Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 04 (7 page)

Kellan cocked his head a little to the side as he
studied his face, and Aiden fought to keep his expression neutral. “What’s
going on, Ade? I mean, I know Molly had some weird bug up her ass about you
taking the job, but everyone knows you’d rather die than be stuck with a human
for longer than it takes to screw her.”

Aiden pulled in a deep breath, counted to five, then
slowly exhaled. With his ears roaring, he barely heard himself as he said,
“This is different,” and let go of Kellan’s arm.

The Watchman’s eyes went wide with surprise, then
narrowed with concern. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Just dandy,” he forced out through his gritted teeth,
while Kellan looked between him and Olivia, the Lycan’s expression
confused…until a slow, jackass kind of smile began to curl his mouth. “If you
value your life,” Aiden growled, knowing Kell was going to say something that
would just piss him off, “you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

Kellan raised his hands in a teasing sign of
surrender, his blue-green eyes glittering with silent laughter.

Ignoring the younger Watchman, Aiden tossed his keys
to Noah. “The kid’s got an ear condition that makes flying impossible right
now, so we’ll be driving back. I’m going to get them out of town, but I need
you guys to go back to the house and grab my truck for me. We’ll head north,
and when I’ve found a motel, I’ll call and let you know where we are. We can
meet up again tomorrow morning.”

“Whatever’s going on with you,” Noah drawled, one dark
brow lifted in a cynical arch as he pocketed the keys, “just remember to stay
sharp. I’ve heard you tiger breeds can go a little light-headed when you get a
whiff of something tasty.”

“Go to hell,” Aiden muttered, curling his lip.

“Winston’s right.” Kellan snickered. “Don’t let the
female catnip go to your head, Ade.”

After shooting the grinning bastard the finger, Aiden
forced himself to turn and walk away before his temper got the better of
him…and he got himself into trouble. As he drew nearer to the car, Olivia
lifted her face, sending him a shy smile that shot straight to his head, damn
near making him dizzy, and he cursed something ugly under his breath, wondering
just who in God’s name he was trying to fool.

He was already neck-deep in trouble. And he was
sinking fast.

Prague, Czech Republic

THE AIR TASTED LIKE DEATH. Cold and thick…and lonely.

Walking headlong into the piercing wind blowing in off
the Vltava River, Kierland Scott scowled as the bitter flavor filled his lungs,
while his head continued to pound from the mother of all headaches. But then,
arguing with the Consortium tended to have that effect on him. Comprised of
representatives from each of the remaining ancient clans, the Consortium was a
sort of preternatural United Nations whose job it was to govern the clans. The
only problem was that the pompous bastards wasted so much time bickering
amongst themselves, it wasn’t any wonder that it often took years for them to
come to any sort of a decision, much less take aggressive action.

And time was something that Kierland and his friends
didn’t have.

After the Merrick awakenings of Ian, Saige and Riley
Buchanan, the Watchmen knew more than they had last summer, when the first
Casus—Malcolm DeKreznick—had escaped back to this realm. And thanks to Noah
Winston, a human who’d stepped in to help during Riley’s awakening, they now
knew a lot more, such as the fact that the Casus were working with a race known
as the Kraven. According to Noah, the Kraven—offspring of female Deschanel
vampires who had been raped by Casus males before their imprisonment—were a
closely guarded secret outside the Deschanel clan, their existence hidden not
only from the majority of the Consortium, but from the Watchmen, as well.

Until now.

Slowly but surely, the pieces of this macabre puzzle
were finally clicking into place, but there were still too many unanswered
questions. Why did Ross Westmore, the Kraven who had somehow instigated the
Casus’s return, want the Dark Markers? What use did he have for the ancient weapons
if he didn’t intend to use them to kill the Casus? And what, if any, credence
was there to Westmore’s warnings that a time of anarchy was coming to the
clans? Yeah, they had some answers. But it was the truths that still lingered
in the shadows that worried them most. That had the Watchmen and the Merrick
driving themselves into the ground to uncover as many of the Markers as they
could before Westmore and the Casus got their hands on them.

