Fated (31 page)

“Hello, Cara. Do you faint often?”

“No. Put me down.” She peered around Lorcan at some type of dark tunnel with thick stone walls. Underground, again. His booted feet sounded softly on what must be a dirt floor, and his pasty white skin glowed above her face while he stopped before a rounded wooden door, kicking it open with one foot.

He put her on her feet and gave her a quick push inside. “I’ll be back for you.”

The door slammed shut, and a key scraped through a lock. She stared across a round underground room and blue eyes met identical blue eyes for a startled beat. “Emma,” she breathed as she met her sister halfway, and they clasped each other tight.

“Cara,” Emma said with a groan and stepped back. Her tired face scrutinized her younger sibling. “Holy crap. You’re pregnant.”

“What?” Cara said through tears as the room tilted dangerously.

“You. Are. Pregnant.” Emma grabbed both her hands. “You didn’t know?”

Cara shook her head. “No. I guess it makes sense, but …
I’ve been on birth control. I know it’s never one hundred percent, but …” Her mind spun as Emma enfolded her in a gentle hug. “Are you sure, Emma?” She already knew the answer, even before her sister nodded. Emma’s psychic abilities had never failed them. Of course, who the hell knew if birth control worked against vampire seed for God’s sake?

Cara took a deep breath and studied her big sister. “You’ve looked better.” Emma’s dark hair lay tangled around her slender shoulders, a purple bruise marred light skin and covered one entire cheekbone, and dark marks of worry slashed under her eyes.

“Yeah, and you’re knocked up,” Emma retorted before moving toward the door and yanking a mangled lipstick tube out of the back pocket of her faded jeans. “The door is a thick wood, and I’m close to picking the lock. The walls are made of stone bricks, and we’re under the ground somewhere, but I saw a map when I first got here and think I can figure the way out.”

Cara raised an eyebrow. “You’re picking the lock with your lipstick, Em?” Man, her sister had lost it.

Emma snorted. “It’s a lock pick camouflaged as a lipstick, dummy. I’ve been on the run for two months—believe me, I’ve been preparing for this.” She moved forward toward the door and inserted the pick into the old-fashioned lock before bending to one knee and starting to twist. “All those times Daddy locked us in the closet is actually coming in handy. Funny, huh?”

“Not really,” Cara retorted. “He really was a bastard, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah. Maybe he’s enjoying hell right now.”

“You think so?” Cara bent closer to watch her sister manipulate the lock.

“Yeah. I don’t think you can use God to beat the heck out of people and then get away with it.”

Her mind still reeling, Cara slid down to the hard dirt floor, not needing to check for the knife at her back—it was
clearly gone. Dust and wet mold made her sneeze. She belatedly remembered the knife hidden in her sock before leaning down to pat her leg. Damn. Lorcan must have taken the weapon while she was unconscious. “So, where are we, Em?”

“Somewhere in Wyoming. At a new facility because something happened to their stronghold in Portland. The good news is that this place isn’t fully staffed yet, and they brought me here only because they knew you were fairly close.” Emma rubbed her hands on her jeans before returning her attention to the lock. “This is a temporary facility—I have a feeling their permanent one would be a lot harder to escape from.”

“Yeah, we raided the place in Portland—though I don’t think that one was fully staffed yet, either.”

Emma turned surprised eyes her way. “You raided the place?”

“Uh, yeah. They kidnapped a friend of mine, and we had to go and get her.”

“Who exactly is ‘we’?” Emma turned back to the lock.

“Um, well, my husband, Talen, and his brothers.”

“You’re married?” Emma’s voice rose to an odd pitch.

“And mated,” Cara said quietly, wondering how much Emma knew. She had her answer when her sister swiveled around to face her and paled to near white.

“Not to a Kurjan?”

“No.” Cara leaned forward to pat her sister on the arm. “To a vampire.”

“What? You married one of the vampires?”

“Yeah. What do you know about them?” She chose not to mention Dage and his interest in Emma.

Emma shrugged. “They’re mortal enemies of the Kurjans, look like us except for their eyes, and also need mates with enhanced abilities.” She ran a rough hand through her rioting hair. “I guess your empathic abilities made you a potential.” Her eyes focused in concern. “Where’s Janie?”

“Safe.”

“Thank God.” Emma studied her closely. “Were you forced?”

