Chapter 2
TWO
Jason heaved the pickaxe over the edge of the cliff and prayed it caught.
A clank. A slide. A catch.
Thank fuck.
He tugged on the attached rope, testing the hold was secure, then, scrabbling with this other hand, hauled himself the rest of the way up and onto the slippery, uneven jetty he’d spent the past hour climbing.
Fucking finally.
Wrestling out of his pack, he shoved it aside, then flopped onto his back, gasping for air and flexing his aching fingers as he stared into the foggy nothingness above.
The night sky was up there somewhere, maybe even stars, but he wasn’t seeing it.
Not tonight, and rarely ever in the Canyon Lands.
One of the reasons the area was favored by all manner of criminals for their misdeeds.
Jason wasn’t surprised a mobster like Vincent Cirillo had done business here.
“It’s about fucking time.”
Jason closed his eyes and inhaled deep, wondering how he’d ever thought Moira’s voice was sultry.
More like sharp as her claws, either of which could eviscerate him on a dime.
He couldn’t lay there defenseless, not with her and who knows what other creatures lurking in the shadows.
He dragged himself up to sitting and pushed his sopping wet hair out of his eyes.
He glared at the vampire standing in front of him, hands on her hips, not a blond hair out of place, not the least bit winded.
“I would’ve made it up here sooner if someone would’ve helped me. ”
“I needed to scout the area.”
He bit his tongue, stifling the Bullshit!
that wanted to roll off it. He’d barely finished mooring the boat to the exposed rebar at the base of the jetty when Moira had begun to scale the cliff face with relative ease, her claws making her footing sure, her small stature and speed making her impact minimal.
She was at the top in no time. Meanwhile, every foot Jason scaled had been a fifty-fifty shot at death.
And every second he wasted moaning about it was another second someone—or something—could kill him.
He gave himself a good, hard shake, then shoved up to his feet, ignoring his tired screaming muscles and his partner in crime’s sneer.
After gathering his things, he tucked the climbing gear back in the pack, withdrew his headlamp, and hefted the bag onto his shoulders.
“All right, lead the way.” He blinked, and she was gone again. “Fucking hell, Moira.”
The best he could do was use his headlamp to follow the disturbance in the fog, hoping it was the right direction. But the farther they ventured into the Canyon Lands’ ruins, the more Jason believed Kai had been right.
Kai usually was.
In no world were explosions, unstable ground, glowing eyes, and rumbling snarls better than the night Kai’s kiss had promised. A kiss, a declaration they had danced around for years.
For the longest time, Jason had thought it would be Paris and Kai who’d end up together, and he’d been okay with that.
Two purehearted people who clawed their way out of crime to find love together was the kind of happiness their shitty world needed.
But that wasn’t what either of his friends had wanted, and as Kai’s gaze had strayed to him more often, as their orbits had become inextricably entwined, he’d fallen for his best friend. A man too good for him by miles.
More than a man.
Which was why Jason had to do everything in his power to keep Kai safe, namely getting them the fuck out of Yerba Buena. They couldn’t do that on what Kai made as a bartender or what Jason made pouring concrete. They needed the windfall that Moira, who zipped back in front of him, promised.
“Keep the fuck up,” she hissed.
“Why don’t you try keeping a human pace?”
She rolled her eyes, but when she started forward again, it was at a speed Jason could maintain.
“What exactly is in this stash?” he asked.
“Gold, like I told you. Other valuable shit.”
Kai’s voice rang in his head. And Vincent thought it was secure here?
He didn’t pose the question to Moira as bluntly.
“If this stash was so valuable, why didn’t Vincent keep it in their private vault?
In the condo at Sunset Hill?” He’d seen Paris access the family vault before, usually to steal from his father’s supply of Daylight so they could turn around and trade it to vamps for cash and favors, usually at a better price than Vincent offered.
That was how Jason had met Moira in the first place.
She turned down an alley and stopped in front of a metal door. “This is the last place anyone would look.”
Jason glanced up at the squat building. Relatively intact compared to the high-rise rubble on either side and relatively secure, the door equipped with a bolt lock.
“Work your magic,” Moira said, gesturing at the lock.
“Why can’t you just rip the door open? Why do you need me here at all?”
She pressed a single finger to the door, and her flesh instantly sizzled. “Silver core,” she said. “And because you can break in quietly, in case there’s anyone inside.”
He gulped. “And if there is?”
“You’ll make a good sacrifice.”
He gulped again, then glanced the way they’d come.
“You think you’ll survive that trek back alone?”
Kai had been right. Bad idea from the word go. But Moira was right too. There was little hope in turning back now. He lowered his pack and dug out his lock pick set.
The lock took less than a minute to open. The Kai in his head poked again. How important can it really be?
Moira kicked the door open with her booted foot, no care for the racket it made, and Jason’s alarm ratcheted up another level.
