Her hair was a paler shade, closer to silver than blond, and pulled into a braid that fell to her waist. Her skin was a perfect alabaster, smooth and silken. Her eyes were also lighter, green the color of spring grass and flecked with gold.
Her face, however, was shaped exactly like Harley’s, and beneath the frayed jeans and sweatshirt her body was slender, but hard with well-honed muscles.
She had to be one of the four pureblooded females.
The one that Briggs had taken after they were nearly discovered in Chicago.
The Were had told him he’d sent her to a cur pack in Indiana. He should have known it was a lie.
Nothing else that had come out of the bastard’s mouth had been true.
Staring at him with wide eyes, she tilted her head to the side, as if listening to a voice only she could hear.
“You shouldn’t be down here.”
He took a step forward. “Who are you?”
“Nobody.” She warily shifted backwards. “I’m nobody.”
Holding up his hands in a gesture of peace, Caine took another step forward.
“Easy, love,” he soothed. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t have one.”
He frowned. Was she jerking his chain? Or was she just flat-ass crazy?
“Everyone has a name.”
She shrugged at his disbelieving expression. “I’m still waiting to discover what it’s going to be.” She stilled, abruptly glancing toward the ceiling. “I have to go.”
With the quicksilver grace of a fairy, the female spun on her heel and darted toward a narrow opening on the far side of the cavern.
“Hold on.” She ignored his command. Of course. Being stubborn had to be coded into the sisters’ DNA. Without so much as a backwards glance, she disappeared from sight. “Freaking hell.”
Caine was in swift pursuit, ignoring the very real possibility that this was another trap devised by Briggs.
He had to find the female.
He didn’t know why. He only knew that it wasn’t an option to allow her to escape.
Turning sideways to squeeze through the narrow opening, Caine entered the small cave. It was no larger than most bedrooms, with a narrow cot next to one wall and a battered dresser beneath a broken mirror next to another wall.
His brows snapped together at the realization that the stark, desolate cell must be where the beautiful woman was kept. An unexpected and unstoppable fury exploded through him.
Completely irrational considering he had more or less held Harley hostage.
Still, after the past few days, he wasn’t in the mood to be rational.
Intent on the silver-haired Were, it wasn’t until she’d bent to light a candle that he was aware of the odd shimmers in the air.
“What the hell…”
His hair threatened to stand on end as his gaze slid over the foreign glyphs that covered the stone walls. In the flickering candlelight they glowed in a strangely hypnotic manner.
“You can’t be here,” the woman whispered, wrapping her arms around herself as she sank to her knees beside the cot.
“I hate to argue with a beautiful woman, but obviously I can,” he absently muttered, moving toward the nearest wall. “What is this place?”
“It’s a secret.”
He halted just inches from the wall, studying the designs. “Did you do these?”
“Yes.”
A peculiar sensation inched down Caine’s spine as he realized that the glyphs weren’t carved onto the walls as he first assumed, but instead floated just above the rough surface, occasionally shifting and changing color with a dizzying speed.
These weren’t random works of art created by a bored pureblood.
This was…power.
Turning, he moved back to tower over her kneeling form. “What are they?”
“Pain, joy…death.” She shook her head, fear rippling over her delicate face. “You have to go. He’ll be mad if he finds you here.”
Caine hadn’t been feared among curs far and wide for no good reason. He could be cold, cunning, and calculating. He could also be brutal when the occasion demanded.
But something pierced his heart as he gazed down at the fragile woman. Something rare and perilous.
Without thought, he was kneeling in front of her, reaching to grab her chilled fingers.
“Who?” he rasped. “Who will be mad?”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Are you a prisoner?” he demanded. She ducked her head, and he hooked a thumb beneath her chin, forcing her to meet his searching gaze. “Look at me. Are you being held here against your will?”
“He won’t let me out.”
“Tell me who it is.”
A shadow crossed her face. “I’m not allowed to say his name.”
“Is it Briggs?”
“The dead Were? No.” A small smile touched her lips. “He’s frightened of me.”
Caine couldn’t hide his surprise. Briggs was the sort of nightmarish creature that would terrify any demon. Why would he be frightened of this tiny Were?
“Frightened?”
She shrugged. “He shouldn’t have asked if he didn’t want to know.”
“Know what?”
“His future.” She pointed toward one of the swirling glyphs. “There.”
Caine frowned in confusion. “What is it?”
The pale green eyes stabbed him with an unnervingly piercing gaze. As if she could see into his very soul.
“Death.”
“Christ.”
Caine jerked in shock. Dammit. For decades he allowed himself to be blinded by a vision that his rational brain told him was impossible. Not only would it take nothing less than a miracle to turn him from a cur into a pureblood, but Briggs’s claim that his black magic gave him the power to reveal the future was beyond crazy.
After all, most of the known prophets were under the control of the Oracles, and they possessed only random flashes of the future. Enough to grasp an overall image of various possibilities or pivotal events, but not a detailed revelation for an individual.
And now, when he’d at last accepted that he’d been a total putz to fall for Briggs’s scheme, he was confronted by the most extraordinary of all creatures.
“You’re a seer,” he breathed.
She shook her head. “I don’t see. I dream.” She glanced toward the shimmering glyphs. “I dream and they appear.”
Gently he shifted his hand, cupping her cheek. “Did you dream of me?”
The green eyes were abruptly veiled with a disturbing white as she gazed blindly at the wall over his shoulder.