Bound to Shadows

Chapter Twelve

I was awoken by the sensation of ice pressing against my jaw. It wasn't helping the ache in my face much, but at least it meant there was someone present who cared enough to try.

The sunshiny scent that teased my nostril told me it was Kade, but the musky scents that were entwined within his also said that he wasn't alone. As did the murmur of conversation.

Kye wasn't here. His scent still was, but the heated, tingly awareness that always hit when he was close was absent.

He'd obviously run.

Part of me hoped he ran far and fast, because then I wouldn't have to deal with him.

But the other part—the part so angry about being so completely fooled and used—wanted the chance to confront him.

To get her own back.

To ask why.

The surface under my hips was soft, not the hard wood of the desk, and the slide of material against my skin told me I was no longer almost naked.

I opened my eyes. Kade was kneeling down in front of me, holding the ice pack to my decidedly tender jaw. Behind him, Cole and Dusty were examining Starke's remains.

"The cavalry arrives," I commented, wincing as the mere act of speaking had pain flickering along my jaw. Not that it would actually stop me. I flicked my tongue across the left side—one lose tooth and several others feeling as bruised as my jaw. "But it arrives too late, as usual."

"Well, you will get yourself into situations where the cavalry has no option but to arrive late," Cole commented. "Next time, give us a little warning and we'll be on time."

"I'll try and remember that," I said wryly, and pushed upright. Aside from the sore jaw, I was actually feeling pretty good. But then, good sex and multiple orgasms tended to do that to you. "How did you know that I needed help?"

It wasn't as if I'd actually called for it.

"We didn't." Kade removed the ice-pack and sat back on his heels. "When the com-link went dead again—this time mid sentence—Jack feared the worst and sent us scurrying."

Meaning Kye had not only been wearing a deadener similar to what he'd placed on me, but that it had a fairly decent range. The com-link connection had been severed long before he'd kicked his way into the room.

And that was a scary thought, because it had huge ramifications for the Directorate. It could become deadly when it came to on-street personnel. "Who hit you?" Kade added.

"Kye." I hesitated, a mix of anger and hurt and confusion rolling through me. Part of me—the wolf part, no doubt—still couldn't accept the fact that my soul mate was one of our killers. Where the hell did that leave me? What options did I have? If he didn't have a kill order on him already, he soon would. Because I couldn't—and wouldn't—conceal the truth. And yet if they killed him, they'd very likely kill me. "He wasn't here when you arrived?"

"No." He eyed me closely, his expression concerned. As an empath, he'd be feeling every bit of the twisted, tortured emotions currently running riot through me. "Why would he be here?"

"Because he's one half of our beheading team, and he came here to warn his client that the Directorate knew several of his identities." Of course, Kye himself had given us one of those identities, and I had to wonder why.

"Oh, fuck," Cole said. Obviously, Kade had been sharing the news about just who my soul mate was. "What the hell are you going to do?"

I glanced over Kade's broad shoulders at him. His expression was one of horror. He might not be a werewolf, but he was familiar with the werewolf culture and understood exactly what it meant. "I don't know."

Kade expression was decidedly confused. "Why is this a bad thing? He's a cold blooded killer—you've said that yourself multiple times. So we take him out and he's gone from your life forever. Which is what you wanted, isn't it?"

"He's her soul mate, Kade," Cole said, as if that explained it all. And it did—for those in the know.

But Kade obviously didn't understand the full impact of the bond. "The soul mate bond is unbreakable," I explained. "If one half dies, the other generally follows."

His frown deepened. "Ben didn't."

Ben was big, black wolf I'd met while investigating a case a few months ago. We'd become firm friends since then, and though he'd made continuous efforts to seduce me, it could never have amounted to anything more than sexual gratification. Ben's soul mate had died long before I'd met him and he, in his own words, existed. Nothing more, nothing less.

"That's rare. I don't want to take the chance." Not given the way fate liked playing her games with my life.

"So," Kade said. "We can't kill him. What about just capturing the bastard, beating him up, then throwing him in a nice dark cell somewhere to rot?"

