper.
“Where are we going? Where are you taking me?”
“Not sure yet. But I hope somewhere safe.”
Caitlin tried to pull away. And suddenly, Ranael was right against her and pushing her along. A soft whistle-thump sounded around them and Ranael forced Caitlin’s head down even as he dragged her behind a tree. The art student heard the noise again and this time she saw a piece of bark being gouged from the tree they were hiding behind. She blinked trying to understand what was happening.
“Now do you believe me when I say those aren’t the good guys?”
Caitlin could only look as Ranael took a gun from his waist and fired at the chopper. His aim was good enough to take out the searchlight and convince the pilot to swerve out of range. Ranael grabbed Caitlin’s good hand and pulled her along. She followed without resistance, fear coursing through her veins as she heard the chopper coming back their way. But Ranael knew the area well enough that he directed them straight to a particular side street. There, he pushed her under an overhang formed by a porch way. He pulled a tablet-like device from his pocket and tapped a few keys into it. He then pressed his hand across her mouth.
Caitlin watched, eyes wide, as the chopper passed slowly over them. With the weight of Ranael’s body against her and his hand holding her head in place, she could do nothing more than follow the black helicopter with her eyes as it flew overhead and then away. She frowned: didn’t police helicopter have infrared cameras nowadays? Shouldn’t they still be able to ‘see’ them? Or was Ranael right, and these weren’t cops despite looking the part? Neither Ranael nor Caitlin moved for a long while as they tried to keep track of the helicopter looking for them. It made another two passes above them before it started to move away. Still, Ranael didn’t move more than his head as he kept turning to look in the direction of the whining engine.
For her part, Caitlin tried to start breathing again. Her heart thumped in her ribcage and she could feel the beat of Ranael’s against her breasts. At s
o close a range, she couldn’t escape the smell of him. And she felt her body respond without her consent. Her tongue moved to lightly lick her dark protector’s palm. Ranael’s glowing gaze snapped to hers. With a strangled groan, he lowered his hand and kissed her. Lips crashed, teeth clashed and tongues dueled. Caitlin gasped as she felt Ranael’s hand palm her right breast. His fingers sought out her already erect nipple through the layers of her dress and bra, and he rolled her aching tip between index and thumb pinching hard. Her shuddering moan resonated in the dawn’s silence and Ranael moved his free hand to her mouth to once more silence her.
The rush of blood pounded in her head and in her core, and Caitlin was freeing Ranael’s erection from its denim prison before she could stop herself. He ground himself in her grip even as he bent his head to reach the crook her neck. He sucked hard at the skin he found there. Caitlin moaned against his hand. She lifted her leg, the hem of her dress riding up and exposing her damp underwear to the cold morning air, before she hooked her leg around his hip and pulling his body to fit more closely against hers.
“Caitlin? You’re gonna have to stop me,” Ranael grunted against her skin her as he ground his erection into her core.
The surge of satisfaction left her gasping, and Caitlin moved her arms to encircle his neck. Even the throbbing pain of her sprained wrist disappeared in the rush of arousal that flowed over her, sending shock waves of pleasure racing along her every nerves. She hopped on one leg and suddenly Ranael was right where she wanted him, his hard on separated from her core only by the scrap of material between her legs. He pressed her back to the stones behind her, bringing both his hands to grasp at the globes of her ass to help support her weight.
“Caitlin…”
“You stop now, and I make sure that chopper finds us.”
A frighteningly detached part of Caitlin’s mind wondered at these words, whispered in a dark, smoky and husky tone that she’d never known she possessed. Her thighs pressed against Ranael’s hips trying to bring him closer. Her right hand clawed at his back through his shirt and the dark man before her hissed, bucking hard into the juncture of her thighs.
Romance: Yes, Stepbrother! Page 56
