Wildblood

Chapter 42

42

Miya

When Kai didn’t show by ten that evening, Miya considered launching her own search and rescue mission. Carol stopped by with a distraught Caelan, and although they’d confirmed that Kai was holed up at the Confessional, his continued absence wore on her. After hours of nervous fidgeting, she dragged herself to Marty’s menagerie at Caelan’s request.

When she returned, she nearly dropped her shopping bags in the doorway.

Kai stood in the kitchen, spooning ice cream straight out of the tub. He stared blankly at the wall ahead as Miya walked in. Still as an anthropologist in an underbrush, she observed silently, wondering if he’d acknowledge her.

“Are you…eating your feelings?” she asked, dumbfounded, then placed her snack haul on the coffee table.

He took a giant scoop and turned the spoon toward her. “Chocolate peanut butter,” he offered without inflection.

Caelan sat on the couch, stroking Ripper’s back as she too watched Kai. “He’s been a zombie since he got in, like, ten minutes ago.”

Miya took the spoon he held and swallowed down the ice cream, then dropped the utensil in the sink. Kai looked like someone had carved the fire out of him and dumped a barrel of soil on top. “What the hell happened?”

After a hefty sigh and some impotent puttering, he brought her up to speed, flatly recounting the day’s events.

“You just…let him go?” Miya asked after Ivan Zverev. She was clinging to at least three hundred questions about bloodlines and doppelgangers. Kai wavered when the topic of his ancestry came up; there was more to it than he let on, but hearing that Caelan’s pursuer roamed free foisted Miya’s curiosities onto the back burner.

Finished with the ice cream, Kai nabbed an apple from their depleted fruit bowl and pared off pieces with his hunting knife, casually devouring them straight from the blade. “We came to an agreement.”

Miya crossed her arms over her chest as he explained his risky bargain. She expected it to be hairbrained, anxiety balling in her throat. Ivan Zverev couldn’t ignore Kai’s identity, but he couldn’t abandon his contract either.

“He’s given me seventy-two hours to find a solution that doesn’t end in Caelan’s death.” Kai’s gaze drifted to the girl on the couch. She bowed her head, her fingers stilling in Ripper’s fur.

“Or he’s coming back for her,” Miya surmised.

Kai nodded, his expression grim. “I couldn’t hold him hostage. Someone would notice, and I can’t put that shit on Connor. He’s supposed to stay neutral.”

Miya trapped her misgivings behind her teeth. She didn’t have a better idea, and Kai had been forced to think on his feet.

“Killing him leaves a bad taste in my mouth.” He spoke like he’d considered it. “But I won’t let him hurt Caelan either.”

A tired smile stretched Miya’s lips. “He’s not the architect of the problem. Pyotr is. Getting rid of your long-lost cousin isn’t a fix.”

His shoulders relaxed with her assent. “The deal will buy me time at least.”

“What happens if you can’t think of anything?” Caelan finally chimed in. “Three days isn’t a lot of time.”

“He’ll come for you again, and I’ll just have to send him limping back to Pyotr until something clicks.” He sounded so resolute, like beating back an attacker was as common as taking out the trash. “Zverev aside”—he stepped past Miya—“we need to talk.”

Ripper jumped from Caelan’s lap, stalking across the room to his water bowl.

“Did you know you’re a fetch?” Kai asked.

A shake of the head. “I’ve never had to think about it. I just…existed. And then I was here, trying to find her .”

Caelan had left the dreamscape to locate her double and replace her. And the leshy, Kai explained, amplified her impulse to do so—strengthened the tether between the two girls and drew it so taut that they’d inevitably collide.

“I think I understand now.” Miya circled the tiny island they used for preparing food. The leshy was concerned for Caelan’s safety. Miya had assumed something supernatural was pursuing her, but it was the other way around. The girl was an unwilling hunter, but she was also prey—not to some malevolent spirit, but to Pyotr, the adoptive father of Caelan’s double, Alina. The leshy wanted to bring Caelan back to the ethereal plane, but that did nothing to silence the call; she’d be drawn into the physical world until she finished what she’d unwittingly started. “The leshy thinks that if Caelan kills her double, it’ll put an end to the call. She’ll be able to return to the dreamscape and stay there.”

Caelan curled her knees to her chest and shrank into herself, wilting like a dying flower. A hiccupping sob shuddered her shoulders. “I can’t do this anymore,” she managed between sharp inhales. “I can’t keep fighting what I am. I didn’t understand it—I still don’t—but the universe doesn’t give a damn about that. It wants me to kill. I knew something bad would happen if I listened to the call, but killing?—”

“We’ll find a way to stop it,” Miya reassured.

“How?” She lifted her head, bloodshot eyes rimmed with tears. “I don’t see a way out.”

Sorrow was a fist around Miya’s heart. She understood this helplessness—had worn it for years. Youth was difficult enough, but bearing a supernatural burden turned hurdles into stone walls. “We’re just barely starting to understand this, and we have three days to come up with a plan.” She’d call Ama—force her and Kai to reconcile. They needed the white wolf’s knowledge about other worlds. Gavran would help too, but he was a wily spirit, frequently speaking in riddles and vanishing for days on end.

Feeling Kai’s torrid stare, Miya locked eyes with him. He was suspiciously quiet, his jaw clenched as he parsed something only he was privy to. An imagined scenario. A hypothetical outcome. His brow knitted, the look he gave her both bladed and apologetic.

One of them has to die , it said. A morbid calculation.

An acrid taste filled Miya’s mouth, and she gave a slight shake of her head, an outright rejection. “Come on,” she said to Caelan, though her attention remained on Kai. “Let’s get some air. I think it’s getting a little cramped in here.”

As the teen rose and joined Miya by the door, Kai’s gaze dropped to the knife in his hand. Thumb braced on the haft, he sliced into white flesh, carving out the apple’s core.