Provoked

by Rebecca Zanetti

  He groaned low, and then stars exploded behind his eyes. For once, he leapt into oblivion.

  Water shot at him, yanking him back to the present. Only one half of his face worked, only one eye could see. He turned his head from the powerful spray so he could breathe. How tempting to stop breathing.

  Coughing out water, he felt a rib break. The pain seemed slight compared to the rest.

  The water turned off.

  Suri rolled his eyes. “Leave him there. I have business and we’ll pick up here in an hour.”

  A broad face in the wall stuck out its tongue at the demon leader.

  Jase chortled.

  “I think he’s half-crazy,” one guard whispered to the other as they followed Suri.

  “You’re half-right,” Jase muttered and then laughed. The face in the rock laughed with him. “I guess we’ll just hang out here.” He laughed harder, tears running down his face as his ribs protested.

  His skin chilled and he fought a sneeze. Too much pain in a sneeze.

  The door slowly slid open.

  His head lolled as he tried to focus on the doorway. “Willa.” Man, she was pretty.

  The demon gathered her skirts and stepped through water and blood to get to him. A sharp blade glinted in her hand.

  Finally. Jase turned to face her fully—exposing his chest. If she hit his heart, he’d bleed out eventually. It’d be better if she took his head off, but she was probably too small. Then he took a deep breath, waiting.

  Her black eyes were wide, and her pale hand shook. Stretching up on her tiptoes, she slashed the knife through the ropes holding him upright.

  He crashed down.

  “Hold on,” she groaned, her arms encircling him as she helped him to the ground. She smelled like spiced oranges, and his stomach growled. They hit with a thump. She shook her head. “You got blood all over me.”

  “Sorry,” he slurred.

  She reached into her pocket for a large coffee mug. “Here’s a fresh dose.” Gently, she put the cup to his lips.

  The scent of fresh, female blood had his fangs shooting down. Opening his mouth, he drank deeply until the mug was emptied. For the past few days, every time he’d been alone, somebody had secretly delivered him fresh blood. Nourishment from a different female each time. Willa was paying a fortune to buy him blood. “Why are you helping me?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe I’m a nice person. Maybe I think you’ll help me get away from my psychotic brother.”

  Yeah, Suri was a freaking nut job. “I’ll help you.”

  Hope filled her porcelain face. “You’ll mate me?”

  His retina began to repair itself, and his ribs clicked back into alignment. “We don’t need to mate. I can save you.” The face in the wall snorted. Actually snorted.

  Willa sighed. “You can’t even save yourself.”

  The rock face nodded in agreement.

  “What do you know?” Jase growled at the rock.

  Willa stiffened and then glanced around the room. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Nobody. You need to go—if he catches you in here. . .” Jase ripped the rope bindings into small pieces so Suri wouldn’t know a knife had been used. Even so, Jase slipped the knife out of Willa’s pocket. He’d get free, and then he’d get her free.

  She nodded. “Okay. But we’re going to have to move soon—he’s sending me away in a week.”

  “We will.”

  As the demon slipped out of the room, Jase pocketed the knife. It was time—do or die.

  CHAPTER 24

  Amber shivered next to Kane as the helicopter slowly lowered toward the ground. Dawn was breaking over the mountains, sending spirals of pinks and golds across the morning sky.

  He slid an arm around her shoulder, tucking her closer. Warmth cascaded off him, and her body relaxed against her will.

  The man was a killer. A cold, merciless killer. Yet when he held her, she almost felt safe.

  Life used to be so black and white. Killing was bad, nurturing was good. But Kane was a good man. The spinning in her mind was making her dizzy. Her eyes felt like someone had shoved chalk in them. Dry and painful. She hacked out a dry cough.

  Kane tightened his hold. “We’ll get water and electrolytes in you the second we land. You need nourishment.” His cool palm pressed against her forehead. “You’re still warm. Damn fever.”

