Cannot Unite (8 page)

“Left wing. Ten o’clock. Forty-Five degrees.
Up.”

“Got them. Hunters?”

“Most likely.”

“They’re not running lights?”

“Nope. Neither are we.”

“How’d you spot them?”

“I work for V.A.L., Bud. I’m no spring
chicken. And I got skills.”

“And that means?”

KayNan wasn’t amused. He didn’t keep the
rumble from his voice, but managed to stop the tightening of his
entire frame. Vaughn glanced over his shoulder and grinned again
before looking back out at darkness.

“Listen, Bud. I got the pink slip from Sasha
last year. Seems her mate likes to learn. And he likes to fidget.
And he likes to fly his own jets now. Laid off. Me. Hell. Getting
fired by you would be a cakewalk.”

“Vaughn—”

He bit the name off, tamping the threat. He
didn’t need his mate more worried. Especially after the fright he’d
just given her. He didn’t need to ask. It was obvious. The woman
perched atop his thigh kept trembling for some reason.

That’s right, KayNan
. She’s atop.
His left thigh. That close!

He gulped.

The moment Vaughn interrupted them KayNan
had reacted, moving in a blink of time. One moment he’d been
standing, going through all sorts of long dead and forgotten
emotions, and the next he was squatting in the cockpit doorway with
her. His mate. Cocooned in his arms. Atop a bent thigh. It was
bothersome, in a peripheral way. And it was wholly wondrous.
Especially so. KayNan tilted his head to fill his nostrils with her
unique smell, wondering at that, as well. It was almost like he
breathed!

He was in luck that the cockpit wasn’t
designed for standing, allowing this sort of position. She hadn’t
demurred, but he hadn’t made it optional, either. So he held her,
and tried keeping his mind on what Vaughn was showing and saying,
and not on the buttocks perched atop his bent thigh. Or the breasts
pressing against his forearms. Or the slightest thump of an
elevated pulse along her throat, drawing his glance more than once.
Everything about her radiated some sort of magnetic field toward
him, one that contained a warm, sensual, personal-type pulsation.
And it grew in depth and volume the longer they stayed
connected.

He was right. It was total wonder.

“All right. I’ll amend that. Not an exact
cake-walk, but she likes to rip hearts out, whereas you? You’re a
barbarian who uses chains. And look there. I forgot to bring any.
How are you with straps?”

KayNan growled warningly. He
growled
. His mate jumped slightly, and every bit of KayNan
got jolted with reaction. That brought dormant wants and needs
awake. Aware. Enervated. Heightened. His trousers were restrictive.
Erotic-feeling against him. Hell. Even the dress shirt fabric felt
erotic against his nipples.

“All right. I’ll explain. Geez. Vampires.
You want to stay covert, you get skills. And you practice them.
This one isn’t hard. I slow down every time we reach a cloudbank.
Always have. Barely maintain flight mph. Makes it so if I am being
tailed, they’re going to shoot right past me. So…when we emerge, I
am now the one with the upper hand. And there you have it. I am now
following him. It’s hide-and-seek. Aviation style. And I am now
it
.”

“How long have they been there?”

“Just.”

“I don’t see anything,” Jeannette said.

“Here.”

The pilot dangled a set of night-vision
goggles over his shoulder. Jeannette reached for them, brushing her
arm along KayNan’s chest as she went. The contact sparked. Tingled.
And then heated. Rapidly. It also carried over to every bit of
where they connected. He tried ignoring her movements to don the
goggles, and then look out at what was black sky. Then she craned
her neck and cocked her head to the left, barely missing his
shoulder. KayNan groaned softly.

“So…what’s the plan?” Vaughn asked.

“What’s our listed destination?”

“Calgary. As usual.”

“We close?”

“No…but I’ve been following the border for
the last half hour. Easier to hide and disappear that way. In the
event the good ole U.S. of A. has the imaging systems I think they
do.”

“Good. You continue on, then. We’re
leaving.”

“Right. How, please?”

“Jumping.”

His mate stiffened. He tightened an arm
reflexively, bringing her head to the space right beneath his chin.
Without thought.

“You can’t jump from a jet, KayNan. That’s
why we don’t stock parachutes. Waste of time…although they make
full plane chutes now. We could’ve had them installed. But it’s a
bit late now.”

