Lover Unleashed (37 page)

“Let us try this, sire. . . . Chew slowly, however.”

Fat. Chance. Starvation immediately became the name of the game and he went T. rex on the meat, nearly biting tines off in the rush. But Layla was right on it, feeding him another round as fast as he could take it in.

“Wait . . . stop,” he mumbled, afraid he was going to throw up.

He eased over onto his back again and let one hand rest on his chest. Shallow breaths were his savior. Anything deeper and he was going to pull a Technicolor yawn all over himself.

Layla’s face appeared above his. “Sire . . . perhaps we should cease.”

Qhuinn narrowed his stare on her, and saw her properly for the first time since she’d shown up.

God, she was a looker, all that pale blond hair swept up high on her head, her face stunningly perfect. With strawberry lips and green eyes that were luminous in the lamplight, she was everything the race valued in terms of DNA—not a defect in sight.

He reached up and brushed at her chignon. So soft. No hair spray for her; it was as if the waves knew their job was to frame her features and they were eager to do their best.

“Sire?” she said as she tensed.

He knew what was under that robe of hers: Her breasts were absolutely stunning and her stomach flat as a board . . . and those hips and the silky smooth sex between her thighs were the kinds of things that a naked male would fall on glass shards for.

He knew these particulars because he’d seen all of it, touched a lot of it, and had his mouth in a few choice places.

He hadn’t taken her, though. Hadn’t gone very far, either. As an
ehros
, she had been trained for sex, but with no Primale to service the Chosen in that way, she was all academic learning, nothing in the “field,” as it were. And for a while he’d been happy to show her some of the ropes.

Except it hadn’t felt right.

Well, she’d felt a lot that she’d thought was right, but her eyes had had too much in them and his heart way too little for things to keep going.

“Will you take my vein, sire?” she whispered huskily.

He just stared at her.

Those red lips of hers parted. “Sire, will you . . . take me.”

Closing his lids, he saw Blay’s face again . . . but not how it was now. Not the cold stranger that Qhuinn had created. The old Blay, with those blue eyes that were somehow always pointed in his direction.

“Sire . . . I am yours for the taking. Still. Evermore.”

When he finally looked at Layla again, her fingers had gone to the lapels of her robe and she had spread the halves wide, showing him her long, elegant neck and the wings of her collarbones and all that glorious cleavage.

“Sire . . . I want to serve you.” Inching the sateen fabric even farther apart, she offered him not just her vein, but her body. “Take me—”

Qhuinn stilled her hands as they went to the tie around her waist. “Stop.”

Her eyes dropped to the duvet, and she seemed to turn to stone. At least until she pulled herself out of his hold and roughly rearranged the robe.

“You shall take my wrist then.” Her hand was shaking as she yanked up her sleeve and stuck out her arm. “Take from my wrist what you so obviously require.”

She did not look at him. Likely could not.

And yet here she was . . . shut down from a disgrace she had never earned and he had never meant to call out of her . . . still offering herself to him—except not in a pathetic way, but because she had been born and bred to serve a purpose that had nothing to do with what she wanted and everything to do with social expectation . . . and she was determined to live up to the standard. Even if she wasn’t wanted for who she was.

Christ, he knew what that was like.

“Layla—”

“Do not apologize, sire. It belittles me.”

He took her arm because he got the impression she was about to get to her feet. “Look, this is my fault. I should never have started the sex stuff with you—”

“And I say unto you, ‘stop.’” Her back was ramrod straight and her voice strident. “Do let me go, will you.”

He frowned. “Shit . . . you’re cold.”

“Am I.”

“Yeah.” He ran his hand up and down her arm. “Do you need to feed? Layla? Hello?”

“I have been over on the Other Side in the Sanctuary, so no.”

Well, that he could buy. If a Chosen was over there, she existed without existing, her blood needs suspended—and apparently refreshed: For the last couple of years, Layla alone had been servicing the Brothers who couldn’t feed from their
shellans
. She was everyone’s go-to Chosen.

And then it dawned on him. “Wait, you haven’t been up north at all?”

