by Lara Adrian
“The boy is with your friend now?”
“Yes. He and I live in my family’s old house behind the diner, but Carla brings him to her place after school on weekdays so I can work. She’s his first-grade teacher. I was on my way to pick him up when this happened,” she said, gesturing toward the steep ravine.
Knox’s sigh rolled between his lips, the steam of his breath drifting on the cold night breeze.
He couldn’t leave Leni standing at the bottom of a thorny incline in the snow—no matter how much he wanted to assure himself it was the best thing for both of them if he did.
He watched her reach into her jacket pocket to pull out her phone.
“There’s no need to call your friend.”
“What are you talking about? I have to—” Leni’s argument cut off on a gasp when Knox scooped her into his arms. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Taking you out of this storm,” he said. “Then I’m going to get your truck out of the ravine so we can go pick up the kid.”
CHAPTER 5
When Knox said he was going to get the Bronco out of the ravine, Leni didn’t realize he meant he was going to do it with his bare hands.
After carrying her up to the road via some kind of Superman move, it shouldn’t have surprised her to realize the Breed male also possessed immense, inhuman strength.
It probably shouldn’t have turned her on, either, but it was impossible to not be impressed and more than a little awed by him. Knox had treated her so gently, yet those same strong hands and muscled arms were capable of moving in excess of a couple tons of metal and machinery as if he’d been pushing a kid’s toy.
Uphill.
In the middle of a punishing blizzard.
He’d done it all without her asking, and without seeming to expect a thing in return.
At least, so far.
Leni couldn’t keep her gaze from straying to him where he sat grimly behind the wheel, navigating the drift-filled track of road. He had insisted on accompanying her to pick up Riley, even though she’d argued that Carla’s house was less than a dozen miles from where she’d gone off the road.
“You really don’t need to do this, you know. The Bronco’s had better nights, but I’m perfectly capable of driving myself.”
He didn’t answer, just kept steering the truck through the snow and darkness, heading in the direction she’d said she needed to go. She got the sense he wasn’t exactly thrilled to be chauffeuring her through the storm, but he hadn’t been willing to leave her on the side of the road, either.
She would have been fine on her own. The accident had looked worse than it was and she’d walked away without a scratch, thanks to the shield of her secret ability. Not even the jagged branches that tore part of her flannel shirt open as she’d stumbled out of the vehicle had left a mark on her body.
Knox hadn’t been overly talkative in the diner. Now, there was a gruffness about him—a stony detachment—that she couldn’t ignore. It had set in almost immediately after he’d helped her away from the crash. As if his mind was somewhere else, his thoughts a thousand miles away from Parrish Falls.
Leni wondered if it had something to do with the name he’d shouted as he’d leapt into the ravine.
Abbie.
Was that the name of his Breedmate? He didn’t seem settled enough to share an entire night with someone, let alone an eternal blood bond. In fact, settled was just about the last word Leni would use to describe him. Solitary. Restless. Unreadable. Remote.
But as she studied his stoic profile in the dim illumination of the dashboard, she mentally added another word to the list. Empty.
Because of Abbie, whoever she was?
Leni didn’t think it was her place to ask. Nor did she expect he would tell her, even if she did bring it up.
His eyes were laser-trained on the slippery road ahead. His mouth a stern line above a square jaw that seemed to have been carved from granite. Normally, she was fine with a little silence, but there wasn’t much that was normal about tonight.
“You know, if anyone had told me one night I’d be on the receiving end of a vehicular rescue by a Breed vampire in the middle of a Nor’easter, I would’ve told them they were crazy. Do you always go around saving damsels in distress?”
He swung a hard glance at her, something grim and dark in his eyes. “Never.”
“Just my lucky night, huh?”
He grunted, about as chatty as a Terminator. She didn’t miss his scowl in the second before he turned his gaze back to the road.
“You still haven’t told me how you were able to find me back there. After you left the diner, I thought you’d be long gone from Parrish Falls.”
“So did I. I had to make a stop on my way out. To feed.”
Leni stared at him. “You mean you needed blood. From a living, breathing human.”
He gave a nod, and the image of his mouth locked on to someone’s neck while he drank flooded her mind in an instant.
Not just anyone’s neck. Hers. Although why she should imagine that, and why she should feel the mere idea of it like a current shot into her own veins, she didn’t want to know.
Leni swallowed past the unnerving sensation, but only barely.
“Awfully quiet over there all of a sudden.” He sounded vaguely amused as he glanced over at her. “I thought you didn’t scare easily.”
“I’m not scared.” It was nothing close to that. Fear she could understand. Fear would be perfectly reasonable, given that she was alone with a strange and dangerous man on a dark, empty road. A man who had just reminded her in unmistakable terms that he was one of the most lethal predators in existence.
Instead, what she felt was an unfurling curiosity. Not only about Knox as a Breed male—the first one she’d ever met—but about the man he was as well.
“So, did you . . . um, feed?”
“Yes.”
“From who? There aren’t any houses between the diner and where I went into the ravine, and there definitely couldn’t have been anyone walking around outside. Which only leaves Milo Cobb at the gas station.”