Hunching his shoulders against the wintry midnight
chill, Kierland ran over the arguments he’d made to the leaders throughout the
long night, explaining why it was so important that the Consortium give its
full support to the Merrick in their fight against the Casus, before it was too
late. Arguments that had fallen on deaf ears, until his temper had finally
gotten the better of him. He’d been told to leave the ancient mansion that was
now serving as the Consortium’s temporary headquarters in Prague, the stern
directive capped off by a warning to cool down before he returned.

“Miserable old bastards,” he muttered under his
breath, scraping his fingers through his hair. “They’ll be begging for our help
when the Casus have worked their way through the Merrick and start gunning for
them instead.”

The road curved to the right, the street silent and
dark ahead of him, but as Kierland neared the famous Charles Bridge, the
unsettling sensation that he was no longer alone began to slither across the
back of his neck, bringing a soft curse to his lips. Looking over his shoulder,
he stared into the shadowed depths of the moonlit street, wondering if the
Consortium leaders had sent someone to track him, but no one was there. The
curling, serpentine tendrils of fog appeared to be his only companion…until he
caught sight of the Deschanel, or what the human world would have simply called
a vampire, moving stealthily through the shadows.

Shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans,
Kierland turned and stood his ground, an old, familiar hatred coiling through
his insides as he waited for Gideon Granger to reach him. Though he had no
direct reason to dislike the vampire, his lip still curled with disgust. After
all, he despised the man’s older brother, Ashe, enough that the wrathful
emotion had eventually spread like a disease, until he’d come to loathe the
entire bloody race. The prejudice was as unjust as it was juvenile, but
Kierland had learned long ago that matters involving headstrong, impetuous
females were seldom reasonable…much less logical.

Especially when the female ripped your heart out by
shacking up with another man.

As Gideon stepped into a milky stream of moonlight
breaking through the clouds, he sent Kierland a crooked, cautious grin, as if
he knew his reception was going to be less than civil. Thinking it must have
been years now since he and Gideon had exchanged so much as a passing greeting,
Kierland couldn’t help but wonder just what in God’s name the vampire wanted
with him.

“Tei,” Gideon murmured in one of his many fluent
languages, only a trace of his Scandinavian accent shaping the husky greeting.
Seeing as how Kierland didn’t speak a word of Finnish, Norwegian or Swedish, he
had no way of knowing if the vamp had just said hello or called him a
jackass…and he didn’t particularly care.

“Granger,” he grunted in reply. Pulling in a deep
breath, he searched for a trace of any other nearby Deschanel, but could find
no others. Not that it meant anything. If they chose, a Deschanel could mask
their unusually distinctive scent, making them impossible to track, even for a
Lycanthrope.

“How does that saying go?” Gideon murmured from the
corner of his mouth as he came closer, his pocketed hands mirroring Kierland’s,
though his trousers were black silk, rather than well-worn denim. Despite his
size, he moved with the smooth, effortless ease of his race, as if he were
merely gliding over the street like a phantom, the moonlight glinting blue off
the rich sable strands of his hair. “You know, that one about how if looks
could kill?”

Kierland arched his right brow. “Aren’t you already
dead?” he offered in a bored drawl.

Gideon’s sharp smile flashed with his low rumble of
laughter, his fangs just visible beneath the curve of his upper lip. “Aw, you
know very well that I’m not dead, Lycan. But then, Hollywood rarely gets those
types of things right, do they? I mean, look what they did with that movie
about the Watchmen.”

Hardly in the mood for jokes, Kierland cut to the
chase. “What the hell do you want from me, Gideon?”

The Deschanel moved closer, leaning against one of the
historic street signs that lined the sweeping road. Though his pose remained
casual, the rigid set of his muscled shoulders hinted at an inner fury, as did
the tightness around his eyes. While a Kraven’s irises bled to crimson when
they released their fangs, a pure-blooded vampire’s were actually a pale, pure
gray that would glow silver for several hours after they’d fed.

