Caretaker

by Laken Cane

  “Go, then,” she screamed, as quickly furious as she’d been devastated. “Go love a dead man. You’ll never have him now.”

  I strode from her stifling house, already forgetting her.

  As soon as I left the house I drew in deep, cleansing breaths, trying to get rid of the dizzying closeness of her home.

  But something stopped me before I climbed into the car. A feeling.

  No, not a feeling. A lack of feeling.

  How could Clayton be dead when my heart still beat as it always had? How could he be dead when I still felt his presence?

  He couldn’t.

  He was one of mine.

  I’d know if he were dead. No matter what Miriam said, I would know. I had known, until I’d been pulled into her house, her presence, and had been convinced he was gone.

  Convinced by her. Oh, she was good.

  She was powerful.

  And Clayton was not dead.

  And as soon as I accepted that, I felt something else.

  I felt him.

  He wasn’t on that island in a million pieces.

  He was somewhere close, and he was waiting.

  Waiting for me.

  I just had to figure out how to find him.

  It was a pretty safe assumption that Miriam was not going to lend me a helping hand, the crazy bitch.

  I didn’t want her to know I believed Clayton was alive and that she held him. Maybe he was in her house, maybe she’d stashed him somewhere close—all I knew for sure was that he was still breathing.

  She could have ordered him to do anything. She could have stuffed him anywhere and told him not to try to escape, not to speak, and he would have been forced to comply.

  But he was still alive.

  My heart sang with a relief so loud I could barely hear anything else. Therefore, when Amias Sato flew from the early night shadows, he had me stretched out on the ground beneath him before I was even aware he’d come.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Get off me,” I yelled, when my broken arm banged off the pavement.

  He nuzzled my throat, his lips surprisingly warm, then stared down at me. His face was shadowed, but his eyes glittered with emotion. “No.”

  He wrapped his fingers around my cast and lifted my arm, kissing my fingers as they curled around the opening of the plaster. “This will heal with my blood inside you.”

  I shivered at his smooth voice, and a surge of lust tightened my stomach. I clenched my thighs against it. “Get off me,” I said again, but softly. Then, “You made it off the island.”

  He smiled, then brushed his lips across mine, shocking me. When had Amias Sato become so...tender? “And you have retrieved your werebull. Everything is as it should be.”

  “Not everything,” I whispered. “Let me up, Amias.”

  He was on his feet almost before I realized he’d moved, and he lifted me with him. It was dizzying.

  “You’re faster,” I noticed. “You’re not the hungry thing you were before.”

  He said nothing, just stood before me with a stillness that almost made him disappear into the shadows.

  He’d fed. He’d fed from someone with pure blood.

  And it hadn’t been me.

  I backed away from him as rage grabbed me by the throat—not because he’d fed, but because I was angry about it. I did not want to feel possessive or jealous over Amias Sato. That would mean I was just a little damn crazy, wouldn’t it?

  I shook my head to clear it. “You found a clean human.”

  A flash of guilt and worry, there and gone, rippled over his face. “Not tonight. And no one’s blood will ever do for me what yours will do.”

  I frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He wrapped his fingers around my upper arms and squeezed gently. “Trinity. You have retrieved your bull. You made me a promise, my love.”

  “What promise?” And just like that, I remembered. “I promised to feed you if you saved Angus.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You didn’t rescue him, Vampire. I did.” But then, a memory, a realization, spun crazily from the darkness and smashed into my mind. “Oh, my God.”

  He saw the dawning realization in my eyes. “I will tell you everything.”

  “Son of a bitch,” I said. “Your scent was on her. You’re the one who took Madalyn Bennett.”

  “Yes.”

  I lifted my fist to hit him but he caught my hand in his and I couldn’t wrench it out of his grip. I shuddered as familiar pain ripped through me—the pain I would always feel when I truly wanted to hurt him.

