Chapter Seventeen
Kyan
KYAN’S FINGERS TINGLED AS THE BLOOD COOLED IN HIS veins. ‘What?’
‘It smells like Empyreal blood,’ the Vampire said. ‘But there’s something …’ An almost imperceptible wince creased the Vampire’s marble skin. His next words were low and interested, ‘… smothering it.’
‘Like what?’ Callum asked.
Verin blinked, as if to clear his interest. ‘Only tests may tell. You can leave it with me and I’ll contact you when it’s done. Now, if you’d be so kind—’
‘I don’t think so,’ Kyan said, planting himself on the plush rug.
If this was true, if an Empyreal had been mutated, what would that process do to a being that was already considered the alpha predator among supernaturals?
‘Maybe the Empyreal’s dead now,’ Callum suggested. ‘Maybe whatever experiment they tried didn’t work. Luca said it was the earliest attempt.’
Kyan shook his head mutely; the Nazen had given him more information once they got him safely home. ‘He said the last tests were done on it only last week. Whoever – whatever – this Empyreal now is, it’s still alive and it was in that building days before we were.’
What would have happened if the Huntbringer had been guarding the cells in the lab? Would Kyan have been able to sense it and identify the mutated Empyreal?
‘Can you tell if it’s a woman?’ Callum asked. ‘Any location markers or age?’
Worry coiled through Kyan. ‘You think it’s her mother? The file said she was burned in the house.’
Callum slid him a grave look. ‘No body, no proof. You think I’m going to trust some ash?’
Could Nicole’s mother be this Huntbringer?
Gods, how would he tell her?
‘I can’t tell you that now unless I test it myself,’ the Vampire answered.
‘Which I’m loath to do if this has been changed or poisoned in some way.
So it may take more time as I’ll have to run tests that don’t require my own ability to taste.
One thing I can tell you is whatever has been done to this, is not the same as that.
’ He raised his black brows and nodded to the fang on the table.
Which meant that whatever the Wake was doing was either twofold, or they were trying multiple techniques on multiple creatures.
Memories of The Wild Hunt painting in Westmoore House returned to Kyan’s mind. What chaos, what slaughter would they unleash like this?
‘They could be using a different technique with Empyreals,’ Callum mused quietly. ‘Something to counteract the self-healing and metamorphic ability that cleans up foreign substances in our blood.’
But they’d worked with the Wake; had forged a relationship a few millennia in the making. He’d thought that warranted some kind of comradeship. Trust.
Everything had been a lie.
Kyan began to prowl up and down the room.
This didn’t feel so much like a development as being dug into an even deeper hole he had no way to get them out of.
There was only one true answer: break the oath and free Empyreals so they could stop this happening.
Fight this if they were taken in and used next …
He was so deep in thought he nearly didn’t notice Callum slip out his phone until his friend spoke.
‘Ah, Dylan. To what do I owe the pleasure?’
Kyan’s mind was suddenly wiped clear.
His head whipped round to find Callum’s eyes sparkling with amusement and genuine pleasure. Beneath Kyan’s shock at the sudden news from them, his stomach turned acidic.
Was Nicole in danger?
‘Give me the phone,’ Kyan barked, stalking over.
Callum waved him off. ‘Two Empyreals, you say?’
Bright worry made him momentarily mindless. He nearly yanked his friend’s arm off.
‘They’re fine,’ Callum hissed, spinning to walk in a circle around the Vampire’s blood deck and swerve Kyan’s reach. ‘I think you’ll find it is indeed us.’
Kyan watched in confusion, before homing in his hearing onto the conversation.
‘What are you doing here?’ Dylan was asking.
Here.
Nicole was here—
Verin watched on with unveiled curiosity.
Then Kyan was moving. Bursting back into the foyer and stopping for a moment to take in that scent, his chest heaving. He knew it was her. He thought he was going fucking crazy, but she was here—
Find her, find her, find her—
His mind flooded with questions, but none were loud enough to break through the hunt.
It wasn’t even a conscious decision, his body just moved, instincts roaring dully. He couldn’t hear, yet he could suddenly hear everything. Perhaps he hadn’t heard them because the other private parts of the house were soundproofed – for secrets, or bloodshed, Kyan didn’t care.
