When Passion Lies: A Shadow Keepers Novel (8 page)

He’d caught her and he’d tortured her and he’d changed her.

“Stop it,”
Caris said out loud, leaning against the railing of the bridge, wishing the wind would whip the memories from her mind.

But they stayed, and there was no forcing them back now.

She’d escaped from Reinholt
—how
was a painful blur—but she’d managed. She’d raced through the forest in a daze, hiding when she felt the wolf bursting free, transforming to mist when she could. When she reached London, she’d gone straight to Tiberius, and she’d seen the relief in his eyes as she rushed into their bedroom.

The air between them had been charged, and she could feel his need, his desire. She’d pushed him away, though. She felt the wolf beneath her skin, begging for release, and she feared that losing herself to passion would bring it out—and that would be the death of Tiberius.

Even more than that, though, she’d feared that if he knew the truth he wouldn’t want her. The weren were vile to him. They’d abused him, body and soul, and while she didn’t want him to look upon her like that, she knew that she couldn’t lie with him without telling him the truth.

She’d feared he would be unable to meet her eyes. She’d feared he would storm from the room, and that it would be hours—possibly even days—before he would come to her and tell her that it didn’t matter. That he loved her and always would.

She’d feared all that … but she hadn’t feared what had actually happened.

“It is in you, then?” he asked, after she’d forced herself to tell him the truth. “The wolf?”

She’d nodded. “I can feel it, pulling at me.”

She thought of his past at the hands of the vile werewolf Claudius. “I’m still me,” she’d urged. “I’m still Caris.”

She’d reached for his hand, but their fingers had only brushed as he’d moved away, rising to stand.

“And you changed? The wolf came out?”

She nodded. “At the full moon. My captor—he kept me in a basement. There was no one around. I infected no one, I swear.”

“And since the full moon? Has the change come upon you?”

She hesitated. It had, and she’d raced into a cavern, hoping like hell that no one would come along. Hoping she would get lost in the winding tunnels, unable to escape and rush to a nearby town. She’d been lucky. She truly didn’t know if she would ever be that lucky again.

He was watching her, his expression harsh. “Caris. Have you learned how to control it?” She thought she heard a hint of hope in his voice, but it was buried, deep beneath a harsh stoicism. She tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t. His overcalm voice made her afraid, so very afraid, and with fear came the wolf.

“I haven’t,” she admitted. “But I can learn. I can feel control inside me, but it’s edging just out of reach. Please, Tiberius, I need—”

“What?” His word was sharp.

“Help.”

He looked at her then, his eyes so full of love that she’d felt safer than she’d ever been in her life. Only after an eternity did he speak. “Come,” he said. “I know what to do.”

He didn’t take her hand, but he led her back to his office. Giorgio Dane was there, a newly inducted
kyne
. A young man who’d fought at Tiberius’s side in a recent battle with Gunnolf and his men.

Giorgio looked up, confused as they burst in. Caris was just as confused. “What—” she began as Tiberius circled behind his desk and pulled open a drawer. And then, because he moved so fast and because she had her guard down and because she never would have expected it of the man she loved, he managed to pull out a gun and fire a tranq dart into her before she even had time to react.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as a shocked Giorgio leaped to his feet. “I can’t risk you changing. Not here. Not with hundreds of vampires in the mansion. Giorgio will take you to Belgium. To the safe house.”

She’d tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

“I love you,” he’d said, and the world went black.

Now she clenched her hands around the Tower Bridge railing, then shut her eyes tight, warding off memories of the nightmare that followed.

In front of her, the horizon was beginning to glow. No time for memories now. No time to be that Caris. The girl who’d had no control.

That girl was gone. She was strong now. She’d learned control. She’d harnessed the power of the two species inside her, and she knew how to keep them both where they belonged.

She was a warrior, and she had been for two decades.

And a warrior could face Tiberius without getting nervous.

A warrior could … and so could she.

Tiberius paced the length of his London office, wondering why the hell she hadn’t arrived yet.

He’d gone down the mountain to Zurich as mist, then had one of the staff para-daemons at Division 12 transport him back to London by wormhole. The whole trip had taken under two hours. Presumably Caris was arriving by a less direct route.

Still, he was beginning to fear that his trust in her had been misplaced. That she was trying to pay him back by pissing him off.

So far it was working.

The truly frustrating thing was that it wasn’t her tardiness that had him on edge, but the anticipation of seeing her again. Dammit all, it had been almost two decades. He should have worked the woman from his blood by now.

Never
.

The familiar scene came from the back of his mind, and he recognized it immediately. He was speaking to her.
“You are my heart and soul, Caris,” he’d said. “And you will be forever.” Her laughter had covered him, as refreshing as a bubbling brook. “You’ll take that back one day,” she teased. “Push me aside. Toss me away.” He’d pulled her tightly into his embrace, then kissed her hard. “Never,” he whispered, after his lips had sealed the promise
.

He’d meant it, too. Hell, he meant it still.

Would it be hard to see her when she walked through his door? Absolutely, but like all pain, there would be pleasure, too, and he’d be lying if he said the anticipation wasn’t killing him.

He might lie to another about that, but with his own heart he could only be honest.

