Kai (A Dark Assassins Novel Book One) (6 page)

It surprised her when he draped a long arm over her shoulder and squeezed once.
 
A low snarl reached her, but the sound cut off before she could understand what it meant.
 
Instead, she turned her focus on the boy sitting close to her.

“I’m—”

“Liv, yeah, I know.
 
Kai told me.
 
I’m Seth.
 
I live next door.”

A lump stuck in her throat. “The only person who called me Liv was Molly.”

To hide her discomfort from the perceptive teenager, she spotted the pad and pen near the computer, as she remembered what it was there for.
 
She quickly wrote down simple ingredients, such as pasta, salads, eggs, and other foods that would be quick to make, and added loose leaf notebook paper, iron supplements, pens, and pencils to the list.

Her eyes searched for her messenger bag where she kept her wallet.
 
Instead, her eyes found Kai lounging against the kitchen counter watching her interaction with Seth.
 
He dropped his smile when she glanced at him, but his eyes tracked her every movement.

Ignoring her racing heart, she stood and retrieved her wallet from deep inside her bag.
 
There was a benefit to working for one of the foremost biotech companies in the country.
 
She was paid extremely well and had few opportunities to spend it.
 
She pulled out several hundred dollars in cash, and handed the list and money to Seth.
 
Kai was about to protest, but she spoke to Seth before he could object.

“You don’t mind doing this for me?” she asked.

“No.
 
I’m off for the next few days, and I have some time to kill.”
 
Seth shrugged.

“Here is the list.
 
If you can’t find anything, don’t worry about it.
 
Except the pills—I’ll need those.
 
And keep the change,” she added.

“I can’t,” he spluttered.

“Yes, you can.
 
Thanks, Seth.
 
I appreciate your help.”

He stood frozen for a long moment with the cash and list in his hand, probably thinking about other objections to taking her money, but she reached for his shoulder and turned him toward the door, pulling him from his daze.
 
She gave him a little push when he didn’t move.

He chuckled at her when he didn’t move an inch.
 
He turned back and opened his mouth, before he shut it.

“Do you think you can, well, show me your work sometime?” Seth asked.

She smiled at him and nodded.
 
“Anytime.”

Seth gave her a small smile and headed toward the door.
 
She worried about Kai’s reaction to Seth, until the kid smacked Kai on the shoulder when the vampire growled playfully at him.
 
The kid was laughing by the time he reached the door.

She called after him.
 
“I already ate tonight, so if you could go in the morning that would be great.”

“Hey, kid, you remember your alarm code?” Kai asked.

Seth nodded and gave a small wave to both of them before he was out the door.
 
A beep that she hadn’t heard when Seth entered echoed throughout the room, and she glanced around to find where it had come from.

“Everyone who has access to the house has their own personal alarm code.
 
The entire house is secured with steel doors and metal shutters, designed to keep out light and anyone trying to enter without permission.
 
You are sequestered in the house until we figure out who we are dealing with and find out exactly how much trouble you’re in.”
 
He glared at her.

“Got it,” she murmured.

He rubbed his hand over his face and glanced at her for a long moment.
 
“That was the most I’ve heard Seth talk since I’ve known him.”

A laugh escaped her when she heard Kai’s incredulity.
 
“He’s a good kid.
 
Does he have any brothers or sisters?”

“No, it’s just him and his parents.
 
They own a dry cleaning business, and it does pretty well, but they don’t have a lot of time to spend with him.
 
And as you can tell, Seth is curious about everything.
 
I give him odd jobs to do, but when he’s not in school, he’s at work.
 
He wants to major in chemical engineering, but he’s worried about having enough money to go.
 
I haven’t told him yet, but I’ve got it covered.”

“He deserves it,” she said.

A look of confusion spread across his face.
 
“You just met him.”

She shrugged.
 
“Seth is very empathetic and observant, and even though it made him uncomfortable, he hugged me in hopes it would make me feel better.
 
He’s going to be a great man.
 
Does he know…about you?”

Kai laughed. The big, booming sound resonated throughout the room, drawing a surprise gasp from her throat.
 

“Yeah, he guessed when he was twelve.
 
When I confirmed it, he told me it was cool, and went on his way.
 
He asks me questions, and I answer them as truthfully as possible.
 
He doesn’t know about my job, but I think that he has suspicions, and if he ever asks me about it, I won’t lie to him.”

After the moment of laughter, the silence stretched between them, and soon became uncomfortable.
 
It became clear in that moment that she was thrust into his life, and she silently promised herself that she would keep out of his way as much as possible.
 
He was kind enough to open his home to her and keep her safe, so she would do the best she could to finish before the rest of his team arrived.

As she walked back to the laptop, his movements blurred as he dashed across the living room in a second, reaching for her arm, lightly touching her elbow and stopping her the moment she felt his touch.

“There’s one other thing we need to talk about…”

Her eyes scanned his face, and for the first time since he brought her to his house, he was reluctant to speak to her.
 
She didn’t know whether it was because of the kiss they shared, or whether he changed his mind about her life.
 
Whatever it was, she decided to wait silently to hear what he had to say.

“I’ll need blood, and since we’re stuck together, I will have to drink from you directly.
 
Will that be a problem?”

“Will it hurt?” she asked.

The question, the one she was worried about most, burst free without thought.

Once he’d told her that he was a vampire, she wondered about his need for blood.
 
With them stuck in his massive home together, of course he would need to drink from her.
 
