Garden of Thorns

  GARDEN OF THORNS

  Copyright © 2017 Keary Taylor

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  First Edition: January 2017

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Book design by Inkstain Interior Book Designing

  Taylor, Keary, 1987-

  Garden of Thorns (House of Royals) : a novel / by Keary Taylor. – 1st ed.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  About Keary Taylor

  The House Of Royals Series

  The Fall Of Angels Trilogy

  The Eden Trilogy

  The Mccain Saga

  What I Didn’t Say

  To view all of Keary’s books, click HERE

  “It will all be over in a few hours,” I say, staring into his yellow eyes. I take half a step back as he lunges toward me, his lengthened fangs snapping in my face.

  Kai tightens his grip on the man in the dirty and torn clothes, yanking him away from me. His own yellow eyes flash, igniting brilliantly as his enhanced muscles flex against the struggling Bitten.

  “I’m so sorry,” the man hisses. “I can’t… I swear I’m trying to control it.”

  “I know,” I say calmly as I turn away from him. I walk across the dimly lit room to the seemingly mundane wall. I lift the ugly painting of the ashy sky over a decaying barn and swing it on hinges away from the wall, revealing a keypad hidden beneath. I punch in the pin code and the wall unlocks. I slide it open, revealing a small, glass-faced refrigerator. I open it, taking out a vial of amber-colored liquid.

  “It’s a single injection,” I explain as I slide the wall closed and open the other side. A cabinet reveals phlebotomy supplies. I take what I need, and close the wall once more. It automatically locks. “It’s going to hurt, a lot, for about a minute. You’ll pass out, and then you’ll sleep for about a day while the toxins burn out of your system. When you wake up, you’ll be back to normal.”

  “Thank you,” he says. I turn to see him squeeze his eyes closed, forcing a stream of tears down his face.

  Kai tightens his grip as I walk closer and the man snaps his teeth at me once more. He locks his enormous hand over the man’s face, holding his fangs away from me as I pull his sleeve up and sink the needle into his skin.

  The miracle created by a man over six hundred years old rushes into the blood of a being created by mistake. I pull the needle from his body and take a step back.

  He howls in pain, a fierce roar that rips from his throat. He throws his head back, every single muscle in his body tensing. His eyes fly open, brilliant and yellow.

  A moment later he curls in on himself, collapsing to the concrete floor as Kai releases him. It’s as if he is crumpling inward, becoming smaller and smaller as he tries to contain the pain slashing through his body. His breath rips in and out between clenched teeth.

  The shaking takes over for about twenty seconds. But slowly, it calms. He stills. His breathing becomes slower.

  And he collapses to the hard floor.

  “Let’s move him to the bed,” I say, disposing of the empty vial and needle into the sharps container.

  “I really thought that one was going to bite you,” Kai says as he scoops his arms under the man and easily lifts him. He takes half a dozen steps to the cot that sits in a corner and lays the man on it, his head resting on the pillow. “I’m sorry. He was much stronger than he looked.”

  “You did fine,” I say, though, instinctually, I pull my sleeves further down my arms, covering the myriad of white scars there. “You always do.”

  Kai doesn’t say anything, and I know he’s disappointed in the work he’s done. He’s always so hard on himself.

  I look down at the watch on my wrist. “It’s 9:32 PM,” I say to myself. “He’ll probably wake up around nine tomorrow night. Let’s just make sure he can find the note when he wakes up.”

  But I don’t even have to tell Kai. He already has a white envelope in his hand and a roll of tape in the other. He sets the envelope on the back of the man’s hand, stretching back over his wrist, and takes the tape, winding it around it twice so it won’t fall off.

  Inside the envelope are instructions to take the same door he entered through, walk down the hallway and then follow the steps up to the alley behind the row of buildings here. He’s to exit onto the road to the south.

  And not look back.

  To never mention this place again, unless it’s to another Bitten in need.

  I double-check that everything is securely locked up. Most especially that the motion sensor for the back door is on, the one that turns on a light upstairs, letting me know I’ve got company.

  “Let’s go.”

  My footsteps echo as I follow Kai down the dark hallway. Moisture and history trigger all kinds of smells. It stretches for two-dozen yards before leading up a set of stairs. We take them and at the top I enter another pin code, opening yet another hidden door.

  Dim light barely grants enough to see by as I lock the door behind me.

  “You ready?” Kai asks, waiting by the door. He looks out the windows, always searching for danger and threats.

  “Yeah,” I breathe, the exhaustion finally hitting me. I look around the space one last time, making sure I haven’t forgotten anything.

  Shelves line two walls, filled to the max with glass bottles, vials, satchels and other unexpected things. A counter sits before the third wall where customers check out or come for consultations.

  It smells of spices and herbs and cures.

  A smile cracks in one corner of my lips as I look around.

  This is home.

  My sanctuary.

  “Let’s go,” Kai says as he opens the door.

