Slayer's Kiss: Shadow Slayer, Book 1 (29 page)

Julian stopped pacing and turned to face Gavin. “Not while I live.”

Gavin took a step forward and Kara leaped to her feet and glued herself to his back, wrapping her arms tightly around his middle. “Gavin! No.”

“Let me go, Kara. I’m at the end of my patience with his possessive
shit
.” Then he snarled at Julian, “If you want monogamy, try another species, you arrogant pile of wing dust!”

Julian looked over at Gavin and raised his brows. “
Tsk. Tsk.
Who’s in the rage now? What’s your excuse?”

When the clock on the wall began to chime, Kara’s stomach sank. It couldn’t be time. She couldn’t leave them like this. She felt like Cinderella after the ball and her coach was about to turn into a rotting pumpkin. But she cared about them enough to keep them safe—and they would be safer without her around.

Her eyes welled as she dropped her forehead against Gavin’s back. “I have to go.”

“Don’t leave. Not yet. Let us resolve this once and for all.” He captured her hand on his stomach and laced his fingers through hers.

Maybe her going away was exactly what they needed. “I don’t want you to fight over me. I won’t be the thing that comes between you.”

Julian approached the pair and held his hand out to Kara. “I’ll take you. Let’s go.”

The city lights filtering in through the window glinted off Julian’s onyx hair. God, she was going to miss him. She was going to miss them both. “Let me say my goodbyes, Julian.” Her voice was choked with emotion.

“Are you crying, love?”

“I told you—I don’t cry.” She sniffed back her tears.

“Please don’t.” Julian came to wipe the tear that had escaped Kara’s eye as she rested her cheek against Gavin’s back. “I know I haven’t made this easy on you, but I want you to be happy, Kara. Gavin is a good man and he cares for you. If he makes you happy…”

He didn’t finish, but Kara wasn’t sure she was ready to hear what he was going to say anyway. How could she live without either of them?

“Shhh, princess. We’ll work it out,” Gavin whispered tenderly. He squeezed her hand as Kara moved his hair aside to give him one last kiss on the nape of his neck. Suddenly, she gasped, pulling back like his skin had scorched her lips.

There, at the base of his skull, under layers of silky blond hair was a faded green tattoo. A snake wrapped around a dagger. Surrounded by the sun.

Chapter Twenty

Kara stumbled toward her jeans and yanked them on, followed by her long-sleeved shirt, not even slowing to add the bra, panties and socks strewn across the floor.

Julian stepped forward, his brow wrinkled and his muscles tensed. “What is it?”

“Nothing…I’m late.” Kara slipped her boots on her bare feet and looked for the front door.

Gavin was on full alert, his eyes tracking her frantic progress through the room. “What happened, princess?”

Kara couldn’t process anything. She couldn’t think. All she knew was that Gavin’s symbol was etched into the belly of a woman in the morgue. She had to get the hell out of here. She had to ask Jaxon what was going on. “I have to go.”

Julian took her gently by the arm, his nostrils flared. “I’ll take you anywhere you need to go. Don’t run away like this.”

She pulled out of his grip. “I like to walk. I need to walk. Please let me go.” She lurched toward the door, and once it was closed behind her, took off running, not even stopping for the elevator, just needing to flee. She ran down flight after flight of stairs until she burst out of the building. She paused and bent over, hands on her knees, pulling in lungful after lungful of cold night air.

After pausing only a moment, she looked around. She was still downtown, but she was miles away from Abbey’s house and she’d never needed to get there faster. “Damn it!”

She clasped Jaxon’s charm roughly in her right hand. Why hadn’t she asked him how to call if she needed a ride? “Jaxon,” she said out loud, trying to summon him with her mind the way she’d felt Julian do with Gavin. She felt nothing in return. “Jaxon!”

Wasting no more time, she jogged in the direction of a busier part of the city. She needed a cab. If she could get to the Gaslamp from here, she could find a ride to Abbey’s.

The whole time she trotted toward the heart of the city, Kara never stopped calling Jaxon with her mind. She rubbed the charm. She thought his name so hard, the veins in her temple began to throb. Nothing happened.

Finally, when she was three blocks away from Horton Plaza, Kara spotted a yellow Taxi stopped along the curb. She jogged up to the driver’s side and rapped her knuckles against the window.

The driver glanced up from his newspaper with startled eyes and rolled down the window a crack. “Yeah?”

“I need a ride.”

