Chapter One

Kyla’s mind was swimming. Deep pools of emptiness had replaced her fear, beckoning her to drown in their hollow escape. She wanted to let them pull her under, to get lost in the abysmal nothing that looked so appealing right now.

Nothing made sense to her anymore.

Driving up Highway 24 toward the Howell’s massive log home, Kyla James knew there was more that should be registering in her mind. The fact that barely twelve hours ago she had been trapped in the middle of a Nephilim battle-to-the-death, perhaps, or maybe that her mom and her little brother still had no idea where she was. Loni could have called the cops by now for all she knew, and even that thought wasn’t anywhere in Kyla’s head. She should probably be thinking of the ache in her chest, of the proverbial knife that had just been rammed through her heart; but she wasn’t aware of that either. She was only aware of the wind that blew past her as she drove up the mountain, sending tangles of long auburn hair in a frenzy around her face.

The hot Colorado sun beat down on Kyla’s back, which she had very intentionally covered up with a black zip-up jacket. Incoherent as she may have been, she knew there were scars all over her body that she could not afford to let anyone see…least of all the boy she was driving back to right now.

Oh, Caden…

Kyla cringed as the thought of her best friend jolted her out of her stupor. That was what she was doing here, driving his Jeep back up the mountain (which was the last place on earth she wanted to be going back to.) Kyla had to take it back to him and find some way to explain the insanity of last night.

She just didn’t know how she was going to do that.

The gravel in the Howell’s driveway crunched beneath the tires of Caden’s Jeep, enough that Kyla was afraid someone in the house might hear it. Cringing, she looked up at the front door, but no one seemed to notice; and even if they did, they obviously didn’t care. Maybe they assumed Caden had gone into town to get some breakfast or to meet up with the guys for an impromptu band practice, certainly not that Kyla had stayed the night in his bedroom, forced him into letting her take his Jeep and then driven to Falcon’s Rest to see the person who had started this whole mess…if “person” were an accurate enough term for Nathaniel Blake.

Halfway accurate, at least, she thought.

A familiar sick feeling started to make its way to Kyla’s stomach and she quickly forced it away. She couldn’t think about that right now. She couldn’t think about him. And she definitely couldn’t think about everything he had just told her. She had to stay calm or Caden would see through her, and the last thing Kyla wanted was for him to do that, now more than ever.

It felt like having some form of explosive strapped beneath her shirt that was ready to detonate at the slightest pressure. The information she was carrying, it was easily that lethal, and if she couldn’t control it, there was no telling what might happen…to her, to Nathaniel, to all of them.

Even thinking his name, Kyla felt weak. She didn’t want her mind to go there, but she couldn’t stop herself from remembering his last words to her, his promise that he would come back for her.

Could he really have meant that?

Stop it! she scolded herself. The thought itself was asinine. She should be relieved that Nathaniel Blake was gone after all the pain he had caused her. She almost died because of him! But Kyla wasn’t relieved. She was sick. And looking up at the garage-converted-bedroom next to the main house on Winding Valley Road, she was also afraid.

Caden can’t know about this, she determined. Whatever she had to do to keep the truth from him, she would do it.

She had to protect Nathaniel.

When Kyla approached her best friend’s bedroom, she hesitated before going inside. Her hand was five inches from the handle of the glass sliding door, and somehow she couldn’t make it move forward to close the gap. But as it turned out, she didn’t have to. Caden stood up off his bed and walked over to the door when he heard her walk up, opening it for her without hesitating.

His expression was cold and angry, and Kyla could tell that he was completely closed off to her. She didn’t blame him for that. With everything she had and hadn’t done since he’d found her on the mountain last night beaten and shaken and paralyzed with fear, Kyla was surprised he hadn’t been a lot harsher with her than he had. If their roles had been reversed, she would have done everything in her power (and a few things out of her power) to get the truth out of him.

It wasn’t that Caden hadn’t tried; he had just seen through her shock enough to know that she wasn’t going to tell him anything, and he was smart enough to realize that pushing her would only close her off to him even more than she already was.

