“Look, we’ve mastered moving together. The step is to learn how to amplify my strength. Besides, if we do this right, it’s not really my fist that hits the door, it’s the telekinetic force we generate together.”
“But if we do it wrong, your hand is a bag of bone fragments.”
Cade sighed. “Look, just watch.” He stared at the door, eyes narrowing as he focused his mind, his power. His fist pistoned out so fast a mortal wouldn’t have been able to see it at all. A thundering boom rolled over the yard. When she looked at the door, there was a large dent in its scarred metal surface.
“I didn’t even feel you hit it.”
“That’s because I didn’t.”
And in his mind, she saw that his fist had acted as the carrier for the wave of telekinetic force he’d sent shooting toward the target. “Now you need to pick up that force and amplify it, then shoot it back to me in the instant before I strike the door. Understand?”
“Maybe. Let’s try it.”
This time as he gathered his power, she tried to help build the energy. His fist flashed out, but the dent was no bigger than the first one.
“Timing’s off.”
“You hit it too fast. I didn’t have time to amplify it.”
“We have to do this fast, Val. Ridgemont is not going to be fighting me in slow motion.”
Over and over again, they practiced, pounding on the door until Cade’s body ached and sweat trailed itching paths down his ribs. The dents gradually grew deeper, but not deep enough.
“You’re holding back,” he told her. “You’ve got to give it everything you’ve got, or this isn’t gonna work.”
“I am not holding back!” Val snarled, barely even noticing the deep growl of Cade’s voice.
“Do you remember that damn dream, Val? Do you want it to come true? Put your back into it!”
Furious, she rammed her fist at the door, not knowing or caring that it was really Cade’s fist. He picked up her telekinetic energy and slammed it back at her, and she returned it like a tennis volley, all at the speed of thought.
There was an even louder boom and the shriek of tortured metal.
Stunned, Val stared at Cade’s arm. It was buried to the elbow in a ragged hole in the steel. “The door isn’t that deep. Where’s the rest of your arm?”
“I think it’s in the tree.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” a strange male voice yelled. “Do you know what time it is?”
Startled, they looked up to find an irate, potbellied man dressed in slippers and robe standing in the yard a few feet away. “It’s three o’clock in the goddamn morning,” the man snarled. “What the hell are you doing pounding on sheet metal with a ball peen hammer at three o’clock in the goddamn morn…” He broke off as his gaze fell on the thick door gleaming in the light of the full moon, Cade’s arm buried in it to the elbow.
He paled and began backing up. “Uh… Sorry to bother you. I think I’ll just go… ah… take a sleeping pill.”
They watched him hurry away. “Shouldn’t you hypnotize him or something?”
“By morning, he’ll have convinced himself he dreamed the whole thing. Besides, I seem to be stuck.”
* * *
With that skill mastered, they spent the next three nights drilling Val in the use of sword and shield. After they finished attacking imaginary opponents in the moonlight, Cade would take her out to stalk real drug dealers and thieves so she could perfect the use of her powers.
It was past midnight when they turned into the driveway after one such excursion. As Cade parked the car in the garage, Val’s cell rang in the purse between her feet. She dug it out, eyes widening as she recognized the number of Beth’s burner phone.
“Beth?”
“Val?” Her sister’s voice sounded watery and strained, as if she’d been crying.
The bottom dropped out of Val’s stomach. “What’s wrong?”
“He planted a GPS tracker on Carrie’s car!” her sister wailed.
“What? Baby, what do you…?”
Ridgemont’s voice came on the line. “Hello, darling. Let me talk to Cade.”
A wave of cold rolled up from her belly and across her face. “What have you done to her, you son of a bitch?”
“Nothing, yet. But that’s going to change if I don’t hear the gunslinger’s voice in the next --”
Cade gently dragged the phone out of her clutching hands and growled, “I’m here.”
“Having fun, McKinnon?” With Val’s enhanced hearing, she had no trouble making out Ridgemont’s voice.
“Until now. What are you doing to Val’s sister?”
