Dark Deceiver (10 page)

When she straightened, Kaderil took her hand.

“All done?” he asked.

She smiled at him, but the smile didn't ease the creases in her forehead. She was worried the Esri would return. As was he. The only way he could hope to protect her was to keep her close by his side. And the only way to do that…

His pulse began to quicken. He must profess soft feelings for her. Pretend to be besotted. A role he had never played.

A role too close to the truth.

With a deep breath, he dove in. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” She shivered and tugged on his hand. “It's cold out here. Let's go in.”

He followed her inside and closed the door. When she turned around, he pulled her into his arms, attempting to mirror the look he'd seen on Jack's face as he gazed at his wife. But as he looked into her soft gray eyes, he lost himself in her beauty.

“I tried to stay away from you,” he murmured. That wasn't what he'd meant to say.

The aching softness that entered her eyes forgave him his honesty.

“Why didn't you call me?”

“Because…” He couldn't think when she looked at him like that. “Because I was…I don't know. I couldn't stop thinking about you. You were…everywhere. In my mind every time I closed my eyes.”

A charming little smile tilted her lips. “And that scared you?”

“No. Yes. I don't…let people get that close.” He didn't know what he was saying, but the words wouldn't stop. “I thought I could forget you if I stayed away. I was wrong.”

His pulse was thudding now. He'd meant to give her platitudes memorized from the numerous human thoughts he'd borrowed. Instead, he'd spoken…he'd spoken the truth.

He released her and tried to pull away, but she wouldn't let him go. “Don't, Kade. I feel the same. I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since I met you. But it doesn't scare me. I think it's a rare miracle. We should embrace it, don't you think? Maybe it won't last. Maybe it's nothing to be afraid of.”

She lifted onto her toes and kissed his mouth. “And maybe it was meant to be.”

Meant to be.
That was the one thing he could be sure it was not. She was human. He was the Esri sent to kill her friends. This was a relationship that could never be. But the knowledge did nothing to tame the need for her that raged through him. His arms tightened, pulling her closer. If only…

His cell phone rang, the tune annoying in its jauntiness. With regret, he released her to answer it.

“Kade? It's Jack. We've got a sighting of an Esri downtown, near the Warner Theater. How soon can you meet us there?”

“I'm on the waterfront. I'll leave now.”

He closed the phone and turned to Autumn. “It was Jack. I've got to go.”

Her gray eyes watched him with tight concern. “I'll drive you.”

He wanted to say no. He didn't want her anywhere near Zander again. But the only way he could ensure her safety was to keep her at his side no matter what.

“All right. Let's go.”

And as he ran for the car, he wondered how, when the time came, he was ever going to let her go.

 

Kaderil's mind raced as Autumn zipped through the streets. This was the opportunity he'd been waiting for, a chance to actually work with the Sitheen after a week of patrolling alone, but the situation carried serious risks.

The Sitheen might expect him to help them kill one of his own and that was something he couldn't do. It was strictly forbidden. With the magic that tied all Esri together, all knew both murdered and murderer the moment one of them died. They'd all felt Baleris's death and known he'd been killed by humans. If Kaderil were to be involved in the ending of either Zander or Ustanis, his own existence would end when he returned home. Somehow he had to find a way to pretend to help the Sitheen without actually helping them. And at the same time, keep Autumn safe.

“The intersection is at the next light.” Autumn glanced at him, her eyes clear of enchantment and sparkling now with excitement. Something he didn't want to see. He wanted her far from danger. But there was no such place now.

A car pulled out of a parking space ahead of them, and Autumn slid into it with little difficulty, then jumped out of the car and joined him on the sidewalk, the thrill of the chase lighting her eyes. He held his hand out to her and she took it, sliding her fingers between his in a move that felt natural and right. As he scanned the area for sign of Esri or Sitheen, he caught sight of Harrison Rand, the quietly intense Sitheen, rounding the corner behind them.

Harrison raised a hand in greeting and caught up to them with quick strides. “Jack got a bead on one of the bastards. We thought he was heading for the Warner, but he kept moving.”

He probably sensed the Sitheen and took off, Kaderil thought.

“Jack and Larsen are on the next street following him,” Harrison continued. “We'll go this way. I hope we can cut him off.”

When they reached the corner, he held up his hand and peered carefully around the corner. “There's Jack. We must have lost the Esri, dammit.”

Kaderil squeezed Autumn's hand, relieved but not surprised. Zander couldn't be taken unaware and Ustanis was unlikely to be. Zander's gift of sensing power in others allowed him to track the Sitheen. They would never get near him unless he wished them to.

Harrison straightened but didn't relax his guard as the three rounded the corner to meet with Jack and Larsen. The street was narrow and cast into shadow by the office buildings rising on either side. Half a dozen business types strolled the sidewalk across the street, but this side was all but deserted, thanks to the small band of street punks lounging against the building midblock.

All at once, the punks straightened as if pulled upright by unseen strings.

Kaderil's instincts screamed. In a synchronized, fluid motion, the punks whipped out guns and began shooting, half in each direction. But Kaderil was quicker. He pushed Autumn against the building, shielding her with his body as he took two slugs to the gut. The bullets pierced his flesh, burning with surprising pain, but they wouldn't kill him as they would her.

Harrison dove into a nearby doorway. Kaderil pushed Autumn in after him.

Autumn grasped his arm, trying to turn him. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.” He brushed her seeking hands aside and fumbled with the zipper of his leather jacket, hiding the bullet holes in his shirt.

“Harrison's shot.”

Kaderil swung around, meeting the other man's pained gaze.

“Just the leg,” Harrison said, his voice tight.

