His soulmate was just in front of him, and Ian McCafferty was ahead of her, leading this haphazard search and rescue mission. Risa’s ankle was strong enough now to support her as they jogged down the street, single-file. McCafferty had made her drink a blood bag before they’d left the hotel and that had helped her bone to finish healing. Still, Carden thought that she shouldn’t have come with them, but he knew that his reasons for that were mostly irrational.
Oh yeah. He was fucked. He wasn’t going to leave her to go back to LA. It had been insane to think that he could.
For the past eight years, he felt like an actor playing the role of Jonas Carden. He delivered his lines on cue and stole as many scenes as possible, just for the fun of it. And over the years, he got used to the feeling. As long as he had an audience, it was easy to pretend that he was all right.
But now, with Risa back in his life, Carden realized just how disconnected he’d been. He couldn’t go back to that. He didn’t even know how he’d done it in the first place. But then, he hadn’t seen any other choice.
The memory still hurt like a sonofabitch. Risa had said that she hated him. Actually, she’d screamed it. Over and over again. She’d thrown things at him, clumsy with her new preternatural strength.
Dodging her blows, Carden had tried to explain why he’d done it. He’d tried to tell her that he loved her and needed her. He’d only wanted to protect her from her own self-destruction.
She hadn’t listened. Carden saw now that she hadn’t been able to listen. Risa had been out of her mind that night. He shouldn’t have believed her when she said that she hated him, that she never wanted to see him again. He should have stayed. Instead, he left her to deal with the aftermath of the change by herself.
He’d been a jackass, plain and simple.
Well, that was nothing new. But he was going to try to be less of one this time around.
Whether she’d ever admit it or not, Risa was going to need him to get through the next few months. Her life as she knew it had once again been destroyed. She had decisions to make, new priorities to set, and Carden was damn well going to be there to help her.
And Christ, his life was in shambles too. He’d been fired from Circle Daybreak and hadn’t seriously thought about what he was going to do next. So he had his own decisions to make, and he wanted Risa to be there to help him.
Hell, he just wanted Risa.
Keep the lovey-dovey crap to a minimum, Carden, his soulmate teased him. She’d been listening to his thoughts. You should be concentrating on the situation at hand. I don’t want you losing a limb because your head was in the clouds.
Carden grinned. The banter came as easily to them now as it always had. It was a sign of affection and respect. How had he ever lived without this?
I’m always concentrating on the mission, sweetheart, he replied.
Oh really? What about the time that Night World shifter broke into your own apartment and nearly killed you because you couldn’t tear your eyes away from that Bond video game?
For the thousandth time, that was a shooting game. I was training
He could feel the laughter she was trying to hold back. Right. Of course.
That’s it. As soon as this is done, I’m going to demonstrate for you just how relentless my concentration can be, he purred Carden let her see all of the erotic images that were flashing through his mind.
Up ahead, Ian slowed down. “This is it,” he said.
The three of them stopped and stared at the row of dilapidated houses across the street. Broken glass littered the sidewalk. Pieces of trash were strewn in the dead grass in front of each house. Graffiti was everywhere, covering the buildings so well that it was hard to tell what color they had originally been. All around him, Carden smelled decay and destitution. “Lovely neighborhood,” he murmured.
“It probably was nice once,” Risa said. “Maybe sixty years ago.”
The townhouse where the bodies had been found had police tape crisscrossed over the open doorway. All of the other entrances were blocked off with plywood. The cops probably had to knock the board out of the front door to get to the bodies. They really should have secured the building better afterwards, though.
“How do you want to do this, McCafferty?” Carden asked the Daybreaker.
“Let’s split up,” Ian replied. He pulled out the drawing that Risa had made of the townhouse’s layout. “I’ll go through the front door. Risa, go in through this window here, where you entered yesterday. And Carden, you go in through the back door that leads into the kitchen. We’ll meet in front of the stairs and, if everything on the first floor is all clear, we’ll go up together.”
“What about the basement?” Carden asked. “That’s where Risa left the wolf. It could still be down there. We don’t want to get jumped from behind.”
