Her right elbow slammed into his solar plexus and her left hand caught the back of his curly black hair in a wicked grip, in an attempt to jerk his head away from her. To her horror he was suddenly catapulted from the truck as if unseen hands had lifted him bodily and thrown him down. Then she was staring into Rafael’s black, black eyes. She caught her breath at the stark menace concentrated there. Tiny red flames were glowing, fierce and unnatural. He looked a demon, a predator, vicious, cunning, more animal than man. Nothing in her life had ever frightened her like the grim emptiness revealed in his eyes. She was looking at death. And she knew he could very easily kill Tony Harris.
No! No, Rafael, you can’t.
Deliberately she used the more intimate means of communication to call the man back into his body, his brain. She was looking at a natural predator. He was already turning away from her, back to Harris, who lay sprawled in the street.
“Rafael, let it go,” she called aloud, struggling to slide off the seat, her heart pounding in a kind of terror. She swore
softly under her breath as her leg took her weight, jarring her entire body.
Tony leapt up, doubling his fists as he spat in the street.
Rafael coolly and quite brutally slapped Tony Harris open-handed, a hard, powerful blow that staggered the man as he rushed forward. Rafael continued to slap him, delivering blow after powerful blow, walking the cowboy backward down the street. Each blow had Tony stumbling off balance, a jarring, humiliating punishment. Colby had witnessed a thousand brawls, but this was completely different. It was a savage, yet cold-blooded attack, a brutal display of power that held everyone motionless, standing on the sidewalks simply gaping at the drama.
Colby went hobbling after them, anger beginning to smolder as her heart accelerated at the realization that Rafael could have dropped Tony Harris with one blow. This was a public punishment. Rafael would have killed Tony, coolly and without remorse. He preferred to kill him, but refrained because Colby would never have condoned murder.
It didn’t help that she was drinking him in, her body flaring to life. She could feel every cell, every fiber of her being reaching for him, needing him,
craving
him like a drug. She
detested
the control he had over her body and mind. Did it show? Natalya had looked at her with pity and she felt scorn for herself every time she thought of the way she had been so grief-stricken, almost to the point of harming herself. She had been forced to reach out to Nicolas, someone she didn’t altogether trust, in order to get through each night.
“Let them go,” Paul yelled, grabbing at her arm, out of breath from his headlong dash through the street. She was limping and didn’t seem to notice her teeth were clamped together in pain.
Colby shook off her brother. “Shut up!” she snapped.
Paul halted immediately. Colby’s hair was red for a reason. She could go up in flames if someone pushed her too far. He regarded De La Cruz with intense satisfaction. He was about to be publicly put in his place. The crowd was certainly big enough.
Colby caught at Rafael’s arm, momentarily taken aback by the sheer hardness of it. It was like clutching a piece of iron.
“Stop it, Rafael, right now!” She attempted to place herself between the two men, but Rafael glided around her easily, keeping his body squarely in between her and Harris. It only made Colby angrier. “I don’t want you handling my problems. You understand me, not ever again. This is my business.” She understood power, understood, better than most people, the need to stay continually in control, but she was so angry with both men she attempted to drag Rafael away from Tony by his arm without much success.
Harris took the opportunity to stumble away, clutching at his smashed face with both hands. Over the top of Colby’s head, Rafael watched him go, red flames still flickering in the depths of his eyes.
“Damn it, Rafael.” He was making Colby feel like a fly buzzing around him. She slugged him in the chest, all her pent-up anger behind her well-thrown punch.
He stood towering over her, blinking down at her as if seeing her for the first time. Slowly amusement crept across his sensual features, warmed the bitter ice in his eyes.
Did you hit me, querida?
His voice was soft, sexy, intimate there in the middle of the street, making her blood heat and body clench, and that made her angry enough to want to strike him again.
“Don’t be funny.” She would not be charmed by him. She would
not
feel her body melting and pooling with hot heat. “You stay out of my business. If I don’t want Tony Harris mauling me, I’ll handle it myself. You’ve made the situation ten times worse; the entire town knows something happened, thanks to you. In case you’ve forgotten, you’re in the United States,
not
Brazil, and here we call the sheriff.”
