Blood Instinct (30 page)

‘Will he be in a bad enough state to kill a pregnant woman? A woman there to give him the solution he wants?’

Leila’s gaze locked pensively on her sister’s. ‘Sophie, this is an unbelievable risk.’

‘That’s why it can’t be you going in there, Lei.
That’s
why it has to be me. If it doesn’t work, you’re the only one who can kill Caleb without blowing the whole fourth dimension open. It’ll be down to you to end it. It’ll be down to you to stop him. More importantly,’ she grabbed her sister’s hands and stared deep into her eyes, ‘you’ll know once and for all if he
is
capable of being saved. Lei, I wouldn’t even be suggesting this if I didn’t think it was our best – maybe our only – option to stop this avalanche. I have to give Jask hope. I
have
to.’

‘But even if we
could
consider this, which I’m not, you’re trapped in here. You’re not going to persuade one of Jask’s pack to go against his instructions, to let you out of here instead of me.’

‘You could sneak out of the hatch,’ Tuly suggested.

They all looked down at her simultaneously.

Sophia’s heart beat a little faster. ‘What hatch?’

‘Oh, yeah!’ Honey cut in with a beaming smile. ‘The secret one. Me and Tuly found it earlier.’

‘It takes you outside through one of the ventilation shafts,’ Tuly explained. ‘It’s very small but you’re little enough, Phia.’ She shrugged as she cast her gaze over them all. ‘Genius, right?’

Leila looked back to Sophia. ‘But you’d still have to get safely across Blackthorn. For that you’d need help; someone to be outside waiting for you. Someone the guards wouldn’t suspect. More to the point, someone willing to defy Jask’s rules.’

They all switched their attention to Eden as he sauntered into the room, bowl in one hand, spoon to his mouth. Eden – who had agreed to stay back to keep an eye on things whilst most of the others were out with Jask.

He stopped abruptly and scanned the cast of females staring him down. ‘Sorry, ladies, but my stripping days are over.’

His smirk soon faded.

He lowered his spoon a second later.

‘Ah, shit,’ he hissed under his breath. ‘What now?’

T
here was
a stillness across the quadrant, the last minutes of daylight muted by the already weak sun. It barely made it through the smog most days but was now suppressed further by the dense mist, the opaqueness of the world beyond adding an eerie backdrop to the barbed-wire-topped fence that enclosed the compound.

Jask waited at the top of the steps outside the main entrance to the abandoned hotel that had once been his home – the steps he had led Sophia up that first morning he’d brought her there.

His heart fluttered as he flashed back to their initial tussle in the shower, make-up smeared over her glowering face. How the feisty little witch, then wrapped in nothing but a towel, had dared to provoke him at the same time as enticing him; the petite paradox of strength and vulnerability refusing to be intimidated by the six-foot lycan alpha who’d accosted her from the subterranean cesspit she’d nearly died in.

The petite paradox he had detained only to save his pack.

If anyone had told him when he’d first laid eyes on her manacled to the wall, the dead vampires at her feet, that in little over a week she would be carrying his young, he would have sneered at the impossibility.

But she’d shown him that the impossible
was
possible. And that’s what he would cling on to.

He clutched the tennis ball in his hand. It was the same tennis ball he’d used to bounce off the walls in the cell where he’d first slept with Sophia – the dark, dank cell that had been symbolic of his kind’s imprisonment. The cell from which a ray of light had subsequently come. A ray of light that Sophia now carried within her.

He waited in silence as he faced the mounds of fresh earth that marked the graves of his pack who had died the last time Sirius’s army had invaded. Waited until he’d received the signal that they were back.

Three members of his pack, including Sorran, stood on the top of the steps behind him, twenty-five others marking the periphery.

Kane remained just as silent beside him. They’d resolved it was pointless trying to convince Sirius that he would be handed over – especially considering the consequences for Blackthorn once Sirius’s precious commodity had been collected.

Equally, they knew too much of Sirius to believe he would simply walk away satisfied with a fair exchange.

A raised hand from one of his pack near the tunnel finally confirmed they had company.

Jask glanced across at Kane, who met his gaze only fleetingly before fixing his attention back on the tunnel opening.

The soldiers marched through the tunnel in steady succession, creating a quick, well-organised formation like the perfectly tuned operation they clearly were. No doubt they would have mapped every inch of that compound, assessing the weak points. Their helmets would be doing all the hard work in pinpointing exactly where his pack had been strategically placed.