“There’s a giant hole in the living room floor,” Risa reminded him. “I should be able to see most of the basement from there.”
“Right,” Ian agreed. “I don’t think any of us should go down there until we know the rest of the house is clear. There’s only one way out of there.”
“Okay,” Risa said. “Let’s go.”
They walked across the street together. Ian left the group first, heading wordlessly towards the front doorway. Carden grabbed his soulmate’s arm before she started for the side of the house.
“Risa…” His words failed him, so he drew her into his arms. He hadn’t kissed her before this because he’d wanted to wait for her, until she gave some sign that she wanted him. But Carden couldn’t hold off any longer. He pressed his lips to hers recklessly and he was surprised to feel her arms slip around his neck.
So much time wasted. How could they have been so stupid, so thoughtlessly proud?
It didn’t matter now. Risa was in his arms. She was kissing him back.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I never stopped.”
When Carden pulled back, Risa was frowning. “This isn’t goodbye,” she said. “If you don’t come out of there alive, I’m going to kill you.”
He laughed. “Understood.”
She reluctantly stepped away and he watched her disappear around the corner of the house. For a split second, Carden saw her as she’d been when he’d found her the day before. Drenched in her own blood. Passed out with empty blood bags all around her. He couldn’t let that happen again. He was going to kill this damn wolf himself, and he was going to make it hurt.
The backyard of the townhouse was just as depressing as the front. The grass was dry and patchy and the bent, rusted remains of a swing set gave Carden the creeps. Once upon a time, there had probably been a screen door at the back of the house which helped keep the kitchen cool in the summer. But now the doorway was boarded up, like everything else.
Everyone in position? Ian asked them telepathically.
Yes, Risa responded.
Yup, Carden replied. But it’s going to take one hell of a kick to knock down the board back here. Whatever is in there is going to hear it.
He felt the Daybreaker’s determination behind his mental voice. We’d better do this fast, then.
Luckily for him, the job had been a set-up. Daybreak had wanted to test him in the field. After that failure, Ian had gone back into training for another six months before he got second chance. By that time, he’d learned to stay calm and composed.
Unfortunately, he was neither of those things right now. No, he was a wreck. He was anxious to enter the townhouse, but also afraid that he’d find Hollis lying dead on the floor. Or she might not be there at all. Both scenarios filled him with dread. If she wasn’t in this house, he didn’t know where else to look. What if he never found her?
Ian tried to breathe. He had to calm down.
No, it was unthinkable that he would never find her. He had to see her again. He’d left things so badly with her and he wanted to make them right.
Had he even told her how much their night together meant to him? He didn’t think so. No, he’d been too busy being offended that it hadn’t meant anything to her.
The truth was that Ian had never been with someone he worked with. For that matter, he’d never been with anyone who knew about the Night World or Daybreak or what he was. Maybe that was why the night with Hollis had been so powerful. She was the first person that he’d ever slept with who really knew him.
And it was probably just his ego talking, but he thought that he might be the first person who really knew her. Hollis was so good at playing the role of the nice, intelligent, and courteous “girl next door.” But Ian knew that there was so much more underneath all of that crap.
He had to find her and tell her all of this.
Then he’d throttle her for scaring the hell out of him.
Then he’d never let her out of his sight again.
Goddess help him. Amazing as it was with Hollis, this was a prime example of why it was a bad idea to get involved with a coworker in Circle Daybreak. If Ian was in a relationship with some normal girl, then she would be home right now. Maybe looking forward to his return, or maybe not. But at least she would be safe. Daybreakers were always in danger and right now Ian was proving that it was impossible to stay calm and in control when someone you cared about was in trouble.
His mind was racing, fearful and careless. If he really wanted to help Hollis, he should stand aside and let someone objective take over. But he couldn’t do it. He was too far gone.
But Ian was grateful for the support had—an ex-Daybreak assassin and an ex-Daybreak target. He smiled wryly. You just couldn’t make something like that up. At least he knew that Carden and Risa could hold their own.
After a small eternity, his team was finally in position. Now, Ian told them.