“To mate?” Cara blushed to the roots of her hair.

“Yes.”

“Um. No, not really.”

“Not really?” Emma’s gaze hardened.

“Not at all, actually,” Cara sighed as she dropped her hands and blushed again under her sister’s searching gaze.

“Where is he, Cara?”

“On his way,” she said miserably.

“On his way?” Emma frowned, storm clouds brewing in her eyes.

“Um, yeah. They were at least three hours out and I could get here faster without waiting for them.” Cara whispered the statement, a deep flush rising under her skin to pool in her face.

“Why didn’t you wait for them?” Emma asked in astonishment. “Since neither of us are exactly strong fighters, a sworn enemy of the damn Kurjus would come in handy right now.”

“I know.” Cara sighed. “But Lorcan said he’d start cutting off your body parts if I didn’t hurry.”

“And?” Damn it. Her sister knew her too well.

“And I found a file in Talen’s desk ordering for him to mate and bear sons.” Cara avoided her sister’s eyes by looking around the small, empty room, but only yellowed stone walls and a dirt floor were visible. She just couldn’t go into the whole branding situation yet.

“Oh. So you were pissed?”

Cara nodded.

“And you were hurt?” Emma’s voice softened.

Cara nodded again and blinked back tears.

“Okay, we’ll figure all of that out later. Right now we need to get the heck out of here before some doctor arrives. If Lorcan knows you’ve mated, he’ll try to use the virus on you.”

“You know about it?”

“Yes. The lab I worked at helped develop it, but we thought we were curing genetic diseases. We had no clue the Kurjans even existed. When I found out, I tried to destroy the virus, but it was too late.”

“And they came after you?”

Emma nodded. “Yeah. They knew about me from day one; it was always their plan to ‘acquire me’ after we developed the virus.” She flushed. “And they checked into my background and found out about you and Janie. It’s my fault you’re here.”

“It’s their fault, Em.” Cara closed her eyes and concentrated on reaching Talen. Only static filled her head, and she wondered if whatever had happened earlier had broken their connection. If so, she fervently prayed that the results were temporary.

“Cara, they showed me the tapes of what the virus does to mated women.” Emma’s eyes filled with concern for her sister. “We didn’t know what we were developing.”

“Is there any way to beat the infection?”

“No.”

“What are we going to do?”

Emma didn’t have a chance to answer before the lock clicked and the door shifted open. “Now we run,” Emma said with determination as she rose to her feet and pulled Cara through.

C
ara followed as Emma took a sharp turn down the damp, empty tunnel before starting to jog through the barely lit area.

“Come on,” Emma whispered. “We can’t go back the way you came in—the Kurjans are setting up the main control room by the entrance, and I’m pretty sure I saw a back way out.”

Cara shrugged and increased her pace to keep up, her feet pounding on dirt that swiftly turned to mud as they ventured farther into the dimness lit by faint industrial lights strung every ten feet. It seemed like she’d spent most of her life underground at this point.

She tried again to reach Talen with her mind and only ended up with a dull throb in her temples—damn it, what had he done? A guilty little voice in the back of her aching head whispered he had reacted to her running off to meet his mortal enemy, and his anger was probably justified. Maybe. But that was no reason to short-circuit her brain.

A voice in the darkness ahead froze them in place.

“Matre here, south tunnel is secure,” a deep Kurjan voice wove through the space.

Cara pressed against the stone wall until water dripped down the back of her shirt. “Do you still have the lock pick?”

“Yes.” Emma looked around furtively. “We’ll have to take him out. There isn’t time to get back to the room.”

“I know. He’s probably armed, if we could get him down, I could get the gun.”

“You and
your baby
stay out of the way,” Emma snapped back. “Duck down.”

They both slipped into a crouch as muffled footsteps echoed through the underground space.

“Go for his neck with the pick.” Cara leaned in close to her sister’s ear. “You have to go for the jugular and decapitate him.”

“I do not want to know how you know that,” Emma replied just as softly.

Water dripping down stone to pool in dirt beat in time with the footsteps coming closer as the sisters crouched in the darkness like angry prey ready to spring. Determination flowed strong and sure between them as they both tensed—Cara saw his feet before Emma and kicked out her leg to trip the soldier who fell with a startled grunt into the mud. Emma leaped forward and plunged the slim metal into his neck just as Cara reached for his glowing green gun. Hissing, the soldier swept out a clawed hand to throw Emma into the nearest wall before bounding to his feet and yanking the bloody weapon out of his flesh.