“Skinny guy with questionable hair choices and a prescription drug habit?”
“That’s him.” Leni pivoted in her seat. “You could tell he’s an addict?”
“Among other things.”
“What do you mean, other things? How do you know?”
“Everyone wears their sins on their heart. Including Milo.”
“Such as?”
“He’s been stealing from his grandmother for years. First, it was the pain pills she needed following her cancer surgery. Now, it’s cash and her social security checks.”
Leni swore softly. “He lives with her. Sarah Cobb is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. She’s been taking care of Milo since he was a baby.”
Knox’s dispassionate shrug said he was merely reporting the facts.
“And you know all of this just by drinking his blood?”
“No. I’m not a blood reader. That’s not my ability. When I touch someone, I see their sins. I’m not talking about the small things. I mean the ones that scorch a soul. I feel all of their deepest shames that never go away.”
God, it sounded like a terrible gift to have. What kind of burden must it be for Knox to have spent his entire existence saddled with that kind of knowledge? Or to be aware that every touch could open a door onto hideous truths he had no choice but to see?
“I think if I had that ability, I’d never want to touch anyone.”
He didn’t answer. And in his silence, she couldn’t help recalling that back in the diner, he had touched her too. She could still feel the hum of electricity their brief contact had spurred inside her.
“We shook hands earlier tonight. Did you feel all of my sins too?”
She was almost afraid to ask. Especially when she was hiding the fact that she, too, had an unusual, unique gift. Aside from that secret and the fact that she’d been born a Breedmate,
Leni had to believe she’d committed hundreds of small sins in her twenty-seven years.
Including more than a few impure thoughts tonight alone when it came to Knox.
He swiveled his head toward her, studying her for a long moment. “When I touched your hand, all I felt was you.”
While she was relieved, he sounded anything but happy. In the semidarkness of the vehicle, his icy blue-gray eyes smoldered with banked embers. On a curse, he yanked his attention back to the road. He drove in silence again, a tendon pulsing beneath the dark whiskers that shadowed his cheeks.
His grip was bare on the steering wheel, his gloves folded on top of the dashboard. The dermaglyphs on the backs of his strong hands had first caught Leni’s eye in the diner. Now they drew her gaze again. She knew the changeable Breed skin markings functioned as emotional barometers. At the moment, Knox’s glyphs were filling with traces of dark colors, making the interlocking swirls and flourishes appear to come alive.
As cool and in control as he seemed there was an undercurrent of violence to him, even in his stillness. Like a viper waiting to strike.
He was the most dangerous thing to blow through Parrish Falls in all her recollection, and yet tonight he’d proven to be her biggest ally. Even if he seemed less than overjoyed about that with every passing minute.
She thought back to his conversation with Sheriff Barstow, all of his cagey non-answers about where he’d come from and where he was heading. No doubt, a man like Knox didn’t have to explain himself to anyone. But still, she wondered.
She glanced at his nearly pristine black parka and his big boots, also new-looking, which seemed more suited for a hiking trail than a hundred-mile trek into the harsh back country.
“What are you doing this far north, Knox? It’s obvious you’re not from anywhere around here.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah, it is.” She pivoted on the seat to face him. “So, where’d you come from?”
“Medway, over at the Interstate.”
“I mean before that.” On a short exhalation, she tilted her head in challenge. “You don’t sound like you’re from Maine or anywhere else in New England. You don’t look like it, either.”
“That so.” At first, she thought it was all the reply he was going to give her. For a long while he said nothing, his silence unreadable as he steered the truck past a drifted section of the narrowed two-lane. “I’ve been on the road for the past five months.”
“That’s a long time.”
He shrugged dismissively, still staring at the road ahead of them. “I prefer to keep moving.”
Looking at him, she found it hard to picture him idling anywhere for long. His big body radiated a restless, almost volatile, energy. Like a force of nature, something wild and unstoppable. Something untamed.
The exact opposite of her.
She had always been the steady one in the midst of turbulence and trouble, the one who took care of others first.
The one who stayed.
She studied Knox’s stoic profile in the darkness. “I’ve never been anywhere else but here. I can’t imagine being away from my home for so long.”
It was impossible to say that without thinking about her sister. She’d been gone nearly five-and-a-half years now. Long enough for everyone in town to have written her off for good. But not Leni. She couldn’t bear to think Shannon could truly be gone.
And so she stayed.
Even when in her heart she knew the only way to truly shield Riley from his violent father and the rest of the Parrish clan was to take him as far away from Parrish Falls as she could.
But where would she go?
How would Shannon ever find them if Leni and Riley didn’t wait for her?
She would stay as long as it took for her sister to come home. And until that time, she would do whatever she had to in order to keep her sister’s child safe. Even if she had to take on Travis Parrish, his family, and the whole damn town.
With her thoughts turning too dark, Leni swallowed past them. “So, where is your home, Knox?”
“Wherever my boots take me.”
