by E. J. King
“Please,” I scoffed. “I remember those stories you used to tell me about getting into trouble with Dad when you were still in high school.”
Mark chuckled. “That’s different. That was us.”
“We’ve been on the road for weeks,” I said, changing the subject to more serious matters. “Do you mind if we stay here for a bit?”
“‘Course not. I’ll be glad to have you.” He eyed Ethan and Rafe carefully. “I don’t know what this situation is with these boys, but there won’t be any shenanigans happening under my roof. Understood?”
They both nodded quickly, probably remembering that I had said he might be nuts and paranoid.
“When did you turn into such a prude?” I teased. Back in his prime, Mark had done alright with the ladies. He was a decent enough looking man and he was fun to be around.
“When my best friend’s daughter showed up on my door all grown up into a pretty lady, that’s when.” He tried to sound stern, but I could see he was fighting a smile. “I’ve gotta look after you like your dad would’ve done.”
“If that was the case, no way you would’ve given me this beer,” I said, holding it up.
He thought it over. “Since I’m not your dad, I get to bend the rules a little. I’m still the fun uncle, ain’t I?”
“I hope so.” I tried to think of the best way to segue to the next subject. I came up with nothing. “Uncle Mark, I need to ask you about my parents.”
“What about them? You already know as much about them as I do.” He was trying to pretend he didn’t know what I meant.
“You know that I know the truth about them,” I said directly. “The Harts weren’t my real parents. Benton and Violet were my biological mom and dad.”
Mark let out a loud sigh. “So you figured it out, huh? I always knew you would someday. You’re a bright girl. I always told your dad that he should be straight with you, but he said it wasn’t safe for you to know.”
“He was probably right,” I admitted. “Dad always had a good reason for everything he did. If he didn’t tell me, it was for my own good.”
“You’re right about that.” Mark took a long swig from his beer. “I don’t know much about the other parents. I only met Violet one time, the night she dropped you off at the house.”
“What about Benton? You knew my dad when you were still teens, so you must’ve known his brother.” I was desperate for any information Mark had. If I could understand my father, maybe I could figure out how to beat him.
Mark’s face pinched as he remembered Benton. “He was a cocky son of a gun. Always showing off and being mean to John. None of us were surprised when he got turned.”
“What else do you remember?” I asked desperately.
“Kaylie, I didn’t know him very well. John kept his distance and so did I.” Mark looked miserable about not being able to tell me what I wanted to hear. “Maybe if I think on it some more I’ll remember something that helps.”
I sat back on the couch and tried not to look too disappointed. I had really thought that Mark would know something important. Now I had to accept that we had come all this way for nothing.
“You all have been driving for hours. Let’s eat some chili and have another beer.” Mark slapped my knee. “I know you love my special chili recipe.”
I forced a smile. “Sounds good.”
Within a few minutes of sitting down at the kitchen table, my mood improved considerably. Mark started telling stories from my childhood that had everyone laughing. It was nice being around him because it reminded me of happier times with my family.
Mark offered to show us some old photo albums and everyone followed him back to the living room. I took a second to rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.
“You okay?” Rafe asked, stealthily sneaking up behind me. His hand touched the small of my back. “I know you thought Mark was going to be able to help us.”
“Wishful thinking,” I said with a sigh. “But it’s still good to be here. I missed Mark and he can research the supernatural world better than anyone I know.”
“That’s good. He might be useful-” Rafe stopped talking abruptly and I turned to find Mark standing in the doorway.
He stared hard at Rafe. “Need any help in here?”
“Just finishing up,” I said, dropping the last bowl onto the rack.
Rafe edged away quickly. “My services aren’t needed in here anymore.”
“No,” Mark agreed. “They’re not.”
I turned my back on Mark to hide a smile. Seeing him as the protective father-figure was sweet and comical. It was so out of his nature.
“You dating that boy?” he asked directly once Rafe was gone.
“Yes.” I faced Mark and added, “I love him.”
Mark didn’t react. He studied my face for several seconds and said, “It’s not a good idea, dear.”
“What isn’t?”
“Falling in love with a Hunter.” He reached down and shut the dishwasher door. “That will never end well for either of you.”
“I don’t exactly have a choice in the matter,” I said defensively.
He thought that over. “Maybe not. But you can make a choice to end it now, before one of you gets hurt.”
“I’m going to get hurt no matter what, Mark. In case you haven’t noticed, Hunter lifespans aren’t very long.”
“Your father wouldn’t want this for you, Kaylie.” Mark bit down on his lip, thinking. “He always hoped you would find a way out of this life. He wanted you to go to college and marry someone from the normal world. He wanted you to have a future.”
“He did?” I was flabbergasted. Every time I had mentioned a normal life to my dad, he’d always said it wasn’t possible. I was a Hunter and I had responsibilities. “Why didn’t he ever tell me that? He always fought me.”
Mark put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “He thought that if you were going to quit being a Hunter, it needed to be for the right reasons. He wanted to be sure that you had really thought about it and that you were sure.”