As suddenly as it began, the shooting stopped with a series of empty clicks. Kaderil looked out. One of the shooters was on the ground, likely shot by Jack. As Kaderil watched, the five remaining shooters collapsed in a single fall.

“Enchanted,” he murmured. When Zander had sensed the Sitheen, he hadn't run, but had set up an ambush for them.

Autumn's hand gripped his shoulder. “Is it over?”

“I think so.”

“Are Jack and Larsen okay?” A quaver of fear laced her words even as his gaze traveled to the other end of the block.

His stomach clenched as he saw Jack fall to his knees beside the prone body of his wife. Blood ran down the side of the man's face. Blood spread in a pool around the woman. Kaderil's skin turned cold as he stared at the destruction.

Such gratifyingly fragile creatures,
Zander had said.

“No.” The word that came from his lips sounded strangled. “No, they're not okay.”

Autumn slid past him and with a cry of heartbreak, took off running toward her friends.

“Autumn!”

“Go,” Harrison said behind him, his voice tight with pain. “I'll call 9-1-1.”

Kaderil took off after Autumn. He searched for Zander as he swept up the guns from the unconscious shooters, but saw no sign of him. The Esri captain could be anywhere, enchanting another armed human, readying another attack.

He had to get Autumn out of danger. His hands filled with guns, he hurried to the scene of the carnage. Autumn looked up from where she knelt in the blood beside her friend, tears sliding down her freckled cheeks. “She's bad, Kade.” The grief in her eyes tore at his heart.

Jack cradled his wife's head in his lap, tears mixing with the blood on his cheeks as he pulled the phone from his ear and snapped it closed. His desperate gaze rose to Kaderil. “Did you drive?”

“Autumn drove.”

“Get your car, Autumn. Quick, before the ambulances arrive. I have to get her to Myrtle.”

Autumn gaped at him. “Jack, she's going to need surgery.”

“The doctors may not be able to save her. Myrtle can.” His head snapped up, his anguished eyes blazing with determination. “Go!”

Autumn scrambled to her feet. Her gaze met Kaderil's for an instant before she turned and ran for the car. He was about to go with her when Jack's words stopped him.

“Kade. Where's Harrison?”

“Shot in the leg.”

“Help him.” Jack eased Larsen's head out of his lap and struggled to his feet. Blood ran in rivulets down his face and bloomed from his shoulder. “We've got to get out of here. The bastards could be planning another attack.” His eyes were filled with such pain, such grief that Kaderil felt his own emotions twist in sympathy.

Yet even in the face of such destruction, such disaster, these humans rose with courage and determination. Their bodies might be weak but their spirits were as strong as any he'd ever encountered. For the first time in his life, he felt a stirring of pride for the human blood that ran through his own veins.

Autumn's car screeched to a halt by the curb. The door slammed and she flew toward him, her gray eyes wounded. “Is she still alive?”

“Yes.”

As Jack bent down, his arms sliding beneath his wife as if he meant to lift her, something fell from his shirt to dangle on a chain around his neck. A light-blue, teardrop-shaped stone.

The draggon stone.

The hair rose on Kaderil's arms. Victory flushed his skin as he stared at the prize he'd been sent for. The strange magic he felt around Jack suddenly made sense. It wasn't Jack's own power he'd been feeling, but the stone's.

His muscles clenched as he watched Jack struggle to lift Larsen, the human's skin turning nearly as white as an Esri's. Sweat broke out on Kaderil's brow. The time was at hand. He could end his mission right this moment with nearly flawless ease. The Sitheen, badly injured, were in no position to stop him.

Jack swayed. Kaderil dropped the empty guns at his feet and lunged forward to pluck the injured woman from his arms. “I've got her. Sit down before you fall.”

“Myrtle,” Jack choked out as he sank to his knees. “I've got to get her to Myrtle.” The eyes he turned to Kaderil were desperate. “Help her.
Please.
” He fell forward, collapsing onto his side as his injured arm failed to hold him, the draggon stone lying against his heart.

Autumn grabbed his arm. “Quick. Get Larsen in the car, then help Jack.”

“No,” Jack said. “Leave me. Myrtle can only heal one. I'm going to need that ambulance.” His pleading gaze bore into Kaderil. “Save her.”

“Come on, Kade,” Autumn cried, and his gaze swung to her. Tears and Larsen's blood streaked her face. Misery and strength filled her eyes. “We don't have any time. We've got to get her to Myrtle before she dies.”

He was helpless to deny her.

Later, he would complete his mission. Later, when there were no witnesses. Later, when Autumn wasn't staring at him with a soft plea in her eyes.

Kaderil rode in the back, needing the extra room for his long legs and the dying woman in his arms. Autumn's emotions swirled around him, thickening the air, as she drove. How did the humans bear it? The fragility of their existence? Yet even as he wondered, he was beginning to understand. It was that very fragility that leant such a sharpness to the living and to the relationships they formed with one another. Bonds that ripped the heart to shreds when broken.

What must it be like to matter that much to another?

“Is she still breathing?” Forced to stop for a red light, Autumn turned in her seat to look at him. His chest ached with her sorrow.

“She's alive.” But only just. The woman had little breath left within her.

Autumn met his gaze in the rearview mirror, her eyes heavy with the understanding that she was about to lose her friend.

“I'm sorry, Autumn.” The words came from his heart. He was sorry for this loss she was about to suffer. And the others to come. The ones from his own hands.

She pulled up in front of a nondescript brick apartment building, then jumped out and ran around to open his door. While she'd driven, he'd felt the bullets that had penetrated his own flesh ease their way to the surface of his skin. As he slid out of the car, Larsen's limp body in his arms, he felt them slide down his legs to ping on the pavement, one after the other.