The next instant, there was a loud noise from the back of the house as Carden broke through the boards covering the back door. Ian ducked under the yellow police tape that was strung across the front doorway and entered the townhouse. He didn’t hear a sound from Risa Sinclair, but he could feel her presence nearby.
They were in.
The inside of the house was dark and musty. Apart from the sunlight streaming through the open door and the window Risa had come through, the rooms were pitch-black. Throughout most of the house it would be too dark for a human’s eyes. Hollis would have had to feel around the walls to get anywhere.
Ian leaned down to examine the footprints in the layer of dust covering the hardwood floor. Most of them were probably from the NYPD, when they had retrieved the bodies. But there were large paw prints in the dust as well. Far too large to have come from a dog.
Trying to stay silent, Ian searched the front hall. Then he moved into the living room and saw Risa crouching by the side of hole on the floor as she looked down into the basement.
I don’t see anything down there, she said to him. For whatever it’s worth.
Ian just nodded. The basement would be last. He didn’t want anyone to get trapped down there. The rest of the house, at least, had windows to jump through.
He went back into the hall while Risa finished looking over the living room.
With his next breath, his heart started to beat erratically. The peach scent of Hollis’s shampoo hung in the thick, stifling air.
She’d been here only a little while ago. She could still be here.
Lifting his eyes to the stairway, a crushing pressure settled on Ian’s chest. It was the weight of grief, he realized. He was suddenly sure that he would go up there and find Hollis in the same state that Risa had found the young girls.
No, he had to snap out of it. He didn’t know for sure that Hollis was dead. They hadn’t searched the entire house. She might not be up there. She could have come in the house and then left.
Carden came into the hall from the dining room and Risa entered from the living room. They both shook their heads. They hadn’t found anything. No sign of Hollis or the wolf.
Ian swallowed. They had to bring the search upstairs.
The air felt cool against her skin. The sensation of the infinitesimal breeze sweeping over her face was suddenly distracting. It wasn’t a breeze, really. It was just the perpetual flow of air currents—the molecules moving from areas of high pressure to low, from warmer temperatures to cooler. The energy of the universe eternally waning in an endless effort to achieve balance.
With quiet fascination, she realized that she could sense the swirls, the constant churn of which she was unwittingly an intricate part. Her breath propelled the air over her mouth away as more flooded towards her parted lips to replace it.
She could hear it. She could feel it. And the rhythm was hypnotic.
Like the rotation of the planet…
Like the oscillation of the tides…
Like the beat of her heart…
Had her pulse ever been this slow or steady before? The force of it sent a slight vibration through her limbs—a tremor that was barely perceptible, but impossible to ignore now that she was aware of it.
There was so much to notice, so many details that she had never bothered to appreciate. How could she have been so oblivious? So dense?
But…who was she?
No, that was a ridiculous question. She was…she was…
Panic catapulted her pulse and her body shook from the rapid beat of her heart.
Calm down, calm down. Everything would be okay. There was nothing to be afraid of. This wasn’t terribly unusual, she was certain. There had to have been times in the past when she’d been floating in the space between dreams and reality and she hadn’t known who she was. All she needed to do now was wake up and everything would be all right.
She opened her eyes again. The room was dark, but the splinter of sunlight helped her see that she was facing a wall covered with yellowing wallpaper, which was spattered with blue flowers. It was old and dirty and completely unfamiliar.
Was she all right? She took a moment to wiggle her fingers and toes. She could move everything and there was no pain. But her body still felt curiously heavy.
Her gaze traveled downwards. She was lying on a rug of soft fur and her breath blew the brown hairs away and then sucked them back towards her again in that amazing, captivating rhythm. There was a blanket on top of her, keeping her warm even though she knew the air was cold.
She was alone. Somehow, she knew that much for certain. Maybe that should have made her anxious, but for some reason, she felt less afraid. Because there had been someone here before, hadn’t there? But…before what?
Okay, she was definitely awake now, so why couldn’t she remember anything? She still didn’t know where she was or how she’d gotten there or why was she so weak.
