1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Twelve Read online

  Starting the engine, Kayden pulled out of the lot and headed through the empty streets. He drove straight into the desert, heading toward Red Rock Canyon.

  It was still dark when he arrived at the spot he’d demanded for the meeting, but dawn was beginning to brush the sky with hints of peach and deep lilac. He didn’t need light, however, to catch sight of the expensive car that was parked near a flat area a few feet off the lone road that looped through the rough terrain.

  Grabbing a handgun from the glove box, he stepped out of the truck, leaving the door open in case he needed a quick getaway. Then, allowing his senses to spread outward, he moved to stand in front of the hood of the truck.

  He caught the scent of a coyote on the hunt for a scrambling rabbit and a lizard buried in the ground at his feet. But there were no humans that he could detect nearby.

  “Get out of the car,” he called out, hearing the buzz of an electric window being lowered a cautious inch.

  “Where’s my daughter?” a male voice demanded.

  Kayden glared at the smoky windshield of the car. He’d bet his left nut that it was bulletproof.

  “She’s safe,” he said.

  “This meeting is over,” the man said, his arrogant tone making Kayden’s fingers tighten on the gun.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Until I can see for myself that you haven’t harmed Bianca, I’m not speaking with you,” the man informed him.

  Kayden didn’t bother with any melodramatic gestures like lifting his gun to point it at the car. Instead, he shrugged.

  “Actually, I think you will,” he said.

  “No, I won’t,” the man snapped.

  Kayden rolled his eyes. Trust a human to think because he was in a locked car with bulletproof glass that he was safe. Clearly he had no idea that Kayden could rip off the door with minimum effort.

  “Then die,” he said, taking a step forward.

  The scent of fear abruptly spiced the air. “I have two sharp-shooters with their sights trained on you,” Joshua bluffed. “One flash of my headlights and you’re dead.”

  “You don’t scare me,” Kayden drawled.

  He heard the rough sound of an indrawn breath. This meeting wasn’t going as Joshua Ford had hoped.

  Good.

  “You’re willing to have your brains splattered across the desert?” He once again tried to bluff.

  On the point of rushing forward to yank open the door, Kayden froze as the scent of honey swirled on the breeze. Then, while his brain tried to process the knowledge that the sweetness couldn’t just be lingering on his skin, there was the sound of movement as Bianca crawled out of the cargo container he kept in the back of his truck.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded, jumping onto the sandy ground and moving to stand beside Kayden. “I’m here.”

  “Shit.” A blast of fury exploded through Kayden. How had he been so stupid? Not even the fact he was distracted should have allowed him to dismiss her scent when he was getting into his truck. She must have suspected that he was planning to meet her father and snuck out of the room and hidden herself in the cargo container. Now she’d put herself in danger. “Bianca, get in the truck.”

  “No.” She sent him a terrified glance. “I won’t let my father hurt you.”

  His heart twisted. Christ. She’d risked herself because she was worried about him?

  Reaching out, he intended to force her into the truck when there was the sound of a door opening and Joshua Ford stepped out of the car.

  He was tall and lean, with hair that was perfectly combed and a gray suit that had no doubt been hand-tailored.

  Kayden hated him on sight.

  “Thank you, my dear,” the man said, lifting a handgun and pointing it in their direction. “You’ve saved me a great deal of trouble.”

  Kayden was momentarily baffled. Not that the man had come armed, but that he would…

  Realization hit a split second before Joshua pulled the trigger.

  “No,” he growled, darting in front of Bianca in time to take two shots to the center of his chest.

  * * * *

  Bianca had always wondered how she would react to an emergency. She’d wanted to believe that she would be cool and competent, just like her father.

  Instead, she’d heard the gunshots and her mind had gone blank.

  Thankfully, instinct kicked in as Kayden landed heavily against her. Wrapping her arms around his body, she used her surge of adrenaline to help drag him to the nearby truck, shoving him through the open door.

  There was an echoing blast as her father took another shot, the bullet shattering the window in the door. Bianca gasped as the glass sliced through her cheek, but grimly pushing Kayden over, she climbed behind the steering wheel and shoved the gear into reverse. She slammed her foot on the gas, squealing the tires as she took off backward with a speed that had them bouncing over the dips and swells of the sandy ground.

  Kayden groaned, and with a yank of the steering wheel that nearly tipped them over, Bianca turned the truck in a tight circle. Grinding the gearshift into drive, she punched the gas until they were traveling at a breakneck speed.

  Dust streamed behind them, the tires bouncing as she headed toward the nearby hills. It was weird how flat the desert looked in pictures. In reality it was like driving over a massive washboard.

  Glancing in the rearview mirror, she could see her father’s car in the distance. It wasn’t built with the same ability to dig through sand or climb over large rocks.

  Thank God.

  At last reaching the ridge of red sandstone hills, she darted between a natural archway and put the truck in park. It was still dark enough her father would have trouble knowing exactly where she’d gone. It seemed better to find a place to hide than to try and outrun him.

  Turning in her seat, she watched as Kayden struggled to sit upright, his face pale.

  She gasped, her eyes lowering to his shirt that had a hole ripped through the material and was coated in blood.

