She nodded, wide-eyed. The two of them left, and Deane took hold of the woman’s shoulder and rolled her onto her back, revealing a dark stain on the carpet beneath her. The front of her shirt was red with blood. Jax squatted beside her, noticing a knife on the ground and a deep cut on her neck.
“She’s bled out.” Jax took a deep breath to settle his stomach. This wasn’t the sort of thing he was used to seeing.
Deane shook his head and pursed his lips. “That’s quite a wound. I wonder how this happened.”
A strange sound came from the woman’s mouth, and one of her eyelids fluttered.
“I thought you said she didn’t have a pulse?” Jax leaned in. “Marilyn?”
Her lips barely moved. “Riley—”
“He’s safe,” Deane said. “He’s waitin’ for ye.”
Marilyn whispered with glassy eyes, “Ramsay—”
Jax looked around the living room. “Did he do this to you? When was he here?”
A hiss of air escaped her lungs, and just when Jax thought she’d taken her last breath, he heard softened words. “Eleven.”
Jax glanced at the clock on the cable box. It was just past eleven thirty. If they’d left earlier, they may have been able to prevent this from happening. Deane’s face clouded, and he shook his head with his eyes closed.
Marilyn lifted her gaze to Deane kneeling above her. Softly spoken words poured from her still lips. The enforcer lowered his ear to her mouth. Jax stared in shock, aware he was witnessing her death. He’d been orphaned at Riley’s age and knew the numbing loneliness. He stood up and swallowed, picturing Riley’s worried face when they’d left him behind.
Deane muttered, “Ye have my word.”
Jax lowered his eyes. Deane’s thick fingers traced over Marilyn’s ceaselessly staring eyes, closing her lids. The enforcer paused with a far-off look. He rubbed his jaw and then the top of his head. “She’s gone.”
Emery and Alaric swept back into the room. Alaric crossed his arms and raised his brow. “No sign of him. Is she…?”
Deane was visibly upset. The lines on his forehead made deep grooves as he frowned. He exhaled and practically growled, “She’s gone. Lost too much blood.”
Alaric’s eyes narrowed as he appeared deep in thought. Making quick decisions was part of his job. He pointed at the back door. “We’ll put everything back as it was. Wipe down everything you touched. Leaving this at Ramsay’s feet may be best—an abusive father come back to terrorize his family. Leave no trace.”
Deane nodded with a blank expression and gently rolled Marilyn back onto her stomach. He gave her back a tender rub and whispered a prayer under his breath before standing up and going to turn off the kitchen light and wiping down the switch. Jax went to lock the back door and used the hem of his shirt to erase all trace of his presence in the home.
With stunning speed, they all made it back outside and into the van. Deane started the engine and looked in the rearview mirror. “What about the lad? What are we going to do with him?”
Alaric settled in the back of the van. He pressed his hands against the grooved floor and said, “That’s not on the top of my list of problems at the moment. I can’t worry about that while his dad’s running around kidnapping and killing people.”
Jax pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Aerilyn’s number.
Alaric’s focus fell on him. His eyes narrowed. “Who are you calling?”
“Aerilyn,” Jax answered. “She should know.”
Deane pulled into the street and started driving away. While Jax waited for Aerilyn to pick up, he stared out the back windows of the van. Streetlights illuminated the cars they passed, and he thought he saw a halo of red hair from inside one of them.
Ringing came from Aerilyn’s back pocket. She slipped out her phone and put it to her ear.
“Hey,” Jax’s voice muttered. “I have bad news—news you don’t want the kid to overhear.”
She spoke slowly. “Okay.”
She felt Riley’s eyes on her, so she tried to give him a reassuring smile. Aerilyn bent over to pick up the plate of uneaten food and muttered, “I’ll take this down to the kitchen if you’re sure you don’t want it.”
He blinked back at her in silence. She glanced over at Garren lying on the couch. His girlfriend was bent over him, having a whispered conversation with him and the doctor. Aerilyn hurried across the room with the phone pressed to her ear, holding the plate and walked into the darkened hallway. While she began descending the staircase to the first floor, she whispered, “What’s going on?”
