Beyond the Darkness (3 page)

“Yeah, right.” She folded her arms over her chest, but Salvatore didn’t miss the uncertainty that flashed through her eyes. Her faith in Caine wasn’t absolute. “I suppose you also have a bridge you’re trying to unload? I’m not buying.”

“I have no reason to lie.”

“Are you frigging kidding me?” She deliberately glanced over her shoulder at the splendid collection of whips, daggers, swords, and even a good old-fashioned mace. “You have
every
reason to lie.”

“Use your brains, Harley. If I wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Her lips tightened in annoyance. She couldn’t deny the truth. If he’d attacked to kill, she wouldn’t be standing there.

“You murdered my sisters.”

“Why the hell would I murder pure-blooded females I invested millions of dollars and decades of my life to produce?”

“Because you didn’t want the Weres to know their king had failed in his Frankenstein experiments. You had to get rid of the evidence.”

Salvatore had intended to kill Caine before ever arriving at the estate. Now he intended to kill him slowly.

With as much pain as inhumanly possible.

“My only failure was allowing you to be stolen from the nursery. You…” His gaze skimmed over her beautiful, heart-shaped face, his body humming with a constant awareness. “Are flawless.”

“Bullshit.” Her expression hardened. “I can’t shift.”

Her smoldering frustration filled the air. Ah. Now at least now he understood a portion of her thorny personality.

“Is that why you overcompensate? Because you can’t shift?”

Lifting her hand, she flipped him off. “Overcompensate this.”

Salvatore chuckled. It was insanity. He’d allowed his hormones to overcome his common sense, and now he was locked in the cage of his archenemy with no immediate hope of escape. He should be infuriated. He should be using his powers to attempt to bend the female to his will.

Instead, he was hot and bothered and barely able to think of anything beyond this female who was swiftly becoming an obsession.

“To keep you from shifting was precisely the reason for my Frankenstein experiments, as you call them. Female Weres have lost their ability to suppress their shifts during the full moon. It has made it nearly impossible for pregnant Weres to carry their young to full term.” He caught and held her gaze. “We are vanishing, Harley, and you hold the hope for our future.”

She licked her lips, caught between the urge to tell him to go to hell and a grudging need to know more.

“So you’re saying you cooked me and my sisters up in your lab to save the Were species?”

“You were genetically altered,
si.
”

“And my sisters? Are they out producing the children you’re so desperate to have?”

“Regan was unfortunately barren, although it hardly matters since she was busy falling in love with a leech the last time I saw her. And Darcy…” Salvatore grimaced. “She was a disappointment as well.”

“Why?”

“She had the same pathetic taste for the living challenged.”

Her brows lifted. “I assume you mean a vampire?”

“Not just any vampire.” There was an edge to his voice. That happened a lot when the walking dead entered the conversation. “She mated with the Anasso, King of Vampires. May his cold soul rot in hell.”

Harley paced the cement floor, her expression distracted as she pondered his words.

“Darcy.” She softly tested the name. “Regan.”

“They are very much alive and anxious to meet you.”

She continued pacing, refusing to meet his gaze. “Caine said there were four of us.”

“There’s another sister who I haven’t yet found. I suspect Caine knows where she is.”

She halted unconsciously close to the cage, her eyes troubled as she shook her head.

“No. I don’t believe you.”

Salvatore was a Were who firmly believed in grasping opportunity. Especially when that opportunity included a gorgeous female who set his blood on fire.

“Then believe this.” He reached through the bars, grabbing the straps of her sports bra and yanking her close enough to kiss her. A groan rumbled deep in his throat. She tasted of exotic spices and danger. He shivered as wild lightning streaked through him. “You’re mine,” he whispered against her lips.

For a breathless minute she softened against him, seemingly as indifferent as Salvatore to the painful silver between them. Then with a muttered curse, she pulled away, her eyes dark with alarm.

“Caine’s right. You’re a lunatic.”

With a glare that would have seared the skin off a lesser man, Harley stormed from the room and slammed the door behind her.

Lunatic.

Salvatore shoved his fingers through his hair.

He couldn’t agree more.

Harley reached the top of the stairs when Caine appeared in the hallway, a pair of faded denims riding low on his hips, his hair still damp from the shower.

“I heard the alarm.” His eyes darted to the door she’d just closed behind her. “What the hell is going on?”

Harley blocked the door, her emotions in an unpleasant jumble. And all because of that stupid Were.

Wasn’t it bad enough that he’d managed to make her question everything that Caine had ever told her? Not that she had ever been fully on board with Caine’s smooth stories. They had changed too often over the years to be completely believable.

But to use his kingly mojo or whatever it was to make her melt beneath his kiss.

