Shattered Valor (28 page)

She followed him outside. “Kit—please.” He heard the catch in her voice, the sob she couldn’t hold back.

He didn’t stop, didn’t turn around. It was all he could do to move the shell of his body to the SUV, get in, and shut the door.

* * *

Kelan’s phone rang in the bunker. He’d stayed in the bunker with the others to gather intel on the men listed in the ledger and those captured on the tapes of Blade’s hell.

“Kelan?” Fiona’s voice came through the line in a hushed whisper.

“What is it, baby?”

“Something’s in my room. Please. Hurry.”

“I’m on my way.” He jumped up and started toward the elevator.

“S’up, bro?” Max asked as he rushed through the control room.

“Any alarms going off?” Kelan asked.

“Nada. S’all cool. Why?”

“Fiona thought someone was in her room.”

“I’ll check it out.” Max turned his chair toward a different console.

Kelan shot out of the elevator in the master bedroom, running down the hallway and up the stairs to the bridge. Dim light from the huge, front window brightened his way. The hall was quiet. The girls and Zavi had retired hours ago. He stopped at Fiona’s room and opened the door. It was dark inside. He flipped on the wall switch.

Fiona was in the bed, sitting up against the headboard, the blankets pulled up to her nose. She pointed to the closet. Kelan pulled the right folding door. Nothing but some shoes and clothes. He opened the left side. A small black animal leaped out of the closet, mewling angrily. Sebastian. The cat stalked into the middle of the room, arching his back as he glared at Kelan.

“It was just Sebastian.” Kelan picked the cat up and carried him over to Fiona. “He must have gotten trapped in the closet.”

Fiona lifted him and rubbed her face on his soft fur. Kelan sucked in a breath, watching the carefree exchange between feline and woman, imagining Fiona rubbing herself over him. Color was returning to her face. Sebastian, the lucky bastard, had curled up on her chest and was purring. Kelan reached over and stroked his soft fur.

Fiona smiled at him a little sheepishly, as if she expected a lecture about her foolishness. Didn’t she know there was nothing she could do that would ever cause him to raise his voice to her? He patted the cat again to keep himself from reaching for her.

“I’m sorry to bother you. I’m just so jumpy.”

“That’s why Max gave you our numbers. I don’t care when you call or what you call about. I’ll always come to you, Fiona.”

Several pairs of footsteps thundered down the hall toward Fiona’s room, then Max, Angel, and Owen spilled into the room. Fiona gave them a tense smile. “I’m sorry. It was just Sebastian.”

Max was frowning at the cat. Fiona, seeing the object of his intent focus, pulled him even closer.

“Fuck. Me,” Max snarled as he came around Eden’s bed and reached for the cat.

“No!” Fiona tried to hold on to Sebastian.

Max picked him up and fisted his hand around the heart adornment on Sebastian’s collar. “I just found our goddamned spy.”

“What are you talking about?” Angel asked. He looked at Max’s white-knuckled grip on the feline’s collar. “The cat? No. That cat’s almost twenty years old. Kit said it’s been here forever.”

“He’s wearing a camera and a transmitting device. The fucker’s been watching us this whole time.” He started toward the door with the cat in his arms.

“No. Max. No!” Fiona shouted. “Don’t hurt Sebastian.” She rushed after Max, catching his arm before he left the room. “Kelan—don’t let him do this,” she appealed in a choked voice. “He’s just a cat.”

Max turned his hazel gaze on Fiona, his expression as devoid of emotion as an executioner’s. Fiona released him and stepped back.

Kelan pulled her into his hold, as much to keep her from interfering as to keep the others from looking at her barely-clothed body. “He’s going to remove the collar and check the cat over,” he said as he leaned over her. “He won’t harm the cat—even if he finds something else.” This last he said as he looked at Max.

Max’s look was less than reassuring. Kelan glanced at Angel and Owen for help, both of whom looked as if they’d just discovered they’d been harboring the devil amongst them. And they had. Each was thinking back to what the cat might have observed and transmitted.