"I don't know if Jack will go for that." Or rather, I wasn't sure that the council—higher or lower—would let him go for that option. "But it's certainly a solution that appeals to the animal side of me."

Kade raised an eyebrow. "Animal? Or betrayed lover?"

"They're one and the same," I muttered. "And before we can talk about beating him up and tossing away the key, we need to find him."

"The signal from the tracer is erratic. Given the bug placed on you, we suspect he's got others in his possession and that they're interfering with the signal," Jack said into my ear. "But we're in the process of trying to boost it. I've ordered a lock-down on all the airports, so he won't get out that way."

"There are plenty of private airfields, and he has the money to use them."

"Private planes still have to register their flight details, or they're forced down. And once the problems with the tracer have been sorted, it won't matter."

I didn't think it would matter anyway, because Kye wouldn't do the obvious. His mind just didn't work that way.

"Do you want us to come back to the office or wait here?"

"Not here," Cole muttered, voice disparaging but amusement evident in his brief glance. "We do not need the crime scene disturbed any more than necessary."

"Come back," Jack agreed. "If we get a location in the mean time, we'll let you both know."

"Okay." I pushed to my feet. Kade rose with me, his fingers under my elbow. Not really supporting but ready to steady me if I actually needed it. "Looks like you got your wish, Cole."

"Sometimes, fate does take pity on me," he murmured.

I couldn't help wishing that fate would take pity on me occasionally. "Hey, I want my silver knife back when you finish with it, too."

Cole raised an eyebrow. "What silver knife?"

"The one I left sticking in Starke's back when I stabbed him. "

"There was no such knife when we arrived."

"Then the bastard's taken it."

"I gather we're talking about Kye?" Kade said.

I nodded. "It was a gift from Quinn, and had some unusual properties. I don't want to lose it."

"Then we'll retrieve it before we pummel the shit out of him," Kade said cheerfully. "Don't you wish all problems were that easily fixed?"

I certainly did. I hooked my arm through his, and let him escort me outside. I didn't feel like driving, so I climbed into the passenger seat of Kade's car.

"Thanks for dressing me," I said, once we were on the road.

He gave me an odd sort of look. "I didn't. You were fully dressed when we arrived."

I closed my eyes. Kye had been the one who'd cleaned me up and covered my nakedness. And somehow, that just made the whole situation even worse.

Damn it, why did he have to do this? Why did he have to take this job and risk losing both our lives?

But I knew the answer even as I asked the question.

It was all about control. Controlling me, and controlling the situation.

Yet I very much suspected it was also about the risk. The high of knowing that everything was at stake, and that one wrong move could end everything.

Literally.

I knew that high, but I wasn't addicted to it. Kye, I suspected, was.

What a fucking mess this was all turning out to be. And I bet fate was having a jolly old time watching all her plans unfold.

We didn't make it into the Directorate. Jack called on my phone when we were still ten minutes away. I hit the button and put it on speaker.

"You got a location?"

"We do. His signal is coming from an old biscuit factory out near Broadmeadows. Benson's sending the address through to Kade's onboard now."

The computer beeped as he said it. I hit the switch and shifted the address over the nav-com. Kade glanced down then nodded, doing a fast u-turn and hitting the gas.

"We're on our way. Can you get hold of a floor plan of the place?"

"We're searching now. And I've called Iktar back from his vacation, but he's not going to get there before three-thirty."

I glanced at my watch. That was nearly an hour away, meaning Iktar was at the spirit lizard's reservation up in the mountains near Taradale.

One way or another, the action would probably be over by then. Which left Kade and me alone against a professional hitman.

The odds should have been in our favor. We were as well trained—or better trained—than him. And yet uncertainty gnawed at me.

Or maybe it was just the memory of his last words. Come alone.

He had to know that I wasn't that stupid. The link between us had grown a lot stronger over the past few days, and I wasn't about to trust my ability to bring him to justice.

"And Rhoan?" I asked Jack. Part of me wanted my brother there, and yet it was also a risk I didn't want to take. Kye knew that stopping Rhoan would stop me, and if it meant the difference between him escaping or not, then he'd shoot to kill and to hell with the consequences.

