The Darkest Frost: Vol 2 of a 2-part serial (TDF, #2)

by Tanya Holmes

  “I know this is a lot to take in, but you really need to calm down.”

  “Don’t—don’t tell me to calm down!”

  I was losing it. Completely losing it. None of this made sense. Braeden arrested? Luke…dead?

  Words spilled out of me. “Braeden said Luke was fine. He swore he would be okay. He said you were just subduing him.” I stared at the ceiling, my thoughts boiling over, my chest rising and falling. “Arrested? For what?” I glared at him. “Killing Luke? Is that it? Did he kill him? No. He didn’t—he wouldn’t. But you would!” Xavier’s gaze fell. “You did it? Didn’t you?”

  He held up both palms. “I want you to hear me, okay? You’re still in Fever rage. We need to get you calm and back to sleep because if we don’t, you’ll—”

  “Where are they?” I screamed.

  “Will you fucking listen? You’re not thinking straight right now—”

  “Bullshit!”

  “D? You got up on your own four hours ago and insisted on rinsing your mouth out with mouthwash. You were sleepwalking. So we did that, but then you wanted to wash your hair again. We did that too. Then you said you wanted waffles and hot dogs, so I made them for you.” He counted on his fingers. “You’ve only slept two hours and some change. If you don’t rest, the hallucinations—”

  “Shut up and tell me what happened!”

  His brow arched. “Nooooooo, because if I do, you’ll want more details—more of everything and you’re not ready to hear it. Not yet. Not until you’re over this Fever rage.”

  “To hell with this. To hell with you!” I glanced around the room. I didn’t need Xavier. My baby would lead me to Braeden. “I’m getting out of here.” Where I was going, and how I’d get there, I hadn’t a clue. I just knew I needed to get as far away from him as possible. By now my welling eyes had nearly blinded me. I stumbled out of bed, bumping into a table lamp. It crashed to the floor. “You killed Luke,” I tossed over my shoulder. “I know you did. Sick bastard.”

  I tripped over my own feet and was about to hit the floor when Xavier caught me. He was just on the bed, and then he was holding me. It wasn’t even a millisecond. I fought to break free, but he threw me on the mattress, and flipped me on my back, his strong body pinning me down. He reached to brush a tear from my cheek, but I slapped his hand away.

  “Okay, that’s it. I’m done being nice,” he snapped. “You’re acting crazy.”

  “That’s rich coming from a psychopath.”

  He shoved me down again when I tried to sit up. “Get this in your mind. You’re not going anywhere!”

  Then I felt it. Felt him. Unbelievable. His erection stabbed into my leg. The bastard was brick hard.

  Hatred and loathing filled me. “You’re disgusting.”

  “Oh, you feel that do you?” His impenetrable gaze glittered with dark menace. “Well, you’ll just have to get used to it. It’s beyond my control.”

  I struggled beneath him. “Fucking pervert.”

  “You kiss Braeden with that mouth?” He slammed my arms over my head and tightened his steely grip. As if for emphasis, he shifted his weight, seating himself right between my legs. “In case you’re curious, that’s my body’s natural reaction to you, doll. Until we finish this, it ain’t—”

  “Finish what?”

  He swore beneath his breath. “Well, that’s something else you’re not ready to hear.”

  Whatever he was babbling about, I didn’t care. I just wanted him gone. I needed to find Braeden…and Luke...

  I screamed in frustration, but it came out hollow. It was a sound filled with grief, rage, and fear. Too much had happened over the past forty-eight hours, too much to fathom. So I screamed about that too. A minute into it, and my throat was raw and burning. I couldn’t concentrate on anything beyond the fact that Luke was dead—murdered—and Braeden was lost to me.

  Xavier cocked his head. “Feel better now?”

  “You’re an evil, soulless bastard,” I whimpered. “And I will never forgive you.”

  “Yeah, you will.”

  “I hate you!”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that for a second.”

  Rage seared me. I wanted to hurt him. To scratch his face off, but his hands were like shackles around my wrists, and he’d pinned me beneath his substantial weight. So I head butted him as hard as I could, which was a mistake. It just fed my migraine. Pain axed into my skull. My eyes watered with it.