He picked her up easily, casually, right there in front of everyone, cradling her against his chest, moving back up the street toward her truck with effortless long strides. “You know I would not stay away when you are injured, Colby.” His voice whispered over her, velvet soft, irresistible. Magic. There was possession in his burning gaze, and something else, something wild and primitive, as if he wasn’t yet finished with Tony Harris. “And I am not about to allow another man to put his hands on you.”
Colby reached up to touch his mouth. Her fingers trailed over the lines etched so deeply, lines of strain and weariness
that had not been there before, reminding her he had awakened before Nicolas said he should. There were faint marks on his face, slowly receding but evidence of the claws that tore at him. He had suffered terribly to provide a barrier for her. She smoothed her hand over his heart, wondering if the bite marks were still there. Something softened inside of her when she didn’t want it to. “I can handle Tony Harris,” she said more gently than she intended. “Our laws don’t allow people to just go out and kill someone because you don’t like what they do.”
“Our laws are very clear.” There was no emotion in his voice, just a dead calm and a merciless slash to his mouth.
“Tony’s a bully.”
“Tony is going to learn a lesson he should have learned a long time ago or he will not be around to bother women anymore.”
“Don’t, Rafael. I know you could really hurt him, even from a distance, but it isn’t right. Just don’t.” Her temper was rising in direct proportion to the pain in her leg and the implacable set of his jaw.
“If you want me to say I will not touch this man, I cannot lie to you and I refuse to make such a promise. If this man ever attempts to lay his hands on you, he will not get another chance. Ever.” He said it with complete finality.
“How very macho. I’m really impressed. So is Louise. For God’s sake, put me down, I feel like a fool. I’m quite capable of walking.” To her horror tears welled up out of nowhere. Damn the man. The entire town was looking on, smirking at her, right under Louise’s gloating gaze.
“Stop struggling, Colby, or I will command you to do so,” he bit out. “What did you expect me to do,
querida?
I could not allow that poor excuse of a man to touch you. You are bleeding and in pain. I am your lifemate and it is my duty and my right to see to your care. I intend to do just that.”
She felt it then, deep inside him, the volcanic rage that had not been allowed near the surface when he faced Harris. Barely leashed, barely controlled. Her large eyes were swimming with tears and it added to the fury burning in his gaze as it roamed over her face. “I just want to go home, Rafael.”
Away from here, away from you.
It slipped into her thoughts before she could prevent it.
A muscle jerked in his jaw.
I will never, ever, give you up. Not now, not ever. We should be past this.
There was a lash to the quiet whip of his voice.
Past this? Are you crazy? I have a few issues, you know. Like you pulling a man’s heart right out of his chest. That isn’t done, Rafael.
He deposited her very gently on the seat of the pickup truck, ignoring Paul’s black scowl. “Move, kid, I’m driving.” He said it softly, but there was something in his voice, a warning note that had Paul shrugging helplessly at his sister before jumping into the back of the truck.
Nothing dared defy Rafael’s power and the truck started up immediately.
“Do you know how to drive?” Colby asked.
His black eyes flicked over her and then he stared at the road, driving straight through town, narrowly missing Tony Harris as the man stood by his car. “You were thinking of leaving me. And you defend that poor excuse of a man.”
“Of course I was thinking of leaving you.” She glared at him. “Do you think I’m nuts? And damn Tony Harris. Do you think this is about him? It isn’t about Tony, Rafael, it’s about you nearly killing me. Do you think I’m going to fall into your arms and trust you not only with my life, but with Paul and Ginny’s lives?”
There was a small silence. “I can explain about that, Colby.”
For the first time Rafael seemed hesitant. Her eyebrow shot up. “I don’t want to take a chance that Paul might hear. Let’s wait until we’re at the house. But you
are
going to explain. All I’m thinking about right now is the way my leg is hurting,” she added and knocked on the window. Paul slid it aside. “Hand over the pain pills. I’m taking all of them.”
Paul put the bottle in her hand and Rafael took it out. “You do not need those.”
