Wildblood

Chapter 44

44

Kai never got on much with Father Time.

Saturn. Chronos. Death. The reaping of what is sowed.

And Kai rarely reaped well.

When he first fled Granite Falls, he thought he’d be lucky to make it to twenty-five. On his twenty-sixth birthday, he vowed to reach thirty, if only to prove he was capable of surviving. That was the year he met Miya, and once they were bound—tethered in ways he didn’t understand—he stopped hedging his bets. He no longer had the luxury of dying young.

Now, he felt the press of time like that teenage boy absconding from the state, unsure of the next meal, the next warm bed, the next anything. Only the dread wasn’t for himself; it was for Caelan.

Twenty-four hours left.

Kai shifted on the bench, scanning the mansion half-obscured by a wall of manicured shrubs. He’d burned away the remaining daylight meandering around the city; his head was full of phantoms, and he had no intention of releasing them into his home.

As if yanking every skeleton out of the abysmal closet of his subconscious wasn’t enough, he dwelled on Caelan’s fate as much as the one he’d evaded. Kruni?’s insights were a sickle around his throat, and if he didn’t tread carefully, he’d lose his head to the reaping hook. He hated how beholden he was to a past he couldn’t remember, to an identity he’d lost, and a name he didn’t relate to. Kai Donovan had spent two decades wresting control from Mikhail Zverev, sundering himself from the boy who once was. He’d failed, and it was no wonder. Ghosts were intangible, amorphous.

Wild desperation fluttered in his chest—a frantic bird trapped in a tunnel, longing for the sky. Caelan deserved better than what Mikhail Zverev got. Alina probably deserved better than Pyotr. Both did, irrespective of whether they’d inspired his care or his wrath.

The solution seemed simple: eliminate the common element. Without Pyotr, Ivan would have no contract, and Caelan would be safe. The supernatural shit-fest could be dealt with in peace, and the world wouldn’t weep for the loss of another rich sociopath.

There was only one complication. Kai had no desire to orphan another child. No matter which way he angled the problem, saving one girl came at the expense of the other. He didn’t particularly care for Alina, but callousness came less readily when he knew the impact of his actions.

He rose from the bench, the mansion an omen and an opportunity. The key to Caelan’s freedom awaited inside, as did a damning decision. It was a tight rope—doing the right thing.

Right for whom? Kai wondered in vain—a question trapped within the edges of a churning mind.

It didn’t matter. The math was uncomplicated. Pyotr’s death spelled Caelan’s freedom, and Alina would learn to cope. Her father was a mob boss; an ugly demise was an occupational hazard. Kai just hadn’t anticipated that he’d be the reaper at Pyotr’s doorstep.

Fuck it.

He was good at getting his hands dirty.

Breaking in should’ve been more difficult, but Kai found an ally in Pyotr’s hubris. No guards or dogs—only security cameras and sensors evaded like vegetables at a steakhouse. He slipped in through a low window in the back garden. It was cracked open—probably an oversight—though every entry point was disguised by topiary and iron gates. He’d studied the layout of the house before trespassing, gauging its size and scope. Spatial awareness was more important than an exact blueprint.

He landed in a powder room, rubber soles thudding against white marble. Clinical but classy. Ear to the door, Kai found the hall outside quiet. No housekeepers, no bodyguards. Just a too-big house for a man whose wealth outsized his humanity. Judging by the curves of the outer wall, he expected a large office or sitting room in the southeast corner. It wasn’t late enough for sleep, and Pyotr seemed the type to while away his evening with overpriced brandy—that is, assuming he had no one’s fingers to cut off. Kai knew he didn’t—not tonight.

He’d passed Chrysanthemum earlier, and the bouncer from his first visit nodded in greeting. Kai seized the opportunity to pry out what he needed.

“The boss-man doesn’t visit mid-week,” the bouncer had said with a lazy shrug. “Guy likes routine, and every Wednesday and Thursday, he stays home with his family.”

Admirable or controlling—Kai wasn’t sure which, but he could hazard a guess.

The corridor outside the powder room was lit only by moonbeams. Ostentatious windows towered from floor to ceiling, showcasing the impressive courtyard at the house’s rear. As Kai stalked toward the southeast corner, silver rays passing over him, the sudden thud of a heartbeat rived through his senses.

Someone was nearby.

He could incapacitate them, hide the body in one of the many crannies of the gauche estate. The heartbeat pattered frantically, its owner unmoving around a tight corner up ahead. If they rounded into Kai, things could get messy. He had to strike first. Sliding past the wall, he pivoted into a nook tucked under a staircase, ready to send the poor bastard to bed.

