What Rough Beast [Blood Oath 1] (17 page)

"Killing somebody is
not
intimate. I don't care who or what you are.” When she looked up at him, exhaustion shadowed her eyes with faint blue smudges. “You should have told me. Given me some kind of warning."

"Knowing it must be done and understanding why doesn't make it easier.” Garrick breathed in her scent, their mingled scent now, held her to him. “I was terrified."

Her eyes widened. “You?"

"I'm not impervious to fear, Kate.” He tangled fingers slicked scarlet with hers. “Especially where you are concerned."

"Link with me."

She slowly shook her head but didn't tug her hand away.

"You criticize me for failing to prepare you for blood-mating. Maybe justifiably so. But when I offer to open my mind to you, you will not seek to know my thoughts, to share what I feel.” He arched a sardonic eyebrow. “Were you this contrary when you were human, or is it new?"

She scowled at him. “You are such a jerk."

He chuckled, his delight with her lifting his heart. How could he not love her? How could his heart not race to have her in his arms, glowering at him, after such a harrowing ordeal?

They'd lived.

She'd blood-mated to him, and they'd survived it.

So he laughed, hugged her to him, and gave himself up to his relieved satisfaction.

Her frown gradually smoothed. “You should do that more often."

His lips curled to a wry grin. “Kill you?"

She aimed a punch, her fist brushing his biceps. “Laugh,” she said. “You should laugh more often."

"You should link with me more often."

Her nose wrinkled. “Now who's being stubborn?"

"I need that intimacy. We both will now. More and more."
He brought their intertwined fingers to her pale, blood-smeared cheek.
"One heart, one mind, one body."

"Remember?"

Her gaze drifted from his. “I don't like you in my head. I don't even want Luc rattling around in there."

He tried to understand.

He really did.

But she'd been deeply embedded in his mind and he in hers during their blood-mating only moments before. Instinctively, she'd sought him out, and they'd been as close as two of their kind could be. The mind-numbing perfection of it still rattled him.
"Why not?"

She focused a frigid glare on him. “You're not supposed to be in my head. That's impossible."

"We are very possible."
He stared into her dark frustrated eyes, traced their conjoined fingers along the line of her jaw.
"You must come to terms with what you are and what we, together, are capable of."

"I don't—"

He arched a cool eyebrow.
"Link with me."

"This is just sex, and don't look at me like that,” she said when his brow furrowed. “You started it. You and Luc both. You got that heat thing started, all these hormones driving me crazy when you knew I hadn't even decided if I liked you yet.” She focused dark, defiant eyes on him that glinted with rising fury. “Which right now, I don't. Like you. At all."

She shoved at him. “You wanted sex? Fine. You've got it. There's not a damn thing I can do to stop it.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Mentally? I can't keep you out of my head, no."

"But what I'm thinking and feeling is my business and none of yours, pal."

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Garrick moved her into his rooms that night.

Kate glared at him. She glanced over the edge of her Kindle to sniff regal disdain at Luc and Garrick both as they gathered her few favorite things—the jewelry she'd shown any preference for, a fleece throw she'd curled up in when she read on the loveseat, the pillow she'd liked on the bed she'd shared with her traitorous guardian. They shoved everything in a box that would be hauled to the private suite she'd share with Garrick.

Kate said nothing.

When Luc had asked her what she'd like to keep, she pressed her lips together and focused her attention on Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy.
Pride and Prejudice
, she could deal with. A pair of stubborn vampires? Not so much.

"If we've left anything behind, I'll bring it to you."
Luc draped acres of diaphanous skirts over his arm while Garrick pawed through the jewelry chest, selecting and rejecting baubles at random. “You're only moving to the other wing of the house, bebe."

This, of course, would go hand-in-hand with the I'm-not-abandoning-you speech he'd treated her to earlier.

She snorted.

Maybe he wasn't abandoning
her
, but he certainly seemed eager to abandon her virtue.

Not that Kate was feeling particularly virtuous.

After three orgasms in the den, she should be satisfied. Hell, considering Garrick had killed her, she should be exhausted, but irritation poked and prodded at her while the men packed. Annoyance chewed at the edges of her illusion of disinterested contempt.

