Bound to Shadows (25 page)

“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “And a man can never have enough firepower.”
I snorted softly and reached for a laser. He slapped my hand away. “Take a gun. Lasers don’t fire
up instantly, and you can’t afford to give a man like Kye even a half-second
advantage.”
He had a point. I reached for a Browning simply because it was a lighter weight than some of the
others and fit my hand better, yet still packed a hell of a punch.
“So what’s the plan? We sneak in front and back and pin him down in the middle?” Kade said,
stashing several different pistols and knives about his body before picking up a rifle, then
slamming the trunk shut.
“You take the back. I’m walking right in through the front door.”
He frowned. “I really don’t think—”
“Kade, we’re soul mates. He’s going to know I’m here the minute I walk into that building.” If he
wasn’t already aware that I was here, that was. “So it’s pointless to try any subterfuge. But
doing the obvious might just give you the chance to get close enough to bring him
down.”
“I like the last half of that plan, but the first is decidedly unpalatable.” He ran a finger down
my cheek, his touch warm and not at all sexual. “He’s the sort of man who’d want to go down in a
blaze of glory, and it may be that he plans to take you with him.”
“Trust me, I’m more than aware of that possibility. But I’ve been tested by Gautier, the best
guardian the Directorate ever had, and I’m the only person to ever score a hit on him. Trust the
skills behind that, if nothing else.”
But yet, even that didn’t make me the killer Kye was, and
that
put
the advantage squarely in his court.
I stood up on tippy-toes and gave Kade a kiss. “Please be careful. I don’t want to have to
explain your death to Sable.”
“Ditto.” His bright smile flashed but just as quickly faded. “We both know that this job is a
walking death sentence. Sooner or later, it’s going to happen, Riley, no matter what precautions
we take.”
“Well, you’re not dying on my fucking shift,” I said, and slapped his arm. “So please be
careful.”
“Oh, I have many more mares in the stable yet to service, so don’t worry your pretty little
head.” He flashed me an insolent grin. “I’ll see you in the middle, my sweet.”
I watched him walk away, took a deep, calming breath that didn’t do one iota to ease the churning
in my stomach or the trembling in my limbs, then walked toward the front gate.
It was unlocked, as were the front glass doors that led into what looked to be an old office
area. I paused and blinked, briefly flicking my sight to infrared. There was no sign of body heat
in the offices lining the walls of the office area, and nothing in the immediate area behind the
double swing doors. But there were huge blobs of darkness preventing me from seeing deeper into
the factory.
Frowning, I walked forward, pushing the swinging doors open and letting them slap closed behind
me. The noise echoed, filling the shadowed silence.
I walked on, the click of my heels against the concrete grating against my nerves. One way or
another, I wanted this done and over with.
The blobs of darkness that had foiled my infrared turned out to be vast metal machines and long
tracks of conveyors. They looked to be still in a usable condition, despite the cobwebs and the
dirt that draped them. Maybe the factory hadn’t been closed all that long, despite all the
smashed windows high up near the roof line.
I punched open another set of swinging doors but paused in the doorway, my gaze sweeping the room
and my senses on high alert. This room was also double height, and as before, silent machines
lined the concrete floor. But it also had storage rooms or offices lining the walls of the upper
story and a walkway that ran around the entire perimeter.
No familiar, joyous warmth rose to warn me of Kye’s presence, but I suspected he was near,
regardless. It was the perfect place for a showdown.
“Kade?” I said softly. “I’m in the second machine room. I suspect he’s here.”
“I just got into the back loading bay,” Kade said. “The bastard’s set up some trip wires, so I’m
going to have to move forward cautiously. Play for time if you can, Riley.”
“Will do.” I hesitated, then added, “Just remember that this link will go dead once I’m near
him.”
“At least that’ll let me know the game is on.”
I stepped forward and let the doors swing closed. They clipped each other on the way through, and
the sharp slap of sound had my nerves jumping.
I scanned the room with infrared as I walked forward, but there were still huge swathes of
darkness, on both this level and the upper one. Kye could be hiding anywhere.
