Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“He’s married?” Kaya said, shaking her head in disbelief as she paced in front of the living room windows.
Zoey threw the pizza crust she’d been inspecting back on the floor. “I know, big surprise.” She pursed her lips up, looking thoughtful. “Who would have ever thought that you were a homewrecker?”
Lax sighed heavily from the recliner. “I would,” she said as she spun her chair around and looked at Kaya only to shrug. “She just has skank written all over her.”
Kaya’s eyes automatically dropped to her small grey tee-shirt and black cargo pants before she took in her sister’s clothes, or lack thereof. Compared to the rest of them, she dressed like a nun.
“Yeah, no kidding, Kaya. Could you look any more like a slut? It’s really getting embarrassing,” Tanja said with a pitying look.
Kaya waved their comments off impatiently and demanded, “How did we miss a wife?”
“What do you mean by ‘we’? We weren’t the ones stalking after a happily married man,” Zoey said, shaking her head in disgust. “Shameful. Just plain shameful.”
“If he’s married, then where’s his wife?” Kaya demanded.
“Maybe, whatever he is, she’s just like him. Maybe he’s here for a reason,” Zoey said slowly, making everything in Kaya go still.
They chose to live in Maine a hundred years ago for one reason. It had one of the lowest vampire populations, which meant that it didn’t qualify for the Council to place Sentinels here. That worked for them since all it took was one little mistake and they’d find themselves beheaded.
Over the past fifty years, it had been her job to protect this house, to make sure that none of the crazy bitches that she was charged with watching over did anything to attract attention.
So far, they’d managed to avoid other immortals, Sentinels, and demons.
After countless searches over the years, they were able to rest with the knowledge that there were no portals or any other attractions for immortals in the area.
They had the southern part of Maine to themselves.
Or at least, they thought they did. If they’d missed something…
“Do you think there are more of them?” Kaya asked as she debated how she wanted to handle this.
“There’s no way to know,” Zoey said with a helpless shrug.
“If they’re here looking for something, what is it? And what will they do once they find it?” Lax asked, sharing a look with Tanja.
“If too many of them come here, they’ll attract Sentinel attention,” Tanja said, shaking her head. “We can’t let that happen.”
“I don’t want to have to go back into hiding,” Zoey said quietly.
None of them did.
Kaya didn’t want to have to go back to living in fear, terrified that they’d say or do something that would give them away.
She’d spent most of her life looking over her shoulder, terrified of what was waiting for them around every corner.
She didn’t want to have to go back to hunting vampires, shifters, and rogue demons, terrified that they would do something to draw the Sentinels down on them.
“We need to find out why he’s here,” Lax said, looking lost in thought.
“We need to figure out if he’s alone,” Kaya said, wondering how he’d managed to blend in so easily. She was the only rage demon in the house, which meant that their safety was her job, had been since the day her adult horns grew in.
“I don’t want to move again,” Tanja said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“There may not even be a real problem,” Kaya said as she went over everything that she’d learned about him over the past year.
“You don’t know that. You didn’t even know that he wasn’t human. Hell, we still don’t know what he is or what he’s capable of,” Lax pointed out.
“Then, we need to figure out what he is first,” Kaya said coldly.
“How?” Lax asked.
“The usual way,” Kaya drawled as she found herself looking back at the basement door.
“And if that doesn’t work?” Zoey asked.
“Then, I’ll kill him.”
“I’m sorry about your brother. He was a good tenant, never caused any problems,” Trajan’s landlord said with a sympathetic smile.
Kaya let her chin wobble. “Thank you,” she said, making sure to wait three seconds before she followed that up with a sniffle.
“Just lock the door on your way out,” he said as he unlocked Trajan’s door and gestured for her to go inside.
“Th-Thank you, I will,” Kaya said with a watery smile and another sniffle as she headed inside.
As soon as the door closed behind her, her smile was gone and she was focused on finding something that would help her figure out what Trajan was, and if necessary, how to kill him.
This was work. It didn’t matter that he was her mate.
She had to think of her sisters. Besides, he was married and, more importantly, he was her enemy until she could prove otherwise.
It was funny that the landlord never mentioned anything about a wife, Kaya thought. Whatever he was up to, he was doing it alone, Kaya realized as she took in the small studio apartment and couldn’t help but frown.
Spartan would be a more suitable description. There wasn’t a single piece of furniture in the room, not even a bed. If it weren’t for the thin blanket laid out on the floor in the far corner along with a backpack, she would have thought the landlord had shown her a vacant apartment.
The first thing that she needed to know was what he ate.
That would clue her into what he was. With that, she went through his kitchen cabinets only to end up sighing when she didn’t find anything.
The fridge was empty as well, and after a quick check, she realized that it wasn’t even plugged in.
Whatever he ate, he got it to go. She checked the trashcan in the kitchen and bathroom for food wrappers, takeout receipts, anything that would show that he ate human food, only to find them both empty.
With a frustrated growl, Kaya focused on his bag. It was filled with clothes, plenty of cash, fake IDs, and a couple of books. There were no weapons or any clues to help her figure out what he was doing here. Next to the bag, she found a small stack of papers.
One was a canceled invoice for a private plane dated a little over a year ago. The others were bills made out to different names. At the bottom of that pile, she found a recent invoice for the rental of another private plane. She pushed the papers into the bag and set it aside.
She had little trinkets she’d collected for sentimental sake over the years, Kaya thought as she slowly turned around, taking in the small apartment. They weren’t anything expensive, just reminders of those times that she didn’t want to forget, which gave her an idea.
He said that he loved his wife, and men that loved their wives typically kept keepsakes with them, but he didn’t even wear a wedding ring.
If they’d been apart for a year, then he’d want something of hers, something close by that he could touch when he missed her, Kaya thought as she searched the apartment again.
She looked for loose tiles and floorboards, on top of the cupboards, ran her eyes over the ceiling and nothing.
Just when she was about to give up, her gaze was drawn back to that unplugged refrigerator.
She opened the refrigerator door and ran her fingers along the groove only to find it intact.
She did the same for the freezer door before she focused on the actual freezer and ran her fingers along the seal only to go still when her fingertips came across a tiny gap at the top.
Frowning, Kaya pried it open with her fingernails only to hear a small click before a door dropped open and-
“Well, well, well, look at what we have here...”