The soldiers, fifty in total, held their rifle-style guns in position, marking both Jask, Kane, the three lycans behind them and the twenty-five surrounding the quadrant. He had no doubt that they had already detected the further seven hidden in the building behind him.

There would be more of Sirius’s army on standby outside. There was no way he’d let Kane slip through his fingers again.

Except it wasn’t Sirius who came to collect. It wasn’t Sirius who arrived with a further four soldiers as his guards.

His grey hair wafted in the breeze that echoed through the tunnel behind him, billowing his long, dark overcoat as he emerged into the quadrant.

Jask tightened his grip on the ball to the point it should have burst in his palm.

Because Xavier Carter dared to smile as he approached them from across the green, passing through the graves of Jask’s dead pack as if they weren’t even there.

‘
G
ood luck
, kid,’ Eden said, fist bumping Sophia as they stood outside the door in the back alley.

Leila had told them it was the only route into Caleb’s club without being detected by anyone else – the route she herself had taken with him one night when, ironically, he had led her out to find Sophia.

It hadn’t been hard for Eden to unpick the lock.

‘If you fuck this up, Phia, you’re off my Christmas-card list, my birthday-card list… In fact, every list except my hit list, is that clear? Whether you saved my little niece from that big-arsed fourth species or not.’

She laughed, not realising how much she’d needed that split second of light relief.

‘I’ll give it my best shot.’

‘Seriously,’ he said, holding her gaze. ‘You take care in there, okay? You’ve got some guts, girl, but don’t you forget that serryn will be waiting for any opportunity. I want you in and out of there as quickly as possible. And remember what Leila told you: smart mouth off and smart brain on.’

She nodded, her heart thudding painfully against her chest.

‘I’ll be watching this space. I’ll collect you from here.’ He caught the back of her head, pulling her to him so he could kiss her on the forehead. ‘Just get back out here alive – you
and
Mini J. Jask is going to kick my arse enough as it is.’

‘I’ll get back out,’ she said, hoping she sounded more convincing than she felt.

Taking an unsteady breath, Sophia stepped inside and closed the door behind her, the looming length of the dusty corridor ahead exacerbating the sense of isolation that instantly crept over her.

Shards of weak light broke through gaps in the boarded-up windows to her left, giving her hints of the row of doors to her right. Sophia stepped into the dust motes, her ears tuned in to the deathly silence ahead.

The deathly silence that would lead her to her nemesis.

She headed slowly and cautiously down the corridor through each spotlight as she silently muttered her mantra: she was not going to be petulant and argumentative Sophia. She was going to stay calm. She was going to stay rational.

Everything depended on her.

Everything
.

‘
I
almost need
to pinch myself,’ Xavier remarked as he came to a standstill only a few feet away. ‘I feel like I’m in the presence of greatness. Jask Tao
and
Kane Malloy, side by side.’

‘If only you had a pulse steady enough to back that smile,’ Jask remarked. ‘What did you do to deserve this, Carter?’

‘I’m here to see through what I started. We have unfinished business, don’t we, Kane?’ Xavier said, his dismissal of Jask knocking Jask’s aggravation up a notch. A hint of a smile crossed his lips again. ‘I don’t know about you but to me this feels like déjà vu.’

Kane’s smirk was more unnerving than Xavier’s, the fixation of his navy eyes on the latter causing even Xavier to falter a little.

He looked back to Jask. ‘I don’t know what you have planned, but I have fifty soldiers in here and a further fifty outside. That’s easily two to one. We don’t want any more’ —he cast his hand dismissively over the graves behind him—‘casualties.’

‘I’m very aware of the numbers, Carter,’ Jask declared, ‘on both counts.’

‘And yet you appear somewhat depleted.’ He tucked his hands back in his coat pockets. ‘If only you’d learned to toe the line, Jask. To play ball with us. None of this would have been necessary. Your position in Blackthorn could have been
very
different.’

‘Guard dogs or scapegoats: such an overwhelming choice. But I’m not here to talk, Carter. Where is he?’

Xavier raised his hand, giving the soldier behind the signal.

‘Now this really
is
like déjà vu,’ Xavier said, turning his attention to Kane again.

Jask looked over Xavier’s shoulder to where they led Corbin in. He fisted his hands, doing what he could to prevent the rage escalating inside him as he saw the tightened metal loops placing a chokehold on his friend, a soldier each side, both keeping themselves at arm’s length like he was a diseased dog.

From twenty feet away, they kicked the back of Corbin’s knees so he was forced to fall onto them, wincing behind his bloodied mask of a face as the chokehold tightened.

