Free Blood Dark by Lindsay J Pryor Page A

gritted, before the vyber slumped to the floor.
    Jask stepped back, rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.
    Kane exhaled slowly, his hands then low on his hips.
    ‘We’re losing time, Kane,’ Jask said, catching his breath, the evidence at his feet. ‘If this continues, if this escalates, this district is fucked. We have to stop this. Use Parish. Help Caleb get those alibis.’

7
    I t was the third time Caitlin had used their system.
    Kane had kept the ball in his court from the moment she’d returned to the VCU. He’d given her a phone with one outgoing number should she need him in an emergency (and he’d stressed emergency ), otherwise he either came to her or she met him at the club.
    After the metal shutter had been drawn back from the door and she’d had the quick once over from the eyes behind it, she’d been permitted to step over the threshold. If he wasn’t at the club, she’d be relocated to whichever of Kane’s dens he was occupying at the time. If she was followed, the trail would fall cold.
    It was easy enough to do. His hang-outs were selected because of their warren-like set-up – impossible to get through without the warning message traveling towards him like falling dominoes, or certainly not in time for Kane not to have escaped through any numerous exit points. As well as him relying on his intimate knowledge of the area, the crowds were his barriers – a willing wall of defense, of denial, of protection as much about loyalty towards him as a loathing of the establishment trying to snag him. He subsequently moved like a silent force through Blackthorn – and never more so since Sirius’s threat.
    Stepping inside the dark corridor, Caitlin was met by a broad-set vampire who dominated her by at least a foot in height. As on the previous two occasions, she was asked to hand over her gun and any other weapons, a further reminder that her return to the VCU had resulted in a severance of trust. It was another lashing for her desire to return to as normal a life as she could have mustered.
    She was led towards the back of the establishment, taken left and then right down further dark corridors before her escort banged on a metal door at the far end. The viewing window slid open and closed just as rapidly before the door clunked open from the other side. The same thing happened a further twenty-feet along.
    She was led left and right down two further corridors until she wasn’t even sure if she was in the same building anymore. One thing she did know: she wasn’t getting back the way she came without someone else’s say so.
    Her escort finally came to a standstill outside the only door on the left. He knocked, a viewing window sliding open again, the door opening seconds later.
    The night she’d gone to talk to Kane about Caleb, she’d been led to a warehouse-type room to find Kane there with three other males, all gathered around a table. They had been in the process of leaving; Kane in the process of folding up whatever large pieces of paper had been spread across the table. But, this time, work seemed to be the last thing on Kane’s mind.
    She stepped into what felt like a private nightclub, instantly feeling dowdy in her plain pastel shirt and ignore-me jeans as she was left hovering whilst her escort moved through the dimly lit, smoky room to locate Kane.
    She assessed the spiked, chrome heels of the woman who slipped past her, the long sleeves of her sparkling silver dress clinging to her slender arms, the fabric tight across her chest, revealing the bralessness that was confirmed by the low back.
    Caitlin self-consciously adjusted her blazer-style jacket that could have been mistaken for masculine had it not been slightly nipped in at the waist. She touched her messy bun of hair, drawn back from her face for practicality.
    More than ever she needed a reminder of the two weeks they’d had together because being back in his territory, his real territory, reinforced that this was