Текст книги "Oblivion"

Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Текущая страница: 38 (всего у книги 51 страниц)

Holy shit.

I stumbled as the tall and thin form appeared behind Dee. The form drifted forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with my sister—our sister. It was him on the porch, a thinner, more disheveled replica of me. Dark hair, longer than the last time I saw him, curled against the sharp, high cheekbones. His eyes were green, but duller…haunted. But it was him. It was my brother.

“Dawson,” I croaked out.

Chapter 30

The house was quiet except for the low hum of conversation coming from the TV in the living room. Wind howled outside, battering the sides of the house as snow fell in thick sheets.

From the front window, I watched the wind whip the snow across the driveways. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been standing here. Definitely more than a few minutes. Possibly an hour. Tension crept into my neck.

I wasn’t alone.

Looking over my shoulder, I watched my brother enter the living room. His movements were stiff, as if he weren’t used to walking much. He probably wasn’t. I’d seen those cages, and I knew there was a good chance, a high probability, that he’d been kept in one of those. Knowing that, watching him ate away at me. He was still so gaunt, and in the past week the shadows under his eyes had darkened.

Dawson wasn’t sleeping more than a few hours here and there.

He also wasn’t talking. Not really. Not to me at least. He spoke more to Dee, but nothing like it was before.

My brother was a ghost of his former self.

So much anger churned in my gut. What they’d done to him had changed him, and the anger hadn’t faded. Not even when I went back to the warehouse Will had taken Kat to, where Dawson was probably held at some point, and I stripped the damn place bare of onyx. Doing so had filled me with satisfaction, but it hadn’t dampened the anger.

Pushing away from the window, I followed him into the kitchen. He knew I was there, but he didn’t acknowledge my existence. My hands curled helplessly at my sides.

Dawson stood in the middle of the kitchen, his head cocked to the side as he stared at the fridge.

“Hey, man, you hungry?” I asked.

He didn’t respond.

The helplessness doubled until it was a pound of lead in my stomach. “We have Lucky Charms,” I offered, knowing he’d liked to eat the marshmallows out of the damn cereal. “I can grab you a bowl.”

Pivoting around, Dawson walked out of the kitchen without saying a word.

“Or not,” I muttered. Taking a deep breath, I followed him once more. This time he was at the window I’d been at.

Dee was sitting on the stairs, the set of her face weary. It was almost two in the morning. Our eyes met, and I shook my head tiredly at the question in her gaze.

Was he talking?

Dawson’s shoulders rose with a heavy breath. The hum from the TV continued as the three of us stood in sad silence until he turned and headed up the stairs, passing Dee without a word. I heard his bedroom door close.

Maybe he would sleep now

Dee lowered her head, pressing her face into her hands. I walked over to her and sat on the step below her. “This is progress,” I said, almost wanting to laugh. “At least he was out of his bedroom and not in the woods.”

“What was he doing?” Her voice was muffled by her hands.

I glanced up at the stairs. “I don’t know. He went into the kitchen and I thought he was going to eat something, but he didn’t.”

“He ate some turkey yesterday, nothing more than a handful.” She lifted her head, letting her hands fall limp between her knees. “With him barely sleeping, I have no idea how he’s up and walking around.”

“He’s strong.” The words sounded hollow. “He’ll…he’ll get better.”

Dee turned exhausted green eyes to mine. “I know.”

My smile was faint.

Hers was nonexistent as she whispered, “What did they do to him in there, Daemon? What did they do?”

There was no answer, none that I felt comfortable giving Dee, even though she knew everything now. Matthew had filled her in on what was going on with Blake—what he was, and what I had done to change Kat. Then I’d told her the rest, all that I knew about the DOD, and what had really happened on Halloween night. I told her about what Will Michaels had done to Kat and what he’d wanted from me. Dee had been shocked. Obviously. Because that was some legit insanity right there.

With everything in the open, Dee had been angry, but the relief of having Dawson back, having him alive, had left little room for the anger. For now.

