Frostbound (27 page)
The female spat back in a language Talia didn’t know.
“She tried to eat my face,” Talia said acidly. “I think I deserve to listen in on the conversation.”
Lore’s expression was still more hellbeast than man. “This is Mavritte of the Redbone pack. Beware of her.”
He let his prisoner twist out of his grip. She was on her feet in seconds. Talia scanned the woman, looking for vulnerable points, weaknesses in her stance. There weren’t any.
Crap
.
Crap
.
“I protect the pack,” the woman said to Lore in a lowpitched, husky voice made for whispering dirty secrets. “It is you who wastes time with other species.”
“How did you find this place?”
“Because I am a skilled tracker.”
“Tell me!”
She spit in derision. “You left the hospital in pursuit of a pretty young vampire, wringing your hands because she was lost in the snow like a newborn lamb. I thought to ask the Castle guards who had passed by them this night. They told me to look in the Empire.”
He came looking for me
. Talia’s throat ached with astonished emotion.
My God, he told the truth when he said he’d protect me.
. Talia’s throat ached with astonished emotion.
My God, he told the truth when he said he’d protect me.
Hellhounds really didn’t lie.
Lore glared at Mavritte. “How did you know I was at the hospital?”
She grinned, a baring of teeth. “Not all wolves are your friends. Your professor had other visitors. Some would like to be
my
ally.”
my
ally.”
Lore closed the distance between them, looming over her. “If I had been a little faster, you would have never made it here alive.”
Mavritte folded muscular arms beneath her breasts, looking like Mr. Clean’s badass girlfriend. “By rights, the Alpha is mine to mate.” She thrust out an accusing finger at Talia. “What fantasies do you indulge with this bloodhungry corpse?
This
is what you would betray us with?”
This
is what you would betray us with?”
“Hey!” Talia snapped, misty longing giving way to annoyance.
Mavritte glared. “She is a breach of everything we believe!”
Lore made a grab for the other hound, but she ducked and wheeled, putting herself out of reach. He sank into a half crouch, ready to spring. “Be careful what you force me to do.”
“The hellhounds need a bonded pair. You are pack father, the fertile seed. You can’t make the dead our pack mother.”
“Whoa, who said—” Talia lost her words, too astonished to keep going.
Mavritte rounded on her. “You do not care for him?”
Talia dared not look at Lore. “Yeah, but grab some dignity, girlfriend. No catfights, and I don’t do bikini mud wrestling.”
Mavritte looked confused. Maybe hellhounds didn’t get the specialty channels. She turned to Lore. “She will not fight for you.”
Talia couldn’t resist a glance at Lore. He looked like he was going to explode, but she couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or infuriated by the conversation. “It is not the human way.”
“Then what good is she?” the hell bitch asked.
Talia folded her arms, mirroring Mavritte’s stance. “Hey, I’m not stopping him from finding a hellhound girlfriend.”
“Enough!” Lore interjected.
Mavritte ignored him. “Then whose fault would it be that he will not have me?”
“Gee, I dunno.”
Mavritte dropped her arms, holding them at her sides, slightly away from her body. Ready to grapple. “Don’t mock me, vampire.”
“Enough!” He grabbed Mavritte by the arm. He looked angry, but stricken. “Leave. Leave us. And leave Talia alone.”
Mavritte broke his grip with a sweep of her arm. “You have no right to throw me out.”
Lore’s face flushed. “I have every right to a minute of peace! I have a right to myself. To my privacy. I have the right to be with who I choose.
I have done enough
.” He spit the last words as if he were throwing a gauntlet at her feet.
I have done enough
.” He spit the last words as if he were throwing a gauntlet at her feet.
“I have the right to be heard by my Alpha.”
“Hearing you is all that I’ve done from the moment you left the Castle!”
“If you will not have me to mate, I challenge you for leadership. I have to protect the pack.”
Talia’s jaw dropped.
Holy crap!
Holy crap!
Lore’s face went granite-hard. “Mavritte, don’t. I don’t want to fight you.”
She slammed both hands against his chest. “I demand it of you. By pack law. And don’t think I will be an easy victory.”
Lore pushed her toward the door. “I refuse. Pack law cannot be invoked simply because you are angry that I don’t want to bed you. Try this again and I will shame you in front of both packs.”
