by Kita Bell
“Those are the names Eva gave me. I believe her.”
“What kind of shape is she in? Did she give you any more information? Here…” Seth muttered and there was a pause, a definitive set of keystrokes in the background, then, “I have a file on both of them. King’s is inconclusive. He’s British. Born to rich parents who disaffiliated from the Shadowlines. They disowned him when he swore oaths to Kaine.” Seth was reading directly from the file. “He enjoys beheading his enemies. Preferably in one stroke. He doesn’t seem to care who cleans up the mess afterwards.”
Brand grimaced. Of course.
“Weaknesses?”
A pause. “There are rumors that he doesn’t like sunlight. But that’s never stopped a Strategoi. I’m sorry Brand, I don’t know what his abilities are.” For once, Seth sounded genuinely apologetic. Brand doubted it was because Seth was actively concerned for him…more likely, his brother regretted that his files were incomplete.
He sighed. “And Rohe?”
“Rumored to be Kaine’s Summerbourne daughter. She shouldn’t be stateside – I can only assume she slipped her father’s leash. She has…” Seth hesitated, cleared his throat, “If you run into her, don’t look into her eyes, Brand. I have odd reports about that. Rohe…”
“Rohe makes people love her,” said a quiet voice from the seat beside him. Brand looked over to meet Eva’s steady gaze; she had been listening to the conversation. Eva tightened his coat about her shoulders and pulled her long legs up onto the seat beneath it. “The human guards did whatever she told them to do. They didn’t even question it. She killed one once, right in front of me…I watched her. She…” Eva’s hands shook, but before Brand could reach for them, she slipped her fingers away from him beneath the coat and stared down at the hole he had punched into the dash earlier. Several strands of wire hung down from the radio. “You don’t want to know what she did to him. But she made him enjoy it.”
Brand growled softly.
“Her other…the Sakai guards, they liked her. Maybe, sometimes, they would disagree, but then she would look in their eyes…and they would smile like she smiles…”
Eva’s throat worked. Tears shimmered in those silver eyes. Brand lowered the phone, reached for her, and managed to pull one set of cold fingers away from the edge of the coat. “Hey,” he said softly, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.
She gripped his hand compulsively – for a moment it looked like the tears were going to break – but then she pulled away. Brand let Eva go and wished like hell she had let him comfort her.
“Rohe can command weaker Sakai,” Seth said from the other end of the line. “Bloodborn and most Summerborn. Perhaps some Winterbourne. All humans seem to be fair game.”
Brand kept his gaze on Eva. “What about Kaspians?”
“I have no idea. Probably,” Seth said. Brand heard his brother run his hands through his hair, a sure sign that Seth was troubled. “It likely depends on the Kaspian. The young ones and the weak ones might be as vulnerable as a human.”
Brand digested that. He studied Eva’s averted face as she leaned against the seat, and felt something more than concern, more than worry move through him.
Seth was right. They needed more information. But it wasn’t information about the Sakai that Brand wanted. No. It was information about Eva. And he would be the one asking those questions, not his brother.
Brand needed to know what had happened to her.
But not right now. Not in front of Seth. Brand shook himself, forcing his mind back to the Sakai. “Then it’s unlikely that Rohe’s completely in command of the Strategoi.”
Seth sighed, sounding weary. “Brand, if Corin King is following Rohe’s orders, then he will follow her orders. It doesn’t matter if she can control him or not. He didn’t attain Strategoi status by kissing kittens or petting bunnies. Ask the girl if she knows anything more.”
“Eva…” Brand started.
“I’m not a girl,” Eva interrupted coolly, silver eyes flashing as she pushed the coat away and frowned at the phone. “And I only saw him once. Before the park. He was the one who…who…” Eva’s voice wavered, “Kidnapped me. Took me to the Asylum. I thought at first he had hit me, or knocked me over the head,” she said, quieting as her gaze turning inward. She rubbed her wrist. “But now I think he used that tranquilizer.”
“Tranquilizers don’t work on Kaspian,” Seth said sharply, and Eva looked up, her eyes clearing as she looked at the phone in annoyance.