"Rhoan's apparently in the process of escorting Liander out of town. He'll get back here as soon as he can." Jack paused. "Be careful going in, you two."

"We always are," Kade murmured, amusement twisting his lips.

Jack made a disparaging sound. "You might be, but your partner has a definite tendency towards carelessness."

"I resent that," I said mildly, then frowned and added, "Boss, if Kye still has those deadeners on him, you may lose contact with one or both of us when we get within range."

"We know. I've ordered our clean-up teams to be on standby, and they'll be ready to go if we lose contact for more than five minutes."

"Teams? It's not going to be that big a mess."

"Maybe not, but the teams are trained to defend themselves, and can legally render armed help if the situation calls for it."

Which meant he was sending us help the only way he legally could, but he was also giving us the chance to do our jobs first while trying to avoid endangering the lives of men and women who weren't trained killers. "Oh. Thanks."

"Just be careful," he said and hung up. I rubbed a hand across my eyes and wondered if I was ever going to wake up from this nightmare.

A killer was on the loose and the lives of non-guardian personnel were being put on the line because of me.

Because I'd been able to really believe that Kye was as cold and as ruthless as he portrayed himself. Because I'd been unable to see past my own twisted feelings for the man.

"Riley," Kade said softly, "don't be too harsh on yourself. None of us seriously suspected that Kye could be involved. It's as much our fault as yours that he's on the loose."

"But I was with him a lot over the past few days. I knew he was playing some sort of game, but I—"

He placed a hand on my bare knee, squeezing it gently. "Enough. You did what you could. No one could ask for anything more."

"Jack could."

"Jack hasn't. The only person angry at you is you, and you don't deserve the beating you're giving yourself. Besides, you did take out one of our killers."

"That was more Kye than me."

It might have been the truth, but Kye hadn't really come there to save me, but rather to preserve the ideal of control. He was a man who kept a tight leash on every little aspect of his life, and he'd needed to prove to me—and to himself—that nothing and no one could get past him.

That's why we'd made love. He might have wanted me, but it was also another means of proving that I would comply with his wishes, no matter what the situation.

Which was probably why he wasn't running now. That would be messy. Kye didn't do messy, or leave unfinished business behind.

It could only mean he planned a more personal ending to this. Maybe that's why he'd warned me to come alone. The man who needed to be in command of every little aspect of his life planned to end all this his way.

And his way meant guns and death.

"Riley," Kade said softly, squeezing my knee again.

"Enough. I mean it."

"You're such a sweet man, but—"

He snorted softly. "You wouldn't be thinking that if you knew just how good your skin feels under my fingers, or what is currently going on in my thoughts."

I grinned. "Once a stallion, always a stallion."

"Too true, my dear." He sighed wistfully, and withdrew his hand.

The computer beeped again. I hit another button and a floor plan popped up on the screen. I studied it for a moment then said, "It looks like we have two main entrances and a fire exit. There's two floor levels and several out buildings."

"He'll be in the main building. There are more options there for running and hiding."

Neither of which I could really imagine Kye doing. "He's run there for a reason."

"Of course he has." Kade turned off the Ring road at Pascoe Vale Road and slowed down for the lights, checking the traffic to the right before pulling out and slapping his foot on the accelerator again. "Professionals always have their escape routes planned beforehand, and I'd be very surprised if Kye didn't have every expectation of walking away from this."

And I'd be very surprised if he did. Kye was a realist, if nothing else.

All too soon we were pulling up several buildings away from the one I suspected held Kye. Kade climbed out and opened the trunk. He had a veritable arsenal inside.

"Good grief," I said, sweeping my gaze over the rifles, lasers, guns and stakes stashed in neat little secured rows. "Does Jack know you've raided the weapon store like this?"

"Nope," he said cheerfully. "And a man can never have enough fire-power."

I snorted softly and reached for a laser. He slapped my hand away. "Take a gun. Lasers don't fire up instantly, and you can't afford to give a man like Kye even a half-second advantage."

He had a point. I reached for a Browning simply because it was more lightweight than some of the others and fit my hand better, yet still packed a hell of a punch.