Funny how alike they could be at times. All the time, really.

At the present moment, Caden seemed to be taking her shutting down to him as mistrust on her part, and Kyla hated that. After all he had done for her, the last thing she wanted him to think was that she didn’t trust him. But looking into his glazed-over brown eyes, she realized that was exactly what he believed.

“Glad to see you’re still in one piece,” Caden said sarcastically when he opened the door. Kyla ignored the slight and moved inside after him, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one had seen her from the house.

They hadn’t.

Being that she and Caden were both eighteen, it shouldn’t have mattered whether or not she spent the night over here or if anyone saw them, especially given the relationship they had always had. Even if Caden’s parents had rules against that sort of thing, their son was a technical adult and shouldn’t have been bound by them anymore. Not that Caden would agree with that. He believed far too much in honoring his parents (a concept that was foreign to Kyla since hers were either dead or insane.) But at that point it wasn’t about rules for her; it was about keeping anyone else from catching onto what had happened last night, to what was still happening now if what Nathaniel told her was true.

Caden probably didn’t understand how dire that was. He couldn’t have since he didn’t know what was really going on, and that wasn’t his fault. Kyla was going to do her best to make sure he understood the severity of this situation, though, or at least as much as she could without straight-up telling him that Nathaniel Blake was only half human.

Fondling Caden’s keys nervously (which she hesitated to give back to him in case she needed to make another quick getaway) Kyla waited for him to turn and face her. He didn’t. Instead he stood with his hands on his hips and stared at the opposing wall, too angry to even look at her. Or maybe he wasn’t turning around because she still looked like a rabid animal had mauled her in the woods.

That one actually wasn’t too far off from the truth, unfortunately.

Kyla trembled at the thought of Donovan, feeling the blood rush from her face as the horrific images from last night played over in her mind. No, that couldn’t be it. However atrocious she may have looked right now, nothing could compare to what she had looked like last night, and even that, Caden had been able to stomach; enough that he stayed up with her and held her all night.

Right now was all about his anger.

“Did you see him?” Caden asked her flatly. He was still facing the wall.

Kyla could see the muscles in his neck tighten as he asked the question, and the memory of the dark demented Naphil who had beaten her senseless and left her for dead in the woods last night was replaced by another string of images she could no more easily keep away.

The memory flashed through her mind of being with Nathaniel not even twenty minutes before; the confrontation, the arguing, the heated moments in his bedroom before he told her the truth. Kyla’s head was spinning as she remembered, enough that she had to steady herself against the frame of Caden’s sliding glass door.

She nodded in answer to his question; then she realized he couldn’t see her. “Yes,” she forced herself to answer him.

Caden squared his jaw before speaking again. “Are you gonna tell me about it?” he asked her. His tone was hardly gracious.

Kyla’s heart sped up at the thought. Just imagining what Caden would do if he knew what had happened (or what had almost happened) between her and Nathaniel terrified her. Of course she wasn’t going to tell him about it. But she also couldn’t let him know that she had something to hide.

“He’s gone,” she tried to say as emotionlessly as she could. The words were impossible not to feel, though. Sickness swarmed through her when she heard herself speak them out loud. Kyla tried to remain standing so Caden wouldn’t pick up on it, but her words caused him to finally turn around and look at her and see what a mess she was.

Confusion marked his face. Caden almost looked like he was trying to see if she was lying; not that Kyla could blame him for that. She hadn’t exactly been honest with him lately. As he looked at her skeptically, the reality of Nathaniel’s leaving her began to sink in to her, which placed Kyla all the more in danger of giving herself away. She really wished Caden would go back to staring at the wall, because she didn’t know how much more of this she could handle. The hollow in her chest was magnifying by the second, and the pain of that fact alone, of her knowing that Nathaniel wasn’t there to keep her safe anymore, that he wasn’t there to hold her, to kiss her, to touch her…oh God, this was becoming all too real.