“This tranquilizer did. I remember it. It hit me here,” Eva pulled Brand’s coat aside, touched a spot below her right ribcage, “and then I Changed back because I didn’t want Rohe to have me in tiger form. When she bled me, she kept ordering me to turn, to Change, because she wanted to see…” Eva paled, pulling into the coat, looking away from Brand’s eyes. “She kept calling me a beast. But I wouldn’t show her my...myself…to her.” Her words were soft, proud, and pained.
The rage that had simmered below the surface bubbled through Brand’s veins, quick and hot. Time to end this call. Very deliberately Brand raised the phone. “Seth, don’t call back until Joshua needs a pickup.”
There was silence on the other line. Then, almost sympathetically, “Brand, bring the girl to Stronghold. I have questions that need answering; she is injured and needs healing. We will sort this out then.”
Brand hung up, and slowly, steadily, lowered the phone. He locked his eyes on Eva’s and spoke through his contained fury, “Never call yourself a beast, Eva. You are a Kaspian, a woman, and one of the most beautiful blood tigers I have ever seen.”
Eva’s eyes widened. “You don’t even know…”
“Beautiful,” Brand snarled, and claimed those full, ripe lips for his own.
Everything disappeared. All of her questions, her anger, her anxiety, disappeared. Brand was relentless, tender.
Demanding.
His hand raked through her hair, fisted it as he slanted the back of her head, pulling her closer with the strength of his arm, those fingers, his wrist. When his mouth had found hers, it was a rough claiming that coursed through everything in Eva’s being and left her trembling.
He made her breathless with the force of him. He left her hungry.
And she needed more.
Eva gasped, arching up, suddenly tight and straining for the wild flavor of him, and Brand nipped her swollen lips, the line of her mouth, as he slipped inside. He tasted of citrus, of warm, sunlit leaves – and strength. So much strength: a harshness that protected without being cruel.
He tasted good, right, and Eva splayed her fingers, running them against the wall of his chest. She traced the soft cotton fiber of his shirt as she pressed up against his warmth. He pushed further forward, propped his hand against the door behind her. Brand’s heart pounded beneath her palm. Her other hand was caught in his hair, winding through that silky darkness, luxuriating in the feel of his chest against her, his mouth on hers.
Her breasts were heavy, aching with heat, the fine abrasion of her sweater a torment and Eva suddenly wanted – no needed – Brand there, to touch her there. She needed his mouth on her, washing her worries, her fears away, so that – just for one moment – she could forget.
Eva groaned and arched, her legs shifted and the soft musk of her arousal filled the air of the car. Don’t pull away this time, she thought desperately. Don’t pretend you don’t scent my need.
Brand snarled. Eva shivered. And then his shoulders tensed as he abruptly pulled from her mouth, her lips, her arms.
Eva cried out at the abandonment, at the loss of his heat, the weight of his chest. But he kept his hand clenched in her hair, and when he finally caught her eyes, she saw the gold streaked through the deep blue of his gaze, the faintest beginning flecks of the darkest heart’s-blood red. Kaspian red. The color for which blood tigers had named themselves.
Eva wanted to reach forward, to touch those eyes, and wondered if her own looked like his. She had never dared look directl
y at a man after she kissed him – because all of them had been human. Brand released her hair, smoothing the strands between his fingers.
“I’m sorry Evita,” he said hoarsely, and she could see it in his eyes. “I did not mean to go that far.”
Eva touched his lips and Brand raised his palm, brushing it down her cheek to cup her face…and the gesture was suddenly so reminiscent of Rohe, so reminiscent of everything that had happened since Eva’s kidnapping, that abruptly everything, everything…her arousal, her lust, her disappointment, her forgetfulness…broke.
Eva flinched away.
And watched Brand go still.
His lips tensed, and Eva saw pain rise, then be buried deep. Those clear blue eyes shuttered, and Eva realized: Brand thought she had flinched away from him.
