THEY LAY ON the lounge chair on the balcony, the bay breeze cooling their bodies. She was boneless, sprawled across his chest, her warm breath blowing against the skin just above his heart. Before their hearts even slowed, he’d picked her up and fallen back with her on the lounge chair. Then they’d made love again. Now he threaded his fingers through the short, silky strands of her hair, his mind drifting. Thinking.
She had to be the girl that went missing. It fit perfectly. She wasn’t originally from the Ferrar House but blamed the Ferrar doyen for sending her to live at the Triumvirate home. Yet it wasn’t the doyen that handled the placement of crossbreeds. His father had said he handled them. Personally.
His arms tightened around her and his heartbeat surged. “Have you seen my father before?”
He could feel her confusion at the question. “Not until today.”
Frowning, he gripped her arms and pulled her away from him so he could look down into her face. “Who sent you to the home?”
“Your father.” Kel stiffened beneath his hands. “Gabe, what’s this about?”
“My father wasn’t doyen then. Who left you at the home? Who took you there?” His heart was slamming against his chest.
Kel pulled away from him and stood. Raking her fingers through the short glossy strands of her hair. The movement lifted her breasts, showcasing the dusky pink tips. He felt his body stir again.
“What does it matter?”
Gabe didn’t move as he watched her. “I think it’s going to matter more than you think.”
Kel sighed and dropped her hands to grip the balcony railing. The moon cast a dark shadow down the pale expanse of her back. “It was my mother.”
Her face looked out over the city, her expression distant. He could feel the confusion and betrayal radiating from her like heat from a fire. “Kel?”
“She just dropped me off in the middle of the night. Left me on the doorstep.”
“That just doesn’t make sense,” Gabe murmured as he sat forward, throwing his legs over either side of the lounge chair. Why would her mother have dropped her off at that hellhole and then killed herself a couple months later? Guilt? But why do it in the first place?
“No shit. It certainly didn’t make any sense to me. I was only twelve.”
Gabe’s head shot up and he pinned her with a look. “Twelve? Why did she do it?”
“She said I had to go because
he
would be doyen. I only assumed she meant your father.” Kel shook her head. “This is pointless, Gabe. Rehashing it doesn’t change it.”
Gabe surged to his feet and paced across the balcony, letting the cool night air clear his head. There was something here he was missing.
His father insisted he handled the relocation of the crossbreeds personally, yet Kel had never seen him. Why had her mother dropped her off? Why would his father’s position as doyen have anything to do with it? Something had to have happened to make her mother send her away.
Gabe turned and braced his back against the metal railing. “What happened the night she left you at the home?”
Kel jerked around at the question, her expression pained. She rubbed at her wrist. He’d seen her do it before. Usually when she woke from a nightmare. Something had happened that night.
Kel shook her head and spun away. “No. This won’t help anyone.”
Gabe shimmered across the balcony, reappeared in front of her to grab her by the shoulders. Her dark liquid eyes were like mirrors as she glared up at him. “Tell me.”
“I barely remember anything, Gabe. I’d just as soon keep it that way.” She pulled away and paced into the house to open the refrigerator door. The rush of cool air over her naked chest made her nipples peak.
“You were twelve and your mother felt the need to send you away.” And guilty enough to kill herself over it later. “Why?”
Kel slammed the refrigerator door shut. She shimmered across the room, rubbed her wrist again, pacing back and forth in front of the balcony doors. The frustration came off her in swells. She was still merged with him. She hadn’t shut him out. He was thankful for that, but Gabe kept his presence in her light. He didn’t want to interfere.
He knew the exact moment she remembered. Her horror was so strong that it shot through him. She glanced up and caught his eyes.
KEL COULD FEEL the phantom burn in her wrist, had felt it many times before. She struggled to remember. The memory was so fractured. She remembered how the setting sun glinted off the tiny red drops of blood on the wood floor. No, not drops of blood. Beads. Tiny red beads. She’d stared at them, feeling so confused, so weak.
Mom? What’s wrong with me?
