by Lara Adrian
He gave a vague shake of his head. “I was born in Alaska, grew up north of Fairbanks.”
“Oh? Who’s your family?” she asked, trying to sound conversational rather than interrogatory.
He blinked, just once, a slow shuttering of his remarkable eyes. “You wouldn’t know my family.”
“You might be surprised. I know a lot of people,” she said, pressing all the harder for his evasiveness. “Try me.”
His broad lips curved at the corners. “Is that an invitation, Alex?”
She cleared her throat, caught off guard by the innuendo, but even more so by the sharp kick of her pulse as he let the question hang between them. He walked toward her then, an easy, long-legged stride that brought him to within arms’ reach of her.
God, he was gorgeous. All the more so up close. His lean face was sharp angles and strong bones, his black brows and lashes setting off the wintry color and keen intelligence of his eyes, which tilted ever so slightly at the corners. Wolfish eyes. A hunter’s eyes.
Alex felt snared in them as he came even closer. She felt the heat of his hand on hers, then a firm but gentle pressure as he carefully extracted the pistol from her fingers.
He offered it back to her in the open palm of his hand. “You won’t need to use this, I promise.”
When she mutely accepted the gun and returned it to its holster behind her back, he strode over to the sofa and sheathed the wicked blade that had been resting at the top of his open duffel.
“You must have been shaken up pretty badly, being one of the first to see what had happened here.”
“It wasn’t a good day,” she said, the understatement of the year. “The Tomses were decent people. They didn’t deserve to die like this. No one does.”
“No,” he replied soberly. “Nobody deserves this kind of death. Except the beasts responsible for what happened to your friends.”
Alex looked at him as he closed the lid on his lethal rounds and put the case back into his bag. “Is that what brought you here—you and all these weapons? Did someone from Harmony hire you to come in and slaughter an innocent pack of wolves? Or are you here to collect on your own instead?”
He cocked his head in her direction. “No one hired me. I’m a problem solver. That’s all you need to know.”
“Bounty hunter,” she muttered, with more venom than probably was wise. “What happened out here had nothing to do with wolves.”
“So you said last night in that meeting.” His voice was more level than she’d heard it thus far. And when he looked at her, it was with a probing intensity that made her take a step backward on the boot heels of her Sorels. “Nobody believed you.”
“Do you?”
If possible, that hard silver gaze mined deeper. As though he could see right through her, all the way down to the memories she could not bear to relive. “Tell me what you know, Alex.”
“You mean, tell you more about the footprint I found outside?”
He gave the barest shake of his head. “I mean the rest of it. How is it that you can be so certain these killings weren’t done by animals? Did you see the attack?”
“No, thank God,” she answered quickly.
Too quickly maybe, because he took a step toward her, scowling now. Sizing her up.
“What about the video? Is there more of it somewhere? Something beyond the footage shot after the killings had occurred?”
“What?” Alex had no need to feign confusion now. “What video? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Three days ago, a cell phone video clip was shot out here and posted to an illegal site on the Internet.”
“Oh, my God.” Appalled, Alex brought her hand up to her mouth. “And you saw it?”
The tendon that jerked in his cheek was confirmation enough. “If you know something more about the slayings that took place here, I need you to tell me now, Alex. It’s very important that I have all the information I can get.”
If Alex had been tempted to blurt everything out last night in the town meeting, now, as she stood alone before this man—this stranger who rattled her inexplicably on every level of her being—the words clogged up tight in her throat. She didn’t know him. She wasn’t at all sure she could trust him, even if she did somehow ratchet up the nerve to drag her darkest suspicions into the light.
“Why are you really here?” she asked him softly. “What are you looking for?”
“I’m looking for answers, Alex. I’m looking for the same thing I believe you are—the truth. Maybe there’s a way for us to help each other.”
The sharp trill of Alex’s cell phone broke the lengthening quiet. It rang again, giving her the excuse she needed to put a few paces between herself and the man whose presence seemed to be sucking all the air out of the room. Alex turned away from him and connected to the call.
It was Jenna, phoning to remind her that they were supposed to meet up for dinner at Pete’s tonight. Alex murmured a hasty confirmation but stayed on the phone after Jenna said her good-byes and disconnected. “Yeah, no problem,” Alex said into the dead air of the receiver. “I’m on my way right now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes, tops. All right. Yep, bye.”
She stuffed the phone into the pocket of her parka and pivoted back to face Luna’s new favorite person, who was now seated on the sofa with Alex’s dog lying at his feet. “I have to get going. Deliveries to make before sundown, and then I’m meeting a friend for dinner in town.”
She was anxious to get away now, but why did she feel compelled to make excuses to this man? What should he care why she was leaving as though she couldn’t run out of there fast enough?
Alex subtly snapped her fingers and called Luna’s name. To the wolf dog’s credit, she ambled over without looking too heartbroken to be summoned away from him.
“I’ll let Officer Tucker know that you were here today,” she added, figuring it couldn’t hurt to remind him that she was friendly with the police.
“You do that, Alex.” He didn’t get up from his negligent slouch on Pop Toms’s sofa. “Be careful out there. I’ll see you around.”
