Forbidden, Tempted Series (Book 1) (14 page)

“I know.” He didn’t say anything else.

“Why do you want me away from your brother so much?”

He searched her and again she had the weird feeling like she was sinking in quicksand when he looked at her that way.

Cain ignored her question and instead asked one of his own. “What was that thing you were doing outside?”

It was hard to breathe for a second because he’d grabbed her hand and was tracing the pad of her thumb with his finger. In that small touch, she felt a strange connection begin to form between them. A tensile, invisible band that drew them together, coiling tighter around her. His lips were set in a firm line, his brows drawn. As if he wasn’t sure why he was doing it, but unable to stop himself.

“Wh...what?” she asked, then shook herself, trying to clear the mental fog.

His blue eyes never left her thumb. He stared at her hand like it held the answer to the meaning of life. “The running and flipping, what was that?”

Then he dropped her hand and she could breathe again, but suddenly she didn’t want to anymore. She wanted to drown in his touch.

“Umm, it’s called parkour. It’s nothing, really.”

“Nothing?” He shook his head. “That was impressive. I’ve never seen anything so graceful. And I’ve seen a lot of Adam’s shows.”

Had he just complimented her?

Heat crept up her neck and bloomed in her cheeks, settling in the tips of her ears. “I could teach you.”

Cain scoffed and crossed his booted feet, his abs rippling with the movement. “I don’t think so. This body can’t do agile. I’m more of the bruiser type.”

She grinned. “Hulk smash?”

He laughed and the sound was rich and clear and made her spine tingle. “Something like that. So if I’m the Hulk, I guess that makes you Spider-Man.”

“Or woman.” She shrugged. “You know, I’ve got a lot more tricks up my sleeve.”

He quirked his brow.

Flint gave him a mysterious smile. “Oh, I dunno if I should tell you. If I tell you my secrets, I might just have to kill you.”

He narrowed his eyes, a devilish gleam winking back at her. “I’d like to see you try, princess.”

“Don’t underestimate me, Cain, I might just surprise you. So what’s with the tattoo?” She hadn’t meant to ask, but there was a pause and she was curious.

Lifting his arm, he gave it the briefest glance. The black ink looked fresh still, such a rich color it was like he’d just gotten it done yesterday. But she knew that wasn’t the case.

“Born with it.”

Giving him a droll look, she held up her hand. “Yeah, okay. You be that way, Cain. You really are incapable of being anything other than a jerk, huh?”

Lip turning up at the corner, he touched his bicep. “Down here, I’m me, princess. The real me. No jokes. No lies. Just me. This is my safe spot, so let’s not do this. Deal?”

His eyes were so sincere, and she wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that inside the heart of darkness maybe, just maybe, there was a shred of something nice. He confused her, annoyed her, and made her so curious it infuriated her.

“You promise?”

His grin never left as he tipped his head. After that they continued to make stupid back-and-forth banter, and she realized that she was actually having fun. She didn’t bring up the tattoo again, but she did want to know something else.

“So were you following me?”

He brushed a curl of hair out of her eyes and she held her breath. His touch burned like fire, streaked through her skin, settled into her blood. Made her feel hot and weirdly heavy.

Flint grabbed his hand. His fingers were so warm and strong, his thumb tracing her palm, and she was so confused.

“I wasn’t following you.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“I swear. I was on... other business. But you have to be careful.”

She crossed her chest with her finger. “I swear I didn’t know a tornado was coming. Next time—”

He shook his head, and the hand she’d been holding slipped out to rake through his dark wet hair in agitation. “Not just that. You can’t run around out there alone, especially not when it’s dark. What you can do... it’s impressive, but it’s not going to save you.”

His words both thrilled and terrified her. Thrilled because he seemed to be suggesting that he actually cared, which was unbelievable. Scary, because he was right. She should have thought about the fact that she was out in the dark all alone.

She shivered, feeling the strangest need to apologize all of a sudden.

He sighed. “Just, be careful.”

Cain glanced up, the white light splashing across his face adding dark shadows under his eyes, and for a second he’d looked like a stranger. “Think the hail stopped.”

