He adjusted the collar around his neck, then pulled out a packet of gum, offering her a piece.
“Thanks.” She tipped the green stick toward him before popping it in her mouth. The coppery taste was washed away by the strong flavor of wintergreen. “And yeah, a little I guess. I’d really like to know what I can do.”
“Me too, chica.” He winked, his now-normal green eyes sparkling. “Maybe come find me when you figure it out.” He turned on his heel and headed for the exit.
“Seth. Right?”
Stopping, he turned and gave her a wide smile. “You are incorrigible, and I have work to do.”
With that he left.
She hadn’t expected to like the snake man, but she did.
Sighing, she took a seat upon a stack of hay shoved against the tent wall and hung her head. Her neck throbbed from all the blows Carlito had given her. She should probably go tell Adam that she wasn’t a shifter, but she needed just a second to herself.
Plucking at a stalk of hay, she brought it to her nose and sniffed. It was sweet and mulchy smelling.
And now she wanted food.
Suddenly a granola bar was tossed through the flap, landing by her left foot.
“What the... Carlito, is that—” The words died on her tongue the moment she bent to retrieve it, and the thick scent of pine wrapped her up in a warm hug. “Cain.” She gasped, twisting on her butt and peering out the flap.
The sky was overcast and the clouds threatened rain. But when she heard the shifting of feet just on the other side of the tent wall, she was still ready to rush out to him and demand a hug and then some answers. She halted when he said, “Don’t come out here, princess.”
His voice had sounded thick and full of gravel. Like he was tired and exhausted.
“Cain, but—”
“God, I miss you.”
The way he said it, the words throbbed through her heart and made her fingers curl into her workout pants with her reckless need to feel his arms wrap around her.
“Why can’t I go out there?” she whispered.
She was all alone in here. She didn’t need to whisper, but their situation seemed to call for it.
His sigh was loud and plucked at her heartstrings. “I want you to. You have no idea. That night, princess...”
Once she’d wondered if he cared for her even a tenth of what she cared for him, but now she not only heard it, she felt it.
“I thought you’d died. We couldn’t find you. I couldn’t find you.”
Curling a leg up, she rested her chin on her knee and slowly peeled back the wrapper on the granola bar. She recognized immediately that it’d come from his bunker.
“I’m here now,” she said before taking a nibble.
It wasn’t as good as touching him, but memories of the day they’d been trapped in there during the tornado and those eight-pack abs had her heart rate spiking.
“You’re happy,” he whispered, and she knew he could sense her emotions.
Nodding, she swallowed her bite. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because even though I currently stink like a pile of ten-day-old trash, you still came to me.”
He chuckled. “Not quite ten-day-old trash.”
The peanut-butter-flavored granola was so yummy and for once didn’t settle in her stomach like sawdust. This would probably now and forevermore be her favorite food in the world.
“What do I smell like?” She wasn’t sure why she’d asked that, but she wanted him to come inside and hold her. She was so tired of this game he was playing, whatever it was.
“Like sweat—”
She groaned, slapping her palm against her thigh, wishing she could take a shower now.
“—which doesn’t bother me at all,” he was quick to assert.
“Then why aren’t you coming in here? I’ve missed you.” Her lips tugged down.
“Flint.” Her name on his tongue was full of unspoken words. “You have no idea how much I want to. But you don’t quite smell like you right now.”
Her heart pounded in her ears. “What do I smell like?”
Lifting her arm, she took a tentative sniff beneath her pits. Not that bad. Okay, so maybe a little gross, but not to smell like herself—
He groaned. “I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s you. But it’s not you. It’s different, and the rager in me is confused. I just... I don’t... I don’t wanna hurt you.”
Was it possible that he could smell the fairy blood running amok through her system now?
Adam and Grace said she shouldn’t tell anyone who she was. Which meant she probably shouldn’t tell him either. But Cain wasn’t just anyone. Grace knew Cain was growing bonded to her, so she had to tell him, right? Her brows pinched heavily.
Confused, she did what she always did when she was stressed. She made a joke out of it.
“I could take a shower. Like twenty of them if that would get you to change your mind. But in reality I’d probably only take three and tell you I did twenty.”
“Flint.” He chuckled, and she couldn’t help but grin back. “You’re so weird.”
“Yeah, well, you love it.”
There was a long pause before he said, “I do.”
“What?” She laid the granola bar down. Had he really just said what she thought he’d said?
“I had a lot of time to think about things, princess. After I couldn’t find you. Abel being gone. Knowing how quickly things can change and how many regrets you can have when you think you’ll never get the chance to make things right.”
Swallowing was suddenly hard.
“Cain, come in here, please.”
“I... can’t.”
She blew out a frustrated breath.
“I want to. But that smell, it’s doing something to me. And I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“No.” He sounded determined. “We don’t know that. When I saw you in the hospital, it was all I could do to walk away.”
“How come no one else seems bothered by this? What exactly does it do to you?”
“It makes the demon inside me... confused. It wants to attack.”
Biting down on the tip of her pinky nail, she asked, “Is it just a berserker thing? Or just a you thing?”
