Midnight Poison (The Paranormal Poisons Saga #1)(117)

CHAPTER 107





Near the hatch in Kiara's bedroom, Jaeger, Frankie, and Bane huddled close, whispering with urgency and sending furtive glances at Kiara who lay unconscious on the bed.

"What if she finally wakes up and starts asking questions?" Jaeger asked. "I don't want to lie to her."

"Then keep your mouth shut, runt," Bane snapped. "You think she's crazy now, wait until she finds out Leontes is missing."

Jaeger glared. "She's not crazy."

The sound of trickling water reached their ears. Awake and smiling, Kiara stood next to the bed, pouring tea from a teapot onto the floor.



       
         
       
        

"Kiara?" Frankie said. "You okay?"

Kiara's lips jutted in a sad pout as she watched the tea puddle onto the hard wood. "Never better. But the flowers needed a good cry."

Bane grunted. "Oh, yeah. That's sane."

Frankie thumped his arm. "At least she's awake."

After Frankie and Bane had left, Jaeger bent to close the hatch.

"How long?" A voice whispered in his ear.

"Son of a bitch!" Jaeger yelped and jumped away from Kiara, who stood directly behind him. "How do you do that?"

"How long has Leontes been missing?" Kiara said.

Jaeger sighed. "Over thirty-six hours. They found where he crashed, but haven't been able to track him. Frankie and Bane are going out again to try. Shifters and witches are helping. Don't worry. They'll find him." He pulled Kiara into a hug. "I'm sorry."

Her arms remained limp at her sides, her voice lifeless. "My fault. Not yours."

"No way." Jaeger looked into her eyes. "Since the fairies ambushed us last time, gramps insisted on playing decoy. Worried about some sort of leak. Turns out he was right. A fact he'll never let me forget once we find him. Which we will."

Kiara blinked against the noise. So loud. The voices in her head.

They shouted and screamed and bellowed. A headache bled behind her eyes. Her vision flickered. Muscles spasmed and convulsed. Her body stiffened, and then stilled. Slowly, steadily, ice returned to her veins, like an old familiar friend. With its arrival, a torrent of pain seared hot through her skull. She cradled her head in her hands.

"Dammit," Jaeger said. "Kiara, stay with me. Don't check out again."

She welcomed the excruciating torture, the unrelenting agony that pierced her brain. It brought relief in other ways. Because, finally …

Oleander was free.





CHAPTER 108





"Kiara, wait." Jaeger struggled against the medieval shackles that handcuffed his hand to the ladder to Kiara's room.

"Raise your voice again and it shall be your last utterance."

Kiara descended from the trapdoor with fluid grace.

Jaeger did a double take. "Wow."

Black leather pants cleaved like a second skin to her every curve and disappeared into high boots, each brimming with the hilt of a knife. The top buttons of her fitted blood-red blouse were undone to reveal abundant cleavage. She weaved a matching red ribbon into the final twists of her long French braid, and tied it off.

As she walked past, Jaeger slapped her butt.

She wheeled around. "You insolent dog!" 

He held up his palms in surrender. "I know. Totally inappropriate. So insolent. Won't happen again. And I can't believe I'm saying this but … " Jaeger cleared his throat. "The fact that you look smokin' hot isn't the most important thing right now."

She rolled her eyes and grunted.

"I'm not angry about the whack on the head or even the handcuffs." He rattled the metal. "Hey, under different circumstances, I'd be happy to play slave boy in this kinky Gothic role-play you've got going on, but let's think this through. I get it. You want to save Leontes. Amazingly enough, he's kinda grown on me, too. So take me with you. I'll be your backup."

Kiara unzipped Jaeger's duffle bag, pulled out Nicky's pistols, and tucked them in the waistband against the small of her back, adding them to the arsenal she already had. She could not believe Jaeger had regained consciousness after the blow she dealt him. She summed it up to good breeding.

"Stop ignoring me, Kiara. Hey, let's try Dr. Lyons again. I'm thinking you could really use his help right now, because you're acting strange. Really strange. Stranger than your normal strange, which is pretty strange to begin with. It's almost as if … " Jaeger's brow furrowed, and he finally blessed her with some silence.

She could see the gears turning as he studied her quietly. She pulled out a book from deep within a back shelf and withdrew another book hidden behind that one. She opened it and smiled with relief.