  Yeah, but she’d succeeded this time. Kind of. If one considered using their own mind, a gift from God, to harm people. Yeah, that’s who she had become. “What I did, it hurt that demon.” Not only did she know she hurt him, she’d felt the pain as if it were her own. She’d shared agony with a demon. Agony she created.

  Kane pressed a kiss to her head. “I know.”

  She shook her head. Now that she could think clearly and wasn’t trying to harm evil beings, her heart hurt for the injured people they’d found. “I don’t understand why you sent those poor people to the other hospital and not the good one.”

  He sighed. “All the hospitals are good. Chances are they wanted to know the location of the one hospital we keep secret so they could report back to the demons.”

  “That’s unfair. Those poor people were tortured by demons.” How could he not understand?

  Sadness and determination curled his lip. “I know, sweetheart. They were tortured and probably turned. We’ll get them medical as well as psychological help to deprogram them. Trust me.”

  The helicopter set down on the landing pad in the forest, and the vampires jumped out. Kane seemed to steel his shoulders before turning to hold out a hand.

  She accepted his help, leaping to the ground. He cushioned her fall and held her until she regained her balance. There was something so darn sweet about him, her mind spun. He’d been so cold in sending those prisoners away, but maybe he was right that they needed psychological help. And she’d just seen him kill. Yet, he’d killed to protect her. She wasn’t proud of the fluttering butterflies in her abdomen about that.

  As they neared the entrance to headquarters, Max stormed out, his gaze on her. “We have a problem—it’s your grandmother.”

  Amber stumbled. “What’s wrong?”

  Max glanced at Kane and then back at her. “Hilde’s gone.”

  Fear slammed so hard through Amber that her head began to ring. Her grandmother was gone? “How is that possible? How long has she been gone?”

  Kane propelled her into headquarters. “How many came for her?”

  “You were right. Full contingency of demons. We sent her for a walk in the woods with someone looking like Oscar, in case they’ve been watching via satellite the last couple of days.” Max marched along next to them toward the open elevator.

  All sound, all reality stopped.

  Kane nudged her into the elevator and pushed a button. “Thanks.”

  Max nodded, his hard face concerned as the door closed.

  Amber took several shallow breaths. “You were right?” Her voice rose at the end.

  “Yes.”

  She kept her gaze straight ahead to keep herself from screaming. Betrayal burned hotter than fear down her throat. “Please explain.”

  “Your grandmother approached Dage with a plan.”

  The doors opened. Amber moved into the familiar hallway as if she was half-awake. “A plan.”

  “Yes. She’s a demon destroyer, and if the demons got ahold of her, they’d probably head right to their headquarters.”

  “Where they’re probably holding Jase.”

  “Yes. We figured they’d lead us to him.”

  Rage shot nerves to life just under her skin. “What about my grandmother?”

  “She wanted to go.” Kane shoved open the door to the rec room.

  Hurt joined the anger. Why hadn’t Hilde confided in her? Amber slid her hand along the clean bar toward a set of pretty wineglasses. Her fingers wrapped around a stem. “So there was a plan in place.”

  “We figured the demons would strike while we were falling into
their trap. The plan was Hilde’s idea.” Admiration filled Kane’s low tone.

  “So you let my grandmother be kidnapped by the demons.” The very monsters that had almost broken Amber’s brain.

  “Yes.”

  She swung. No thought, no rationality, she just swung as hard as she could for his face. The wineglass impacted his cheekbone, shattering into pieces. Blood welled in a slight cut.

  He could’ve stopped her. A vampire’s reflexes had to be much quicker than a human’s. But he allowed her to make contact. To smash the glass into his skin.

  Slowly, one dark eyebrow rose. “Feel better?”

  No. If anything, she felt worse. She dropped the worthless wine-stem to the rug. “You would never sacrifice your family like this.”

  He blinked. “You’re wrong. I have and probably will again sacrifice my family for this war.”

  “You had no right,” she forced out, her lungs heating.

