CHAPTER 3
You want me to do what?”
Kye stared across her table at Kasabian, where he’d sat after closing his bar. She was sure that the echo of the night’s pounding music was distorting his words.
“It’s not a want. I need to do the Cobra with you.”
His words catapulted through her body. “Just so you can lust without pain? No way.”
No longer in the tight shirt encouraged by Mike for the purposes of being eye candy, Kasabian wore one of those urban shirts with angel wings on the back. He smelled like limes, clean and citrusy. “My request isn’t about lust. You said one Caido recovered buried memories.”
“Yeah.” She drew the word out, now completely unsure where he was going.
“When I was eight, I was kidnapped and spent four years in captivity. I escaped, along with four other children. Three of them were Deuce or Dragon, and they were so weak they were nearly dead. I heard they survived, but I never saw them again. There were two of us Caidos.”
He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it apart to reveal what looked like a gray starburst tattoo at his solar plexus. “Whatever they did to us left these scars…and made us crave feelings. What they did to the other kids nearly depleted their essences. The problem is, we don’t know anything because they memory-locked us. That’s a Caido ability to lock away memories of a specific period of time or event. So when you mentioned that the Caido’s buried memories returned, you got my attention.” He buttoned his shirt again.
This was not at all what Kye expected. A proposal, a desperate and selfish plea, but not children in danger. She saw the pain of what he’d gone through and his fear for those kids. “I’m sorry that happened to you, but doing the Cobra just to revive those memories, well, I can’t even guarantee it will work. And if we bond, I have no idea how to unbond.”
“I dismissed approaching you for those reasons. But now there’s more at stake. The Caido who escaped with me works for the Guard. Hayden told me a boy was found with the same mark.” Kasabian touched the starburst through his shirt. “He may have escaped from the same people who had us. Before Hayden could get the traumatized kid to talk, he was whisked away by someone connected to the Concilium. Whatever the people who took us all those years ago were doing…they’re doing it again. There are secondhand stories about Crescent social workers taking kids to camps so the mothers can get back on track. No one ever hears from either again.”
Kids taken from their homes and nearly starved to death? Kye shuddered. Who knew what other horrors those young children were exposed to? She looked at Kasabian, really looked at him. For a moment, she was tempted to pry, to delve deep, to glimpse the pain he’d endured.
He raked a hand through his hair. “Because of the Concilium’s involvement, we don’t know whom to trust. We have to figure it out on our own. Hayden’s working on finding the boy. If I can remember anything from our captivity, it might help us figure out who’s behind this. Will you do the Cobra with me? I’ve done the Essex enough to know how to control it. Once you set your magick in place, we touch, back off, and hope it’s enough to trigger the return of my memories. I promise not to take in your essence.”
She thought of the boy, of children in danger, and found herself saying, “Okay.”
“Tonight. Now.”
Her fingers curled in the fabric of her skirt. “I always perform it at the Caido’s residence so he’ll be comfortable. The bombardment is pretty intense. I always monitor that part. His girlfriend stays with him through the night in case anything happens. Is there someone who can stay with you?”
Kasabian shook his head. “I’ll handle it.”
“You don’t know what there is to handle.”
Kye followed his yellow Lotus all the way to SoBe—South Beach.
Why am I doing this? Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she pulled into the parking lot of an old Florida-style apartment complex. Children. I’m doing this for the children.
Kasabian gestured to a parking spot, then pulled his Lotus into one farther down. She slid out of her jacket, folded it, and laid it in the trunk of her BMW coupe. The black and red patch with vampire fangs was on top, an ominous portent. She quickly shed her fishnets and black boots, changing into black and red flip-flops.
Kasabian rested his hand on her shoulder as he guided her through a gated entrance into a lush courtyard. The pool was lit, and a few people lounged around. They all greeted Kasabian and gave her a curious look. One couple was getting all kissy-face in the corner of the pool. The woman’s nervousness glowed a pale yellow and made Kye’s stomach churn a little as it reached for her. It was not dissimilar to her mother’s gift of mediumship, as she described it, the way spirits sensed and migrated to a receptive soul. In Kye’s case, those emotions sought her out as a willing receptacle. She closed the psychic door.
