Shades of Midnight (Midnight Breed 7)

"Just me," she said. "Poor Dave. And poor Lanny, too. God bless them both." As a wave of soft murmurs and whispered prayers traveled the crowd, Alex cleared her throat. "I have to go, Zach. It's been a long day, and I'm really tired. So, unless you have any more questions--"

"No," he said, but the look he gave her was guarded, filled with a reluctant acceptance of everything he'd just heard. "Go on home, then, Alex. If I need you, I know where to find you." She nodded, unable to dismiss feeling oddly threatened by his comment as she turned and walked away.

Some five miles out of Harmony, deep in the frozen wilderness, Kade shrugged the burden of Skeeter Arnold's lifeless body off his shoulders and dropped it down a steep ravine. He stood there for a moment, after the Minion's corpse had tumbled out of sight, letting the bitter cold air fill his lungs and steam his breath as he stared out at the vast nothingness all around him. The sky was dark overhead, the snow-covered ground glowed midnight blue under the afternoon starlight. In the distant woods, a wolf cried, long and lamenting, summoning its pack to run. The wildness of his surroundings called to Kade, and for one sharp instant, he was tempted to give in to it. Tempted to ignore the chaos and confusion that he'd left behind him in Harmony. Tempted to run from the fear he'd put in Alex, and the unpleasant business of the truth that he would have to deliver to her when he got back.

Would she despise him for what he had to tell her?

Would she recoil in horror when she came to understand his true nature?

He couldn't blame her if she did. Knowing what she'd endured as a child, and now, having seen him kill a man before her eyes, how could he possibly hope that she would look at him with anything more than fear or revulsion?

"Ah, fuck," he muttered, dropping down into a squat on his haunches at the edge of the ravine.

"Fuck!"

"Problems, brother?"

The unexpected voice, the unexpected familiarity of it--here, of all places, now, of all times--shot through Kade like a current of raw electricity. He vaulted to his feet and spun around, his hand reaching automatically for one of the blades he wore on his belt.

"Easy," Seth drawled slowly, inclining his head to indicate the precarious edge of the ravine directly behind Kade. "Better watch your step."

Kade's fury spiked as he took in his twin's unkempt, shaggy appearance. "I could say the same thing to you ... brother."

He kept the knife gripped in his fist, pivoting around, cautiously following Seth as he strolled toward him to peer into the ravine. Seth grunted. "Not the most savvy way to dispose of a kill, but I suppose it won't take long for the scavengers to find it."

"Yeah, you know all about that, don't you?"

Seth looked at him, Kade's own silver eyes--his own face--staring back at him as if in a mirror. Except Seth's short black hair hung limply in dull, matted hanks, his cheeks and jaw sallow, the skin shadowed with grit and grime. His face was leaner than Kade recalled, on the verge of gaunt. He looked strung out, and there was a feral glint in his heavy-lidded gaze.

"Where the fuck have you been?" he demanded. "How long have you been carrying out your sick killing games?"

Seth chuckled, dark with amusement. "I'm not the one dumping a human into a snowy grave."

"Minion," Kade corrected him, though why he felt the need to explain was beyond him.

"Really?" Seth arched a brow. "A Minion, all the way out here in the bush ... interesting."

"Yeah, I'm all atwitter," Kade said. "And you didn't answer my fucking question." Seth's mouth curved at the corners. "What would be the point, when you already know what I'm going to say?"

"Maybe I need to hear it from your own lips. Tell me how you've been stalking and killing humans ever since I left Alaska last year--hell, it's been going on for a lot longer than that, hasn't it?" He ground out a sharp hiss of disgust. "I found something you might recognize. Here--" He dug the bear tooth charm out of his pocket and tossed it at his twin.

"Now you have a matched set," Kade said. "This one, and the one you took off the Native man when you killed him last winter."

Seth glanced into his palm at the braided strip of leather and the long, pale tooth attached to it. He shrugged, unapologetic, curling his fingers around the prize. "You've been home to the Darkhaven," he murmured. "Going through my things. How rude of you. Very devious and underhanded, Kade. That's always been more my style than yours."

"What happened, Seth? Single kills weren't getting you off anymore, so you've had to graduate up to wholesale slaughter?"

Kade watched the dispassionate mask of his brother's face quirk with confusion. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Now you're going to stand there and try to deny it? You're unbelievable," Kade scoffed. "I've seen the bodies, or what was left of them. You slaughtered an entire family--six lives in one night, you sick son of a bitch. And today you added two more to your fucked-up tally when you attacked those men from Harmony."

"No." Seth was shaking his head. He had the balls, even, to look insulted. "You're wrong. If there have been kills like that, as you claim, they're not mine."

"Don't lie to me, damn you."

"I'm not lying. I am a killer, Kade. I have a ... a problem, you might say. But even my perverted morals have their boundaries."

Kade stared, sizing him up. Even after a year away, he knew his twin well enough to see that Seth was telling him the truth.