Bound by Darkness (The Alliance, Book 3)

by Brenda K. Davies

  She didn’t get a chance to tell him she couldn’t drive before he shut the door and stalked away. Simone locked the door while she watched Killean slip into the trees. Placing her hands in her lap, she wrung them nervously as she searched the shadows. She felt horribly exposed beneath the dim glow of the interior light, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off Killean to search for a way to turn it off.

  Like he was more shadow than man, Killean glided seamlessly in and out of the trees; if she looked away for even a second, she’d lose sight of him.

  Then the light turned off, and she almost screamed as a figure surged up from behind Killean in the dark. She hadn’t seen the Savage hiding behind a tree, but Killean must have as he turned when the creature lunged at him and seized it by the throat.

  Simone had always shied away from violence, she hadn’t even liked going near the male hunters while they were on the training field, but she was riveted on Killean. Leaning forward, she rested her fingers on the dashboard as Killean lifted the Savage like he weighed no more than a feather and smashed it against a tree.

  Before the Savage could react, Killean drove his fist into the monster’s chest. Simone gulped as she watched his wrist disappear into the creature’s ribcage before Killean pulled his hand back. She thought she should be horrified by the heart Killean held in his hand, and the brutality he’d unleashed with such speed and zero remorse, but she didn’t feel unsettled by it.

  She was impressed and something more, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on until Killean released the body. Relief. She was relieved he was safe, and not because she would be vulnerable without him, but because she didn’t want anything bad to happen to the infuriating man. It made no sense to her. She barely knew him, but the idea of something happening to him scared her.

  Killean dropped the Savage’s heart on the ground and bent over the dead body. The enticing scent of the creature’s blood teased Killean’s nostrils, but he resisted its temptation as he searched the Savage’s pockets. He didn’t find a cell phone, which meant this bastard hadn’t been able to get a call out to his fellow shitheads about where they were.

  Lifting the body, Killean tossed it over his shoulder before reclaiming the heart and carrying it over to the truck. He dumped the body into the back and glanced at Simone who watched him with wide eyes.

  He held up his index finger to her before returning to the kill site to make sure any spilled blood was obscured by debris. From an empty campsite, he gathered a piece of burnt wood still sitting in a firepit and ran the wood over the leaves and pine needles covering the blood to obscure the scent.

  When he finished, he walked the thirty feet to the river to throw the wood into it and wash his hands while he searched for more Savages. He saw no sign of them, and he didn’t detect their scent on the air.

  Returning to the truck, his eyes met Simone’s as he approached the vehicle. In the light of the stars, he could see her pale face as her eyes tracked his every move. When he reached the driver’s side of the truck, he wondered if she would let him in or if he would have to break the window. Before his hand fell on the handle, she leaned over and unlocked the door. Killean opened it and climbed behind the wheel.

  Simone watched as he started the truck. When the headlights flared on, he turned them off and shifted into reverse. She’d been in a few vehicles in her lifetime, but she’d never driven one, and she found herself fascinated by the mechanics of it. Tonight was no exception as Killean went through the process with ease. He pulled the truck out of the parking spot and onto the dirt road running through the campsites.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he replied.

  He hadn’t been hurt, but every muscle in his body was tensed as if he were prepared to attack again. However, she decided she was better off letting it drop. “What are you going to do with the body?”

  “Drop it off somewhere no one will can find it before the sun takes care of the remains.”

  “Do you think there are others out there?”

  “No. This one was alone.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I didn’t sense them out there, and I would have detected them.”

  The confident way he said it buried some of her worry, but she still couldn’t help feeling as if those monsters were closing in on them. Simone gazed out the window as they passed more campers before traveling by a large, log building. A sign outside the building read, Guest Check-In & Mercantile.

  After they passed the building, Killean left the dirt road behind for a paved street leading away from the campground. She relaxed when the bumpy road gave way to the smooth hum of tires on asphalt. No streetlights illuminated the night, but she saw well enough to differentiate the pine, oak, and maple trees crowding the road. Given the size of their trunks, some of the trees had to be a couple of hundred years old.

  When they’d traveled a couple of miles, Killean pulled over to the side of the road. The trees in this area were set further back from the road, which would allow more sunlight to spill onto the road in the morning. There were no nearby houses.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  He left the truck running as he jumped out and walked around to the back to retrieve the body and heart. He carried the Savage over to a five-foot-deep embankment on the side of the road. It wasn’t the ideal spot to discard a body, but the embankment would hide it from any travelers before the sun could do its job. He couldn’t drive around with the body in the bed of the truck all night. If any Savages happened to be near the road, they would scent the blood, and he wasn’t about to ring the dinner bell for them.

  Killean returned to the truck and searched the bed for any blood. He pulled his shirt off and used it to wipe away the few drops that had spilled there before tugging it back on. Leaping out of the truck, he returned to the driver’s seat and pulled away from the embankment.