She was still horny, damn it.

The shower Garrick had taken to clean up their sticky blood after mating hadn't erased his sexy smell. Her mouth watered at the scent that wafted from him each time the air stirred as he passed by. She shivered at the tang of new sweat. His natural musk tickled her nostrils and made her ache.

The discernible bulge of his cock behind the fly of the sturdy blue jeans he'd changed into didn't help.

She'd felt that dick rubbing her clit, traced it through his trousers with the palm of her hand. But she hadn't seen it. Or tasted it.

The lack was making her crazy.

Luc and Garrick unceremoniously moving her into his rooms was making her crazier still.

She wanted his cock in her mouth, but she also wanted to slap both men silly for treating her like an ottoman they could nudge from room to room as the whim struck.

"I would never mistake you for a piece of furniture."

Garrick beamed a lecherous grin. “And you can have my dick whenever you like."

Luc grunted. “I hope she ties it into a knot."

Kate scowled.

Thunderously.

Focused on her Kindle.

Elizabeth didn't know how good she had it.

At least Mr. Darcy didn't have fangs.

Garrick snickered.

Her lips pursed. Instead of concentrating on the words on the screen, she pictured dead baby ducks and her grandmother's voluminous underwear.

Luc frowned. “Your bath didn't scrub away your scent either. You won't kill his erection while he can smell you, but I may never get hard again."

Kate added elderly nuns in crisp black robes to her mental imagery. And the Saturday-afternoon line at every cash register in Walmart.

Garrick laughed.

Luc rolled his eyes.

"This is the last of it,” he said, folding a heaping stack of dresses over the box Garrick hefted off the desk. “Let's go."

Kindle in hand, she trooped on wooden legs behind them when, arms laden, they marched from Luc's rooms into the interior of the house. She followed them through the double doors of Garrick's master suite and settled in the center of his king-size, four-poster bed to sneer at them as they salted the things they decided she should have in Garrick's living quarters.

Garrick shot her a sly smile when he scattered her toiletries on the bathroom vanity.

As if her shampoo sharing counter space with his shaving cream meant anything.

Brows beetling, she returned her attention to the non-fanged Mr. Darcy.

When they'd finished, Luc gave her a stiff, one-armed hug she didn't return.

"I'll come back tomorrow—and every day thereafter—at sunset to visit. We'll talk."

Yeah, like he'd told her so much thus far? Like how powerful she was? So much more powerful than the two of them, wasn't that his spiel? Yet they'd moved her into Garrick's rooms without so much as a by-your-leave to her.

Sure, she was powerful.

Right.

Luc cupped her cheek. “Don't make this harder for me than it already is."

Her eyes squeezed shut.

He was leaving her, then.

He was truly leaving her.

Anxiety tightened her stomach.

"I'll never leave you, bebe."
His fingers traced the line of her jaw. “Choose him. Or not. The decision is yours.” He blew out a sharp breath. “I give you this freedom, in haste, but while I'm still steady enough to offer it."

When her eyes opened, his glistened. “Staying with you now would be the worst sort of sin. So I need to go,” he said. “Please understand."

She didn't, but her heart softened at the pain that grooved deep lines at the corners of his mouth.

"I will—always—be yours."

The mattress dipped under Garrick's weight, and her pulse raced when his scent washed over her anew. His big hand settled on her knee.
"Your link to him fades as ours grows stronger, but you must see how keenly this hurts him."

Kate didn't like her guardian or Garrick very much at the moment. They were arrogant and domineering. They didn't explain anything, then used her ignorance to leave her out of decisions as though she were a callow two-year-old. And she was heartily fed up with the two of them controlling her life.

Luc's heartache still twisted inside her gut.

She'd meant to send him away with a cold shoulder, but she dipped her cheek into his palm, nestling into his touch. “Lucy, you got some splainin’ to do,” she said, curving her lips to a tremulous smile, but the best she could muster. “Tomorrow."

His shoulders slumped as tension fled his body. He gulped. “Tomorrow.” When he bent to brush a chaste kiss on her forehead, she leaned forward. “I love you, Kate."

