Vampire Apocalypse #2 Cataylst (9 page)

Will pulled Kahli closer, feeling her body
press against his. His hands slipped down her bodysuit, feeling the
curve of her narrow waist and full hips. “Should I stop?” he
breathed, breaking the kiss. His sapphire eyes met hers. Kahli
couldn’t speak. She should say,
Yes
, but she couldn’t. Her
eyes locked on his, and she wanted his mouth on her, again. Kahli
shook her head gently, and Will continued to kiss her until her
knees buckled.

They were both breathing hard when Will
stopped and scooped her up in his arms. He kissed the side of
Kahli’s face, trailing kisses down her neck. When she didn’t say
anything, he asked, “Is this the line?” He kissed her neck gently,
barely pressing his lips to her skin, making her shiver.

Kahli’s eyes felt heavy. She wanted to lose
herself in him. She wanted everything he offered her, and more.
When his fangs scraped down the side of her neck, she went rigid in
his arms. It didn’t matter that he covered her in kisses. It was a
jarring reminder that she was human and he was not.

“Will, don’t,” she breathed. Her arm was
around his neck, her fingers in his dark hair. They both froze,
Will held onto her, refusing to release the moment.

“I won’t,” he answered, his voice ragged.
“I’d never force you.” He leaned his forehead against her cheek for
a moment, before saying, “I never thought this would happen. I
tried so hard to keep you away from them, to protect you, and I
completely failed. And now this...” He set her down, but before he
could step away, Kahli took his wrists.

“What about this?” When he didn’t answer, she
squeezed his hands and said, “Will, this isn’t your fault.”

“This is totally my fault. I was supposed to
stay away. I was supposed to protect you. I was supposed to get you
to your...,” he trailed off. “I’m not supposed to keep you for
myself.” He pulled his hands away and rubbed his face. Looking at
her, Will smiled softly, “You’re not mine, but I wish you were. I
can’t hide it, not now that we’ve—” He turned form her, not
finishing the thought. “I’ve made too many mistakes.”

Kahli reached out and took his hand. Will
glanced at their fingers, as she wove them together, and then
pulled their hands up into her face. “I don’t know what this is,
but it isn’t a mistake.”

Will was looking into her eyes. The
bottomless lakes of blue peered back at her unconvinced. Before he
could say anything, her fingers lifted to touch his lips. She
trailed the pad of her finger across his mouth slowly before
saying, “Show me.”

Will’s response to her was automatic. His
body knew what she meant, what she wanted. He tensed as his fangs
descended in front of her. Lifting her finger, she touched a smooth
white tooth, dragging her finger across the needle-sharp tip. Will
closed his eyes as she did it, careful not to move. When Kahli was
done, she placed her hands on the side of his face and turned him
toward her.

“Why do you pretend to be human?” she asked
sadly.

Will smiled wanly. “Why do you hate
vampires?”

“They’re not like you.” She smiled at him
like she meant it, like she wanted him to believe it.

“We’re more alike than you realize,” he said,
looking away.

Kahli took his face in her hands and tilted
it up so she could see his eyes, “The Bane may be, but you—Will
Tatum—are not.”

Will’s breath caught in his throat. The way
her hands felt on him, the way they brought his runes to life,
burning beneath his skin was intoxicating. Kahli made him feel more
alive, and more secure, than he’d ever felt in his entire life. It
wasn’t just her endless curves and bright hair—it was her wit, the
way she made him laugh, and the way he felt whole around her. So
much of him was gone. Will never thought he’d feel this much for
one person. He wanted to protect her. Will wanted things for her,
things he couldn’t give. Kahli was everything he wanted and
everything he couldn’t have. Before he could do something stupid
beyond repair, Will looked away. He forced the moment to shatter
and Kahli’s hands slipped from his cheeks. Her absence was felt at
his core.

CHAPTER 13

Cole walked back to the men’s quarters and
found the other guys huddled in the corner. There were no guards,
but the nervous chatter was hushed. As he walked up behind them, he
heard one thin guy named Chaucer asking, “And they think we’ll just
do this? And that the girls will let us?”

Cole’s heart sank. Plural, Chaucer said
girls
, meaning more than one, and from the way they were
acting, they were talking about the Pairing. Apparently, Alice
wasn’t the only one who got her date pushed up.

