Chosen by Blood (19 page)

A small frown formed between her brows at his words. Caleb released a silent breath, encouraged that his tactic had worked. This female wasn’t going to respond to words of sympathy any more than she would a gesture of friendship. She’d be horrified by her display of weakness, and the way to get past that was to give her something to hold on to. Even if it hurt
him
to give it to her.

Sure enough, her filmy eyes seemed to clear just a little. “How do you know I was thinking of using the knife on myself and not the rest of you?”

She sounded more petulant than angry, but Caleb was careful not to show amusement. “Because I saw the scars. The ones on your wrists and your throat. That first day, when you straddled me and threatened to blow my head off.”

“Ah, yes.” She nodded. “I remember.”

Unexpectedly, she said nothing more, just went back to staring at the knife.

“What was it about the picture that got to you?”

Again, nothing. The silence stretched on for so long that he was sure she wasn’t going to answer.

“The collar,” she said eventually, her voice flat.

Caleb straightened. “Collar? You mean the restraint around the vamp’s throat?”

Wraith closed her eyes and huffed out a disdainful breath. “That wasn’t a restraint, it was a collar. But since it’s designed to accomplish the same thing—to restrain the individual wearing it—I guess we’re arguing over semantics.”

“How do you know what it’s designed for?” He asked the question even though, in his gut, he knew he didn’t want to hear the answer.

Her eyes finally moved away from the knife to lock on his. “How do you think?” she breathed.

Caleb nodded. “Personal experience.”

“Bingo.”

Memories assaulted him. Filled him with grief and a raw, explosive anger for the pain Wraith had suffered. “Is that what the puncture marks on your neck are from?”

Her head jerked and it was obvious that now he was the one to have surprised her. Her eyes narrowed when he took several steps toward her. He stopped a few feet away.

“The scar across your neck is from a knife, as are the ones on your wrists.” His eyes dropped to her wrists, but she quickly tugged down her sleeves before clenching her hands into fists. “The one across your throat was inflicted before you died. I can tell because it’s almost faded, unlike the ones on your wrists. Those you did yourself, I’m assuming in an effort to kill yourself after you came back as a wraith.”

“Well, well. Seems like you’re not just a pretty face. You’re smart, too. Good deductions, O’Flare. Now, I think I’m—”

“I’m not done yet.” He took another step closer and reached out, ignoring her swift inhalation of breath to gently move her shirt collar away from her throat. He watched her carefully, for any sign that he was hurting her, but she stared back at him, her quick breaths the only sign of her discomfort.

“These puncture wounds are even newer. I wondered what they were. They’re clearly not bites since there are five holes in this little pattern here . . .” Cautiously, he slipped his finger inside her collar and, with a gentle skim of the tip, touched the mark on her neck. She jerked, her neck muscles tightening, and bit her lip. “Does that hurt you?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she whispered back.

Caleb pulled his hand away and stepped back.

“Well?” Caleb finally asked. “Aren’t you going to deny it?”

She actually smiled, a genuine smile resulting from confusion rather than happiness. “What is it I’m supposed to deny?”

For a second, he considered backing off. He, more than anyone, knew where this was leading and no matter what she believed, the last thing O’Flare wanted was to cause her more pain. Clearly, talking about the collar did just that, and while Caleb could physically heal a mortal wound, he didn’t have the power to heal mental suffering, with or without his ancestor’s help.

Torture, a voice whispered in his head, and he instinctively wanted to back away. Erase the last few minutes the same way he wanted to erase the years of war. He remembered his friend, Prince Elijah, his sister, Natia, and the feline family that had once welcomed him with open arms. Even once war had been declared, they’d loved him. Understood his need to heal others, even those who sought to kill felines in the name of patriotism. Until . . .

Now Elijah was dead. He’d been tortured to death. And Elijah’s family hated Caleb. Rightfully so, since Caleb was partly to blame for Elijah’s death.

But he couldn’t erase any of it. Not his past and not Wraith’s. He had to deal and so did she. He could help her . . . maybe . . . if she told him the truth. And if she let him.

