The Heat (20 page)

He reached out and brushed a lock of her gold hair from her face. She blinked, wondering distractedly why her arm didn’t hurt when he touched her.

“
You’re a fighter, Lily. I’ll give you that.”

He leaned forward then and she closed her eyes as he gently pressed his lips to her forehead. The tender deed seemed so unsuited for this man, with his green eyes and beautiful voice. Yet, she felt that it was more suited to him than perhaps anything he had done in a very long time.

When she opened her eyes again, it was to watch as he stood once more and moved away from her. When he reached the doorway of the bathroom, he turned and their gazes met.

“
Good bye, luv,”
he told her in his perfect British accent.
“Give him hell for me.”

Lily watched him round the corner and disappear. She leaned forward then, placing her arms on the floor in front of her. Her forehead dropped to the backs of her hands.

When the tears came this time, she didn’t choke on them.

*****

James Valentine knew the moment that Daniel Kane was no longer able to follow him into Cole’s territory. The other alpha had flashed back into human form and staggered to a halt as Valentine had continued to rush forward into the murky, smoky madness. James had gone another hundred yards before skidding to a halt, a new scent whipping at him in the wind.

Cole
. And…. Chlorine?

James pricked his ears, listening for something he knew he would never catch. It was pointless; the fire was too loud.

He sniffed the air again. Yes, chlorine. He turned toward the scent, carefully following it as it wafted in and out, there one second, gone the next. His pace sped up as he locked on. Beside him, Kane’s men watched him, running at his side, their wolfen expressions questioning. He ignored them, concentrating hard.

Ten yards. Thirty. Seventy.

The scent grew stronger. Water. Chlorine.
Lily!
The hint of lavender, of cinnamon, and soap and Dormancy.

And with her scent was Cole’s, as heavy and powerful as the man, himself.

Kane’s pack stopped in their tracks as James Valentine entered the clearing. He stood still for a moment, taking in the scene before him with molten silver wolf eyes.

The green-eyed man turned to face him.

“Ah, Valentine.” Malcolm Cole nodded to himself, as if everything made perfect sense. At his feet lay an unconscious and drenched Lily St.Claire, her small form curled on its side, a damp patch of earth beneath her lips.

James could see and smell Cole’s wolf pack, roaming in the shadows of the adjoining forest, watching their leader. They were waiting for the slightest hint from Cole that they should attack.

There was mockery in Cole’s tone, to be sure. Valentine could tell that Cole was not at all surprised to find that James had turned on him. But there was something else in his tone as well, something that skirted the edges of capitulation. It was also there in his expression. “I can sense that you’ve been made her Guardian,” Cole said. He smiled then. It was mirthless, as always. “I can’t say I blame you, Valentine. What would any of us do for the chance to feel whole again?”

James flashed back into his human form and strode across the clearing until he stood a few feet from the man who had kidnapped and threatened Kane’s marked mate.

“Where will you go, Cole?” James asked.

Malcolm blinked. And then he nodded, once. “Nothing escapes you, does it?”

Valentine was old enough to know that Cole was surrendering. Perhaps not the war, but the battle, at least. He knew that Cole would take his pack and disappear. He was very good at that.

Cole looked down at Lily’s sleeping form and his gaze softened. “She was willing to die to escape me,” he said. He knelt beside her and James knelt with him, ever watchful.

It didn’t faze Cole. With a shaking hand, he gently brushed a damp lock from her cheek. “She isn’t meant to be mine.” Cole bent over her and James allowed him this small token, this scrap of a goodbye, as Cole placed a tender kiss to Lily’s forehead.

Then Cole pulled away and stood once more. His gaze flitted to the edge of the clearing, where wolves moved through the trees. Some of them were his, watching and waiting for their alpha to engage in battle so that they could follow suit. Others were Kane’s. They, too, were waiting. To see what Valentine did – or maybe Lily.

The fire was spreading. Embers of red danger floated on the wind around them. Soon, it would cross the garden and touch the shed that housed the propane tank. There would be no hope for anyone in this vicinity if they were still here when that happened.