He said it matter-of-factly, no emotion at all. Yet his eyes said something different. Haunted, focused on some nebulous point in the distance. And now, she wondered. Was all of his relentless forward motion merely a habit to keep moving as he’d claimed, or a reluctance to reflect on what lay behind him?
Just when she was tempted to ask, his deep voice broke the quiet.
“The longest I’ve ever stayed anywhere by choice was Florida.”
She gaped at him. “The Sunshine State? That’s a risky choice for a member of the Breed, especially one with the kind of dermaglyphs you have. You’re Gen One, aren’t you?”
He swiveled a narrow stare at her. “I didn’t expect you to know so much about my kind.”
She shrugged. “Just because you’re possibly the first Breed male to come through Parrish Falls in recent memory doesn’t mean we’ve never heard of the internet or national news.”
He chuckled. It was a rusty sound, but she liked it. She liked the way his lips quirked with the hint of a smile as he resumed his focus on the drive.
Leni had her own reasons for taking an interest in his kind, but Knox didn’t need to know anything about the Breedmate mark she’d been born with. Her mother had cautioned her all her life to keep that part of her a secret from the outside world.
Apart from her mom and her best friend, Carla Hansen, Leni’s grandmother and sister were the only other people who knew that her father had been something other than human. Not Breed, but another kind of immortal. Leni never knew him. She had grown up knowing she was different, knowing she belonged to two worlds, yet feeling somehow separated from either one.
Knox was the closest she had ever come to glimpsing that other side.
In the diner she had placed him close to her age, despite the jaded, world-weary air about him. If he was first-generation Breed, he easily could have been born centuries ago.
“Are you really old, Knox?”
He exhaled a wry noise. “You sure like to talk. You ask a lot of questions too.”
“Sorry.” She shook her head and leaned back in the passenger seat. “You don’t have to answer. I’m just . . . curious.”
“I’m not as old as most Gen Ones,” he said after a moment. “I was born a Hunter.”
Leni swallowed. She knew the awful term—and the basics of what it implied. “You were part of that secret genetics program?”
He scoffed under his breath. “Genetics program. Is that what they call it on the news and internet? Dragos’s labs were a prison. My Hunter brothers and I were enslaved to the program.”
“I’m sorry, Knox.”
He lifted his shoulder. “No reason to be.”
But she was. Leni knew only the cursory details, but it was enough to send a chill into her veins. Young Breed boys created and raised in a laboratory, deprived of caring or contact, punished for any show of emotion. Shackled into obedience by collars containing concentrated ultraviolet light, which could be detonated on their master’s whim or command.
The Hunters were bred to be the strongest, most merciless Breed soldiers in existence. Trained killers. A madman’s personal army.
Brutal, highly skilled assassins.
No wonder Knox hadn’t flinched with Dwight in the diner tonight. No wonder he seemed to generate a cold, unmistakable menace simply by being in the room. She could only imagine what a man like Knox could do to anyone who truly crossed him.
He was more than dangerous.
He was death.
Why the idea didn’t send a jolt of terror through her, she didn’t want to know.
Nor did she want to admit all of the hundreds of questions that were now swirling in her mind. Things she had no right considering and couldn’t ask.
Terrible, selfish wishes she didn’t dare speak out loud.
Pulling her gaze away from Knox, she stared out the window into the endless
night that surrounded her. She had never been afraid to face the dark on her own before.
She told herself she wasn’t now, either.
No matter what the haunted reflection staring back at her seemed to say.
CHAPTER 6
If he’d been looking for a way to silence her probing questions and curiosity, Knox figured he’d found it. Leni clammed up tight after he told her he was a Hunter.
She’d hardly blinked in the diner when she realized he was Breed, but the newsflash that he had been born one of the most feared and reviled members of his race had caused an almost palpable shift in the air between them. Then again, there were few people—human or Breed—who would relish the idea of sitting beside one of Dragos’s notorious Hunters.
And Knox had been one of the best, most prolific, assassins deployed by his Master’s command.
That part of his life was ancient history now. Not so ancient that he didn’t feel a strong urge to deliver some payback on Dwight Parrish for sending Leni and her vehicle off the road.
The fact that she’d come out of it miraculously unscathed was about the only thing keeping the murderous side of him in check.
Barely.
Knox glanced at her. She stared out the passenger window, looking vulnerable and alone for the first time since he’d met her. No question, she knew how to take care of herself. He’d seen that in the diner. She was obviously smart and capable, with the spine and stubbornness to match.
But none of that had kept her out of the ravine tonight.
What would happen once Dwight Parrish’s brother came home from prison? A man willing to assault her sister probably wouldn’t hesitate to hurt Leni if things took a bad turn between them.
Fuck. Knox didn’t even want to think about it. His hands tightened on the steering wheel, rage simmering in his veins.
Not good. Leni and her problems had nothing to do with him. He meant it when he told her he wasn’t in the habit of rescuing damsels in distress. Hell, far from it.
Abbie was proof enough of that. He hadn’t been there in time to save her. Memories of that night were never far from his thoughts. The tropical storm, the awful road conditions . . . the eighteen-wheeler that lost control and plowed into her vehicle.