“As I said, nothing so far. But I’m giving it a great deal of thought. You do know Valerie isn’t the only Chase sister who’s Kith?”
Oh, God. Beth is Kith? Val stared at the phone, staggered. And Ridgemont’s has her?
“Why?” she managed, her voice choked. “Why did he drag her into this? I thought the whole idea of turning me was to give you a fighting chance. If he Changes her…”
“I’ve no intention of doing any such thing… yet,” Ridgemont said, apparently having overheard her comment. “But it occurred to me that having had you, the gunslinger might decide not to put you at risk by fighting me. Now I’ve given you both a little incentive.”
“We were coming!” Val snarled. “You didn’t need to --”
“She’s really quite lovely. And so delightfully innocent. I’m not sure how long I can resist the temptation.” His tone hardened. “You’d be well advised to get on the next flight up here.”
Cade’s face set like stone. “We’ll be there.”
“Of course.” There was a smile in his voice. “That heroic streak makes you rather predictable, McKinnon. You really should do something about it.”
The screen flashed CALL ENDED.
“How did he find her?” Val cried, flinging the car door open and charging up the walk toward the house. “How the hell did he find her to plant a tracker on her car to begin with? We were using Snapchat, for God’s sake! We did everything we could to avoid leaving a trail!”
“He probably had her watched even before we sent her on the run. Knowing Ridgemont, he always planned to snatch her,” Cade said grimly, striding at her heels. “When she borrowed that car, his thug trailed her and planted the tracker at the first opportunity.”
“Motherfucker!” she hissed as he unlocked the garage door. She stormed past him into the kitchen.
“Yeah.” He followed, pulling out his own phone. “Go pack us a bag while I book the flight.”
Val raced for the stairs, taking them three at a time. She charged into their bedroom to snatch open the closet door, then grabbed her carry-on and tossed it on the bed. Hurriedly, she started packing, grabbing their clothes out of the bureau and stuffing it all in the bag.
Judging by her own experience, Ridgemont hadn’t had time to change Beth, but there’d been plenty of time for his other hobbies. She shuddered, remembering Ridgemont smiling down at her naked body after the mercenaries had abducted her. “I could easily persuade myself that abusing you for a while would drive Cade into a very satisfying display of rage.”
Oh, God.
* * *
When Cade stepped into the bedroom, she was crying stormily and stuffing clothes into a carry-on bag until it bulged so full, they’d never be able to zip it.
His heart twisting at the panic and rage radiating from her, Cade walked over and gently pried the pair of jeans from her hands. “That’s enough, darlin’. We only need one change of clothing as it is. Why don’t you sit down and let me finish this?”
She fell onto the bed and buried her face in her hands, her slim shoulders shaking. “God, Cade, I can’t fail her, too!”
He paused in the act of pulling a sweatshirt from the overstuffed bag. “You haven’t failed anybody, Val.”
“Yes, I did.” Her tone was so flat and defeated, he had to look deeper. She was remembering her mother
, naked and struggling beneath Hirsch’s muscled bulk as Ridgemont fed on her father.
Sighing, Cade sat down on the bed, slipping an arm around her shoulders. “Val, knowing what you do about us now, what could you have done? You were a lone twelve-year-old child against three vampires. And even at that, you still managed to save your sister.”
She lifted her head with a snap and glared at him from red, swollen eyes. “But I haven’t saved her this time, have I? We let the son of a bitch get her.”
“But he’s not going to keep her. We will get her away from him, I swear to you.”
“But what’s he done to her in the meantime, Cade? And what if we lose? He’ll kill us, but she’s not going to be that lucky. I don’t want her to have to endure the kind of hell you did for the next hundred years.” She took a deep, hitching breath. “Or until he kills her.”
Cade reached out and took her chin in his hand so her eyes met his. “Then I guess we just won’t lose. Will we?”
She stared back at him, and he let her read his determination and the desperation that mirrored her own. Her chin firmed. “No. We aren’t going to lose.”
