Katie's Hope (Rhyn Trilogy, Book Two) (9 page)

“What’re you doing up here?”

She turned in time to see Rhyn drop with an
audible crunch from the air to the snowy roof. Her misery increased
at the physical reminder that she hadn’t figured out what to do
about him yet.

“Thinking,” she replied.

“Dangerous.”

“For you, maybe.”

He drew near but stopped just out of arms’
reach, alerted by her sharp tone. Embarrassed by her tears, she
turned away. Mercifully, he said nothing, only stood close to her
and stared into the same sky. Even at the safe distance, his body
heat made her uncomfortably warm.

“You think we’ll all survive this?” she asked
at last.

“Probably not. As long as I take Kris down
with me, I don’t give a shit.”

She stifled a laugh, and he gave her a
sidelong glance.

“I got time if you do,” he added. “You can’t
fuck a man once when he’s outta prison and never again.”

“You’re on probation,” she reminded him. “And
your time is running short.”

“Got it covered.”

“Do you?”

“More or less.”

“I’m not convinced.”

“Seems stupid for us to stand here when we
both want each other so bad,” he said. “I thought we were making
progress. I was good last night.”

“I feel like your life and Toby’s and
Hannah’s would be better without me in it,” she said and faced
him.

“I think you’re afraid. Your life is shitty
and you have one good thing going for you. You’re the only good
part of my life. I assume it’s the same for you.”

She said nothing at his words, surprised as
always by his backhanded compliments and tormented by the knowledge
that she had to do something that would hurt them both. He stepped
closer until they were toe-to-toe. She craned her head back to hold
his silver gaze, a tremor of desire working its way through
her.

Maybe tomorrow she’d break it off. She didn’t
want to lose him just yet.

“I thought I made your life more difficult,”
she said to keep from falling into a dangerous silence.

“That, too. You’re as tough as an egg dropped
from a ten-story building. Really hard to rescue. Gets
annoying.”

“I didn’t ask for this!” Her face burned at
his bluntness. She was frustrated to feel more tears rise. “I’m
tired of all this shit. I have no say in anything, and in the end,
we’re all screwed! Go back to killing things, Rhyn.” She turned her
back to him, hoping he’d fly off in his pterodactyl form or
disappear into the depths of the forest as a jaguar.

She felt his warmth at her back instead. He
draped his arms around her and pulled her against him, resting his
chin on her head. She wiped her face, afraid to let herself feel
pleasure in the warm body pressed against hers on such a cold
night. Every time he touched her, her resolve melted. He smelled of
his own musk and darkness, an alluring mix that made her blood
burn.

She missed him. The sense of yearning was
deep. She barely knew the man at her back, but she’d felt his
absence even during the few hours in the day they weren’t together.
Gabriel’s words and her nightmare haunted her, reminded her she
couldn’t let herself fall in love with him now.

“Rhyn …” She trailed off, not at all sure
what she wanted to say. “Do you ever think we’re better off not
being together?”

“No,” he said, though he shifted behind her.
“Do you?”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“I think we make a good pair.”

“Why?” she asked.

“No one else could put up with either of
us.”

She wanted to be offended by his comment but
suspected he spoke the truth.

“We will make things work,” he said.

“I really don’t know, Rhyn.”

“It doesn’t matter what you think. You’re
already mine.”

She forced herself to pull away from him. “I
want to like you, Rhyn, I really do, but sometimes I don’t think
you know how bad things are.”

“You more than like me, but you’re too scared
to admit it. Say whatever you want, Katie, but this is
happening.”

“Now you’ll tell me you know how I feel
because you read my mind.” She leveled a glare on him.

“If I feel like it, I see every thought that
crosses your mind. Like Kris saying he’d break the mating bond
between us. Kris can’t do it, by the way. You’re stuck with
me.”

She stared at him, surprised. He was unfazed
by the idea that traumatized her. Another thought occurred to her
about her trip to the boutique earlier that day.

“What else have you read?” she asked
cautiously.

“I haven’t since yesterday morning. Trying to
be
good.
”

“Thank you,” she said, relieved.

“Kiss? Breakfast tea? It ain’t easy being a
good
demon.”

