Darken (Siege #1) (23 page)
Authors: Angela Fristoe
“What do you want from us?” Gavin asked.
“With Miss. Evans? Nothing. With you, though, an opportunity to complete my work with you,” Sinclair explained. “Finalizing your results will allow me to focus on the next generation of Posthuman subjects. I’ve been gradually implementing the preliminary stages since the spring. I expect the subjects to be ready for stage two by the time I’m done with you.”
“You sick bastard,” Gavin spat at him. “How many lives have you destroyed this time?”
“Six seemed to be my lucky number.”
The monster tore its way free, and Gavin doubled over as his body transformed from man to beast. His groans of pain swiftly turned to growls of fury. This time, unlike the others, when Sinclair made the grunting sound, the beast refused to retreat completely, and Gavin found himself trapped in a motionless body.
His vision focused on Sinclair, pinpointing the vein in his neck that pulsed furiously. That’s where he’d strike. He’d lock his hands around Sinclair’s neck and squeeze to build the pressure, then when he released his hold, his fingers would dig in and shred the flesh from him. It would be a slow and painful death, befitting the man who let Lela suffer in agony as she died at the bottom of the river.
A figure ran through the open door of the kitchen, swinging a baseball bat. Gavin recognized Eve as the lightweight aluminum bat she swung connected with Sinclair’s shoulder.
“Where is my brother?
Where is he
?”
Sinclair stumbled, lifting an arm to shield his head and giving Gavin the opportunity he’d been waiting for.
In three long steps, he reached Sinclair. Grabbing the older man by the arm, Gavin turned him so he could see Sinclair’s face as the life was ripped from him. He wrapped his fingers around the wrinkled flesh of Sinclair’s throat and squeezed.
Behind him, he heard the screams of Cora and Eve, felt the tug of hands on his arms. The sharp report of a gunshot echoed through the room just as something slammed into Gavin’s chest. His hands loosened their grip, and he lurched to the side, knocking over a small round table and going down on one knee.
He stared at the gun Sinclair held, and the scent of sulfur drifted from its barrel. The crack of another gunshot resonated and Sinclair flew backward into the wall. Blood slid down his face for the hole now marking the center of his forehead. Sinclair’s body slumped to the side and fell over.
“
No
,” Gavin yelled.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. This wasn’t the punishment Sinclair deserved. The beast howled. He was the one who should have done it.
“Gavin?” Cora’s voice called to him, and he turned to her. Her small pistol was clutched in her shaking hand.
She killed Sinclair. The fact reverberated through him, leaving him weak at the loss of purpose.
“You killed him,” he whispered. He pushed to his feet taking a lurching step toward her.
CORA’S FINGER TIGHTENED ON the trigger, and the kickback of the gun jerked her arm up. Time slowed in that moment as she stared at Sinclair, riveted by the hole that appeared on Sinclair’s forehead. Behind him, red droplets sprayed out, spattering the wall just before he hit it. He slid down, leaving smears of blood along the paisley wallpaper.
Numbness took over, and she gazed down at the gun in her hand, saw the slight sway of it, yet she couldn’t feel anything.
A horrific yell jarred her from her trance and Cora turned to Gavin. Even in its distorted state, Cora could see the anguish lining his face.
“Gavin?”
“You killed him.” The harsh despair in Gavin’s voice tore at Cora’s heart. Those three words were more painful than anything else he ever said to her as he turned his fury from Sinclair to her, decimating the fragile hope she’d had that he might feel something other than lust for her.
He stood and stumbled forward, and she could do nothing more than watch as his features wavered between his and the beast’s. His hand reached for her, and she flinched, but the blow she expected never came. Gavin collapsed before her, and her fears that the monster he’d become would kill her vanished.
Rolling him over, she found a blossom of blood forming on the front of his shirt. Sinclair’s shot had missed her, hitting Gavin instead.
“Oh, God. Oh, God,” she muttered, grabbing at the worn material, trying to rip it apart. She gave up after a second attempt and shoved it up. Blood pumped from a wound near his shoulder. She placed her shaking hands over it, and the warm fluid coated her hands.
She looked around frantically for something to use to stop the flow and saw Eve a few feet away, sobbing into her hands.
“Eve!” she screamed, and her friend lifted her head. “Help me! Pass me the blanket.”
Eve dragged it over, and Cora bunched up the corner and pressed it to the wound. She took a deep breath, telling herself to calm down. Beneath the pressure of her hands, the rise and fall of Gavin’s chest reassured her he was alive.
Noah burst through the front entrance and scanned the room, taking in the scene. He ran over and crouched next to Cora, pressing his fingers to Gavin’s neck. “What the hell happened?”
“Sinclair was here. He shot Gavin,” Cora explained in a halting voice. “We need an ambulance.”
