Angel Seduced (4 page)

“I think it's beginning,” she said on a soft breath. “I don't know exactly how it feels, since I haven't done it myself, but my subjects reported heat right before things started.”

His fingers tightened on hers. “I feel it, too, heat and pressure building inside me. And…” His voice changed to a puzzled, concerned tone. “Something else.”

Like a sudden storm, his essence darkened and whipped into a fury. Its tendrils grabbed on to her, wrapping her in a tight hold. She tried to pull back, but he surrounded her. In the same moment, it felt seductively powerful and suffocating. Heat exploded between them, and she lost all sense of where he ended and where she began.
No!
She struggled, both psychically and physically, to free herself. She stumbled back, landing bottom-first on the coffee table. She was free of him. Except…no, she wasn't. She felt him inside her.

He'd bonded them.

Her eyes flew open. He dropped to the floor, caught up in the bombardment. She wanted to demand that his essence release hers, but he was lost to her now. But she wasn't helpless. She slapped her hand on his chest and summoned her magick again.
Come on, come on.
The pink column formed in her mind's eye, but her yellow was twisted with dark silver and then it vanished. She groped for it, but she couldn't muster the power to pull it back.

He had broken his promise!

As much as she wanted to run, she couldn't leave him alone. She watched him arch in pain, fingers digging into the carpet. So many emotions roared through him that she couldn't single any one out. She sank down beside him, her hand on his shoulder for support even as she wanted to scratch his eyes out.

She had never seen that darkness in a Caido's essence before. It scared her, even more so because a mystifying want pulsed through her. Part of what made him very different and, no doubt, forty ways fucked up—the part he hadn't told her about—was now bonded with her.

K
asabian paced, phone clutched in his hand. He almost called Kye fourteen times to tell her he was sorry for bonding with her. And that it had worked, holy hell, his memories had returned. He could barely wrap his head around all of it, which was why he hadn't dialed her number.

He vaguely recalled waking early that morning and finding her asleep on the couch. Then he'd plunged back into oblivion, and that's when the memories had played in his mind like a movie. He'd watched through the eyes of his younger self, stunned, disgusted, and shocked by the identity of his captor. When he woke, she was gone.

A sharp knock on his door startled him out of his dark thoughts. Had to be Hayden, whom he'd summoned immediately. Kasabian snatched open the door to find Kye.

Fury and hurt emanated from her, so clear and sharp that it was like the difference between regular television and HD. “We need to talk.” She pushed her way past him, stalking into the living room and spinning around to face him.

She wore jean shorts and a tank top, her hair loosely bound in a clip that left tendrils snaking down the center of her back. The scent of soap wafted from her, some light, flowery fragrance. With no makeup other than eyeliner, she was a totally different Kye than he'd seen at the club. A version he liked even more.

Her gray eyes flared with anger. “Oh, no. You don't get to look at me like that. Because if you lied about those kids to trick me into—”

Kasabian had heard of fires that rushed in and destroyed everything in their path. That's how it felt now, desire—and the thrill of experiencing it without pain or the muffling effect of the Essex—roaring through him and drowning out her words.

He pulled her to him and covered her mouth with his. She was protesting and trying to push him away. He told himself she already hated him. Might as well seal the deal and experience a taste of heaven. He plunged his tongue in and gave hers something better to do than lash out at him.

Her outrage, then shock, pulsed through him. He would give in to feelings he usually kept a rein on until she pushed him away.

Which she should be doing, oh, about now.

Which she wasn't. Her hands had flattened against his chest but stopped.

Whoosh.
Just like that, fire erupted between them. That cool, fully controlled woman vanished, leaving a hot, hungry vixen in her place. Her tongue met his, and her fingers curled against his chest, nails dragging on his skin. He pulled her heat into the cool places inside his soul. His hands drew down her back and over her tight, round ass, pressing her fully against him. He drowned in the ecstasy of sensations, his hard cock aching with the need to drive into her. So this is what it felt like for everyone else. Gods, he wanted this. Wanted her.

She rocked her pelvis against him, as though she couldn't get enough contact.
Don't do that, love. Push me away before this lust feeds the Shadow too much. Before I tear off your clothes and take you right here on the living room floor.

The moment he touched the bare curve of her breasts, the Shadow would take over. He sensed it, knew it, even though it had never happened before. Because he'd never felt this way before. And he would be a double asshole, not only letting the Shadow fuck her over by bonding, but also literally fucking her.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, no, no.” She gave him a hard shove and stumbled back, looking shell-shocked. “I came here to light into you! To demand an explanation. Not to…to…” She rubbed her fingers across her red and swollen mouth. “I thought Caido promises were ironclad. You promised not to bond with me. Then your essence turned black and grabbed mine! Did you lie so you could get me into bed?”

