Blood Shadows (11 page)

Glancing into the bathroom and then her bedroom, he continued back around to the open-plan kitchen. He took her workbag from the counter and started emptying its contents, until the pile of cards caught his attention. He picked them up from the top of the other post. Each was stamped but had never been posted. Each was in the same writing. The male scent on them matched the one he had picked up on in the room. He slid the card out of the open envelope.

Rob.

He instantly sneered.

Rob and six years of birthday cards, but from the strength of his scent on them, they hadn’t long arrived in her apartment.

And Caitlin had only opened one before tucking them aside.

He threw the card back down and returned his attention to her work satchel, quietly emptying the rest of the contents. He gathered up some of the paperwork from the table and shoved it inside. He crossed to the bathroom and took the shampoo and shower gel from the still-damp shower cubicle. He took her hairbrush, comb and toothbrush from beside the sink before lingering over the three perfumes. He selected the one with the delicate, feminine scent of magnolia and cedarwood, the subtle undertones of musk and vanilla – the one she’d been wearing the night before. He tucked it in the bag with everything else.

He stepped through the only other door in the apartment, his boots silent on the deep pile carpet as he crossed the threshold into her bedroom.

She lay facing away from him, lit by the lamp she had fallen asleep to. She lay almost on her stomach, her top leg bent more or less in line with her waist. The position displayed the appealing inward curve of her lower back, enticingly accentuating her behind, her hip.

He silently opened her wardrobe and flicked through the few clothes she had. There were jeans, trousers or shirts – all sensible workwear. But he found three tea dresses near the back. He carefully slid them off the hangers, tucking them in the bag before opening the top drawer of the chest. Her lingerie drawer contained plenty more samples of the pretty lace underwear he’d examined on her in the corridor. Picking out a few delicate items in white and cream, he added them to the bag before leaving it in the doorway.

Kane stepped around to her side of the bed. She lay with one arm beneath her head, her hair partially covering her pretty face. He surveyed the outline of that slender, delicately curved body beneath the sheet, a sheet he slowly and carefully pulled back, revealing the plain delicate silk negligee that only added to her vulnerability. He reached down to move some of the hair from her cheek. She frowned, shifted slightly but didn’t wake as he lingered over the soft, flawless skin of her shoulder, her neck. The male in him, let alone the vampire, instantly stirred. He forced himself to look away.

Her bedside table was a mess, crammed with half-read books. Clearly concentration was an issue unless it was in relation to her job and pursuing him. He pushed aside the alarm clock and half-empty mug of coffee to pick up the photo frame of her with her parents. Rick and Kathleen Parish stared back at him. Caitlin had been their only child. She looked about nine, her eyes radiating mischief and happiness. A perfect life waiting to be shattered as she clung on to her parents, particularly her father.

He picked up her mobile phone and scrolled through the messages. They were almost all work related, with a few from Max. There was nothing indicating friends, nothing indicating any other kind of relationship. The girl couldn’t have been more alone if she’d tried. It was as if she didn’t try. As if she didn’t see the point.

He placed the phone back on the bedside table and glanced to check that she was still asleep as he slid open the drawer. He rummaged through silently and found an old picture of her with Rob. She had the same beautiful beaming smile, but this time her eyes didn’t radiate the same happiness. Instead they were troubled. Subdued. He slipped the pictures back in the drawer before watching her sleep for a few more moments – the subtle rise and fall of her chest, the tension in her forehead as she dreamed. Shadow readers were notorious for nightmares, even hallucinations. Something told him Caitlin was no different. But this shadow reader carried more weight than others. This one carried a ticking time bomb she was clearly only too aware of, given her recklessness in coming after him.

She shifted and rolled languidly onto her back, one arm loose beside her head, one leg now tucked under the other. She turned her head away from him, fully exposing her slender neck.

The movement was graceful, the opening up of her body arousing. He felt himself harden just looking at her. But he couldn’t mess up. This was about self-control – something that had never been an issue for him until Caitlin. Until he’d heard through underworld communications that the VCU’s golden girl was now after him. The golden girl who’d had the audacity to take on his case. The golden girl with the gentle eyes and delicate stature who took down vampires as effectively as any man on her team could, if not more so. The girl who went home alone every night or at the crack of dawn. The girl who stepped outside only to go to work, for the occasional movie rental, or food shopping to return with a small bag of meals for one.

The girl whom, under any other circumstances, he would already have had in his bed.

He slipped the tiny bottle from his back pocket and held it under her nose. It would take only seconds for the potent sedative to get into her system. To check it had worked, he placed a trace of the liquid on his thumb and rubbed it gently across her soft, delicate lips before tucking his thumb just a little into the heat of her mouth.

She didn’t so much as flinch.

He removed the ring from the index finger on her right hand, the watch from her wrist, freeing her of everything traceable except the negligee she was in.

Pulling the sheet away completely, he gently scooped her up, lifting her soft, warm body against his.

And carried her effortlessly across the threshold.

CHAPTER SEVEN

C
aitlin woke face down on black sheets. She’d never slept on black sheets. And she could hear distant music. Nirvana? And a shower running.

She jerked upright and nearly wrenched her arm from her shoulder in the process. Metal clinked against metal. Blood rushed to her head. She brushed her hair from her eyes and yanked at the handcuff that bound her left wrist to the headboard before clutching her free hand to her throbbing temple.

The room was dim, the window to her left boarded up. A flickering music video featuring Kurt Cobain filled the 42-inch screen up in the distant left-hand corner. Beneath the TV were two parallel sofas, a coffee table between them. To the right of a door recess was a tiny open-plan kitchen. The wall running right of the bed was bare other than the two-pronged wall sconce that was the only other source of light. Between that and a wardrobe, a bathroom door stood ajar.