“Not you,” she whispered hurriedly. “Not you,” she repeated, and lowered her fingers – the ones that had tangled in his silky hair – to lightly touch the roughened center of his palm, which lingered…still so frozen, and so close, to her face.
Brand’s fingers snapped shut around her hand, faster than any trap. Eva’s heart leapt, but his hold was so gentle, she didn’t mind.
“Who?” he growled. It was a rough demand, then he shook his head, briefly closing his eyes as he answered his own question. “Rohe.”
Eva wet her lips, feeling too hot, too warm in the confined space of the car. But she was cold. Her hands were cold, her body was cold. She gripped Brand’s palm, slid her fingers between the juncture of his forefinger and thumb, and silently counted out the solid beats of his heart before answering. She waited until she knew her voice would stay steady. Brand needed to understand.
“Rohe kept me in a cell,” she said very carefully. She focused on his hand, the roughness of his thumb. “It was cement, and very cold. Most of the time it was dark, but sometimes the light bulb would work. Every other day her guards would take me out to…”
The memory of the table flashed through her mind, of being naked, and of blood.
Brand’s fingers became vicelike around hers, the pain drawing Eva back as she wondered if he would break them. Eva cleared her throat and took a deep breath through her nose.
And smelled his rage, his protectiveness, his concern.
That steadied her more than anything else.
So Eva forced the rest out, because for some reason, she knew Brand needed to know.
And because he is Kaspian, Eva realized. Eva had escaped Rohe, she had survived Rohe. And, Eva knew – taking strength from this realization – she would do anything to make sure Rohe never got a hold of another living being.
That Rohe never hurt anyone ever again. She gripped Brand’s palm.
“Eva.”
“They would take me to a metal room – it was full of metal – and they would strap me to the table.” Eva said very quickly, and closed her eyes. “I had to take my clothes off, because if I didn’t, the guards would do it for me.” She blocked that memory out as Brand’s hand tightened painfully. “Rohe said beasts didn’t have clothes. I don’t think I was supposed to have been given clothes. But I think the sweats were cheaper than blankets. Also, we were hers, and we weren’t allowed to die. Yet.”
Her chest was tight. Everything was tight. And dark, and cold, like a fist closing in on her, and she could smell other deaths in that room, old blood everywhere…
Something shook her and Eva ripped her eyes open with a gasp, and found herself sitting in the car, staring straight into Brand’s intense blue gaze, gold rippling in the depths, his hand on her shoulder.
“You don’t have to tell me this,” he said quietly. “I want you to tell me this, but you don’t have to.”
“I have to tell somebody,” Eva countered. “And you look – like a good guy – to tell secrets to,” she said, trying to force humor. Rainey was good with humor; she would have had Brand laughing by now and telling her his life story. Eva could imagine the spark of amusement in his blue eyes, how they would glow at her sister’s funny descriptions…
Instead, Eva was telling Brand her story of abduction and imprisonment.
And Brand’s blue eyes weren’t smiling. They were haunted.
Eva swallowed and looked away. “The guards would strap me down – ”
“Eva,” he said, iron in his voice.
“ – and then Rohe would be there,” Eva said quietly, knowing what he had been afraid she would say. She glanced up, saw the tension in his jaw, his eyes. “They never hurt me, Brand. Not like that.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” Eva snapped. That she did know. Rape had been a close chance, but it had never happened. “They said I was too much of a ‘beast.’”
Though, Eva knew, that had only been a matter of time. There was no point in telling Brand that.
He relaxed imperceptibly.
“So I would spend the next day with Rohe,” Eva said quickly. Rohe terrified her, yes, but it was the confinement, the straps, that frightened her worse. Her inability to defend herself or run. Her weakness had terrified her.
“She liked to cut me. To see if she could make me Change by cutting me – or to see if I was…different inside. And she would bleed me. She liked to take my blood, used send it off for testing. Sometimes she drank it. Sometimes, she gave it to her guards. They always hosed me off afterwards. The water was cold. And she likes pain,” Eva said, staring fixedly at the seat between them. “And knives. Rohe measures time by knives. A new knife each week. It was only three weeks. I knew, if I didn’t find a way out, that one day she would use all of those knives on me.” Eva shuddered, her mind trapped in the room with the steel table and the vast array of gleaming knives. “Rohe has a lot of knives.”