“What?”

“Jets this size don’t have evac slides. They
don’t have access points. The doors are sealed due to the
slipstream. We do have eject seats in the cockpit, though. And
that’s about it.”

“Slipstream?”

“Air. Against the door. Seals it shut. Never
mind. Probably not an issue for one of you guys. Besides, most
incidents happen on takeoff or landing. No use jumping from there.
And any mid-air issue is handled by gliding down and landing.
Unless you slam into a mountain or something, of course. And then
it’s kind-a moot.”

“You have an eject seat, then?”

“Yep. Just said so.”

“Then we’re jumping.”

“Okay. I’ll amend that, too. You can jump
from anything. D. B. Cooper proved you can even jump from a jumbo
jet. But it’s risky. Hell. It’s damn near suicidal.”

“I’m already dead.”

“True. But you are not alone.”

“I’m taking her.”

“Vampires. Got to love them. Listen, KayNan.
Taking a door out depressurizes the cabin, gives me all kinds of
hell to deal with. You know…things like altitude and wind shear,
and loss of cabin pressure. It’ll be a bit wild. And don’t forget –
our friends next door will most likely notice.”

“Can we play this hide and seek again with
them?”

“Unlikely. They’re onto me now. They’re
probably debating whether to blow us up or not since I spotted
them.”

Jeannette sucked in air. He felt it.

“Why would they do that?” KayNan asked.

“It’d take hours to get a search party up to
this bit of wilderness. They’d have lots of time. Let’s see. They’d
have one missing plane with a dead, half-turned pilot. They’d have
a verified kill on a senior V.A.L. associate. Hell. They probably
have an award patch ready with your name on it. There are only a
couple of things stopping them.”

“What?”

“One, they can’t get a clear shot. I’m
keeping the angle difficult. And I’m constantly moving. That’s a
big rule of staying alive, you know. Keep moving. That’s how I knew
they were serious. I make a move, they copy it.”

“How much time do we have?”

“What?”

“Once I jump. How much time will I have
before they notice?”

“You’re determined to leave me hanging,
aren’t you?”

“What?”

“The moment you slam your way through the
fuselage, I’ll be hitting the eject switch. Your beautiful
multi-million dollar jet will be history. Not that you vampires
seem to care about greenbacks, but there you go. Jet down. Presumed
missing. We disable the black boxes, too. Just so you know. And
since the accident happened somewhere on the Canadian-US border, it
should create some sort of international consternation before
anyone even starts a search. And by then, I’ll be long gone. No
sense hanging around for the fat lady to sing.”

“What fat lady?” KayNan really needed a
course on modern vernacular.

“It’s a euphemism for finale. End of story.
Finis.”

“Why don’t you just say that, then?”

“Not near as fun. Look. KayNan. We’ll have a
little time. Those Hunters will have to figure out where to land.
They’ll probably be on full alert, ignoring the second reason we
have not already been blasted out of the sky. All that said…you got
maybe half-an-hour head start.”

“What about you?”

“Me? I’ll be yesterday’s lunch. Adios Amigo.
Good riddance. Dead meat. I’ll be on survival tactics. A shadow.
You got stores hidden, right?”

“Every fifty kilometers.”

“Good. Expect me to show up at your
place…oh, by tomorrow afternoon.”

“What’s the second thing?” Jeannette asked
it, the slightest whiff of breath cursing him to another round of
reaction.

“What second thing, Sweetheart?” Vaughn
asked.

“The second reason they aren’t blowing us
up?”

“Oh. You. They know I’ve got you. His mate.
And you might not be turned yet. And that makes it murder of a real
human, not just elimination of the undead and partially
undead.”

“His…mate? Turned? Oh, no. No.”

Her voice warbled slightly. KayNan swiveled
and stood, eyeing the door he was about to obliterate.

“Oh shit. You didn’t tell her yet? Damn it.
I’m going to get fired yet.”

“KayNan. No. We have to talk. I mean
no.”

“Later.”

“No. Please, no. No.”

She was still denying and he was ignoring.
Or doing his best at it. She put a hand to his cheek, much like
before, and used the hold to drag his eyes to hers.