* * *
Val huddled in the airplane seat next to Cade three hours later, one hand clasped in his, taking comfort in the sensation of his warm, long fingers. Despite her new nature, she found that terror affected her the way it always had, with roiling nausea. Her vampire senses didn’t help, assaulting her with a bewildering variety of smells: plastic, cologne, sweat, blood, jet fuel. She knew she would have lost it at least once if not for the waves of calm her lover broadcast at her.
Far back in her mind, a small voice kept gibbering, We’re not ready for this. I need more practice. What if I screw up? What if I trip Cade again and get him killed? And what about the dream? What if it comes true?
“You’re not going to get me killed,” Cade thought back. “Look, I’ve fought Ridgemont before --”
“And lost.”
“Because I didn’t have you. The bastard has been drilling me for decades, getting me ready for this day. I know how he thinks, I know how he fights. We can defeat him.”
“The problem with sharing minds,” she told him, “is it’s damn hard to give the other person a pep talk when she knows you’ve got the same doubts.”
“Yeah, well, we both need to push them aside. Doubt can kill us. We are going to do this. We are going to succeed. Concentrate on that.”
She clamped her hands around his. And struggled to suppress her fear.
* * *
As they flew toward New York, dawn was breaking. Val watched in dread as the sky lightened from black to deep indigo and realized she’d never see a sunrise the same way again.
She might never see a sunrise again, period.
At that thought, she put aside her dread of what the sun might do to her vampire body and concentrated on the slow bloom of light across the sky. Purple shaded into rose, lightened into pink, then intensified into salmon before blazing into hot, burning orange as a slice of the sun slid over the horizon. The light stabbed into her eyes so hard she winced in pain and had to turn away. Had it always been like that, she wondered, eyes watering, or was it her new senses that let her see the glory?
“Some of both,” Cade said in her mind. “Plus, when you’re getting ready for a fight, everything’s more intense, more real. I guess that’s why Ridgemont does this. He’s lived so damn long, just about the only time he really feels alive is when he knows he could die.”
She snorted a strangled laugh. “I guess it’s some comfort he’s got that much faith in our ability to kill him.”
As they landed, Val’s nerves coiled tighter and tighter. Yet when she touched Cade’s mind, she found only a cool steadiness. The only fear he felt was for her.
She saw a flash of something -- Ridgemont with a bullwhip in his hand, a memory of pain so intense it made her gasp. Twisting to look in a mirror and seeing Cade’s broad back slicked in blood, flesh torn in a dozen places. Sickened, she whispered, “Why?”
“Because he could.” There was hate in Cade’s eyes. “And I couldn’t stop him.”
“My sister is in the hands of that.”
“Not for long,” he growled.
* * *
“I guess we need to rent a car,” Val said to Cade, as they walked into the airport lobby.
“Yeah, I --”
“Hey, Cade!”
They turned to see a massively built man in a copy of Cade’s old chauffeur’s uniform. Val saw from his thoughts that his name was Bobby Mason, Ridgemont’s backup driver. “Boss sent me to pick you up,” he said.
Cade looked at Val and shrugged.
“Is it really safe?”
“Yeah,” he told her. “Ridgemont wants a straight-up fight. For once, he isn’t going to play games.” His eyes flickered. “Not with me, anyway.”
They both knew Beth might not have been so lucky. Val’s stomach gave another violent wrench, and she took a deep breath to calm it.
“What the hell’s going on, Cade?” Mason asked after relieving Val of her carry-on. “Hirsch has disappeared, and the boss won’t say where he went. Not that I miss the sonofabitch. And the boss has this girl locked up --”
“Has he hurt her?” Val demanded.
The big chauffeur froze, his mouth open. She saw a pinwheel of memories in his mind -- Beth, pale and frightened as Mason escorted her to her room, Ridgemont grinning…
“Let him go, Val. You’re using too much force.”