Dee was hurt by the fact that I’d kept her in the dark, and she was devastated by the lies that Kat had told. I knew that it would take some time for her to fully get over it, but my sister was like…freaking sunshine at her core. She wouldn’t hold a grudge. Not even if it was a reasonable one.

As I sat beside Dee, both of us quiet in the stairwell, I thought about Adam. Hell. That hit me in the gut. And then I thought about Kat and the wrecked sound of her voice, the marks around her wrists and ankles that hadn’t completely faded yet. That slammed into my chest.

Following Dawson around had left little time for Kat. I knew she was a hundred percent understanding of that, but it still sucked not to see her. Being around her…well, it was peace in the midst of a violent storm.

A storm that had us all in a holding pattern, waiting for the DOD to spring on us.

Dee and I returned to bed, and I fell asleep around four and woke up no more than two hours later, wide awake and my heart pumping faster than normal. I stared at the ceiling for a moment, confused, and then I launched out the bed.

Kat.

Opal

Book 3 of the Lux series, as told from Daemon’s point of view.

Chapter 1

Shoeless and shirtless, I raced downstairs and out of the house, into the heavily falling white stuff. Snowed in at Winchester, Kat’s mom wasn’t home, but as I slipped inside, I immediately sensed another presence in the house.

Dawson.

What in the holy hell? He was here? I wasn’t exactly surprised as I climbed the steps. I mean, yeah, him here with Kat at six in the morning was freaking weird, but Dawson…he was freaking weird right now.

I walked to Kat’s bedroom. The door was open. Dawson was standing by the window overlooking the front yard, and Kat was in bed looking…hell, looking like I needed to be in there with her.

God, I missed her.

Her gaze roamed over my face and then dipped south before returning north. Her cheeks were slightly flushed.

“Are we having a slumber party?” I asked. “And I’m not invited?”

Dawson shuffled past me and out of the room. A few seconds later, the front door closed. I sighed. “Okay. That’s been my life for the last couple of days.”

Sympathy poured into Kat’s expression. “I’m sorry.”

Hearing the raspy quality in those two words made me want to punch something as I walked over to the bed. “Do I even want to know why my brother was in your bedroom?”

“He couldn’t sleep.” Kat paused as I bent down and tugged the covers. Kat grabbed the sheet, but when I tugged again, she let go. “He said it was bothering you guys,” she added.

I slipped under the covers, easing onto my side so I was facing her. “He’s not bothering us.”

A look of doubt crossed her beautiful face, and then she shifted onto her side. “I know.” Her soft gaze was on the move again, and I wished she’d get those hands involved. “He said I remind him of Beth.”

What in the hell yet again? I frowned.

“Not in the way you’re thinking.” Kat rolled her eyes.

“Honestly, as much as I love my brother, I’m not sure how I feel about him hanging out in your bedroom.” I reached over and brushed a few strands of her hair back behind her ear. She shivered at the slight touch, and I smiled. “I feel like I need to mark my territory.”

“Shut up.”

“Oh, I love it when you get all bossy pants. It’s sexy.”

“You’re incorrigible,” she said, grinning.

I inched closer, pressing my thigh against hers. “I’m glad your mom is snowed in elsewhere.”

She arched a brow. “Why?”

I raised a shoulder. “I doubt she’d be cool with this right now.”

“Oh, she wouldn’t.”

Shifting until there was barely an inch separating us, I let the peachy-vanilla scent that was all her surround me. “Has your mom said anything about Will?”

Unease crept across her expression, tipping the corners of her lips down. “Just what she said last week, that he was going out of town for a couple weeks on some kind of conference and visiting family, which we both know is a lie.”

Freaking manipulative asshole. “He obviously planned ahead so no one would question his absence.”

Her lashes lowered. “Do you think he’ll come back?”

I ran my knuckles down her silky soft cheek. “He’d be crazy.” But Will Michaels was already proven to be crazy.