  Frustrated, I breathed through the discomfort, and finally, it faded. “I’ll tell the judge,” I spat. “I’ll tell Crawford. They will hunt you down. I’ll send Shane to—”

  “Hush, Trinity,” he scolded. “You will listen to me.”

  “Fuck you,” I said. Then, “Tell me. What the hell did you do, Amias?”

  “One would do much to survive, Trinity. Especially a vampire. What waits for us in death is…” He shrugged. “You’re aware.”

  Yes, I was aware. I knew something of what the unending, unthinkable despair felt like. The incubus had made sure of that. I’d experienced it for only a little while. A vampire who was given the true death would experience it for an eternity.

  There were perks to being immortal, but there were also penalties. Horrible ones.

  I cleared my throat. “Go on.”

  “I set in motion the events that would lead to Angus Stark’s freedom. I took his wife because I knew you would be sent to retrieve her. I knew you could trade her for the bull’s freedom.”

  “She was on the island.” My stomach hurt, and I pressed my fist against the pain. “She is dying. Supernaturals died—many of them. Your intentions do not make up for all the deaths you’ve caused.”

  He frowned. “I had nothing to do with the destruction of Byrd Island. I had nothing to do with those deaths.” Once again, the shame and guilt flashed through his eyes. “I…”

  “What?” I prompted. “What did you do, Amias?”

  “I lost her,” he admitted, and there was his shame.

  He had no remorse for taking the woman, only for losing her.

  “How?” I asked.

  “I don’t know how she found the strength to run. She escaped me as I slept, though I had bound her wrists and ankles. I slept with my arms a tight band around her. Yet somehow, she escaped me. I was careless. Drunk on her clean blood. I had to feed, Trinity,” he said, when my anger began to rise once again. “I could no more have resisted her than a starving human could have resisted food. I could not get her to the island if I were weak and hungry. So I drank, and like an intoxicated human, I was careless.”

  “Why did you want to take her to the island?” I wanted to hear his story, but at the same time, the same thought kept hammering away at my mind.

  I would have to feed Amias Sato.

  “Lewis Bennett would not have kept his word otherwise. He would have taken back his wife, once I’d let you find her, and he would have had you blamed for taking her. He would have said you were responsible for her abduction. He would have made sure you were sent away, Trinity, and I could not have that. If both Madalyn and Angus were on the island, he would have upheld the agreement. You would have refused to give him his wife until Angus was safely at your side. But things…” He sighed. “Things did not go as planned. Not completely.”

  Miriam’s porch light came on and she flung open her door. “Trinity? Why are you still here? Come inside, darling.”

  I shuddered at her voice, at her madness, and Amias stiffened, narrowing his eyes when he saw my fear.

  “I will kill her,” he promised.

  I shook my head. “She can’t be killed.”

  Miriam left the doorway and walked out, peering into the darkness where I stood. “Trinity?”

  Amias lifted an eyebrow. “I can bury her so deep inside the ground tha—” Then his eyes widened and his fangs elonga
ted. He spun, his hands bent into claws, and crouched, hissing.

  “Amias, what—”

  He grabbed me, then jerked open the car door so hard he nearly ripped it off its hinges. Even before I could open my mouth, he’d slung me into my seat.

  “She smells of the demon,” he said. “I will find him.” One second he was standing in front of me, and the next, he was simply…gone.

  I didn’t question it. I started the car, then got the hell out of there. I’d return when I had backup. Clayton was there somewhere.

  If Amias, master vampire, was frightened of Miriam and the demon, then I should have been downright terrified.

  She’d delayed me having to feed Amias, and that was lucky.

  On the other hand, if Amias hadn’t started that chain of events, I wouldn’t have been permitted to see Angus, I wouldn’t have been on the island the night Jamie blew it up, and I wouldn’t have brought Angus home. So yeah, maybe I owed him.

  But I didn’t have to be in any hurry to pay up.

  I called Shane because I needed to check on him. And I needed to hear his voice.