“You would not dare!”
“Go, lick your wounds. Lick Grash. I don’t care.”
Mavritte turned. “You can’t do this.”
“And yet I do.” Lore shut the door in her livid face.
He held the door handle a long moment, as if expecting her to burst back into the room.
Talia remembered to close her gaping mouth. “What did she just say? She wants to fight you?”
Lore held up his hand, signaling her to wait. After a long minute, he dropped his hand from the door. “She’s gone.”
Talia grabbed his arm. “What the hell is going on?”
He put a hand over hers, squeezing it gently. “Mavritte is angry. No one refuses her, and now I have. Her pride is wounded. She will get over it.”
Talia wasn’t so sure. “I think she wants to kill me. Is she going to try to kill you?”
“She won’t hurt either one of us.”
“How can you be so sure?”
The look he gave her was matter-of-fact. “I am Alpha. She can’t change that.”
Talia let him take her hand, warming it between his own. He seemed so utterly certain of his powers.
He was sure of her, too. He took her hand, pulling her to the pool of lamplight. The movement drew them into the bedroom. Talia could see raw scratches snaking down his arm, following the swell of his muscles. Suddenly, she wanted him. She wanted her tongue on those wounds, tasting the spicy blood she always sensed just under his skin.
He was wearing another one of those tight T-shirts that showed off every one of his chest muscles.
Doesn’t he own anything else?
she thought irritably. Her fangs began to ache, matching the slow burn deep in her belly. She wanted to kiss the place just under his ear, where even on a work-hardened hellhound, the skin would be soft as apricots. Tasty. Yielding.
Doesn’t he own anything else?
she thought irritably. Her fangs began to ache, matching the slow burn deep in her belly. She wanted to kiss the place just under his ear, where even on a work-hardened hellhound, the skin would be soft as apricots. Tasty. Yielding.
She wanted her mouth all kinds of places, and the very thought of them was making her squirm.
This can’t happen. He has to know the truth of who I am. What I’ve done.
This can’t happen. He has to know the truth of who I am. What I’ve done.
“What’s the matter?” Lore asked, cupping her face in his hands.
“No one’s ever come looking for me before. In a good way, that is.”
He took a step closer, sliding one hand behind her back. “Never?”
“How do you think I ended up a vampire?”
“Tell me.”
She shrugged, wishing she had the strength of will to put distance between their bodies. It was as if she had to leave room between them for the story she didn’t want to tell. Lore seemed to feel her movement, because he stopped her with a soft caress.
Talia bowed her head. “I . . . I was with some people who were having vampire issues. We were ambushed. It turns out the easy kill we thought we were going to make was a trap. I was covering our retreat. Back of the pack was a bad place to be.”
With the lightest brush of his fingers, he tipped up her chin so that she looked at him. His dark eyes seemed to absorb all the light in the room, drowning her in their soft, deep brown. “That makes no sense. Was no one watching out for your safety? Hellhound guards go in pairs.”
That was Tom’s job
. “My partner was able to get away. I wasn’t.”
. “My partner was able to get away. I wasn’t.”
“No one stopped to help you.” It wasn’t a question, but a conclusion.
“Mission is more important than people. That’s what we were taught.”
Lore pulled her to him, closing the embrace. “No, no. People are the mission. Survival is a battle won one child at a time. Any loss means the whole pack is weakened. We live and die together.”
Talia closed her eyes. He had just risked himself for her sake, facing down one of his own people. No one had ever done anything like that for her. She couldn’t stand hiding from him one second longer.
And yet she hesitated, swamped by the sensation of a free fall into the unknown.
He’ll hate me. He might even kill me
.
He’ll hate me. He might even kill me
.
But he deserved to know who he’d saved. And maybe, just maybe, she deserved the right to stop hiding.
The giddy feeling continued, reminding her of that leap of faith through the hospital wall.
“The man I was chasing, Max. He’s my brother.”
“So Errata said.”
“We were raised Hunters.”
He pushed her away enough to look down on her. “When Errata looked into your background, she thought that was a possibility. When your brother showed up at the hospital, she knew it wasn’t for a family reunion.” His voice was quiet, but tight with apprehension.