Kat opened her eyes. “About Dawson…”

Pressure clamped and settled on my chest as I drew the back of my hand down her throat. “I don’t know what to do.”

Her breath caught.

My hand drifted over her shoulder, then down her arm, under the covers. “He won’t talk to me, and he barely talks to Dee. Most of the time, he’s locked up in his bedroom or out wandering the woods. I follow him, and he knows, but he…”

“He needs time, right?” She kissed the tip of my nose. “He’s been through a lot, Daemon.”

I smoothed my hand to her hip. “I know. Anyway…” Lying in bed with Kat, I didn’t want to focus on anything but her. Not now. We had a few precious moments when it was just her and me, and nothing else. I shifted toward Kat, rolling her onto her back. My hands were braced on either side of her head, holding my weight off her as I hovered above. “I’ve been remiss in my duties.”

Kat’s stormy gray eyes softened.

“I haven’t spent a lot of time with you.” I kissed her right temple and then her left. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about you.”

Her hands settled on my upper arms. “I know you’ve been occupied.”

I traced a path with my lips over the arch of her brow. “Do you?”

She nodded.

Moving my weight to my right arm, I lifted my other hand and cupped her chin, tilting her head back. Our eyes met. “How are you dealing?”

“I’m dealing,” she said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

I swept my thumb under her full bottom lip. “Your voice…”

She cleared her throat with a wince. “It’s getting much better.”

It really wasn’t getting better. I moved my thumb to her jaw and chased the stubborn line. “Not enough, but it’s growing on me.”

Kat smiled, catching my heart. “It is?”

I nodded and then kissed her sweetly, a soft taste of what I wanted. “It’s kind of sexy.” Then again, I found everything about her sexy. I kissed her again, this time deeper. The tip of my tongue teased the seam of her lush mouth. “The whole raspy thing, but I wish—”

“Don’t.” She clasped my cheeks. “I’m okay. And we have enough things to worry about than my vocal cords. In the big scheme of things, that’s nowhere near the top of the list.”

I arched a brow.

Kat giggled and then sobered. “I have missed you.”

“I know. You can’t live without me.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Just admit it.”

“There you go. That ego of yours getting in the way,” she teased.

I kissed just below her jaw. “Of what?”

“The perfect package.”

I snorted. “Let me tell you, I have the perfect—”

“Don’t be gross.” She shivered, though, and I chuckled, having a feeling she really wanted to know about my “perfect package,” and I had no problem going there with her.

I slid my hand off her hip to her thigh. Hooking her leg around my hip, I loved the soft catch in her breath. “You have such a dirty mind,” I teased her. “I was going to say I’m perfect in all the ways that count.”

Laughing, she looped her arms around my neck. “Sure you were. Completely innocent, you are.”

“Oh, I’ve never claimed to be that nice.” Lowering my hips to hers, I swallowed a rough groan as she inhaled sharply. “I’m more—”

“Naughty?” Kat pressed her face into my neck, her chest rising against mine. “Yeah, I know, but you’re nice under the naughty. That’s why I love you.”

I love you.

No way would I ever grow tired of hearing those three words. They made me shudder. Made me want to gather her up and keep her safe. Made me want to be a better…being for her. Rolling onto my side, I folded my arm around her waist and held her tight to me.

She wiggled, lifting her head. Her concerned gaze met mine. “Daemon?”

“It’s okay.” My voice was thick with unspoken emotion. I kissed her forehead. What I should be doing was figuring out where Dawson had roamed off to. If he’d gone out into the woods or back to the house, but that’s not want I wanted to do. I wanted this with Kat. “I’m okay. It’s…early still. No school or mom coming home, yelling your full name. Just for a little while we can pretend that crazy doesn’t wait for us. We can sleep in, like normal teenagers.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“Me, too.”

“Me three,” she murmured, snuggling against me until the front of her body was plastered to mine, and I really liked that. I could feel our hearts beating in perfect tandem.