"So what's the plan? We sneak in front and back and pin him down in the middle?" Kade said, stashing several different pistols and knives about his body before picking up a rifle then slamming the trunk shut.

"You take at the back. I'm walking right in through the front door."

He frowned. "I really don't think—"

"Kade, we're soul mates. He's going to know I'm there the minute I walk into that building." If he wasn't already aware that I was here, that was. "So it's pointless to try any subterfuge. But doing the obvious might just give you the chance to get close enough to bring him down."

"I like the last half of that plan, but the first is decidedly unpalatable." He ran a finger down my cheek, his touch warm and not at all sexual. "He's the sort of man who'd want to go down in a blaze of glory, and it may be that he plans to take you with him."

"Trust me, I'm more than aware of that possibility. But I've been tested by Gautier, the best guardian the Directorate ever had, and I'm the only person to ever score a hit on him. Trust the skills behind that, if nothing else. "

But yet, even that didn't make me the killer Kye was, and that put the advantage squarely in his court.

I reached up on tippy-toes and gave Kade a kiss. "Please be careful. I don't want to have to explain your death to Sable."

"Ditto." His bright smile flashed, but just as quickly faded. "We both know that this job is a walking death sentence. Sooner or later, it's going to happen, Riley, no matter what precautions we take."

"Well, you're not dying on my fucking shift," I said, and slapped his arm. "So please be careful."

"Oh, I have many more mares in the stable yet to service, so don't worry your pretty little head." He flashed me an insolent grin. "I'll see you in the middle, my sweet."

I watched him walk away, then took a deep, calming breath that didn't do one iota to calm the churning in my stomach or the trembling in my limbs, then walked toward the front gate.

It was unlocked, as were the front glass doors that led into what looked to be an old office area. I paused and blinked, briefly flicking my sight to infrared. There was no sign of body heat in the offices lining the walls of the office area, and nothing in the immediate area behind the double swing doors. But there were huge blobs of darkness preventing me from seeing deeper into the factory.

Frowning, I walked forward, pushing the swinging doors open and letting them slap close behind me. The noise echoed, filling the shadowed silence.

I walked on, the click of my heels against the concrete grating against my nerves. One way or another, I wanted this done and over with.

The blobs of darkness that had foiled my infrared turned out to be vast metal machines and long tracks of conveyers. They looked to be still in a usable condition, despite the cobwebs and the dirt that draped them. Maybe the factory hadn't been closed all that long, despite all the smashed windows high up near the roof line.

I punched open another set of swinging doors, but paused in the doorway, my gaze sweeping the room and my senses on high alert. This room was also double height, and like before, silent machines lined the concrete floor. But it also had storage rooms or offices lining the walls of the upper story and a walkway that ran around the entire perimeter.

No familiar, joyous warmth rose to warn me of Kye's presence, but I suspected he was near, regardless. It was the perfect place for a show-down.

"Kade?" I said softly, "I'm in the second machine room. I suspect he's here."

"I just got into the back loading bay," Kade said. "The bastard's set up some trip wires, so I'm going to have to move forward cautiously. Play for time if you can, Riley."

"Will do." I hesitated, then added, "Just remember that this link will go dead once I'm near him."

"At least that'll let me know the game is on."

I stepped forward and let the doors swing closed. They clipped each other on the way through, and the sharp slap of sound had my nerves jumping.

I scanned the room with infrared as I walked forward, but there were still huge swathes of darkness, both on this level and the upper one. Kye could be hiding anywhere.

I was about half way across the room when I sensed him. It was a rush of warmth that flashed across my skin then settled somewhere deep inside. I stopped and turned around, sweeping my gaze across the walkway above the swing doors I'd come in through. I couldn't see him, either through normal vision or infrared, and I couldn't smell him, but he was up there nevertheless.

"Stop hiding and come out, Kye."

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then he appeared in a doorway, a teasing smile on his lips and a gun held loosely in his right hand.

Much like me—in both respects.

"You're here sooner than I thought you'd be," he said, stopping a foot away from the walkway railing. His pose was relaxed, his golden eyes warm, and yet he reminded me of a predator about to strike.