She’d never felt so alone in her life, so in need of her mother. Yet her mother had been cold and distant; her voice almost accusing.
You’ve been blooded.
Lifting her hands she looked down at them as though she could see the crimson smear of blood across the pale skin after all these years.
“I’d been blooded. Someone bled me. I was only twelve. What kind of sick bastard” – Kel stopped as a chill skittered over her flesh, and she looked up at Gabe in dawning horror – “would bleed a child?”
Gabe shimmered across the room to her and pulled her into his arms but the chill was too deep for even his heat to touch. She struggled to remember more, to put a face to the man but there was nothing. She kept seeing the young pale face of that dead little girl. Her own mother had tried to protect her, to hide her, but it hadn’t stopped him from attacking more little girls.
She’d only been his first.
“Sshhh.” The sound was like a snake hissing. “Aren’t you a pretty girl.”
Something wasn’t right and she looked over her shoulder to see if her mom was coming back. The man made her feel sick in her stomach as she watched him slide slowly around the perimeter of the empty room, his eyes watching her. They always watched her.
“How do you like it here so far?”
“It’s okay.”
“I bet you miss your friends.” His voice felt like it slithered. If she squinted her eyes when she looked at him she could imagine he moved like he slithered too. His movements were all jerky, like he needed to gather his strength to push his body forward.
His eyes watched her. They were a dull green, almost like they were dirty. His clothes were very nice; no frayed ends or faded colors, but she still thought he looked dirty.
He moved in closer and reached out to grab her wrist before she could pull her arm away. “What a pretty little bracelet. Did your mother give that to you?”
His thumb swept over the pulse of her wrist and she shivered. His hand was big with long smooth fingers and his fingernails were too long for a man. It made the sickness in her stomach get worse.
“Me and Mom made it?” Her voice was low, a question in her terrified tone. He gripped her arm and kept running his soft thumb over the inside of her wrist. He hunched forward a little as though he wanted a better look.
“Such pretty red beads.” His voice murmured as he leaned in further, forever rubbing her wrist. “Like blood.”
She looked over her shoulder again for her mom. She was really scared now. She wanted to jerk her arm away. She could feel his breath on her wrist, and she couldn’t stop a little whimper from escaping.
“Sshhhh, it’s okay. I won’t hurt you.” But he did. Her wrist burned and the burning ran up her arm. It felt like hot grease had jumped from a pan and hit her arm, but it never cooled. It just kept burning, and she began to cry in earnest.
She felt cold, like her blood was cold and running through her body, making all of her skin cold. The room seemed to get bright and dark all at once as the burning just went on and on.
Then the man jerked his head back and she stared in horror, her whole body trembling. His lips were red and shiny and his tongue came out to catch a drop of red trailing from the corner of his mouth. Blood? When he lowered his head to look at her, they were flickering red in the centers, his pupils big and black.
Jerking back, she tried to tear her wrist away, but the beautiful bracelet snapped and little silver and red beads rained over the floor. Her eyes watched them slowly fall, her mouth opening wide on a silent scream.
Kel jerked straight up in bed, her heart beating so hard in her chest that it hurt. The French doors leading out to the little balcony off her bedroom were open and the warm night air blew in to cool her sweat-dampened body.
Rubbing her wrist unconsciously to ease the phantom ache that followed her from that damn dream she looked down at Gabe in the bed next to her. He lay on his back with his arm thrown over his face.
She knew he was awake, could feel his awareness of her. A sense of helplessness swamped her, and she pressed a hand to her forehead to rub the ache there. His emotions were overwhelming her. He felt so raw.
“They’re only dreams,” Kel whispered into the darkness of her bedroom and she threw her legs over the edge of the bed to sit with her back hunched miserably. She didn’t want them to be anything more. Didn’t want Gabe to feel so responsible for them. It was killing her. His anger and frustration was killing her.
He slid his arm away from his face to stare at her with those green eyes. “Then tell me about them.”