  “She offered, and we really didn’t have much of a choice.”

  Wait a minute. The air compressed in Amber’s solar plexus. “When you saw Jase wasn’t in the cell—when you told Talen to make the call. The call was to let the demons take my grandmother.”

  “Yes.” Kane didn’t blink as he met her gaze, his eyes sober. “I let them take your grandmother.”

  Hitting him again would solve nothing. Yet Amber’s hand clenched into a fist anyway. So much for being a pacifist. “I’ll never forgive you,” she whispered, the words actually hurting.

  “I know.” His expression didn’t change.

  Her smile felt raw. “You really are one cold bastard.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  Tears pricked her eyes. “How can you not feel anything ?”

  His eyes morphed from violet to black and back again in seconds. “I feel everything.” He took a step toward her.

  She took two steps back. “And yet, you did this.” Sleeping with him had been a mistake. Falling for him was an even bigger one, and one she’d have to live with. “There’s nothing else for us to say.”

  “I understand.” His mask firmly back in place, he turned and headed for the door. “Emma will be along shortly—she’s going to want to take blood.”

  Amber waited until he’d left the room before allowing the tears to fall.

  She dropped into a chair and let herself cry it out until her head hurt and her nose ached. But finally, she felt better.

  The king found her there an hour later. He moved silently, grabbing a blanket off the sofa to settle over her, his gaze serious, his movements gentle.

  “Thank you,” she said, sniffing.

  “Anytime.” He brushed the back of his hand over her forehead as he maneuvered to sit on a matching chair. “Your fever has abated.”

  “You mean gone down.”

  “Excuse me?” A dark eyebrow rose over a new black eye.

  Irritation huffed out with her breath. What a pretentious lot. They all thought they were so smart. “My fever. It went down. The fever did not abate, diminish, or any other zillion-dollar word. It went down.”

  The king smiled. “Okay.”

  She glared at him through puffy lids. He did not have to be so agreeable. “Stop being nice. I’m really mad at you.”

  “You should be.”

  “Stop agreeing with me.”

  “My apologies.”

  Okay. She was starting to hate this guy—and she was starting to feel foolish. “What you did was wrong.”

  “Probably.” He sighed, rubbing both hands over his face, wincing as his fingers met the shiner. “If someone had put my granny in danger, even if she volunteered, I’d probably break his neck.”

  Amber nodded slowly, studying the king. The decision had cost him. Dark circles lived under his eyes, while tension lines marred his smooth face. Even so, he was nearly as handsome as Kane with his silver eyes and rugged features.

  He leaned forward. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want your apology.” Sympathizing with the king wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Amber narrowed her eyes. “What happened to your face?” He hadn’t had the black eye after the battle with the demons.

  “Oscar hit me.”

  “For letting the demons take my grandmother.”

  “Yes.”

  Amber knew she liked the massive vampire. “Good for him.”

  Dage shrugged. “The guy hits like a truck. So, what can I do to make this up to you?”

  “I want you to get my grandmother back.”

  “We will. As soon as we know where they’ve taken her, we’ll get her.”

  “So, there’s a plan.”

  “We always have plans, sweetheart,” Dage said wearily. “Sometimes they actually work.”

  Now that didn’t inspire much confidence. “What’s the plan?”

  He studied her with those odd silver eyes before speaking. “Well, we think they’ll offer to exchange her with you. We’ll agree and go in and get her. Hopefully the demons will take her to headquarters where Jase is. They’ll want to test her skills on the best, and the best would be the demon leader.”

  Chills swept down Amber’s spine. “So you’ve allowed the demons to take my grandmother so they can rape her mind, and hopefully they’ll do so at headquarters so you can save your brother.”

  Dage stilled. “No. I mean, I don’t think they’ll hurt her. She’s actually a lot more powerful than she thought—I tested her the other day. Through the years she’s accumulated her mate’s psychic powers.”

  “What if the demons don’t call?” Amber muttered.

