Icarus; The Kindred (A Paranormal Romance) (12 page)

Blake turns the heat on and points the vents directly at me, but only half of one actually works. Not to mention that the air is freezing. He sees my discomfort and turns it off. We're down the road a few miles before he says anything.

"I figured it would be a good idea to ditch the 4Runner."

I dread the rest of his explanation.

"Seeing as it was yours and all."

I groan. "Of course the vehicle we chose, out of the ten we had to pick from, would have been my old 4Runner. Remember, please, that it was your idea when we are telling this story later. Assuming we live long enough to tell it."

"Listen, we could have taken Liv's mustang, but it's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for. The other vehicles may or may not have even started." Blake's mouth breaks into a grin and he shrugs off his shirt, throwing it at me. "Here, you've got to be cold."

I want to be pissed, but Blake with his shades, in the laid-back driver's seat, shirtless, proves too much and I can't help myself. I actually laugh—
really
laugh.

"What?" he asks innocently.

"You look ridiculous." I'm laughing so hard, in fact that my sides are aching. "Where in hell did you find this dinosaur?"

"Might I remind you that you're in a soaking-wet towel in the passenger seat of this classic masterpiece? How did you get out of there, anyway?"

"Well. Trinity won't make the mistake again, but he was on the phone with one of them, telling him to wait until I was dressed. It bought me enough time to climb through the ceiling. We're just lucky we weren't in a decent hotel. That cheap tile just saved our asses."

"How could he have known where we were?" Blake asks.

"Iris knew you were the only one with me and that you weren't the one in the shower. I don't have the first guess as to how any of that is possible. I was hoping to keep him unaware of my distance from Jacelynd, but that's not an issue anymore."

Blake keeps looking behind us in the rearview mirror.

"We have some time," I say.

He looks at me blankly and I consider not saying anything, but it will give him peace of mind, concerning our being tailed, at any rate.

"I take really, really long showers normally. Trinity knows this."

He grimaces. "Yeah."

"Sorry. Would you rather I hadn't told you?"

"No, I am just adding another half hour to the time I'm going to take gutting him like a deer."

"Why did you say what you did?" I ask suddenly, "At Belladonna. Why those words particularly?"

"I saw the look in your eyes. No recognition whatsoever. I said the only thing I knew would make you pause later." He looks back to the road. "It worked didn't it?"

"Yeah. It did."

"I'd given up on it until I saw you in Hades."

I pull his shirt tighter and tinker with the air again. "I wonder if she's still alive—the human whose past I'm carrying around?"

"Probably. Donors aren't usually killed. She's most likely in a catatonic state somewhere. Iris might know that, too."

I wonder if we're insane for attempting this. "I hope she has a damn good reason for her actions. For her sake."

Please speak to me, Jessica.
Trinity's voice carries a rush of unease to my gut. My expression must convey as much.

"Jessi, you okay?" Blake asks.

I nod mutely.

"It's him isn't it? Does he know we've left?"

"No clue. He lies as well as he breathes."

Jess, I should have told you in person about your son. You've seen the worst side of me and I can't even begin to ask your forgiveness, but know that I am telling the truth when I say that I love you. If I didn't, I wouldn't have given you a choice. It's not too late. Come back to me.

I stare out the window. Trinity doesn't get it and I can't tell him. Unbidden, moments shared between him and me flood my thoughts. Not to where either Jacelynd or Trinity would be aware of it, though, and for that small blessing I am grateful.

I remember waking up countless mornings to find Trinity asleep beside me in bed, an arm laid over me protectively—like any minute I'd be swept out of his grasp. How he held me after my first solo job. I'd driven to his house, with absolutely no intention whatsoever of getting out. I was drenched in sweat and blood, just sitting motionless in the dark driveway. He used his remote to my car (he bought it for me to begin with), unlocked the doors and took a seat in the passenger side, where he remained silent for almost an hour, waiting until I was ready. When it became obvious that I wasn't going to speak, he led me inside and pulled me into his arms. I was too shaken to agree to getting cleaned up and he didn't fight me on it. He let me lie down and close my eyes on his chest as I was.