"I know."

Garrick's fingers tightened on her knee, then released her. “I'll walk you out,” he told Luc.

Kate frowned at her Kindle as the two of them spoke in low voices at the door. Garrick pulled Luc to him in a warm hug, fondly thumping his back. Comforting the bloody vampire for walking away from her, no doubt.

They'd done it again.

Snatched control of her decisions, her life, away from her.

She scowled.

Tossed the Kindle with the equally moronic Mr. Darcy aside.

She stared at the strong line of Garrick's spine instead, enjoyed his broad shoulders. She studied the lush curve of his ass in soft, faded denim and his ridiculously sexy bare feet. Even his hair, mussed from his shower, made her fingers itch to slide through its rich, decadent silk.

She watched him say good-bye to Luc.

And wanted.

Most of these past days had revolved around what she didn't want. She hadn't wanted to become a vampire or leave her old life behind. Moving to a creepy swamp with a bunch of werewolves certainly hadn't been her idea either. Going into heat like a damned alleycat? Not only no, but hell no. As sexy as he was, Garrick was probably the last guy on earth she would've hooked up with too. She hadn't chosen Luc for a protector, but the only safe harbor she could lay claim to was now walking away from her.

Garrick pulled both doors shut with a muted click.

She certain didn't want the arousal that burned inside her.

Not for him.

Anybody but him.

She watched the graceful bunch of his muscle as he pivoted to face her across his bedroom. Alone again, at last. Kate's nipples beaded to aching points.

Her blood heated.

She hadn't chosen him, but he was the first and only thing since this sorry mess began that she
did
want. Genuinely wanted. With every flutter of her racing pulse and each throb of her galloping heart.

She wanted him.

And by God, this once, she'd have him.

Her lips curved to a feral bow. “Come here."

His eyebrows arched.

She rose to kneel on his bed and lifting her arms, she tore her T-shirt over her head to send it sailing across his eerily spotless bedroom. She squared her shoulders, arching her back a little so her boobs thrust out, pleased when his gaze fastened on first one, then the other before meeting her stare again. His blue eyes darkened with lust when her fingers rose to tweak one nipple, the jolt of pleasure sizzling from her breast to cunt in the span of a heartbeat.

His delicious chest rose and fell in shallow pants.
"Mating isn't just about sex."

"Don't pretend you don't want me.” She concentrated on what she needed most, and skimming her mind as she'd known he would, Garrick flinched as though he'd been struck.

Kate laughed, low and sultry.

When he looked at her, his eyes sparked red.

His rapidly disintegrating control sent her own arousal spiraling. “I said come here."

"I won't fuck you until we're fully mated. I mean it, love."

"Good that I'm not interested in fucking you at the moment, then, isn't it?"
Her fingers fell from her nipple to the waist of the boxers she'd begged from him, and under his rapacious stare, she inched the boxers down her hips, slid them down her thighs. She bared her pussy to him in wanton invitation.

His body tensed. His hands fisted at his sides. “Take them off."

Crap, the man was hot when his voice lowered to that needy, growling rasp.

Kate's head spun.

"Off. Now."

The walls of her cunt clenched at the husky order echoing in her mind, but two could play at this game.
"You first."

His eyes narrowed.

But he lost the shirt. He stripped the buttons free and ripped it down his arms.

Good God, his muscle made her wet. Instantly wet. Fierce arousal slicked her pussy and set her body to trembling. Her gaze traveled every inch of his muscled arm, from his thick wrist to the bulging sinew of his shoulder, then back again to savor the contours of the other arm in turn. Her scalp tingled because she could already imagine his fingers tunneling into her hair and those arms guiding the pace she set.

"Kate."

His low moan shuddered through her, but she abandoned the bed, scooting to the edge of the mattress so she could slip the boxers past her knees and kick them away. She dropped to her knees on the smooth oak floor.
"You know what I want."

His fingers plucked at the button of his jeans. He slid his zipper down with a tinny rasp that cut through the panting silence of the bedroom and locked Kate's breath in her throat.