Kai (A Dark Assassins Novel Book One) (19 page)

She glanced at the friends she had come to know and love, and although relieved that she could save them from a horrible fate, she would go back to being alone.
 
But with the knowledge of what it was like to love Kai for an echo in time.

Chapter Fifteen

Kai

Several emotions swirled as he paced the length of the living room floor, unable to pinpoint the exact reason for the rage and sadness.
 
But his most prominent emotion was fear.
 
He would lose her, not by death or because of her work, but because he wasn’t strong enough to tell her that he wanted her in his life.

What kind of life could he truly give her?

They never talked about a future, or even their feelings for each another, thinking that they had plenty of time to figure it out once her life wasn’t threatened.
 
But as he thought back, she never gave him an indication about how she felt for him.

And he’d never asked, though he was dying to know.

He’d known how brilliant she was, but at just over a week, she had solved a major problem and had come to care for him and his friends.

As he stopped his movement, he realized that he wanted her to love him.
 
Him, a fucking vampire, who never gave a shit about anyone, not even when he was a human.
 
But now, a human woman—an amazing and beautiful human—had come into his life and he couldn’t let her go.

He’d never liked the thought of a mate, and although he’d heard of shifters finding mates, and falling in love, none of them had ever fallen for a human.
 
A mate meant that the other would be the main focus of your life and the one who held your happiness in their hands.
 
He shirked at the idea of loving so deeply that everything else fell by the wayside.
 
But after he’d made love to her the first time, he could believe that there was nothing else in the world other than Liv.
 
He would give up his existence to be with her.

Without wanting to spend one more minute away from her, he raced downstairs, but he was unprepared for what he saw.

Reaper held a cotton swab to his arm, as Liv set the vial of blood that she had just drawn on the counter.
 
She reached for a black pen and wrote something on the label before she slid it into a mesh holder.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Liv turned toward him, almost dropping the pen she held in her hand, and shook from the ferocious look on his face.
 
He must’ve snarled, loudly, because he watched as she set the pen down and gulped.

He wanted to take a deep breath, to calm himself, but something about the scene in front of him outraged him.
 
Before he could find the words to apologize to her, Reaper and Hunter were in front of him and dragging him up the stairs.
 
As they almost cleared the last step, he spotted the tears that flooded her eyes, and he sagged against his friends.
 
They continued to drag him away until they reached his office and slammed the door, dumping him onto the chair without care.

Reaper reached out and punched him in the face, and without bracing himself for the hit, his head snapped back.
 

“You’re a fucking idiot.
 
She’s a strong and radiant human who just figured out a way to save our sorry asses, and yet you treat her like a whore you can fuck and feed on, without an ounce of respect.
 
If you don’t want her, then you tell her the truth and let her go.
 
If you continue to string her along, then I will take her somewhere and you will never see her again,” Reaper growled.

“No.
 
Don’t fucking talk about her like that,” he snarled and pounced on the man.

Reaper pushed him off and Kai slammed into the wall, the loud boom vibrating throughout the house.
 
By the time he’d stood, Reaper had shifted, his form twice as large as a typical timber wolf, his lips pulled back over his sharp teeth.
 
They snarled at each another, while Hunter, still in human form, guarded the door to prevent Liv from stumbling on the scene.

“She’s my mate.
 
I won’t let you take her from me.”
 
His snarl was so low, the words stuttered out of his mouth.

“You’re not acting like it,” Hunter said.
 
“Have you even talked to her about mating and how it works?”

“No.
 
I’ve kept a lot from her, but I don’t want to take away her choice.”

She doesn’t have a choice if she’s your mate.
 
Reaper’s voice boomed in his head.

“I don’t want her to love me because I’m her mate.
 
I just want her to love me,” he admitted.

The adrenaline that had been in ready supply the moment before drained at his confession, and he sagged against the wall, defeated.
 
He lifted his head when Reaper whined, and watched the wolf as he transformed back into his human form.
 
As he looked at his friend, he had no idea why he had been so angry just minutes before.
 
He apologized, but the wolf waved it off, strode forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“What’s really going on?” Reaper asked.

“She’s finished with her work,” Kai mumbled.

Reaper glanced over at Hunter and both men shrugged, as if this news meant nothing.

“Yeah, but she’s still here.
 
She’s not demanding to go back to work, or asking Ghost to negotiate with the government to find out who made the bio-weapon in the first place.
 
No, Liv is downstairs, testing my blood because she thinks that the antidote will work, because she’s worried for us.
 
When most humans would be freaked out by our existence, she accepted us from the moment she learned of us.
 
Not only has she accepted us, she thinks of us as her family, and she would defend any one of us, you most of all.
 
Hell, she allowed you to feed from her, trusted you not to kill her.
 
She’s remarkable, and you’re being a fuck,” Reaper growled.

The silence stretched as Kai thought back on all of his friend’s words.
 
Reaper was right.
 
She wasn’t demanding to go back to work.
 
She made no move to leave him, and yet he assumed that she would now that she had finished.

He had never felt fear, true fear, in his centuries as a vampire, but everything about Liv scared the shit out of him.
 
Human and fragile went hand in hand in his mind, but that fact was nothing compared to her deciding that he wasn’t worth her time, her love.
 
He didn’t want to put himself in a place where she could possibly tell him that she would never love him.
 
Not because he was a vampire, but because she was too good for him.

“I see, every day, how perfect she is.
 
Brilliant, funny, brave, and happy.
 