We argued all the time. About everything. He hates most things I love (I had no idea how true this really is). One of the only things we truly share is a love for horses. We rode all night one night and got caught in a storm, finding refuge in an old farmhouse. He said things to me that night that were so unlike him that I still have trouble believing it wasn't a dream.

He has a fairly twisted sense of humor, dark humor, I always called it. But, as I've said before, he had moments when I wondered if he weren't just … lost somehow. Like the night of that first assignment, when he literally put his own life on the line for mine. His left leg was seriously injured and he still walks with a slight hitch in his step when he's tired.

Jess?

I clench my jaw. The sheer thought that he'd been able to hold me like he had, knowing what he'd done to me, what he'd taken from me, grants me new strength and I respond, but not directly. I don't want to grant him the intimacy of my direct thoughts. More importantly though, I don't want him to know that he's broken my heart and if I reply in my usual flippant, sarcastic way, then it will unquestionably show.

That's what defines a villain … the choice to be evil, to commit dark deeds. I wasn't given an alternative to the things I was party to. But someone who knows the difference between what is right and wrong, who has the capacity to be something so much greater and yet makes a conscious decision to walk in shadow, is benighted unlike any other. I don't know that there exists salvation for him, for he is truly damned in a hell of his own making.

And somehow in those words, in that response, a stirring begins in my soul. Something rouses and I can finally see the edges of that girl I saw in the photos in the mountain. Maybe it wasn't light-heartedness, as much as it was the kind of calm that's only attainable after being alive for over five hundred years. Maybe she's not dead after all.

"We
should have grabbed Iris at the motel," I huff. We're parked at a mall in a suburb of D.C. and I'm so cold that I've stopped shivering. Feeling my fingers and toes is a distant memory. And damn it, if I'd known how important all of my extremities were, I might have enjoyed them a little more when I'd had the chance. An hour ago, we stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up something for me to change into. Dark wash jeans, a fitted black long-sleeved shirt and black boots.

"And do what with her?" Blake asks. He's growing frustrated and I can't blame him. The general idea was that Damian would be where Iris was. Oops.

"Well, I can think of quite a few unpleasant things I'd like to do to her, but the only thing that would prove even mildly productive would be to question her about the gateway. You said she'd know."

"How difficult would it be to enter High Coven?"

I laugh. Hard. "Are you kidding me? It's not difficult, it's impossible. I thought you were joking when you mentioned the scrolls or whatever's down there."

He looks at me without a hint of ire in his expression.

"Sweet mother of God, you were serious? Well, it's really rather simple. All we have to do is cut off Trinity's hand. Or peel his finger tips from … no, the whole hand is better." Blake doesn't think this is funny. "Even if we got in, it's not like a Steven Segal movie. You can't just walk around the place. There are guards everywhere and not the kind who fall asleep on duty and allow you to steal their keys, cause, oh yeah, there aren't keys. Think Star Trek. You aren't going anywhere without a full body scan on the way in. And I think I might have already mentioned that it's below the effing White House."

"You have a better idea?" he asks tiredly.

No, though almost any idea is better than that one. "If I'm caught, I'll have a little while at least to find out what we need to know before Trinity wipes my memory again. That will—"

Blake laughs. "And have Trinity totally mess with your head this time? Jacelynd wouldn't just be pissed that I let that happen. We're talking murderous. Jessi, you'd wake up believing we were the bad guys again and God knows what about your relationship with Trinity. I doubt he'd take the cautious route, considering how it turned out this last time."

"I'll write a letter. I can't deny my own handwriting."

"And what if he does it right away? What if he forces open the gate prematurely? What if we don't know shit about any of this and walk right into a trap set for the sole purpose of getting your blood to him? If he knows you as well as you say he does, he'll anticipate your line of thought."

"Point noted." I flex my hand and blow onto my balled fist, hoping it'll warm my fingers a little, but of course it does absolutely nothing. I'm betting my actual body temperature is somewhere around seventy degrees.

"You look worse than you did two hours ago. We're losing more time than we have."

"Which is why my idea is a good one. I need his blood or I won't be conscious long enough to figure this crap out."