Sleeping like this would be heaven. I drew my hand down her spine and her back bowed slightly, pushing her body into mine, and I really, really liked that. Maybe sleeping was the wrong idea. Maybe we could—

The window across from her bed blew open as a large body, mixed with snow, crashed onto the floor, sending piles of snow and shards of glass into the air.

Kat’s startled scream echoed in my ears as I shot off the bed, switching into my Luxen form. My light chased away the lingering darkness in the room as I stepped around her bed.

Holy crap.

Kat scrambled to the edge of the bed and peered down, “Holy crap.”

A body—a man dressed all in white—was on the floor, obviously dead. Like so dead.

Chapter 2

The dead man had to be with the DOD. Otherwise I wouldn’t have any clue as to why someone would be dressed so they’d blend in with the snow.

Hell.

Blood pooled under the man’s head, an injury that happened either before he’d come through the window or during it. The charred spot in the center of the man’s still chest suggested that he didn’t simply fall out of the sky and then through the window.

Freaking hell.

Kat’s heart pounded like a steel drum. “Daemon…?”

She was seeing this, and she should never see this. Spinning around, I slipped back into my human form. I folded my arm around her waist, pulling her away from the edge of the bed.

“He’s an officer,” she stuttered, smacking at my arms to get free. “He’s with the—”

Her words were cut off as Dawson appeared in the bedroom doorway. His eyes glowed white, sharp and brilliant. “He was sneaking around outside,” he said. “By the tree line.”

My arm loosened around Kat’s waist as I stared at my brother. I was shocked on two fronts. He’d done this? And this was the most I’d heard him say since he was returned to us. “You…you did this?” I asked.

Dawson glanced at the body. “He was watching the house—taking pictures.” Lifting his hand, he held up what looked like a melted camera. “I stopped him.”

Holy hell balls, what did I say to that?

Letting Kat go, I turned back to the body. I knelt and pulled down the insulated white down jacket. The stench of burned flesh wafted into the air, forcing Kat to scramble off the bed. I looked over my shoulder, seeing her press her balled fist against her mouth.

I turned back to the man. A hole had been burned through his chest. Normally the Source would incinerate a human, not do this. “Your aim is off, brother.” I let go of the jacket. Tension poured into my muscles. “The window?”

“I’ve been out of practice,” Dawson replied.

Out of practice? That was like saying sometimes thunder was loud. No shit.

“My mom’s gonna kill me,” Kat mumbled. “She’s really going to kill me.”

Pushing to my feet, I turned to my brother. For the first time, I didn’t really recognize him. Unease festered in my gut like gangrene. Dawson hadn’t just stopped the man. He’d killed him, and there wasn’t a flicker of remorse on his impassive expression. He actually…he reminded me of myself, and that wasn’t Dawson.

Dawson didn’t kill.

Deep in the woods, I stood next to Matthew as we both watched the intense white light fade. The snow was melted, revealing the scorched ground where we’d dropped the body of the DOD officer. Nothing but wet clumps of ash remained.

I exhaled slowly, lifting my gaze to the snow-tipped branches. “Dawson isn’t…he isn’t the same, Matt.”

The older Luxen was quiet for a moment. “Did you really expect him to be? The DOD had him for far too long for there not to be long-lasting effects.” He lifted his hand, shoving his fingers through his light brown hair. “But this? Dawson would never have…”

“Killed.” I stepped back from the spot, watching the wind toss the ashes into the blowing snow. “The DOD was watching us—still could be watching us, and now he’s killed one of them.”

“You’ve killed three of them,” Matthew pointed out.

“True.” And it sucked to have ended their lives. It still got to me, but if I had to do it all over again, I would. I looked over at Matthew. “There is no way they do not know that Dawson is free and with us. Even if they have no use of him anymore, how could they be okay with that? There is no way they don’t realize that we know they’ve been capturing Luxen who’ve mutated humans. Why are they not banging down our doors and coming for us? It doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t.” He turned sideways, facing me. “We have to be careful from this point on. More than ever before.”