Instead of answering the question, the vamp simply
said, “It wasn’t one of ours who made the kill.”

Granger didn’t elaborate, but Kierland knew exactly
what the man was referring to. Two days ago a Watchman had been found murdered
in Russia, his mutilated corpse left in the center of a small town seventy
miles south of Moscow. The fact that his body had been drained of every last
drop of blood had started rumors flying among the clans that the kill had been
made by a rogue Deschanel, but Kierland wasn’t entirely convinced. Something
about the killing made him…uneasy. The Watchman hadn’t been hunting a rogue
vamp, and yet for some reason Kierland had the oddest feeling that the kill had
been deliberate, as if the Watchman had been targeted on purpose.

Then again, maybe he was just being paranoid, allowing
his imagination to get the better of him, and the guy had simply been in the
wrong place at the wrong time. God only knew he was maxed out to his stress
limit these days, which was why he’d kept his suspicions to himself for the
time being, instead of sharing them with the others back at home. Between the
Casus and the search for the Markers, they had enough to deal with right now,
without adding this to the rest of it. Plus, with the Casus on the loose, every
Watchmen unit around the world knew to be guarding their backs.

And yet, despite the fact that Kierland obviously had
doubts about the kill being a rogue vamp, it didn’t mean he had to admit as
much to the cocky-assed vampire standing before him.

“Come on, Granger. How can you be certain it wasn’t a
Deschanel kill? You know how easy it is for those of your kind to lose
their…perspective.”

The vampire snorted. “That’s pretty rich coming from
you, Scott. Considering rogue wolves gnaw their victims to the bone.”

“And your kind drains them dry,” he countered, his
voice going softer as his temper sparked like kindling. “In either case, a life
is lost.”

“And we could keep going round and round with this
bullshit, but I’m not looking to waste what little’s left of my night on
arguments. My first purpose in approaching you was to make it clear to the
Watchmen that we’re not responsible for the killing.”

Wishing like hell that he hadn’t quit smoking—seeing
as how he was jonesing for a cigarette so badly he could taste it—Kierland
tilted his head a little to the side, his eyes narrowed on the vamp’s handsome
face as he tried to get a read on him. Though he hated the Deschanel with a
passion, he had to admit that he’d never actually met a vampire who wasn’t
beautiful in a cold, deadly way. “Why do you even care what we believe?” he
rasped.

“War is coming,” Gideon replied in a low rumble. “We
intend to play a part in it.”

“Do you, now?” Kierland murmured, lifting his brows.
“I find that hard to buy, considering how the Deschanel have never given a crap
about anyone but themselves. What’s your interest in the Merrick’s war?”

“Have you forgotten that four nesting grounds have
been massacred by the Collective? Have you ever seen a murdered vampire,
Watchman?” A low, humorless laugh fell softly from Gideon’s lips. “But of
course you have. After all, when the clans refuse to take care of their own
business, the Consortium often calls on their pets to take care of the
monsters. I’m sure the killing of a Deschanel isn’t a memory that would fade,
seeing as how it’s such a colorful sight. Now, imagine what it’s like looking
out over a blood-covered field that’s littered with the decapitated bodies of innocent
women and children.”

Raking one hand back through his hair, Kierland swore
softly as the macabre scene took shape within his mind, making his stomach
turn. The Collective was an army of human mercenaries who sought to purge the
world of every nonhuman species that walked the earth, their tactics as brutal
as they were merciless. In an ironic twist, the army had partnered up with the
Kraven and the Casus in exchange for information that would further their ends.
As a result, dozens of Deschanel families had been slaughtered in their
ancestral nesting grounds. Located throughout Scandinavia and other parts of
Europe, the grounds were ancient, sprawling castlelike communities where
families lived for security, the lands protected by powerful magic that kept
them hidden from the world—until their trust was betrayed.