“No harm will come to the cat,” Owen said, at last breaking the tense silence. He nodded at the two of them and led Max into the hallway. Angel followed, rubbing a hand over his short hair.

In the silence of the room after they left, Fiona looked up at Kelan. She wiped the tears from her face. “I don’t understand. What just happened?”

“Sebastian’s been transmitting information about us to your father’s friend, Amir, since we got here. It’s a significant breach.”

“Oh, no!”

Kelan walked over to the bed and lifted the covers. “Back to bed.”

She climbed in and looked up at him with her enormous blue eyes. “Is Sebastian going to be okay?”

Kelan sat on the edge of the bed. “You heard Owen. The cat’ll be fine. Night, Fiona.” He started to rise, but Fee caught his hand, holding him in place.

“Will you stay with me? Just for a little while?”

A shard of desire speared Kelan, as painful as if she’d just asked him roll around on a bed of nails. Which he’d probably do if it meant he could hold her for a little while.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Please? I don’t want to be alone right now. I don’t know when Eden and Ty will be back. This hallway is too quiet.”

Kelan sighed. “Just for a little while, then.” He flipped off the light, then sat on the bed beside Fiona. On top of the covers. As far away from her as he could sit and still technically be on the bed. Which mattered not at all to the girl, for she scooted over and cuddled in next to him.

He picked up the remote and turned the TV to a classic movie channel, washing the room in flickering gray light. “Thank you, Kelan,” Fiona whispered. She braced a hand on his belly as she looked up at him.

“I told you I would keep you safe.”

Her hand was cold through his tee shirt. He looked at her, wondering how the hell he was going to survive the next few minutes. He lifted his arm and wrapped it around her as he bent to kiss her forehead. Her breath warmed his chest. His dick was hardening and shifting of its own momentum. She folded her legs and leaned them against his hip.

“Fiona—when do you turn twenty-one?”

“In a few months. Why?” she asked, not looking away from the TV.

“Just curious.”

He moved his hand from her side to her arm, dragging his palm down her arm in a slow, easy stroke. Her skin was like silk. She was built so differently than he was, soft where he was hard, slim where he was thick, short where he was tall. Her breasts were small, but almost a handful.

He caught himself thinking of filling his hands with her and realized he’d better concentrate on every cock-softening thought he could summon if he didn’t want to alarm her or embarrass himself.

Swimming in a cold mountain lake.

Eating snails.

Standing naked in a Wyoming snow squall.

Great
. He had to go there. Naked. With her. He breathed the soft scent of her hair. Strawberries. What would her mouth taste like? Or better, the nectar of her passion? Strawberries and cream.

He reined in those thoughts. It couldn’t happen. He was too big—he would split her in two. She moved just then, her hand sweeping across his chest as she nuzzled deeper against his chest, climbing half on him as she moved to rest her ear against his heartbeat.

There had to be a way to make it work between them, even with their age and size differences. Because once he’d claimed her, no man would ever come near her.

He turned slightly and wrapped both arms around her. “Sleep, baby. I’m watching over you,” he whispered against her hair.

A few months, she’d said. How many days was that, exactly? Better, how many hours? How would she take the news that he was going to claim her?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Ty walked aimlessly across the dark grounds of his property. He felt empty of emotion. Not the void he’d been before the team had seen the video, just flat. Like the great wave of hurt and anger and fear had crested and broken, and now was slowly rolling back to the sea.

He was able to look at his life here calmly, rationally. See it as the man he’d come to be, thanks to Kit and the time Ty spent with the Red Team.

His dad had spent a lifetime torturing him, trying to break him. It would have been so much easier to just kill him outright. Why his dad put so much effort into crushing him, Ty had to accept that he’d never know. He’d come close to killing him that last week he’d lived here. Damn close. In the context of what Ty now understood about his inheritance, his father’s last desperate attempt to kill him made sense.

