Her resistance to their bond only made the fucking beast worse. The relentless drive to claim her, to prove his possession of her had become central, eclipsing almost all rational thought. Except one. He’d managed the presence of mind to deny her instincts to claim him by taking his blood. But, hell, she only accepted him when he overwhelmed her with her own attraction. He didn’t want that final and sacred exchange to occur over the fucking hood of a rental car in a parking garage.
Fuck! She would never understand what she saw as a rejection. She flouted the laws of his people, her people, with every word and act, whether she knew it or not. The short hair. The piercing. He suspected they were her way of denouncing the culture that had condemned her. How was she to understand his need to share his blood in a more traditional way, without any regrets or recriminations? How could he even expect her to accept it, accept him, let alone his House, after what had happened to her in that fucking Triumvirate home? He didn’t even understand how his House, his father, could have condemned a child to such atrocities.
Even now her hurt and confusion ate at him, despite her attempts to pull away from their connection. Away from him.
But it was too late. Even without the overwhelming craving of the beast inside him, he was no longer willing to let her go. There was no returning from this. He would find a way to make it work.
“Just let me go.” He absorbed the pain of her softly spoken words.
“I can’t.” His warm fingers wrapped around her wrist and pressed the release mechanism on the silver cuff, letting it fall into his palm. “I’m sorry, baby. I truly am.”
Kel didn’t acknowledge his whispered words or the feel of his lips brushing over her hair as she silently shimmered out of his arms.
Gabe braced his hands against the sports car, hanging his head. The dim light reflected over the gleaming hood and he frowned. Two sets of gouges marred the surface. With a finger he traced one thoughtfully. Claws.
She was Guardian as well as Sanguen. He’d been so absorbed with the fact that she was a crossbreed he’d been focused on pressing her to accept the part of her that was like him that he hadn’t thought about the part of her that wasn’t. His people viewed Guardians in a worse light than even crossbreeds.
Gabe flattened his palm against the gouges with a curse. There had to be a way to make this work.
“What is this place?”
Kel glanced back at Ferrar. He stood tall and solid behind her, a pair of dark sunglasses obscuring most of his face. It was just before noon the following morning and there was just enough cloud cover to offer him some protection from the sun. Not that it mattered to her.
It wasn’t like she asked him to come along anyway.
“Haven House.” She reached out and pushed the doorbell. Usually she just shimmered in, but Gabe was unfamiliar to the ladies inside and ultimately they had to grant him entrance.
From the corner of her eye, she watched his reaction. She didn’t know why she should care, but somehow it was important to her. Haven House was important to her. He was noting the peeling paint around the windows and the rusted metal railing, his expression unreadable. It was nothing like what he’d come from. House complexes were usually kept in immaculate condition. From the outside it didn’t look much different from the Triumvirate home they’d visited last night, but the inside more than made up for its lack of aesthetic appeal.
Peering briefly at him from behind the mirrored lenses of her sunglasses, she tried not to shift uncomfortably under the weight of his gaze as they slowly trailed over her short, frayed jean miniskirt and tall black boots again. He’d been preoccupied with the skirt this morning back at Incog. Maybe pureblood girls dressed more appropriately, but she dressed as she damned well pleased. This morning his body language was very proprietary, like what happened the night before had suddenly given him a legitimate claim on her. He was crowding her by standing too close. It was driving her nuts. She was still battling an edgy hunger that was left over from their confrontation last night. She just wasn’t so sure she was ready for another go-round just yet.
Glancing over her shoulder again she could see herself in the mirrored lenses of his sunglasses. It masked the full impact of his eyes, but she could feel the gentle probe of his mind that said he was trying to read her.
He said nothing, had said nothing since insisting on coming with her. What was he thinking after what had happened between them last night? Hell, she didn’t even know what to think.
Kel tried to break herself out of the damn doubt that was shaking her confidence. They were both adults. Why the hell should she care if he didn’t want her to take his blood? She didn’t need his acceptance. She pulled her shoulders back despite the tiny quiver of uncertainty that settled in her belly.