She started at Cade’s mental command, and Mason jolted, staring down at her with a sick, glassy look in his eyes. She caught a ghost of a thought, just as she’d plucked his name from his mind: I’ve got to quit this job…
She felt a sudden wave of shame. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” the big man mumbled. The thought, Another fucking vampire, zipped through his mind and was immediately stifled. His eyes snapped guiltily to hers, and he flinched.
She could see it all in his memory. Having worked for Ridgemont for two years, he’d been backhanded frequently for a careless thought. His jaw had been broken twice and his skull fractured by those offhand slaps, but he’d discovered he just couldn’t duck fast enough. Yet whenever he opened his mouth to quit, Ridgemont would look at him and freeze the words on his tongue. He’d thought about just slipping away, but every time he’d tried to go, he’d turned around and come back.
“Ridgemont’s got him under a compulsion,” Val thought.
“Yeah. And it’s time I do something about that.” Cade dropped his bag on the floor, then stooped to reach inside it. Pulling out a couple of stacks of cash -- and ignoring the startled stares of passerby -- he handed them to Mason. “There’s your pay, plus enough to keep you and your family while you find another job.”
Mason shot him an agonized look. “I can’t.”
Cade started to reach into his mind, but Val stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Let me.” At his lifted brow, she shrugged. “I think I owe him.”
He nodded. Biting her lip, she looked into Mason’ desperate blue eyes and searched for the alien command that held him. She found it easily enough, only to realize she didn’t know what to do with it.
“Smooth it away,” Cade told her.
Nodding, she concentrated, gently erasing the compulsion, working hard to press it out of his thoughts without hurting the mind beneath. Until finally it was gone. Val took a deep breath in relief. “You’re free.”
A broad grin spread across his face as he realized it was true. “God, lady, thank you!” Mason fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a big ring of keys, and slapped them into Cade’s hand. “Here’s the keys to Ridgemont’s cars. Tell him he can kiss my ass.” He hesitated, looking Cade in the eye. “You’re the only one of them that ain’t a fuckin’ monster.”
Cade nodded. “Just so you know, Hirsch is dead. And I’m going to kill Ridgemont.”
The big man whistled softly. “You sure that’s
a good idea?” An image flashed through his mind -- Cade on his knees, blood pouring from his mouth and nose, right arm broken and cradled against his side.
Cade looked at Val. “I’ve got a secret weapon.”
Mason glanced at her skeptically, then smoothed his expression into an easy smile. “Sure.” He hesitated, guilt shooting through him. Val could see he hated letting Cade go against Ridgemont with nothing but a woman for backup. “I wish I could help you, buddy.”
“Yeah, well, we both know why you can’t. Go get yourself a new life, Bobby. And in case I screw up, do it far, far away from here.”
The big man stuffed the cash in his pockets and thought of his wife and three-year-old son. He turned and walked away through the crowd with a stride just short of a run.
Val watched him go. “It’s a scary power we’ve got, Cade.”
“Yeah. I’d have freed him long before now, but I knew Ridgemont wouldn’t have allowed it.”
She thought of Beth, and fear slid through her veins like a river of ice. “If that’s the way that bastard treats his own help, what’s he been doing to my sister?”
“I don’t know, but we’d better get over there and find out.”
Chapter Twenty
The drive to the mansion took more than an hour through the New York traffic. Luckily, the limo’s polarized windows kept out the worst of the light, or Val knew they’d have been fried by time they arrived.
As it was, she had entirely too much time to brood. It was all she could do to keep her mind off the image of Cade bleeding and broken she’d seen in all too many memories -- his, Abigail’s, even Mason’s.
Cade himself said nothing, though when she tried to touch his mind, she saw he was busy planning, remembering past fights, and trying to work out strategies to counter the ancient’s favorite moves.
Without him to distract her, Val felt her fear intensifying. She rolled her shoulders, trying to fight it off. This was necessary. They had to confront Ridgemont if they were going to save Beth. Yet in the back of her mind, a small voice hissed, Evil. Run.
Damn it, no. She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. She was not a coward. She would not leave her sister at that monster’s mercy. He had to be stopped, for everybody’s sake.
Forever Kisses Volume 1 Page 27