Caden saw it when she started to lose her breath. She tried to control it, but her efforts were wasted. Kyla was combating a force that was infinitely more powerful than she was. After her breathing became shallow enough and erratic enough, she had to sit down on the edge of his bed. She hated that she couldn’t hide her weakness from him, but she knew if she didn’t sit down, she would most likely pass out, which would have been far worse.

It was a little disconcerting that Caden didn’t instinctually reach down and put his hand on her back. At just about any other time he would have. Rather than holding her and comforting her like he had all night last night, he just stared at her in disbelief.

“He left you?” Caden asked.

He looked completely baffled, but Kyla didn’t try and figure out what he meant by that tone. She was too busy trying not to lose consciousness.

“You’re this upset because that abusive bastard left you?”

She didn’t even bother getting angry this time. With the way the room was spinning around her, she had to focus all of her energy on not falling over.

That was when she realized she couldn’t do this.

“I have to get out of here,” she mumbled quickly. She tried to stand again and move to the door, but Caden stopped her.

The moment he grabbed her arm, Kyla flinched and jerked away from him, which immediately caused him to step back. She had never had that reaction to him in the ten years they had known each other, and she could see that it not only startled him; it hurt him, too. A lot.

Kyla tensed her jaw and tried to stay cold. She didn’t want to feel regret over hurting him right now; she wanted to be mad at him. Even if it wasn’t justified, she wanted to be angry over the assumptions Caden was making that she knew she couldn’t blame him for, and especially his not listening to her about Nathaniel. But looking at him now and seeing the pain in his eyes, she realized she couldn’t be mad at him. She needed him too much.

“Kyla, I’m sorry,” he told her. His tone was completely changed from what it had been only a moment before. Where he had been angry and frustrated, now Caden only sounded like he was in pain.

Kyla hugged her arms tightly as she stood before him, looking down at her feet so she could avoid his eyes. That did no good for her, though. She could feel him just as easily whether she was looking at him or not.

Taking a cautious step toward her, Caden tried to touch her again. He was more careful this time as he gently set his hand on her elbow, and even though she flinched on the contact, her reaction wasn’t as violent as before.

“Kyla…” he tried again.

She tensed even further, determined not to let down her guard since she knew what that would cost her. The second she opened up to Caden again, he would want to know answers. And that was something that she just couldn’t give him, even if she wanted to with everything in her.

Swallowing hard, Caden closed his remorse-filled eyes. “It’s okay,” he told her, keeping his hand on her elbow.

Kyla stayed cold.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized again. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I just feel so helpless, not knowing what happened.” He struggled to keep the emotion out of his voice. “I hate the thought of anyone doing that to you. You don’t even know how much.”

Kyla’s emotion faltered. She almost slipped up and let him see it, but she got it under control again before he could.

“I want you to know it’s okay,” Caden told her. “I’m here as long as you need me and I won’t push you anymore until you’re ready to talk. I’m gonna try my best not to get angry, too.”

Kyla frowned. “But you suck at not getting angry.”

That made Caden laugh.

In spite of the seriousness of the moment, they were both smiling now. It felt strange, but also relieving, like a thousand tons had just been lifted from both of their shoulders. It only lasted for a second, though. Faster than it had come on her, Kyla’s smile faded, and as it did she got brave and looked up at Caden.

The way he was looking at her, sad but hopeful, it wrecked her. She could see the love in him, just like she had always been able to, but she didn’t know how to cope with it. That was when she remembered what Nathaniel had told her, that she needed to go to him. She remembered the look on his face when he’d said it…the agony it had caused him.

Kyla still didn’t understand.

“He told me to come to you,” she said abruptly.

Caden’s smile faded and confusion took its place. “What?”

Kyla hesitated. “Nathaniel told me you would keep me safe.”

She had never seen her best friend more confused, but then as he waited there, trying to understand, something seemed to hit him; some level of discernment only he could see into.

Suddenly Kyla was afraid at what he might be thinking, or even worse, what he might know. Whenever Caden got that look on his face, he tended to know a lot more than any person should.