It was despicable.

She lifted a hand and pressed it to her lips. They still tingled with pleasure. And they weren’t the only thing tingling.

It had to be that damned musky smell of his. It was some sort of Were aphrodisiac or something.

Stirring up her anger to cover the craving that still prickled through her body, Harley pointed a finger in Caine’s face.

“I warned you that your delusions of grandeur were going to get you killed,” she snarled. “Salvatore has dropped in for a visit.”

“Shit.” Caine’s face paled. “Did you get him? Is he caged?”

“Do you mean did I save your ass from certain death? Yes, I did.”

Caine glanced toward the closed door to the basement, his brow furrowed.

“I need to make a phone call.”

A phone call? Harley narrowed her gaze. The cur was acting strangely, even for Caine.

“Fine. I’ll keep an eye on the prisoner.”

Like a striking snake, Caine reached out to grab her arm. “No.”

“Why not?”

His smile was strained. “You think I would risk you being in the same room as a rabid Were who has sworn to kill you?”

“He’s locked in a silver cage. For the moment he’s helpless.”

“A pureblood is never helpless.”

Harley studied the too-handsome face. Caine didn’t want her near Salvatore. The question was, why?

“If you’re afraid he might escape, that’s all the more reason I should keep watch on him.”

The blue eyes glowed in the dim light of the hall. “I have curs to take care of guard duty. You have better things to do with your time.”

She shrugged. “Not really. Besides, I want to talk with the Were.”

“Talk to him about what?”

“Does it matter?”

His fingers tightened on her arm. “Of course it does.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you exposed to the filth he’s bound to spew.”

Harley snorted. Like most nonhumans, Caine managed to adopt the social norms that flowed and changed with the passage of time, but every so often he showed his age. The older demons were even worse.

“Spew?”

The glow in his eyes shimmered with blue fire, revealing he was hanging onto his wolf by a thread. Curs were always at the mercy of their emotions.

“Salvatore is notorious for fabricating lies that hide his evil nature. The Weres would never have allowed him to stay in power otherwise.”

She yanked her arm out of his grasp. “Do you mean lies like the fact that two of my sisters are alive and well, and currently living in Chicago?”

Harley watched the anger ripple over Caine’s face before he clenched his jaw and studied her with a wary gaze.

“You already spoke to Salvatore?”

“It was a brief discussion.”

“What else did he say?”

“He mentioned that far from wanting me and my sisters dead, he has been trying to save us.” She deliberately paused. “From you.”

His false laughter echoed through the hallway. “That bastard. He would say anything to save his worthless hide. You weren’t stupid enough to believe his lies, were you?”

“Of course not.” Harley smiled, able to lie with the best of them.

At the moment, she didn’t know what she believed.

She didn’t trust Caine. And she sure as hell didn’t trust Salvatore.

All she knew for certain was that she wanted answers.

“Good.” He brushed the back of his hands down her cheek, allowing his fingers to linger on the curve of her neck. “He’s dangerous, Harley. You need to stay away from him.”

“If he’s so dangerous, why don’t you just kill him?”

“And have every Were in the world wanting to nail my ass to the wall?” he smoothly demanded. “No, thank you.”

Yeah, right. She narrowed her gaze.

“Holding him captive isn’t going to make the Weres any happier.”

“Who will know that I’m holding him?” His hand deliberately encircled her throat. “He was alone, wasn’t he? I assume you would have mentioned if he had his pack of curs with him.”

Harley abruptly recalled the tiny gargoyle. After capturing Salvatore, he’d slipped her mind.

She knocked Caine’s hand from her throat. “Yeah, completely alone.”

“There you go then.”

“The vampire chasing you will suspect you’re involved in Salvatore’s disappearance.”

She could sense him scrambling for a suitable lie. “Not if I force the dog to call his pack and assure them that he’s fine and on my trail. By the time they figure it out, we’ll be long gone.”

She snorted at his ridiculous boast. Caine might be a bad-assed cur, but he was a pale imitation of Salvatore Giuliani.

“You think you can force the King of Weres to do anything?”

Without warning he moved forward, his pride clearly pricked by her patent disbelief. He crowded her against the wall and lowered his head until he was speaking directly against her mouth.

“Never underestimate my powers of persuasion.”

She lifted her hands and pressed them against his bare chest. “If you want to keep those lips, then you’d best remove them.”

He stepped back with a mocking smile. “Someday, sweet Harley.”

“Don’t you have a phone call to make?”

“I want your promise you’ll stay out of the basement.”

She met his gaze squarely. There was something going on, and she suspected she was involved, whether she wanted to be or not. She intended to discover what the hell it was.

“Fine.”

“Your promise.”