I was about halfway across the room when I sensed him. It was a rush of warmth that flashed
across my skin then settled somewhere deep inside. I stopped and turned around, sweeping my gaze
across the walkway above the swing doors I’d come in through. I couldn’t see him, either through
normal vision or infrared, and I couldn’t smell him, but he was up there nevertheless.
“Stop hiding and come out, Kye.”
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then he appeared in a doorway, a teasing smile on his lips and
a gun held loosely in his right hand.
Much like me—in both respects.
“You’re here sooner than I thought you’d be,” he said, stopping a foot away from the walkway
railing. His pose was relaxed, his golden eyes warm, and yet he reminded me of a predator about
to strike.
“It’s always a bad move to underestimate the Directorate.” My fingers were starting to sweat
against the metal of the Browning and there was a sick, churning sensation beginning to build in
my stomach.
I wanted this over with, and yet I didn’t, because that would mean actually having to act against
the man who was my other half.
“I don’t ever underestimate anyone, Riley, least of all the Directorate.” He studied me for a
moment, and his smile grew. My stomach twisted at the beauty of it. “You’ve bugged me, haven’t
you?”
“I’m hardly likely to confirm or deny that.”
“Meaning you have. You’re good, because I never even suspected.”
Neither had I when he’d tagged me with that deadener, so I guess that made us even.
“Why did you do it, Kye? Why take the job from Starke—or whatever the hell his real name was—when
you knew it was only going to bring you up against me?”
His smile was lazy and insolent, and so damn sexy my breath caught in my throat. “You said it
yourself a million times—I go where the money is, and Nasser offered a lot to take his photos and
guard his back while he killed. Besides, I would not have had this opportunity to enjoy time with
my oh-so-loving soul mate if I had walked away.”
I ignored the sarcasm in his words and said, “So why didn’t you run when you had the chance? What
is it you want? Because you’ve left me with no option but to bring you in.”
“You know what I want.”
“I haven’t got a fucking
clue
what you want. I never have.” But I
did, and it scared the hell out of me.
“Odd, because you actually hit the nail on the head several days ago.”
“I’ve said a lot of things over the past few days.” And some of them I’d even meant. “And you’ve
said even more—none of which I’ve believed. So what is it now, Kye?”
“It’s the same thing I’ve always wanted.” His gaze darkened. “I want you.
You
. Heart, body, and soul. Not for one night, not for pretend, but for
real.”
“And the answer is the same one I’ve continually given you. You have my soul, you can have my
body, but you will never have my heart.
Never.”
“I don’t accept that.”
Because his need to control his environment wouldn’t accept anything less than the whole. “That’s
your problem, not mine.”
Anger flared in his eyes. Anger and determination. My stomach twisted and I flexed my free hand,
trying to calm the tension. But that was an impossible task.
Because the confrontation I’d feared was coming.
“Kye,” I added softly, “put down your weapon and come down off the walkway.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“There’s a kill order out on your head if you don’t come in with me.”
“And if I come in with you, I’ll still be killed.”
“No. Jack knows you’re my soul mate, and he won’t risk losing me to kill you.”
“If you truly think that, then you are the biggest fool on this green earth.” He shook his head,
as if in disbelief. Sunlight caught strands of his dark red hair, turning them a rich, molten
gold. Deep inside, part of me raged—against fate, against what was going to happen, at the ashes
that my long-held dreams were rapidly becoming. “He’s a vampire, Riley. He may run the
Directorate in a fair and even way, but his true allegiance will always be with the council—one
of whom is his sister. And
they
want me dead.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m very rarely wrong, Riley.” His brief smile was so sad and gentle it made my soul ache. “I
guess that leaves us with only one option.”
Something inside me clenched, and for a moment I had trouble breathing, let alone thinking.
“That’s not an option,” I somehow managed. “That’s suicide.”
“It’s only suicide if I lose.”
Don’t do this
, I wanted to plead.
Don’t destroy
us
.
But there really wasn’t an “us” to destroy. Just two people fate should never have thrown
together.
“How should we play it, Riley?” he continued softly. There was an odd light in his eyes—a joyous
light. A maniacal light. “As an old-fashioned stand and shoot, or shall we play cat-and-mouse in
this big old mousetrap?”