Now that Phury had freed the Chosen from their rigid and confined existence, most of them left the Sanctuary they’d been stuck in for aeons and went to the Adirondack great camp to learn about the freedoms of life over on this side.

“Layla?”

“No, I do not go there anymore.”

“Why?”

“I cannot.” She waved the conversation away and pulled up her sleeve again. “Sire? Are you taking my vein?”

“Why don’t you go there?”

Her eyes finally met his and they were flat-out pissed. Which was a strange relief. Her meek acceptance of everything made him question how smart she was. But going by her expression now? There was a whole lot of something underneath the mantle she wore—and he wasn’t just talking about her perfect body.

“Layla. Answer me. Why not?”

“I cannot.”

“Says who?” Qhuinn wasn’t totally tight with Phury, but he knew the Brother well enough to bring a problem to the guy. “Who.”

“’Tis not a who, and worry not.” She pointed to her wrist. “Partake so that you are as strong as you need to be, and then I shall leave you in peace.”

“Fine, if you want to joust about words—
what
is it, then.”

Frustration flared in her face. “That is not your concern.”

“I’ll decide what’s my concern.” He wasn’t into bullying females, but apparently his dormant gentlemale had gotten off its powderpuff bed and found its knickers in a bunch. “Talk to me.”

He was the last person to put the share/care card on the table, yet here he was, slapping it down. The thing was, though, he wouldn’t stand for anything hurting this female.

“Fine.”
She threw up her hands. “If I tarry up north, I cannot supply all of you with what you need for blood. Therefore I go unto the Sanctuary for my recovery and I wait to be summoned. Then I come unto this side and service you and after that I must needs return. So no, I cannot go to the mountains.”

“Jesus . . .” What a bunch of users they were. They should have anticipated this problem—or Phury should have. Unless . . . “Have you talked to the Primale?”

“About what, precisely,” she snapped. “Tell me, sire, would you be in a hurry to present your failures on the field to your king?”

“How the hell are you failing? You’re keeping, like, four of us going.”

“Exactly. And I am serving you all in a very limited capacity.”

Layla burst up and walked over to the window. As she stared out, he wanted to want her: In that moment, he would have given anything to feel for her what she did for him—she was, after all, everything his family valued, the social pinnacle for a female. And she wanted him.

But when he looked inside, there was another in his heart. And nothing was going to change that. Ever . . . he feared.

“I do not know who or what I am, exactly,” Layla said, as if she were speaking to herself.

Well, looked like both of them were on the same train to nowhere with that question. “You won’t find out unless you leave that Sanctuary.”

“Impossible if I am to service—”

“We’ll use someone else. It’s just that simple.”

There was a sharp inhale, and then, “But of course. You shall do as you wish.”

Qhuinn stared at the hard line of her chin. “That’s supposed to help you.”

She glared over her shoulder. “It does not—for then you would leave me with nothing. Your choice, my repercussion.”

“It’s your life. You can choose.”

“We shall not speak of this anymore.” She threw up her hands. “Dearest Scribe Virgin, you have
no
idea what it is like to desire things you are not fated to have.”

Qhuinn let out a hard laugh. “The fuck I don’t.” As her brows popped, he rolled his eyes. “You and I have more in common than you think.”

“You have all the freedom in the world. What could you possibly want for?”

“Trust me.”

“Well, I want you and I cannot have you. That is not of my choosing. At least by servicing you and the others, I have a purpose other than mourning the loss of something I dreamed of.”

As Qhuinn took a deep breath, he had to respect the female. There was no pity party going on over there at the window. She was stating the facts as she knew them.

Shit, she really was precisely the kind of
shellan
he’d always wanted. Even as he’d been fucking anything that walked, in the back of his mind, he had always seen himself with a female, long-term. One with impeccable bloodlines and a lot of class—the kind his parents would have not only approved of, but might have respected him a little for getting.

That had been his dream. Now that it had shown up, however . . . now that it was standing across his bedroom and looking him in the face . . . he wanted something else entirely.

“I wish I did feel something deep for you,” he said roughly, meeting truth for truth. “I would do almost anything to feel what I should for you. You are . . . my fantasy female. Everything I always wanted, but thought I could never have.”