  Another mile down the road, he turned on the headlights. The beams hit the trees and only illuminated twenty feet of the windy road.

  Simone spotted a few houses set back from the road, but no light shone from any of their windows. For a second, she had the unsettling feeling the world had ended and they were all that remained as they climbed hills before coasting back down them. Well, them and the Savages stalking them were all that remained.

  She tore her attention away from the forest when her skin crawled and she became certain there were monsters out there, watching them from glowing red eyes. Her imagination had never been overly active. In fact, it had been rather inactive for most of her life; now, it was making up for it with all sorts of horrible possibilities.

  She held her breath and didn’t dare look out the window beside her as she became convinced she would find Joseph loping beside the vehicle or running straight at her with his fangs extended and his red eyes blazing.

  “Do you know what happened to my mom?” she asked. “I lost sight of her when they raided our compound, and she wasn’t in that place with me.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said.

  “Oh,” she whispered, and her shoulders slumped.

  “But I also don’t know who your mom is,” Killean said when he sensed the sorrow his words caused her.

  His words helped to raise her spirits a little. If he didn’t know her mom, then he couldn’t know if she was alive or not. Until she learned differently, she would believe her mom was alive and safe with Nathan and the others.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  The crispness of his reply drew her attention to him. His knuckles had turned white on the steering wheel, and he sat so rigidly it seemed the next bump might shatter his bones. Her hearing and vision had remained the same after she transformed from a hunter into a monster, but she detected the steady beat of his heart now, whereas before she wouldn’t have noticed it.

  Did she notice his heartbeat now because blood was how she survived, or was it the man she noti
ced more about? She didn’t know the answer, but she suspected it was the latter.

  “Those things didn’t tell you where they were taking us tonight?” she asked.

  “They didn’t tell me anything. They didn’t trust me enough for that.”

  “Didn’t you see—”

  “They kept me blindfolded,” he interjected. “And tonight was the first time I didn’t have to ride in the trunk when I went somewhere with them.”

  “Why did they make you ride in the trunk?” she blurted.

  His red eyes were the brightest thing about the night when they slid to her. “Because they didn’t trust me.”

  The deliberate, enunciated way he said it caused her hackles to rise. Even when she’d still been a hunter, Killean had managed to infuriate her in ways no other ever had. As a hunter, she’d wanted to smack him; as a vampire, she imagined grabbing the back of his head and bouncing it off the steering wheel.

  Instead, she smiled as she replied through her teeth, “I see.”

  Killean focused on the road again as it twisted deeper into the woods and rose higher until he didn’t know if they would ever find their way out of here. Side streets broke off from the one they were on; he had no idea where they led, and more than a few times he was tempted to take one of them, but he decided to stay on the current one. For all he knew, one of those roads might loop back to the campground. This one had to lead somewhere eventually.

  He glanced at the GPS screen in the center of the dash. He knew there was a way to look up nearby attractions, but he didn’t want to mess with it right now, and he wasn’t familiar enough with the things to have any confidence he could pull up the information he sought.

  Then the road started to descend, and in the distance, he spotted the faintest hint of a light glimmering through the trees.

  “Did Nathan send you to find us?” she asked.

  Killean’s grip tightened on the wheel at the mention of the hunter leader. He knew Nathan and Simone had been expected to marry, but was Simone in love with him? And what did he care if she was?

  “Nathan,” he snarled, “is a happily mated vampire now.”

  A jolt of surprise ran through Simone. Nathan had announced his intention to marry Vicky and become a vampire, but it still astounded her he’d actually gone through with it. She couldn’t picture Nathan as a vampire, but she’d never imagined herself as one either.

  “Mated?” she asked. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s an eternal, soul-deep bond between two vampires. When a vampire encounters their mate, they often complete the bond.”

  “How do they do that?”

  “Through an exchange of blood and sex. If the mate is still mortal, a vampire will have to make them immortal to complete the bond and protect them better. If a vampire loses their mate, they either go insane or die. Encountering their mate and completing the bond stabilizes a purebred vampire battling their darker urges.”

  Many vampires never found their mates and either battled the emptiness forever, turned Savage, or died. Killean expected death to be his saving grace as he’d die before claiming a hunter as his mate.

  “And do a lot of purebred vampires have these darker urges?” she asked.

  “All the male ones do.”

  “What are they?”

  Killean shrugged. “It depends on the vampire. For some, they can’t get enough sex or they seek out pain. Others can’t get enough blood or are driven to kill. Some have a combination of one or two things, and the rare unlucky few have a combination of everything.”

  “And you battle one of these things?”

  “Yes.”

  Simone didn’t ask which one. She’d seen Killean in action tonight; every inch of him was a lethal killer.

  “I see,” she murmured. “Well, vampire or not, Nathan would still try to save us.”

  “He’d try to save you even though the hunters Joseph captured broke off from him because they didn’t agree with his love of a vampire and his decision to combine forces with Ronan?”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation.