Blake doesn't say anything. He sits looking out across the parking lot.

A terse thought crosses my mind that if I'm dead, Trinity will be completely screwed. Which, I'm assuming is why he got so pissed while I was getting my ass kicked in Hades.

Blake's voice interrupts my pondering. "Shit."

I ignore his frustration. It does us no good to sit here and focus on the hopelessness of the situation. "What if we set a trap for
him
. I don't have the slight—"

"Shit!"

I look over to see Blake's face frozen in horror. Which, considering the way things have been going in my life, could be positively rapturous. I follow his line of sight and see exactly what he's swearing about.

"Shit," I mumble.

It's dark out, but everything is still well lit by the businesses and restaurants nearby. And the giant light that the CDC has now set up on the far end of the parking lot. Ever seen
ET
? Giant plastic sheeting is being rolled out and people in bio suits are emerging from the mass of armored vehicles that have suddenly started to fill the parking lot.

"Bastard. Trinity probably released the fake virus everywhere
but
here. They're quarantining D.C. thinking they can keep it that way." And I thought getting into High Coven was difficult before.

The tap on my window scares the bejeesus out of Blake, who jumps nearly out of his seat. I turn casually to see a guy who looks like he just walked out of Space Odyssey. I smile, but I doubt that my looking like death warmed over has escaped him.

"Open the door, miss," he says. At least, I think that's what he said, I had to read his lips. Between the window and his mask, I can't hear his voice.

I say to Blake, "Aw, he called me miss. And here I was feeling positively antiquated." I spare a glance back at our visitor before adding, "I kind of like this guy."

Spaceman motions for me to get out of the car, and I mouth to him,
I don't want to kill you.

"Jessi. Now might be a really good time to write that letter."

"Blake?"

He doesn't answer me. He gestures forward instead, with the hand he has rested on his leg.

Trinity.

Three guys, including Spaceman, are bleeding from behind their protective masks before Trinity finally dismounts his motorcycle and steps in with a syringe in his hand.
He's wearing his usual black attire and his helmet obscures his face. Even so, there's no mistaking his demeanor and how everyone around him practically runs to get out of his way.

"Jess, calm down." He flips open the top of his visor, leaving most of his face still covered, and bends down to where I am pinned to the floor against the dash. My hands are cuffed behind me (the only thing Spaceman managed to get done before the blow to his head limited his ability to stand). Blake was extracted from the car first, and for the record, he gave a pretty good fight.

"And wake up thinking everything is fine? That you're fucking Prince Charming? You know me better than that."

Trinity seems troubled, though it's hard to tell with the lack of lighting. This might have moved me before now. Now it just irritates me. He takes my arm. "I can't take you in like this," he says softly. "I can't risk anyone else getting hurt. Including you."

I look past him. More white suits are en route. I really don't have a choice here. "Fine. Do what you have to do," I whisper, glaring at him.

He has the needle in my arm and his finger on the end of the syringe when he changes his mind and pulls me to my feet instead. "Come on."

Suddenly, that all-too-familiar thread snaps and all of my emotions are quieted.

"Oh, shit. Watch out," a gruff voice says to my left.

Oh shit's right. In a blur of movement, I pull out of Trinity's hold and knock the suits to my immediate left and right to the ground with two clean kicks. This would be a lot easier had I not allowed them to cuff me, but, whatever. I've succeeded in pulling the gun from one of their belts. With one fluid move, I chamber a round and blow the cuffs off.

Now, don't be mistaken, this actually hurts like hell and I don't recommend it to anyone who isn't immortal, or at the very least isn't interested in suicide by exsanguination. Trinity stares at me coolly as I lift the gun to his face.

He asks, "Blake's life is more important than your want for revenge, isn't it?"

"You're one to talk. Where are you taking him?" My finger rests against the trigger, slack pulled, half a breath away from blowing his face off. Like I said earlier, a regular bullet won't kill a vampire, but the brain is one of those terribly vital organs one needs for a decent existence.

"The same place you're about to go willingly if you want him to live. I have absolutely no need for him, Jess. But, I care about you. You shoot me, and he'll be dead before you can reach him. Come on your own accord and he lives—deal?"