  I lock the shop behind me and the two of us take off down the road.

  We pass dozens of other shops and restaurants, all closed at this very late hour, cutting through the park, and then down a street packed with dozens and dozens of Victorian brownstones. My home sits only a fifteen-minute walk from Oleander Apothecary.

  “You want me to come in?” Kai asks, looking to the front door, same as he does every night.

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I say, offering him a smile.

  “Goodnight then,” he says as he presses a kiss to the top of my head.

  I look back once as I walk up the steps to the front door. It’s already difficult to find him in the dark, his chocolate skin and black tattoos blending him into the dark night. He nods once to me as I wave goodbye and step inside.

  I walk up two flights of stairs before unlocking the door to my own apartment. Shada immediately runs over to my feet, even as I’m tripping over her, and starts rubbing her head over my legs. I stoop down and scoop up the black cat, scratching behind her warm ears with my frozen fingers as I walk back to
ward the kitchen.

  “Did you miss me today?” I purr to her absentmindedly as I pull some leftovers from dinner the other night and put them in the microwave. She paws at me for a moment and then hisses, her signal to be put down. I watch with a smile as she darts out of the kitchen and around the corner.

  The front door leads straight into the small living room. A fireplace occupies one of the walls, wooden baseboards and paneling running beautifully throughout the house. It leads back into a good-sized kitchen with a dining room off to the side of it. From the living room rises a set of stairs, the same beautiful wood panels framing them in. At the top of the stairs is a master bedroom, a spare bedroom, a bathroom, and a laundry room with stairs leading up to the rooftop garden.

  I occupy the Victorian brownstone all by myself, as I have for the past year and a half.

  I’ve never been one to be bothered by being by myself. For two years I lived in a crowded house with twenty people in it, but before that it was just my family. The three of us. And now it’s just me.

  And Kai sometimes.

  Exhausted from the long day, I take my food and after locking the doors, I head up to my bedroom. The clock on the dresser reads eleven-thirty.

  I’ve barely sat down on my bed when there’s a loud knock on the front door.

  “Elle!” I hear Kai yell from out on the landing. “You got a visitor.”

  My pulse spikes and I dart from my room, down the stairs, to the door, where Shada is hiding behind a chair, hissing.

  I yank it open.

  Kai has his huge hands fisted in the jacket of a man whose eyes glow brilliant red.

  “Ian?”

  “What are you doing here?” I demand, folding my arms over my chest. “Kai, it’s okay, let him go. This is my brother, Ian.”

  Kai looks from me to Ian, doubt in his protective eyes. Ian glares death at the much larger man, and I can tell, my brother is using everything he has in him not to rip Kai apart.

  “What are both of you doing here?” I ask, turning my eyes on Kai. “You were supposed to go home.”

  “There was a smell in the air,” he says, eying my brother up and down.

  “Did he just say I stink?” Ian asks, cocking an eyebrow and stepping forward. I step aside, letting him in.

  “All the Born stink,” Kai says, following Ian inside, even though he wasn’t invited.

  “Elle, who is this?” Ian demands, his brows furrowed as he takes a step toward Kai, his eyes flashing.

  “Just stop,” I say, holding a hand up and pushing on his chest to make him back up. “Ian, this is Kai Ioane, my friend.”

  “You frequently make friends with Bitten?” Ian hisses. And I can’t blame him. Not after everything we’ve been through. Especially him.

  “You got a problem with us, stop making us,” Kai hisses, taking a step forward, the muscles in his huge arms flexing.

  “Kai,” I glower, turning serious eyes on him. “Seriously, don’t go pissing my brother off. I’m perfectly safe and it won’t end well for you if he thinks you’re threatening me.”

  “Safe,” Ian says. “Kind of hard to be safe around them until they’re cured.”

  “I’m the only one who keeps her safe!” Kai yells, his Samoan temper flaring. “You’re the one who puts her in danger with your very name!”

  “Will both of you just stop it!” I yell, stepping between them again, my hands up to keep them apart. As if I could begin to stop them if they decided to fight. “Ian, sit down.” I point to the chair next to the fireplace. “You too.” I direct Kai to take a seat on the stairs, as far apart as I can get them. “Now if both of you will stop acting like heathens, I’ll introduce and explain.”

  The heat in their eyes doesn’t die right away and the curl of their fingers doesn’t relax. But finally, Kai sits on the steps. A moment later, Ian also sinks into the chair.

  “I don’t think my brother requires much introduction, you’ve already heard a lot about him,” I say to Kai. “This is Ian. He still lives in Mississippi with my sister-in-law, Alivia. They run the House that covers the whole South East part of the States.”

  Kai nods, having heard all of this information before.

  “Ian, this is Kai Ioane,” I say, turning to my hot head brother. “He’s my…”

  “Body guard,” he fills in when I can’t quite come up with an explanation for our relationship.

  “Really?” Ian cocks an eyebrow at me, his expression disbelieving.