  “Are you done?” He lifted a brow when I tried to knee him in the balls. “Don’t make me use my touch on you.”

  “What touch?” I demanded.

  He lifted his palm. “This isn’t a virus. It’s a power, amplified. And it works on everybody. Yoreck. Mortal. Animal. Vegetable. Mineral. Anything!” I tried to wiggle from beneath him and he chuckled. “Yeah, keep struggling. As you’ve probably noticed, my body sorta likes it.”

  I stifled a scream. “Oh, get the hell off me please.” When I went for his balls again, he shifted. Now I was completely immobile.

  “Uh-uh-uh,” he teased. “Not the jewels. We’re gonna need those later.”

  Desperation edged my voice. “I just want to see Braeden.”

  “Forget it,” he said. “We have to hunker down for the rest of the week until they send for us.”

  “If you don’t let me go, I’ll—” I did a double take. “They? Who’s they?”

  “Shut up.” He clamped his hand over my mouth and tilted his head as if listening for something.

  I bit his palm hard.

  “Stop it,” he snapped.

  A door downstairs burst open. Glass shattered. Sounds of commotion filtered through the floor. Lamps tumbled over. Furniture smashed into the walls and at least half a dozen male voices yelled out of sync.

  Another dose of adrenaline kicked in and my panicked eyes cut to Xavier’s as I mumbled curses beneath his ever-tightening hand.

  “It’s the cops.” He hauled me off the bed like I was feather light. His hand still gripped my mouth when he whisked me to the other side of the room, to a wall filled with books. He jerked his head to the right in a silent command and the wall came alive, sliding open to reveal a panic room, complete with a bed, a mini-kitchen, and a small enclosure in the back that I assumed had a toilet.

  So he was wanted by the police. Didn’t take a genius to figure out why. Luke was dead. Oh, God. Maybe it was a double homicide. According to Caryn’s prophecy, even an immortal like Braeden couldn’t escape death. In fact, she said we would die without each other. What if he was dying now? What if our separation had caused it?

  And Luke… Poor, sweet, Luke. That Xavier had been the one to murder him was no longer a question. The pain of his loss was like a knife to my soul. Sharp. Endless. Devastating. But I didn’t have time to grieve. I had to think past the fog clouding my brain.

  Somehow I had to escape.

  After shoving me inside the room, Xavier ducked back for my things. In desperation, I went for the door, but he caught me around the waist and threw me on the narrow bed. Hard to believe this was the same gentle soul who’d held me in the tub, who’d sung me to sleep, and cradled me in his arms all night. No, this was my monster in the closet unveiled.

  Xavier stabbed a hand in my direction and whisper-yelled, “Stay the fuck over there.”

  Once again, with unnatural speed, he collected everything else—IV bag, pole, and all the other medical supplies, before joining me inside. It took him a matter of seconds. He went back one last time, going for a drawer to remove a bunch of guns and ammo, which he dumped on a table in the panic room.

  The wall slowly slid shut.

  Though confusion and fear swarmed me, one thing was clear. The cops were probably here to rescue me and this might be my only chance to get away from this homicidal maniac.

  Charging off the bed, I screamed for help, but he tackled me on the mattress again. Next thing I knew, he’d muttered something in that strange language, and I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even whimper. Some
how, he’d stolen my voice, or at the very least, paralyzed my vocal cords.

  I gasped as he pressed me flat on my back again, with his body blanketing mine. He was still hard as a steel pipe as he thrust my arms above my head, one hand gripping my wrists.

  “See what happens?” he hissed in my ear, cupping his palm over my mouth, which was completely unnecessary. I couldn’t speak anyway. “I told you to shut up. You wouldn’t. So this is what you get. Yeah, that’s me fucking with your voice.” His cold eyes raked me over. “If you don’t behave, I’ll touch you again, only this time, you’ll be taking an extended nap. And if those cops find us in here, they’re dead. I’ll kill every last one of them.”

  My lips trembled beneath his palm. The ice in his words chilled me to the bone. The man was soulless. He would kill again.

  “Their lives are in your hands, D. Do we understand each other?”

  I nodded, pleading with my eyes.

  “Atta girl.” He lowered his hand. “Now it looks like I’ve been made.” He shook his head. “How the fuck did they find me so fast?”