“Let me take a look,” he said. She reluctantly removed her hands, and he peeled back the blood-soaked cloth. “It’s pretty high on his shoulder. That’s good.”
“We should call the police.”
“No!” Eve said, scurrying over to them. “We can’t.”
“Eve—”
“Please! They have Jamie,” she begged.
“Who?” Noah asked.
“Dr. Barker said they took him to the hospital, but he lied.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. "
“Who the hell is Dr. Barker?”
Eve gestured toward Sinclair. Noah looked from Eve to Sinclair then to Gavin, his face that familiar unreadable mask. He pulled out his cell phone and pressed a button.
“Cattleman’s Club. Come clean up your mess,” he said gruffly then shoved the phone back in his pocket. He slid his arms under Gavin and lifted. “Let’s get him out to my truck. It’ll be faster if we take him.”
“What about Sinclair?” Cora trailed behind him.
“SIEGE can deal with him.”
She followed him from the building and climbed into the back of the cab. Noah maneuvered Gavin in so his head rested on Cora’s lap and she could continue applying pressure. She glanced out the window and spotted Eve standing dejectedly in the doorway to the building.
“Noah, what about Eve? Will Dr. Nielson help her?”
“Shit.” Noah closed the door to the cab and stomped across the street. He gripped Eve’s arm and practically dragged her to the truck.
Eve and Noah got in the truck, and he sped off, spinning his tires on the loose gravel road. On the drive to the hospital, Cora called Gavin’s parents. She tried to stay calm, but from the scowl Noah gave her in the rear-view mirror, she suspected her hysteria shone through.
When they pulled up to the emergency drop off, chaos erupted around them. Noah jumped out shouting for help and then Gavin was being removed, placed on a gurney, and wheeled away before she could even get out of the truck.
She ran after them, but a set of locked doors swung shut behind them. There was little she could do but stare through the rectangular window until they disappeared into a room. Her hand smacked the door, leaving a bloody hand print behind.
“There’s a restroom over there. Why don’t you go wash your hands?” Noah suggested. “I’ll go to talk to one of the nurses and see if we can find out what’s happening.”
“Where were you, Noah?” Accusation gave her words a sharp edge. If he’d been there sooner, Gavin might not have been shot.
“A few of Sinclair’s lackeys blitzed me" He gestured to a gash along his temple that she hadn’t even noticed. “They got in enough whacks to knock me out.”
“He’s going to be okay, right?”
Noah’s lip twitched then curled into a half smile. “Gavin’s a tough son-of-a-bitch. He’ll be back to normal in a couple days.”
She wanted to believe him, but she didn’t.
***
Seven hours later, four of which Gavin spent in surgery, she started to believe Noah.
The constant beep of the machines hooked to Gavin might have been annoying at any other time, but as Cora sat there staring at his still form, she felt nothing other than relief. He was alive.
“Has he woken up yet?” Sarah asked as she came into the room.
“Not yet, but he was getting restless a few minutes ago. The doctor doesn’t think he’ll wake for a few hours.”
Sarah smiled sadly. “He doesn’t know Gavin.”
Sarah and Mark had been so calm about the whole thing. Cora wasn’t a parent, but she knew how her mom and dad would have reacted to hearing she’d been shot. Hysterics would have been a mild way to describe their response.
From the few times she’d meet Sarah, she’d been surprised how calm and strong Sarah was in the face of everything SIEGE and Sinclair had done.
“He’ll be all right,” Sarah reassured her.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Sinclair did a lot to hurt the boys, but rapid recovery was one of the few I don’t complain about anymore. Although, when they were younger, I think suffering a little longer from broken bones and such would have made them a bit more cautious.”
Cora stared at Gavin’s hand resting in hers. Only minutes before, it had been limp in her grasp, now there was a tension in it as if he were attempting to hold on to her. It gave her a small ray of hope that maybe they’d be able to find a way through this together.
“Gavin mentioned you planned to move back to Denver.”
Cora nodded. “I was going to go after we stopped Sinclair. But now …”
“When I first met my husband, I knew immediately that he was the one. I was lucky that Mark felt the same way. Our biggest struggles didn’t come until he took the job with SIEGE. I’d heard the conspiracy theories involving them and couldn’t figure out why they’d need a teacher in a science lab. But Mark needed a job and thought it was the perfect opportunity to try something different. He came home that first day absolutely devastated.”
Cora couldn’t even begin to image what he’d seen or felt when he discovered what SIEGE was doing.
“Taking those six boys in was the hardest thing we ever did. The best, but the hardest. There was no guarantee that they would be able to function outside of the lab, or that they’d ever be able to have normal lives. Gavin wasn’t one I worried about. From the moment he entered my life, he’s been rolling with the punches. Oh, he lets you know when he’s not happy, but he just keeps on keeping on. Or, he did until Lela died.”