She nodded and got up, coming away from the plastic couch with a loud popping suction. Cain wrung out his shirt and then put it back on. She was gonna miss those abs.

“Come on,” he said, sounding suddenly weary and not at all like he had just seconds ago. “I’ll take you back.”

“Cain?” She held the edges of the towel in a tight grip.

His blue eyes made her stomach quicken when he turned to her.

“Which one of you am I going to see tomorrow at school? The jerk, or the nice guy?”

He licked his front teeth and lowered his brows. “You shouldn’t be around me, Flint.”

There was an unmistakable warning in his tone, and it made her sick. It wasn’t as if she was asking him out or anything. So why did he insist on keeping his niceness such a secret? Was she annoying? Embarrassing to him somehow?

The last thought made her skin tingle with the familiar rush of anger she felt whenever he was around. “So I guess that means the jerk. You know what, Cain, just... don’t humiliate me again. That’s all I ask. I’ll stay away, but don’t do what you did today.”

Flint turned her back on him and walked to her pile of clothes, hands trembling with adrenaline and throat working with the strangest need to cry.

Then he was behind her, and she felt his body like a glove, so close his heat and hers merged together and all the fine hairs on her body stood up.

His breath was on her neck when he said, “Hurry up, princess. Don’t want your old man to worry.”

When she turned to tell him her dad was gone and probably wouldn’t be back until tomorrow morning, Cain was already walking up the stairs.

A
bel rolled over on his cramped bed. The tornado had passed within yards of the carnival, dropping hail but not doing any significant damage. Apart from the crazy wailing wind, he’d hardly noticed it all.

But now the world was hot and trying to sleep in this open-air sauna was pissing him off. He kicked the sheets off, praying for a gust of wind to filter through his small slatted windows. But nothing came through, and his AC had stopped working three nights ago. Adam had promised to get it fixed, but so far nothing.

Swearing under his breath, he got up and walked to the door, opening it and taking a giant gulp of fresh air. He stood outside for a while, letting the breeze dry his sweat. The sky was a dark, impenetrable blackness; there were hardly any stars visible.

The gravelly crunch of moving tires drew his attention. He looked and noticed Cain had finally returned from wherever the heck he’d been.

In seconds Cain was out of the car, head hanging, hands shoved in his pockets. He looked tired.

“Sweet gig you got,” Abel said with a sneer when his brother got close enough to hear him.

Cain frowned but didn’t look up, just rested against the bench by Abel’s trailer. “It’s past midnight, man, why are you still up?”

“And you’re not my dad. Where were you?”

Cain’s eyes were dark as he glanced at him. “Go to sleep, Abel. Got school tomorrow.”

Abel straightened his spine, not sure why he was so angry, but pissed, furious at how much his brother got away with. No way Adam would let Abel stay out till midnight doing only God knew what. Adam was always riding him about staying inside, treating him like a baby. Abel’s head started to throb and he gripped his skull, giving it a tight squeeze.

“So do you. What were you doing?” he asked again, but this time his voice vibrated funny. Deep and scratchy and weird. The sound of it was enough to jerk Abel out of his pissy mood.

Cain’s brow was lifted as he studied Abel’s face gently. “You feeling all right?”

“Fine.” He glowered and suddenly felt a lethargy creep over him. “Just tired—couldn’t sleep with the storm. And I can’t shake this headache. Gotta find Mom.” He grabbed his aching skull.

Cain nodded. “You been having a lot of those lately.”

He sounded worried.

But Abel was a big boy, he didn’t need his brother babying him. “It’s fine. Mom’s medicine helps. I just got to find her.”

“I’ll go find Mom, send her to your trailer.” Then Cain pulled away from the bench and started to walk off, but paused to say, “Lock your door tonight, little brother.”

With a snort of disgust, Abel slammed his door shut and flopped back onto his bed. But the moment he did, he started tossing and turning as sweat poured down his back. With a growl, he sat up and stripped off all his clothes, scratching his skin, which had started to itch uncontrollably. His head was throbbing so hard it made him sick to his stomach.