He took in her sweaty, shabby appearance and shook his head. “I’m on break, lady.”

“I need to get somewhere. Fast.”

He snickered. “I don’t think so. I don’t do damsels in distress. You probably ain’t got no money, and I sure as hell ain’t got no time for drama.”

Kara’s lips pulled back in a snarl. “Listen to me.” She cast her thoughts out, trying to grasp the waves of energy in his mind and hold them in her grip as she did when she used the
manza
. “I need to get somewhere. Now. I don’t happen to have much money, but that’s not a problem, is it?”

The man blinked. “I guess that’ll be fine. I wasn’t making money sittin’ here anyhow.” He absently thumbed his hand in the direction of the door. “Get in, lady. We’re in a hurry.”

Kara couldn’t take the time to feel triumphant as she slipped into the back seat. “Take me to Golden Hill. The corner of 26th and B. Do you know where that is?”

“Of course.” He hit the gas, screeching from the curb like a man on a mission.

She needed to talk to Jaxon. She needed him to explain why the sign of a twisted murderer was tattooed on the back of Gavin’s neck. He’d said it was Brakken’s symbol. Was Jaxon lying—or was Gavin?

Streets of wandering tourists passed in a blur. The frantic beat of Kara’s heart made it hard to breathe. The turnoff to Abbey’s house finally came into view. “Turn here on B. It’s just down the block.” She looked up at the driver when the car slowed to a stop. “What are you doing? Hurry.”

He glanced back and frowned. “Something’s going on up there. The street’s blocked.”

Kara sat forward and leaned around the headrest, trying to see what was blocking their way. When she saw the flashing lights and the smoke billowing up from beyond the nearest rooftops, her pounding heart sank like a boulder in a tar pit.

Without another word, she yanked on the handle of the door and took off at a sprint down the street toward Abbey’s house.

Not Abbey. Not Abbey. Not Abbey
, was all she could think. She couldn’t survive something happening to her oldest friend. Abbey had to be okay because Kara couldn’t live in a world without her.

Kara slid to a stop on the pock-marked asphalt when Abbey’s pine-green house came into view. It lit up the night sky, illuminating the entire block like the noonday sun as it burned. Crews of heavily suited firemen wielded hoses, spraying steady streams of water at the small, crumbling structure.

Abbey.

Kara stumbled toward the house, oblivious to the shouts of the men around her. Suddenly, someone grabbed Kara’s upper arm, their fingers digging deep. Kara turned to see who she would have to knock out on her way into Abbey’s house. No one was going to stop her. “Tray?”

Tray’s eyes were rimmed in angry red and his face and clothes were covered in soot. “Don’t you dare go in there.”

Kara searched his eyes. “Where’s Abbey?”

Tray swallowed and blinked. “I went back for her. I swear I did. It was just so black and everything was falling apart. I couldn’t find her.” He crushed Kara to him. “I’m so sorry, Kare-bear. I’m so sorry.”

Kara couldn’t breathe with the acrid stench of smoke filling her lungs. It came from all around her. From the house. From Tray. She pushed at his chest. “I don’t understand.”

Tray wiped blackened fingers across his eyes and glanced over at the men in his unit. He lowered his voice. “I dropped her off. I didn’t stay. She was…” He sniffed and his voice was choked, from emotion or fire, Kara couldn’t tell. “She was coming on strong and I needed some space. I took a drive. When I pulled up, the flames were already visible through the windows. I kicked in the front door. Jaxon was on the floor in the living room. The couch was on fire, inches from sending him up in flames. I pulled him out onto the grass. But when I went back in, it was too late.” His breathing was shallow, like he was going into shock. “The stairs collapsed and the roof started caving in. It was like no fire I’ve ever seen, like some new sort of accelerant. How did it happen so fast?”

Kara wanted to tell Tray to stop talking. Didn’t he know this was just a bad dream? She knew a nightmare when she felt it, and when she woke up, everything would be fine. But for now, she had no choice but to play along. “Where’s Jaxon?”

Tray shook his head. “He’s…”

A bubble of crazed laughter burst from Kara’s chest. “He’s where, Tray?” She glanced around the scene, glimpsing the bright revolving lights of an ambulance parked three houses down. “Is he in there?” She pointed to the van. “Is he hurt?”

Tray wrapped his hands around Kara’s shoulders. “They said it looked like he’d come into contact with a live wire. He was burned from the inside out.”