“You need to get Kane and his people out of here,” Cole told Valentine.

Valentine gazed up at the man who had been long thought of as responsible for countless grizzly murders – the man who had been a Nazi soldier. He knew that none of those things were true. Malcolm Cole was a very smart, very dangerous and stunningly powerful alpha werewolf. But he wasn’t a bad man.

James nodded. He understood. There would be no great battle this night.

Cole stepped back, flashed into wolf form, and dashed into the forest with blurring speed. In a few short seconds, Valentine could no longer hear or smell Cole or his men.

They were gone.

Beside James, Lily stirred. She coughed in her smoke-clogged slumber. He bent and lifted her into his arms then strode quickly to the edge of the clearing and the wolves that waited there.

Chapter Fourteen: The 4-1-1

Lily awoke gradually, the sound coming first. Deep voices conversing, but muted. Traffic at a distance. She felt a little cold, but a warm beam touched her cheek, as if to stay the chill. She could smell the detergent in the blankets that were wrapped around her.

And then she smelled
him
. He was leather, the faintest hint of cologne or body spray, and wind.
Yes, wind has a smell
, she thought, as the corners of her mouth turned up in a slow smile.

She opened her eyes. They burned a little, but the blurriness subsided after a few seconds and she took in her surroundings.

She was in Tabitha’s house, in the guest room that she had used when she’d first come back to Baton Rouge and had been looking for a place to live. There were flowers everywhere, artfully arranged, all with get-well notes attached. She could hear Tabitha’s voice in the other room. She was talking to someone who spoke in a voice that was somehow familiar to Lily, but she couldn’t place it.

Lily’s gaze skirted the room to fall on its only other inhabitant. Daniel Kane lay reclined in a large chair several feet from the bed and against the wall. His eyes were closed. His inhumanly perfect features were darkened with a five o’clock shadow. As always, he was dressed in black, his badge attached to the waistband of his jeans. Even in sleep, his presence ate up the space around him without forgiveness. His breathing was deep and slow, his broad chest rising and falling in easy slumber.

Lily had never seen Daniel sleep. It was strange. He was always so dominant, so in control, so in charge. The act of sleeping took all of that and effectively erased it away. What was left was simply the person underneath, and its tender vulnerability.

As she lay there, on her side and watched the slumbering werewolf, the events of the last few days came rushing back to her.

Malcolm Cole, the Nazi who wasn’t. The cursed red marks on his arms. The fire.

She remembered being in the hot tub, sinking. Everything else was a blur of sights and sounds and smells and pain. Some where along the way, she’d stopped coughing, stopped throwing up, stopped shivering uncontrollably – and slept. She vaguely recalled people touching her here and there – moving her, giving her medicine, giving her water.

And now, she felt warm under the quilted covers; she felt safe in that languid way that overcame one when the pain finally passed and they no longer had to fight it so hard.

Her gold-flecked gaze traveled across Daniel’s form, drinking him in with a boldness that she never would have exercised had he been able to gaze back. She was transfixed by the angles of his face, the tall and lean muscle of his body, the darkness that he seemed to wrap around himself from his black clothing to his blue-black hair. And there was that hidden wolf in there too, somewhere beneath his impossibly beautiful exterior. She had yet to see it in her waking life. But she’d seen it in her dreams a thousand times.

He looked like a fallen angel at that moment, laid to waste, perhaps, by some archangel’s killing blow. It made her want to go him, kiss him awake, take him in her arms and make the hurt go away.

She blushed at that roving, runaway thought and tingling warmth spread across her forearm. She peeked under the covers at the thin blue line that she’d all but forgotten. She chewed on her lip and sighed. The mark. Daniel’s brand that stung like hell any time another alpha with designs on her so much as came near her.

The mark that he hadn’t asked her permission to give her but had forced upon her like shackles.

Suddenly, instead of wanting to kiss him, she wanted to punch him. Her gaze narrowed of its own accord and she turned her arm over, not wanting to view the shimmering tattoo. When she looked back up, it was to find Daniel leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped casually in front of him. His eyes were drinking her in.