Gabe Ferrar’s presence this morning after what he’d learned of her last night, after what they’d done, might make her feel too open and, well…raw, but she would not curl up on it. After leaving him in the garage, she’d taken a long hot shower and thought for a long time about her reaction to him. She decided she was stronger than that but she did feel the need to reassure herself, to find a sense of renewal – of hope. Haven House did that for her.
Casting another hooded look his way, the corner of her mouth twisted wryly. She just wished Gabe Ferrar wasn’t there to sense it, especially with his bond mojo he was exploiting with her. Did he sense her need to be here today? Would he see it as a weakness?
Kel mentally gave herself a shake. What the hell should she care? She didn’t have to explain herself to him, especially about emotions he was pirating off of her. Let him see it as a weakness. Maybe he would decide she was too inferior for a pureblood Ferrar and leave her the hell alone.
She’d stopped by Incog this morning to do a write-up on the incident at that Triumvirate home. Kye liked lots of documentation, especially when it pertained to his agents’ behavior on the outside. And Gabe had been there, waiting for her. She should have known he wasn’t going to give her any space, any room to breathe or think. He was probably right. She’d never wanted to run as bad as she did this morning.
Not that it should matter. She wasn’t able to escape him anyway, regardless of where he was. He’d made it perfectly clear last night that he wasn’t going to let this go, and she’d gotten the distinct impression of a churning darkness surging dangerously inside him, against his control, seeking her. It was both incredibly exciting and tremendously terrifying in equal parts.
Too bad both parts left her wanting to touch him again.
Suddenly the heavy door swung open and a small old woman peered intently at them. No, at him. Up and down him, to be exact.
“Another orphan? Not sure if I have a bed for him. Guess he can use mine.”
Kel smiled widely and felt the tension start to recede. “Mae, behave yourself.” She could feel his light probe again but ignored him as she stepped forward to hug the small woman.
Mae Graeme was a tiny little woman with white hair, shimmering silver eyes, and a sharpness about her that didn’t become apparent until it was too late. She looked to be about sixty, but Kel suspected she’d lived more than three times that long. She’d taken Kel in when Kye Forestor had found her, when no other could handle her.
“Certainly, my dear. When I am dead. Now bring your orphan in before his burns get any worse.”
Kel spun and appraised him. There were some red angry areas on his collar and the backs of his hands. With a frown she grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into the house. “Dammit, Ferrar, speak up.”
His heavy eyes just pressed into her from behind his glasses, making her hyperawareness of him go skipping over her skin again.
Mae shut the door, her shrewd silver eyes appraising them. “Tala is in the kitchen, getting lunch ready for the girls. Take your orphan in there and I’ll bring some salve for those burns.”
Kel almost laughed at the bemused expression on Gabe’s face as she lifted one of his hands to frown down at the dark, angry redness there. A tiny blister was already forming.
“You’ll get used to her. Does this hurt?”
“It’s fine,” he murmured in that deep baritone of his that rumbled through her. His hand felt warm and heavy in hers and she took a reflexive step back, releasing his hand. She most certainly did not need any other parts of her anatomy joining this lunch, not with Mae and Tala watching her.
“Come on.”
Kel loved this kitchen. It had high ceilings with a large wooden table that had seen better days. She’d spent so many nights at that table, trying to escape her own skin. Mae and Tala’s various herbs and plants grew in abundance near the tall, narrow windows and they filled the room with a fresh scent. It was equipped with large, commercial-sized appliances that were old and beaten but immaculate. It was always warm and welcoming, a sanctuary for her during the days when all the other places made her skin crawl.
All the food was just a bonus.
“How is it you seem to always show up at mealtime?” Tala stood with her back to the counter, a dish towel in her hands. She was a year or so younger than Kel, a tiny thing with large violet eyes and long ebony hair. She cast a wary glance at Gabe.
“Luck.” Kel smiled. “This is House Marshal Gabrial Ferrar. My
temporary
partner.”
Tala’s eyes darted quickly to Kel before she nodded with a tight smile and said, “Nice to meet you, Marshal.” Tala and Kel had been roommates in the Triumvirate home, sharing more secrets than they cared to admit. The least of which was how Kel had come to be there.