He never got the chance. Shock wove through Kai’s bones, freezing him in place—the wolf made a deer in a split second of painful recognition.

Caelan.

No, Alina.

She peered up at him, her face aglow from the phone in her hands. She didn’t move, and neither did he. A thousand scenarios roared through Kai’s mind, each one starting with Alina’s scream and ending with Kai’s life.

But the girl didn’t scream. She just stared, eyes wide and lips pursed as though she’d caged the cry. Inhaling sharply, her coppery brows knitted as knowing sank into her features.

“Are you Death?”

Kai’s mouth opened. He wanted to say no , but it felt like a half-truth baked into a larger lie. He was here to end a life.

“You’re here to kill me, right?” A demand—calm, untroubled.

“Are you expecting to die?” Kai parried her question with another. Wagering she wouldn’t scream for help, he relaxed his stance.

Her gaze shifted to the tiles, unnaturally white in the gloom. “Everyone dies. I guess I just know my time is sooner than most.”

“I’m not here for you.” Kai’s fingers and toes burned to move. He was wasting precious time, but he was also trapped. He wasn’t about to threaten a kid, and that left him no choice but to suss out his options while he had her attention. Slanting his body, he angled one ear toward the hall behind him.

The girl tucked her phone into her pocket. Whatever had her heart hammering earlier must’ve been related. “I saw you in the park before I blacked out.”

So, she hadn’t seen him shift; her trance must’ve hit before he’d pretzeled himself into an animal.

“You’re with her…the fetch.”

“You sound like you’re expecting her.” Kai shucked away the pretense. “But like I said, I’m not here for you.”

“Then why are you here?”

To kill your father. Maybe. I haven’t decided yet. Kai swallowed. “Trying to save the fetch. She doesn’t want to hurt you.”

Alina nodded, backing further into the corner. She plunked down on a bench drilled into the wall under the stairwell—a reading nook with a built-in bookshelf. “I summoned her. I still remember it—that stupid night three years ago.”

Exactly when Caelan first appeared.

Kai followed her into the enclave, eager to pull himself out of sight. “What? Did you buy a Ouija board from a garage sale?” Summoning a doppelganger didn’t seem like a thing done on purpose.

The girl huffed as she cracked a smile. “No. I just…wished it, I guess.”

“You wanted your doppelganger to find you?”

She gnawed on her lower lip, palms braced on either side of her as she rocked back and forth. “I hated my life. Still do. This house is a gilded cage. I was homeschooled until last year, and now I’m stuck at a private school where everyone keeps tabs on me. My dad thinks mandatory dinners together twice a week is peak parenting. He says he cares about me, but he’s just pruning me to fit his image.” A harsh laugh keened from a tight throat. “I wanted someone to take my place. I was just a dumb kid then, so I begged, thinking there was no way anyone out there would listen, but?—”

Kai groaned and rubbed his brow with the ball of his hand. “You manifested a fucking doppelganger with the sheer power of your own misery. Excellent.” He had no idea how it was possible—how some people gave shape to the unspoken while others drowned in it.

“It was an accident.” Her voice was small, timid. “I didn’t realize it’d worked.”

Alina wasn’t unlike the Dreamwalker—a person with gifts no one made room for. How many others were there? How many people had access to things that shouldn’t have been real?

“You said you’re not here to kill me…”

“I’m not,” Kai confirmed a third time.

“Maybe you should.”

His eyes sliced into her—all thorns and rebuke. “Don’t you have homework to do? Another awkward teen to flirt with? Alcohol to smuggle? Weed to smoke?”

“I’m serious,” she hissed. “I didn’t mean to summon her. And I sure as hell didn’t think she’d be a person who’d have to experience my life if she caught me. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even a fetch.”

“You should go stay with your boyfriend for a while.” Kai didn’t care to trip into Alina’s emotional quicksand. The important part was that she wouldn’t tattle. Her allegiance wasn’t to Pyotr; it was to her own pain.

“We had a fight.”

So, that’s what happened on the phone . “Then make up,” he ordered. “Your dick of a father is only going to complicate this, fetch or no. Trust me. You don’t want to be here when shit hits the fan, and it will.”

She peered up at him, tallying something in her mind. When her calculations stalled out, Kai made himself the variable that would tip her wavering scale.

“You asked me if I’m Death.” His shadow darkened the small crevice, foreboding churning the space between them. He was Sendoa’s descendent—the stygian wolf marring legends across time, a god of destruction in mortal form. Death was a result, a finality. And the black wolf was never the end. He was the undoing.

“I’m not Death,” said Kai. “I’m the fucking calamity that wields it.”