That's why he didn't drug me. He's still hung up on his pride. "Telling me that Blake's life will end if I do otherwise hardly constitutes my own accord, wouldn't you say?"

"Do you really think it's wise to argue that point right now?"

I sigh and lower the gun.

"Good girl." The genuineness of his smile makes my insides ache. "Can you hold on with your hands like that?"

It takes me a second to register that he's referring to his bike.
Great.
My favorite mode of transportation. I shrug. "Sure. Why not? Everything else is going my way today."

"Where
is—"

Trinity cuts me off. "Don't press your luck. Be happy Blake is here at all." We are at Trinity's estate, walking down a hall I've never seen before. We stop at a large door that looks like it's made of steel. "A panic room?"

Trinity places his hand on the same kind of scan lock I saw him use at High Coven, but this time I don't actually see the light as it scans for his prints. "Wine cellar."

I walk into the room, or I should say cave, and gawk. "Why? You can't drink it. Don't tell me it's for collector's value."

He suddenly spins around, causing me to run into him. I expect him to pull me closer, out of habit, but he steadies me and takes a step backwards. "You can, it's just not a good idea." He places his hand on my forehead, too tenderly for my taste. Then, brings his wrist to his mouth and bites into his flesh.

The scent of blood usually does nothing for me—not like it seems to in every vamp movie I've ever seen. But this is different. The Blood Tithe, I gather. Nonetheless, I say, "No."

Trinity pushes his wrist forward. "Refusing my blood does absolutely nothing to me. It will, however, leave you helpless."

"I know what power my blood holds, Trinity. Or should I say Lord Tristan? Is that even your real name or do you go by another? Lucifer, maybe?"

He isn't smiling. He isn't angry, either, and I don't know which is worse. "You don't understand."

He seems to have more to say, but as I've already pointed out, I don't give a damn. "I've made my choice."

"Suit yourself. But understand that from here on out, you won't heal very well. Which means that those
war wounds
on your hands won't heal much either." Trinity brings his skin to his mouth and licks, sealing it closed. "There is only one way in and one way out of here, so I wouldn't do anything stupid if I were you." He turns to leave and I hear it cross my lips before I can stop myself from saying it aloud.

"The only stupid thing I've ever done is fall in love with you." I hadn't intended to say it, but the anger has arrived at a nearly unbearable place. "A mistake I've since corrected."

Trinity turns and stares at me, his bright blue eyes brimming with emotion. I've never said those words to him before—never even hinted at anything beyond physical attraction. "What?" he murmurs.

"You heard what I said," I whisper coldly. "And believe me when I say it's a fact I'd rather you not know. Don't act like this affects you. I saw you, Trinity, with the torch in your hand." I pull at my shirt, exposing the scars on my shoulder. "Something I wouldn't have done to my worst enemy, let alone someone I—"

"You think I did that to you?" he asks horrified. "I
stopped
them. You aren't seeing everything. I didn't orchestrate you being taken, Jessica. I had no knowledge of it. You wouldn't even have the scars had you just—you refused my blood then as well."

"Right. Oh, but wait, you said yourself that you kept me aware of my surroundings for months before you replaced my memories! Remember that? My donor wasn't pregnant? How gullible do you think I am? "

"Doing otherwise would have killed your son," he says quietly. "I said what I did to—"

"To punish Jacelynd? Or was it for my blood and what it can bring you? How can you expect me to believe anything you say when every other word is a lie? You had me, Trinity, I was … " I choke up, pissed that I'm actually being this transparent. "Was any of it real? Any of the time we spent together, did you mean any of it? Or is the truth that I spent countless months in darkness, pregnant and scared and alone, just to fuel your sick sense of entitlement?"

Trinity balls one of his hands into a fist at his side and clears his throat. "Everything we've shared is real. I altered your memories, not your feelings. You're still you. Jessica, you weren't alone or scared—furious, but not scared. I don't think you know how to be, not of anyone or anything. And I was with you. We were friends, once. Before."

"Is that what you meant when you said you didn't intend to have feelings for me?"