Sarah walked around Gavin’s hospital bed and lifted his other hand. The tenderness in her touch left little doubt that she loved Gavin as if she’d given birth to him herself.
“I like you, Cora,” Sarah said. “I know you would make Gavin whole again, and I want that for him more than anything. But if you make it to Denver, I think you’ll have made the right choice to go.”
Sarah didn’t wait around for Cora to come up with a response. She pressed a kiss to Gavin’s forehead and gave his hand a squeeze before leaving the two of them alone again.
Cora sat back in her chair, absently rubbing her thumb over the circular scar on the back of Gavin’s hand.
She wanted to stay. Eight hours before, if Gavin had asked her, she would. But now, it wasn’t an option. She’d seen the look on Gavin’s face when he realized she’d killed Sinclair. It was an expression she’d never forget.
Gavin’s fingers tightened around her hand, and he shifted restlessly and muttered something. She then laid his hand on the bed and rose.
Outside of his room, she found Sky sitting in a chair and gave her a weak smile.
“I’m going to go grab a coffee,” she said.
“I’ll go with you,” Sky offered.
“Actually, I just need a few minutes to myself.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll go in and sit with Gavin then.”
Cora took the elevator down to the lobby, but instead of going to the cafeteria, she went out the exit and sat on a bench, watching the constant flow of people coming and going.
It only took her a few minutes to make up her mind. She pulled out her cell to call her brother and beg him to give her a ride home.
GAVIN REACHED FOR HIS beer, wincing as the motion pulled at the still healing wound. He rubbed the sore spot with a grimace before chugging the last few sips of his drink.
It had been a week since he’d been shot, and while his doctor was surprised by his rapid recovery, he knew he wasn’t back to a hundred percent yet.
Cora’s soft laugh caught his attention, and he quickly found her at the end of the bar, talking with Josh. It was the first time he’d seen her since the Cattleman’s Club, though Sky told him Cora had been by his side right up until he woke.
She’d been avoiding him since, and he wanted to know why. Initially, he reasoned that with Noah taking off with only a vague phone call mentioning SIEGE, she’d had to step up to help Logan. But that hadn’t explained why she wouldn’t take his calls.
She slung her purse over her shoulder and headed for the door. Gavin pressed his lips together tightly as it swung shut behind her.
“You can a take a shot or not?” Logan asked, poking the tip of his pool cue into Gavin’s arm, leaving behind a dusty blue smudge.
Gavin rolled his shoulders then lined up his shot and gently tapped the cue ball, sending it across the table with just enough force to bounce off the side and nudge the eight ball into the corner pocket.
“If you’re going to cheat, you should at least try to be subtle.” His brother dug out two balls from a pocket and rolled them to the opposite end of the table.
“It’s not cheating,” Gavin protested and started racking the balls. He let his gaze drift back to the door. “It’s natural talent.”
“Natural, my ass.” Logan lifted his beer glass in the air and waved it at Josh, who nodded in acknowledgment. “Have you heard from Noah?”
“Not since he decided to go on his little hunting trip.”
Noah had been pretty tight-lipped, only mentioning it had something to do with Cora’s friend Eve and her brother. Gavin still wasn’t sure what the hell that was about. He remembered Eve showing up, but he couldn’t figure out why.
There was a lot about that night he didn’t remember, and the one person who could give them the answers he needed, refused to talk to him. Somehow, in the time between Eve bursting in, swinging her bat, and when he woke in the hospital, he lost everything again.
Lela was dead. Sinclair was dead. There were no answers from him, no revenge, and now Cora might leave.
“Fuck this,” Gavin muttered and tossed his pool cue on the table.
Grabbing his coat from the hook on the wall, he ignored Logan’s confused look and stomped through the bar and outside.
He jogged down the street, turning the corner onto Main Street just as Cora disappeared into her building. A quick glance showed the road was clear, and he ran across and to her building door. At the top of the stairs, he found her searching in her purse for her keys.
“Cora,” he said.
Startled, she jerked her head around looking like a doe caught in headlights.
“What are you doing her, Gavin?” she asked.
“We need to talk.” He stepped forward when she started to protest. “Don’t give me some shit about this not being a good time. You’ve been avoiding me all week. I think I deserve some answers.”
She studied him in silence before answering, “All right.”
He followed her inside, watching as she nervously moved about the room, hanging her bag in the closet and shifting half-filled boxes out of the way.
He’d known she was still thinking about going back to Denver, but seeing her packing, it finally hit him.
She was leaving.
“Sorry it’s such a mess. I’ve been busy at the pub the past couple days,” she explained.
“Two months,” he said.
“What?”
“You told me you’d stay until after Christmas. This looks like you’re leaving sooner.”
She licked her lower lip and briefly caught it between her teeth.
“I am.”
“So, that’s it then? You decide you want out, and you go?”