I’m jealous of my own brothers—hell, even at Jade’s close relationship with Liv—but you guys make her happy, and for some reason, she cares for me.
 
It hurt me that I had to come to her, broken and bloody, and watch the horror in her eyes because she thought she was going to lose me.
 
I knew then, just as I’ve known the moment I spotted her, she’s my everything.
 
I don’t know how to deal with that.
 
I don’t even know how to tell her,” Kai said.

Hunter and Reaper were silent, building up to something that would probably fill him with shame, but he should have been used to it by now.

“We’ve been worried about you for a long time.
 
Until Liv, you cut yourself off from us, and you wouldn’t talk about it.
 
We didn’t know about Liv when you first saw her, but we knew something had changed, and we’re glad that you found your mate,” Reaper said.

“I didn’t know,” Kai mumbled.
 
“That wasn’t my intention.”

“We know, but we won’t allow you to push us away any longer.
 
We’re family, and we’re not going anywhere,” Hunter said.

Kai nodded at both men, relieved and grateful for their earlier intervention.

“You know she feels the same way about you,” Reaper said.

He shook his head and looked up.
 
“What do you mean?”

“When Jade had arrived and you said her name, I spotted the flare of jealousy in Liv’s eyes.
 
She made herself busy trying to hide her feelings from you, before she tried to escape as soon as she could.
 
That is why Xander kept her in the kitchen and brought up shifting.
 
We wanted to know if she was truly jealous, or if it was something else.”

Feeling like an ass, the warmth in his chest grew as he thought about his Liv being jealous.
 
He couldn’t help but think that she truly did care for him.

“We know you’re unsure about where this might be heading, but you need to stop hiding from her and tell her the truth,” Hunter said.

Kai froze at that advice.

“There are no guarantees, but Liv is a one-of-a-kind woman, and she wears her emotions on her sleeves.
 
We see that she cares for you, but she won’t put herself out there, especially if you don’t give her an indication that you feel the same way.
 
Figure out how to either tell her or show her,” Reaper said.

Kai dropped into the nearest chair.
 
His mind rushed with a million thoughts, but for the first time since he’d brought her home, he thought about a future, with her.

Chapter Sixteen

Olivia

Liv peered into the microscope for the tenth time in as many minutes, but couldn’t concentrate on anything through the little viewfinder.
 
She would have to start over with another slide.

Instead of getting back to work, she sank down on her office chair and slid a hand through her unruly hair.
 
Jade had disappeared somewhere upstairs and she had been left alone with her thoughts.
 
She continued to see Kai’s face full of rage, over and over again.
 
She had managed to make him angrier than he had been earlier; she seemed to have a knack for it, even though it hadn’t been her intention.

It had been a long day.
 
She had worked since early morning on the formula because she knew how close she was to finishing it, and if she were honest with herself, she needed a distraction from the voices that worked on the plan for the incursion at her old job.

It had become worse when they had left, but nothing panicked her more than the look of Kai’s wounds as he was brought in.
 
Her body shook as she watched him move, his strength; she never thought that she would ever see him in pain.
 
But when she had thought about his blood flowing out of his body, her heart jerked in her chest at the thought of losing him.
 
Her mind roiled at the thought of never telling him how she felt.
 
Several times as they made love, she came close to telling him, but something held her back.
 
In the recesses of her mind, she feared his rejection.
 
Feared that she didn’t mean as much to him as he did to her.

She’d had several hours to think about his anger, and although she knew it could been have been aimed at her work and the constant danger they were under, she had to admit that his anger was directed at her, and her alone.
 
When they had to pull him away from her, his eyes flashed at her, and when he snarled, it was because of her.
 
Although it should have intimidated her, his fury had created a sadness inside her, and she had to come to the realization that he didn’t want her.
 
He’d shown her passion, laughter, a sense of safety, but never a sense of being unwanted.
 
Until now.

Blinking the tears from her eyes, she put another slide under the microscope and added a drop of blood from Reaper, a drop of the antidote, and held her breath before she reached for the weapon.
 
She steadied her hand, and then uncapped and added a micro drop onto the slide, capping the needle but keeping it in her hand.
 
The reaction should have been immediate, but instead of the bio-weapon attacking and mutating the cells, nothing happened.
 
She stood and blinked, feeling a split second of joy in her chest before reality sank in.
 
She had really done it.
 
And that meant that her time with Kai would be over.
 
To make sure that she wasn’t imagining things, she bent down and glanced at the slide one more time.
 
Again, nothing changed.

To keep her mind off the pain that pulsated in her chest, she calculated the number of vials she had, and knew that she would have to create more in order for everyone to be vaccinated.
 
But they would be, within the next couple of days.
 
Again, she absently reached for the vials and counted out thirty-six for the shifters and fourteen for the vampires, before she grabbed the supplies she would need to complete the batch.
 
Satisfied that everything was within reach, her hand reached for the first beaker, and paused when she spotted movement to her right.

Seth emerged from the darkness of the stairwell, and she started to smile at him until she recognized the terror in his eyes.
 
Understanding dawned on her the moment she spotted a huge hand on his shoulder.
 
She froze.
 

Her mind reeled as she took in the scene in front of her, but she knew she wouldn’t allow this man, whoever he was, to hurt Seth.
 
She then remembered the two capped needles that sat in front of her on table.
 
With a sleight of hand, she reached for them and slid them into the front pocket of her jeans.
 
She turned toward Seth and his captor, and sucked in a deep breath as she glanced at the man’s long blond hair.