“Caden?” she asked him nervously.

“Come on,” he told her. His voice was more affirmative than it had been, like he knew what he had to do now. Walking past her, he made his way to the door.

“Where are we going?” she asked him.

“To fix this,” he said. “To make it right.”

Kyla didn’t get it. “Fix what?” she asked him. “What are you talking about?”

Caden stopped and turned back to her. “I am going to help you cover this up.”

. . . . .

It was ten in the morning when Matthew got the phone call from Alexa Howell letting him know that his sister and her best friend Caden (who also happened to be Alexa’s older brother) had just walked out of Caden’s bedroom and were headed toward the driveway. It wasn’t early by any means, but considering how little Matthew had slept the night before, it may as well have been five AM.

“Kyla should be home soon,” Alexa told him. “Caden’s taking her now.”

Matthew wrinkled his forehead. He didn’t know what was going on here, but whatever it was, something was off. Actually, a lot of things were off from what he could tell.

“Don’t let them know that I’ve talked to you,” Alexa instructed him. “You have to act like you’ve just been worried and you didn’t know where Kyla was last night.”

That wouldn’t be hard. Matthew was worried and he didn’t know where Kyla was last night. He still didn’t like what Alexa was suggesting. He wanted answers; he didn’t want to play stupid games. He wanted to confront his sister and Caden directly…but he also trusted Alexa enough to know that he should listen to her.

Shaking his hair out of his lightly freckled face, Matthew told her, “Fine.”

Alexa had to know he was frustrated, but she didn’t say anything about it. Matthew didn’t expect her to.

“I don’t like this, Lex,” he said.

“You need to trust me,” was the girl’s only response.

Matthew looked toward the front door, wishing Kyla would just hurry up and get there already. “Yeah, I know,” he said tensely. “Just like I have to trust you when you tell me you can’t explain anything yet, and when you tell me my sister’s in danger but you won’t tell me why. Oh, and let’s not forget about her new friend Nathaniel…”

“Matthew…” Alexa cut him off.

Matthew sighed. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“I need to know that you can handle this,” she told him. “It’s really important.”

“Why?” he asked her. “Why is it so important? Can you at least tell me that much? I mean, if Caden and Kyla are hiding something from us, don’t you think we’re more likely to find out what it is if we tell them what we already know?”

“No,” Alexa stated. “I don’t.”

Matthew could have guessed she would say that. “Why not?” he asked.

“Because I saw something.”

Matthew fell quiet. He never took it lightly when Alexa said those words. “What did you see?” he asked her.

“Not a vision,” she clarified. “I saw something in Caden…when he came and found me this morning.”

That was news to Matthew.

“What did he want?”

Alexa wasn’t eager to answer that question, and Matthew had a few guesses as to why.

“He wanted to know what I’ve seen,” she told him.

Matthew muttered under his breath, “That makes two of us.”

“Matthew…”

“I know, I know,” he grumbled. “You can’t tell me that yet.”

Alexa had given him that excuse so many times he was using it for her now.

“Something isn’t adding up,” she told him. “I have to figure it out before we do anything.”

“You know, if you would just tell me, I could help…”

“No.”

Matthew scowled.

“Caden is still too hostile,” she said. “My guess is they both are. We can’t get straight answers from them by asking anything directly. That will only put them on guard. We have to be very careful here.”

“And why are they hostile?” he asked her. “What do they have to be so defensive about?”

Alexa hesitated. Matthew knew what she was thinking. She didn’t have to verbalize that for him to know. He knew there had been a rift between Alexa and her brother since Nathaniel Blake had shown up. Matthew just didn’t know why. He could feel the distress it caused her, which was far more than anything like that should have distressed an eight-year-old girl. But then, most eight-year-olds didn’t have the relationship with their nineteen-year-old brothers that Alexa had with Caden. In all the time Matthew had known them, he had never known anything to come between them like this.