  “You want some dinner?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, but not in here. Come pick me up.”

  “Did the doctor—”

  “I’ll be waiting out front.” He hung up.

  I called him right back, put the phone on speaker, and tossed it into the passenger seat. “Shane, you’re not leaving the hospital. You looked like death last night. Let them take care of you.”

  “You can take care of me, baby hunter.”

  But then I shrieked and slammed on my brakes, and the phone was flung into the floor. “Demon,” I yelled.

  “That’s a little dramatic,” Shane said, his voice muffled. “You won’t have to do much. Make me a sandwich or bring me a beer.”

  I leaned over and scooped the phone out of the floor. “I just saw the demon who put you in the hospital, and I know exactly where he’s headed.”

  And I knew exactly how I’d find Clayton.

  Shane remained calm. “Where, Trinity?”

  I hesitated, even as I slammed my foot down on the accelerator and sped back toward Miriam’s house. The demon had been a blur as he’d raced down the street, but there was no mistaking him for what he was.

  Maybe I’d imagined it, but as he’d passed me, heading in the opposite direction, I’d been certain that he’d slowed and met my shocked stare before he’d raced on.

  “Trinity.”

  “Shit,” I said. I was going to need backup, and I was sixty seconds from Miriam’s house. “Call Angus. I’m at Miriam’s. Tell him the demon is after the incubus inside Clayton. And tell him Clayton is alive.”

  He hung up almost before I was finished speaking. I slowed the car, turned off the headlights, and rolled quietly through Bay Town, my heart in my throat. Silverlight vibrated at my hip, and I knew she’d sensed him, felt him, and she wanted out.

  I stopped the car before I reached Miriam’s house, thankful that she had no close neighbors. Gently, I opened the door, then stepped out, wondering if it were even possible to sneak up on a demon.

  Somehow I doubted it.

  I kept my fingers on my sword’s angry, buzzing hilt. “Patience, Silverlight,” I whispered.

  I left the street and crept into the field that neighbored Miriam’s property, my teeth clenched, my heart in my throat. I was about to face not only the train wreck that was Miriam but the powerful demon. And I was alone.

  Silverlight seemed to vibrate a little harder, as though offended by my thoughts, and I squeezed her gently.

  No, I wasn’t alone.

  But if I drew her and she lit up the night, there’d be no help for it then. The enemy would see me long before I wanted to announce my presence. “Patience,” I whispered again.

  Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, his voice sharp and constant. The faraway sounds of the city barely intruded. The night was heavy and warm, but I thought I smelled the faint hint of autumn in the still air. Likely it was wishful thinking as sweat trickled between my breasts and my forearm began to itch beneath the hot, annoying cast.

  I wished I’d had time to dress a little more appropriately for a fight with a demon and a necromancer. I was a one-armed woman about to face a demon and a necromancer with a sword and a prayer.

  Scary thought.

  So I wouldn’t think about it.

  Silverlight vibrated so hard I nearly lost my grip on her, and regardless of being noticed, I had to release her.

  She said it was time, and I believed her.

  I pulled her from her sheath and she screamed to life, fierce and blindingly bright, slinging white lighting into the sky. And when she did, it began to rain. Not water, but cold fire.

  The demon stood before me, illuminated by her light, and I realized the battle to come would not be just between me and the demon—it would also be between the demon and the sword.

  He wanted her, and she did not want to be taken.

  I could only hope she’d chosen wisely when she’d chosen me.

  Otherwise, she was going back to hell.

  As much as Silverlight protected me, I now had to protect her.

  It was going to be a long fucking night.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The demon, wrapped in his naked hot man package, didn’t look like a monster. Not at first. But then his rage grew too strong for him to maintain that pretty exterior, and he became the thing raining fire down from the sky.

  He became the demon.

  So I became the bloodhunter.

  It wasn’t a thought, or an attempt, it was just a thing that happened.