The floor would do just fine.
Thank gods he hadn't spoken those unbidden words. He should let her believe he was a snake. She would call him names and stomp out, hating him forever. That would be good. But what he said was, “I didn't initiate the bond.”

Her laugh sounded caustic. “You're telling me it was, what, your evil twin?”

“I suppose that's as good an explanation as any I have.”

She gave him one of those nods that meant
I don't believe you.
“And that was the evil twin that just very inappropriately kissed the daylights out of me?”

“I think that started with me, but the evil twin kicked in quickly after that.” She seemed so angry, he had to throw in, “Was it
your
evil twin that had your tongue dancing with mine?”

She narrowed her eyes, even as he could feel her embarrassment. “No, I think it was some kind of Thrall trick. I am so pissed at you, but it was like I had no control over myself. Do you even realize what you've done? We are bonded.” She jabbed her finger at him. “I could frigging feel your bombardment last night. And when I was in the shower a little while ago, I felt some mix of feelings I don't know how to describe. Damn it, I can feel you right now. You're…” She clamped her mouth shut and took a step back. “You're serious about the evil twin thing, aren't you? It scares you. And since I don't think much scares you, that scares
me
.”

He leaned against the back side of the maroon chair. “That dark part of my essence you saw is something I call my Soul Shadow. It's hard to describe because I don't know what it is. I've had it in me for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I dreamed of this black creature inside me.” He forced out words he'd never uttered to anyone. “It rears up when I'm enraged or aroused. But I am rarely either, so it's usually dormant.”

She shivered. “Like a demon? I know they can possess people.”

“It's not a separate entity, and I'm not possessed. It's as much a part of me as my angel is.”

She rubbed her arms. “
That's
why you warned me to run away from you that first night we met.”

“A pity you didn't heed my advice. And no, I'm not blaming you. I came to you, after all.”

“For the children. Was that real?”

“I never lied to you. And it worked, Kye. Even though it got screwed up, it worked.”

“Tell me.”

He could see her being drawn in, the same as when he'd approached her about the Cobra. “The best thing for you to do is back away from me, from this. Find a way to terminate our bond.”

“Like I can just reach into my bag of tricks and pull out that one. I've spent all my time working on developing the bond, not on ways to break it. You brought me into this. I deserve to know.”

“Yes, you do, but—”

A knock sounded on the door. Hayden. Damn. Kye had to go. If only he could have lied to her, told her the story was a farce and that he was the worst kind of man. And part of him was the worst kind of something. But he was too honorable to let her believe he'd tricked her. Or to involve her in this.

He said, “If you never see me again, maybe the bond will weaken.”

“You think it's that easy?” Her laugh was bitter as she shook her head. “You can't throw people's lives into chaos, make me care about something, and just move on. There are consequences. Aftershocks. You are a frigging earthquake, Kasabian.”

He tamped down the way her turmoil rocked through him, how he hated that she'd gotten hurt. “You have to leave now, Kye.”

More pounding on the door. “Hey, it's Hayden.”

Kasabian opened it. “Come in.” He put his hand to Kye's back and urged her toward the door. “My friend was just leaving.”

Hayden could no doubt pick up Kye's seething emotions, enough that he winced.

Kye dug in her heels and faced Hayden. “I'm Kye, the one who's life got screwed up because of all this. I'm not leaving until I know what's going on.” She planted her hands on her hips and shifted her gaze to Kasabian. Oh, yeah, he could feel her stubbornness.

Kasabian wrestled with the prospect of physically ousting her, but no, it would be wrong and ugly. He introduced them and told Hayden about the Cobra, omitting the Shadow aspect. Thankfully she also kept that to herself.

Hayden dragged his gaze from Kye to Kasabian. “Get to it. Tell me what you saw. I've waited long enough.” The strain of all those years of wondering stretched his voice thin.

“It was my father who ran the program.”

Hayden's eyes widened. “Your
father
did that to you? To us?”

Kasabian still couldn't quite grasp that. “My parents separated when I was four, and my mother kept him out of our lives. All I knew of my father was that his competitive nature drove him to do crazy and dangerous things. Like mortgaging the house to fund an expedition to find Lucifera. I can remember overhearing my mom calling him a glory whore. I thought she said ‘horse.'”