‘And Zeena?’ Jask asked, trying to keep his tone as calm as he could as he looked back to Xavier.

‘Jessie?’

‘You don’t need her.’

‘She was part of the deal,’ Xavier reminded him.

‘And I already have the information you wanted from her.’

Xavier feigned a smile. ‘I think Sirius would rather hear it direct from the horse’s mouth.’

‘He doesn’t have access to a shadow reader strong enough to obtain that information from an envoi. We did.’

‘Parish, right? Do tell her I miss her.’

Jask sensed Kane tense a little beside him.

‘I have the name of the vampire leader, Xavier,’ Jask declared. ‘Now show me Zeena.’

‘You drive a hard bargain.’

‘No, I just want this over as quickly as possible.’

Xavier raised his hand again, the same soldier promptly leaving to collect Zeena.

She was subjected to the same treatment – led in with the wire noose around her throat before they forced her to the ground in the same demeaning manner.

‘How do you want to do this?’ Jask asked, dragging his attention back to Xavier.

‘Let’s start with the name in exchange for Zeena.’

‘Jarin,’ Jask said, as if uttering nothing but the truth. ‘Feinith’s betrothed. He’s the vampire leader she’s trying so hard to protect. That’s why she has Caleb Dehain out hunting for the serryn as we speak. Jarin’s the one you want.’

A
fter picking
the lock at the top of the steps, Sophia entered the tiny back room. Heading over to the wall directly ahead, she found the latch at the reverse of the bookcase doorway exactly where Leila had told her she would.

She pulled the bookcase outwards and peered into the room beyond.

The fire flickered in the hearth ahead, confirming that even if Caleb wasn’t in the room, he was in the apartment.

Attentive to the slightest movement, she glanced over the shadows cast around the periphery of the room, on the rows and rows of books that went all the way up to the ornate ceiling.

To the left of the hearth, a door lay ajar to darkness beyond. A door she knew from Leila’s description led into Caleb’s bedroom.

She was most definitely in his private quarters.

Slipping through the small gap she’d created, leaving the bookcase doorway ajar behind her, she stepped inside the room.

Her feet as silent as she could make them on the wooden floorboards, she stopped at the table to her right, downstream of the breeze seeping through the open sash window to her left.

Alert to any sound that would indicate she wasn’t alone, her attention drawn to the door on her right that Leila had explained led out into the hallway and the rest of the penthouse, she hesitated as to how far to progress.

But as a figure appeared through the bedroom doorway ahead, her breath caught in her throat. He was nothing more than a shadow at first whereas she felt cast in stage light. But she knew it was him.

Every serryn instinct in her sparked in confirmation that it was him. And she was going to stay in control.

She
had
to stay in control.

She braced herself and tried hard to steady her breathing as he stopped in his tracks at the threshold. A second later, he knocked back a mouthful of whatever he was drinking, ice clinking in his glass, before he dropped his arm to his side again.

He sauntered through the threshold, passing between the fireside armchair and the sofas on his way across to the hallway door, the firelight finally lighting him to more than a shadow, his black trousers and open black shirt capturing the amber hues.

Her heart skipped a beat as he locked the door – whether to secure her inside or keep others out, she couldn’t be sure, but the act in itself tightened her chest further.

And no more so than when his silent, bare footsteps progressed towards her at an unnervingly steady pace.

She nearly stopped breathing altogether as Caleb finally stopped a couple of feet away, his vibrant green eyes meeting hers for the first time and Sophia finally understood what had captivated her infallible sister so intensely.

But within the abyss of his gaze, as she detected hatred for what she had done to his brother, she felt her nerve give. She could feel the old Sophia rising to the surface as a result – the one that, when faced with adversity, struck out. The one who, when she sensed she was already losing, wanted only to worsen the situation, who acted on impulse – the defensive one barely able to control herself.

Worse, her spine prickled as she gazed not just into the eyes of a vampire but those of her nemesis. She could feel the serryn inside her smile at finally being united with him; could almost feel it sharpening its nails ready for combat.

She would contain it though. She would suppress it. She
would
control it.

But she knew that every passing minute in his presence would only make that harder.

‘Sophia McKay,’ he remarked, a subtle rasp marking his voice as he gave her another swift once-over, Sophia grateful she’d worn as simple an outfit as she could to lessen his concern over her carrying a concealed weapon. ‘Your big sister’s clearly been a very naughty girl revealing my secrets. That entrance was reserved for her.’