The way things appeared, Nathaniel Blake had something to do with everything that had been happening around here lately. In one way or another, all of it seemed to be revolved around him, and Matthew knew Alexa knew more about why than she was letting on. In the past she would have at least tried to let him in on it, but things were different now. It was like there was some part to it that she was trying to protect him from, or maybe that she was just afraid to be honest with him about.

Matthew was used to Alexa not articulating herself, to having to navigate through their sparse conversations to figure out what she really meant or what was really going on in her head. But her holding out on him like this wasn’t normal. She usually trusted him more.

“You don’t have to worry,” Matthew told her. “I’m gonna play dumb with them.”

“Thank you,” Alexa said.

Matthew kept his eyes fixed on the front door even though he knew the two of them were still a good ten minutes away. “I’m just glad Caden’s here to keep her safe now,” he said.

Alexa was a little quieter on that one than he expected her to be. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Me too.”

Matthew could tell she was thinking beyond the words she volunteered to him, but he decided not to question her on it. It would be pointless right now since he knew she wasn’t going to give him anything else.

“Lex?” he asked. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Alexa said after a moment. “I have a feeling that a lot of things are about to change.”

Matthew frowned. “What’s about to change?” he asked her.

Alexa hesitated again. “Everything.”

. . . . .

It took work for Caden and Kyla to come up with a story that Loni would believe. Explaining why the Civic that the woman hadn’t driven in two years (but still retained the title for) had to be towed to the body shop in Manitou Springs wasn’t a thrilling endeavor; especially considering that Caden didn’t even know the real story of what had happened last night. It was about to drive him out of his mind, too.

Not a single part of it added up, but he knew he couldn’t push Kyla any more than he already had. She was so fragile right now that he was afraid she might do something drastic if he were to keep pressing her for the truth. That was why he told her what he had, that he would wait until she was ready.

But that hardly meant he was letting it go.

It wasn’t as easy smoothing things over with her little brother. After Caden and Kyla put a bottle of vodka in Loni’s hand and steered her in the direction of the basement of the James’ condo, she was pretty much taken care of. But Matthew was a lot more aware than his and Kyla’s broken excuse for a mother. That was where Caden really had to come in, assuring the boy that despite what it looked like, his sister was fine. Everything was fine.

The lie tasted bitter in Caden’s mouth. He had never been a fan of lying, even though he’d been doing it to Kyla for years. Still, there was a significant difference between telling a ten-year-old boy that his sister wasn’t in danger (when clearly she was) and his hiding from Kyla all these years what she really meant to him.

From what Caden could tell, Matthew believed what he told him, and that only made it worse on him. The last thing Caden wanted to do was abuse the boy’s trust, and yet that was exactly the position he had been put in. Matthew meant a lot to him, and he hated that he was forced to deceive him…by Kyla, yes, but mostly because of Nathaniel Blake. Whoever he was. Whatever he was hiding.

Caden shook off the thought so he could appear normal in front of Kyla and Matthew where he sat with them in their living room. He would find out about Nathaniel later. Right now, he had to keep things stable.

“I’m tired,” Matthew told them. “I’m gonna go to bed.” Mid-morning or not, it was pretty clear the boy needed rest. Staying up all night would do that to a ten-year-old.

Kyla cringed when she realized how worried he had been, and Caden could tell she felt awful about it. “Do you want something to eat?” she offered her brother as he made his way toward the stairs.

“Later,” he mumbled.

Kyla frowned and looked at her feet. She cringed a little when the door to Matthew’s bedroom closed, and Caden felt an instinctual compulsion to comfort her. He stayed where he was though, resisting the urge. He was still too defensive to do that.

“Thank you,” Kyla told him. Her eyes were still cast to the carpet.

Caden made a face. He didn’t want to be thanked; he wanted an explanation. But he knew a thank you was all he was going to get from her.

Once Matthew was in his room, Caden glanced toward the kitchen and then back at the exhausted girl in front of him who looked barely able to stand. “When was the last time you ate?” he asked her.

Kyla bit her lip and tried to think back, obviously to no avail.

That was all Caden needed to know. Standing up, he told her, “You stay put. I’m gonna cook for you.”