  So much blood.

  “Oh my God…Kayden.”

  Chapter Seven

  She watched in horror as Kayden slid in and out of consciousness. Nearly twenty minutes passed before he finally struggled to sit upright, clearly still weak from the blood loss.

  “Kayden,” she breathed.

  “It’s okay, princess,” he managed to rasp. “I’m already healing.”

  She reached out only to pull her hand back. She was terrified that she might hurt him.

  “I’m sorry,” she breathed.

  His eyes glowed with a cognac fire in the darkness. “This isn’t your fault, princess. None of this is your fault.” He grimaced, giving a slow shake of his head. “I should have stayed at the hotel with you.”

  She bit her lower lip. When she’d heard him leaving the hotel room, she’d been certain he was planning to finish whatever it was that had brought him to her home. Determined to discover the truth, she’d slipped out of the hotel and hidden in the truck.

  She’d never dreamed that she was about to witness the man she hoped to spend the rest of her life with being shot in the chest.

  And by her own father.

  “Why were you meeting with my father in the middle of the desert?” she abruptly demanded.

  He hesitated. Why was he so reluctant to tell her the truth?

  “For years I thought that my parents had died in an airplane crash. Recently I discovered proof that was a lie,” he said, the words slow and slightly slurred.

  She nodded, recalling his brief mention of his parents. “You said that humans killed them.”

  “Your father.”

  “I…” Her words failed as she realized that he was saying her father was somehow responsible for the death of his parents. “No,” she breathed. “You have to be mistaken.”

  “It’s true, Bianca.” He reached to grab her hand. “They were taken captive by your father in San Francisco and held as prisoners in your father’s clinic.”
/>   She shook her head, struggling to accept what he was telling her.

  It seemed preposterous.

  Her father could be cold and distant, and perhaps ruthless on occasion. But a killer?

  Still, she’d watched with her own eyes as he’d deliberately shot Kayden, hadn’t she?

  “Why?” she breathed, shivering with belated shock. “He’s a scientist.”

  “That’s why,” Kayden said in grim tones. “I told you, Benson Enterprises has been using my people as private lab rats for years. Your father needed Pantera and he kidnapped my parents.” He was forced to pause, his hand clutched to his chest. “From what I could uncover, they were killed when they tried to escape the clinic.”

  She continued to shake her head. “I can’t believe it.”

  He gave her fingers a squeeze. “I know it’s hard, but it’s the truth.”

  “So why…” Her words ended on a small gasp, her eyes widening as she was struck by a sudden realization. There was only one reason that Kayden would have taken her captive and then arranged to meet her father in such an isolated spot. “Oh, my God. You came here to kill my father.”

  He gave a slow dip of his head. “Yes.”

  Pain sliced through her. Now she understood why he’d been so reluctant to confess the truth.

  “Did you intend to kill me too?”

  “No.” Horrified shock rippled over his face that was tight with pain. “I would never hurt you.”

  “You didn’t think shooting my father was going to hurt me?” she demanded.

  “During my drive here I’d already decided that I would capture him instead,” he told her, a raw edge of regret in his voice. “I can’t let him walk free, princess. Not when he’s a danger to the Pantera. But I wasn’t going to put a bullet through his heart as I’d originally planned.”

  She believed him.

  Not just because she wanted to, but because there was something inside her that was convinced she would know if he was lying.

  “Why did you change your mind?”

  He leaned toward her, his eyes darkening as his cat prowled close to the surface.

  He didn’t hesitate. “Because your happiness is more important than my revenge.”

  The air was knocked from her lungs. All her life she felt as if she was a burden, more of a patient than a daughter.

  Never once had she ever had anyone consider her happiness.

  “Oh, Kayden,” she breathed, leaning forward to press a light kiss on his cheek. “And instead my father tried to kill you,” she said.

  “Not me,” he said in low tones. “You.”

  She jerked back, her eyes widening in confusion. She’d assumed that her father had sought to kill Kayden because he was trying to rescue her.

  Now her brain struggled to absorb his words.

  “What?”

  “He wasn’t trying to shoot me,” he insisted, his expression bleak. “He was aiming at you.”

  “He’s quite right, my dear,” a male voice drawled before her father was stepping from the shadows. “I was aiming at you.”

  “Father,” she hissed, stiffening as she felt Kayden reach out to give her leg a warning squeeze.

  She wasn’t exactly sure how her father had managed to find them. Perhaps he’d followed their tracks that had no doubt been left in the soft dirt. And right now it didn’t matter. Her only concern was to keep the older man talking until Kayden could finish healing. Licking her dry lips, she forced herself not to flinch as he stood next to the window he’d so recently shot out.

  “Why would you want to hurt me?” she demanded in a voice that shook with a combination of fear and fury. “I’m your daughter.”

  He shook his head, his expression unreadable. “Actually, you’re not.”

  “I’m not?” Bianca stared at Joshua Ford, feeling as if she was looking at a stranger.

  And in truth, she was.

  It was obvious that her entire life had been a lie.

  He shook his head. “My daughter died of cancer when she was just a baby.”

  His daughter? She gave a faint shake of her head. “I don’t understand.” The understatement of the century.

