If it didn't give him any insight into Skeeter's recent activities or his apparent newfound business associates, then Zach would pawn the damned thing next time he went to Fairbanks to pick up new product from his connections in the city. Skeeter Arnold owed him, and one way or another, Zach intended to collect what he was due.
Chapter Twenty
Alex sat on the sofa in her living room, sharing a piece of buttered toast with Luna, both of them watching Kade walk a repeated track from the kitchen and down the hallway as he spoke on satellite phone to Boston.
In the time since they'd been back to her house, he'd brought her up to speed on a few more things about himself and the work he'd been sent to do in Alaska. Her mind was still reeling over the fact that he wasn't precisely human. Now she understood that he was also part of a group of Breed males pledged to maintain peace between their race and humankind. From the way he described it, the Order sounded almost military, which made some kind of sense to her when she looked at Kade and observed his dark combination of lethal strength and laser-sharp confidence.
And despite the danger that rolled off him in waves, especially what she'd witnessed today, Kade was gentle with her, protective. As shaken as she was by all she had seen and heard in the past few hours--the past few days--she felt secure with him.
Even when he'd gone on to explain the worst of the threats that faced him and the warriors of the Order.
He had told her about the enemy the Order was doggedly pursuing and committed to destroying, a second-generation Breed male called Dragos. Alex had listened in quiet but horrified comprehension as Kade had described the many evils Dragos had perpetrated, not the least of which being the mass abduction and abuse of an unknown number of women like her--Breedmates, tracked down and collected over a period of decades to be used as vessels for the personal army of assassins Dragos had bred. What truly gave her pause, and what made her blood run cold in her veins, was one final truth that Kade revealed to her tonight. The fact that a creature not of this world--a creature far worse than the bloodaddicted Rogues who'd killed her mom and Richie--was somehow loose in the Alaskan interior. Even Kade was grim when he spoke of the Ancient to his friends at the Order's Boston compound, describing to them the damaged freight container and the presence of vampires and Minion workers at the old mining company location. Although he kept his voice low, it was impossible for Alex to miss the fact that he and his brethren were preparing for battle against the new threat.
The thought of Kade walking into harm's way made her breath come a little shorter, her heart beat a bit heavier. She couldn't bear it if something happened to him. Not after the time they'd shared, an incredibly short time, in which he was somehow becoming an inextricable part of her life. In just a couple of days, he had become her friend and her lover, her confidant. Somehow he was coming to mean something even more than all of that.
Could she possibly be falling in love with him?
Falling in love ... with a vampire.
No, he wasn't that.
Kade was Breed, and that was different. He was different. It was hard for her to reconcile that he was cut from the same fabric as the monsters that had attacked her family. Hard for her to believe that somewhere in his DNA, he carried the genes of something completely inhuman, unfathomably lethal. Something not of this Earth. It was hard for her to reconcile that the strong, proud, devastatingly sexy man prowling her modest little house was actually not a man at all, but something different. Something so much more.
Alex watched him in fascination, all the more so for what she'd seen him do outside the mining company grounds with the wolf. In an instant, he'd become part of the beautiful animal, connecting on some unspoken level that had left Alex gaping at him in awe. Even now, she marveled, feeling the current of wildness, of dark, commanding power, lingering in him still. He was intense and mysterious, strong and seductive. And yes, hot as hell.
Everything about Kade captivated her.
She merely had to look at him and she burned.
And he knew it, too. She saw the spark of awareness light the silver of his eyes as he wrapped up his call and set the phone down on the end table next to the sofa.
"How are you holding up?" he asked, seating himself beside her. "You must be exhausted. I know this is a lot to handle."
She gave a vague shrug. "My head's still spinning, but at least I have answers now. The things that never made sense to me before are clearer. Not exactly reason to jump up and cheer, but it's good to finally have the truth, however terrifying it might be. So, thank you for that, Kade." He took her hand in his, their palms pressed together lightly as he ran his thumb over the thin skin of her wrist. His touch was warm, soothing. Achingly tender. "God, I hate that you've been dragged into this. There are places that you can go where you'll be safe, Alex. The Breed has numerous Darkhavens that would take you in--secure communities where you would be welcomed and protected. Better than what I can do for you now. After seeing what we did out at the mine, this has all gotten too real. Too dangerous--"
"I'm not going anywhere," she said, curling her fingers around his and holding his grave gaze. "I'm not going to run. Don't ask me to, Kade."
His jaw went tight as he stared at her. His dark brows lowered over his eyes, mouth going flat as he grimly shook his head. "This is my battle. The Order's battle. Tomorrow some of the warriors will arrive from Boston. I'll be meeting up with them when they get in, and from there we'll launch an offensive strike on Dragos's operations at the mine. We don't know what we're going to find. I just know that I want you as far away from this mission--and any possible fallout--as you can get." He reached up and smoothed his fingers lightly over her cheek. "That also means getting you as far away from me as possible, before I put you any further at risk."
"No." Alex turned her face, pressing her mouth to the warm heat of his palm where it rested against her. She kissed the heart of his large hand. "I can't hide anymore, Kade. I don't want to live like that, always looking over my shoulder, afraid of the things I don't understand. You can't ask me to, not when meeting you has given me the strength to believe that I can face my fears. Meeting you has given me the strength to understand that I must face them."
He cursed harshly, but his caress was soft, his gaze penetrating, the pale silver color that ringed his pupils dark with desire. "You give me too much credit. You were stronger than you realized, to have gone through what you did as a child and not let it destroy you. Not many could. That's courage, Alex. You didn't need me for that. You still don't."
She smiled, reaching out to hold his face in her hands as she kissed him. "I do need you," she whispered against his mouth. "What's more, I want you, Kade."
His breath rasped out of him on a sigh as she slanted her lips over his again and moved closer to him on the sofa. His arms went around her, holding her in a loose cage as she climbed up onto his lap and pushed her tongue into his mouth.
He groaned, caught her tongue with his teeth ... then abruptly broke contact and turned his head away from her.
"What's wrong? Why did you stop?" She panted the words, her lips and tongue stinging with a delicious heat. She tasted blood, only the smallest trace, but instinct brought her hand up to her mouth and the tip of her finger came away wet with a scarlet stain.
She glanced at Kade's downcast face and felt his torment in the way his big body vibrated with barely leashed control, as though he were waging a private war inside himself.
leashed control, as though he were waging a private war inside himself.
"Look at me," she whispered. When he didn't immediately comply, she lifted his stubborn chin and physically brought his gaze back to hers. "Look at me ... let me see you."
"Trust me, you will not want to," he muttered, glancing away quickly. But not before she noticed the change that had come over his eyes. He hadn't been able to turn quite fast enough to hide the fact that their normally pale gray color was now shot with fiery amber. And his pupils ... something was different about them, too.