Bound to Shadows

smile grew. My stomach twisted at the beauty of it. 'You've bugged me, haven't you?'

'I'm hardly likely to confirm or deny that.'

'Meaning you have. You're good, because I never even suspected.'

Neither had I when he'd tagged me with that deadener, so I guess that made us even.

'Why did you do it, Kye? Why take the job from Starke—or whatever the hell his real name was—when you knew it was only going to bring you up against me?'

His smile was lazy and insolent, and so damn sexy my breath caught in my throat. 'You said it yourself a million times—I go where the money is, and Nasser offered a lot to take his photos and guard his back while he killed. Besides, I would not have had this opportunity to enjoy time with my oh-so-loving soul mate if I had walked away.'

I ignored the sarcasm in his words and said, 'So why didn't you run when you had the chance? What is it you want? Because you've left me with no option but to bring you in.'

'You know what I want.'

'I haven't got a fucking clue what you want. I never have.' But I did, and it scared the hell out of me.

'Odd, because you actually hit the nail on the head several days ago.'

'I've said a lot of things over the past few days.' And some of them I'd even meant. 'And you've said even more—none of which I've believed. So what is it now, Kye?'

'It's the same thing I've always wanted.' His gaze darkened. 'I want you. You. Heart, body, and soul. Not for one night, not for pretend, but for real.'

'And the answer is the same one I've continually given you. You have my soul, you can have my body, but you will never have my heart. Never.'

'I don't accept that.'

Because his need to control his environment wouldn't accept anything less than the whole. 'That's your problem, not mine.'

Anger flared in his eyes. Anger and determination. My stomach twisted and I flexed my free hand, trying to calm the tension. But that was an impossible task.

Because the confrontation I'd feared was coming.

'Kye,' I added softly, 'Put down your weapon and come down off the walkway.'

'You know I can't do that.'

'There's a kill order out on your head if you don't come in with me.'

'And if I come in with you, I'll still be killed.'

'No. Jack knows you're my soul mate, and he won't risk losing me to kill you.'

'If you truly think that, then you are the biggest fool on this green earth.' He shook his head, as if in disbelief. Sunlight caught strands of his dark red hair, turning them a rich, molten gold. Deep inside, part of me raged— against fate, against what was going to happen, at the ashes that my long held dreams were rapidly becoming. 'He's a vampire, Riley. He may run the Directorate in a fair and even way, but his true allegiance will always be with the council—one of whom is his sister. And they want me dead.'

'You're wrong.'

'I'm very rarely wrong, Riley.' His brief smile was so sad and gentle it made my soul ache. 'I guess that leaves us with only one option.'

Something inside me clenched, and for a moment I had trouble breathing, let alone thinking. 'That's not an option,' I somehow managed. 'That's suicide.'

'It's only suicide if I lose.'

Don't do this, I wanted to plead. Don't destroy us.

But there really wasn't an 'us' to destroy. Just two people fate should never have thrown together.

'How should we play it, Riley?' he continued softly. There was an odd light in his eyes—a joyous light. A maniacal light. 'As an old fashioned stand and shoot, or shall we play cat-and-mouse in this big old mousetrap?'

Trap being the operative word, given what Kade had told me. 'There isn't an option number three?'

'No,' he said, then raised the gun, the movement so fast it was almost a blur.

I dove to my right, throwing myself behind a machine, landing on all fours and crushing the fingers on the hand that held the gun. I swore, but the words were lost to the sound of his gunshot. It pinged off the top of the metal above my head, sending sparks flying into the shadows.

'You're as fast as any vampire I've come across,' he said, his voice coming from my right. I raised the gun but didn't fire, simply because he was on the move.

'That's because I am part vampire.' I was answering more to let Kade know I was okay rather than any real desire to speak to the man who was trying to kill me. 'And that's also the reason you can never have what you want, Kye.'

I shifted position, keeping the machine at my back as I scanned the walkway above me. A shadow flicked between one office and another, and I pressed the trigger. The shot reverberated and my heart froze, waiting for that moment of soul-death that would indicate I'd aimed accurately.

It didn't come, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief.

God help me, I didn't want to do this. Didn't want to kill my soul mate no matter how intent he was on killing me. No matter what Dia had said, no matter what Kye himself had said, I just didn't want to do it.

'If what you have with the vampire was truly strong, you would not have kept coming back to me,' he said. His voice was coming from the shadows just to the left of the doorway. I raised the gun, my mouth so dry it hurt, and fired.

I waited, for what seemed an eternity, as the bullet sped across the distance between us and blasted its way through the wall.

And heaved another sigh of relief when there was no indication that I'd hit anything, let alone flesh.

I ran across to the next machine, hunkering under its protecting weight. Though I could feel his presence in the room, I had no real grip on his actual position. It was as if the deadener he was wearing was somehow blocking my more basic senses as well as the psychic and electronic ones.

I flicked to infrared, quickly scanning the upper floor. There was no telltale blurs of red, but that could just mean he was hiding behind the thick patches of darkness that my infrared couldn't see past.

'What I have with my vampire satisfies one half of my soul, but I am a being with two very different souls, Kye.' Even if I'd spent most of my life denying that the vampire half of me had needs every bit as strong as the wolf. 'I might not be able to deny the pull of the soul mate bond, but that doesn't mean it's all I want in my life.'

Even if I'd spent most of my life wanting that very thing.

I slipped through the small gap between the floor and the machine and came out the other side, moving quietly across to another machine.

I still had no sense of him. The air was rich with the scent of machine oil, dust and metal, but remained steadfastly free of the man who prowled above me. Unless he spoke, I had no idea where he was, and that was scary. I relied so heavily on my senses in situations like this that being without them left me feeling almost helpless.

And I hated that sensation. It reminded me too much of my years of growing up and being thrown from pillar to post by Blake, the man who now led the Jenson pack.

I shook the memories of him from my head, even as I wondered why he was in my thoughts so often of late, and scanned the rooms above me again.

Nothing.

It was so frustrating. I knew he was there somewhere, but I just couldn't—

The thought froze as a prickle of warning ran down my spine. I rose and spun in one swift movement, the gun held at arm's length and my finger on the trigger, close, so close to pulling it.

Kye stood near my original machine, his gun raised, his golden eyes so cold they froze my soul.

I couldn't pull the trigger. I just couldn't.

I didn't want to destroy the dream.

'I think what we have here is commonly called a standoff,' he said, voice calm, expression so cool.

And yet I could feel the heat of him, taste the desire in him. Heard the answering response from deep inside