“Hey, Buddy! You may want to grab a space
blanket!”

Vaughn yelled it. KayNan yanked his gaze
from hers and sneered back at the man.

“Why?”

“It’s going to be cold.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m dead.”

“Vampires. Geez. What about your mate?”

The man tossed a hard package at him. A
smack gave the contents air, and a moment later it was a
blanket-thing, with quilted material on one side, and metallic
silver fabric on the other.

“KayNan no. Please? No. This is too fast. We
have to talk. We have to discuss this rationally. Without emotion.
Are you listening to me?”

No. He wasn’t. He was folding her in the
space blanket thing, grabbing her up, and then he launched right
through the side of his jet.

Their fall was swift and smooth. At first.
Jeannette had never felt safer. More secure. Almost like this
entire chain of events was fated and well-ordered. And if she
closed her eyes…

What was she thinking? She didn’t dare
violate Rule Number One again.

Jeannette’s eyes snapped open. She stopped
the wooziness with a good dose of rapid breathing. Massive
blinking. She was about to try singing when their freefall started
dragging with intermittent jerks, almost like he was using tree
limbs to slow their descent. Jeannette peeked. What a bonus. She
still wore the night vision goggles. Wind speed didn’t hamper her
vision, nor did the dark, although everything had a strange
greenish cast. Just like films always showed.

Nice to know movie-making people had it
accurate.

Well, Jeannette. Look at that
. It
hadn’t just felt like KayNan was slapping against trees. He was
slapping at them, and then grabbing at broken limbs. It wasn’t to
slow them. It looked more like he was breaking off wood to bring it
along.

“What are you doing?”

If anyone had told her she’d be talking in a
moderate, calm voice, despite falling out of the sky and then
swooping among treetops, carried in a man’s arm, well. She’d have
labeled them crazy. And been right.

“Gathering firewood,” he answered.

“Firewood?”

“Yeah.”

He reached out with his free arm and smacked
another limb free, caught the resultant chunk of wood, and his
speed kept them from the blizzard of slivers he was probably
leaving in their wake.

“Why?”

“Humans have four requirements of survival:
Shelter. Water. Food. And I think…fire. I’m preparing.”

“Actually, if you study physiology, you’d
know its shelter, water, food, and—”

Sex.

Oh geez. She’d almost said it. Jeannette
sucked in her bottom lip as he looked down at her. Damn. He even
looked good with a greenish haze coloring him. And he was just too
close. Thank goodness the goggles gave her an inch or so of
space.

“Not fire?” he asked.

“Uh…forget I said anything, okay?”

“Is this another bit of modern verbiage I
don’t understand?”

“No. And yes. We’ll just call it fire. I’m
good with that,” she replied.

He looked down at her for long moments when
he should probably be watching where he was going. And if he didn’t
take care, they wouldn’t need a plane to smack into a mountain. The
view darkened, even with her goggles on. And then he slowed.

“Where are we?”

Her whisper trembled. His arm tightened
about her. She felt it even through the blanket.

“Shelter. A cave.”

“You know where to find caves in the
wilderness area of the Canadian border?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

They lowered. It felt cold and clammy enough
to be cave floor. She almost lifted her toes back up, forcing him
to hold her a bit longer. And he acted like he knew it. The long,
considering look he gave ratcheted her heart a notch. She watched
his eyes widen, as if he’d felt it. And that just made her heart
skip another beat. And that got his brows raised, and this was just
getting ridiculous. The entire night had that problem – especially
the mating/turning part. It wasn’t possible.

He was a vampire.

She wasn’t.

End of story.

Jeannette had to admit she felt something
for him, though. A wild attraction. A primal lure. A magnetic draw.
Something that should be abhorrent and yet felt amazingly
wonderful. Jeannette suffered an instant rush of shivers from just
thinking about it. But that was more nonsense.

“We’re close to my home,” he replied
finally.

“Then why stop here?”

“Dawn is an hour away. Maybe two. At
most.”

“Must you bring up a frailty now?”

“Frailty?”

His brow furrowed as he looked at her,
sending her pulse into overdrive. And that was without the intense
green shade of those fascinating eyes! Was she ever glad she still
had these goggles on!