She brushed her fingers over her chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Be careful of your words.” His low voice was thick with warning. “Death can lurk in the most unexpected places.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That sounded very much like a threat, Caine.”

“More of a friendly warning, pet.”

“Don’t call me that.”

He patted her cheek, his smile insulting as he turned to make his way down the hall.

“Behave yourself.”

“Creep,” she muttered.

Waiting until she heard Caine climbing the staircase to his study on the second floor, Harley turned to shove open the door behind her.

She didn’t give a damn about her promise.

If Salvatore had answers, she wanted them.

Salvatore was seated on the cement floor in the middle of the cell, as far from the silver bars as possible.

Not that it truly mattered.

The silver was a bother, but the true danger was the debilitating weakness caused by Harley.

Cristo.
He understood the scientific logistics of a Were mating. Although the attraction was mutual, it was always the female who had the final choice of whether or not to accept the bond. The male’s power was restrained to prevent him from taking the female by force.

Of course, when the powers returned after the mating was complete, it was rumored they were even more potent. He became the perfect weapon to protect his family.

It all made perfect sense.

And it was a royal pain in the ass.

Why him? And why Harley? And why now?

The matings had faded away, along with the Weres’ ability to control their shifts during the full moon. No doubt a biological necessity for females to mate with as many men as possible, in the hopes of obtaining a viable pregnancy.

Salvatore groaned as the scent of vanilla flooded the air, warning of Harley’s imminent return.

His brain might not comprehend the inconvenient mating, but his body was fully on board with the program.

Just having her in the same room was enough to make him hard and aching.

Rising to his feet, he watched as Harley slipped into the room and closed the door, leaning against it with a resentful expression.

A slow smile curved Salvatore’s lips. Harley might consider him the enemy, but she was as helpless as he was to deny the smoldering attraction that crackled between them.

Her awareness filled the air like the finest perfume.

“I knew you’d be back,” he drawled.

“Right.” She rolled her eyes. “Because you’re so frigging irresistible?”

“I am to you.” His smile widened as her fists clenched and she looked like she was considering punching him in the nose. Dangerous women turned him on. “Besides, you have questions that only I can answer.”

“Did you ever consider the possibility I came back to kill you?”

“No.”

“So arrogant.”

He shrugged. “You wouldn’t want me if I were a doormat.”

“I don’t
want
you, period.”

Salvatore arched a brow at her blatant lie. “You’ve never been around another pureblood, have you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because if you had, you would know I can smell your physical response.” He breathed in deeply, his body tingling in response. “It fills the air.”

An astonishing blush touched her cheeks before she was roughly pushing away from the door and pacing toward the cage.

“Why doesn’t Caine just kill you?”

He paused, struck by her pertinent question. “I don’t know.”

“I thought the King of Weres knew everything?”

He cast a disgusted glance toward the locked door of his cage.

“Obviously not.”

She unconsciously rubbed her arms, as if trying to rid herself of the tangible electricity that pulsed between. His lips twisted.

Ah, if only it were that simple.

“You said that my sisters and I were stolen from a nursery?” she demanded.

“Si.”
Salvatore grimaced. Far too late he realized he’d been played the fool. “At first I assumed it was traditional baby snatchers who were out to make a quick buck on the black market. Now I suspect it’s a calculated plot intended to destroy the Weres.”

“And you think Caine’s involved?”

“Without a doubt.”

She nodded, as if not particularly surprised by Caine’s treachery.

“What happened in Hannibal?”

“Short or long version?”

“Short.”

“After years of searching, I tracked your sister Regan to a psychotic imp named Culligan who’d been torturing her for the past thirty years.” He shrugged. “Not surprisingly, she went a bit homicidal when I released her, and she tracked Culligan to Hannibal where Caine’s minions first tried to capture her, and then tried to kill her.”

“Which minions?”

She was testing him. Whether it was to discover if Caine was lying or he was, it was impossible to say.

“Sadie was the leader. Regan killed her. Then there was Duncan, who intended to lead me to this lair.” His jaw tightened. “Unfortunately, Caine and his pet jinn got there first.”

Her lips parted, no doubt with yet another question, then there was the sound of a click and abruptly she was spinning on her heel and rushing back to the door.

She grasped the door handle and futilely attempted to pull it open.

“Shit,” she muttered.

Salvatore was on instant alert. “What?”

Before his companion could answer, the sound of Caine’s voice echoed through a speaker set in the corner of the ceiling.

“I did warn you, sweet Harley,” the cur mocked. “I wanted to keep you out of this, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“No…” She pounded her fists against the steel door. “Caine.”

“Harley, what the hell is going on?” Salvatore demanded.