Alex caught his slow-spreading grin as she rounded up Luna and headed out the door of the cabin. Although she didn’t dare look behind her, she could feel those quicksilver eyes at the back of her neck, watching her as she hopped on her snowmachine with Luna and gave the motor some juice. She’d driven out a few hundred yards before another thought hit her.
She hadn’t seen another sled parked anywhere.
So just how the hell had he made the forty-plus-mile trip from Harmony all the way north through the open wilderness?
CHAPTER
Seven
Kade waited out the short few hours of daylight in the cabin at the Toms settlement. As soon as it was safe for him and his solar-sensitive Breed skin to venture outside, he took off on foot once more, this time heading for the ten-thousand-acre plot of land his family owned north of Fairbanks.
He wondered how he would be greeted in his father’s Darkhaven compound—he, the prodigal, the unapologetic black sheep, who’d left a year ago without excuse or explanation, and never looked back. He felt some guilt for that, but didn’t figure anyone would believe him if he said it.
He wondered if Seth would be at the compound when he arrived, and, if so, what his brother would say about the killings that had brought Kade home from Boston to investigate on behalf of the Order.
But more than any of that, Kade wondered what it was that Alexandra Maguire was hiding.
Kade had enough personal experience with keeping secrets to guess that the attractive female bush pilot wasn’t being entirely honest about what she knew of the recent deaths—not with the townsfolk or local law enforcement, nor with him earlier today. Possibly not even with herself.
He could have pushed her for the truth when he’d met her at the Toms settlement, but Alex didn’t seem the type to be forced into doing anything she didn’t want to do. Kade would need to win her trust in order
to win the information he needed from her.
He might even have to seduce it out of her, an idea he considered with far too much interest. Yeah. Tough job, getting close to Alexandra Maguire. Every mission should demand that onerous a task.
Thoughts of how he would play things with her the next time he saw her made the hours and miles fall away behind him. In no time, he had reached the huge tract of forested, virgin wilderness that had been in his family’s possession for centuries. The familiar smell of the woods and the earth that lay dormant beneath the snow put a tightness in his chest. For so long, this expanse of land had been his home, his kingdom and domain.
How many times had he and Seth run wild and whooping through this very forest, brothers-in-arms, young lords of the chase? Too many to recall.
But Kade remembered the night that the idyll of their shared childhood had ended. He still felt the weight of that moment in the cold hand of dread that clamped down on the back of his neck as he approached the sprawling compound of hand-hewn log buildings that comprised his father’s Darkhaven.
Unlike most Breed civilian communities, this Darkhaven had no perimeter fence or closed-circuit security cameras. There were no guards posted along the way, either. Then again, this far out in the bush, there was no need. The land itself acted as sentry to the many residences and the people living within them. Harsh, remote, expansive.
If the predators on four legs didn’t dissuade any unwanted human visitors from stumbling onto the property, Kade’s father and the roughly twenty other Breed males living inside the Darkhaven would be happy to take care of them.
Kade trudged through the snowy path that led up to the large main house. He knocked on the doorjamb, uncomfortable entering the place unannounced.
His father’s younger brother came to the door and opened it. “What are you doing standing out there in the snow, Seth …?”
“Uncle Maksim,” Kade said, tipping his head in greeting when recognition lit up the other male’s face. “How are you, Max?”
The Breed male was nearly three hundred years old but, like all of their kind, looked to be in the prime of life with his unlined face and thick brown hair. “I am well,” he replied. “This is certainly a welcome surprise, Kade. Your father will be so pleased that you are home.”
Kade resisted the urge to chuckle at that sentiment, but only because he knew his uncle meant it as kindness. “Is he here?”
Maksim nodded. “In his study. My God, it’s a relief to see you again and to know that you are alive and well. You’d been away so long without contact, I’m afraid many of us had assumed the worst about you.”
“Yeah,” Kade said, knowingly wry. “I get that a lot. Will you tell my father I’m here?”
His uncle clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “I’ll do better than that. Come with me. I’ll take you to him myself.”
Kade followed the big male through the massive residence to the private study that overlooked the broad western range of the property. Maksim rapped his knuckles on the door, then squeezed the latch and pushed it open.
“Kir. Look who’s returned home, my brother.”
Kade’s father turned away from an open program on his computer, rotating in his large leather chair to face them. Kade watched the stern expression darken from one of surprise and relief, to one of confusion and not-too-mild disappointment when he realized it was the prodigal son who waited at the threshold, not the favored one. The scowl deepened. “Kade.”
“Father,” he replied, knowing there would be no emotional embraces or warm welcomes as his father got up from his seat and strode around to the front of his long desk.
He spared only the barest glance at his brother who stood behind Kade near the door. “Leave us, Maksim.”
Kade felt rather than saw his uncle’s silent, obedient retreat from the room. He watched his father instead, seeing the harsh disapproval in the dark gaze that pinned him across the distance of the private study. Kade set down his duffel of belongings and weaponry and awaited his father’s displeasure.