They took the stairs to the second level. Kasabian unlocked the door and gestured for her to precede him. He flicked a switch, and three corner torchieres threw soft light over the living area. Nice place, with dark wood floors and moss green walls and plants all over in dark wicker baskets.
He waved toward a dry bar in the corner. “Want a Whis-Kye?”
“Maybe just a splash of whiskey straight up.”
Her gaze went to a picture of a little boy clipped by an alligator magnet to his stainless steel fridge. He had haunted eyes and a smile he was obviously forcing for the photographer’s sake. She walked closer to it. “Is this the boy who was found?”
Kasabian stepped up behind her, his presence nearly overwhelming. “No. This is a boy who’s been missing for a year. He’s the younger brother of one of the kids at the youth home where I volunteer. I want to find him.” He stared at the picture, anger and pain in eyes that were now more hazel than green. The shade of whiskey. “I need to find him in a way I can’t explain. Like it’s eating at my soul.” He tapped the photograph. “Maybe it’s because I imagine my mother looking at my picture the way Lyle, this boy’s brother, looks at his.”
He handed her a glass of amber liquid, dark gold in the ambient light. She took it, inhaling the smoky scent. He started making an absinthe, pouring water over a melting sugar cube into a glass of opaque green liquid. The menthol aroma filled her nose and made her eyes water.
She leaned against the black granite counter and watched him. “Every Caido who’s done the Cobra had one of those first.”
He lifted his glass up, and when she touched hers to it, he said, “Here’s to liquid courage.”
Kye felt no speck of courage as she threw back her splash and a half. You have control over this.
He finished his drink and came to stand in front of her. “Tell me what to do.”
He was at her mercy. It gave her a weird sense of power she’d never felt before. “The Caidos dropped fast once the process was complete, so you want to be on carpet. The bombardment lasts anywhere from one to two hours and then you pretty much pass out for the night. The Caido who recovered his memories woke with them the next morning.”
“Hopefully it won’t be as bad for me. I haven’t stuffed back my emotions as much. In fact, I crave them: joy, heartache, jealousy, anything. That’s why I work in a club, so I can soak them all in.”
“But don’t they hurt you?”
“I have to do the Essex once a night to manage the pain. It’s a fair trade. My essence temporarily eases a Crescent’s heartache, and theirs eases mine.”
Now she understood that strange twist of emotions she’d picked up from him that first time.
He gave her a soft smile. “And you want to know why.”
She started to say no, that it was none of her business. Might as well be honest. “Of course.”
“I think it has something to do with what they were doing to me while I was being held captive. Hayden feels the same.”
“So that’s why you’re different.” Finally, she had an answer.
His smile darkened. “Part of it.”
Great. Part of an answer.
“Get comfortable,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “That usually means being naked.”
The mental picture of him standing naked in front of her sent an odd tingling right down to the core of her belly. She blinked, pushing it away. “Stop that,” she said to both him and her wild imagination.
“Just saying.” He stripped out of his shirt, which made his pecs and biceps move in all kinds of interesting ways, and tossed it on the couch. His torso was golden tanned, caramel male perfection. He undid the top button of his jeans, kicked off his shoes, and stood in the middle of the rug. “You going to catch me when I fall?”
Her gaze, which had centered on the faint hairline that went down to those undone jeans, snapped to eyes with a smile in them. She almost said, I could ask the same of you. Whoa, where had that thought come from?
“I’ll try.” With a hard swallow, Kye stepped up in front of him. “How does the Essex work on your end? Can you see the exchange?”
“No, I feel it like a blind man pulling taffy, pulling their essence toward me, sending mine into them.” He demonstrated, weaving his long fingers through the air that reminded her more of an orchestra leader. Watching, with his words wrapping around her mind, sent a shiver through her body.
She cleared her throat. “You’ll send your essence out to me. Then I’ll take over. Close your eyes and get into the same state you get into just before you do the Essex.”
He held out his hands. “We need to connect physically.”
His hands slid against hers, his fingers locking around her wrists. Why did his touch always jolt her deep inside? He blinked, obviously feeling it, too.