“They don’t have the upper hand anymore,” I said, squinting as the wind picked up again, pelting snow. “We know what they’re up to. We have that.”

“We do.”

We headed back to Kat’s house. Everyone was there—Dee along with Andrew and Ash. Their being inside her house had to be hard. When I walked in, both of them were staring at the spot where Adam had fallen.

Dawson was by the window, where the Christmas tree used to be, staring out of it. He shoved his hands into his pockets and pressed his forehead against the glass. Lost. He looked lost, and hell, it killed me that there was nothing I could do to change that. Dee was perched on the arm of the couch, her watchful gaze never leaving Dawson.

We took care of the broken window upstairs. Matthew had brought the necessary items with him—a tarp, a hammer, and nails. It wasn’t the best replacement, but it was the only option at the moment.

Back downstairs, I went to where Kat sat. She scooted closer to me, nestling into my side as I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. She shivered even though she hadn’t been out in the cold. Reaching over with my other hand, I tugged on the strings of her hoodie. “It’s been taken care of.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, resting her head against my shoulder.

My gaze slid to Dawson. “Did anyone find a vehicle?”

“There was an Expedition near the access road,” Andrew said. “I torched it.”

Matthew sat on the edge of the recliner, looking like he needed something hard to drink. “That’s good, but it’s not good.”

“No shit,” Ash snapped. I looked at her, really looked at her. Her hair was greasy and hung limp around her pale face. She was in sweats, and I had never seen Ash look anything short of perfect. Or in anything other than short skirts or skintight jeans. “That’s another dead DOD officer. How many does that make it? Two?”

Apparently she hadn’t heard about the other two.

Ash tucked her hair back behind her ear. “They’re going to wonder where they are, you know? People don’t disappear.”

“People disappear all the time,” Dawson said quietly, without turning around, his words sucking the oxygen from the air, because he was right.

Ash’s bright sapphire eyes slid to him. Her mouth opened, but she clamped her lips shut and then shook her head slowly.

“What about the camera?” Matthew asked.

Kat leaned forward, picking up the melted camera. “If there were pictures, they’re gone now.”

Dawson turned around. “He was watching this house.”

“We know,” I said, shifting forward so I was in line with Kat.

He tilted his head to the side. “Does it matter what was on the camera? They were watching you—her. All of us.”

Kat shuddered.

“But next time, we need to kind of…oh, I don’t know, talk first and then throw people through windows later.” I crossed my arms. “Can we try that?”

“And we can just let killers go?” Dee said, voice shaking as her eyes flashed with fury. “Because that’s apparently what should happen. I mean, that officer could’ve killed one of us, and you would have just let him go.”

“Dee,” I said, standing and stepping toward her. “I know—”

“Don’t ‘I know, Dee’ me.” Her lower lip trembled. “You let Blake go.” Her gaze shot to Kat. “Both of you let Blake go.”

I shook my head as I unfolded my arms. “Dee, there was enough killing that night. Enough death.”

Dee flinched. Without speaking, she wrapped her arms around her waist. It was Ash who spoke, and what she said surprised the hell out of me. “Adam wouldn’t have wanted that. More deaths. He was such a pacifist.”

“Too bad we can’t ask him how he really feels about it, isn’t it?” Dee’s spine stiffened. “He’s dead.”

“Not only did you guys let Blake go, you lied to us. From her?” Andrew gestured at Kat. “I don’t expect loyalty. But you? Daemon, you kept everything from us, and Adam died.”

Kat stood. “Adam’s death isn’t Daemon’s fault. Don’t put that on him.”

I stilled. “Kat—”

“Then whose is it?” Dee demanded. “Yours?”

She sucked in a sharp breath, but met my sister’s gaze. “Yeah, it is.”

Shit.

Matthew jumped in. “All right, guys, that’s enough. Fighting and casting blame isn’t helping anyone.”

“It makes us feel better,” Ash muttered, closing her eyes.