He dropped the lock pick set back in his bag and retrieved both pistols before reshouldering the pack.
Following her deeper into the building, he kept his eyes peeled for any other signs of life.
Just rats as far as he could see or hear.
Was that bread they were nibbling on? A stick of jerky one was dragging?
There had to have been other life here at some point—not long ago.
A door creaked open at the end of the hallway.
Jason glanced up in time to see Moira’s blond hair waft behind her as she entered the room, as if a breeze blew toward her.
A warm one, it seemed, a wall of heat hitting Jason just outside the door.
Hot like a long-forgotten day in the sun, the last thing anyone would expect in the cold, foggy Canyon Lands.
As far as Jason could tell, this building had no power, no artificial heat.
He firmed his grip on his pistols and rounded the doorjamb, through the heat and into the room, expecting a fire, some sort of spell protecting the stash . . . and found a pile of blankets in the corner.
No. Not just blankets. A person, their hands sneaking out to clutch the ends of the blanket, wrapping it more tightly around them, and their bare feet scraping over the floor as they shoved farther back into the corner.
Their face was still hidden, most of their body too, but their shiver was obvious.
As was the wave of heat that filled the room a moment later.
“What is this?” Jason asked the vampire who warily paced in front of the person. “Where’s the stash? The gold and jewels you promised?”
She jutted her chin at the corner. “There.”
“Where? Behind them? In the walls?”
“No,” she said. “He’s the stash.”
What. The. Fuck.
“Who is he?”
“My way out,” she said with haunting reverence, a tone so different from her usual indifference that Jason startled. Then startled again when she lunged toward the person, claws and fangs out.
Jason lunged after her, his height eclipsing hers, shoving her off course and into the wall to the person’s right. Jason moved between them, both guns pointed toward her. “What are you doing?”
She righted herself and began to pace—no, stalk—once more. “There’s a rumor going around.” She juked, and Jason juked with her, blocking her attempt to get past him. “If a vampire bites a phoenix, they become human again.”
“A phoenix?” He whipped his gaze over his shoulder. And gasped.
The young man had freed a hand, and in doing so, the blanket over his head had fallen back.
His brown skin was pale, his features so gaunt his skin barely clung to his bones, and his eyes .
. . Fuck, his eyes glowed red and orange like the ball of light—fire—hovering over his palm, even as those same eyes shone with terror.
“He doesn’t want this,” Jason said, righting his gaze. Just in time for Moira to barrel into him, using her full supernatural power and speed to knock him off his feet. He hit the ground, his guns jostling from his grasp.
The phoenix screamed, and a fireball singed the hair on Jason’s arm as it flew toward Moira—and missed. She was on him in the next blink, Moira all hisses and bared fangs, the phoenix barely holding her off with fireballs, the two of them struggling as heat filled the room.
Jason scrambled for the pistol with the silver bullets. He grabbed the gun, spun, and leveled it at Moira. “Leave him alone!” When she didn’t show any sign of backing off, he fired.
Two bullets center mass.
She rounded on him, shrieking, her eyes wide with betrayal and her claws out, arms flailing, aiming to inflict some pain on him before the silver took her for good.
She didn’t get the chance. A ball of fire swallowed her from behind and hastened her decent into ashes.
When the smoke cleared, the young man in the blankets was on his hands and knees on the other side of Moira’s charred remains, struggling for breath, barely holding himself up.
Jason hurried to his side, squinting against the heat, against the glowing sheen that rippled over his skin. “What can I do?”
He collapsed onto his side, panting. “Get out of here.” He shivered, the tremble that wracked his body and breaths sounding as painful as it looked.
Jason gathered the blankets back around him, then laid a hand on his arm, keeping it there despite the searing heat seeping through the rough, thin material.
“You shouldn’t be alone.” No one should be in such pain and misery by themselves.
This man was obviously a shifter of some sort, and fuck, so was Kai.
And Jason would want someone with Kai, God forbid he ever be in this state.
It was what a good person would do. The kind of thing Kai would do.
The kind of person he wanted to be for Kai.
“What’s your name?” he asked the phoenix.
“Theo.”
“Okay, Theo, what happens now?”
Haunted eyes of fire looked up at him. “I don’t know.”
“I’m not leaving you,” he said, clasping Theo’s hand.
He stayed by Theo’s side—for Theo, for Kai, hoping like hell he’d get to be by Kai’s side again when this was all over, and if he didn’t, that someone else would be. That he’d done enough to put karma on Kai’s side.
He stayed, even as the fire grew hotter, as flames raised his hairs and licked his skin, as the hot air forced shut his eyes and burned his lungs, as the snap and crackle of burning wood and Theo’s screams filled his ears.
He stayed until it burned the very last thought from his mind.
Kai.