Caged Read online

  His step faltered for a moment, but he caught himself and matched my pace again. “You know something you haven’t shared with me?”

  “Not a bean, Kyle.” I swiped at a trail of sweat creeping over my temple and tucked it back in.

  “So … what do you know?”

  “Like I said, not a bean. Never met a vampire—never had reason to ask about them.”

  “But …”

  “But nothing.” I shifted to one side of the path to allow a couple of kids past on pushbikes, shrugging a shoulder as I turned to Kyle on the other side. “Just don’t make assumptions about what we don’t know.”

  The two boys cycled like crazy, competing for speed, and reminding me how much I anticipated the arrival of my nephew. I smiled as the thought of teaching a mini-Sean new tricks flashed through my mind.

  “We walking or gawping?”

  My smile remained as I looked back to Kyle and inclined my head. “Walking. I want ice cream.”

  “From where?”

  Our strides hit their rhythm again. “The park. I spotted an ice cream van there when I was looking for you earlier.”

  “Whippy?”

  I caught the expectation in his raised eyebrow. “Of course.”

  “Excellent.” He smiled as we picked up our pace.

  • • •

  Fifteen minutes later, we’d each got a cone. The slight slope to the grass provided adequate seating beneath the trees as our tongues set to work.

  “I’m so freaking hungry,” Kyle mumbled around licks.

  “Hmm-mm.” Another lap of my tongue brought me more vanilla, creamy delight.

  “What time is it, anyway?”

  I folded my lips over the mound of white stuff and drew a layer into my mouth before shrugging.

  Kyle stood, working his phone out. “Four-forty.” His chuckle drew my gaze up, and he circled his lips with his finger. “Got a tosh going on there.”

  A lick solved that.

  “What time we searching ‘til, today?” He deposited his rear back beside mine.

  “Until we drop, probably.” I waved what I had left of my cone at him. “This should keep us going a little longer.”

  “Speak for yourself.” He shovelled in the last of his ice cream and wiped his palms down his thighs. “Which direction now?”

  “Without leaving Witchurch and without the map? Not a clue.” I pushed to my feet and flicked cone crumbs off my lap. “But Dad and Connor have to be heading, or at least circling, back this way, so I say we go north.”

  “You made that decision based on what?”

  I hit the flat grass and strode off. “Absolutely nothing.”

  With a chuckle, Kyle caught up. “I was thinking we should try the shops again. Different time of day means a new wave of shoppers.”

  “Which means more young girls in scraps of clothing. You realise the shops will shut soon, don’t you?”

  “Won’t hurt to check them out, though.” He nudged at my shoulder until I’d altered course to the right. “See? I knew you’d agree.”

  We somehow found our way straight back to High Street by cutting through a gulley and climbing some steps, and we joined the thinning throng of end of day store patrons.

  The first female we encountered received one of Kyle’s ‘special’ smiles. She blushed like crazy, yet she still peered back over her shoulder as she walked away.

  Kyle’s expression shifted from her to me. “If you smiled at them a little more, they’d probably be a little friendlier in return,” he said.

  “I don’t need them to be friendly.”

  When Kyle’s mobile rang in his pocket, he slid it out and stared down at the screen.

  “Who is it?”

  He shrugged. “No idea.”

  The tinkle continued. “You answering that, or what?”

  He hit the button and held it to his ear. “Hello?”

  I stared away whilst listening in, and caught movement in an alley farther down the hill.

  “Oh, hello.” A female voice rolled from Kyle’s phone. “You probably don’t remember, but you gave me your card last night …”

  “I remember.” Kyle’s tone went from guarded to jovial. “Hi.”

  My ears remained on alert for Kyle’s chatter, but my gaze fixed on the long-legged strip of a guy shifting about in the shadows. I took a step away, watching for further evidence as to why I had alarm bells buzzing inside my head.

  “You asked me to call if I remembered anything,” Kyle’s caller said.

  “Does that mean you have?”

  At a tap on my shoulder, I peered behind at Kyle pointing to his phone with enthusiasm painted across his features. I lifted my chin and turned straight back to keep an eye on the dodgy dude that bothered the hell out of me.

  He’d stepped from the alley. Dark eyes stared straight back, no effort made to disguise the fact.

  “I think I do.” The female’s voice didn’t sound one hundred percent certain, in my opinion.

  “Great,” Kyle said.

  Holding the Marmite eyes steady, I tried to take in the rest of the guy’s appearance: jeans, green cotton shirt, tall, but only half my breadth, blond hair that could do with a trim.

  A gentle breeze travelled the incline. I drew it deep into my sinuses. Perfume tainted its freshness, along with subtle cologne, cigarette smoke, lager from the nearby pub, what I suspected remained in the bakery, leather, sweat, amongst a whole heap more, but nothing that told me I should be concerned by my watcher.

  “… chance we could meet up?”

  My ears twitched at Kyle’s request. Where had my thoughts gone that I’d switched off to his planning?

  “Sure,” the female said. “I guess.”

  “Cool. Tonight?”

  If not for the step forward of the male down the street, I’d have turned to ask Kyle what the bloody hell he played at.