“You have a matching mark on the other side of your throat. I’m guessing that this collar you’re talking about was actually attached to you, literally, with prongs that imbedded into your skin. That tells me that the collar did more than just restrain you. What was it? Electric shock?”

“Sorry, stud. You don’t win the prize. Not this time.”

She moved to step around him, but he blocked her with his body. “Then what were the prongs for?”

“Move,” she ordered.

He shook his head. “Not until you tell me.”

Hands on her hips now, she thrust her chin out. “Why? Does the idea of me in pain turn you on, O’Flare? You need specifics for when you jerk off tonight? Need something to visualize?”

Caleb heard her words, but more than that, he heard the desperation behind them. He forced himself to give her the cruelty she needed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Wraith. Visualizing you while I’m jerking off, whether you’re in pain or not, would be the surest way to deflate a hard-on. I want to know for one reason and one reason only. Because it pertains to what you saw on that screen, and as such it pertains to the success of our mission. If you can’t be a professional long enough to get over your own shit and tell me, then you’re more fucked up than I thought you were and you don’t belong on this team.”

After another lingering stare, Caleb turned around and walked out of the kitchen. He was five feet down the hallway when he heard her behind him.

“ A paralyzing agent.”

He stopped but didn’t turn around.

“The collar released a paralyzing agent, some kind of solution I haven’t been able to identify even after years of research. It was used on me. On other wraiths. But I never saw it used on Others. Never expected it could be until today, when I saw that slide.”

“Why wraiths?” he asked, still not turning around. “What did your captors need to paralyze you for?”

She didn’t answer him right away, but he waited. When she did answer, her voice was low and fervent. “Experiments,” she said.

Caleb closed his eyes, trying to erase the instant images that formed from the stories he’d heard. At one point, maybe even still today, North Korea had established Prison Camp 22, located in Haengyong, an isolated area near the border with Russia. It had been one of a network of prisons in North Korea modeled on the Soviet Gulag where hundreds of thousands of prisoners were held. Two things had stuck in his mind about what he’d heard. The first was that the prison included not just political prisoners, but because it followed the “Heredity Rule,” it also housed many of the prisoners’ next of kin. If a prisoner was caught trying to escape, then his family and his neighboring families were shot to death out of collective responsibility. The second thing O’ Flare remembered was the prison’s reputed use of torture and experimentation. A former guard there had explained that he enjoyed torturing people, and by the time the enjoyment began to wear off, he was replaced. The same guard had confirmed that prisoners were often transported to another location for chemical experiments in specially constructed gas chambers.

With his thoughts, the images he was trying to hold back formed, bright and deadly. Not of Elijah this time, but of Wraith strapped to some table, drugged up and scared shitless while some maniacal cretin went after her with a blade in the interest of science.

He felt sick to his stomach. Suddenly wanted to kill someone for putting all that pain and hurt and fear in Wraith’s eyes. All he said, though, was, “All right then.”

He walked away and was so far down the hall when she spoke that she probably thought he couldn’t hear her.

“I hate you now that you know. Now more than ever.”

Caleb didn’t betray the fact he heard her by word or gesture. He just kept on walking, whispering his reply. “I know, baby. I know.”

F
elicia knew Knox would come to her that night. The sizzle of electricity that flared to life anytime they were in the same vicinity had to be making his balls ache as much as it was making her clit throb with sensation and yearning. Still, because she’d assumed he’d scoped out her room beforehand, she’d been expecting him to materialize, not knock on her door.

She cracked it open. “Hi,” she said softly. “Is Wraith okay?”

Knox nodded, his face reflecting a weariness she’d rarely seen on him before. Frowning, she opened the door wider. Was it her imagination, or did his clothes seem a little looser on his tall frame? Did his cheeks seem to protrude just a bit more on his face? Worry began a heavy throbbing beat inside her, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Nor did he make a move to enter her room. “O’Flare talked to her. Said she’s okay. She told him what freaked her out about that picture.”