She could hear Jax’s hesitation and his ragged breathing over the line. “We found her, Riley’s mom.”
“That’s great,” she muttered. “Are you on your way back?”
“No, it’s not great. She’s dead—Ramsay killed her.”
Aerilyn stopped halfway down the staircase and pinched her eyes shut. With a shaky voice, she asked, “Are you sure she’s dead?”
“Her throat was cut. If we had gotten there a little earlier we might have stopped Ramsay. I think she was holding on for her son.”
Aerilyn rushed down the remaining steps and went into the dimly lit kitchen. She set the plate on the counter with a clatter. “She was still alive when you got there?”
“Barely.” Jax cleared his throat. “She died before our eyes worried about the kid. You should have seen her relief when we told her he was safe.”
Aerilyn fell silent. Her thoughts went to Riley. He had no one in his life to depend on. How was she going to tell him about his mom? With his health in question, the news could put him over the edge.
“Aerilyn—you there?” Jax asked.
“Yeah. I just don’t know what I’m going to say to him.” She bit her lip and sighed heavily. “See you soon?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled and the line went dead.
Aerilyn returned upstairs and lingered outside her father’s office door for a few minutes, trying to collect herself. She took a deep breath and walked inside. Garren and his girlfriend looked up at her as she scanned the room for Riley.
She frowned. “Where is he?”
“The kid?” Garren asked. “He followed you out of the room—you didn’t see him out there?”
Aerilyn’s heart raced, and she knew something was wrong. She turned on her heel and ran from the room, racing back down the stairs. If he’d overheard her conversation, then he already knew about his mother. He’d be upset, irrational.
Aerilyn threw open the alleyway door. Cold nighttime air blew against her face, and she sucked in a quick breath.
Twenty-One
It was nearing midnight when they pulled up in the alley behind the lodge. Jax tilted his head back to glimpse the clouds stretching across the night sky, covering most of the stars from view. This would be the evening Riley would always remember. It would ingrain itself in his memories. Just like Jax could still smell his stepdad’s cigarette smoke in his nose, hear the sound of Jeopardy! in the background and see Rick’s stunned expression when he told him his mother had left them.
The only difference was that Riley’s mother was gone and could never come back. He wondered how Aerilyn had broken the news to the kid. Had he taken it in silence, or had he grown angry and frightened at the thought of being alone?
Jax followed the others into the building. Alaric was on the phone with his son, the cop, explaining what they’d found—or rather, what they’d left behind—in Marilyn’s home. Jax wasn’t even listening. He didn’t know what came next. Not only had he recently discovered there was a whole underground culture of shifters he never knew about, apparently there were also beings who preyed on people for their blood. It was a lot to take in, and really, all he wanted was to go home with Aerilyn and hold her in his arms.
He followed Emery into Alaric’s office. Garren’s girlfriend and the doctor were speaking in the corner while Garren was propped on the couch, holding his head up on his own. He seemed more alert than he had been earl
ier, and when he saw Jax, a slow grin pulled at his lips. “Hey, brother. Wish I could have joined you. How’d it go?”
Jax looked around the room. “Didn’t Aerilyn tell you?”
Garren answered, “Naw, she walked out of here a while ago looking for the kid. What’s happening?”
Alaric was too busy on the phone to catch it, but Emery, Deane and Jax exchanged a look. They started for the door, and Emery muttered, “I’ll check the upstairs bathrooms.”
“I’ll look around downstairs,” Deane said and flew down the staircase.
Jax pulled out his phone. Its blue light glowed in the darkness. He dialed her number, holding his breath. She would pick up, he told himself.
But she didn’t. It rang once before going to voicemail. His stomach turned. She must have declined the call. He may not have had her instincts, but he knew something was wrong.
Emery’s voice called down the hallway, “Aerilyn? Riley?”
He stood in the dark, holding his phone and fearing the worst. If he hadn’t allowed himself to grow attached, he wouldn’t have been feeling this agony. This kind of pain only came along with caring for others.