Trap being the operative word, given what Kade had told me. “There isn’t an option number
three?”
“No,” he said, then raised the gun, the movement so fast it was almost a blur.
I dove to my right, throwing myself behind a machine, landing on all fours and crushing the
fingers on the hand that held the gun. I swore, but the words were lost to the sound of his
gunshot.
It pinged
off the top of the metal above my head, sending
sparks flying into the shadows.
“You’re as fast as any vampire I’ve come across,” he said, his voice coming from my right. I
raised the gun but didn’t fire, simply because he was on the move.
“That’s because I
am
part vampire.” I was answering more to let Kade
know—if he was close enough to hear our voices—I was okay rather than out of any real desire to
speak to the man who was trying to kill me. “And that’s also the reason you can never have what
you want, Kye.”
I shifted position, keeping the machine at my back as I scanned the walkway above me. A shadow
flicked between one office and another, and I pressed the trigger. The shot reverberated and my
heart froze, waiting for that moment of soul-death that would indicate I’d aimed
accurately.
It didn’t come, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief.
God help me, I didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to kill my soul mate no matter how intent he
was on killing me. No matter what Dia had said, no matter what Kye himself had said, I just
didn’t want to do it.
“If what you have with the vampire was truly strong, you would not have kept coming back to me,”
he said. His voice was coming from the shadows just to the left of the doorway. I raised the gun,
my mouth so dry it hurt, and fired.
I waited, for what seemed an eternity, as the bullet sped across the distance between us and
blasted its way through the wall.
And heaved another sigh of relief when there was no indication that I’d hit anything, let alone
flesh.
I ran across to the next machine, hunkering under its protecting weight. Though I could feel his
presence in the room, I had no real grip on his actual position. It was as if the deadener he was
wearing was somehow blocking my more basic senses as well as the psychic and electronic
ones.
I flicked to infrared, quickly scanning the upper floor. There were no telltale blurs of red, but
that could just mean he was hiding behind the thick patches of darkness that my infrared couldn’t
see past.
“What I have with my vampire satisfies one half of my soul, but I am a being with two very
different souls, Kye.” Even if I’d spent most of my life denying that the vampire half of me had
needs every bit as strong as the wolf. “I might not be able to deny the pull of the soul mate
bond, but that doesn’t mean it’s all I want in my life.”
Even if I’d spent most of my life wanting that very thing.
I slipped through the small gap between the floor and the machine and came out the other side,
moving quietly across to another machine.
I still had no sense of him. The air was rich with the scent of machine oil, dust, and metal but
remained steadfastly free of the man who prowled above me. Unless he spoke, I had no idea where
he was, and that was scary. I relied so heavily on my senses in situations like this that being
without them left me feeling almost helpless.
And I
hated
that sensation. It reminded me too much of my years
growing up and being thrown from pillar to post by Blake, the man who now led the Jenson
pack.
I shook the memories of him from my head, even as I wondered why he was in my thoughts so often
of late, and scanned the rooms above me again.
Nothing.
It was
so
frustrating. I knew he was there somewhere, but I just
couldn’t—
The thought froze as a prickle of warning ran down my spine. I rose and spun in one swift
movement, the gun held at arm’s length and my finger on the trigger, close, so close to pulling
it.
Kye stood near my original machine, his gun raised, his golden eyes so cold they froze my
soul.
I couldn’t pull the trigger. I just couldn’t.
I didn’t want to destroy the dream.
“I think what we have here is commonly called a standoff,” he said, voice calm, expression so
cool.
And yet I could feel the heat of him, taste the desire in him. Heard the answering response from
deep inside of me.
“Put the gun down and give it up, Kye.”
Please put the gun down
. “We
both get to live that way.”
He smiled. Again, it was a sad and wistful thing that tore at my heart. The heart that supposedly
didn’t
belong to Kye. “Run away with me.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Run away with me,” he repeated softly. “We make a good team, you and I. We could make a fortune
together.”
“I’m not a killer, Kye. I can’t do what you do for a living.”