Kat lowered her chin as she sat back down, this time on the edge of the coffee table. She blinked rapidly as she folded her hands over her knees, squeezing so tightly that her knuckles bleached white.

“Right now, we need to get along,” Matthew went on. “All of us.”

No one spoke, and I thought the likelihood of everyone getting along was somewhere between not going to happen and hell no.

Then Dawson spoke. “I’m going after Beth.”

All of us turned to him, everyone struck silent, and then voices rose. Only Kat remained quiet as she stared at him. I spoke up, moving toward him. “Absolutely not, Dawson—no way.”

“It’s too dangerous.” Dee was standing, too, her hands clasped together as if she were pleading with him. “You’ll get captured, and I won’t survive that. Not again.”

Dawson’s lips tipped up a little at the corners. “I have to get her back. Sorry.”

“He’s insane,” Ash whispered, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Freaking insane.”

My brother shrugged as Matthew leaned forward. “Dawson, I know, we all know, that Beth means a lot to you, but there’s no way you can get her. Not until we know what we’re dealing with.”

Raw anger flashed in Dawson’s eyes, turning them forest green, and it was the first show of emotion I’d seen from him, and it was hot, powerful anger. “I know what I’m dealing with. And I know what they are doing to her.”

I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. Prowling forward, I stopped in front of my brother, prepared to keep him standing there forever if need be. “I cannot allow you to do that. I know you don’t want to hear that, but no way.”

Dawson didn’t back down. “You don’t have a say over it. You never did.”

“I’m not trying to control you, Dawson. It’s never been about that, but you just got back from hell. We just got you back.”

“I’m still in hell,” he replied, his eyes meeting mine. There. I almost saw a part of my brother in his stare, the one who left to go to the movies and never returned. “And if you get in my way, I will drag you down with me.”

And that small fragment of Dawson was gone.

“Dawson…”

A wind blew through the living room, fluffing the curtains and flipping the pages of all of the books and magazines in the room. Kat was suddenly standing next to me, her small hand on my arm.

“All right,” she said. “The alien testosterone right now is a little too much, and I really don’t want to have an alien brawl in my house on top of the broken window and the dead body that came through it. But if you two don’t knock it off, I’ll kick both of your asses.”

I looked at her, my brows raised, and I wasn’t the only one staring at her.

“What?” Her cheeks flushed pink.

A wry smiled tugged at the corners of my lips. “Simmer down, Kitten, before I have to get you a ball of yarn to play with.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t start with me, jerk-face.”

I smirked and then focused on my brother. My chest lurched. There was another emotion playing across his mouth. Amusement. He watched Kat with a look of amusement, and damn… A knot formed in the back of my throat.

Dawson’s gaze moved from her to me, and his expression went blank, eyes shuttered. He was as impenetrable as thick glacial ice. He turned and stalked out of the room. The door slammed shut behind him.

And I knew in that moment that Dawson hadn’t just changed. He’d become…he’d become me, and like me, he would do anything to get Bethany back.

He would risk all of us.

Dawson was currently upstairs, sequestered in his bedroom by his own doing. At least he wasn’t out roaming around in the cold, so that was good news, right?

Hell. You knew shit was bad when that was considered good news.

Appetite slaughtered, I pushed the rest of my turkey sandwich and the plate away from me.

Dee had barely touched her sandwich, and I knew without even going upstairs and checking that the food for Dawson was still where I’d left it, sitting on the desk in his bedroom.

Sitting back from the table, Dee lifted her gaze to mine. “Kat…she tried to talk to me when I left her house earlier.”

My gut fisted.

“I’m not ready to go there with her,” she continued as she picked at the edge of her sandwich. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to do it.”

“You will be.”

Dee shook her head slowly. “I don’t know, Daemon.”

I sat forward, resting my elbows on the table. “You’ve forgiven me, haven’t you?”

Anger tightened the lines around her mouth, and I thought that might not have been a wise statement. “I haven’t really forgiven you. Let’s be clear about that. You lied to me, and you let Blake go.”

