Read Online Cain's Identity (Scanguards Vampires Book 9) by Tina Folsom - Free Book Online

few feet there’s wooden reinforcements, but it’s old construction and nobody has done any repairs here in decades. There’s more and more moisture penetrating and weakening the structure. We’re close to the bayous. Katrina did some damage here. One day, the tunnels will collapse.”
    “Then let’s hope this is not the day,” Cain remarked dryly.
    John turned and walked down the long tunnel. Cain followed, taking in his surroundings.
    “How long is the tunnel?”
    “It’s actually a tunnel system with many branches. It stretches over several miles, but the branch we’re going down is only about a mile long. We’ll be there shortly,” John assured him.
    “Where do all the different branches lead to?”
    “Other exits around the property, as well as entry points into the palace.”
    “Where in the palace?”
    “One directly into the king’s suite, another into the cells, and a third one underneath the fireplace in your office.”
    “Underneath the fireplace? Sounds kind of hard to get to.”
    John gave him a sideways glance. “There’s a mechanism to shift the fireplace to the side. Of course, it’s best not to do that when there’s an actual fire burning in the hearth.”
    Cain made mental notes of the entry and exit points and the branches that led away from the tunnel they were in, committing as much of the path to memory as he could. If John led him into a trap, he had to be able to find his own way out. However, Cain had to admit that had John wanted to kill him for whatever reason, he would have had ample opportunity earlier.
    Still, trusting somebody didn’t come easy. Even when he’d joined Scanguards a year ago, it had taken some time to trust his colleagues. Now, of course, he knew they had his back and he trusted them with his life. Just like they trusted him. They’d become more than just colleagues to him. They’d become his friends. His family.
    But now this stranger was upsetting the tentative peace he’d found with his new family by making him want something that lay beyond his reach. He wanted his old life back, if only for one reason: to know what it felt like to be loved by the woman from his dreams.
    “I carried you out through this tunnel when you were injured. You don’t remember. You drifted in and out of consciousness. I couldn’t risk anybody finding out that you were alive but without a memory. At first I thought it would come back, but when you woke, it was clear that the memory loss was permanent. For your own safety I had to get you as far away as possible.”
    “I don’t remember waking up and seeing you.”
    “Because you didn’t see me. The blow to your head injured your optic nerve.”
    Was that what the dream had wanted to show him when everything had gone red in front of his eyes?
    “It was healing only slowly, as was the rest of your body.”
    “Yet you abandoned me while I was still in recovery,” Cain interrupted him harshly. “So much for your concern for me.”
    “I couldn’t stay with you. I only had enough time to make arrangements to get you as far away from here as possible, before my absence would have been noticed. I had to make sure whoever wanted you dead thought he’d succeeded. Only that way could you be safe.”
    “Any thoughts on who wanted me dead?”
    John hesitated, breathing audibly.
    “Spit it out!” Cain ordered.
    “I have a suspicion, but no proof. And if you remembered me at all, you’d know that I don’t like to accuse anybody without being able to back up my claim.”
    “Well, that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it? I don’t remember you.”
    “You trusted me once.”
    Cain locked his jaw, trying to appear unaffected by the other vampire’s words, when in reality he sensed John’s need to gain his approval for the decisions he’d made when Cain had been incapacitated.
    “Trust isn’t something I give freely.”
    John gave a slight nod. “You didn’t back then either. But we were more than just a king