Lover Mine (Blood Brothers 1) (4 page)

Looking down at her bruised and batter body,
she decided now was not the time to try to figure out the method to
their madness. She desperately wanted and needed a shower.

It took more of her strength than she had
bargained for to get into the shower without calling one of the
orderly for help, but as the hot spray beat over her skin, Chayle
sighed. She ignored the bruises showing along her ribs and thighs
and just let the hot water soak into her bones, relaxing muscles
and slowly allowing aches to ease. It had only been three days and
they were now darker, angrier than they looked originally. She
forced herself to move and draw deeper breaths into sore lungs and
make those muscles work again. The doctors had said she was just as
bruised internally but no permanent damage that they could find,
and once she was feeling up to it she could start building her
strength back up to what it was before the incident.

The incident . . . like it was some kind of
accident, or occurrence. Anger rose deep from her chest and before
she could stop it a sob escaped.

"No! Stop it! You cannot let them win!" she
cursed softly aloud, turning off the water and stepping from the
shower. Trying to think of something else, her mind instantly went
to angry blue eyes and luscious male lips.

She hadn't seen those annoying twins for
three days, now that she knew for sure they were brothers. However,
the men's presence posted outside her room continued to remind her
how lucky she was to be alive. The pesky little runt named Davy sat
outside her door today, following her whenever she tried to walk
the halls.

Chayle was tired of it. She wanted out of
here and she wanted it now! She would heal better on her own,
outside of this hospital.

She pushed back the curtain only to scream
when a towel was thrust into her hands. It took a second to wipe
her face and glare at the offender, coming face to face with the
one person whom she had just been fantasizing about only moments
before.

Her very own dark angel!. And didn't it just
have to be her luck that it was the one who always seemed to be in
a bad temper!

"What are you doing here?" she spat out,
wrapping the towel around her, twisting it over her breasts.

Kayne just watched her, his Prussian blue
eyes mesmerizing for long seconds as she tried to make herself
breathe. The room seemed to close in around her, pressing in,
making it hard to get air in her lungs whenever this man was in the
small private room and it had nothing to do with his intimidating
size.

She tried to edge past him from the small
bathroom to the bedroom but he didn't budge, just leaned against
the doorjamb as if he owned it, looking at her. Licking her lips,
Chayle straightened to her full five feet eight inches and pushed
past him, her nipples beading as they scraped his rough shirt.

Kayne nearly came in his jeans! His zipper
was already pressing a seam against his cock when he had walked in
and heard the shower going, just thinking about all of that wet
skin. Now her perky little nipples pebbled so nice and hard just
under the towel after brushing up against him and his cock jerked,
begging to come out to play.

"
Easy, brother! You can't scare her like
that . . . she has been terrorized and brutalized enough. She won't
accept your touch so easy until she heals."
Rafe's rational
echoed in his mind, but it wasn't a reminder Kayne needed.
Nightmares still haunted him of the cabin they had found her in,
her body hanging from those chains.

"
Do we tell her the reason we haven't
been here since we brought her in, Rafe?
" he growled back
silently, his uncertainty never showing in the frown while he
burned to kill all of them again.

The bruises on her legs peaked out from
under the towel, darker and harsh against her skin as they began to
heal. She tried to pull a soft T-shirt over her chestnut curls
pulling the towel lower around her waist and his breathing hitched
at the patches of skin revealed.

"
It will be the only way to gain her
trust, me thinks,"
was the chuckling reply. Kayne continued to
watch the female as she slowly moved over to the small closet and
pulled a few clothes from it.

"What do you think you're doing?" he finally
said.

"Leaving!" Chayle hissed, trying to hold the
towel in place as she held the closet door open with her hip,
tugging the T-shirt over her small breasts. Thank goodness she
didn't need a bra, she groaned. No way could she handle the thing
against her chest right now with all of the bruising and minor cuts
under her breasts.