  One second I was standing before him with a broken arm and a trembling body, and the next I was a freak filled with bloodlust.

  Silverlight poured her molten liquid silver up through my arm, my shoulder, my body, and I was not just her arm. I was her power.

  “That’s good,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly roar. “I’ll take you both.”

  I tapped my cast with Silverlight and it shattered, clinging to the padding and stocking like an eggshell to its membrane. I peeled it off and dropped it to the ground.

  “I thought you were after your incubus,” I said, marveling at my calm voice.

  “I am,” he answered. “And I will have him. I will have all of you.”

  I caught movement from my peripheral and wasn’t surprised to see Miriam slipping toward us. The sword’s light glinted off the silver in her hands, and I knew she held her switchblades.

  The demon’s eyes tracked her movements as she came to stand beside me.

  “You bring knives to a demon fight.” He was sneering and contemptuous, and he crossed his arms over his massive red chest. “Only Silverlight is a worthy opponent. I will stomp the two of you like fat baby chicks, and I will take back my sword.”

  Silverlight shook my arm, but not from fear. From eagerness. She wanted to taste him. And who was I to deny her anything?

  Perhaps I was a little too confident.

  I leapt at him, screaming, and Silverlight screamed with me. Her silver arc sliced through the air, reaching the demon long before her tip touched him.

  He hissed and dodged her blow, but she’d tasted him, and she wanted more. So did I. I embraced my fear, then converted it to rage, and I knew, I knew we could defeat him.

  We’d either defeat him, or he would disappear, perhaps blowing up another car with his tantrum. The demon seemed more hesitant with humans in the mix—but there wasn’t a single human in that field. Not really.

  He lifted a meaty hand and shot a blast of power so hot it singed my hair and reddened my flesh before Silverlight threw up a wall of silver to deflect it.

  I shook it off.

  My men came.

  I didn’t hear them arrive—I felt them arrive. They didn’t throw themselves in front of me but fought at my side, their rage and eagerness a match for my own.

  “One against four,” the demon roared. “
I like those odds.”

  I glanced around to see who was missing. Rhys, Amias, and Clayton weren’t there, but there were five of us fighting the demon. Angus, Shane, Miriam, Leo, and I stood against him in a determined line, but either he couldn’t count or he didn’t consider one of us the enemy.

  Then Clayton was there, standing dark and still in the middle of the field, alone but for the incubus inside him.

  Miriam pointed. “There,” she screamed. “Keep your promise.”

  “You first,” the demon murmured, and his voice slid through me like ice water, numbing my insides with a wicked portent of evil. I lifted Silverlight to the sky, suddenly aware of only one thing. I must kill the demon before—

  Then Angus roared as something hit me in the back, punching me so hard I was thrown nearly to the demon’s feet, and I jumped up, turning to look, realizing as I saw Miriam’s empty fists that I hadn’t been punched. She’d slammed her switchblades into my back. Our eyes met, mine slightly wide and confused, hers brimming with tears and regret. I’m sorry, she mouthed.

  I shook my head, trying to clear the fog. “You’ve killed me. You’ve killed me to keep him a slave.”

  Silverlight’s power was warm through my body as she sought to save me. I must continue the fight. I couldn’t lie down and die already.

  Hell no.

  My men raced toward me, pale, horrified blurs, but the demon swept them away almost casually, sending them tumbling through the air with a wave of heat.

  Shane could not withstand such abuse.

  He wasn’t like the others, and he was injured.

  Leo was the first on his feet, and he ran once more to join me. “He took us off guard,” he said, as though he had to explain to me why the demon had been able to scatter them so quickly. “It won’t happen again.”

  He lifted his hands, clenched his fists, and they began to glow.

  “No.” I tried to breathe through the pain, but my back was on fire, and I thought my lungs had collapsed. There was no air. Only pain. “Clayton will be hit.”

  Clayton was in line with the demon, directly behind him, and I’d seen what Leo’s power could do.