Her emotions felt too raw to deal with him:
anger, desire, regret. She didn’t have the strength this night to
tell him to go.

“I can’t, Rhyn. I have to check on Toby,” she
said and moved past him before she changed her mind. “I’ve failed
miserably in my role as a foster mom, and he nearly died because of
it.”

“What happened to Toby wasn’t your fault.”
She paused at his words and turned to look at him again. “None of
you knew about the demons in the forest, and you were right about
what you said to Kris.”

“I think I like it better when you’re hard to
get along with,” she said with some frustration. “You’re not making
things easier.”

“Life is anything but easy.” For the first
time that night, she realized he was disturbed about something.
Rhyn gazed at her, considering. “I don’t want to lose you,
Katie.”

She looked down. If she didn’t find a way to
push him away, she risked messing up both of their lives. She loved
him, but she couldn’t let him love her.

“Don’t you have a checklist or something I
can follow so I know what I’m supposed to be doing?” he asked.

“If there were a checklist for relationships,
everyone would have a happy ending,” she responded. “Do I feel
whatever it is between us? Do I miss you even when I know I can
call you and you’d come without question? Yes, but I don’t trust
you, Rhyn. It takes more than killing things, and I’m done being
chewed on, mauled, and treated like crap by you Immortal
idiots.”

He said nothing.

“What we have is not enough for me. Do you
get that?” she asked.

“What happened between last night and
tonight?” His gaze had turned predatory again.

“Nothing. I just realized I can’t be with
someone I can’t rely on, Rhyn.” Her words sounded cheap, even to
her ears. She turned and all but fled the rooftop, cursing herself
for her weakness and the tears in her eyes.

She pushed the door open to her room and
gazed at Toby. Color had returned to his face, and Lankha was
curled up in a ball at the end of the bed with Ully snoring in a
chair. She sat at the edge of the bed and touched Toby’s soft face,
not sure what to do or think about anything anymore, especially now
that Hannah had been dragged into this world.

* * *

Kris watched the door to the guest bedchamber
close, unusually hopeful about his discovery. He padded down the
hall to his room, where Sasha awaited him.

“So I was right,” Sasha said as he entered.
“One more feather in my cap.”

“And a trail of dead bodies you’ll never make
up for,” Kris replied. Sasha shrugged, unconcerned. “How did you
know?”

“When I tasted the sister, I saw her mind. I
saw what they both were.”

Kris poured himself chilled whiskey from the
small refrigerator tucked in a corner. He took a sip, gaze going to
the snow falling outside the window. Sasha’s words reminded him
that he, too, had
tasted
Katie. She’d tasted so sweet, and
he prayed her sister tasted the same. She had a reason to hate him
after what he’d done, and he’d been unable to apologize. He’d hoped
to use Sasha’s knowledge to break her bond to Rhyn and mate with
her himself, despite their hostile relationship. Now, he may not
have to. There was more than one Ancient’s mate. For the first time
since Andre’s death, things were looking better for him.

He felt the weight of his brother’s death on
his shoulders again. Andre had been his confidante and mentor whose
guidance had helped him navigate his role as the Immortals’ leader.
Without him, Kris felt as if he were alone trying to solve the
world’s problems.

“Tell me why the forest is crawling with
demons,” he said and turned to Sasha. “And why their leader is
demanding an audience with me to discuss you.”

The smiled faded from his half-brother’s
face, and Sasha’s gaze went to the fire. “My people figured out the
right mix of Rhyn’s girl’s blood to give immunity to whoever has
it. I was under some … pressure from the demons after some stupid
misunderstanding regarding Darkyn’s daughter and a few others, so I
took it and came here,” he said.

“Knowing your older brother would have to
protect you from the most powerful demon Hell ever spat out,” Kris
said, anger flaring within him.

“You’re sworn never to harm one who comes in
good faith.”

“I need to ask you something, and if you lie
to me, we’re done.”

“Whatever you like, brother,” Sasha said with
too much ease.

“Were you responsible for killing Andre?”

“You forget, Kris, he was my brother, too,
and I considered him a friend. He was the only neutral party among
our father’s sons. What he considered me, I won’t even try to
guess, but no, I didn’t. It was rumored in Hell that Darkyn was
trying to get your precious Katie. Andre was collateral
damage.”