Felicia motioned him inside. “Come in so we can talk.”

When Knox hesitated, Felicia laughed. “What, after all this time, I invite you into my room and you’re going to turn me down?”

“Depends,” Knox said. “Are you also inviting me into your bed?”

“I . . .” Out of habit, Felicia struggled for a response that wouldn’t result in her stretched out under him, even though that was exactly where she wanted to be.

Especially now.

Staring up at him, Felicia couldn’t deny something inside her had shifted. She also couldn’t deny she was through fighting him.

Always before, even as she was turning him away, Felicia had the knowledge of Knox’s immortality to comfort her. She might never be his, she’d reasoned, but he’d always be around. Whether she tracked him down or not, whether they were together or not, she’d know he was on the same planet, breathing the same air, as strong and vital as ever. Given the photos Knox had shown them today, she could no longer take that for granted. Seeing that vamp, restrained and helpless, had affected her so much it might as well have been Knox tied to the gurney.

Rational or not, she’d suddenly been overwhelmed by fear that if something went wrong, this mission could result in Knox’s death.

That simply was not something she was willing to think about.

So, instead, she thought about their bodies coming together in passion. But then his last words registered, scaring the shit out of her.

He’d asked if she was inviting him into her bed, and only a fool would think his word choice was irrelevant. Yes, she’d been prepared for him to come to her. Yes, she was through fighting him. She was ready to surrender. To yield. To lose herself in the pleasure she knew was right in front of her.

She hadn’t been prepared for him to demand the words. To demand that she take full responsibility for their coming together. Somehow, after everything they’d been through, that just seemed unfair.

So although she wanted to say yes, she, as always, forced herself to say no.

“Then I’d just as soon stay out here. Less temptation. Besides, I just came by to give you something.” He held out a box.

Felicia raised a brow. “ A team gift?” She smiled teasingly, hoping to get him to smile. Since the War, she’d rarely seen him smile with genuine emotion. Suddenly, she realized that more than his body, that was what she wanted from him now. “Did you have team pins made?”

“No. I had this made specifically for you.”

Bemused, she opened the small box, then stared at the necklace inside. It was the vamp medallion, the same one Mara had worn. And Noella. And every female that Knox had dedicated his life to protecting. The hot sting of tears warned her how much the gesture had affected her. She shook her head. “I—I don’t understand.”

“I know you can’t wear it. Too dangerous given what you do and the people you come in contact with.”

“Then why—”

“To thank you for what you did for Mara.” Raising a hand, he cupped her face. “ And because you’re part of us. Part of me. You always have been, Felicia. Despite the fact that it’s what keeps us apart, know that whatever I would do for my clan, I would do to protect you. I—”

Felicia couldn’t stop herself. She threw her arms around him and kissed him, a soft but lingering closemouthed kiss meant to express her gratitude and affection. Under hers, Knox’s mouth—his entire body, in fact—was still and tense. His eyes, however, were open, staring into hers, piercing her with such intense emotion that she felt him in every pore of her body, almost as if they’d become one. His hands dropped to her hips, kneading the curves he held and pressing her into his lean, muscular body. Shivers raced up her spine when she felt his steel-hard dick rub anxiously against her mound. “Knox . . .” she moaned, the breathy sound that of a stranger. It shocked her into pulling away.

Knox closed his eyes. For a horrifying moment, he actually swayed on his feet.

“Knox!” Pocketing the small box with the necklace, she grabbed his arm and his eyes popped open. She dragged him inside, even though the idea of her dragging the six-foot-four vamp anywhere would have been ludicrous in most situations. The fact that he docilely let her pull him anywhere made her worry transform into panic. “Sit down before you fall down,” she ordered, pushing him down on her bed. He sat and she scurried into her bathroom to wet a washcloth and bring it to him. “What’s wrong? Are you sick? Are you hot? Here, put this on your forehead.”

She held the small towel against his head herself, peering at him closely. He stared back at her. After a minute, she asked, “How’s that feel?”