“Close your eyes,” she ordered, completely unnerved and unable to tear her gaze from his. When he complied, she studied him for a moment, the planes of his cheeks, the thickness of his lashes. Friggin’ gorgeous. It seemed surreal, him standing in front of her like this, them about to do this.
She closed her eyes and summoned her magick. It manifested as a beautiful column of dark pink. Then she pulled her own deep yellow essence toward the column. “Send your essence to me.” In her mind’s eye, cool, silvery smoke floated toward hers, and she directed it toward the column as well. “We’re going to start with the Essex, our essences just touching.”
When they did, even that mere brush took her breath away. She focused on the pink column, sending it to wrap around their essences. It required a part of her, that small extension of her essence, but nothing too intense. Here was that sought-after addictive state where a Caido could feel without pain.
But Kye was beginning to “feel” something, too.
Kasabian’s essence was powerful, his magick strong and compelling and…sexy. It spiraled in languid, sensuous circles, and her essence began to wind around his of its own volition.
A slow smile spread across his handsome face. “Damn, I wish we were doing this for different reasons.” His eyes opened for a moment, glowing brightly with such blatant hunger, it made parts of her ache. “This feels incredible with you.”
Better than with anyone else? she wanted to ask. No, don’t ask.
“Like a sensual dance,” she heard herself saying. She was a Zensu Deuce, versed in sexual pathos and magick. She knew the chemistry between them was rare. But that was a path she could not tread. She caught herself physically leaning closer to him, too, and pulled back her body and her essence with a soft inhalation. “Which it shouldn’t. Close your eyes and focus.”
“Don’t worry, Kye. I know it’s not about that.” He tightened his hold on her. “I won’t do that to us.”
This wasn’t about sex, wasn’t about them. She recalled the photo on Kasabian’s refrigerator.
“Do you remember when I showed you how the Cobra worked using my hands? Right now our essences are resting against each other, the way my fingers laid on top of each other. We’re going to the next step now. Our essences are going to slide together like my fingers did, but remaining straight like an X.” She felt the sensuality of the two colors sliding against each other throughout her body. Lord, but she wanted to let them intertwine, the way her body wanted to intertwine with “We can’t go to the final step. Let’s stay here for a few seconds and see if that will trigger the bombardment.”
Mmm, it felt good in a way that it shouldn’t. Like lying naked in bed with an achingly beautiful man and not being able to make love to him. Heat began to generate wherever their essences touched, slowly filling her entire essence.
“I think it’s beginning,” she said on a soft breath. “I don’t know exactly how it feels, since I haven’t done it myself, but my subjects reported heat right before things got going.”
His fingers tightened on hers. “Yeah, I feel it, too, heat and pressure building inside me. And…” His voice dropped to both a puzzled and concerned tone. “Something else.”
Like a sudden storm, his essence darkened and whipped into a fury. Its tendrils grabbed on to hers. She tried to pull back, but he pulled harder. No! His hold tightened, surrounding her completely. In the same moment it felt seductively powerful and suffocating. Heat exploded between them, and she lost all sense of where he ended and where she began. No! She struggled, both psychically and physically, to free herself. She stumbled back, landing bottom-first on the coffee table. She was free of him. Except…no, she wasn’t. She felt him inside her.
He’d bonded them.
Her eyes snapped open. He dropped to the floor, caught up in his trauma. She wanted to grab his shirt and demand that he release her, but he was lost to her now. But she wasn’t helpless. She slapped her hand on his chest and summoned her magick again. Come on, come on. The pink column formed in her mind’s eye, but her yellow was twisted with dark silver and then it vanished. She psychically groped for it, but she couldn’t muster the power to pull it back.
He had broken his promise!
As much as she wanted to run, she couldn’t leave him alone. She watched him arch in pain, fingers digging into the carpet. So many emotions roared through him like a freight train that she couldn’t single any one out. She sank down beside him, her hand on his shoulder for support even as she wanted to scratch his eyes out.
She had never seen that darkness in a Caido’s essence before. It scared her, even more so because a mystifying wanting pulsed through her. Part of what made him very different, and no doubt forty ways f*cked-up—the part he hadn’t told her about—was now bonded with her.