She crossed her arms and leaned against the edge of the breakfast bar, staring up at him. The defeat he saw reflected in her eyes stabbed at his chest.
“I can’t do this anymore, Gavin. Waiting for you is like waiting for the apocalypse. It’s never going to happen. Especially after Sinclair.”
“What does that mean?”
“I killed him.”
“He needed to die, Cora. You heard what he said about continuing his experiments. Who knows how many people he hurt, or even killed.”
“But I was the one to do it.” She shook her head, causing her ponytail to swish along her back. “Before it happened, I knew you wanted to be the one to kill him for what he did to Lela.”
“Not just for Lela. For my brothers, for me, for you.” The residue of anger shuddered through him. “To him, we were all lab rats, and even though he said he was done with you, he wasn’t. He never would have stopped. I couldn’t let him do that to you.”
“The way you looked at me when you realized I’d done it …” Her words trailed off, but he could fill in the blanks.
“I wasn’t angry you shot him. I was angry you had to. I put you in danger, and then I couldn’t even protect you.”
He closed the distance between them and tugged her into his arms. While she didn’t return the embrace, she didn’t push him away, either. Instead, her hands curled into the front of his shirt, and she pressed her forehand against his chest.
He stared down at the top of her head inside and sighed. The soft push of air stirred the short curly strands that had escaped her ponytail.
“Stay,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I can’t be second. Not anymore.”
With a finger under her chin, he tipped her face up so he could look into her eyes.
“You’re not second, Cora,” he said. “I can’t change the fact that I loved Lela, and I wouldn’t want to. For a long time, I didn’t want to accept that she was gone. I didn’t want to move on with my life without her, but it didn’t matter what I wanted. Life moved on, dragging me along with it.
“Then you were there, and suddenly I wanted something more than to wallow in my memories. It scared the shit out of me.” He rubbed his thumb over her cheek, wiping away the stray tear that trickled down.
Cora’s heart ached, torn between wanting to stay and knowing she couldn’t accept anything less than what she was willing to give. Everything. She would give him everything, and it’s what she needed in return.
“I want to stay,” she admitted in a voice softened by sadness. “But I need more than lust or gratitude. I need you to love me.”
Gavin closed his eyes, and Cora’s stomach sank. This is why she left the hospital before he woke, why she hadn’t taken his calls.
Você não é nada para mim
.
She might have hoped for more, she might have even deluded herself into believing that he must have felt something for her, but deep down she’d known. She was nothing to him.
“I can’t love you like I loved her because I loved her for entirely different reasons.” He opened his eyes and cupped her face in his hands. “Just like I would never have loved her like I love you.”
Cora’s breath hitched, and she wondered if she’d misheard him.
“I love you, Cora,” he repeated and then proceeded to cover her mouth with his in a tender kiss.
Elation blossomed within her, and she slid her hands around his back, clutching at the hard muscles. Propelled by an urgent passion, she arched her body into his. Her lips opened at the press of his tongue.
Gavin’s hands slipped dawn and gripped the back of her thighs, lifting until she could wrap her legs around his waist. She held on as he walked them to the bedroom and then fell backward on the bed.
Loosening her legs, she sat up, straddling him and tugged her shirt over her head.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” Gavin’s fingers delved into the cups of her lace bra to find her nipples.
Rocking against him, she threw her head back and moaned.
“Tell me what you want,” he said.
“I want you to fuck me.”
“No.” He rolled her over, propping himself up on his elbows, and her eyes flew to his. “No fucking, no sex. Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to love me.”
“I do. I will.
Você é minha vida
,” he said, kissing a path from her neck down to her navel then looked up at her through hooded eyes. “You are my life.”
He nipped at the quivering flesh of her belly before tracing a swirling pattern with his tongue back up to the sensitive spot below her.
“Stay,” he said.
“Yes.”
* * *
The End
* * *
Thank you so much for reading DARKEN! I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you’ll consider leaving an honest review on
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The SIEGE Series continues with TAKEN
coming Winter 2016
.
* * *
Books by Angela Fristoe
Romance Books
SIEGE Series
DARKEN
TAKEN
Coming Winter of 2016
Winter Souls (The Othala Witch Collection)
Coming November 3, 2016
Hunted (The Isa Fae Collection)
Coming Spring 2017
Young Adult Books
Songbird
The Woods of Everod Series
Waken
Rising
A Touched Trilogy
Lie to Me
Heal Me
Watch Me
About the Author
Angela Fristoe grew up in Alberta, Canada. She dreamed of becoming the next Dian Fossey or Jane Goodall, until she realized she wasn't all that keen on the outdoors or animals. Instead, she went into education and focused on elementary education and helping struggling readers. Her passion for writing grew after being ignited by The Hunger Game and Twilight crazes. Angela lives on Vancouver Island with her family, where she is pursuing her writing career while continuing her work in the education field.
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