"Yes. It is. You were my betrothed. Our families had arranged the engagement when we were still children and there was a time when I was jealous simply because Jacelynd had stolen you before we'd had a chance. You broke off the engagement for him. But everything has changed. My love for you has nothing at all to do with him." He releases his fist, only to pull it back into place tighter.

"Iris has her own agenda, and she arranged your capture ten years ago without my assistance because she was under the impression that it was what I wanted. She knew your family legacy, but this wasn't what I'd envisioned. None of this is. You don't understand, because you've always had a heart for mankind and their pathetic existence. But there is a better life for our kind than this. We were hunted for centuries, killed simply because we're different. Because they fear us. And I'll have none of it. Nor will you. Your destiny is to rule this world with me." He pauses before adding, "Give me a reason not to wipe your memories again. Please."

"How long?" I ask.

He tilts his head in question.

"How long do I have to give you a reason?"

He brushes my cheek with his knuckles. "You mean, how long do you have to find a way out of this? You're out of time, Jess. That's all I'll say."

He leaves me then, and I stand in the middle of the room feeling foolish, out of place and cold—not to mention more confused than before I got here.

I really,
really,
should have taken his blood. Aren't I the one who said I needed his blood, or was Blake the voice of reason? Do I always have to be so bloody stubborn? I already was shivering and now I'm standing in what might as well be a friggin' refrigerator. But, on the bright side, there is alcohol here. Copious amounts, quite pricey, and he did actually say it was possible to drink it—didn't he?

I meander until I find a nice 1942 merlot.

Bottoms up.

I
don't really feel much on the first sip. Or the fifteenth. It's exactly upon the sixteenth swallow of the third merlot that the world around me spins. I giggle and clutch the rack, watching helplessly as the bottle (a 1942 as well, in case you need to know) crashes to the floor.

"Damn," I say seriously, kicking a glass shard with the toe of my boot.

"You are going to wish you hadn't done that," a voice says softly behind me.

I turn to see a figure in the shadows. I can't make him out very well, but the helmet in his hands is visible enough and it's unmistakable. How long has Trinity been gone, a couple hours, max?

I flash a sarcastic smile. "There are a lot of things I wish I hadn't done. Like, you, for example."

"You don't mean that."

"Really, I do. I can't even begin to imagine how you could hate someone enough to do what you've done to Jacelynd. Were you friends with him, too? Or have you always been mortal enemies?"

"We aren't talking about Jacelynd. We're talking about you," he says simply."Are we? Let's. Let's talk about trust. Let's talk about how much of my life as I know it was spent believing a lie. How could you possibly think this would do anything but make me hate you?" Dizzy, I find my way to the floor and sit with my back against the wall and my legs stretched out. "Ugh." I lie back and close my eyes.

"You don't hate me nearly as much as you think you do." Trinity slowly paces, his heels clicking in a steady rhythm.

"Stop moving around so damn much." I hold my hand out like it's going to help. "Where's Blake?"

"Later."

I scoff, "If you're waiting on that answer, it's no. I won't give you a reason. You lost me, Trinity. My heart belongs to Jacelynd."

"Then why did you leave him?"

His question feels like a brick falling on my chest. He sounds so wounded and that doesn't make any sense. "It isn't like that, I—"

"But it is. By the second time you left, you knew exactly what your past with him was and you left anyway—no goodbye, no questions. Barely a note, which was an afterthought at best."

I laugh, partly because the alcohol is most definitely having an effect on me and partly because this is insane—this whole conversation. "You speak of love like you know it but you haven't any idea what it feels like. I love him deeply. I think I always have. And you will never be even a fraction of the man he is. So go ahead … "

He tries to interrupt me but I keep right on going.

" … microwave my brain, do whatever it is you do when you're stealing my thoughts. You can have my body. It's useless at this point anyway. And just so we're clear, I left because I knew Jacelynd doesn't know how much I've changed. I'm not as fragile as he thinks." I hold my injured hands up as proof and am met with silence. "Don't be glib about this. You're the bloody saint who taught me how to shoot off a set of cuffs."