  “It was simple,” he drawled, his gaze flicking toward Kayden, who was leaning heavily against her shoulder, as if still weak from his injuries. She was praying that he was merely faking. If her father…no. If Joshua Ford had followed them, it wasn’t to tell her that he’d been lying to her for years. “My daughter, Bianca, was diagnosed not long after her birth. My wife wanted to use traditional treatments, but I’d heard of Benson Enterprises and the amazing research they were doing. I took Bianca and we traveled to the Cruise Clinic where I was given a full, private lab for my research to work on a cure.”

  Any sympathy for his confession that his young daughter was sick was destroyed by his cold lack of emotion. He might as well have been speaking about a stranger, not his precious baby.

  “A cure that used Pantera blood?” she demanded, recalling Kayden’s insistence that Joshua had kidnapped his parents.

  “Of course.” Joshua shrugged, not seeming to hear Kayden’s low growl. Or to notice the anger that sizzled through the air. It was a stark reminder that he was human, while she was…different. “I gathered a half dozen of the animals, including you and your mother.”

  “My mother?” Her breath felt as if it was being squeezed from her lungs. “She was Pantera?”

  Another shrug. “Yes.”

  “I don’t remember her,” she choked out. There’d always been a hole in her heart at the lack of a mother’s love.

  He waved a dismissive hand. “You were an infant.”

  A faint hope flared through her. “Where is she?” she demanded.

  “Dead.” he said, his voice stripped of emotion. Or more likely, Joshua Ford didn’t possess emotions. He was a cold-hearted snake who used people like they were no more than pieces on a chessboard. “She was trying to protect you from becoming a part of my experiments and my guards became a little…overenthusiastic.”

  A sound of pain was wrenched from her throat, but even as her hand reached toward the handgun that Kayden had hidden between them, she felt Kayden give her leg another squeeze.

  A silent warning.

  He clearly had a plan. Which meant she couldn’t shoot Joshua in the face.

  “You bastard,” she choked out. “Why pretend I was your daughter?”

  “Within a year it became obvious that I wasn’t going to be capable of curing my daughter, but I still had the opportunity to achieve my career goals.”

  Her lips curled in disgust. “Your career goals?”

  A hint of smug satisfaction settled on the lean face. “I’ve always been ambitious.”

  Well, at least one part of him hadn’t been a lie. His ego was just as bloated and pretentious as she’d suspected, even when she was young.

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “I couldn’t admit that the cure for my daughter had been a failure,” he said, a hint of impatience in his voice, as if he couldn’t believe she would even have to ask. “So instead, I got a new daughter.”

  Her stomach clenched with revulsion. How had she lived with this man for so long and not realized he was a complete whack job?

  “You’re sick,” she ground out. “Truly sick.”

  Annoyance flared through his eyes. Clearly he didn’t like having his lack of sanity pointed out.

  “I’ve always been destined for greatness. I just needed the chance to prove it,” he snapped, a dark color crawling beneath his skin. “You were my ticket to receiving unlimited funding for the clinic.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “So if you need me, why would you shoot at me?”

  “My benefactor has suddenly decided it’s time to meet you. I can’t allow them to discover that you’re a full-blooded Pantera.” He took a step back, lifting his arm to reveal the gun clutched in his hand. “I am sorry, my dear. I have become…” He paused, searching for the prope
r word. “Very fond of you.”

  “Fond?” she breathed. Loathing mixed with her stark terror.

  Then, she was distracted as there was a brief flash of light just behind Joshua. Without warning, Kayden grabbed her by the back of her neck and jerked down.

  She heard the echo of a gunshot. Joshua gave a grunt and fell against the truck before he crumpled to the ground.

  Bianca pressed her face into Kayden’s neck, concentrating on the steady sound of his heartbeat as the scent of Joshua Ford’s blood filled the air.

  Chapter Eight

  Less than ten minutes later, Kayden was crawling into the back of Xavier’s Jeep and clutching Bianca tightly in his arms.

  He’d tried to keep her from seeing Joshua Ford stretched dead on bloody sand as he’d waited for his friend to arrive. She’d endured enough shocks as she’d been forced to listen to Ford reveal she was nothing more than a means to climb the corporate ladder. Not to mention the fact that her mother had been murdered by the man who’d pretended to be her father.

  Christ.

  He’d wanted to put a bullet through the man, but he’d already caught sight of Xavier climbing onto a nearby rock to get the best angle to kill him without putting Bianca in danger. So he’d forced himself to wait.

  Settling back in the seat, he sent Xavier a glare as the older male glanced into the rearview mirror.

  “Took you long enough.

  Xavier grimaced as he put the Jeep into gear and headed in a direct line for the road.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting your female to take off like a bat out of hell. It took a few minutes to get back to my vehicle and by then you’d disappeared. I decided to follow Joshua to make sure he didn’t escape.”

  “My female.” Kayden pressed his lips to the top of Bianca’s head, breathing in her honey scent. “I like the sound of that.”

  Bianca lifted her hand to lightly touch his chest. His wound had nearly healed. Within an hour there would be nothing to indicate he’d been shot.