"That's what you think!" Kayne reached for
the shirt, only to have his hand batted away. He watched,
thunderstruck, as the sprite tried to hold the towel, grab the
shirt and hold the door all at the same time. "Hold still! You'll
harm yourself again," he growled, jerking the shirt from her.

"What do you care? You haven't been here to
see what they have been doing to me!" she screamed, frustration
winning over her efforts. She held onto the shirt like a determined
bulldog in spite of the fact that his big hand held it slightly
above her head.

"Please," she finally whispered, "let me get
dressed. And for your information . . . I didn't do this to
myself," he heard her breathe as she tried to turn from him.

Chayle's shocked eyes met Kayne's when he
reached for her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his. "Did anyone
else harm you while you were here?"

It took Chayle a moment to realize that he
was clenching his jaw but the words were whispered, barely a breath
in the now quiet room. Tension filled the space between them as if
an electrical storm had moved into the small space, causing the
hairs on the back of her neck to stand up. Shivering, she could
only stare into his strange blue eyes and shake her head no.

"My brother and I have been absent because
we were hunting down the rest of those who would harm you and the
other women. There will be no one else coming for you, at least not
from those that were with that group." Kayne released the shirt
they both held, allowing her to finish pulling it to her chest.

"What do you mean . . . hunted down?" she
whispered.

"They are no more!" he growled, reaching up
to stroke a bruise that still marred her shoulder above the towel.
"Now dress . . . we are leaving this place if you're ready." Kayne
moved back, giving her just enough room to breathe. He watched her
pretty nipples pebble under the thin T-shirt she had pulled on and
silently bit back a groan.

"What do you mean . . . leaving?" She gulped
as he growled again, his head lowering. "I'm leaving here alone,
thank you very much!" Chayle tried to push past him, but the brute
just stood there.

"Do you mind?" she hissed, as she tried to
push past him again.

"You are coming to a safe house. No
arguments." Kayne didn't elaborate since he really didn't see the
need. Damn, why hadn't his brother taken this on? He was the
empathic one, better at soothing and getting his way than Kayne
ever was at these things. Then he looked down at the bruises and
barely healed swelling just below the hem of the shirt where it
hung below her groin and knew why.

"Mine!"
No one could touch her again
. . . not and live.

"
Easy brother! We've got everything in
place to protect her."
Rafe whispered in his mind, "
Just get
her out of there and to our house. We'll see how things go from
there."

It took a moment to realize that the female
was dressing and mumbling to herself, causing Kayne to grin. If she
could accomplish only half the things she was wishing on his
anatomy it would be a miracle of science, not to mention a freak of
nature. Still, her amazing twists of the English language
entertained him as he turned his back to give her a semblance of
privacy. When he turned he found her sitting on the edge of the
small bed looking at her tiny feet, bewildered tears trickling down
her chafed face.

"What troubles you, woman?" Kayne whispered
as he knelt in front of her, watching the strange play of emotions
over her pale face. Her chocolate eyes were lit with tawny flicks
trying to hide the pain she must still feel and the tears she
valiantly attempted to hide from him, causing his chest to
ache.

"They didn't even leave me any shoes." Her
soft admission nearly broke his heart.

Kayne knew he no longer had a soul and his
heart had been hardened long ago by the things the military
scientists and their form of humanity justified in doing to one
another. He and his band of brothers and sisters worked as
Guardians now.

Their abilities made them freaks to those
they had served , and now he and his teams worked to keep mankind
from extermination by forces it had no idea were even within their
mists. Now, watching this small woman touched a core of something
he didn't want to think about right now. When Chayle looked up at
him with tears in those dark eyes, he felt a band tighten around
his chest.

"Enough!" he growled, moving over to pick
her up. "You won't need shoes anyway."

Chayle's unladylike squawk filled the room
as she came up against his huge chest. Arms like vise grips wrapped
around her so gently not even a bruise ached. Her arms
automatically snaked around his neck when he growled at someone
behind them.