‘I’m here to talk.’

‘No guessing what about.’ He glanced down at her abdomen as a clear indication of what he’d learned from Jask – what he could no doubt now hear for himself – before stepping past her, his masculine scent of musk and spice making her heady.

He dropped the external latch on the bookcase – she assumed to secure it from any other unexpected entries.

Knocking back another mouthful from his glass, he sauntered back over to the fireplace.

‘It’s about more than that. We’ve found the alternative, Caleb.’

He didn’t stop; he didn’t look at her. He didn’t so much as flinch at the announcement.

‘I was set up, Caleb,’ she said as she tentatively followed behind him. ‘I was set up to kill your brother. I was kidnapped and shackled in a sealed room. Jake was placed in there with me.’

He settled into the fireside chair, his legs parted, his gaze locking on hers again – a gaze she felt burning into her soul.

She moved in front of the sofa and perched on the edge nearest the door, the furthest away from him she could be. Because despite him being immune to her, she knew that would only make the serryn in her work harder.

And the seconds were ticking by.

‘I didn’t set out to kill Jake,’ she added. ‘I had no intention of killing him. Why would I?’

Caleb rested his head back against the chair, his unflinching gaze matching the unnerving calm of the room.

The calm before the storm.

‘And what exactly were you doing out on the street to
be
kidnapped when you should have been under Jask’s protection?’

‘This isn’t Jask’s fault.’

‘Then whose is it?’

‘Feinith’s.’

There was the tiniest flare in his eyes. She could have sworn she saw a glimmer of a smile, or maybe a sneer, as his lips parted, as he raked his tongue down his incisor.

‘Jake was convinced of it,’ she said to add weight to her argument. ‘Convinced she’d overheard the conversation you’d had with him. She knew I was defunct. She’s using me. She wants you to go on the rampage. Jake said she was desperate to bring that part of you out again. He said you weren’t to let it. He said you weren’t to let her win.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m
so
sorry for what happened to him.’

Caleb broke from her gaze to reach for a packet of cigarettes on the mantelpiece. Leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, he removed one and placed it between his lips.

He flicked his lighter on then off again. Then on, staring into the flame before glancing back at her abdomen.

He slammed the lighter shut but kept the unlit cigarette between his lips as he leaned his head back again. He drew his knee to his chest, his forearm resting loosely on it, his thumb remaining on the lighter’s trigger.

‘What alternative?’ he asked.

She heaved a silent sigh of relief that she’d caught his interest if nothing else.

‘
Me
. I’m the alternative to this war. This baby means I’m carrying a shadow
and
a soul inside of me, Caleb. And who knows what they’ll have – if they make it. If either of us make it.’

His laugh was fleeting as he looked away dismissively.

She curled her hands into fists in frustration but reminded herself to tuck them under her thighs out of sight.

‘It’s the alternative we need, Caleb. The alternative Leila promised to find. The alternative
you
both created by her falling for you, by you choosing to keep her alive, by Jask finding me. We’ve created our own solution. I’m somehow the answer – or what I’m carrying is. But we both need to survive to make this happen.’

‘Make
what
happen?’

She hesitated at the abruptness of the question, of not having worked through it all herself. ‘Penetrate the loophole in the system. We can do something about the Global Council’s standpoint on equality for the third species.’

He raised his eyebrows slightly as if she had made an incompetent suggestion amidst a serious meeting.

‘We don’t know how we’re going to do it yet,’ she said, ‘not fully. But this means something. I need you to give me those things and we can find a way through this. We need your help, Caleb. We all need your help. Help us save Blackthorn.’

‘By helping
you
become a
politician
?’

She felt her confidence shatter as he stared her down. ‘By first exposing Sirius for what he is. By exposing the flaws in this system for what they are. We’re going to throw into question this whole soul and shadow divide for the inconsequential ignorance that it is.’

His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘You know what Sirius is up to.’

Which clearly Caleb didn’t – but the remark told her he wanted to.

As his gaze lingered, her heart pounded.

‘We can’t risk Feinith knowing,’ Kane had said in the meeting, when Leila had wanted to tell Caleb the full situation.

‘Things are already kicking off,’ Sophia said, in an attempt to veer him off topic. ‘Sirius has taken Corbin. Jask is leading Sirius’s army to the compound as we speak. After that, he’s coming for you. We have enough to contend with with Sirius’s army without an internal war too. You can stop that from happening by giving me what I need. By letting me give Jask hope.’

