Shadow Realms

by Kelly Carrero

  “I didn’t bite her,” I said. “Licked her, maybe. But I didn’t bite.” The woman in the alley before I ran into them, yeah. But not the offering.

  He scoffed. “You think that’s any better?”

  “No. But—” All words escaped me as the shiny blade of a knife stopped inches from my face. Max’s hand had moved so fast I barely registered what he’d done, proving how out of my league I’d gotten myself.

  I jumped back, my gaze flicking between the knife and the stairwell as I tried to assess if I had the speed to get myself out of this nightmare.

  Who was I kidding? I didn’t stand a chance, and he knew it.

  With his gaze locked on mine, Max spun the blade in his hand, stopping it when it was facing down, then rested the tip on his forearm. “You drank her blood. I don’t know how you got out of quarantine without showing any signs of the turn, but you and I both know you can’t hide your craving for long.”

  He sliced the blade across his skin, blood spilling from the wound, making my heart hammer against my chest. I wasn’t sure if he was right and I did crave blood or if I was afraid of what he planned to do next. Either way, I was having a hard time keeping my shit together.

  A smirk spread across his face. “It’s getting to you, isn’t it?”

  I swallowed hard. “The blood, no. But the psychotic freak cutting himself is kinda scaring the crap out of me. And you think I’m the one everyone needs to be worried about?”

  A spark lit up his eyes as I licked my lips, and he tilted his head to the side as he studied me. “Oh, I think we may have hit a nerve.” He stepped closer to me.

  I mimicked his steps, moving back.

  Max held his arm to the side, blood dripping onto the track. “You can’t fight it for long. We both know how much you want a taste.”

  “I don’t know what drugs you’re on, but you need to get that seen to.” With shaky hands, I gestured to his arm.

  Max shoved the knife toward me, stopping millimeters from my lips. “You know you want to.”

  The smell of blood assaulted my senses, lighting a fire burning deep inside of me. My body trembled with a mixture of fear and something else that scared the hell out of me.

  Maybe Max was right. Maybe what I’d done had turned me into a blood junkie, because there was no denying the pull I felt for his blood. But it wasn’t in the way I’d thought vampires desired blood. This was different. This was—

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Finn’s voice boomed through the air.

  23

  Max’s gaze remained on mine for a split second longer. Then his blade magically disappeared into the handle, and he slipped it into his pocket. “Nothing.”

  Finn shoved Max in the shoulder, pushing him a few yards away from me. “You need to get your shit together and apologize to Kali because she is not your fight. She is not a vampire, and she deserves the same respect you give to any other human.” Finn’s fiery gaze locked onto Max’s. “You owe me this.”

  Max wiped his arm against his shorts. For a moment, I forgot he’d tried to tempt me into sucking his blood. The wound had already begun to heal. But the second he opened his mouth, I was brought back to the present. “I owe you, but I’m not apologizing for trying to protect our people,” Max said with conviction.

  “She is one of our people,” Finn said, barely contained rage coursing through his voice. “Kali is my sister, and I’d gut you where you stood if you so much as touched a hair on her body.”

  Max looked away. “I wasn’t going to touch her. All I was doing was trying to tempt her.”

  “By holding a freaking knife to her throat?”

  “It wasn’t to my throat,” I said, not sure why I was defending Max. “He was trying to draw out whatever bloodlust he thinks I’ve got buried under my skin so he can prove to everyone that I’m nothing but a demon trying to infiltrate your ranks.”

  Finn glared at Max. “Kali didn’t take from the offering. She did not complete the turn.”

  “Max saw me,” I whispered. “He knows what I did.”

  The color drained from Finn’s skin as the words left my mouth.

  “I haven’t told anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Max spat. “But you’re going to have to forgive me if I find it a little hard to understand how she can remain human after what she did.”

  Finn ran his hand through his hair and gripped the back of his neck with both hands. “We think we may have gotten the shot in her before the blood had a chance to take over.”

  “Whose we?” Max asked.

  “Kade and I,” Finn replied. “No one else knows, and that’s how it must remain. You got that?”

  Max stared at him for a few moments and nodded. “They won’t hear it from me unless absolutely necessary.”

  “Good.” Finn dropped his hands to his sides. “But that doesn’t mean I’m able to forget what I saw today.”

  “I know.” Max glanced at me before heading toward the exit.

  Relief slowly seeped into my skin with every step he took, distancing himself from me. My body ached, and all I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and rock myself to sleep for the next week.

  Finn placed his hands on my shoulders and leaned down until his eyes were level with mine. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “A little shaken but unharmed.”

  “Good.” He ruffled my hair as he stood up straight. “Wait here for me. I have news to tell you about the scout.” Finn didn’t wait for me to respond before turning his back to me and catching up to Max as he entered the stairwell, leaving me alone with all my effed-up emotions.

  I tilted my head back, letting the sun’s warm rays seep into my skin, washing away the pent-up fear from my soul. As much as I hated Max, I still couldn’t blame him for not trusting me.

  I wouldn’t if I had been mauled by a pack of hungry fledglings.

  There was no getting past that.