"Come get the rest of her stuff and let's
move it." The guard who called himself Davey slipped into the room
with a duffel bag and began to quickly stuff her meager belongings
into it while she watched in stunned silence, his bemused grin
looking over a wide shoulder ever so often. When she felt her face
heating, it was too much.

"Put me down!" Chayle hissed through
clenched teeth, slugging Kayne's chest with her fist as if it would
do any good at all.

"Be still or I'll paddle your ass." He
shifted her weight as he turned to look at Davey, and then growled.
"What are you looking at, runt?"

"Nothin' boss!" The younger man hid a smirk
as he watched Kayne struggle with the curvy woman in his arms. "The
SUV is waiting down stairs in the back, but I'm sure you already
know that since Rafe is driving."

Indeed, his brother was waiting patiently
but they needed to move it. Kayne's senses were working overtime
and something was off. He tensed, his enhanced hearing picking up a
number of footsteps that shouldn't have been coming their way so
soon.

"We're out of time, Davey. We need to move,
now!"

Grabbing the younger man by the scuff of the
neck, Kayne all but threw him out of the door in front of him as he
carried Chayle. He heard her begin to make noises as if to scream
but he lowered his lips to her ear lobe, brushing it with his lips.
Her unique scent was the same as before but healthier and cleaner,
and Kayne found his cock growing even harder than before if that
were possible.

"Hush, bella!. No one will harm you,
remember? I promised." Then he dropped a kiss on the soft shell of
her ear.

She heard someone yell for them to stop but
Chayle forgot to breathe.

In the middle of their flight down the
stairs with someone obviously chasing them, all she could do was
cling to Kayne's broad shoulders. A shadow in her mind remembered a
promise from somewhere of safety, and it settled over her like a
blanket. Her hands clung to Kayne's thick neck as he descended the
stairs two at a time with her clinging to him like a monkey. She
heard muffled shouts behind them and a scream from someone but then
quiet.

Davey was flying down the stairs in front of
them at almost a run with her meager things flung over his back all
the while talking to someone she couldn't see. She tried to ask
where they were going but a quelling look from Kayne had her
shutting up when they came to a landing where Davey quietly opened
the door and slipped out.

"Why are you acting like this?" she hissed,
slapping his shoulder again before Chayle realizing it. "You can't
just kidnap me again, you moron. I won't let you!"

"And just what are you going to do about
it?" The mountain of a man didn't even bother to hide his amused
grin as he cradled her high against his chest. He knew she couldn't
fight him, but Chayle was determined not to be a victim again.

"Stop it!" She punched his shoulder,
thoroughly aware that it hurt her knuckles more than it did the
tight muscles bunched under his T-shirt. "You aren't some
Neanderthal, for goodness sake. At least tell me where we're
going."

Kayne was amazed that not only had this
small female dared to hit him several times, but was under the
impression that she could sway him from his intentions of removing
her from the current situation. He almost smiled at the look on her
face.

His face never betrayed the multitude of
emotions flooding him, all so new it caused his heartbeat to pound
in his ears. Chayle Olsen was a female who, he realized between one
heartbeat and the next, mattered. The fact that she was brave
enough to argue with a stranger, even if he claimed to have been
the one to rescue her, made her all the more fascinating. She
wasn't screaming or hysterical like most other females would be at
the situation they might find themselves in, but continued to hit
him with her tiny fists.

"Are you going to get her to the SUV
without further assistance or do I need to help?"
Rafe's amused
question almost pushed his patience to the limits. He looked down
at the fuming woman in his arms and clenched his teeth.

"Just get the damn thing to the door and
stop being an ass."
If she continued to wiggle that pert little
butt of hers and squirm in his arms, everyone including Rafe would
see the evidence of how this female affected him.

"So, you finally accept it, my
brother."
Kayne took a deep breath, realizing that the unique
mind-link his twin shared with him could not prevent both of them
from knowing what the other felt at a primal level.
"It's about
time you realize you can't remain totally alone."