“I wanted to stop by and warn you to keep a close eye on the girls for a while. There might be a perv out there craving crossbreed girls.” Kel cocked her head to listen to the distant chattering of the girls upstairs and a small smile played over her mouth. It was the sound of hope that she sometimes craved. Nothing like the sound that she and Tala had heard as girls. “Especially Madison. She’s close to her change.”
Tala gasped. “Should we be afraid?”
“No, don’t panic. Just be cautious. You’re keeping her in now anyway.”
Gabe frowned. “Her change?”
Both Tala and Kel turned to look at him. Tala shot Kel a look before she pushed away from the counter and turned to finish up the sandwiches. Kel sighed and dropped down into a worn chair, trying to let the warm tones of the kitchen settle her.
“Puberty,” Kel finally said. “It’s very intense for Guardians. They can sense it in each other and it can incite violence from males, especially those who have not been –” Kel took a deep breath “—taught control.”
GABE FELT HIS muscles clench and that foreign darkness surged against him. He cast a glance at the other woman, who turned away. Her body was tense as she sliced tomatoes. Fear vibrated in every line of her small form. His eyes came back to Kel. Her body was relaxed, slouched in the chair but her eyes told a different story. She looked haunted. When he tried to feel her, she shied away as though reflexively retreating from being touched. As though she were bruised. “And that means?”
“It means, Marshal Ferrar” – her voice grated over his name – “that she is prime pickings for our psycho and all kinds of other degenerates.”
Gabe could feel the flare of her emotions; they flashed over him in a maelstrom of anger and disgust and shame. The anger burned the hottest. He tried to focus beyond it, to concentrate on what kind of significance this had for his case. But her emotions battered him in a way he didn’t think she was aware of.
Blinking against the sudden ache in his head, he narrowed his eyes on her. “You think our guy was attracted to the girls because they were nearing this change? If he’s Sanguen how would he know?”
“Your missing girls were all in the right age range. Maybe he was just going by that. As for the girl in the park…” Kel shrugged and pushed her chair abruptly back to pace over to the counter. She jerked a knife out of the block and began cutting the onions into slices.
Gabe frowned at her abrupt behavior, watching the knife blur as she hacked away at the unwary vegetable. She was angry and it wasn’t all directed at him. Some of it was at herself. The backlash of it burned through their weak connection, made his chest hurt.
“And in a Triumvirate home?”
Kel used the flat of the blade to push the pile out of her way and angrily grabbed another one, the knife blurring again. “It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure it out, Ferrar. The males lead them to any females that have Guardian blood.”
“How?” Gabe grunted as he rubbed absently at the center of his chest, his thoughts darkening as a picture began to form. Something that Elemental said last night rose up in his memory. She’d said it was hard to tell until their first “heat” when the young Guardian males began showing a “real interest” in them. A “real interest” as in rape.
Gabe felt the beast inside him surge in fury, threatening his control. Its rage spiked across their connection. Kel jerked in response, accidentally running the knife over her finger. The scent of her blood flooded his system, churning the already rising tide of his fury and possession.
With a growl, he shimmered, grabbed her by the shoulders, and turned her to face him. “Rape. That’s what you mean. What happened to you?” His fingers bit into the soft flesh of her arms.
Tala jumped away with a yelp but neither of them paid her any attention. Kel stabbed her knife into the cutting board, the dark depths of her eyes burning. “Yes, among other things. Disappointed your bloodmate isn’t a pure Sanguen?”
He knew she didn’t just mean pureblood and her insinuation scorched him, driving his anger higher. His lip curled up. “Is that what you think?”
“It’s what you think,
Marshal
Ferrar. Poor little pureblood got stuck with a dirty little crossbreed.”
“What?”
Gabe jerked, his fingers tightening on her arms. She didn’t say anything, just stared up at him mutinously, her body stiff against him. He didn’t know how to handle his constant loss of control when he was around her, the overwhelming emotions she evoked in him so beyond his experience. She hurt. He could feel that in her. And it pierced that pulsing darkness that was flowing violently through him.