Cole sat on the arm of the couch. The
conversation didn’t stop with his arrival. Cole seldom spoke, so
when he opened his mouth to say something, everyone looked at him,
“How many were chosen?”

Brent, another dark haired, skinny guy looked
at him like he was crazy. “Wrong question. You should be asking
who’d they pair you with? Every single one of us was paired. Dates
for Pairings are listed on the front board. Didn’t you see it?”

Cole shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”

Chaucer cut in, “Well, you won’t have to
worry about it. You pair’s one that has gone missing.”

“Hey, maybe she saw it was you and ran away,”
a deep voice laughed. They all turned and looked at Brent who
shrugged his shoulders and said, “Ah, forget it. You guys are
taking this way too seriously. Normally, they expect us to keep our
hands to ourselves. Now, they tell us that we don’t have to, and
actually give us a girl, and we’re complaining?” He laughed. “You
all are nuts. I’m looking forward to it.”

Cole’s stomach suddenly felt like it was
filled with acid. The way all the other guys watched Brent, and
avoided Cole’s gaze when the guy spoke, it made him feel sick.
“Who’ve you been Paired with?” he asked, even though he already
knew.

“Your sister,” Brent beamed. “I hope she
fights back, so I can tie her down.” Brent’s smile was quickly
shattered by Cole’s fist.

Before he knew what happened, Cole sprang
from the couch, grabbed Brent’s shirtfront and swung. When his fist
connected with the guy’s face, Cole felt something crunch under his
hand, but that wasn’t good enough. Brent shrieked, as blood poured
from his nose like water from a spigot. In that moment, Cole didn’t
care if the wound was fatal, no one could talk about Cassie like
that. Before Cole could land another hit, the rest of the guys were
pulling them apart.

Chaucer hissed, “Stop it! Both of you! The
guards are godknowswhere and all this means something. We don’t
have enough time as it is, and if we don’t figure this out now, we
never will. Curfew was bumped up, and you know the rules for the
Pairing—they’ll isolate us until it’s over. So, stop acting like we
have the luxury of time, because we don’t!” Chaucer’s thin frame
was huffing hard by the time he finished scolding Cole and
Brent.

Cole backed away from Brent, but he’d never
forget what he said. That guy wasn’t going to touch Cassie. Cole
just didn’t know how to prevent it. He literally had a couple of
hours to figure it out. Then they’d all be in lock down. Cassie
would be raped.

Cole felt sick, like he couldn’t keep the
contents in his stomach, but his face was blank. Brent’s nose
continued to gush blood, until they finally forced him to go to the
infirmary. Without Brent, the conversation carried on until
everyone knew that blood had spilled last night. They still didn’t
know how much, or whose, but it was agreed that all this strife had
originated with Kahli.

Chaucer remained hunched over, sitting on the
table in front of the couch, with his head in his hands. “So what
do we do? Try to run? Let them stud us out? I don’t know about you
guys, but I actually like one of those girls, and it’s not the one
they Paired me with.”

A few heads nodded in agreement. Chaucer
looked to Cole, “I won’t let him touch her.”

Cole realized who it was he cared for.
Cassie. Cole nodded once, acknowledging him, thankful that someone
else was looking after his sister. “Two people protecting Cassie
will help, but it won’t stop Brent. It won’t stop any of this. The
vamps have the power and as long as they have it, we’ve got no say
in anything.” Cole cracked his knuckles and stood.

“Don’t you want to know who they paired you
with?” a voice asked. Cole turned toward him, and started to shake
his head, but the guy kept talking, “It would have been, Kahli.
They made you guys the power couple.”

Cole couldn’t help it. He laughed. Shaking
his head, he said, “They couldn’t have picked a worse Pairing.
Hardly anything is certain anymore, but there’s one thing I know
beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

Chaucer asked, “Yeah? What’s that?””

“She would have killed me.”

CHAPTER 14

Kahli felt Will pull away, and the small
window to his soul that had slipped open, closed. She felt it slam
shut, blocking her from seeing whatever secrets he had hidden. His
suggestion to let him bite her was so outlandish that she couldn’t
fathom it, but the more Kahli thought about it, the more frightened
she became about the King.