“How do you know? It hurts like hell.” She glared at him. “You’re making me crazy. You really are. You did something to tie us together and then you got yourself nearly killed and left me to go sleep in the ground. Give me the pills.”
“No. And you do not need to chastise me, I have done so enough for both of us.”
“Maybe enough for you, but it will
never
be enough for
me.” She let her breath out slowly and lay back against the seat. “My leg really hurts, Rafael.”
“I am aware of it. I feel what you feel, remember? It is not good to use such medications; you are partially in my world and your body will reject such things.”
“Like the way it’s rejecting food?” she asked, glaring at him.
He glanced down at the bandage. “The doctor sewed your leg. Very barbaric.”
“Should he have packed it with dirt and spit in it? Maybe shoved me in a grave and left me there for a few days?”
“Just be quiet.” He knew she had a mad desire to leap out of the truck. She was confused and agitated and the pain was making her feel sick. “I’m pulling over so I can relieve the pain in your leg.”
Colby didn’t argue. If he could take it away, she’d be more than grateful. He found a small sheltered area on the winding road and pulled off so he could focus his attention completely on Colby. Rafael sent himself seeking outside his body, allowing it to fall away and leave behind a light, pure energy, traveling into her body to heal her from the inside out. He took his time to repair her leg carefully, ensuring the swelling was gone, the ragged edges would become seamless, and the injuries to the muscle and tissue inside were healed.
When he pulled back into his own body he leaned over her, touching her leg with gentle fingers. “Does that feel better?”
Colby could only stare up into his dark eyes, drowning there like an idiot when she wanted to be strong. Her leg felt perfectly fine, but the lines in his face were etched deeper than ever. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I had no choice.” He bent to kiss the corner of her mouth, her eyelids, the tip of her nose. “You scared me. Do not ever do that again.” He reached for her wrist, the one she had slashed open to save his life. He brought it to his mouth, his tongue moving over the faint scar.
The intimacy of it sent heat curling through her body. “Rafael, you need to heal more yourself.” She could feel hunger beating at him, a living, breathing monster that roared for attention. “You should take care of your own needs.”
“I am taking care of my needs.” His voice was low and husky, a seduction on all of her senses.
The shadow was the only warning, dark and ominous and filled with a black kind of evil as it loomed over the two of them. The door jerked open behind her, nearly spilling Colby out of the truck. She screamed in shock and horror as her brother, his face twisted into a mask of hatred, lunged at her with a knife.
15
R
afael moved too
fast to be seen, placing himself between Colby and Paul. Savage growls emerged from Paul’s throat and he slashed wildly with the weapon. Rafael clamped down hard on his wrist, easily removing the knife, and at once, Paul’s expression changed. He blinked rapidly, his eyes clearing, becoming aware, and he gave a startled cry of recrimination that tore at Colby’s heart.
“Colby!” He sounded like a lost child, the little boy she had loved so much, had cared for all of her life. “What am I doing? What have I done?” He didn’t struggle in Rafael’s grasp. Tears filled his eyes and tracked down his face. His entire body shuddered.
“Honey.” Colby reached out to him, wanting to comfort him.
Paul jerked backward out of her reach. “It is me! The vampire did something to me when he bit me, didn’t he? That’s why Nicolas wanted me dead. He knew I was going to hurt you.” He turned to look Rafael straight in the eye. “Could I hurt Ginny? Was I the one who did something to the horse to hurt Colby?”
Rafael probed the boy’s memories and saw him finding his sister’s bra in the barn where it had been forgotten. The undergarment had triggered the hidden compulsion buried deep
in Paul to kill Colby. He saw the boy prepare a syringe and shoot the horse full of drugs before saddling it and waking Colby. He pulled out of the boy’s mind and let out his breath slowly. “Paul,” he spoke gently, “this is the kind of thing vampires thrive on. It is not you. They take someone good and try to get them to perform acts that the person would never conceive of doing. You cannot remember because it is so against your nature to harm either of your sisters. He couldn’t twist you into something evil. He can only use you when you are vulnerable.”