Flint didn’t know what she’d do if the scent of her fae blood made it so that Cain could never be around her again. In the hospital he hadn’t seemed bothered by it, but now that she thought on it, he had seemed in a rush to leave after a few seconds.
Her heart sank like a rock.
“I don’t know.”
“We could find out for sure. Send Eli and Seth here.”
“I’m not sure, Flint. If they hurt you, I’d kill them. I won’t lose you again.”
Heart going all mushy in her chest—even though he’d basically admitted to premeditated murder and that should totally terrify her, but it just didn’t—she suppressed a satisfied grin. “How do you feel right now? Is it too hard?”
“It’s not easy.” He sighed. “But the breeze is strong and is helping carry away most of the scent.”
“So then maybe just let them stand out there and see what they do. If they don’t react, then you could send them in here.”
“I don’t—”
“Cain, they’re my friends. I don’t like being separated this way. Plus, I’m going to be honest here, I trust you guys. There aren’t a lot of people here that I know. And things are”—she wanted to tell him, God she wanted to tell him the truth about her—“weird for me right now.”
“Adam told me Layla has changed you.”
Feeling as though time paused, she gazed unblinkingly at the empty ring in front of her. “How much do you know?”
“I...” He paused. “Why are you asking me that?”
Cain was smart. Brilliant actually. Even though he’d never seemed to take his classes seriously, she’d been surprised to learn he had a 4.0 GPA.
He also u
nderstood the hive in a way most of the carnies around here didn’t because he’d been the one mainly responsible for hunting them down.
“What exactly did he tell you, Cain?”
He took a deep breath. “That Layla’s bite has transformed you into hive, but that you weren’t turned fully hive either.” He sighed. “But...”
He paused long enough that she had to prod him to continue. “But what?”
“I studied you at the hospital, Flint. Rhi told me this morning you still look the same. That’s not normal. Hive transformations happen almost immediately. If the queen bit you, you should be hive. Even a small dose of her toxin should have done it.”
“Does everyone else know this?” she asked, rubbing her sneakered toes together. If they did, then the lie Adam and Grace told would be out quick, which would only lead to more questions.
“No.” He sounded wary when he said it. “Flint, what’s going on? You’re not telling me something, and I know they’re lying to me.”
Blowing out a deep breath, stomach a sick mess of nerves, she asked, “How do you know all that about the hive?”
She needed to know so that she could figure out what to do. This wasn’t Rhi, or Janet, or even the twins she was talking to. This was Cain. And deep in her gut she knew she could, even should, trust him.
“I’ve studied them, Flint. For years they’ve been all I’ve obsessed over.”
“But what about Eli and Seth? What about Janet and Rhiannon? They hunt with you.”
“Princess, why are you asking me this?” He sounded genuinely irritated and annoyed, but she didn’t feel at all like it was because of her.
“Cain, I... I can’t say anything. Not here. Not now. But please answer my question. Why do you know more than the rest of them? Is this some sort of common knowledge they’d figure out sooner or later?”
“No.” He clipped out the one-word answer.
Breathing a deep sigh of relief, she decided she knew what she had to do. But Cain actually beat her to the punch.
“Meet me at the bunker tonight. Tell Rhiannon to bring you.”
To go from him not wanting to be alone with her to him suddenly wanting a private get-together let her know just how worried he now was. “But is it safe to leave the carnival?”
His hand slid through a crack in the flap and she couldn’t help herself. She grabbed at it, threading her fingers through his.
Just that simple touch did strange and powerful things to her insides. Her stomach bottomed out and filled with the razor-tipped wings of thousands of butterflies. Scooting as close to the tent flap as possible, she rubbed his knuckle with her thumb.
“I won’t let anything happen to you again, Flint. I swear.”
Tugging on his hand so that she could bring it to her lips, she planted a warm kiss on his palm.
His fingers twitched.
“Cain,” she whispered.
He grunted but didn’t seem to be able to speak. She kissed his palm again, then rubbed her cheek against his warmth.
“Princess...”
She hated that she stunk to him. Literally. It sucked so bad. But it was also good to know that she wasn’t the only one suffering.
“We’re going to find Abel. I promise,” she said to him, knowing how much he was probably suffering because of that.
Palming her cheek, his thumb traced the curve of her jaw. “The bunker. I’ll send Eli and Seth to you in a minute.”
There was a tug, as though he meant to leave her, and she clenched his hand tighter. “Don’t go.”
He sighed loud and long. “I have to go, Flint. I—”
She could practically hear him scowl when he asked, “The sword. You mentioned something about that this morning. I’d forgotten all about it. Do you still have it? Can I see it?”
Nibbling on the corner of her lip, she was suddenly relieved that it’d vanished. If that thing was a fairy item, then brandishing it about probably hadn’t been the best of ideas. Then again, she was assuming it’d vanished and not been stolen.
“I don’t know.” She said it slowly.
“You don’t know?”
She shook her head. “I stuck it in my book bag this morning. The sword’s pretty big though, and it was poking out of the top. When I got here I sort of forgot about leaving the bag on my floorboard, and by the time I got back to the truck it was gone and there was just a mound of dirt in its place.”