I didn’t know what to say. All those fights we’d had, all those times when I had yelled at him for not understanding. He had understood everything.
“Come on. Your friends are waiting.” Mark dropped his hand and headed for the door.
“Mark. Do you really think Dad wouldn’t approve of Rafe?” My voice sounded small and younger somehow.
Mark shrugged. “What do I know? Your dad only ever wanted you to be happy. From what I can tell, you look happy. You say you love him and assuming he feels the same about you, then I think your dad would be okay with it. More than okay. He’d be happy for you.”
“What about you? Are you happy for me?” I couldn’t help but tease him. It was too easy.
Mark growled, “I think if I see him with his hands on you again, I’m going to get out my shotgun.”
“I love you, Uncle Mark,” I said, meaning it with all my heart.
“Love you, too, kiddo.” He started down the hall. “I’d love it even more if you’d bring a beer with you!”
With a big grin on my face, I followed close behind. Maybe we didn’t have all the answers yet for how to win the war, but we had each other. Somehow, I knew that would be enough.
CHAPTER SIX
The knife sliced cleanly through the air and hit the wooden board with a loud thwack. Just like the previous three, it landed directly in the center of the painted circle.
“Bullseye,” Ethan said, letting out a low whistle. “I’m impressed, Hart. You’ve got mad knife throwing skills.”
“Mark taught me how to throw a knife when I was six,” I said, reaching for another one. “It’s really not that hard once you learn the trick.”
Ethan smirked. “Really? What’s the trick?”
“I can’t tell you the trick,” I said, looking at him as I pulled my arm back. With a quick flick of my wrist, I sent the knife flying. It landed within a millimeter of the previous one. “You have
to learn it.”
“Wow.” Ethan gave the bullseye a long look. “Remind me never to piss you off.”
“I’d say it’s too late for that.” I glared at him. “Have you forgotten what happened at breakfast?”
He grimaced. “I told you already that I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was your bacon.”
“It was on my plate!” I waggled a knife at him to further emphasize my point. “You know how I feel about bacon.”
“Kaylie!” Mark’s voice boomed across the yard. “Stop threatening the boy and get back to training.”
“Saved by the grouch,” I muttered, looking down at the stack of knives waiting to be thrown. I was bored with them. “I think I’ll go for a run. Care to join me?”
Ethan shook his head. “Nah. I’ve apparently got things to learn.”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” I advised, backing away.
We had been at Mark’s house for a week now, spending our days training hard and relying on Mark’s network to find information about Benton. It was a little strange having all of us in one house together. Almost like a dysfunctional family with Mark as our reluctant patriarch. It was nice, actually. Most of the time. But it was also completely stifling.
I’d taken to going on long runs to get some space and clear my head. Mark lived in the middle of nowhere so there was plenty of ground to cover. Once my feet hit the ground, everything else faded away. I concentrated only on putting one foot in front of the other as fast as I could.
Before I knew it, I had run five miles. My body wanted to keep going, but logically I knew that I should turn around. It would be the same distance back, and pushing myself more than ten miles probably wasn’t wise. I was trying to build strength and stamina, not training for a marathon.
About a hundred yards from the house, I slowed to a walk. Mark was nowhere to be seen so I presumed he was in the house, likely hunched over one of his computers. The sun was shining brightly which meant Hope was likely inside sleeping. Though she wasn’t as bothered by daylight as most Souls, a sunny day tended to drain her energy pretty quickly.
Ethan was still completely focused on mastering the knife toss. He was failing. I watched as he threw a knife and the handle hit the board, clanging loudly as it fell to the ground. I was fighting back a laugh when I saw him- Rafe.
He had disappeared early in the morning, occupied with fixing up his car. We had been driving it into the ground over that last couple of months and it needed a new battery, brakes, and a myriad of other car repairs that I didn’t understand. All I knew was that when Rafe wasn’t training, he was spending all of his time working on the car.
Rafe was head-down again, partially hidden by the hood of the car. I watched as he stepped back and stood tall, stretching. He wiped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt and then froze. As if he could sense me watching him, he turned.
As had been the case since the first time I met him, my heart jumped when he looked at me. He smiled reflexively. “Good run?”
“Not bad. Just over ten miles.” I bent down to tie my shoe. “How’s the car looking?”
“Better.” He put both hands on the lip of the hood and leaned over it, peering down into the guts of the car. “I just finished with the transmission.”
“Sounds like the car was falling apart.” I stood, flexing my knee. The swelling had gone down a couple of days ago, but it was still sore. “Good thing you’ve been spending so much time on it.”
He eyed me wearily. “Am I detecting subtext?”
“Probably,” I admitted, leaning my butt on the bumper. “We’ve barely talked since we got here.”
Really, we had barely talked since our fight at the motel back in Normal when we had argued about our future.
“What do you want to talk about?” Rafe asked, exasperated.
I bit hard on the inside of my cheeks to keep from saying something I would regret. “I’m not trying to pick a fight, James.”