She was still wearing the silk negligee and underwear she’d gone to bed in – her bed and not the wooden four-poster she was now manacled to. The bastard had swiped her in her sleep and, from the headache and dizziness, she knew how. She checked for bite marks on her thighs, her chest and ran her hand over her neck. Nothing.

Yet.

The minimalism of the furnishings and absence of any personal items told her she was in one of his dens. Had to be. She reached for the beer bottle on the bedside table to her right, her only possibility of a weapon. The cuff bit into her wrist, her shoulder straining in the socket, but she still fell a couple of inches short. She examined the vertical metal bars her cuff was attached to – solid, robust bars embedded in the mahogany headboard. She slumped back against it.

The shower stopped.

The bathroom fell silent.

Heart pounding, she curled her legs under her, pushed her negligee back over her knees and smoothed down her hair. The seconds scraped by like nails down slate as she watched the doorway with baited breath.

When Kane finally emerged, Caitlin snapped back a breath, enraptured, shocked at the warm rush between her legs.

He was naked aside from a towel resting dangerously low on his trim waist. Her attention was drawn immediately to the captivating Cobra tattoo guarding his heart, before being distracted by the droplets of water that slid down the crevice between his pecs – droplets that glided languidly down that honed abdomen towards his belly button. Every trained, taut muscle in his arms and broad shoulders flexed as he wiped the back of his neck with his hand, revealing the symbols up his left side – the protective ward against staking through the most accessible point to a vampire’s heart. His cropped dark hair glistened, his compelling navy eyes fixed on her.

She just about stopped herself swearing aloud. Even if she’d been holding a broken bottle, she wasn’t sure now if she’d want to use it. He was perfection incarnate, from every sinew of that hard, toned body to his enticingly relaxed composure. Kane Malloy was undoubtedly everything an effective vampire should be. And despite his brief nonchalant assessment of her, that had infuriated her and triggered a painful sense of inadequacy, she still couldn’t tear her attention away as he turned to open the wardrobe. She lingered over the sword tattoo stretching the length of his spine, the ornate hilt resting between his shoulder blades. The beauty of its intricacy held her spellbound until he discarded his towel.

Caitlin flushed and immediately snatched her gaze away. Hearing him pull on his jeans she glanced back to catch a glimmer of amusement in his eyes – eyes sinfully dark in the dim light. And as he stepped up to the bedside table and knocked back a mouthful of drink, Caitlin braced herself, her fingers digging into the bed sheet.

This was it. She was finally alone with him. She was finally totally alone with Kane Malloy. And from the amalgamation of contempt and distaste in his eyes, he had no intentions of making this pleasant.

But she reminded herself he wasn’t going to hurt her. If he wanted her soul, there was only one way in. Kane needed her on side.

But not as much or as soon as she needed him.

She warily watched him sit back against the footboard, bottle in hand, his legs bent and casually splayed.

She couldn’t show she was intimidated. She couldn’t risk showing anything of what was going on inside.

‘Nice to know I make you nervous,’ she said, holding up her wrist, metal clinking against metal again.

He took a mouthful of drink, his sullen gaze not leaving hers.

‘I suppose it’s too much to ask where we are?’ she added.

‘Blackthorn.’

‘That narrows it down,’ she sniped before reminding herself to curb the sarcasm. ‘How long have I been out?’

‘Two hours.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Half-four.’

‘So is this where you were planning to bring me last night?’

He stretched an arm across the footboard, defining every muscular curve. ‘You wanted me alone, right? Preferably in a detainment cell, I know. But this is so much more intimate, don’t you think?’ His gaze unashamedly raked the length of her body. ‘No risk of interruptions,’ he added before taking another mouthful of beer.

She felt herself flush again. His toying with her was cruel and intentional and, as she reminded herself, insulting. But she had to be smart. She had to maintain her composure without provoking him. He was calm, he was controlled, but Caitlin knew only too well of the impulsive side, the reckless and self-sating side. And she knew that, aroused or incensed enough, he could forget the consequences.

He lowered his hand to hold his beer bottle loosely against his bent knee, his legs still casually open, and subtly licked beer from his bottom lip in a way she found painfully provocative. She didn’t want to think of sex, but just being in his presence again was enough to spark the usually restrained part of her. Just the thought of it made every nerve ending ignite in panic. The prospect of sex with him had always seemed impossible, despite it splintering her conscience on far too many occasions.

But there, alone with him, on his bed, it suddenly seemed all too feasible – especially as he looked at her like he could devour her just for fun. Unabashed, self-assured, experienced predator Kane was already chipping away at her convictions. Kane who had no qualms about taking whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted and however he wanted – just like Rob had said. Sex with him wouldn’t be affectionate – it would be power-driven and brutal. Kane Malloy clearly despised what she was, and he despised her coming after him even more.

‘So,’ he said. ‘Do the rest of your team know just how personal your mission is, coming after me?’

Straight to business. She almost felt relieved. ‘I was bringing you in because I had a good lead. Anything more was a bonus.’

‘But you must have known I wouldn’t confess, which means you must have had everything hanging on being able to read me. That’s one hell of a risky strategy.’

‘I know about your communications with Jask Tao.’

He almost smiled. ‘You were going to blackmail me?’

‘If I had to.’

‘And you thought it would work?’

‘I would have done whatever it took to keep you there long enough to read you.’

‘Clearly,’ he remarked, before taking another mouthful.

‘When I joined the VCU, I searched the archives about my parents’ deaths. Two separate psychic reports said the same thing: that their astral bodies were taken with their souls still intact; their souls hadn’t passed into the afterlife. But there was only so much I could research without a name to go on. No third species would talk to me because of my job and my links. I was running out of options. And time.’