  “Um … okay,” she said. “I have a table booked for dinner at six, but I could meet you after that. Unless …” Her blown-out breath arrived heavy down Kyle’s phone line. “Unless you’d like to join me?”

  “For dinner?” Kyle sounded like he thought he’d misheard the offer.

  The guy shifted forward another step. Another. His gaze had yet to leave mine.

  “Sure,” Kyle said into his phone. “Sounds great.”

  I considered approaching, almost made the move to, but he stuck his hands in his pockets, and whirled off down the hill.

  “You know the Blueberry?” the female asked.

  I grabbed Kyle’s shirt sleeve and yanked him along with me as I took off after the male.

  “I, um …”

  As Kyle tapped my shoulder, I tossed, “Never heard of it,” at him before retraining my sights on the pale hair.

  The guy glided as though on ice.

  “It’s a hotel—not far from where we met,” she said.

  “Brickton Heath?” Kyle asked. “Sure, I can find that.”

  Blondie reached the bottom of the hill and crossed the street to our side. His head turned, dark eyes relocking with mine as he stepped up onto the kerb.

  “Can you make it here at six?” the female asked.

  “I’ll try my best.”

  The guy down the hill ducked off, and disappeared around the left corner.

  “Shit!” I lengthened my strides, and increased my grasp on Kyle—not that he needed me to, he’d matched me step for step whilst on the phone. No doubt, if I turned back, his eyes would be trained on the same spot as my own.

  Almost at a jog, I passed the baker’s and rounded the corner.

  A handful of pedestrians trekked about, a few with plastic bags hanging from their fingers, a young couple with their hands
linked as they dawdled on their uphill stroll.

  I counted the heads, checking the hair colours. None of them matched the one I’d followed.

  I released Kyle’s shirt, and took a few steps forward. With flared nostrils, I swept for hidden surprises. A quick listen assured me Kyle’s steps echoed mine at my rear, and I continued on.

  Only a few strides farther, I spotted the alleyway to the right. Set back from the road, its stone walls created a domed tunnel. Light stretched through as if trying to unite with that which spilled in from the far end but didn’t quite accomplish it. The shadows within held nobody I could see, yet I still turned that way.

  Behind me, Kyle ended his call and closed in on my heels. As he came to my left shoulder in the entrance to the alley, I hesitated and inhaled for evidence the guy had passed through.

  Hundreds of odours accosted my senses. None stood out.

  “He go this way?” Kyle asked.

  “Where the hell else could he have gone?”

  He brushed my arm. “We going through?”

  “I am.” I sent him a quick glance. “You have my back?”

  “You need to ask?”

  I ventured into the stone tunnel.

  Step, inhalation, listen, scour, and step. No bodily odours, other than mine or Kyle’s, and only our two heartbeats.

  I submerged by another couple of metres.

  Still nothing.

  Beyond the gulley, a couple cars dotted what I presumed to be a car park. I searched amongst them for movement, finding nothing.

  Kyle’s feet shuffled at my rear like my caution had him on edge. I took a deep breath, drawing in a final attempt to detect alien scents. Upon finding none, I lengthened my steps to carry me to the end of the tunnel.

  Left to right, I scanned the open space. Definitely a car park—possibly the opposite corner of the supermarket where we’d parked. No owners claimed the four vehicles that occupied the quiet area, yet the hackles across the back of my neck rose as though affected by static.

  I heaved a deep breath, shook my head at myself, and went to turn back when a flash of movement caught the corner of my eye, coinciding with Kyle’s shout of, “Ethan, look out!”

  Something clamped onto my shoulders, hauling my feet from the ground. As I flew backward, everything whizzed past in a blur.

  Solid brick hit my back, stopping my flight.

  A loud grunt burst past my lips, and my head cracked back to collide with the structure, and light exploded behind my eyes as the air whooshed out of me.

  I barely had time to recapture it before a hand closed over my throat.

  8

  My focus regained its sharpness as the pain in my skull subsided.

  In my periphery, two more forms that appeared from God-knew-where shoulder-rammed Kyle and blocked his passage.

  Ink black eyes levelled with mine, limiting my view, and the pale blond hair hanging over my attacker’s brow identified him as the one I’d followed. The hand holding my throat tightened.

  I kicked down with my dangling legs and fisted my hands in Blondie’s shirt front. A shove forward with my arms did nothing to shift him. Even an outward boot of my foot connecting with his shins had no effect.

  He’d looked no more than a strip of wind when down the street from me, but the guy’s body had only solidity.

  Kyle’s pointless nudges continued against the two inhuman rocks to my right, though I only seemed able to focus on the blond dude’s eyes as the black of his irises bled into the whites.

  “What the—”

  “You have no right to be here, wolf.” The bizarre ocular show continued, with black swirling like spiralling smoke to infuse the entirety of his eyeballs with darkness.

  My heart thudded as I tried to remain calm. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” My voice rasped from me. Another attempt to push him away bore no result.

  “Your scent reeks like a damn beacon, you fool. You think I don’t smell you? You think you’re not leaving a trail across my town everywhere you step?”