Many fools had tried to find Lucifera, the legendary island in the Bermuda Triangle on which their ancestors, both human and god, had lived. Before the two gods and the angel that made up the Tryah instigated a war that ultimately sank the island hundreds of years earlier.

“So when I saw him outside my school, I was wary but not afraid. He told me what I wanted—needed—to hear, that he missed me and wanted to spend time with me. His devastation at losing touch with me had inspired him to take in homeless children. He assured me that my mother had given him permission to bring me for a visit.

“The secluded estate was beautiful, but something felt off. I met you and another Caido our age named Silva. The first night I spent there, I sneaked into the wing my father had forbade me to enter and found several non-Caido Crescent kids locked in rooms. They told me they'd been kidnapped. Then my father discovered me and that's when he explained that they were part of an important program to find a way to break the Caido curse. And now I would be, too.”

“He was experimenting with kids just so you all could get off?” Kye's outrage sang through him. At Hayden's surprised expression, she explained how she knew about desire causing Caidos pain.

“It wasn't just about sexual desire,” Kasabian said. “It was about freeing us from the effect of all emotions, so we could be a part of society. He made it sound altruistic and promised that no one would be harmed in the process. But that was a lie. It hurt the Caidos, who were channeling the kids' essence to some kind of vessel.” He rubbed the place where the scar resided, now remembering the searing heat. “And it drained the non-Caidos. All the kids were too young to be Awakened to their powers. My father believed our untapped magick was purer, therefore stronger.”

“Why were they filling a vessel?” Kye asked.

“I don't know the exact mechanism, but an angel told my father that filling this vessel would free them from their ties to this plane. And that would break our curse.” Kasabian turned to Hayden. “The reason you and I crave emotions is because we were flooded by them during our captivity. We could feel everything without pain. But after our escape, we no longer had the protection of the Essex that we got every day. And we wanted to feel again.”

Hayden gripped the back of the chair he was standing near. “What happened to the kids?”

“My father said he returned them to the parents he'd ‘borrowed' them from when they started to weaken. We'd wake up and one or more would be gone. I regularly crept into their wing to check on them. One Deuce girl was fading fast. I gathered her in my arms and meant to beg my father to send her home.”

Such a small girl, looking at him with hope in her glazed blue eyes. “She died in my arms. I couldn't help her, couldn't…” The grief and helplessness washed over him anew. He cleared his throat. “To test my father, I laid her back in her bed. The next day when I saw her empty room, I asked where she was. He told me she'd gone home to recover. I started making an escape plan right then.”

Kye's eyes glittered with tears. Could she feel his pain at that memory? She swiped them away.
“He just let them die?”

“He kept saying our suffering was a small price to pay for releasing the pain of a whole race of Crescents. Wasn't that, after all, what wars were about? Sacrificing our soldiers' lives to win freedom? He didn't want to hear my point that today's soldiers voluntarily sign up for the dangers when they're of legal adult age. He believed that what he was doing was justified.”

He tore his gaze from her to Hayden. “You and I conspired to escape. I didn't trust Silva. He was sucking up to my father as well as to me. You were the only Caido I could trust. We took the three non-Caidos who were in the worst shape. I figured we'd expose my father's operation, and all of the children would be safe. But we never got back to them.” They'd been left there, abandoned to a fate Kasabian could well imagine. A flicker of hope lit his heavy heart as a memory resurfaced. “A Dragon woman escaped. She was the oldest of the captives.”

“The oldest…” Hayden tapped his mouth as he seemed to ponder that. “There was a story circulating around the Guard when I joined ten years ago. A woman who called herself Willow accused someone on the Concilium of imprisoning her, along with several children. She said she'd been there the longest. Her story couldn't be substantiated, though, so they locked her in the psych ward. Another member of the Concilium tried to break her out, and they were both killed.”

Kasabian ran his hand back over his hair. “From what I understand, my father was on the Concilium once.”

“The man who tried to help her was Kade Kavanaugh's father. Kade is a fellow Vega, which probably keeps the story alive. Probably every new Vega hears, ‘See that guy. His father…' I'll take him aside at headquarters and find out what I can.” Hayden's voice went softer. “So you remember your mother getting killed?”

Kye's head snapped toward Kasabian. “What?”

All these years he had only known the bare facts. Now he had the images to go with them. “I called her as soon as we could get to a pay phone. She arrived, saying that others were on their way to help. My father showed up, killed her, then turned to us. But he hesitated. We heard others coming, footsteps pounding the pavement, so he memory-locked us instead.”