So not touching the whole Blake issue right now. “But you’re talking to me.”

“You’re my brother. I have to talk to you.” Her eyes rolled as she crossed her arms. “And you didn’t kill Adam.”

“Neither did Kat.”

Her lips thinned. “If she had been—”

“Kat never wanted that to happen, and you know that, Dee. You think she doesn’t feel guilty about what happened?” Bitter anger turned the turkey sour. “You think it’s not eating away at her? She didn’t tell you the truth because she didn’t want you to be involved, and she tried to get you two to leave her house. Both of you made that choice to go in there, and you know if Adam was here today, he would do the same thing again.” I paused as Dee looked away. “And so would you.”

Pushing away from the chair, I stood and grabbed our plates. “Right now, we all need to be unified. We need to stick together, because we have no idea what is going to happen next, but we know something is.”

I dumped the leftovers in the trash and then stalked out of the room, stopping just outside the doorway. “I’ll be back later.”

In other words, don’t leave. Keep an eye on Dawson.

Heading outside in the frosty, snow-scented air, because I needed to patrol, my senses sharpened when I felt the warm tingle along the back of my neck. I looked next door and stopped moving. Maybe even stopped breathing a little.

There was a snowman in front of Kat’s house, a lopsided snowman with no arms or face that hadn’t been there when I’d left earlier. Beside it, Kat sat in the snow, her back to my house.

A small smile pulled at my lips as the anger eased away. Mindful of the huge icicles hanging off the roof of the porch, I walked down the steps and over to her, my footfalls cushioned by the thick layers of snow. Kat appeared unaware of me, which was pretty amazing considering the bond between us.

“Kitten, what are you doing?”

She jumped a little and then twisted around. “I was making a snowman.”

I glanced at it. “I see. It’s missing some stuff.”

“Yeah,” she said morosely.

The small smile faded. “That doesn’t tell me why you’re sitting in the snow. Your jeans have to be soaked.” I thought about that for a moment, and then I grinned. “Wait. That means I’d probably get a better look at your butt then.”

Kat laughed.

Loving the sound of it, I dropped down into the snow beside her, crossing my legs. A few moments of silence passed between us and then I leaned over, knocking my shoulder against hers. “What are you really doing out here?”

“What’s going on with Dawson? Has he run off yet?”

Her avoiding my questions was as subtle as a dump truck at six in the morning, but I let it go. For now. “Not yet, because I followed him around today like a babysitter. I’m thinking about putting a bell on him.”

She laughed softly. “I doubt he’ll appreciate that.”

“I don’t care.” A little bit of anger seeped into my tone. “Running off after Beth isn’t going to end well. We all know that.”

“Daemon, do you…”

I waited. “What?”

“Why haven’t they come after Dawson? They have to know he’s here. It would be the first place he’d come back to if he had escaped. And they’ve obviously been watching.” She gestured back at my house. “Why haven’t they come for him? For us?”

I stared at the lopsided, incomplete snowman. “I don’t know. Well, I have my suspicions.”

“What are they?”

“You really want to hear them?

Kat nodded.

“I think they were aware of Will’s plans, knew he was going to arrange for Dawson to be released.” I paused, giving voice to my thoughts. “And they let it happen.”

She drew in a shallow breath as she picked up a handful of snow. “That’s what I think.”

I looked over at her. “But the big question is why.”

“It can’t be good.” She let the snow sift through her gloved fingers. “It’s a trap. Has to be.”

“We’ll be ready,” I said, because there couldn’t be any other option. “Don’t worry, Kat.”

“I’m not worried,” she replied, and we both knew that wasn’t true. “We need to stay ahead of them somehow.”

“True.” I stretched out my legs, ignoring the cold, wet bite of snow. “You know how we stay under the humans’ radar?”

“By pissing them off and alienating yourselves?” She gave me a cheeky grin.

“Ha. Ha. No. We pretend. We constantly pretend like we’re not different, that nothing’s happening.”