Rush of Darkness

by Rhyannon Byrd

  “What about his security?”

  “I don’t know. If he has anyone with him, it’s someone I can’t read.”

  Well, shit. He didn’t like the sound of that. It just meant there was another asshole out there who could sneak up on her at any time.

  “If Westmore learns that you’re the one going after the Casus, Raine, then it stands to reason that he’ll try to set a trap for you.” He tried to school his expression as she brought her gaze back to his, but it wasn’t easy. “You know he wants you back.”

  “That’s likely, yes.”

  Her I-couldn’t-care-less tone drove him mad. “And you’re willing to take that risk?” he growled.

  “I am.” Her chin lifted. “But they won’t be taking me alive a second time.”

  Now that was something he really didn’t like the sound of. “What’s your plan?”

  She gave a soft, bitter laugh. “Who said I had a plan?”

  His nostrils flared. “You’re actually trying to irritate me, aren’t you?”

  Another low slide of laughter, and she looked away, staring at the back of the seat in front of her. The train car was empty but for an elderly couple six rows back, their soft snoring keeping perfect time with the rhythm of the wheels racing down the track. “All I know is that I won’t let them take me alive,” she finally said, her hands rubbing down her denim-covered thighs. “Since I’m only half-Deschanel, I’m easier to kill than most of my kind. I’ll take my own life before letting them lock me up a second time. I just… I couldn’t go through it again.”

  “If that’s true, then why didn’t you kill yourself tonight?”

  She stiffened, as if his question had caught her off guard, before slanting him a slow, mocking smile. “Disappointed?”

  Seth narrowed his eyes. “I’d hardly be wasting my time trying to keep you alive if I wanted you dead, Raine. I’m just trying to understand you.”

  IT WAS HIS TONE, more than the words themselves, that rattled something inside her. Something Raine had thought safely buried, where she wanted it. A strange desire to want to connect with someone on a level that went deeper than mere friendship, or even sex.

  Realizing he was still waiting for a response, she managed to say, “I guess I was still hoping that something would happen. That something would stop them.”

  “You got lucky.” His hands clenched into fists on the armrests of his seat, and she could sense his internal struggle as he forced himself to relax, his voice a bit rougher as he said, “I might not have found you.”

  The train made its next scheduled stop, then resumed its long trek, and she was thankful for the interruption, not wanting to think about how close it had been with the Casus…or how much she owed the soldier for bailing her out. After a few tense moments of silence, she turned toward him again. “When you found me in the club, you said all hell was breaking loose for the Watchmen. I’ve only been gone a week. What’s happened?”

  Some of his tension eased, and the corner of his mouth twitched, as if he was fighting back a smile. “Actually, they won’t be the Watchmen much longer. Kierland’s finally put his master plan into action.”

  She knew that Kierland Scott, a gorgeous auburnhaired Lycan, was regarded as the leader of the Watchmen unit currently stationed at Harrow House, and that he was also one of Seth’s friends—but she had no idea what the human meant by a “master plan.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  With a frown, he asked, “Didn’t anyone at Harrow House tell you about the meetings?”

  “No one at Harrow House would tell me anything.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she winced, thinking she sounded like a bitter old hag. But damn it, she’d hated the way all conversation had ceased the second she walked into a room at the Watchmen compound, as if they were afraid of saying the wrong thing in front of her. With a wry tilt to her mouth, she leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes as she went on to say, “And I’d obviously be lying if I said it hadn’t been extremely annoying.”

  He gave a rough bark of laughter, the deep, gritty timbre spilling deliciously through her veins. “Yeah, I can understand how that could grate on a person’s nerves. But the condensed version goes something like this. The Watchmen have known for some time that the Consortium leaders are failing to do their job. So they’ve decided to make a break from the organization.”

  She didn’t need him to explain who the Consortium leaders were. Anyone who was a part of the ancient clans—the nonhuman races who walked the earth—knew that the Consortium was a kind of preternatural United Nations, its purpose to keep peace among the clans and ensure the secret of their existence from the human world. The Watchmen reported directly to the Consortium, serving as their eyes and ears around the world. But it appeared the organization was no longer viable, the Consortium’s policies plagued by indecision and bureaucracy.

  “Kierland’s convinced the other Watchmen units to break with the Consortium and form a new organization?” she asked, assuring herself that she was only staring at him so intently because she was interested in the conversation…and not because he looked incredibly gorgeous sitting there in the soft glow of light, the golden stubble on his cheeks and jaw bringing the rugged angles of his face into sharper definition.

  He nodded in response to her question, saying, “He didn’t have much choice. The Consortium’s refusal to take action against the Casus has stripped them of respect. They’re now viewed as a bunch of frightened old men, too bogged down in politics to be effective.”

  “So what’s this new group called?”

  His mouth twitched again, and this time a crooked grin took shape. “That’s still under debate. Kellan suggested the X-Men, but it was quickly turned down. Aiden said the spandex would ride up his ass.”