  Even if I could scream, his threat was as good as a gag in my mouth. I’d seen Braeden lift a man with one finger. God only knew what Yoreck tricks Xavier had up his sleeve. There was no doubt in my mind he could kill these men without blinking.

  Footsteps hit the stairs, stormed down the hall, and herded into the bedroom. Muffled voices echoed as they searched every inch and crevice, turning over tables, chairs, and whatever wasn’t nailed down.

  Xavier’s eyes spoke a warning. Try anything stupid and you won’t like what I do. I nodded in agreement to our temporary truce, our gazes still locked. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he whispered.

  I searched the windowless room and mouthed, “Where? We’re trapped?”

  “No, we’re not.” Xavier rolled off me, pulled a phone from his pocket and speed-dialed somebody. He spoke in hushed tones for a good five minutes. When he finished, he stood before a console, punched in a series of buttons, and another wall slid back to reveal a dark tunnel.

  As the men tore through the rest of the house, he gathered our things. “Time to go, princess.” One snap of his fingers and the pressure on my vocal cords vanished. “We’re leaving.”

  I cleared my throat. When I spoke my voice sounded raspy. “My suitcases. All my stuff—I left everything at….” I didn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t say the name. But it popped in my brain anyway.

  Luke.

  “I hid my car about a mile from here. Your bags are already in the trunk.” He nudged his chin toward the darkness. “This room is lined with steel. I can’t get through that. But the corridor leads to an exit a hundred feet away. I can teleport us out from there. Now come on.”

  Not only did he have supernatural speed, he could move between objects. I accepted these impossibilities with surprising ease. I also tucked the fact that he couldn’t get through steel away for future reference.

  The crazy events of the last few days gelled as I stared into the black tunnel. I was sick, feverish, and pregnant by a man who wasn’t human, a man I may never see again, a man I loved. And now the man’s psycho brother with an untold number of mysterious supernatural powers had taken me captive. In my current impaired condition, I was no match for him—physically or mentally. So I had no choice but to comply.

  I would bide my time, and when the opportunity came, I would make Xavier Frost pay for Luke… And maybe even Braeden.

  I got to my feet, but I had no strength in my legs and the floor rushed up to meet me. Once again, Xavier zipped over faster than the blink of an eye, catching me. He hugged me to his chest and stepped into the dark corridor.

  The wall slid closed behind us.

  * * *

  A DETENTION CENTER IN MARYLAND

  BRAEDEN

  ____________________________

  Four uniformed policemen hovered by a water cooler whispering as they glowered at Braeden through the thick bars of his cell.

  “Damn shame he won’t get the death penalty,” a crater-faced cop with beady eyes and a comb-over remarked.

  His companion, a roided-out giant endowed with bulging arms and orange tanning-bed skin offered his two cents. “Yeah, well, we have O’Malley to thank for that.”

  “Bleeding heart liberals,” the first cop muttered. “They’re fucking this country in the ass.”

  Another cop, this one, a blond haired, blue-eyed farm-boy type, sauntered over nursing a coffee mug with “Best Dad” scripted on the side. “Oh, here we go again with the political shit. Shut up, Harrison.”

  “Okay, fine,” Harrison—Mr. Comb-Over—said, “but the fact remains, if capital punishment was designed for anybody it’s that bastard in there.” He nudged a chin in Braeden’s direction. “You see the morgue pics? He turned Antonelli into a charcoal briquette. Just like the receptionist. The fucker’s a pyro. Look!” he stage-whispered. “There he goes. Talking to himself again.”

  The roided giant peered closer. “Damn. You’re right.”

  “He’s been doing it all morning off and on,” Harrison remarked. “He’ll say something, then pause, like he’s having an actual conversation. It’s an act. He’s crazy like a fox.”

  Best Dad took a lazy sip of coffee. “Yeah, he started building his case when he got here. He only let the chief fingerprint him. Said he saw ‘demons’ floating around everyone else.”

  “Save your breath, fuckwad,” Harrison yelled over at Braeden. “The insanity plea ain’t gonna get you out of this one. Your ass is going down.”

  “About damn time too,” steroid man added.

