Primal (13 page)

Her uncle’s head tilted as he saw the understanding dawn on her face. A frown marred his brow, and for just a second she thought, maybe, she glimpsed the beloved uncle he had once been.

“Mother loved you.” Her breathing hitched, the accusation in her voice now filled with tears. “You lied to her.”

His frown deepened as anger lit his gaze. “Never once did I lie to your mother,” he gritted out. “She was like my own child. I raised her.” He thumped his chest possessively. “I protected her.”

“You swore to her you and my father would protect me,” she cried furiously. “Look at you. What would she do if she saw you right now, Uncle Phillip? She would cry.”

He had once stated nothing destroyed him more than to see his sister cry. As the words left her lips, she finally saw a flash of humanity in those cold, dead eyes.

He stared back at her, her brown irises shadowed, filled with agony as the tears she tried to hold back slipped free.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered.

“What have you done, Uncle Phillip?”

His expression twisted. “The fountain of youth, Kita.” He looked around as though searching desperately for something. “I found it. The Breeds. They hold the fountain of youth.” His gaze swung back to her, his fingers clenching at his side, his body tense now, ramrod straight, strong and young again. “You hold the fountain of youth,” he whispered, his gaze, his expression shadowed with grief. “Why, Kita? Why did you let him touch you? You can’t live without your liver, Kita. It creates . . .” He stopped.

His expression became frozen, his gaze laser sharp. “You’ll have to die, just as he will.”

“For the fountain of youth.” Tears were rolling down her cheeks. “You stole my uncle for his youth.” This wasn’t her uncle Phillip any longer.

Beside her, she felt Creed tense, his fingers rubbing against her wrist to get her attention. He wanted something.

Again. He was scratching out the word on her arm.

Again. She followed each curve his nail made.

“Mother loved you. Do you remember?” Having grasped Creed’s meaning, Kita said the one thing she now knew would distract her uncle. “She cried for you when she died.”

The monster who had stolen her uncle’s form swung his head away. His shoulders heaved, and then the world around her went to hell.

The lights in the garage suddenly burst, throwing them all into darkness as pieces of the fluorescent bulbs rained down on them.

Creed swung her around, pushed her beneath an old worktable she had never cleared out of the area, and suddenly, he was gone.

Laser fire and gunfire began ricocheting around her, blasting into walls as screams filled her senses. She knew that, if she survived, they would echo in her nightmares.

She couldn’t see anything through the flashes of light. She had no idea where anyone was, who they were, or if Creed was even still alive.

“You bitch!”

Kita screamed as the table toppled over and a flash of light exploded through the room, revealing her uncle, his expression demonic, his eyes burning red, a second before everything went dark again.

TEN

Her father had saved her life. He just may have killed his brother-in-law.

Kita sat in the corner of the garage as Breed enforcers swarmed around the area, each consulting with Jonas Wyatt. Next to him stood the woman who had betrayed her uncle. Diane Broen. A mercenary her uncle had hired, but who, Kita learned, had already given her loyalty and the loyalty of her team to Jonas Wyatt.

Horace Engalls sat on an upended wooden box, his face in his hands, mourning the man who had betrayed them all.

When her uncle had disappeared, despite rumors of his death, Horace and Kita had assumed the Breeds had captured him. They had been right. He had been imprisoned in Virginia as the Breed scientists attempted to learn how he created the serum that began turning back his age. A serum he had injected into an infant child.

Kita was still in shock. Her uncle, her loving, doting uncle had done something that could potentially destroy an infant? He had let a baby go hungry. He had let her lie in her own waste without changing her diaper. He had attempted to kill her when he’d seen he couldn’t escape with her.

For what?

For the fountain of youth. Because he believed Amber’s reaction to the drug would answer the question of why the drug was killing him. Unfortunately, if it was going to answer anything, it wasn’t doing so yet. Amber’s body was only showing minute anomalies. Anomalies Kita hadn’t yet been given details on.

“Kita.” Behind her, Creed still held her.

He had caught her as her uncle fell, his blood spattering from a single gunshot wound to the shoulder, low, perhaps too close to his chest, inflicted by her father.

Her father had also been the reason the lights had blown.

As her uncle confronted Kita and Creed, Horace Engalls had done what he had always done best: he tinkered. This time, with the electric generator that fed the fluorescent lights in the garage.

As the lights went out, he had rushed in just in time to save Kita from the injection her uncle had been preparing to shove into her arm.

The one that would have destroyed her as it had destroyed him.

“I’m okay,” she finally answered him.

The answers hadn’t come quickly.

Kita felt as though they had been there for hours.

When the lights had been restored, Jonas Wyatt, a half dozen Breeds, Diane Broen, and the mercenary working with her were the only ones still standing.

Phillip Brandenmore and the other three mercenaries he had hired were dead.