He just needed to see her, right now.
And – there. A current of it like warmth on the air.
Some distant part of him tried to temper his speed, his focus. He needed to think. He couldn’t face her like this, without answers or solutions, like a man half starved.
He’d wanted the Wake beheaded and on a platter when the next binding rolled around. Instead, all he had was his beating heart, a scarred arm, and his every protective instinct turned up to a thousand.
Nicole
‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?’ DYLAN REPEATED ON THE phone.
Here.
Callum was … here?
If that was Callum, then—
Two Empyreals.
‘Is Kyan with him?’ she asked. ‘Dylan? Dylan!’
‘I—’ He scowled at something Callum said and Nicole didn’t wait, she just moved.
A swift, almost giddy urgency set her running back towards the closest stairs, which took her through the luxurious stretch of interconnected bedrooms and into the Heaven Room.
The whole ceiling and three walls were painted like a temple on Olympus, its life-sized gods nude save for artistic swathes of silken fabrics.
Cyclopes forging armour swung into view, and a pristine blue sea could be glimpsed between the figures on one wall.
Satyrs, flying horses, and butterfly-winged beings dived and swept throughout the frescoes.
Above, a host of divine figures on a ceiling of clouds gazed down, backed by a brilliant golden light.
But, for the first time in her life, Nicole didn’t care about the paintings.
As she ran inside, the opposite door flew open.
And there he was, chest heaving, dark green eyes dilated—
Mine.
The word, the feeling, was so loud, so visceral it shocked her as much as the sight of him.
Her faded dreams and sketches hadn’t done him justice. Some primal, physical part of her trembled to look at him. The sheer masculine beauty, the dark hair, the hazel eyes that, though intense, were the only soft part of him. And only when they landed on her.
She was suddenly out of breath.
He was slightly unshaven. Sleepless.
Then, slowly, as if she might bolt, his powerful legs brought him towards her in a few strides. Despite the bulk of him, he moved with preternatural quiet.
Her eyes raked over him. Him, striding through a painted room of gods and creatures, rainbows and storms, the image of Aphrodite and Ares’ forbidden romance on the wall behind her.
But all of that was a blur of colour and glory and mythos.
She must have moved because he didn’t stop. Instead, Kyan’s arms were suddenly around her waist and her feet were off the floor.
She threw hers around the dense muscle of his shoulders and nuzzled close, nose buried along the crook of his neck, bathed in the heat and scent of him.
Forest and warm man. Every smothered instinct, every iota of the yearning hit her like a tidal wave and a deep sigh of relief left her, an incredible calm replacing it.
‘Nicole,’ he breathed.
She shivered at the tone of his voice, at the realisation of how deeply she’d worried about him.
Her feet weren’t on the floor. She didn’t care. Her hands dove into the silk of his hair. It was slightly longer, regaining a curl. She loved it, but she wanted to see him.
Nicole pulled back enough to try and he set her back down gently.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, cupping her face, his hands wide and warm and real. ‘I smelled blood.’
Her eyes flickered closed at the touch, at the intimacy she’d desperately hoped wouldn’t have faded despite their time apart. And then the joy came and she wanted to tell him everything.
‘Yes, I—’
‘Kyan,’ came her father’s cool voice.
Nicole blinked to find something change in Kyan’s gaze, something more than the interruption. It shuttered through him like a door slamming on his emotions. Kyan’s hands squeezed her hips slightly before he dropped them, and the loss suddenly burned.
She corralled her relief and excitement with a hard swallow, feeling suddenly … embarrassed. And beneath that – shaky. She’d known she cared for him, but this much?
Callum strolled in through the same door as Kyan with a smirk, hanging up the phone. His eyes slid over her shoulder to where she felt her brother emerge and Bells run inside. A smile ticked at the Empyreal’s full lips. ‘Dylan.’
The tense silence was the most welcome they’d get from her brother.
‘Bells,’ Callum greeted.
‘Hello again, Callum,’ Bells said quietly, earning one of the Empyreal’s sharp, devastating smiles.
‘Well,’ said Verin, joining them. ‘It seems it’s time for explanations.’