Sometimes Kris hated being his father’s son
and resented Andre’s insistence that he choose duty over all else.
He’d lost his lover, Jade, that way, a sacrifice that still stung.
He seemed to be the only one on the Council who truly cared about
upholding the balance between good and evil, no matter what the
cost. That
Rhyn
of all his brothers would be granted such an
honor as an Ancient’s mate made a mockery of everything. He saw
firsthand how Rhyn’s destructive nature took its toll on those
closest to him, and the half-breed had no sense of loyalty or duty
to the Council.

Even so, Rhyn’s flaws stemmed from his nature
of being a half-demon. Sasha had
chosen
to serve the Dark
One and betray the Council and their father. Sasha may not have
pulled the trigger on Andre, but someone he knew where to find
their oldest brother, who had been protecting Katie when he was
rendered dead-dead.

Sasha also knew the Code Kris was bound by:
those who came in good faith would be given the chance to prove it.
Then there were the rules their father had created about none of
the brothers being permitted to kill the others, with the exception
of Andre, whose sole purpose in life was to keep the Council on
track and protect them. Unless Sasha posed a direct threat to the
Council, Kris was forbidden from buying an assassination, despite
suspecting his brother wasn’t as innocent as he proclaimed.

Sasha disgusted him, but he couldn’t just
kill him like he wanted to.

“She looks like Lilith,” Sasha said.

“I hadn’t noticed,” Kris said and took
another sip, aware his brother was always on the prowl for some
weakness to exploit. In truth, he
had
noticed that Hannah
looked like the first Ancient’s mate ever found, Lilith. Lilith had
been intended for Kris and was pregnant with his son when Rhyn
killed her and the baby both.

He took another sip. After all his
sacrifices, after losing Lilith and Katie to Rhyn, he wasn’t sure
what he’d do if Hannah chose someone other than him as her
mate.

“We aren’t too different,” Sasha voiced
quietly. “Sometimes it only takes a small nudge to push you over
the edge.”

“What pushed you to the Dark One,
brother?”

“A loss too great for me to bear.”

Kris looked at him sharply, suspecting his
brother was trying to play on his emotions. Sasha still stared into
the fire.

“What did you lose?” he demanded.

“My soul mate. You stole him from me, just as
Rhyn stole Lilith from you.”

Surprised at the raw, bitter note in Sasha’s
voice, Kris studied him. “Jade?” he asked. “You were in love with
Jade?”

“I was, until he became enamored with you.
You don’t give a shit who you fuck, but I did then. There was only
one for me.”

“You can have him.”

“Too late. I think I burned that bridge. The
demons brought Jade and Iliana to Hell.”

Jade had disappeared after Kris sent him away
in hopes that Katie would become his mate. He’d last seen his other
trusted lieutenant, Iliana, two days ago, when he’d sent her to
represent him in North America while he was away.

“Are they alive?” he asked.

“They are. The demons treat their guests
well. Iliana has been a favorite among them.”

Anger made Kris’s face warm. Iliana was a
relatively young Immortal who had been at his side for only a few
decades, having caught his attention with her fighting skill and
fierce loyalty. He’d promoted her to one of his lieutenants. She
was tough, loyal, and beautiful.

“Our family is prone to ongoing
disappointment and treason. I think we are worse to each other than
the Dark One is to his enemies,” Kris said, white rage buried deep
within him to keep Sasha from seeing it.

“Without a doubt, brother, which is why I
hope your meeting with Darkyn goes well. He’s not the kind of demon
you want to piss off.”

Kris glanced at the clock, aware it was time
for him to meet with the demon leader. He set his glass down and
looked again at Sasha, who had yet to glance away from the fire. He
wasn’t fooled by any of his brothers, especially Sasha and Rhyn,
whose treachery had been too personal for him to forget or
forgive.

He threw on a jacket and left, aware Sasha
couldn’t leave the castle grounds without forfeiting his life and
wouldn’t dare disrupt the Immortals for fear of Kris’s wrath. Kris
could kill or have him killed in retribution for any life he took
while inside the walls. Sasha wasn’t that stupid, though Kris
wondered what game his brother played.