Her heart skipped a beat as Caleb stood up, the cigarette still between his lips as he joined her, his body less than a foot from hers as he angled it towards her, Sophia instinctively recoiling into the corner of the sofa to forge some much-needed distance.

His eyes didn’t leave hers as he removed his cigarette to hold it between the fingers of his lighter-holding hand – the hand he rested on the back of the sofa behind her.

Caleb caught hold of her jaw with his free hand, his fingers cold, firm. He turned her head away from him slightly before brushing the hair back from her neck with his other hand to examine the wounds on her neck.

The wounds his brother had created. The wounds that had killed him.

The intensity of his touch forced her to close her eyes, to fight to suppress the desire to look at him.

‘So first you’re part of a plan to kill me and my brother, then you succeed with the latter, you fuck up my plans of becoming the Tryan by getting pregnant by a lycan – a lycan you’re telling me will soon be baying for my blood – and yet
still
you come here, as a
serryn
, asking me to save your life.’

Her heart thrummed painfully, her stomach somersaulting.

All she could think about was that time with Travis back when Jask had taken her to the south. How Jask had had to hold her back for Travis even looking at her the way Caleb did then.

‘It’s about keeping your eye on the goal,’ Jask had once told her.

But the serryn in her was starting to burn – waiting for any excuse.

‘You’ll gain nothing by letting me die,’ she said, irritated by signs of her breathlessness, her skin prickling, perspiration coating her palms. ‘By keeping me alive, not only will you give yourself your only chance to gain your Tryan status but you’ll also have an alternative. You’ve got exactly what you wanted. You’ve got exactly what Leila promised.’

‘
That’s
what you’re counting on?’

‘No, I’m counting on you being smart, Caleb. Smart and strategic.’

‘Are you going to afford yourself the same?’

Sophia dared to look back at him, his stern fingers still clutching her jaw. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Negotiate with me,’ he said.

Her heart pounded painfully. ‘I am.’

‘Negotiate with something I want.’

She dared to look him directly in the eyes – the unrelenting, uncompromising eyes of her now captor.

Red-rimmed eyes – most probably from tears.

‘Was Sirius the one who ordered the assassination of me and Jake?’ he asked.

It was the last question she’d expected; the question she had no idea whether to answer or not.

‘Because I know you know,’ Caleb said, his eyes penetrating deep. ‘You worked for The Alliance. You know who paid them for the job.’

She held his gaze, her pulse thrumming in her ears, and knew she had no choice. Because it was added weight to her argument too.

‘It was Jarin. Jarin paid us. And Feinith knows. Feinith found out he was the one killing all the members off and she put two and two together as to why. She used Jarin to track down The Alliance leader and sent her to the TSCD. Feinith set it up so you’d be indebted to her. She lied about Leila reporting you. It’s all been part of Feinith’s plan – just like taking Jake out of the equation has been. Jake gave me a message, Caleb. He said you had to spit out the poison like you did that viper’s venom when you saved him.’

His face may have remained calm and impassive, but his green eyes blazed as they remained fixed on hers.

‘He told me to tell you he believes in you, Caleb. He believed in Leila too. I know why you let her go. I know you don’t want this war either. She said you promised her that if she found an alternative, I wouldn’t have to die. So here I am. She’s sent me to you to prove she loves you. That she’s been true to her word. She’s done nothing but try to get back to you, just like she promised she would. And once this spell is performed, she’ll do that – whatever the outcome.’

To the backdrop of silence broken only by the subtle crackle of flame-consumed logs in the fire, she refused to look away.

‘We don’t have to be enemies in this, Caleb. Any of us. We can work together. All of us. This is our chance to alter the course of the prophecy. Don’t throw it away. If you won’t do it for us, do it for your own.’

As the seconds ticked by, she held his gaze despite her blood burning with the pain of restraint.

‘Then tell me what Sirius is up to, Sophia. Tell me why he wants Kane so badly.’

It was the conversation none of them could afford her to be having.

Caleb squeezed her jaw a little tighter. ‘You know you can’t sustain this proximity much longer. You know you’re on borrowed time. As impressive a job as you’re doing right now, we both know exactly what’s simmering beneath the surface. Your pupils are constricting. I can hear the excitement of your heartbeat, the terseness of every breath. So I advise you don’t play coy. My patience is already threadbare simply being this close to you. Smart and strategic I may be, but I have an impulsive side that is painfully addictive, especially in the presence of serryns. You referred to exposing Sirius for what he is, something to do with shadows and souls. Your reluctance to tell me what that is is intriguing me further.’