He sighed and dropped the wrench he was holding. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re still mad at me.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Not at you. I’m just mad.” He leaned on the bumper next to me, his shoulder pushed against mine. “Wanna hear something pathetic about me?”
I looked at him curiously and nodded.
“These last few days are the closest I’ve even had to being part of a family.” His face was stony as he looked at the house. “Mark might be crazy, but he has treated me with more kindness than my step-father ever did.”
“If this is your idea of a family, your childhood must’ve been even worse than I thought,” I said with a wry smile.
Rafe chuckled softly. “Yeah. Well, anyway. Maybe now you can understand why I’m trying so hard not to screw this up.”
“Screw it up?” I looked at him in surprise. “Why do you think you’re going to screw it up?”
“Because I screw up everything decent in my life. It’s only a matter of time.” He looked at me and said, “Just like how close I am to screwing things up with you.”
“We had one little argument, James. That doesn’t mean our relationship is going to implode.” I kicked at a rock under my foot. “You want to know something pathetic about me?”
“Please,” he said with a small smile.
For some reason, the ground had become utterly fascinating to me. I couldn’t stop staring at it. “Even when you and I haven’t talked in a week and I’m pretty sure you’re on the verge of ending this, you’re still my favorite person in this world. I still feel breathless when you smile at me.”
“I know the feeling,” he replied after a moment, taking my hand. “I’ve never once thought about ending this, Kaylie. I don’t remember who I am without you anymore, but I know I don’t want to go back to being him. I’m a better man because of you.”
The fact that two emotionally stunted people like us had managed to find each other was a minor miracle. The fact that we hadn’t run screaming in the other direction was shocking.
Without looking up, I leaned my head on his shoulder. This, the feeling of Rafe’s strong, warm body by my side, was my home.
“Lunch!” Mark stuck his head out the front door. “Hope I didn’t interrupt something.”
Rafe instantly dropped my hand and moved away. He had already been conditioned to be afraid of Uncle Mark. I just barely held back a laugh.
“Yes, Uncle Mark. We were having sex in the front yard.” I rolled my eyes.
“Get inside,” he barked. “You’re not too old for me to lock you in your room.”
Living together was an adjustment for all of us. I hadn’t had a parental figure in my life for almost three years and Mark had been a bachelor his whole life. He was just starting to figure out the parental-role and I mostly found it hilarious.
“I know you meant that as a threat, but I like being locked up. Just ask Rafe.” I hurried past him quickly so he wouldn’t see the evil grin on my face.
“Kaylie Hart! You are going to drive me to an early grave.”
“Learn to take a joke, Uncle Mark.” I stepped into the kitchen where Ethan was already seated at the table. “Chili again?”
I filled a bowl from the pot on the stove.
“You don’t like it, you’re free to cook something else,” Mark said. He pointed to the fridge. “But you should go to the store first because we’re out of food.”
“Of course we are.” I had already been to the store twice that week. With three alpha males and a perpetually hungry vampire under one roof, it was impossible to keep the kitchen stocked. “Is Hope still resting?”
“The sun has knocked her on her ass,” Ethan said bluntly.
I wolfed down half of my chili in three bites. “It’s a shame she’s missing all the fun.”
Mark had switched on the old radio sitting on the counter. We had been listening to it for hours each day, noting anything strange. Unfortunately, there had been a lot of strange lately.
It was still January, b
ut the area around us was under an extreme heat wave. Several earthquakes had also hit close by, and freak lightning storms occurred almost every night. Something evil was definitely brewing.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Ethan said after a story about hundreds of cattle dropping dead out of nowhere. “It’s almost like the mouth of hell is opening or something.”
That was a scary thought. My stomach started twisting, the same as it had almost every day for the last couple of weeks. “It’s Benton. It has to be. We just need to find him.”
I had been diligently tracking each strange phenomenon on a map, plotting the path. So far, I hadn’t been able to figure out the pattern. As I added the latest event to the map, things became even less clear.
“Well, that’s clear as mud,” I said, stepping back to survey the results.
I had spread the map over a wall in Mark’s living room. It was now the only piece of art in the entire house.
“Who needs an interior decorator?” Rafe joked, sneaking into the room on deft Hunter feet.
“This place needs more than wall art to spruce it up.” I noted that Rafe was holding the car keys. I asked. “More work?”
“Actually… Mark offered to lend me his car so I can go into town. Someone needs to restock our supplies.” He jingled the keys. “What do you say?”
“You want me to go?”
He laughed. “I want you to go with me. Just the two of us, getting some alone time. We can talk.”
“Talk?” I laughed. “Is this your idea of a date?”
“It’s probably about time for our second date,” he said with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “But if you don’t want to go…”
“A date with a hot stud like you? How could I resist?” I fanned my face, feigning a sudden flush. “This must be my lucky day.”
“Just put your coat on,” Rafe said, trying to sound annoyed. “This is the last time I ever try to woo you.”
“Woo?” I asked skeptically.
I yelped as he smacked my ass on the way outside, but I didn’t really mind. At least he was starting to act more like the James Rafferty I had fallen in love with.