  Plus, there was the whole me hearing demons thing I had going on. After what happened today, I knew more than ever that I had to seriously keep that one to myself. These people may have appeared to want to be my friends, but that didn’t mean they were.

  Sighing, I made my way over to the brick wall, which came up to my stomach, and looked down at the gardens below. I couldn’t help but wonder what it must feel like to be able to jump and not need to be scraped off the pavement below.

  Vampires had a huge advantage over us mere mortals, and I knew I needed to pull something out of my sleeve if I were to stand a chance at helping them find Mason.

  “You’re not thinking about jumping, are you?” Kade’s smooth voice swept over my senses.

  I spun around to face him, letting my gaze drift over what would never be mine. I really needed to stop thinking of him in that way. Guess old habits were hard to break.

  “Well?” he prodded, as his gaze swept over me, inspecting my body for any sign of injury sustained from Max.

  “Guess you’ve heard what happened here,” I said. “And no. I have no plans on jumping.” I twisted back to look over the edge. “Just out of curiosity, would you die if you jumped off here?”

  He placed his hands on the brick wall and leaned over a few inches before pulling back. “Nope. But that tree right there might leave me with a puncture wound or two. So, it would probably be better if I jumped from there.” He pointed a few yards to our right.

  I laughed. “I hadn’t meant literally from this exact spot. But good to know.”

  Leaning my ass against the wall, I studied him, wondering what had brought him onto the team. Surely, a guy like him wouldn’t want to give up everyone he knew to become a hunter. Max, I could understand. But Kade…

  Then again, Finn was here. Yeah, sure they had saved him from the prospect bin, but he had family who counted on him and he’d still walked away.

  Freaking bastard.

  Kade folded his arms across the top of the wall, his gaze staring off into nowhere. “The surveillance team has a few le
ads.”

  “And?” I asked, a mixture of hope and heaviness settling over my heart. I wanted him to tell me they’d found Mason, but it was highly unlikely.

  “A few spots look promising.”

  My heart jumped into my throat. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  “You, nothing,” he replied. “But we hunters need to narrow down the possibilities so as not to alert the others by our mistake, dragging Mason further into their little rabbit holes. So, we wait, let the tech team do their job so we can do ours.”

  The way these people moved was infuriating. If I had their abilities, I would storm every single location, killing every vampire in sight until I found Mason.

  Closing my eyes, I breathed out harshly, trying to contain my anger. After what the demons had said, I was pretty sure we were running out of time sooner than everyone thought, and there was no way I could tell them what I knew without throwing myself into the shitstorm that was sure to follow.

  Getting my crap together, I opened my eyes. “Did they say where the most likely places are?”

  He nodded. “They did, but I shouldn’t be telling you.”

  I groaned, sick of being kept in the dark. Why was it Lana was the only one who had no problem telling me things? And she was the legacy. “I’m guessing that was Finn’s order?”

  “You guessed right.”

  I took a couple of steps back, feigning my retreat. “Well, I’ll go ask Lana then.”

  “Wait,” he said, foreboding regret evident in his baby blues. “I’ll tell you. Just pretended I didn’t where Finn is concerned.”

  A smile broke out across my face. “Got it.” I made my way over to the wall and leaned my hip against it, facing him.

  The areas that look to be the most promising are one out at the meatworks, another at the shed, and then the one at the aviary.”

  24

  My heart stopped, and it took everything I had to control my reaction. I needed them to know what I knew, but I would be dead if they found out the truth. Only vampires and fledglings could hear the demons, which meant I was some seriously screwed-up hybrid, and I had no idea what would become of me.

  I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly going dry. “And out of the three?”

  His face slumped. “It’s a tie.”

  “Don’t suppose I could help try to figure it out.”

  Kade chuckled. “I know you want to help, but these guys are experts. You… Frankly, you have no idea what you’re doing in this world. And don’t take that the wrong way. We’ve all been where you are now. It takes time to learn how these demons and vampires work. There’s an underground network of demons that you can’t even fathom. What you see on the surface is barely the tip of the iceberg.”

  I bit my cheek until the metallic taste of blood seeped over my tongue. What type of person did that make me for putting my own life over my little brother’s? I felt sick thinking about it. Mason didn’t deserve to be where he was, and I had the knowledge to save him. “How long will it take to figure it out.”

  He shrugged. “It could take a few hours, or it might take weeks.”

  My eyes practically popped out of their sockets. “Weeks? We don’t have weeks. We need to find him now, starting at the last place on the list because you know it’s always the last place you look.” My rationality might have seemed stupid at best, but that was indeed the place we needed to go.

  Kade curled his hands over my shoulders and dipped his head until his eyes were in line with mine. “We will find him. I promise. But we need to trust in the system. It hasn’t failed us yet.”

  “Yet,” I repeated, stepping out from his grasp as Finn strode toward us. “What if you’re wrong? What if they know we know? What if they’re moving up the timeline because of the genetic code that both Mason and Finn have?”

  “You told her?” Finn said, shaking his head. “Of course, you told her.”

  “She has a right to know. And she was going to run off to Lana, asking about Mason if I didn’t give her something.”