Seeing her in Zermatt had hurt. Seeing her in his home would hurt more. But he’d survived unbearable pain, and he could survive this. He had to. He needed to find out what she was up to. Needed to understand why she gave a rat’s ass about Reinholt. Was it personal? Or, God forbid, was she working for Lihter?

His hand rested on a heavy bookshelf that sat next to the window, and he realized that he’d opened a small cherrywood box while he’d been lost in thought. He held a miniature frame in his hand, the glass fogged after so many years, the photograph now aged and faded.

Even so, her eyes shone through, bright and intelligent.

His chest tightened, this time with regret. She’d been his mate, his confidant. The one person he’d trusted above all others. The one person who’d never left his side as he’d risen in the Alliance. Who’d understood his ambition and supported it. Supported
him
.

She was also the one person who knew the painful truth about his past. About the youth who’d been battered and abused at the hand of the weren.

There was no woman who could take her place in his life. He’d ripped his own heart out when he’d banished her, but even in that small mercy, he’d failed. He should
have killed her. How could he do otherwise after what had happened to Giorgio?

Forcing his hand to remain steady, he lifted the picture, once again looking into her eyes—eyes that now seemed both sad and reproachful.

His hand clenched, tighter and tighter until the glass cracked under the pressure, and he hurled the frame across the room, then watched as the glass shattered against the wall.

He dropped his hand.

He didn’t feel any better.

Disgusted with himself, he crossed the room, glass cracking beneath his shoes as he reached the mess and bent over to pluck the photograph from the array of shards.

On the far side of the room, the door clicked open, and Mrs. Todd poked her head in. “I heard a—oh.” She frowned at the mess surrounding him. “Is everything—”

“It’s fine.”

“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “There’s a hand broom and dustpan inside your closet. I’ll just go get …” She trailed off, then busied herself with tidying the floor. Tiberius watched, feeling more the fool with each whisk of the broom.

“Was there something else?” he asked.

She tilted her head up from where she was crouched on the floor. “There’s someone here to see you.”

“Mrs. Todd, do you recall me mentioning that I was expecting someone?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Then perhaps you could have announced their presence earlier?”

“Oh. Right. Of course, sir.”

He forced his temper under control. He was on edge at the moment, and he knew it. It would do no one any good if he took it out on Mrs. Todd. “Who is it?” His voice sounded thick with anticipation, and he could only hope that his secretary hadn’t noticed.

Caris
, she would say. And he would calmly nod and tell her to let the woman in.

“It’s Mr. Dragos, sir.”

An odd mixture of relief and disappointment washed over him. “Fine. Send him in.”

Luke eased inside and took a seat on the couch. “I’ve got one hour for a briefing, and then I need to be at the airport. I’ve got my plane waiting, and I want to get home.”

“I don’t blame you.” Tiberius leaned against his desk. “So what’s the news from Zermatt?”

“They brought in a percipient,” Luke said. “Ylexi, from Berlin,” he added. “The delay in discovering the body worked in our favor. He saw nothing.”

Tiberius nodded, relieved. “Good.” He needed his own answers as to why she’d killed Reinholt. Answers that would be hard to come by if she was the focus of a criminal investigation. Not to mention that having her executed for murder didn’t sit well with him for a lot of reasons.

“Any other evidence at the scene that might lead back to her?”

“Nothing. It looks like we’re good.”

“Excellent.”

Luke started to rise.

“Just one more thing.”

Luke sat again.

“Give Koller a call from the airport. I want Division 12 pulled off the case. We’re putting an Alliance task force on it. If Koller has an issue with that, he can call me directly.”

Luke was watching Tiberius carefully. “I understand the need to deal with her first, to understand what she did and why. But where’s the benefit in a task force?”

“We got lucky with the percipient. Lucky with the evidence on scene. But a potential Alliance informant was assassinated, and that justifies an Alliance task force. Division 12 doesn’t need to be playing in this sandbox.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed only slightly. “Why are you protecting her?”

“I assure you I’m protecting my own interests as well.” It was a testament to their friendship that Tiberius answered at all. As a lieutenant, Luke’s question crossed the line to insolent. As a friend, it was fair.

Luke stood and headed for the door. “I’ll call if I get any flak. Otherwise, call when you need me.”

“Give Sara my best,” Tiberius added, referring to Luke’s wife. At her name, Luke’s eyes lit up, his warrior’s countenance softening with a smile.

Tiberius had to smile, too, as he watched his friend leave. Once, he’d seen that look on his own face—the knowledge of a love so pure it could never be shattered.

It had been, though. Misfortune and circumstance had conspired against them, and at the end of the day, he’d hurt her. And in turn, she’d hurt him.

And both of those events were something he’d once thought impossible, especially since he’d been honor
bound to help her even before they’d met, an obligation placed on him when an old man had saved him from dying in the streets.

Tiberius had been human then, a prince ripped from his mother. A future king sold into slavery so that his cousin would inherit the throne instead of him.

Tiberius had remembered none of that, though. He knew only pain and abuse and hours in a ring, made to fight his friends. Made to kill.

It had been the only life he knew, the years before he’d been pulled away from his mother at the tender age of four nothing but a vague memory, replaced by pain and torment and the horrific knowledge that he had no self. That he was the property of the man who owned him, a vile creature named Claudius.