Her eyes got so wide they were like two moons, beautiful and shining. “Then why . . .”

He rubbed his face and wondered what in the fuck he was saying.

What the fuck he was doing.

When he took his palms away, there was a slickness left behind, one that he refused to think too much about.

“I’m in love,” he said hoarsely. “With someone else. That’s why.”

THIRTY-ONE

C
ommotion out in the hall. Scrambling footsteps . . . low cursing . . . the occasional dull thud.

All the noise woke Manny up, and he went from out like a light to fully conscious in a split second as the parade of sound passed by in the corridor. The disturbance continued onward before it got cut off sharply, as if a door had been shut on the show. Whatever it might be.

Straightening from where he’d put his head down on Payne’s bed, he looked at his patient. Beautiful. Simply beautiful. And sleeping steadily—

The shaft of light smacked him right in the face.

Jane’s voice was strained as she stood in the lee of the doorway, a black cutout of herself. “I need another set of hands in here. Stat.”

No asking twice. Manny shot for the door, the surgeon in him ready to go to work, no questions asked.

“What we got?”

As they rushed along, Jane brushed at her red-stained scrubs. “Multiple traumas. Mostly knives, one gunshot. And there’s another being driven in.”

They broke into the exam room together, and God . . . damn . . . there were wounded men everywhere—standing in the corners, propped on the table, leaning down on the counter, cursing while they paced. Elena or Elaina, the nurse, was busy getting out scalpels and thread by the dozen and the yard, and there was a little old man bringing water to everyone on a silver tray.

“I haven’t triaged yet,” Jane said. “There’re too many of them.”

“Where’s an extra stethoscope and BP cuff?”

She went over to a cabinet, popped a drawer, and tossed both over. “BP is much lower than you’re going to be used to. So is the heart rate.”

Which meant that, as a medical professional, he had no true way of judging whether they were in trouble or not.

He put the equipment aside. “You and the nurse had better make the assessments. I’ll do prep.”

“Probably better,” Jane agreed.

Manny stepped up to the blond nurse who was working efficiently with the supplies. “I’m going to take over from here. You help Jane with the readings.”

She nodded briefly and got right to work taking vitals.

Manny threw open drawers and took out surgical kits, lining them up on the counters. Pain meds were in an upright cupboard; syringes were down below. As he rifled through everything, he was impressed by the professional quality: He didn’t know how Jane had done it, but everything was hospital-grade.

Ten minutes later, Jane, he, and the nurse met in the middle of the room. “We’ve got two in bad shape,” Jane said. “Rhage and Phury are both losing a lot of blood—I’m worried that arteries have been nicked because those cuts are so damned deep. Z and Tohr need X-rays, and I think Blaylock’s got a concussion along with that nasty gash on his stomach.”

Manny headed for the sink and started scrubbing up. “Let’s do this.” He glanced around and pointed to the mammoth blond son of a bitch with the puddle of blood under his left boot. “I’ll take him.”

“Okay, I’ll deal with Phury. Ehlena, you start getting pictures of those broken bones.”

Given that this was a field situation, Manny took his supplies over to his patient—who was stretched out on the floor, right where he’d collapsed earlier. The big bastard was dressed in black leather from head to foot, and he was in a lot of pain, his head kicked back and his teeth gritted.

“I’m going to work on you,” Manny said. “You got a problem with that?”

“Not if you can keep me from bleeding out.”

“Consider it done.” Manny grabbed a pair of scissors. “I’m going to cut off your pant leg first and ditch the boot.”

“Shitkicker,” the guy groaned.

“Fine. Whatever you call it, it’s coming off.”

No unlacing—he cut through the latticework at the front of the damn thing and slipped it off a foot the size of a suitcase. And then the leathers sliced easily up the outside all the way to the hip, falling open like a set of chaps.

“What we got, Doc?”

“A Christmas turkey, my friend.”

“That deep?”

“Yup.” No need to mention that the bone was showing through and blood was pumping out in a steady stream. “I’ve got to rescrub. I’ll be right back.”