Kyla laughed like she thought he was joking. “Please,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Caden gave her a look, ready to take the challenge. He’d had a year of living on his own in Nashville to teach himself how to cook. Sure, it had taken about seven months and him developing an abrasion to Hot Pockets and Ramen Noodles to push him to learn, but he had finally buckled down and taught himself. Or at least he’d tried to.

Caden rummaged through the refrigerator and Kyla watched him curiously. “I haven’t shopped in a while,” she told him. “I’m not sure you’re gonna find anything in there.”

Caden was a little worried that he might not either when he opened the refrigerator, so he shifted his focus to the pantry and found a glass container of oatmeal. Excited, (since he actually had a relative idea of how to make oatmeal) he put it on the stove. Kyla watched him with an amused smile, and when he tried to serve it up and saw that it looked like a blob of congealed paste, he frowned and furrowed his brow.

Kyla laughed at his expression and walked into the kitchen to help him. Caden kept the frown on his face as she put the blobs of oatmeal he’d portioned off into their bowls back into the pan. He really had no idea how she planned to redeem what he had massacred, but if anyone could do it, he knew Kyla could. She was just amazing like that.

Watching her add vanilla soy milk and cinnamon and a dash of salt to the pan (a thought that never would have struck Caden) he made a face and asked her, “Soy milk? Really?”

Kyla told him to “shut it,” and chopped up a couple of fresh peaches that she pulled from the basket on the counter while the oatmeal simmered on the stove. Spooning off the now much better-looking oatmeal into their bowls, she sprinkled some slivered almonds on top and drizzled a honey-looking substance over the top of it that she said was called “agave.”

Caden made another face. “Soy milk and agave? You really expect me to eat that?”

“Stop being a baby and try it,” she told him.

Caden took a spoonful of it grudgingly, and he was a little upset when he liked it. He wished it hadn’t tasted so good because then he wouldn’t have to admit he was wrong. He didn’t know how she did that; how she could take something as awful as the oatmeal monstrosity he had created and make it into something this amazing. That was just what Kyla did, though, with everything in life. She took nothing and made it spectacular…like a blank sheet of paper and an unused piece of charcoal. Like a scared little boy on a playground who didn’t know who he was…

Caden shoved away the thought and took another bite of his oatmeal. “I guess it’s edible,” he mumbled, pretending it was just okay. Kyla saw through him though. And at that point, seeing her smile meant enough to him that he didn’t even care if it came at the expense of his pride.

When Caden glanced back at her and gave her a smirk, he could feel her starting to let her guard down. He could also pinpoint the exact second that she noticed.

Quicker than she started to let him in, Kyla pulled back from him again. Looking down at her oatmeal like it was the most putrid substance she had ever tasted, she told him, “You’re right. The soymilk ruined it.”

Caden frowned. He wished he could see whatever thought just passed through her head. He hated it when she did that.

Kyla took their bowls away and she was about to toss them in the trash when Caden stopped her. “Don’t!” he objected. “I like it.”

She set both of the bowls back down in front of him and told him, “They’re all yours then.”

Caden saw that sick look get even stronger on her face and he didn’t understand. “Kyla, please,” he said, “you need to eat. You’re starting to scare me.”

“I don’t feel well,” she told him. “I need to sleep.”

He was practically twitching he wanted to question her again so badly, but he held to his promise and agreed to let her go upstairs.

Once he heard the door to her bedroom shut, Caden clenched his fists in anger. He was so mad he debated smashing his bowl of oatmeal against the wall; but in hopes of avoiding any loud noises that might rouse Loni where she slept in the basement (and create a mess of mushy oatmeal and shattered ceramic pieces that he didn’t want to clean up) Caden got out of there fast.

Yes, smashing something would make him feel good right now, but it would make him feel even better to find out the truth. The time for him letting things stand in his way was over. There was too much at stake for him now, too much that he wasn’t willing to compromise.

Whatever it took, whatever it cost him, Caden would learn the truth about Nathaniel Blake.