  Braeden shifted on the cot, turning his back to the bars, and repeated what he’d just said to the mortal spirit sharing his body. “Do you understand your predicament now?”

  Luke Antonelli’s angry voice echoed in Braeden’s head. It wasn’t audible. It came as a thought, separate and apart from his own. ‘How can I? The whole thing sounds insane.’

  “Once again, you exist…in me,” Braeden whispered. “I extracted you after you died. You touched something you shouldn’t have.” Rather than cushion the blow, Braeden opted for bluntness. The time for coddling was over. “Now your body is gone, but your spirit remains—”

  ‘Right, and like I told you before, that’s…that’s not what happened! Your brother shot me! Then he broke my neck!’

  Antonelli’s mounting confusion and rage boiled hot in Braeden’s gut. He suffered his every emotion as surely as his own. “Well, yes, that’s how things ended, but you opening The Scribe’s Oath started it. Once you did that, your fate was sealed. The book Denieve brought with her holds a curse—”

  ‘Where is she?’ Antonelli demanded, his belligerence growing. ‘Is she okay? He didn’t hurt her, did he?’

  Detective Janette Sikes—Xavier’s friend with benefits—spoke with Xavier hours after they’d escaped. That Denieve was out of harm’s way was one less thing for Braeden to worry about.

  Still, this wouldn’t be easy. Letting go. Allowing things to play out as they should—without him. Painful as it was, Braeden had to step back and let nature take its course, had to allow the two of them to bond.

  Denieve had to love Xavier as much as she loved Braeden. But even more than that, they had to fall in love with each other…in some form or fashion.

  She and Ian didn’t stand a chance otherwise.

  ‘I asked you a question, Frost. Where is she?’

  “You’ve nothing to worry about,” Braeden told him. “She’s in good hands. If anyone can keep her safe, Xavier can.”

  ‘You mean she’s with him?’ Antonelli’s energy turned hot and restless. ‘Excuse my skepticism, but you’re trapped in here with me and she’s at the mercy of that crazy—’

  “No. She’s at my mercy,” Braeden corrected. It had taken him centuries to accept this reality. Of Xavier being as much a part of him as he was of himself—and vice versa—but there it was. The plain truth. “I know it’s hard for you to under
stand, but he cares deeply for her. I’m sure of it. Which is why he’s incapable of hurting her. He’d die first. I give you my word on that. You know I’m telling the truth. You can sense it. Can’t you?”

  The man was silent for a long while before saying, ‘Okay, yeah, I believe you. But I don’t have to like it.’ He paused for a beat. ‘So where does that leave me?’

  “With a second chance at life.”

  ‘You said that already, but you’ve yet to explain how.’

  “Well, you read the story in the book about my ancestor, Yoreck. He was a warrior angel, and a part of him—his angelic essence passed to his descendants. Each of us is different in terms of our talents and powers.”

  ‘I’m not even going to try to understand that.’

  “Good, because it’s complicated,” Braeden said. “Just know I had the power to extract your soul before the angel of death claimed you.”

  A seed of sorrow and fear took root in Antonelli. ‘Why didn’t you just let me die?’

  If he could go back and change things, he would, but this was the best he could offer the man. “I wanted to give you a choice.”

  ‘Spare me,’ Antonelli spat. ‘You haven’t done me any favors, Frost. My choice was for you and your psycho brother to get the hell off my doorstep. Instead, you forced your way into my house and I—’

  “All right.” Braeden sighed. “Yes, mistakes were—”

  ‘Mistakes? I ended up dead!’ Antonelli’s restlessness increased. ‘Why are you even in jail? Oh, I know. Because that lunatic brother of yours pinned my murder on you, didn’t he?’

  Braeden glanced at the growing knot of spectators skulking outside his cell. “No, I’m here because I want to be.” He turned away again. “I couldn’t let Xavier take the fall for this. Besides, I have to die once and for all. At least Braeden Frost does. And doing it in public will set me free for good. As for you, like I said before, I’m giving you a choice. You know what I am. You also know what I can do for you. What have you decided?”

  ‘You’d best believe I’m taking you up on your offer. And the minute I get the chance, I’m telling everyone what that nutbag twin…other half…or whatever the hell he is—I’m telling everyone what he did.’