Lily gasped and stilled in the bed, wondering how he had managed to awaken and move into that position so quickly and without her hearing him.

He studied her in silence for a while, his expression unreadable. But there was a wealth of thinking going on behind those blue eyes. “How’re you feelin’ cher?” he finally asked.

Lily took her time in answering. She was searching for some clue in his expression as to what he was thinking, what was going on in his head. But he gave nothing away.

“Do you want the honest truth, Daniel, or do you want me to say something that will satisfy your male ego?” Her voice was a tad scratchy, but it worked.

Daniel’s lip twitched and his eyes glittered as he replied, “Preferably both.”

Lily’s gaze narrowed. “I’m feeling mad as hell at you for what you did and if we were in any other city, I’d seriously consider pressing charges.” She paused, leaning back against the pillow behind her and crossing her arms over her chest. “Seeing as how you’re the law here, I know it wouldn’t do any good.”

Daniel seemed to consider this, his expression still a somewhat impassive mask. And then, in that slow drawl that drove her crazy, he said, “I meant, cher, how does you’re your
body
feel?” As he asked the question, his gaze skirted to her form, where it hid beneath the blankets, and then back up to her face. “You inhaled a lot of smoke. And water. Sort of went for both ends of the spectrum there.”

Any other day, any other circumstance, this charming banter of his would have won Lily over. But not today. Not now – not after all that she’d been through. She’d been attacked, branded, kidnapped, and half-drowned. He was real damn good at negotiating, smoothing things over, and flirting his way to complacency. It probably came with the job. But she wasn’t falling for it.

“How does my body feel? It feels tired, Daniel.” She paused for effect. “And so do I.”

*****

Daniel Kane continued to watch her for several quiet moments more and then he took a deep, slow breath and sat back in his chair, draping his arms over the rests. He hadn’t missed the double meaning behind her words. She was tired of being thrown around, from the arms of one domineering werewolf to another, and treated like some caveman’s conquered love slave.

He was impressed that she was able to express as much in her condition. She had to be starving. Probably thirsty. Definitely weary. He was also getting a sense now of just what kind of person Lily St.Claire really was. He’d already known she had a kind heart. He figured he could safely add that she was stubborn. And anyone willing to set fire to someone’s multi-million dollar mansion in order to escape them had to have a fair share of guts and determination as well.

He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. “I did what I felt I had to do, Lily,” he said. “I can see how you would feel it was a selfish act. But it saved you from Malcolm, and it saved Tabitha too.” He leaned forward again, pinning her with what he knew was a very potent gaze. “And I would do it again.”

Daniel could sense the change in her almost before she realized it herself. It was a hardening in her brown-gold gaze, a set to her beautiful jaw. She was slipping into fight mode. As if by instinct, the wolf in him readied for the same. His muscles tensed, his senses heightened. He could hear her heart rate speed up. Her breathing became more shallow. He could smell the adrenaline in her blood.

It smelled good.

She straightened in the bed, coming off of the pillows, and he did the same, placing his palms on the chair’s arm rests so that he could push himself up if he needed to.

Lily threw off her covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Beneath the discarded covers, she wore a pair of Tabitha’s cut-off sweat shorts and a borrowed tank top. She was unaware of the way Daniel’s gaze darkened when she revealed herself. She didn’t notice his pupils expanding in the oceans of his eyes. She had no idea that his blood was beginning to heat up at the sight of her long, tanned legs and her nipples, erect behind the thin material of her shirt.

He knew that all she was thinking was that she wanted to attack him. It was senseless and, if she’d paused long enough to consider what he was saying, she might have realized that he was sort of right. She just didn’t care any longer. He could see that now.

She stood before him, and just as he rose to meet her, she drew back her arm. Her hand balled into a fist, and she drove it forward for all she was worth.

Daniel saw it coming a mile away and, for once in his life, he let it come. It was the least he owed her, he supposed. But as her fist connected with his jaw, it was
her
pain and not his own that he immediately sensed. She’d snapped his head to one side with the force, and yet his own discomfort barely registered. He turned to face her again, at once overwhelmed by what he was seeing.