Fear wasn’t something that Kahli was used to.
Sure she felt it, but she didn’t let it dominate her and she wasn’t
about to start now. Thinking about it, Kahli picked through Will’s
suggestion trying to figure out what part she was reacting to the
worst. It wasn’t a stupid idea, in fact it was brilliant, but Kahli
couldn’t fathom belonging to someone else. Even now, the King could
feel her and sense her thoughts to some extent. The idea made her
skin crawl. If Will’s bite would keep the King out of her mind, was
it worth it?

Kahli rested in the metal bed, staring up at
the ceiling. She didn’t bother airing out the cot mattresses.
Instead, she threw a blanket over the springs to keep the metal
twists from pulling her hair and lay down. Will was across the
room, hunched over the table, in the dark. He found a lantern and a
brittle old book that he was reading, slowly turning one page at a
time. She tried not to watch him, but when a page cracked and fell
out of the spine, he looked so boyish. The paper dangled in his
fingers for a moment, and when he tried to press it back into the
book, but the page crumbled like an old egg shell.

Kahli turned her face back toward the
concrete ceiling, wondering what tomorrow would look like. Ever
since she was little, there was no tomorrow. Will was right about
that. As long as she was running, as long as they hunted her, she
had no life of her own. It was theirs. The vampires stole
everything she had and twisted her existence to suit their needs.
Kahli was prey being hunted, not a human free to do what she
wanted.

Rolling onto her side, she pondered these
things—what would her life would look like if she didn’t have to
run? What would she do every day? Where would she live? Did she
want to keep hunting Trackers and spilling more blood? Was there
ever enough to satisfy her thirst for vengeance?

There is no such thing as peace
, she
thought to herself.
Peace is for the dead and since I breathe,
that is something that will never be mine
.

Her gaze lifted to Will, taking in his form.
The way he pulled his legs up under him while he read, the slight
curve of his shoulders when no one was looking, the way his ring
finger tapped his temple—they were things that made him seem human.
If she had her days to fill as she chose, would he be a part of
them? Allowing him to bite her meant that he would be there as long
as he lived. It was a marriage of sorts, one that could not be
broken.

Kahli’s heart ached. She didn’t realize it
until that moment. There was no amount of preparation that could
have saved her from this. The world was a frigid, lonely place. Did
it matter that she found solace in a vampire? Did it matter that he
was Bane? She wasn’t sure anymore. It wouldn’t have made a
difference to her parents.
A vampire is a vampire. A square is a
rectangle
, and that sort of logic.

God she missed them. Kahli ran her fingers
over her side where her runes covered her skin. There was supposed
to be a man, a man to protect her, and share her life. Her parent’s
selected him when she was born. Allowing this relationship with
Will to continue defied everything she’d been taught, and made it
explicitly clear that all hope of finding her betrothed was gone.
Whoever he was, he vanished like everyone else who’d been important
to her.

__

Hours passed, but Kahli wasn’t able to sleep.
She just laid there staring at the ceiling. The thought of agreeing
to Will’s request set her nerves on end. She had to do it. Kahli
knew that, but she still didn’t want to. When she couldn’t lay
there another second, she sat up. Will was still reading, hunched
close to the lantern.

She sat down next to him and said, “There’s
no other choice, is there?”

Will set the book down and looked up at her.
She couldn’t read his thoughts, but she could feel a nervous jolt
rush through him. Her question startled him. It was so late that
she thought she should have waited until morning, after she slept,
but Kahli couldn’t sleep as long as the question continued to
bounce around in her head. The uncertainty was driving her
crazy.

“I don’t see another option, Kahli. I wish
there was.” Will swallowed hard, like his throat was dry.

Kahli looked down at her hands on the table
top. “What will it do?” She glanced up at him slowly. “How much
will you feel? How much will you know?”

“Everything,” he breathed. “There will be no
secrets, for either of us.”

Kahli’s eyes drifted to the spot where his
runes started under his shirt. She’d wanted to know where they came
from, and who gave them to him. If he bit her, she’d know, but that
didn’t make her happy. She didn’t want to learn about him like
this. She wanted him to tell her, but Will couldn’t. She breathed
deeply and leaned forward, resting her face in her hands.