“You’re not okay.” He was holding her against his chest, his hand at her head, and she was still crying.

Not as hard as she had been, but the tears didn’t want to stop.

“Creed, I need your weapon.” Diane loped over to them, a delicate hand extending, palm out, revealing a slash of scars emphasized by the blood on her hand. “Once the authorities arrive we don’t want to blow your cover.”

Creed handed it over as Kita lifted her gaze and saw the compassion in the other woman’s expression.

Diane tucked the weapon into the back of her jeans, then hesitated before slowly hunching down in front of Kita. “Nightmares begin like this,” Diane said softly, glancing up at Creed, then back to Kita. “Don’t blame yourself, Ms. Engalls, and they won’t be near as bad.”

Kita could only shake her head as the other woman stood again and walked toward Jonas.

“Come on. Dealing with the authorities isn’t something I’m in the mood for.” Creed didn’t give her a chance to answer; he picked her up in his arms and before she knew it, she knew she was holding on to him like the lifeline she needed, burying her face against his neck.

Minutes later, he sat down on the bed, his hand stroking her hair.

“I love you, Kita,” he whispered. “I loved you before that first month was out, and I love you even more now. Give us a chance to work through this.”

She shook her head.

“Don’t make me beg.” His voice was dark, tortured.

Lifting her head, she stared at him. “You don’t have to beg, Creed,” she whispered tearfully. “If you left me now, I don’t know if I could handle it. Nothing seems real to me anymore except you. You are the only thing in my life in the past year that hasn’t changed.”

Surprise lit his gaze. “You didn’t know I was a Breed.”

“Didn’t I?” She couldn’t smile, even to comfort him. “I think a part of me did know. Subconsciously, I think I’ve always known. There’s nothing to forgive. As long as you hold me. As long as you kiss me.”

He kissed her. Gently. His lips parted hers, his tongue stroked, but in comfort rather than in heat, in love rather than in that loving lust they had shared before.

This was a kiss to warm, to comfort, to ease. It was a kiss to bind hearts and meld souls and build a foundation for the future on.

When his head lifted, she touched his jaw, and this time, she managed a smile.

“Uncle Phillip died a long time ago, didn’t he?”

It was then her father entered the room. “He died the day your mother did.”

Kita turned her head.

He stood there, his shoulders straight, the grief in his eyes and on his face as heavy as the weight she knew he carried on his shoulders.

“I was trying to protect you,” he whispered.

“Your father is the one who has been feeding the Breeds information through the Engalls and Brandenmore companies for the past several years, though he remained anonymous until he contacted Jonas a few days ago,” Creed informed her. “He knew I was a Breed, Kita. Just as he knew the horror your uncle was attempting to create.”

Her father swallowed tightly. “For your mother. For you.” He gave his head a hard shake. “I just wanted to protect you.”

From the monsters of the world. Creed loosened his hold and helped Kita to her feet, rising as he watched father and daughter.

Horace Engalls moved slowly across the room, his face lined, heavy with the decision he’d been forced to make.

Even Creed hadn’t been aware of what Engalls was doing until after the chaos in the garage. Only then had Jonas revealed the full measure of the other man’s involvement and the information he held.

Bastard. Marriage sure as hell hadn’t done anything to cure him of his manipulations.

“Kita.” Horace paused in front of her. “I wanted you safe.”

“You should have trusted me.”

And Creed could do nothing but agree.

Horace nodded. “I should have. But the father manual didn’t come with all the answers to the hard questions, sweetheart. It said follow your heart. And all I wanted to do was save you the knowledge of what your uncle was doing. Of how evil the world could be. That’s what fathers do for daughters, honey. Or at least, that’s what they want to do. Just protect them.”

Kita trembled, and Creed could sense her tears. But these weren’t tears of anger or sadness; rather, they were tears of release, of reconciliation, and maybe even of joy.

“I love you, Daddy.”

Father and daughter.

Creed stood back and gave Horace his moment. A chance to right any wrongs, to be the father, and for Kita to be the child.

Tomorrow would be time enough for him to claim his mate again.

Now, he gave the other man a nod and a smile. Now was the time to lay that foundation.

A foundation on which to build a life.

EPILOGUE

THREE WEEKS LATER

Tall, wide windows spilled brilliant light into the spacious bedroom of the Manhattan apartment Phillip Brandenmore had owned. A property his niece, Kita Claire Engalls, would soon possess once the courts ruled the missing owner as dead.

Once the authorities had arrived at the cabin after Brandenmore’s attempt to kill Kita, her uncle had been transported back to Sanctuary, his mind almost broken. He’d been animalistic, incoherent growls and snarls leaving his lips as spittle gathered on his lips.

“I found it.”

Creed turned from the impressive view of upper Manhattan as Kita all but whispered the words.

Her voice was filled with tears, the scent of her pain filling his senses and drawing him to her to stare at the files she had unlocked.