“Did your dad find it?”
She frowned. “He saw me with it this morning, but considering we work in a circus, it didn’t strike him as anything particularly odd. I don’t think he would have cared. But honestly, I’m not sure anyone even stole it. Manny said he didn’t see or smell anyone around.”
“That’s not right, Flint. Things don’t just up and disappear. But Manny wouldn’t lie either. He can’t.”
“Like, literally can’t?”
She heard the toe of his boot dragging through the dirt. Already she could sense the wheelhouse of his mind whirring in a million different directions.
God, she badly wanted to tell him the truth. Wanted to tell him that she was part fairy and that her gut was leaning more on the side of the disappearance having something to do with that rather than anything dastardly.
“Literally can’t,” he all but growled. “Flint, I have to go. I’m sorry. But I still have a lot of things to do before the scouting party leaves tonight. I’m so sorry, princess.”
She didn’t want to let him go, but knew she didn’t have a choice. Dropping his hand, she wrapped her arms around herself.
“I can’t wait until this is over.”
But when he didn’t answer back she knew he’d gone.
Chapter 7
Cain
Someone was lying to him. Either Flint, or Adam and Grace. Or, as his gut was insisting was the actual case, all three.
Although he sensed that whatever Flint was keeping from him she didn’t want to.
Eli and Seth spotted him when he was halfway to his trailer. Seth waved in greeting.
“Hey, man, we’re thinking about heading out for another recon—”
“Scratch that.” Cain didn’t break stride. “Flint wants to see if you guys can handle her new scent.”
“New scent?” Eli asked, eyes narrowed.
Huffing, Cain looked at guys more brothers than cousins. “She’s changing, man.”
“The bite.” Seth nodded.
“Yeah, but it’s more than that.” Cain pounded up his steps, opened his door, and headed immediately for the book Grace had handed him, which was still sitting on the kitchen counter. “I can’t smell hive, not the way she could,” he muttered as he picked up the weighty thing and cracked it open, and just like last night the pages were still irritatingly empty.
Snarling, he slapped it shut and took several calming breaths. “Something’s going on with her. Something other than what they’re telling us.”
Eli glanced at the book. “What’s that?”
“A mystery. And it’s tied to her.” Cain tapped the cover absentmindedly. “I think Grace was giving me a clue, but until Flint tells me the rest, I don’t think this book will be anything other than a paperweight at this point. Which is why I need you guys to head over to her training tent and see if you can handle being around her. I want her watched at all times. No one is to go in or go out without my approval first. Got it?”
The twins nodded. They looked worried, but years of obeying orders had them holding their tongues.
“Yeah. Got it, boss.”
~*~
Flint
Carlito must have told Adam she’d failed to turn into a slobbering wolf, because no sooner had Cain vanished than a revolving door of “teachers” came. One right after another.
First there’d been a Nephilim who’d been able to literally make her skin bleed.
She hadn’t known whether to be more concerned by the fact that the heavy working of his throat made him appear suspiciously hungry every t
ime he looked at her, or that her shirt, which had once been so white, was now a brownish-red color. Every time she wiped her brow with the back of her wrist and caught a whiff of herself, she wanted to vomit from the overwhelming stench of her own blood.
While the bleeding hadn’t hurt exactly, she’d felt the thick stuff pouring out of her nose, eyes, and ears, and that had been far from comfortable.
The sexy French Cajun with curly brown hair hadn’t even stayed the full hour. Ten minutes of trying to get her to call to his blood had convinced him she had no innate gift for the dark art.
Zander—whom she’d learned was a glutton Nephilim and could control the blood of any creature living or dead—had smiled at her as he’d made to exit, but not before saying in a chilling voice, “Better wash that off, bébé, blood is a bad t’ing to wear in a place such as dis.”
Heart thundering, pulse fluttering like a hummingbird’s wings, she’d sailed over the rows of chairs between her and the exit and headed toward the water spigot hidden behind the tent.
She’d not cared who’d seen her, she’d ripped the shirt off, exposing the very same green bra she’d once exposed to the world when Abel had failed to let her in on the secret that the Hole wasn’t a club but a swimming spot.
Dropping to her knees, she rolled the disgusting shirt up and ran it under the water, then wiped herself down as best she could.
Smearing it more than anything else, she clenched her teeth and stuck her head under the water. The icy shock broke her out in a wash of goose bumps. Grunting, she rubbed at her face and chest with the tail of her wet shirt.
She probably looked ridiculous lying down on the thick bed of hay under the waterspout, but she really didn’t care at the moment.
There were a couple of giggles, some whispered murmurings, but it barely fazed her. That was until she heard a familiar voice shriek.
“Flint, oh my God.” Rhi’s bell-like voice cut through her panic as she gargled with water to try to get the vomit-inducing taste out of her mouth.
Blinking away the droplets stuck in her lashes, she moved her head out from under the spray. “Huh?”
Rhiannon wore an exasperated look and was carrying a thick towel in one hand and a shirt in another. “Do you have any idea how tempting you look right now?”
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