“You failed to mention you intended to come home when we spoke a couple days ago.” When Kade offered no excuse, his father exhaled sharply. “Then again, that’s hardly surprising. You didn’t bother to say much before you left us a year ago, either. Just walked away with no thought to responsibility or to your family.”
“It was time for me to go,” Kade replied after a long moment. “There were things I needed to do.”
His father’s scoff sounded brittle with animosity. “I hope it was worth it. You broke your mother’s heart, you realize that, don’t you? Until you called out of the blue the other day, she was certain you’d gone off and gotten yourself killed by joining up with those warrior vigilantes back in Boston. And although Seth would be the last person to speak poorly of you, I can tell you that your leaving broke his heart, too. Your brother has changed since you’ve been away.”
And of course, the blame for that and everything else sat squarely on Kade’s shoulders. He shook his head, knowing that it was no use trying to defend himself or the Order. Lucan and the other warriors didn’t need his father’s support or approval. For that matter, neither did he.
He’d survived without that for a long damned time already, and he had since given up needing to prove himself to the man.
“So, Seth is still away on business for you?”
His father met the question with a narrow look. “He’s due back soon. I presume he will also feed while he’s gone, which is likely the reason for his delay.”
“What about Patrice?”
“They are not yet mated,” came his father’s clipped reply.
Kade grunted in acknowledgment, and wished he could feel more surprise to hear this news. For half a dozen years, it had been accepted that Seth and Patrice, one of the Breedmates who lived in the family Darkhaven since she was a child, would eventually become a blood-bonded pair. At that time, Patrice had chosen him above all the other males in the region, and to his parents’ delight, Seth had agreed to make the female his mate. Problem was, he seemed to find one good excuse after another to put her off.
Without a Breedmate to fulfill a vampire’s need for blood, he was forced to feed off the mortal population for sustenance instead. Most Breed males welcomed the unbreakable, eternal bond that would release them from the slavery of their bloodthirst and provide a steady, loving source of strength and passion for the whole of a male’s life.
But there were some who preferred to remain unattached, hunting where they willed, relishing the constant chase and conquest of new human prey.
Kade himself was in no rush to lock himself down with a Breedmate of his own, another point of contention with his father and mother, who had been blood-bonded and happily mated for more than a century. Instead they’d pinned their hopes on Seth. He’d been the studious one, the cerebral one, who it was assumed would one day take the reins as the leader of the family Darkhaven or form his own.
Kade had always been the raucous opposite of his brother. It was that reckless streak that had likely condemned him in his father’s eyes, while Seth’s careful outward control had given him seemingly limitless freedoms.
“Well,” his father said after a prolonged silence. “Since you’ve come to your senses and returned home now, I trust this means you’re ready to try to be part of the family once more. As it seems you’ve come back with barely more than the clothes on your back, I’ll make arrangements to transfer some funds into your old account.”
“I didn’t come here for a handout,” Kade bit off, his anger spiking at the assumption. “And as for staying, it’s not in my plan—”
“Where is my son?” Kade’s words were cut short by a petite cyclone who threw open the doors of the study and breezed inside. “It really is you! Oh, Kade!”
She pulled Kade into a fierce embrace, her body vibrating with emotion. His mother was just as beautiful and vibrant as ever—more so, her glow enhanced by the large, expectant swel
l of her belly beneath the loose-fitting, winter-white sweater and pants she wore. Ebony-haired with pale silver eyes that matched both his and Seth’s, Kade’s mother, Victoria, was a breathtaking woman. Like her mate, she, too, appeared no more than thirty years old, her aging halted by the blood bond she shared with Kir.
“Oh, my darling boy. I’ve been so worried about you! Thank God you’ve come back—and will you look at me, just in time.” She smiled, positively beaming. “You’ll have two new brothers in less than a month. Identical twins again, just like you and Seth.”
Although she seemed delighted by the prospect, Kade felt a sick twist in his gut. The talent that he and Seth shared, the ability to communicate with and command predator animals, was a unique skill passed down to them genetically from their Breedmate mother, in the same way that Seth and he shared Victoria’s smooth golden skin, dark hair, and exotic eyes. But unlike her, in Kade and Seth, with their father’s Breed blood running hot through their veins, the talent had a dark side. He hated to think that the pattern might repeat itself in another set of brothers.
“You look well, Mother. I’m glad to see you so happy.”
“I’m even happier now that you’re here. You’ll see I’ve kept your quarters just as you left them. Not a day passed when I didn’t hope and pray that I would have both of my beloved sons safe and sound, living under our roof again as a family.”
She threw her arms around him once more, and Kade felt all the worse for what he had to say. “I … I don’t know how long I’ll be staying. I didn’t come back to live here, Mother. I’m here on business for the Order.”
She drew back, her expression falling. “You won’t stay?”
“Only until my mission is complete. Then I have to return to Boston. I’m sorry if you thought—”
“You can’t go,” she murmured, tears welling in her eyes. “You belong here, Kade. This is your home. We are your family. You have a life here—”
He gently shook his head. “My life is with the Order now. They need me, and I have important things to do. Mother, I am sorry to disappoint you.”