Unintelligible words spilled from his lips as he hissed and clawed grooves into himself, drawing blood.

A knock echoed loudly through his trailer. He got up and opened the door.

His mother’s worried face stared back at him. She cradled a bottle of pills in her hand. “Again?”

“Worse than ever.” He clenched his jaw and walked back to his bed, dropping down onto it in exhaustion.

She rubbed his head, her cool fingers feeling good against his heated flesh. Opening the bottle, she pulled out two pills. “Here.”

He took them and popped them into his mouth as she walked to the sink and filled up a cup with water.

“Drink it.” She held it out to him.

Nodding, he took it and drank, then lay back with an exhausted sigh.

“You know your father suffered with these too when he was younger. You’re okay, Abel. Really.”

Prying open one eye, he gave her a brave smile. “Yeah, and how long did they last with him? ’Cause I don’t think I can take another month of this. It’s killing me.”

She kissed his brow, then walked back to the door. “Baby, it’s just a weird thing in this family. It’ll pass and then you’ll be like new. Now”—she shut off the lights—“try to get some rest, okay?”

She left and closed the door.

The medicine would work. It just needed some time, but right now it still felt like something was crawling under his skin, burrowing into his brain.

He scratched and scratched, but found no relief in the muggy stillness. Not giving two craps anymore about keeping his door closed, he got up and reopened it, heaving a sigh of relief when a fresh breeze came in.

After plopping back down on the bed, he closed his eyes and finally felt the relief of the medicine beginning to work. At some point he must have fallen asleep, because he saw Flint and they were laughing together. She’d leaned in with her eyes closed, her deep red hair dancing around her head like fire, and his heart had started racing... Then his eyes had snapped open when the sensation of something, or someone, watching him woke him up.

Not moving, pretending to still be asleep, he searched his dark room for a shadow. What he saw made his nostrils flare and his pulse hammer.

In the corner, crouched low, a red pair of eyes stared at him.

“What the—” he growled as his blood began to literally feel like it boiled inside him. Abel sat up, rolling on his side. He turned on the lamp and grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on. His baseball bat.

But whatever the thing was, it was gone.

Dropping the bat, he ran to his door, closed and locked it. But sleep eluded him the rest of the night.

~*~

C
ain knocked on Janet’s trailer. She opened it on the third knock, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She was dressed in a Hello Kitty shirt and short set.

“Cain?” she peered at him with a frown in her eyes. “It’s late, what do you want?”

“I told you to guard her.”

“I did.” She pursed her lips. “I dropped her off at her apartment and—”

He shook his head. “No, she left and went to the mall.”

“Did you follow her?”

Fire burned in his gut at the thought of what might have happened had he not seen her in time. It shouldn’t bother him so much, but it did, and it really irritated him that Janet was sleeping when he’d given her a direct order.

“No, I was tailing the worker that was tailing her.”

She sucked in a breath. “They’re following her outside of school?”

Cain cracked his knuckles. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. From now on I want someone guarding her constantly. I’ve got Eli watching the apartment tonight.”

She tucked black strands of hair behind her ears and nodded. “Okay.”

“Q
ueen Mother.” The worker
Aswang
genuflected, crawling forward on her knees, keeping her eyes pinned to the cold cement floor. The wash of moonlight spilling through glass windows played upon the cool grays and light blues of their impenetrable hive.

“Arise, my child.”

The queen’s dulcet voice never failed to make the worker’s heart sing and her body tremble. She looked at her hive mother with a mixture of adoration and worship.

The queen’s fine brow lifted in inquiry.

“I’ve received reports tonight.”

“And?” The queen tapped her long manicured nails on the makeshift throne of iron and animal skins. Her lily-white thigh peeked from the corner of her blood-red gown, but her face was covered as usual by a mask of shimmering gold and turquoise.

“We believe we’ve found the rager’s weaknesses.”

Blood-red lips curled up into a sickle-shaped smile before she said, “Good, but make certain. You only have one chance to strike while he’s unawares.”

The worker nodded her head three times. “Yes, my queen.”

“Follow them, scare them, but do not harm them. Yet.”