  I inhaled long and slow yet caught nothing to indicate what race held me in its grasp.

  “These streets are no place for a wolf still wet behind the ears.”

  With a low growl, I made another attempt to reach the ground with my toes, and tried to uncurl his fingers from around my throat. More kicks at his legs joined in with a swing of my fist around his arm.

  Although I caught his left ear, the guy merely smiled.

  “What the hell are you?”

  His lips pulled back and revealed his canines, where two needle-sharp fangs pierced his gums. Like ice picks, they slid down, as though finding home in an invisible sheath.

  My eyes widened. My pulse lurched. I kicked down with my legs, trying to find traction against something—anything. A low growl bubbled out as my frustration mounted.

  At two inches, the fangs stopped. His lips curved in a smile as the black danced like psychedelic serpents before refilling his eyes. “I hear weres are something of a delicacy.” Huskiness affected his voice, and his tongue skimmed across his teeth until it toyed with his left fang. A droplet of blood formed at the contact, and his smile widened—right before he twisted my jaw to the side and his face dropped to my throat.

  “Shit!” I slammed my foot back against the wall at my rear and, with a roar, thrust myself forward.

  The fang-wielder’s eyes held shock as he flew backward. He gave a low grunt on impact with the opposite wall, and another beneath the crush of my body.

  Before he could recover, I drew my head back, and powered it forward.

  The instant my forehead slammed into his, pain splintered into every recess of my brain until my consciousness wavered. “Dammit!” I released him to grab my temples, made an attempt to steady myself. The vampire had a head like a diamond.

  With the force of a battering ram, his hands shoved at my shoulders and sent me sprawling to the ground. The base of my skull took a bashing, as did my damn ego, as the snarls ripping from Kyle told me he witnessed my fall.

  A quick twist of my head to check on my pack-buddy alleviated any concern I had for his safety. The main cause of his aggravation came in the form of the wall of wiry muscle blocking his passage. Repeated slams into their bodies earned him nothing more than amused chuckles.

  I got as far as sitting before Blondie dived onto me to send yet another blast of agony through my already damaged head.

  His face pushed into mine. “Getting a warning from me is nothing—”

  With a growl, I rammed my hands up against his chest, but halted as human scent entered my nose a split second sooner than the echoing steps announced we’d have company any moment.

  The vamp stiffened, too, the black of his eyes drifting aside until it settled within his irises, and Blondie’s head twisted to his right as mine turned to the left.

  The footsteps belonged to a young twenty-something. His pale eyes narrowed.

  My chest compressed beneath the pressure of Blondie’s hands when he pushed himself up and faced the intruder, and the opening and closing of my mouth as I gasped in air synchronised with that of the confused human’s.

  “You do not want to come this way.” The smooth cadence of Blondie’s voice filled the air like a tonic as his eyes did their tonal dance once more.

  The human turned off to the side, like he had some major decision to contemplate, before he about-turned without a word and wandered back the way he’d come.

  “A pup like yourself is eas—”

  I thumped my right fist against his jaw, snarling my outrage. “Who the hell are you calling pup?” No thirty-five year old appreciated being called pup. The snapping back of his head lent immense satisfaction, and I followed through with a sideways drive of my left. It caught h
im with enough force to unbalance his stronghold, and a rapid roll reversed our positions. One hand pinned his chest as I drew the other back for another pummel.

  “They’ll catch up with you.”

  I paused.

  “Then our little exchange will seem like child’s play, pup.”

  My fist hovered above his smug face as I frowned. “Who’ll catch up with me?”

  “Pretending you know nothing won’t help you.” His lips curved into a passable smile as his fangs retracted back into his gums. “These kidnappers aren’t amateurs. Amateurs would never capture so many.”

  “What do you know about the disappearances?”

  He gave a small laugh. His head shake suggested he considered me on par with an imbecile.

  “Who’s doing the kidnappings?”

  My body whipped to the left with his thrust, almost bouncing off the pavement, until his hands grasped my T-shirt and hauled me to my feet.

  “I know it’s vampires,” I said through the heave of my chest.

  “Then you should know I won’t bring disloyalty against my kind and offer them up to a werewolf.” He spat the word like our race held disease.

  I wanted to toss him against the bricks and batter the smugness from his insane eyes but couldn’t risk killing the first source of answers I’d come across. I suppressed my growl, gritting my teeth against my impulse. “They’re not only taking werewolves.”

  “Maybe not.” His eyes resettled until they looked close to normal. “But I heard weres are top of their hotlist. And having weres in my town is only going to attract them. So I’m giving you until nightfall to leave of your own accord. Then I’ll make you leave.”

  I swallowed any petty retorts. “You know about them. Where have they taken the ones they kidnapped?”

  “I’m done talking to you, pup.” He turned and took a step away.

  I grabbed his arm, tugging him back. “Where have they taken them?”

  “Release my arm.”

  I tightened my hand. “Not until you tell me what you know.”

  “I don’t have to tell you a thing.”

  My snarl erupted from within my chest, and I yanked him toward me.