  That sounded exactly like something Ade, a tigershifter with a seriously sarcastic sense of humor, would say, and a soft burst of laughter slipped free, before she choked off the throaty sound, stunned that he’d been able to make her lower her guard. She fidgeted in her seat, unnerved by the way he was watching her, the heat in his eyes so warm she could feel a simmer beginning beneath her skin, her primal instincts reacting powerfully to the raw force of his masculinity, whether she wanted them to or not.

  Needing conversation to steer her mind away from her body’s frustrating reactions, Raine broke eye contact and coughed. “So, um…what will you do when this is over?”

  “You mean your hunt?”

  Shaking her head, she wet her lips with a nervous swipe of her tongue. “The war.”

  Even though she was now watching her fingers trace the grain of denim across the top of a thigh, she could feel the heat of his stare against her profile, the intensity of his gaze nearly as compelling as the deep rumble of his voice. “I’ll continue to work with Kierland and the others.”

  “You mean hunting?” Impossible to ignore the way her stomach twisted at the thought.

  “I mean helping,” he corrected her, that deep voice edged with irritation. “I have experience, good or bad, Raine, that can be useful to the Watchmen.” From the corner of her eye, she watched as he turned his head to the side, his jaw like carved marble as he stared out the window into the starless night. “It’s time for the Collective to come to an end. But some things out there still need to be dealt with, and the Consortium can’t be trusted. Not after what they’ve allowed to happen with the Casus. Christ, who knows what other nightmares they’ve turned a blind eye to or hidden from the Watchmen? So there’s a helluva lot of work that will need to be done, even when the war is over.”

  “Sounds intense.”

  “I’m sure it will be.” His tone turned wry as he pulled a hand down his face and drawled, “But then, it probably doesn’t get more intense than this. Protecting a headstrong Deschanel on the hunt for blood is about as intense as it gets.”

  She laughed, and his head came back around, his sharp green gaze locking hard on hers. At his questioning look,
she said, “I’m sorry. It’s just ironic.”

  He didn’t look angry, merely curious. “What is?”

  She rolled a shoulder, as well as her eyes. “The way you spent over half your life killing vampires, and now you’re determined to protect one. Talk about a change of heart.”

  Though she could sense his tension level was still high, another one of those slow, crooked smiles lifted the corner of his mouth. “Who knows? Maybe it’s penance for my sins.”

  She sensed the deeper meaning to his words, and couldn’t stop herself from probing for more detail, needing to understand him in a way she couldn’t explain. Yeah, she could have fobbed it off to curiosity, but she’d have been lying, because it went deeper than that. Deeper than she was willing to admit. “So then you think that what you did while with the Collective was wrong?”

  He leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes, arms crossed over his chest. For a moment, she didn’t think he would answer, but then he finally said, “You’ve seen inside my head, Raine. If you’re looking for an answer to that question, I’m sure it was in there.”

  “To be honest, I didn’t spend a lot of time evaluating your emotions.” Her tone was dry. “I was a little too horrified by all the murder and mayhem lingering around in there.”

  A hard, husky laugh surged up from his chest, and he rolled his head toward her, his voice a delicious rasp of sound as he said, “I’ll answer your question if you answer one of mine.”

  Her pulse picked up a little, but then it always did that whenever he was giving her one of those intense stares that said she had his complete and undivided attention. The train could have slid off the tracks and pitched straight into a ravine, and he wouldn’t have looked away. But she didn’t feel threatened by the predatory look. She felt nervous…flushed.

  “Okay,” she agreed, figuring whatever he asked would be worth it, if it meant she could delve a little deeper into his psyche. Though she’d been resolved not to pry into his private life earlier in the night, they were now stuck with each other, thanks to that bloody Oath—and she never had been the type who could walk away from a puzzle until it was finished.

  “Why you?” he asked her, lifting his head off the back of the seat.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why does Westmore need you so badly? What’s different about your power?” His dark gaze moved slowly over her face, feature by feature, and she could feel a rush of heat burning in each place that it touched. “I don’t know much about the Alacea,” he admitted, staring at her mouth, before lifting his gaze back to her eyes. “They don’t commit a lot of crimes, so we’re not told much about them in the Collective. Do you all have the same powers?”

  “Um…no. The Alacea are eclectic. Some can see into another’s thoughts, some can’t. Some can use their gifts on command, while others struggle for control. There’s no rhyme or reason to the way power is distributed, and it’s not uncommon for different powers to be held by different members of a family. But usually only one form of sight is given, whether that’s into the past, the present or the future. Even in those rare cases where an Alacea does have two forms of sight, one is often much weaker than the other.”

  “I know you can see into the past, as well as the present. So then your powers are…unique?”

  “I guess you could say that. Especially since reading the present is the most uncommon of the three. But only my family knows that I have, or had, two strong forms of sight.”

  “Then how did Westmore know you were what he needed?”

  “He’d been searching for someone like me for months,” she explained, a bad taste filling her mouth as she thought of the man who had destroyed her life. “He had sent scouts out roaming the earth, spying on every psychic they could find. They could read our powers, and it turned out that I was exactly what he was looking for. It wasn’t the future that interested him, but the past…and especially the present, since he needed me to keep an eye on Saige Buchanan as she deciphered the maps.”

