And deep down, in spite of the instincts that had been gnawing at him relentlessly the past couple of days, he was hoping like hell that none of those trails led to Kaya.
After the ceremony celebrating Dmitri, Kaya had gone up to the mansion with the other women to enjoy the small feast they had prepared. Aric had been looking for the chance to get Kaya alone for a few minutes after the ceremony, but she seemed more than eager to get away from him once the sanctuary had cleared out.
So instead of chipping away at the wall of unanswered questions and increasingly troubling suspicions that stood between them, he was cooling his heels across the table from Lucan and his father on the verge of crawling out of his own skin.
Finally, he couldn’t take it.
Offering a lame excuse, he ducked out of the meeting and beelined for the mansion and the sounds of women’s laughter and conversation in the kitchen. He had let Kaya stonewall and evade him long enough.
He loved her, and if telling her that wasn’t enough to loosen the knots in her tongue, then he needed to know now.
If she wasn’t going to be totally honest with him--open to him in every way--then he needed to hear her say the words to his face. Then maybe he could get back to the business of living his life without her.
And if it turned out that she actually loved him, then by God he needed to hear that too.
He stalked through the kitchen entry like he was heading to war. “Kaya.”
All the conversation ceased. Seven beautiful female faces swiveled in his direction, not one of them hers.
He frowned. “Where’s Kaya?”
“Probably in her quarters,” his mother replied.
Mira nodded. “She said she was tired and wanted to rest for a while.”
Carys arched a brow at him, grinning. “You shouldn’t be surprised to hear that, considering you spent most of last night in her room.”
Ordinarily, he might take his twin sister’s bait and come back with a smartass comment of his own. Not now. He was too tense for his own peace of mind and Kaya’s absence pricked his suspicions more than he wanted to acknowledge. “How long?”
“What is it, Aric?” Tavia asked.
“When did she leave?”
The women exchanged uncertain looks. “About twenty minutes ago,” one of them said.
He didn’t know who, and didn’t offer any acknowledgment. His feet were already moving beneath him, heading at almost a run toward the corridor that would take him to her private living suite in the residence.
He rapped on her door. “Kaya?” When no answer came, he knocked again. Then tried the knob and found it locked. “Damn it.” He didn’t like the idea of intruding on her without permission, but he didn’t like the feeling he was getting about her absence even more. Exhaling a curse, he freed the lock with his mind and opened the door. “Kaya? Are you here?”
Utter silence. Her quarters were empty.
She was gone.
“Fuck. Damn you, Kaya.”
He knew by the cold understanding in his veins that he wasn’t going to find her anywhere in the command center. She had left base without telling anyone. That knowledge settled over him like a shroud.
In an instant, he was on the sunlit pavement outside the command center, flashing there with all the Breed velocity he possessed. He didn’t know where she might have gone. Or, rather, he didn’t want to think that he knew.
It took him only minutes to cross the city into Dorval.
To his relief, the ramshackle house down at the river that had been Angus Mackie’s most recent address was still vacant. All the rats had fled that ship the night of the Order’s raid and had evidently not returned.
Aric sped to the bar and found much the same situation. Empty building. No sign of the gang leader with the black scarab tattoo or any of his faithful followers. He came out of the tavern and raked a hand over his head, his heart rate finally decelerating now that all of his hunches seemed to have been wrong.
And thank fuck for that.
Some of the fury and dread that drove him down to this shitty neck of the woods began to ebb. At least it did until he glanced down the street and a glimpse of long dark hair and endless legs poured into dark denim caught his eye.
Kaya came out of a grimy auto garage with a grease-covered skinhead she appeared to know. No mistaking the piece of human garbage for anything other than one of Angus’s ilk. Kaya’s hand was locked on the man’s forearm as she spoke to him. She took some cash out of her pocket and gave it to him. Then she got into a piece of shit sedan parked at the curb and drove off.
Aric could hardly control his rage.
He wanted to wring answers out of the human with his bare hands, but Kaya was the only one who could tell him what he really needed to know.
His body vibrated with menace as he gathered the shadows around himself and followed her up the street. The instant she stopped at a traffic light, he tore open the passenger door and dropped into the seat beside her.
“I call shotgun.”
Her head swiveled toward him on a choked gasp. “Aric! What are you--”
“What am I doing here?” he finished for her, fury stripping his voice to its barest growl. “That’s exactly what I came here to ask you, Kaya. What the hell are you doing down here alone on Big Mack’s turf?”
Her brown eyes were bleak. “It’s not what you think.”
“Really?” He scoffed. “That’s good. That’s one huge goddamned fucking relief, Kaya. Because what I think is that you just crept away from base in broad daylight to meet up with one of the Order’s enemies. What I think is that the heat is getting a little too intense back and the command
