Seeing no way to win this argument, I nodded. We waited a couple of more minutes before we left his house.
At the door, Aiden paused, his fingers curling at his side.
My brow furrowed. “What?”
Aiden’s gaze settled on me, and the air left my lungs.
Passion slammed into me, hard and hot. The look on his face—in his eyes—sent shivers through me. Without saying a word, he cupped my face and brought his lips to mine.
The kiss took whatever air I had left in me. It was heady and deep, heart-stopping. I never wanted it to end, but it did.
Aiden pul ed back, his fingers slowly trailing away from my cheeks.
“Don’t do anything stupid.” His voice sounded thick. Then he disappeared into the darkness outside of his cottage.
I stumbled back to my dorm on rubbery knees, replaying what’d happened between us. Those kisses, his touch, and the way he’d looked at me were forever branded in my mind. Two seconds from losing my virginity.
Two freaking seconds.
But that last kiss—there was something in it, something that fil ed me with nervousness and heartache. Once inside my room, I paced back and forth. With learning that I’d become a second Apol yon on my birthday, what’d happened between Aiden and me, and Kain’s unexpected reappearance, I was wired. I took a shower. I even straightened my room, but nothing could wear me out. Right now, Aiden and the other Sentinels were questioning Kain
—getting the answers I needed. Was Mom a kil er?
Hours went by as I waited for Aiden to come by with news, but he never did. I fel into a restless sleep and woke way too early. I had about an hour before training would begin, and there was no way I could wait any longer. The plan formed in my mind. I threw on my gym clothes and hurried outside.
The sun had just crested the horizon, but the humidity made the air murky. I avoided the Guards on patrol, skirting the sides of the buildings as I made my way to the infirmary.
Cool air greeted me inside the narrow building. I moved through corridors lined with smal er offices and a couple of larger rooms equipped to handle medical emergencies.
The pure-blood doctors lived on the main island and only staffed the infirmary during the school year. This early on a summer morning, only a few nurses would be in the building.
I already had excuses ready if I ran into one of those nurses. I had kil er cramps. I’d broken my toe. I’d even say I needed a pregnancy test if it meant I could get to where they had Kain, but I didn’t need any of my excuses. The medical compound was tomb-silent as I prowled down the dimly lit hal way. After checking several of the smal er rooms, I stumbled into a ward used to accommodate several patients at once. Instinct led me past the empty gurneys and beyond the pea green curtain.
I froze, the papery thin fabric fluttering behind me.
Kain sat in the middle of the bed, dressed in loose jogging pants and nothing more. Dul locks of hair hid most of his downturned face, but his chest… . Swal owing down the sudden rise of bile, I could only stare.
His chest, incredibly pale, was covered with crescent-shaped tags and thin slices that looked like they’d been made by one of our Covenant-issued daggers. There wasn’t much space on him that wasn’t marked.
He lifted his head. His blue eyes stood out against a corpselike pal or. I inched closer, feeling something in my chest tighten. He looked so bad, and when he smiled at me, he looked worse. His skin was so washed-out that his lips looked blood red. A tiny bit of guilt flashed inside me.
Maybe I could’ve waited to question him, but in typical Alex fashion, I jumped in.
“Kain? Are you okay?”
“I… think so.”
“I wanted… to ask you some questions if… it’s okay with you?”
“You want to ask about your mother?” He looked down at his hands.
Relief crashed through me. I wouldn’t have to explain myself. I stepped closer. “Yes.”
He was quiet as he continued staring down at his hands.
He was holding something, but I couldn’t see what it was. “I told the others I didn’t remember anything.”
I wanted to sit down and cry. Kain had been my only hope. “You don’t?”
“That’s what I told them.”
An odd sound came from behind the green curtain on the other side of Kain’s bed, like cloth dragging across a smooth floor. My brows knitted as I looked past him.
“Is… is someone back there?”
The only answer was a low gurgling. Dread came out of nowhere, inching down my spine, demanding that I flee this room now. I pushed past the bed and threw back the curtain. My lips parted in silent scream.
Three pure-blood nurses lay sprawled on the bloody floor. One stil clung to life. An angry red line ripped across her throat as she pul ed herself across the smal distance. I reached for her, but with one last bubble of a noise, she was gone. Rooted to the spot, I couldn’t think or breathe.
Throats slashed. Al dead.
“Lexie.”
No one but Mom cal ed me that—no one. I turned around, my hand fluttering to my mouth. Kain remained on the opposite side of the bed, staring down into his hands.
“I think the nickname Lexie is far better than Alex, but what do I know?” He laughed, and it sounded cold, humorless. Dead. “I didn’t know anything until now.”
I bolted.
Kain moved surprisingly fast for someone who’d been tortured for weeks. He was in front of me before I made it to the door, Covenant dagger in hand.
My eyes froze on the dagger. “Why?”
“Why?” His voice mimicked mine. “Don’t you get it? No.
Of course you don’t. I didn’t get it either. They tried it on the Guards first, but they drained them too fast. They died.”
Something was so, so wrong with him. The torture could have done it; al those tags could’ve driven him crazy. But it didn’t real y matter why he’d gone insane, because he was most definitely a lunatic—and I was cornered.
“By the time they got to be me, they’d learned from their mistakes. Gotta drain our kind slowly.” He glanced down at the dagger. “But we aren’t like them. We don’t change like them.”
I backed up, swal owing down the fear. My training vanished. I knew how to deal with a daimon, but a friend driven crazy was a different story.
“I was hungry, so hungry. There’s nothing like it. I had to.”
Horrifying realization set in. I took another step back just as he launched himself at me. He was so fast, faster than he’d ever been. Before I could even ful y register the swing, his fist connected with my face. I flew back, crashing into one of those little tables. It happened so quickly I couldn’t break my fal . I landed in a messy heap, dazed and tasting blood in my mouth.
Kain was on me immediately, yanking me to my feet and flinging me across the room. I hit the edge of the bed hard, and then the floor. Scrambling to my feet, I ignored the pain and faced the one thing that could not be.
Beyond reason or explanation, I had no doubt that Kain was no longer a half-blood. Only one thing moved as quickly as he did. Impossible as it was, he was a daimon.
CHAPTER 17
BESIDES BEING ABNORMALLY PALE, KAIN
LOOKED like … Kain. It explained how none of the other half-bloods had sensed it in him. Nothing about him gave off a warning that something was horribly wrong. Wel …
except the pile of dead bodies behind the curtain.
I reached for what looked like a heart monitor machine, hurling it at his head. Not surprisingly, he knocked it aside.
He laughed that sick laugh again. “Can’t you do better than that? Remember our training sessions? How easily I got the best of you?”