  Saige was engaged to a shape-shifter named Michael Quinn, who was one of the Watchmen back at Harrow House. The woman was also a part of the Merrick clan, which had close ties to the war and were mortal enemy of the Casus. All three of the Buchanan siblings were working with the Watchmen, and they also each possessed a unique gift that had helped in the search for the Dark Markers.

  Saige’s particular gift enabled her to “hear” objects, and she’d used this strange talent to decipher the encrypted maps that led to the places where the Dark Markers had been hidden. By using her Alacea powers, Raine had been able to “watch” as Saige deciphered the maps, and had then passed that information on to Westmore, enabling him to send the Casus after the crosses.

  The one time she’d tried to lie about a Marker’s location, he’d had Rietta killed to teach her a lesson.

  It was clear that Seth wanted to keep questioning her, but the conductor’s voice came over the intercom, announcing the next station stop at the German border, which was where they were getting off. Raine stood and grabbed her backpack from the overhead compartment, then stepped aside so that Seth could unfold his long body from the row of seats. He grabbed his own bag, and they exited the train a few moments later, the platform nearly empty since it was the middle of the night.

  “You can grab a taxi and head on over to the Marriott,” she told him, hiking her bag higher onto her shoulder. “I’ll meet you there in about an hour.”

  “Meet me there?” he rumbled, taking hold of her arm as he ground to a halt. “Just where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  She could have lied, but decided to give him the brutal truth. If he didn’t like it, maybe he’d save them both from this complicated mess and go back to England. “I need to eat.”

  “You told me you’d already eaten before we boarded the train in Paris.”

  Raine made sure no one was close enough to overhear them, then said, “I need blood, McConnell. Not food.”

  Surprise flickered in his gaze, before melting into a slow, glittering burn of anger. “Like hell,” he snarled, the low words nearly carried away by the cool wind whipping down the platform. “Is this some kind of stunt meant to piss me off?”

  Sighing, she said, “I’m not jacking you around. Real food only does part of the job for me. I need blood to keep up my strength, and that fight tonight zapped more than I’d planned on losing. Plain and simple, I need more of the red stuff.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” he muttered as he set off through the station, dragging her behind him as he headed toward the taxis.

  “You’d rather I starve?”

  He cut her a blistering glare from the corner of his eye. “You are not going off into the night to find some guy to fuck for food.”

  Well, that was certainly blunt. And while it probably didn’t make a lot of sense, she actually liked that he didn’t censor everything that came out of his mouth when he was with her, the way his friends had, always afraid they would say something to upset her. Yes, she’d had horrific, ungodly things done to her, but she wasn’t going to fall apart at the sound of a swear word. It had been part of the reason she was so itchy to get away from Harrow House.

  Pulling in a deep breath through her nose, she ran her tongue over her teeth and casually said, “For your information, McConnell, I don’t have sex with my food.”

  “Just…don’t say anything.” His voice was harder than before, his grip on her arm a fraction tighter, though she could tell he was trying not to hurt her. “I hate being lied to.”

  “I’m not lying,” she argued, then kept silent as he pushed her into the back of a taxi and climbed in beside her. She stared out the window while he gave the name of the hotel to the driver through the sliding window, before slamming it shut, providing them a modicum of privacy, while the night’s darkness provided them a bit more. From the corner of her eye, she watched as he popped his jaw, a muscle pulsing hard in his temple. He looked…bleak, and she de
cided to give him the explanation he didn’t deserve. “I wasn’t looking for someone to feed from,” she said quietly. “I was going to find the local blood bank.”

  His head whipped toward her so fast, she was surprised he hadn’t given himself whiplash. “Is that what you’ve been doing? Breaking into blood banks?”

  With a shrug, she said, “It’s easier than it sounds. An internet connection can usually get me the information that I need, such as the name of the bank’s supervisor. Then it’s just a matter of locking into their thoughts, if I’m able to, and searching for the access codes to the alarms.”

  “Clever.” His voice was soft…and there was maybe just a tad of admiration in his tone.

  “I, uh, try to keep it simple.”

  “Simple, but still too dangerous. It stops now.”

  Her mouth flattened into a thin line of frustration. “You’re being unreasonable. And you’re also not the boss of me.”

  Wow. And wasn’t it great that she now sounded like a bratty preteen?

  “I’m not going to starve you, Raine. If you need blood, you can have more of mine.” She flinched in reaction, but he didn’t notice, his attention already focused on the knife he’d pulled from his back pocket. She knew exactly what he was going to do, this same scenario playing out time and again while they’d made their way across the Wasteland. The human had made it more than clear that he would never give her his vein. Instead, he lowered his window and emptied out the water bottle he’d pulled from his pack, then made a shallow cut in his strong, corded forearm and collected the blood in the empty container.

  Christ, that smells good, she thought, as the rich, drugging scent reached her nostrils, making her head spin. And so unforgivably wrong.