The sound of crushing plastic. Something broke, fractured. Eva jumped, ripped out of her recollection to see the headrest behind the seat slowly crumpling into Brand’s big fist. But he still held her fingers gently, carefully, with his other hand.
It was…frightening. And oddly reassuring. At least Brand reacted like that. Rohe would have laughed; Rohe’s guards would have felt nothing.
Eva forced a smile, met Brand’s dark gaze. “I didn’t mean to flinch when you touched my face, Brand. But every time, after each session, Rohe would put her hand on my face right there, just like you did. And she would ask me…as if we were friends…to Change for her. She always asked that. She would stroke my face and ask to see my…she called it my true form, my ‘beast.’ Brand, I didn’t mean to hurt you, but – when you touched my face like that – I remembered Rohe.”
Seth called just after dawn with Joshua’s coordinates. Their conversation didn’t go well.
“Is she listening? I need to have a private conversation with you, Brand.”
His brother was speaking ancient Greek.
Brand grimaced, glanced to the back of the car where Eva was spread across the seats. She slept a lot – but then, he supposed she was recovering from what Rohe had done to her. She had curled up under his coat, using the bag of Walmart clothes for a pillow. Her eyes were pinched tight and, despite being unconscious, she was murmuring. Brand wished he could make out the words.
“She’s asleep,” Brand told Seth, the Greek awkward on his tongue. “But not in this language.” His father had tried to teach it to him when he was younger, but no matter how much Brand had loved his father, Brand never felt the same for Nikandros’s native-born language.
“You’ll have to learn sometime,” Seth said in exasperation, switching to Catalan. “Little Catherine speaks better Greek than you, and she’s fourteen.”
“She’ll come to her senses one of these days,” Brand told him dryly, switching as well. “Give her time. What do you have for me?”
Seth became serious. “This woman, Eva, told you she was from the Turner Gens?”
“Yes.”
“I have even less on the Turner Gens than I do on Rohe. They are restrictive, insular. Nonaffiliated. A young Gens with weak abilities. And,”
Seth’s tone turned disapproving, “they have resisted all efforts to establish a direct line of contact. The last Kaspian I sent to the Turner Gens was Bryan. Their warriors drove him off and threatened to kill him if he ever ‘intruded’ again. I haven’t added anything to their file since. Frankly, I thought they were all dead.”
“I doubt that. Eva has a sister. She also mentioned an uncle.”
Seth sighed, and Brand heard the scratch of pen on paper. “Well, I’ll add them to my database. Has she told you anything else? I relayed to Gaviros what you learned last night. He told Khael. They both want more information.”
The last was a near order. It would have been irritating, if Brand hadn’t completely understood Seth’s need: his brother controlled threats to Stronghold by dealing with information. Brand, on the other hand, controlled threats to Stronghold by dealing with individuals. The more information Seth had, the better Brand was able to do his job.
Brand glanced at Eva again, scanned the area outside, then leaned into his seat. He gave Seth the bare facts of what had happened the night before. There was a long pause.
Then, roughly, “I have watched for over two millennia. I have worked for centuries to avoid exactly this. I have finally found my mate. I have children. A granddaughter. And now this…again. It always begins like this. With something small. With someone asking questions where they shouldn’t.” It wasn’t often that Seth’s voice reflected his true age, but when it did, it was frightening.
Brand pinched the bridge of his nose. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. Xanthos. Damascus. Alexandria. Carthage. Dacia. In case you forgot, France. ” A pause. “Orleans. Gaviros could list more. So could Khael. But it is different this time around. Harder to stay ahead of the Sakai. Harder to stay forgotten by the other races. I know the Kaspian call me obsessive, but that doesn’t change the fact that constant vigilance is a necessity. Good information can be worth far more than gold or lives, Brand.”