Aerilyn’s warm smile skirted his thoughts, the smell of her hair on his pillow. He wanted her back by his side, safe. Nothing else mattered.
“She’s not up here,” Emery said, hurrying to where he stood.
Jax swallowed and shook his head. “She didn’t pick up.”
Alaric came out of his office, holding his phone away from his head. “Where’s Aerilyn?”
Emery’s eyes darted to catch Jax’s gaze. She took a shaky breath. “We don’t know.”
Alaric’s brows furrowed. He muttered into his phone, “I’ll call you back.”
He stood in the doorway, casting a long shadow into the hall while staring at his phone’s screen.
A cold breeze wafted up the stairwell ahead of Deane. He gripped the banister, breathless. “I can’t find her or the lad, and all the cars are still here.”
“She’s left the city,” Alaric said, lowering his phone.
Emery tilted her head. “How do you know?”
Alaric shrugged and blinked at her. “I’ve had a GPS tracker on her phone since she moved out.”
Emery sighed, “Oh, she’s not going to like that.”
“I don’t really care at the moment, being she’s not here to yell at me,” Alaric responded. He flew past Jax and Emery and ran down the stairs, saying over his shoulder, “Let’s go get her.”
They hurried into the darkened alley. Deane started the van and drove away before Emery could close her passenger door. Jax sat in the back, rocking around as the vehicle sped onto the main street.
“Go north and get on 70 west,” Alaric called up to Deane.
Deane nodded, and Jax felt the van pick up speed. He remembered KT lying in a puddle of blood, unable to move, and imagined Aerilyn motionless, powerless. He tried to swallow, but his throat had gone dry.
“Hurry,” he whispered through clenched teeth.
Aerilyn sat beside Riley in the backseat, too frightened to try to pull out her phone. Ramsay’s thug was on the other side of her. She hoped he hadn’t noticed the seat begin to vibrate before she’d thrust her hand in her pocket to reject the call. There was no way this would end well. She had no idea where they were being taken, but every minute that passed, she was traveling farther away from the safety of her family and loved ones.
She considered shifting right there, attacking the man sitting beside her, but she was still moving on the highway in a locked car. She would have to wait for a safer opportunity. Any opportunity.
Aerilyn reached for Riley’s cold hand and gave it a squeeze. He turned his deadened eyes toward her and blinked. She wanted to assure him everything would be fine, but she couldn’t.
They were climbing in elevation, driving into the Rocky Mountains. Dark pointed trees whizzed by the windows as Ramsay sped quickly on the highway, passing the few cars out at this late hour. He’d remained quiet since instructing the man named Quinn to throw her into the backseat beside his son. It was starting to bother her. All this silence.
A thought sprang to mind, and she closed her eyes, trying to focus her energy around her. If she was able to detect shifters, maybe she could sense blood-suckers too. But try as she might, she was unable to feel the electric charge from those sitting around her. Their ageless quality seemed to be the only thing they shared.
Riley pounded his fist against the door, startling her. He exhaled sharply and glared at his dad. “Why’d you do it?”
Ramsay looked through the rearview mirror at him. “What? You will have to be specific—I’ve done so much in my lifetime.”
Riley glared at his father’s reflection. “Why’d you kill her?”
He’d overheard her conversation with Jax after all. She looked into Riley’s eyes. They were filled with despair and emptiness. Aerilyn’s heart broke for him. He didn’t deserve any of this.
Ramsay hummed a tune before responding, “Your little breakout led to this. Like I told you, if you tried to escape, I would have to do something drastic. But let’s face it, as long as she was alive, you were never going to give me the focus I needed to groom you to be the kind of man you have the potential to become.”
“I’d rather die than be like you,” Riley spat through clenched teeth.
Aerilyn reached for Riley’s hand, but he wrenched away from her, turning to look out the side window.
A chuckle filled the car. Ramsay seemed amused with his son’s behavior and smiled through the rearview mirror. “That’s what they all say in the beginning. Trust me, if you don’t eat soon, your wish will come true.”
A chill went down Aerilyn’s spine. She cleared her throat. “You have other children?”