  “She is right here.” I glared at Finn, my hands balled into fists as I tried to contain my frustration. “And I’m absolutely sick to death of you deciding what information I have a right to. Mason is my brother, too, and you have no right keeping things from me.”

  His steely gaze met mine. “I have every right to keep things from you when you act on impulse without thinking anything through. Because I bet you any amount of money that you’re standing there, plotting a way to get out of here so you can track down Mason yourself. And I’m sorry if that makes me an ass, but I’ll happily play that role as long as I need to in order to keep you safe.”

  I breathed out harshly through my gritted teeth. “You are not my father, and you gave up the right to be the protective big brother the day you decided we weren’t important to you anymore.”

  Finn scoffed. “Jesus, Kali. Grow up. Dad may have turned to the bottle after Mom’s death, but you’re a real immature bitch if you think for a second that I wasn’t tormented every single day I was away from you and Mason. To see you both deal with that shit on your own while Dad drank his pension… Who do you think put the food on the table? Because it wasn’t him. I couldn’t even attend my own mother’s funeral!”

  Tears welled in my eyes as I thought about how fucked up our lives had become since that meth-head driver ripped her from our lives. Fighting back the tears, I said, “I know it must’ve been hard on you—”

  “Hell,” he interrupted. “It was hell.”

  “Okay, it was hell on you, but that still doesn’t give you the right to treat me like a little kid. I’m not saying I’m perfect, but you need to give me a chance if you want any type of semblance of a healthy relationship between us. And if what you’re saying is true, then I know you want me to stay in your life. Think about it. When you rescue Mason, what do you think he’s going to do?” Before he had a chance to respond, I continued, “He’s going to want to become a hunter like you. Hunting down vampires is the ultimate sport in his eyes, and we all know how competitive he is. And then what do you think is going to happen to me if you keep treating me this way? I’m going to walk on out of here, and you’ll never see me again. Poof,” I said, doing the little starburst hand movement. “There I go. Because so far, the only reason I have to stay is to find Mason, and that’s on you, not me.”

  His jaw clenched the same way it did when he was pissed off at me. Only, this time, turmoil swirled around in his brown eyes.

  I sighed. “I know I’m far from perfect, and I know I don’t have the best history of following the rules, but I’m really trying. So far, Lana is the only one who’s giving me a chance to prove myself. She believes I might be able to help you stop these demonic beings. Quite frankly, every single other person here thinks I should be killed.”

  “Hey,” Kade said, hurt by my accusation.

  “Okay, everyone except for you,” I conceded. “But you get my point.”

  “Kali…” Finn said, his face softening. “I can’t see you get hurt—”

  “But I’m hurting right now. Can’t you see it?” I pleaded with him to see sense. “I’ve been numbing myself with illicit drugs since her death so I stop feeling, because I couldn’t take it anymore. It hurt too much.” As much as I tried to contain my tears, one slipped down my cheek, practically piercing a hole through his heart. I could almost see the walls he’d built come crumbling down. And mine were right alongside his.

  Finn tugged my shoulder toward him and wrapped me in his embrace. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to lose you again.”

  “I know,” I said through flowing tears. “I don’t want to lose you or Mason either, but you have to let me be me—impulsive, risk-taking, and all.”

  “I know,” he whispered against the top of my head before pulling back to look at me. “It’s just going to take a bit of getting used to.”

  “Good.” I wiped my tears away and held out my hand. “You can start with giving me back my phone.”<
br />
  The look on Finn’s face almost made me laugh. “You are not calling your little friends.”

  “Ashley is not just my little friend. And I am not going to vanish into thin air when I could easily send her a message letting her know I’m going to be out of range for about a week so she won’t worry that I’m lying in a gutter after being drained by a bunch of vamps.”

  Finn raised a brow. “Then what are you going to do after a week, huh? Tell her some other excuse?”

  “Well, yeah, maybe,” I replied. “Anything is better than the worry that comes with not knowing, not hearing from someone you care about and the constant wonder if they’re dead or not. But I guess you don’t know what that feels like, so you’re going to have to trust me on that one.” As much as I wanted to have a relationship with Finn, the problem was I didn’t trust him. And by the look in his eyes, he knew it.

  “Fine.” He reached into his pocket, retrieved my phone, and placed it on my palm. “But don’t make me regret it.”

  I smiled, barely believing he’d actually handed me my phone. My contact with the outside world. “I promise I’ll be diligent and won’t do anything you’ll regret.” Because I sure as hell wouldn’t regret anything—except if it meant Mason’s life being at risk. Or maybe the vamps would go after Ashley instead purely by association.

  I sighed as the weight of my responsibility to those I cared about came crashing down on me. For all I knew, the vamps would be tapping my phone. It made sense.

  Staring at my phone, I tried to figure out what to say that would appease Ash’s fear. In the end, I went for something vague but with just the right amount of flavor to keep her thinking I was still me and not some walking corpse pretending to be human.

  When I was finished, I ignored the endless messages on various platforms, turned off my phone, and shoved it into the band of my tights. “So, Kade told me you have a few locations they’re watching?”