  Killean’s teeth grated together at her unwavering certainty in her ex-intended. “Nathan didn’t send me.”

  “Did Ronan?” Nathan would want to save his hunters, but it would make more sense that Ronan sent Killean instead of Nathan. Simone didn’t see Killean taking orders from Nathan.

  A stab of guilt tore through him at the mention of Ronan. “No.”

  Simone stared at him as she tried to figure out why this man was sitting beside her. If he’d intended to stay with Joseph, then why did he pull her away from him? But if no one sent him, then why was here?

  “Then you really planned to join Joseph and his group?” she asked.

  His head snapped toward her, and before he could stop himself, he bared his fangs at her. “No!”

  Simone recoiled against the door as anger emanated from him.

  CHAPTER 16

  Killean’s shoulders hunched as he tried to regain control of the fury her words created. He was being an asshole, he knew it, but not killing the man in the tent, sitting this close to her, having her think he would actually choose Joseph over Ronan, and being reminded of what he’d become was too much for him right now.

  “No,” he said more calmly as he focused on the road. “I did not want to join Joseph.”

  Simone eased away from the window as some of his tension ebbed. She didn’t think he would hurt her, but she didn’t understand him. “Then why were you with Joseph, and why are you here now?”

  “For you.”

  Simone blinked at his response. She wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. Had he said, for you, or will do, or even achoo?

  That was it! He must have sneezed, but he hadn’t moved.

  “Did you say… for you?” She had no reason to expect him to do anything for her and would feel like the biggest idiot if he had sneezed.

  “Yes.”

  Simone stared at him, but he didn’t look at her as he pulled up to a stop light on a cross-section of road.

  Killean studied the smattering of stores lining the street. Most of them were dark, but a few had spotlights illuminating their signs. One was a fast food place, another a red barn converted into a gas station; there was also a barbeque restaurant and an antique store, but at this time of night they were all closed.

  When the light turned green, Killean merged onto the four-lane road and headed west in search of a hotel. They were over forty miles from the campground, and with the many side roads he’d seen along the way, he felt confident the Savages wouldn’t be able to trace their route and track them.

  “So, no one sent you; you came on your own?” Simone asked.

  He didn’t know why she was so incessant on following this conversation, but he wished she’d let it go. “Yes.”

  “Because of me?” she croaked.

  “For you,” he muttered as he studied the buildings lining the road. There were more antique stores, restaurants, a doggy daycare, bait shop, and a few maple syrup stands.

  “For me.” She ran the words over in her mind, but she had no idea what to make of them, but guilt stabbed her as she recalled thinking that if anyone was going to join the monsters holding her, it was him. She had no idea why he’d come for her, but it was obvious he did not want to be a part of Joseph’s group. “Why me?”

  When the silence stretched on, Simone realized he didn’t plan on answering her. “Killean—”

  “I have my reasons, and you won’t learn them. You’re free, be content with that.”

  Her eyes narrowed on him. Simone had spent her entire life being seen and not heard; she’d accepted it, but she was tired of accepting things, and she did not want to accept them from him. The only problem was, she’d be arguing with a wall if she continued to push this, and there were other things she wished to discuss.

  “When will we be going back for the other hunters?” she asked.

  “Like our location tonight,
I have no idea where they are.”

  Simone felt as if he’d kicked her in the chest as a sob lodged in her throat. I have no idea where they are. Those words were as condemning as the hangman’s noose. “They can’t be found?” she whispered.

  “No.”

  “Could someone else in the Alliance find them?”

  “No.”

  Turning away from him, Simone took a few moments to compose herself so she didn’t burst into tears. He’d been uncomfortable around her gratitude; he’d probably open the door and fling himself out if she started crying. Besides, she wasn’t ready to give up; there had to be some hope for them.

  “We have to find them and get them out.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Killean stated.

  “What do you mean, that’s not going to happen?”

  “Unless you know where you were kept, then finding the others isn’t going to happen.”

  “Those Savages knocked me out before they took me from the stronghold,” she murmured. “I don’t remember anything until I woke in that place.”

  “And I was stripped of my possessions, blindfolded, placed in a trunk, and driven around for hours before being taken to Joseph. I know as much about where they are as you do. I might be able to get back to the hall we escaped from, but I’m not taking you anywhere near those bastards again, and I doubt any of them are still there. The minute they captured those hunters, there was no saving them.”

  “But I was saved.”

  When his golden gaze swung toward her, the steeliness of it stole her breath. His arms had been warm and tender when he held her, but there was nothing tender about the ruthless man sitting beside her.

  “Because I got lucky, and so did you,” he said. “Do you want to push your luck?”

  “They’re my friends, my family…”

  Her voice trailed off as she realized those hunters were as lost to her as the city of Atlantis, but she would grieve for them later, when she was alone and had time to give in to her emotions.

  “Why did you take me from there and not one of them?” she asked.

  Killean would not answer that question.