  “Really,” I spit back, annoyed.

  “What happened to Terra?” Ian asks. “That’s the whole reason I sent her up, to help you and keep you safe.”

  “She drew too much attention,” I say, shaking my head. “She might not have had any House affiliations, but she could still be traced back to you. Plus, we didn’t get along so well.”

  Understatement.

  “How long ago did you send her away?” Ian asks, ever annoyed by everything.

  Sometimes I don’t know how Liv can stand to be married to my brother.

  “About nine months ago,” I answer quietly, because I know he won’t be happy.

  “What?!” he explodes, exactly as I expected.

  “Look, I ran into Kai just a week later,” I rush on to explain. “I actually killed the Born who turned him.”

  Kai nods. “It’s true. She found us in an alley just a few blocks from here, my cousin and I. The Born had finished me off, or nearly did. She’d moved on to my cousin, Lecka. Elle shot her with that toxin and had to stake her.”

  “I brought Kai back to the shop,” I explain. “I’ve never seen control like his, Ian. He feeds, but he’s never been out of control.”

  “When she explained what she does, I offered to help protect her,” Kai says. “It was clear pretty fast she was always putting herself in danger.”

  Ian’s keen eyes instantly jump to my right wrist where my sleeve has worked its way up a bit, exposing the white scars there.

  “He’s been helping me ever since,” I say, looking back at my friend.

  Kai is my total opposite in every physical way. I’m only about five foot four, he’s about six foot two. His dark, Samoan skin is covered in all kinds of tribal tattoos. Heavily banded in muscle. His dark, curly hair hangs down his back, tied at the back of his head. A wide nose, an upper lip that is slightly thicker than his lower, and deep soulful eyes balance out a beautiful, handsome face.

  But it’s not like that.

  Kai is my friend.

  “You deal with his kind all the time,” Ian says, his eyes never leaving Kai. “You’ve been there for everything Cora put us through. And you trust him?”

  I look away from my brother to my friend, who returns my gaze. “I do.”

  Ian makes a little sound and looks away with the shake of his head.

  I sigh. The last few years have brought about so much change, but so much anger and resentment and discrimination.

  And death.

  “Kai, you should go home,” I say. I rub my eyes, probably messing up my makeup, but I’m too tired to care.

  He shakes his head. “No.”

  “I’m not just making a suggestion,” I say, trying to plead with him with my eyes. “I’m fine. I will see you tomorrow. Please. I’m tired.”

  Kai looks from me to my brother. I can see in his eyes that this is killing him. But he will do anything I ask.

  Finally, he rises and goes to the door. “Call me if you need me. For anything.”

  I nod. “I will.”

  He closes the door behind him. But I feel Ian bristle all the harder behind me.

  “I don’t want you to say a word,” I assert. I turn to face Ian. “Kai has never made me feel like I’m in danger. He’s done nothing but protect and help me. I’m not going to send him away, and you’re not going to kill him.”

  The look in Ian’s eyes tells me he’d thought about it. It may have been years since my brother was a vampire hunter, but those instincts surely haven’t gone away
.

  “Now,” I say. “How about you come upstairs with me, where my dinner was interrupted, and we can talk.”

  I study my brother. I’ve memorized his face my entire life. And even though it’s been a year and a half since I’ve seen him, nearly five years since I lived with him, not a line or detail to his face has changed. Not for the last seven years.

  “Okay,” he finally agrees.

  “Everything’s been okay here?” Ian asks as he paces my bedroom. He twirls a stake between his fingers; a habit that I don’t think is ever going to go away. “Especially in the last few weeks?”

  “Things have been normal,” I say with a nod, taking another bite of my leftovers. I chew it, watching my brother. I recognize all the signs. The lines that tighten around his eyes, the way his lips thin out. The fact that the stake is spinning so fast now that I can’t see anything more than a blur.

  Something is wrong.

  “What is it?”

  He suddenly snaps the stake into his hand, stilling it instantly. He stands there with his hands on his hips for a second, breathing hard, angry.

  “I think you should move back down South,” he says. He doesn’t look in my direction when he does, because he, too, knows me well. “Not necessarily to Mississippi. Just back into Conrath territory.”

  “You have to tell me why.” I swallow past the rock that’s forming in my throat and push the frustration and anxiety away.

  It’s what I do.

  Ian finally looks over at me. His lips tighten all the further and his eyes are narrowed. The knuckles of the hand that holds the stake have turned white.

  “There are rumors going around that King Cyrus is sending spies and hunters to fully enact the Bitten eradication order.” My brother shifts from one foot to the other, never able to hold still when he’s agitated, and that’s most of the time. “I think there’s going to be an investigation at each House, an inquiry of all the members, looking for leads on Bitten.”

  “So what does that have to do with me moving back into Conrath territory?” I question, setting my plate aside, my dinner finished. “If anything, that’s worse. It brings my work closer to the danger area.”