Quinn looked at her and smirked, so she slid closer to Riley. While she kept her eye on the man beside her, Ramsay answered, “I’m taking you to meet a few of Riley’s siblings now. They’ve been waiting to meet him.”
Riley sputtered. “What?”
“I’ve spread my seed across the world in hopes of creating a new generation I can be proud of. Not every child grows to mature into our kind, disappointingly.”
Aerilyn listened in silence. Her mind spun over the details he’d just revealed. She was curious to find out more about this new breed of being. She wondered how long they’d been in existence and why shifters hadn’t crossed paths with them until now.
They sounded similar to her own kind in regard to breeding. She presumed Ramsay’s timing hadn’t been an accident. It was the same reason Aerilyn was a high school teacher. She took a job that allowed her to covertly observe and assist the shifter youth during the time they matured and came into their powers.
Beside her Riley leaned over to cock his eyebrow at Quinn. “Are you one of them? My brother?”
The blond man shook his head. His icy blue eyes narrowed as he laughed in response. “Ramsay’s my uncle, not my father.”
Aerilyn glanced at Quinn out of the corner of her eye without moving a muscle. He appeared no older than Ramsay, hardly out of his twenties. She suspected neither were anywhere as young as that, just like her father or Deane. But she wondered how these blood-suckers could be anything like them, defying the passage of time.
“You keep looking at me, I’ll be tempted to take a sip,” Quinn said before turning to blink at her. “I’m always in the mood for blood.”
A chill raced down Aerilyn’s spine. She held her breath and lifted her focus to the front windshield. The darkened highway curved between the evergreen-covered mountains.
“You even think about touching her…” Riley went rigid beside her.
Ramsay and Quinn snickered, but it was Riley’s father who responded, “I like your fire. You’ll adapt nicely, I think.”
“Just let her go,” Riley said. “She hasn’t done anything to deserve this.”
Quinn placed his hand on Aerilyn’s knee. Her pulse quickened, and she foug
ht the urge to shift right there and tear his hand from his arm. Riley needed saving, and careening off the highway wouldn’t save anyone.
Ramsay’s nephew whispered in her ear loud enough for Riley to hear, “Neither do the cows or chickens you consume. They don’t deserve being confined and fattened in a joyless, disturbing life until they’re sent to the butcher, but I bet you don’t complain about that. At least you won’t remember anything once you’re bitten. You won’t be aware of us leaching away your life force. It’s a kindness, really.”
Aerilyn swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. She tried to stay calm and risked saying, “Get your hand off of me.”
Quinn chuckled and patted her knee before lifting his fingers from their resting place. He folded his hands together in his lap and muttered, “You’ll get to know my touch. You’ll learn to like it.”
This time it was Riley who reached to hold her hand to give her comfort. They sat beside each other in silence, Aerilyn fearing she wouldn’t find an opportunity to shift and save them both. She didn’t know how she could do it singlehandedly because she wasn’t sure what she was up against. She wasn’t an enforcer like Emery. She wasn’t trained for this.
She paid close attention as Ramsay exited the highway, noting where he was taking them. They’d passed Idaho Springs, so they still weren’t too far from Denver. He drove them up a dirt road that led higher into the mountains. Scattered among the evergreens, snow still mounded on the ground in small drifts.
If Quinn weren’t sitting so close, she might have slipped her phone from her pocket to message Jax, but it was an impossibility. She sat alert. Their journey was coming to an end. She sensed it.
Ramsay exited the road onto a rutted dirt lane. They wove through an open meadow, and then she saw it. A large rustic home. Thick-hewn beams framed the entry, and a stone façade traced its base. Trees wrapped around the back of the property. A picture-perfect mountain cabin. They’d arrived at their destination.
Aerilyn squeezed Riley’s hand and took a deep breath. The Society’s laws didn’t apply now. She’d have to do what she could to survive. She wouldn’t just let herself become these blood-sucker’s lamb to the slaughter. Riley needed someone to fight for his innocence if he had any chance of avoiding becoming like his father.
Half-Blood Descendant: A Paranormal Series (Half-Bloods Book 1) Page 21