Ty looked around, surprised he’d walked so far out. There was a dark depression at the foot of the hill in front of him. The hole was an airshaft opening to the old mining tunnels below, one of many that dotted his property. Its cap had broken and was caved in. He knew that hole. He’d almost seen his last time on Earth in it.

He’d been nearing the end of seventeenth year when his dad had driven him out here. It was a July night. Not terribly cold, but too cool to be naked in a pit.

It was the end of yet another bad week in his father’s house. Kit had told Ty that when he turned eighteen, he could run away and come live with him.

In retrospect, Ty knew his father had been trying to discredit him when he had one of Ty’s johns write a damaging psych evaluation declaring him suicidal. There probably had been some truth to that diagnosis, but not because of any issues in Ty’s psychological make-up. No, suicide had often seemed his only escape route from his father. But not when he was so close to escaping with Kit.

But then, his last night at the house, his dad took him out of his cell in the basement, dragged him to the garage, shoved him into one of his trucks, then drove him out here, where Ty now stood.

There was a ladder standing in the shaft. “Get in,” his father had ordered. Ty looked around, trying to understand the situation. He’d sneaked all over the grounds with Kit. Dennis had warned them about the tunnels. He’d had the shafts capped, but the top had been removed from this one. Ty wondered if his dad would cap it once he was in there. Just erase him from the world.

A part of him was relieved. And a part of him was furious.

He looked into the dark hole, thinking how close he’d been to being free. He’d almost won, almost survived his father. He climbed down the ladder, into the hole, feeling curiously numb as the darkness swallowed him. Cold and naked and dark, those things he knew. They were long familiar to him now. He sat on the gravelly dirt and watched the stars overhead, waiting to be sealed in.

His escape plan had almost worked. Almost.

One day, several days later, he heard a truck drive up to his cavern. He was lying face down in the dirt. He didn’t move to see who approached. He didn’t call out. It was probably his father checking to see if he was dead yet.

“Aw, Christ, Ty! Jesus motherfucking Christ. What did he do to you?” Kit’s panicked greeting had startled him, but not enough to cause him to move. “He’s here. We found him!” he shouted to someone else. There was a scrabbling sound. Rocks fell on him and the ground around him.

Then Kit was there. He rolled him over. When Ty’s eyes met his, Kit’s cheeks were wet. Maybe it was raining up above. Kit tucked a blanket around him. “We don’t have much time. Drink this.”

Kit lifted him and pressed a Thermos of broth to his mouth. It seared his mouth. Ty choked and pushed it away. “Hot.”

“No, man. It’s only warm. You’re just so fucking cold. Drink it. Are you hurt? Anything broken?”

“Everything. He won, Kit.”

“No, he didn’t. Dennis is up above. We have to get you outta here fast. Drink some more first.”

Ty took as much as he could. Kit dragged him over to the corner, propping him up against the rock wall. He pulled a hoodie over Ty’s head, then shoved his arms through the sleeves. Ty did nothing to help. He couldn’t seem to make his muscles work. And, really, he didn’t care anymore.

“Dennis and I’ve been searching for you for days. Your dad said you ran away. We knew that was a lie. I went to see your dad.”

“I told you to never, never do that.”

“Well I fucking did it. He wouldn’t see me the first day. The second day, I forced my way into the house. He called the sheriff. When you weren’t in your cage, I knew your dad had done something to you. The sheriff saw your cage, man.”

“I thought he’d just wall me up in here. Thought I’d wake up and there would be nothing but darkness.”

“Why?” Kit asked as he shoved socks over Ty’s feet. “Why would he do something like that? The man’s a sick, sick bastard.” He started pulling a pair of jeans on Ty’s legs, then hoisted Ty up to finish pulling them up. “Geez, you’re skin and bones. I didn’t bring a belt.”

“Forget about it.” Ty leaned against the spiky wall of the shaft, feeling dizzy and nauseated, lacking even the strength to pull his pants up.