But her thoughts came back, time and again, of his teeth piercing her external jugular vein on her neck, or her ulnar vein on the wrist, the only real viable arteries that would account for the blood flow he would need to properly feed.
 
Before she could dwell on the actual sensation of sharpened fangs on her skin, he pulled her out of her thoughts.

“No!
 
I would never hurt you.
 
My saliva has a numbing agent, so I would lick the area before I drank from you.
 
My fangs have healing properties, so you won’t feel any pain during or have scarring after the area heals.”

Her body sagged with relief.
 
Trypanophobia was the bane of her existence; she drew samples from volunteers with practiced ease, but if anyone required a sample from her, she looked away and sang at the top of her lungs to distract herself from the brief pinch of pain.
 
It was ridiculous, but she hadn’t been able to move past it, even at the age of twenty-eight, and there was no way she would ever let Kai know of her fear.

“Do you drink three times a day, like we eat?” she asked.

“Twice, usually.
 
For instance, I’ve already fed today, so we’ll wait until tomorrow night.”
 
He paused for a moment.
 
“And if I’m ever hurt, then I need more blood to recover from any wounds that I might receive.”

She sucked in a sharp breath.
 
“How often do you get hurt?”

“I kill people for a living, darlin’.
 
It’s a professional hazard.
 
No one wants to die, and the criminals we go after are heavily armed and are usually protected by several bodyguards who are trained to kill on sight.
 
There’s no way around them, so you have to go through them.”
 
He shrugged.

Again with the endearments.

She chose to ignore them as she thought about their next few days together; she was grateful that his boss had restricted his movements outside of the house.
 
The thought of him hurt, in any way, caused her stomach to lurch uneasily, and her heart to try to beat out of her chest.
 
His casualness had her on edge, and she needed to get her mind on something more productive.

“Is there anything you prefer I eat or drink?” she asked.

“If you could refrain from alcohol, I would appreciate it, but food doesn’t usually affect the taste of your blood.”

She nodded.
 
“One more question.
 
Have you ever lost control while drinking, and killed someone?”

A sharp nod caught her by surprise.
 
To her, he was the definition of control, but everyone slipped, and she wasn’t in the place to judge him or the way he lived his life.
 
Willing her face to remain passive, she caught his gaze and waited to see whether he would explain.

“When I was first turned, I was unable to control my thirst, and drank until the woman’s heart gave out.
 
It was the first and only time I’ve killed someone I wasn’t assigned to kill,” he said with a serious expression, “and trust me, I will be in control at all times when I feed from you.”

Once again, she found that she trusted him at his word, and nodded her understanding.

He nodded back, and she placed it in the back of her mind as she got back to work.
 
Or at least she tried.
 
Her mind wandered as she thought about how his tongue and his lips would feel on her already heated skin.
 
Despite his earlier rejections, some part of her was drawn to him, and as hard as she tried, she couldn’t shut down those inappropriate thoughts that heated her veins and sent shafts of pleasure through her.
 

Shaking off her desire, she thought about the problem in a way she understood, scientifically.
 
He was a physically attractive male, over six feet tall, fit, and looked to be around her age.
 
He was wealthy, as witnessed by his beautiful home, and he had shown intelligence.
 
All qualities that women look for when searching for a potential mate.
 
So, she rationalized, it was natural to be attracted to him because her biological makeup dictated that she find a viable mate and bear children, and he fit the bill to a T.
 
Unfortunately, while it put order to her inconvenient thoughts, she had no idea how to rid herself of the attraction other than with distance and time.

And that might prove to be impossible while she lived with him.

Chapter Five

Kai

The screams echoed in his head as he bolted down one darkened corridor after another, his route imperceptible apart from the sounds he followed.

A part of him realized that this was a nightmare, a realistic and terror-driven nightmare, but before today, he believed dreaming to be impossible.
 
Vampires couldn’t dream—or at least, he’d never had one in his existence—but something in his mind compelled him to continue forward.

A shiver of fear pushed him farther and faster.
 
A muffled cry of pain stopped him in his tracks, the weakness in her cry a sign that her life was draining away, as the distinctive sounds of a fist hitting flesh resonated in his head.

The darkness gave way to a dim white light right outside the room where he could hear her faint heartbeat.
 
The brightness pierced his eyes in a painful and debilitating way for a breadth of a second, until his eyes adjusted.
 

The outer door to the room collapsed the instant his foot connected, and his heart seized in his chest the moment he scanned the room and found Liv.

Her body was broken and slumped forward, prevented from falling by the ropes that tied her wrists and elbows to the back of the chair.

Without a thought to the danger in the room, he flashed to her side, ripping apart the ropes binding her with ease, and pulled her into his arms.

Her eyes opened, and even in her state, she gave him a small smile.

“Kai, I’m sorry.
 
I didn’t tell him anything,” she mumbled through the broken skin of her lips.

“Shh.
 
No—”

A gunshot echoed through the cavernous room, and he watched in horror as the bullet struck her body, which fell against his, lifeless.

The moment she died in his arms in the dream world, his eyes snapped open and a snarl ripped through his raw throat.
 
He found himself in a defensive crouch, scanning his bedroom, until his gaze landed on Liv, who stood against the bedroom door, her eyes downcast.
 
The deep blush on her cheeks alerted him to the state of his undress, a normal state when he slept, but he was unconcerned as he listened for any danger that might be present.
 

Snarls must have escaped while he was still asleep, loud enough to echo downstairs, and she had come to check on him out of concern.
 
Something dormant inside him warmed, but he promptly tucked it deep inside for later exploration.