“Damn you.” She pointed a finger toward Salvatore. “This is all your fault.”

Salvatore snorted. His fault? He was locked in a damned silver cage in the middle of nowhere, and it was his fault?

It wasn’t until he caught the first whiff of gas that he at last understood Harley’s outrage.

Something was being pumped into the basement.

Something powerful enough to make his knees buckle and the world go black.

Although the large wooden cabin was less than fifty miles north of St. Louis, it would have taken more than a GPS to find the house.

Not only was there acres of thick trees and a high fence that protected the estate, there was also a spell of Concealment that had been woven by the local coven of witches. If that wasn’t enough, there were large lethal wolves that prowled the outer perimeter and ate anyone who accidentally stumbled too close.

Caine had deliberately chosen this cabin to hide his unconscious prisoners. Beyond being close enough to his previous lair not to have to worry about Salvatore waking up prematurely, it was his most heavily guarded compound.

He could no longer trust Harley, or what she had told him.

If someone had been with Salvatore, then he wanted to make damned certain they couldn’t follow.

No one, absolutely no one, could sneak up on him here.

Of course, he would feel a great deal happier if he weren’t currently standing in the cramped tunnels that ran beneath the estate. He was tired, stressed on an epic scale, and in no humor to meet with the ancient Were who stood in the depths of the shadows, his eyes glowing an eerie crimson and his body wrapped in a heavy cape.

Christ, the man was nasty. Caine shivered, for the first time realizing that rather than the usual heat that radiated from Weres, the air was filled with an unpleasant chill.

Like his companion was a damned corpse.

Or a bloodsucker.

Clearing the fear from his throat, Caine tilted his chin. The Were had demanded this meeting the moment Caine had revealed that he had captured Salvatore. He had no idea how the Were had arrived so swiftly, and in truth, he didn’t want to know. But since his arrival, the arrogant dog had done nothing but complain and criticize.

Typical.

The bastard was never satisfied with Caine’s efforts.

Which was precisely why Caine tried to limit the number of reunions to one or two a decade.

“I told you I would take care of Salvatore and I did,” he said, tired of being a whipping boy for the Weres.

“You also promised you would make sure that he didn’t find the female Weres until I was prepared to act,” his companion taunted, his voice oddly hoarse, as always.

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“It never is.”

Caine’s skin prickled as he battled against his snarling wolf. When he was tense, it was always more difficult to control his shifts.

“If you think you can do better, then you take him.”

“It’s not time yet, you fool.”

“Time for what?”

“Destiny to be fulfilled.”

“Well, screw it. I’ve waited thirty years for this supposed destiny to happen,” Caine snapped. “I’m getting tired of empty promises.”

The Were released a warning growl. “Are you questioning my authority?”

Caine bit back his angry words, realizing he had gone too far. Swallowing his pride, he knelt in a gesture of submission.

For now, he needed the disturbing Were.

But someday…

“No.”

“Remember this, cur, if something happens to Salvatore before my plans are complete, I’ll skin you alive and feed you to the vultures.”

There was a blast of cold air and a hair-raising scent of evil, then the Were seemed to simply melt into shadows.

Caine counted to one hundred, then added another fifty just in case.

Once he was certain he was alone, he turned his head to spit in the dirt.

“Someday, I’m going to kill that bastard.”

Harley woke to a pounding head, a dry mouth, and her body wrapped firmly in the arms of a warm, delicious Were.

For a demented moment, she snuggled closer, lured by the heat and rich male musk that would entice any poor woman into helpless stupidity.

It was only when Salvatore’s hands slid down to cup her ass and he pressed her against his hardening erection that she painfully came to her senses.

Was she completely mental?

With a shove that sent Salvatore flying onto his back, she scrambled to her feet and glared down at his smug smile.

“Do you always grope unconscious women?”

He folded his hands over his stomach and crossed his legs at the ankle. He should have looked ridiculous lying on the cement floor, with his raven hair tousled and his expensive suit wrinkled. But he didn’t.

He looked…edible.

The bronzed, stunningly beautiful features. The full, sensual lips. The whiskey-gold eyes.

A delectable male, from the top of his raven hair to the tips of his Italian leather shoes.

“Only those who crawl all over me in their sleep,” he said. “If anyone was violated, it was me.”

The worst part was that Harley couldn’t be certain she hadn’t been violating him. Her body seemed to have lost its connection to her brain.

“God,” she muttered, as annoyed with herself as with Salvatore. “Get over yourself.”

In one fluid movement, he was on his feet and standing directly in front of her.

“I’d rather be over you.”

“Enough.” She abruptly turned from the smoldering invitation in his eyes, her palms sweating. “I have more important things to worry about than a dog in heat.”