She felt as if her insides were falling away faster than the rest of her, leaving her hollow and empty, as desolate as the tunnels beneath the city streets. She pulled up the sleeve on her right arm, showing him the tattoo. “I was born a Hunter. Raised that way. My father taught me to kill anything that wasn’t human.”
She could see him putting the pieces together, his gaze moving back and forth over her face. “Which made you a tempting target for someone like Belenos.”
“Revenge.”
“And your father never tried to rescue you?”
“If he ever finds me, he will kill me. That was the whole point of Belenos’s little joke. You should have seen the look on my brother’s face. He was . . .”
He was a recovering addict, terrified that she’d return him to that hell. Talia choked on the memory of Max’s anguished plea not to bite him. “The Hunters are here and they’re using magic and I think it’s something to do with the election.”
Lore studied her face, his brows drawn together. His expression said that he’d taken in her last words, but he let them go. He kept his focus on her, as if she were the only thing that mattered.
“From the very start, I should have guessed what you used to be. Your past doesn’t surprise me.” His voice was careful, as if he wasn’t sure yet what her confession meant. “The way you fight. The way you handle a gun. New vampires usually have little experience with werebeasts and half demons. You’re wary around nonhumans, but you aren’t afraid.”
Talia waited for some sign of his rejection, bracing as if a surgeon were about to cut her flesh without benefit of freezing. “I guess I gave myself away,” was all she could manage.
Lore’s gaze was still fixed on her face. “Not to anyone else. Your cover is good. The clothes. The teaching job.”
“That’s not cover,” Talia said, a touch of heat creeping into her words. “I’m a girl. I like pretty things.”
His lips twitched. “You have a lot of clothes.”
“Paws off the closet.”
There was a small change in his posture as his muscles relaxed. “I wouldn’t dare.”
His easing off made it possible for her to unwind a little. “And I didn’t lie when I said that all I want to do is teach. I don’t mind kicking ass, but I’d rather do it in the classroom.”
“I’ve heard of the human male’s fascination with naughty schoolgirls, but I think they’ve overlooked the teachers.”
“You don’t hate me?”
“I don’t think so.”
Confusion crept up on her. “I have plenty of nonhuman blood on my hands.”
He ran his thumb over her brow, smoothing out her frown. “For that, I’m sorry. But I don’t think you would do the same things now, would you?”
“No. I’ll fight, but it will be for good reasons.”
He bent and kissed her. They’d kissed before, but this was different. A new seriousness charged the moment.
“You smell right to me,” he said, his voice suddenly husky.
“Mm.” His scent was perfect—the warm, spicy musk of him locking her attention to him and him alone. She drank him in, one long deep breath reminding her how wonderful the presence of a warm, solid male could be.
“I thought you didn’t do dead people.”
“I’m in an experimental mood.”
“Rebel without a chew stick.”
“Shut up.”
His lips were surprisingly soft, his hands warm and rough as they cupped her cheeks, positioning her just so for another kiss. She folded her fingers around his, pulling his hands down to her waist. He didn’t need more invitation than that. His hands slid under her sweater, gently kneading her flesh.
She watched the strong architecture of tendon and muscle in Lore’s neck as he bent to kiss her again and again. Talia felt her hunger whisper through her blood, as subtle as the slide of silk on skin. As her desire rose, so did the urge to feed. One did not arrive without the other.
Lore’s palm crept to her breast, cupping it, caressing her nipple through the lace of her bra.
“If you keep this up, I’m going to bite you,” she said, the words barely above a hiss of inhaled breath.
“I know. It won’t hurt me. I’m a demon, remember?”
“Half demon.”
His words were quick, his breath hot and urgent on her cheek. “Demon enough that you can’t live off me. Demon enough that I won’t become addicted to you. That doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy it.”
Encouraged, she let her lips slide to his jaw, running her tongue down the swell of his throat, exploring the ridges and valleys, the texture of his tanned skin. He had smelled delicious. He tasted exotic. The sweet ache in her jaws was matched by an insistent burn low in her belly.
Hands spanning her waist, he hoisted her upward, depriving her of his taste. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around him, her hands gripping the bulk of his shoulders. His dark eyes held her spellbound, the mix of emotions complex as a rare wine. But this time, they held something she hadn’t seen before.
Pleasure.
Raw. Unchecked.
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