"It's always a bad move to underestimate the Directorate." My fingers were starting to sweat against the metal of the Browning and there was a sick, churning sensation beginning to build in my stomach.

I wanted this over with, and yet I didn't, because that would mean having to actually act against the man who was my other half.

"I don't ever underestimate anyone, Riley, least of all the Directorate." He studied me for a moment, and his 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 of me.

"Put the gun down and give it up, Kye." Please put the gun down. "We both get to live that way."

He smiled. Again, it was a sad and wistful thing that tore at my heart. The heart that supposedly didn't belong to Kye. "Run away with me."

I blinked. "What?"

"Run away with me," he repeated softly. "We make a good team, you and I. We could make a fortune together."

"I'm not a killer, Kye. I can't do what you do for a living."

"You already do."

"No. I chase people like you, people who destroy others for the fun of it. Money might change hands in your case, but we both know that is not the motivating factor."

"Then we die—as simple as that." He gave me a smile.

"Pull the trigger, Riley. I dare you."

I stared at him for the longest of moments. I was holding the gun so tightly my hand ached, but no matter what I did, I couldn't force my finger to retract against the trigger.

I just couldn't kill the dream, no matter how much of a nightmare it had turned into.

I lowered the gun. "If you're going to kill me, just pull the damn trigger and get it over with." My voice was weary, yet filled with anger and sorrow.

He smiled. "I never said I wanted to kill you. All I wanted to do was control this situation."

"Some things will never be controlled, Kye, no matter how hard you try." Especially when it came to something as nebulous as love.

"I've never yet hit such a situation. You, on the other hand, have wasted a number of good opportunities. Take, for instance, your much despised pack leader. When you put the fear of god into Blake rather than taking him out like you should have, you placed the control back into his court." His gaze narrowed a little. "That will come back and bite you in the ass, you know. He has a serious yen for revenge, and already his plans have begun to unfold."

"Right now, I don't fucking care. If you don't want to kill me, and you won't be arrested, then what the hell do you want?" I paused, then added heatedly, "And don't fucking say me, because I've answered that."

"What I wanted—" He paused, and his nostrils flared.

I sucked in a deep breath, tasting the air. Kade was near. His rich, summery scent was coming in from behind me.

"Riley," Kye said, his voice flat and yet filled with an odd sense of disappointment. "I told you to come alone."

"And you really thought I would?" I hoped Kade was listening, hoped he was aware that he'd been sensed. "I'm not that stupid, Kye. Nor is the Directorate."

"This was between you and me," he said, and something in his manner hardened. It sent goose bumps skittering across my flesh and had the hairs on the back of my neck rising. "It didn't have to be this way. It didn't have to end this way. "

My gun was up and focused on his head even before he'd finished speaking. "Last warning, Kye. Drop the fucking gun and put your hands up in the hair."

He smiled. There was nothing sad, wistful or beautiful about it now. "I told you once before, bad things happen when you hesitate, Riley."

It was a warning I'd heard from too many people, and suddenly I felt sick.

His weapon fired. I threw myself sideways, but knew I was never going to be fast enough. Even as my body sliced through the air, I waited for the moment of metal on flesh, waited for that moment of death.

But it wasn't my death he wanted.

The bullet ripped past my ear and found its home.

I hit the concrete, rolled to my feet, and spun, a scream of denial tearing past my throat. I saw Kade standing on the walkway behind us, saw the hole in his chest, the dark blood just beginning to ooze from the wound. Saw the mess of blood and flesh on the wall behind him. Knew he was a dead man standing.

His gaze met mine briefly, and he smiled—a warm, wistful sort of smile that spoke of the things we'd done and the things we would now never do, and then the life left his eyes and he fell, his body plummeting over the metal railing.

I didn't see him hit the concrete. I don't even remember turning or firing the gun.

All I saw was the surprise on Kye's face a heartbeat before the bullet exploded into his brain.

Then pain, unlike anything I'd ever felt in my life, pain that was heart and soul and body—hit. I dropped the gun and doubled over, gasping for breath, gasping for life.

I couldn't find either, and I hit the concrete hard. Darkness swept in, and then there was nothing.

Nothing except the need to let go.