Kel screwed her eyes shut, and her throat worked as she tried to bring words to her lips. She could still see that shuffling walk and the feel of his soft thumb rubbing her wrist. It gave her chills and made her nauseated. She’d never told anyone about that night except Gabe, and she couldn’t tell him the details. It made her feel ashamed and exposed. She just couldn’t. Her throat closed.
Her heart was slowing, her breath coming easier as the terror receded. Frustration flooded in as she struggled to remember his face but it hovered just out of her reach and her failure put more innocent girls’ lives in danger. She pushed herself, forcing her mind to recall each detail, the pain of his bite, the feel of his hands on her. The revulsion nearly overwhelmed her; her stomach heaved but she swallowed hard and went over it again.
“Damn it, Kel. Stop doing this.” His voice was hoarse and she tried to shield him from her emotions, to protect him from the overwhelming sense of shame and revulsion that she felt when she remembered. His hand wrapped around her wrist. “Don’t. Don’t shut me out.”
Kel jumped to her feet and tugged clothes on. Suddenly the wind coming in through the balcony doors wasn’t enough. She needed to be outside, to breathe fresh air, to not be suffocating on his helpless disappointment and her own guilt. “I’m going to jog.”
Rolling to his side and up on his elbow, his dark blond hair hung around the sharp angles of his face. He slammed his fist into the mattress. “Damn it, Kel.”
“I’ll meet you at Incog in a couple hours. I promised Tala I’d walk the girls to school this morning.”
She shimmered into the shadows of the alley next to her apartment building. Zipping her hooded sweatshirt up to ward off the chill of the early morning fog she set off at an easy run.
The key to identifying their killer was in her but she couldn’t get at it. What if the memory just wasn’t there anymore? It had been so many years of trying so hard to forget. Perhaps she’d succeeded. The image of the pale little face, bloodless and forever cast in an expression of terror haunted her. She increased her stride.
Air burned as it passed through her. She was running at her top speed, knowing the danger. What if she was seen? A woman running over forty miles an hour would definitely draw attention. Not to forget the danger if she hit something. It wasn’t quite dawn and the fog settled heavily over the sloped streets. That made it difficult to be seen but also just as difficult to see. It was a rush, using her enhanced hearing and eyesight to navigate the city streets at a breakneck speed. She needed the dose of adrenaline to help lift the cloying guilt and frustration, to sharpen her thoughts.
By the time she reached the back door of Haven House, her side ached. She stopped on the wide porch to lean over and catch her breath. She felt alive. Her confidence that she would nail this bastard, memory or no, had returned. Breathing heavily, she shimmered into the kitchen.
Tala was singing as she stirred a huge pan of eggs. Holding her hand up the salt shaker appeared, and she shook it over the eggs before it disappeared again. Kel could smell the sausage patties sizzling on the griddle, and it reminded her that she hadn’t eaten yet this morning.
“Morning, Kel,” Tala said without turning around. “Gram is in the store room getting another loaf of bread. She said we’d need more toast because you were coming for breakfast.” She cast a look over her shoulder, her violet eyes narrowed in mock suspicion. “Again.”
Her coal black ponytail swung as she turned back to her task. “I think she was right.”
“That I eat a lot of toast?” Kel laughed as she shimmered to the sink to wash her hands. They were making breakfast for the girls and she may as well earn her breakfast by helping.
“No. That you’re trying too hard.”
“Tala, keep your crystal ball away from me,” Kel warned as she picked up the spatula and began flipping the multitude of sizzling patties.
“I’m just saying.”
“Well, just don’t.”
“Kel, you’re a bit earlier than I expected.” Mae came from the back with another loaf of bread in her wrinkled hands. She set it on the long counter. Behind them the door to the beaten-up commercial refrigerator swung open and a large water bottle appeared on the counter next to Kel. “Drink this up before you leave, dear.”
Kel raised a dark brow but didn’t question the woman. She’d learned better than that in the twelve years since she’d known the old woman. Instead she transferred the spatula to her other hand and took a long swallow. It tasted like lemonade with a slightly bitter aftertaste. “What is this, Mae? It tastes like something Tala would make.”