It was strange, but she had the sense that this feeling was the most terrifying and maddening thing she could possibly experience. Innately, she knew that she hated feeling weak. She worked hard to prove that she was strong and capable, and now she was lying helpless on the floor. She almost laughed at that. Her pride was wounded and she didn’t even know who she was.
The panic rising again, she tried to will her memories into focus. There were tiny snippets fluttering just beyond her reach. Colors, words, blurred faces. Names. But every time she tried to capture one and clear away the fog, it slipped from her grasp. After a while, she wanted to cry with frustration.
Her only option was to wait until her memory returned or until she felt strong enough to leave here. But her instincts told her that she couldn’t stay here much longer. She was in danger.
But could she even trust her instincts? Maybe that would only get her into more trouble. How would she know?
The questions spun and multiplied in her mind, overcoming logic and reason, driving her mad. The “what ifs” raged and the “whys” screamed. Her body limp, she felt like a prisoner trapped inside of her own, useless mind.
But on one of the currents of air, she caught a strange scent and her thoughts died. Her mind fell silent.
She wrinkled her nose and breathed it in, trying to discern what it was. It smelled warm and delicious, but she didn’t think that it was food—at least not one she’d ever had before.
Even though she couldn’t identify it, the scent still made her mouth water. Her stomach didn’t growl, but she felt horribly empty. She realized that she was starving. Famished. Well, that probably explained her weakness, her dizziness.
With the distant sound of voices, the scent grew stronger. Someone was coming. More than one person. And they had food. She had to get some of it. She needed it. It must have been days since she’d last eaten.
The voices were louder now and they sounded like they were coming from below her, but still a ways away. The floor vibrated with the delicate sound waves they made and she felt it even through the thick, soft rug. Wherever she was, she wasn’t on the ground floor. That wasn’t much to go on, but it was one of the few things she’d manage to deduce since she woke up, so she clung to that small bit of knowledge.
There was a loud bang underneath her and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Did these people mean her harm?
An eerie hush fell, but she was sure that the people were closer now. But they were so quiet that she couldn’t hear them no matter how hard she strained her ears. The silence rang louder and louder.
As the scent grew stronger still, she forgot what she’d been listening for. She could only concentrate on the food, delicious food. Everything would be all right as soon as she ate. Everything would be clear then and she would remember who she was. She just needed to eat.
The smell swirled around her. The air was saturated with it, so thick that she could almost taste it. It was everywhere. Like steak, but not quite. Better. There had never been a food that smelled this good. And it was a meat. She was sure of that now. The scent sparked nebulous wisps of memory of Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas breakfasts, peace and contentedness.
God, she needed it. It was the only thing that would help her now. She would die without it.
Desperation gave her the strength to roll over on all fours. She was so tired and her body was so heavy, but she was burning for that food. Crawling towards it, inch by inch, she imagined sinking her teeth into it, ripping the mouth-watering meat to pieces. Peace and contentedness. God, god.
She heard a soft snarl and realized that she had made the noise. Wasn’t that an odd thing for her to do? Maybe. Damn it, she didn’t care now. Think about it later.
The hardwood floor was slippery underneath her hands and feet as she crawled through a doorway. She couldn’t seem to get enough traction to move as fast as she wanted.
Faster, faster.
Her nails were digging into the floor. But when she looked down, she saw that they weren’t nails. They were claws…
The smell was overwhelming now.
…and her hands were covered in brown fur. She hadn’t been lying on a rug at all. She was the rug.
The horror fled as quickly as it came. She just couldn’t hold onto it. The scent was coming from just around the corner, just down the set of stairs to her left.
She couldn’t wait any more. She had to eat now.
Now, now, now!
In a frenzy, she launched herself down the stairs towards the source of the smell. Colliding with it violently, she knocked it over and slid down the remaining steps on top of it. Another snarl escaped her just before she sank her teeth into the savory raw flesh that was pinned under her.
Distantly she heard a voice cry out, “Ian!”
The name meant something to her, but she couldn’t focus on it.
Eat now.
Think about it later.
Part 10
Part 11
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