His teeth glimmered sharp and deadly in the soft light as he moved toward Cara, and with an answering glare, she raised the gun and pulled the trigger, only to have the gun sputter in her hand. With a growl, she focused as hard as she could on an image of the Kurjan’s heart and tried to seize the organ mentally, drawing on any power Talen may have passed to her. The soldier gasped and stumbled, his purple eyes widening on her as she stopped him in his tracks. Then, with a fierce shriek, he shook off her control and started forward again.

Crying out, Cara squeezed the trigger, and this time the weapon fired. The soldier gave a harsh screech as he was
thrown back into the stone wall, and Cara kept firing straight at his neck, moving closer, her hands clenching the gun so hard her fingers fought numbness until the Kurjan dropped to the ground. Emma leapt across the tunnel in a blur of motion and grabbed the knife stuck in his belt, while Cara shifted her aim to his head and kept firing.

His flesh split and blood sprayed.

“Plunge the blade into his neck,” she hissed as green fire continued to erupt from the gun.

With a harsh sob, Emma reached forward and stabbed the knife into the Kurjan’s neck and then twisted her head to the side as blood sprayed toward her face. She looked back and tried to yank the knife but to no avail. Cara put the gun in the back of her pants and leaned down with both hands to help her sister, but the blade didn’t move. “Talen made this look easy,” she grunted as she pulled with all of her might. The knife sat immobile in the hard tissue of the soldier’s neck.

“Yet another reason it’d be nice if he were here.” Emma fell back onto her butt. She nodded to the fallen soldier. “Well, he’s unconscious at least—let’s get the hell out of here.” She scrambled to her feet.

Cara nodded, yanked the soldier’s earpiece out, and jumped up to follow her sister at a dead run—who knew how long it would take for the soldier to regain consciousness and pull the knife out of his throat? She tried to reach Talen in her mind as she ran through the now thick mud and dripping ceilings, but soft static crackled where his voice should be. Damn it, he probably couldn’t track her, either.

She and Emma were truly on their own.

The light became even dimmer as they ran, and after a while her calves started to burn as the tunnel shot upward, the slushy mud camouflaging their footsteps until they came to a large stone door. They both reached forward to tug, and it opened with a harsh groan. Light made Cara blink against the pain. She hurried after Emma through the doorway, both
of them pushing the door shut with their bodies before looking around a large cave with smooth walls.

Cara’s heart dropped to her knees as she realized the distance to a hole in the roof that was letting in abundant light. “How in the hell …” she asked wearily as nausea sped through her. Gasping, she turned to the stone wall and lost the meager contents of her stomach. Emma rushed forward and held her hair out of her face. “I’m okay,” Cara muttered as she wiped one dirty arm across her mouth.

“No, you’re not,” her sister retorted while looking anxiously about the small cavern. “There’s a type of ladder carved into the rock,” she mused while pointing across the small space.

“God Emma”—Cara breathed out while looking up into the now fading light—”that’s at least fifty feet up.”

“I know,” Emma said as she hurried across the room and put her foot into the divot in the otherwise smooth rock. Cara’s heart sped up as her sister reached with a soft grunt and pulled herself up before starting to climb awkwardly hand over foot. She paused about halfway up.

“Are you okay?” Cara called.

“Yeah, just taking a moment,” Emma replied before starting to climb again.

Cara breathed a sigh of relief as Emma made it to the top and pulled herself outside the large hole. Dark hair flew around her bruised face as she peered down at Cara. “We’re in the middle of a forested area—I don’t see any rope or anything. You need to climb up, sis.”

Cara nodded and took a deep breath before placing her foot in the lowest cut. Her hands trembled as she reached into other crevices to balance herself before starting to climb hand over foot up the wall. She ignored her lurching stomach and possible danger to her baby if she fell and concentrated on climbing steadily, calmly up. Before she knew it, Emma helped her into a small clearing surrounded by large pine
trees. Thank God. Nature and oxygen. She lay on her back gasping air for a few precious moments until she noticed the thickening black clouds forming right above them, then she rolled to her feet.