  “We placed a chip in her foot,” Dage said just as quietly.

  “Of course you did.” Amber took several deep breaths to keep from hitting the king. “Well, surely you’ve tracked her. Where is she?”

  “We only want to activate the chip as a last resort, just in case the demons do a sweep of her body. They won’t find the tracker if we haven’t activated it, so we won’t do so for a little while.” Apology twisted the king’s lips. “We need to up your training so you’re ready to go when we find the demon headquarters. Talen should be here soon to try his gifts against yours again.”

  “You think I’m going to help you?” Putting her grandmother in danger was unforgivable.

  “Yes. I know you’ll help get Hilde back.”

  Hilde had always charted her own path in life, and there was no doubt the woman had volunteered for the duty. If Amber wanted the right to fight demons, shouldn’t Hilde also make her own choices? Amber eyed the king. “I’ll help. Now you can promise no more water bottles, no more real leather, and everybody in the Realm turns vegan.”

  He chuckled. “Okay. No more water bottles or plastic bottles of any kind, and no more real leather. I can’t turn anyone into a vegan, sorry.”

  “Kane lied to me.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. Something about Dage inspired trust and confidence, and she didn’t have anybody to talk to.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you for not arguing that an omission is not a lie.”

  “Omission is one of those zillion-dollar words.” Dage grinned, suddenly looking years younger.

  “I’m no genius, but I know a couple of big words.” Amber wanted to grin back, but her face wouldn’t follow suit.

  “Kane’s not that smart.”

  “Really?” Amber shook her head. What a lie.

  “Really.” Dage sat back in his chair, his shoulders visibly relaxing. “Ninety percent of the time, he ends up blowing things into a billion pieces. The other ten percent, he’s lucky.” The king grinned again. “When we were young, he created a potion to make friends.”

  “Did the potion work?”

  Dage snorted. “No. He ended up giving food poisoning to a bunch of the village kids. My mother was beside herself.”

  Imagining Kane as a young brainiac desperate to make friends warmed Amber’s heart. What a cute little boy he must’ve been with his violet eyes and dark hair. “He still
lied to me.”

  “I know. He blames himself for our failing to rescue Jase—it’s blinded him a little bit.”

  “You blame yourself.”

  “I’m the king.” Dage shrugged. “The failure is my fault.”

  And Kane was the smartest guy on the planet, so he blamed himself. Empathy for both Kayrs brothers had Amber’s heart softening. She shifted her weight. “The Kayrs marking appeared on his palm.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Do you think the marking’s appearance means anything?” She held her breath until the king responded.

  “I think the appearance means everything.” His eyes darkened.

  “Kane doesn’t.”

  “Kane doesn’t know everything.” Dage leaned forward, his broad hands in his lap. “When we went to war the first time, our parents were killed, and we all were forced into roles for which we were unprepared.”

  Amber tilted her head to the side. “How so?”

  A rueful smile curved the king’s lips. “I became king, Talen started plotting strategy, Conn started training with the soldiers, and Jase had to grow up.”

  “And Kane?” Amber asked softly.

  “Kane had to balance all of us. He became my confidant, Talen’s reason, Conn’s conscience, and Jase’s protector. As the smartest and probably the most responsible, Kane took us all on.” Dage exhaled slowly. “I didn’t realize how very much he’d taken on until the demons kidnapped Jase.”

  “Kane blames himself.”

  Dage shook his head. “Jase’s disappearance isn’t Kane’s fault.”

  “It isn’t your fault, either.”

  Dage smiled, flashing twin dimples. “I have no doubt this is premature, but welcome to my family, Amber Freebird. You’re a very pleasant addition.”

  Warmth flushed through her. “I’m not joining your family.”

  “Ah, sweetheart. Fate has a way of kicking us where we need to go. At some point, Kane’s going to fall in line. Although he took on way too much through the years, he deserves something for himself.”

  That might be a bit presumptuous. Amber tried to clear her head. “How am I supposed to deal with this?”