“Well, why are they still here? I’ll ride with them to the hospital.” Kara felt as if she were floating outside of her body. No dream had ever felt so unreal.

He cupped the side of her face with one smoky hand. “He’s gone, Kare-bear. He was gone before I’d even dragged him out.”

Kara shook him off and stepped back. “No. You’re wrong. Where’s Abbey?” She could hear the hysteria in her voice, but she couldn’t stop it. “I gotta talk to Jaxon.” She pushed past Tray and ran toward the ambulance.

The crew fought the blaze as other officers clustered around, some talking quietly, some taking notes and pictures. She stopped when she saw the black vinyl bag zipped closed atop the gurney, already loaded into the back of the ambulance. Inside was a huge shape, tall and broad. A shape like Jaxon.

Kara jumped into the back of the ambulance and clawed at the zipper.

“Hey!” a man shouted. “You can’t be in there. Don’t touch that! You’re contaminating the evidence.”

Kara almost couldn’t hear Tray tell the man it was okay over the pulse of blood in her ears. “He was her boyfriend. Give her a minute to say goodbye,” he said, his voice a sharp-edged fragment of utter desolation.

“Sorry, Detective Oaks. I already got the call to bring him in,” the driver protested.

“I’ll go with you,” Kara said.

“Hey, Tray!” someone called from near the front of the house. “We found something!”

The driver put out his hands in a helpless gesture. “I have to go, and I can’t have her alone with the body. You know that.”

“Wait for me,” Tray called over his shoulder as he ran back to the house. “I’ll ride along with her.”

The paramedic frowned and he couldn’t meet Kara’s eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am. I’ll give you a minute.”

When he stepped around to the front of the van, Kara slowly zipped down the body bag. One inch revealed short brown hair, the next white skin smudged with black. Kara kept thinking maybe this whole thing was a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t Jaxon at all. But when she zipped it down past the contours of a head and pulled apart the vinyl, Jaxon’s opaque eyes stared back at her.

“No!” Kara cried. She captured her warrior’s face hands between her hands. No, not just her warrior. Her friend.

Reality came crashing down on Kara with the strength of a tidal wave against a straw hut. Jaxon was dead. And if Jaxon was really dead, maybe Abbey was dead, too.

“What have I done?” she whispered. She’d led a murderer to Abbey’s doorstep and left her to face him alone while she fucked her brains out. She’d taken a warrior under her wing just to get him killed. He’d told her they should flee. She hadn’t listened.

Kara’s tears fell on Jaxon’s cheeks as she leaned over him, kissing his cold forehead. It was time for tears. And she didn’t know if these liquid drops of pain would ever stop. They washed away some of the soot, revealing the sickly blue veins under Jaxon’s almost transparent skin.

She traced a finger along the stark blue lines. What kind of power did it take to kill an immortal warrior? What kind of evil had stalked the people she loved? Why did Gavin bear the sign?

“Let’s go,” Tray said angrily, startling Kara from her silent agony. He wiped his eyes with the back of his knuckles. “I can’t stay here. Not while my baby burns.”

His words made Kara feel sick. She thought she was going to vomit. She zipped the bag up around Jaxon’s face, but it seemed wrong putting plastic over his mouth and nose.
How will he breathe?
she thought irrationally.

Tray closed the ambulance doors and hammered his fist against the van wall. “Go!”

“What did they find?” Kara asked.

“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t her. She’s still inside.” He buried his head in his hands. “If Abbey’s gone, nothing else matters, does it?”

“I need to know.”
I need to make sense of it. This is my fault.

“They think it’s arson. They found a piece of paper folded around a black feather with some kind of cryptic shit. ‘Tiger’s eye for rubies where our bodies ignite.’ What the fuck could that mean?” A steady stream of tears leaked from Tray’s eyes.

“A black feather?” her throat completely dried up. Kara wished she could comfort him, but she couldn’t reach out. Her hands had gone numb. “It’s my fault,” Kara said. “I got Abbey involved in this.”

“Please stop. I can’t hate you right now. I need to be with someone who loves Abbey as much as I do.”

“She loved you, too—you know that? You’re the only one she ever loved. She just didn’t know how to show it.”

“I shouldn’t have left. Oh God. How could I have left her tonight?” He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “He killed my baby. He burned her up. And he leaves us a note, like it’s some sort of game. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to take him apart with my bare hands and roast him over a spit.” The lights in the back of the ambulance flickered.