Jared (23 page)

He heard her sigh. “Thank you anyway.”

Immediately thereafter, she pinched his arm. The sting
did nothing to disguise her disappointment. She’d really wanted that book.
Before he caught himself, he gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze. She didn’t
squeeze back, and when he tested her energy with his, he met stony silence.

He turned when he got to the bottom of the porch
steps, that silence poking at him. He raised his rifle in a small salute to the
two weres standing on the porch. “Watch your backs.”

Ian nodded. “Watch your mate.”

Jared kept his face impassive, though a start went
through him. Did Ian suspect something? There was nothing in the man’s stance
or amber eyes to insinuate anything, but Jared couldn’t shake the feeling that
Ian knew a hell of a lot more than he was letting on.

“I will.”

Ian called to Raisa. “It was nice to meet you.”

She waved. “Thank you for offering me shelter.”

Ian nodded and the smile on his face could only be
described as soft. “Anytime you wish it, it is yours.”

Jared tucked her under his shoulder. “She won’t be
needing it.”

As Jared turned her away, she called over her
shoulder, “But thank you all the same.”

Through the gratitude, he could feel the longing and
loss within her. She was still thinking about the book. Random scenes invaded
his mind, slipping from her to him with an ease that still shocked. Scenes of
passion, love, emotion. Scenes of past books she’d loved. Scenes that moved her
to the point of sighs. Slices of life that she enjoyed because they were hopes
she harbored for herself. Hopes of being loved. Valued. He got them halfway
across the yard before he couldn’t stand the hammering of her longing anymore.
He stopped at the road. “Don’t move.”

Jared strode back to the porch, cursing himself as an
idiot as he stomped up the steps. He shot Ian a glare. “Don’t say a fucking
word.” He held out his hand toward Creed. “Give me the book.”

“Thought you didn’t want her to have it.”

“Shut the hell up.”

Jared grabbed the book and turned around, Ian’s and
Creed’s laughter riding his back. Raisa stood before him, hands folded in front
of her. Her excitement hit him first, anticipation reaching out ahead of her
hands to wrap around the book.

Anger flared within him, but before it could feed on
the resentment that another man was giving her this pleasure, another emotion
flowed from her to him, sweeping over his anger in a soft kiss of gratitude.
She knew how much pride that had cost him.

“Thank you so much.”

“Just don’t expect me to act like one of the men in
that stupid book.”

She blinked and then smiled sweetly. “Do not worry.”

Her accent was back. The possible “Why” grated. “I can
be romantic with the right woman.”

She nodded. “I am just not the right woman.”

It grated more that she’d leapt to that conclusion.
“You made your choice.”

“I’m sorry. I had to—”

“Not now.”

He didn’t want to discuss it where the weres could
overhear. He shifted his rifle up onto his shoulder and held her pack open for
the book. As she put it in, her scent flowed over him. Everything in him
responded with the need to possess and protect. Whether she deserved it or not.
Raisa’s fingers touched his wrist, lingered. The violence of his emotions
eased. He yanked his arm away. He didn’t want to be soothed. He wanted to hold
on to his anger. He shut his mind to hers, ignoring the growl of protest from
his vampire. With a “Keep up,” he headed for the tunnel.

They were halfway through the two-mile stretch before
Jared realized something was wrong. He couldn’t feel the tap of Raisa’s energy
and couldn’t hear the soft scuff of her footfalls. She was no longer following.
He turned. She was a hundred feet back, a black-and-white snapshot of distress,
on her knees on the frozen floor, her hands clutching her skull as she bent
over.

The two seconds it took to get to her stretched like
hours. He dropped to his knees beside her, lifting her into his arms, anger
forgotten as her sob broke against his throat. He put his hand to her stomach.
There were no spasms, no echoes of agony. “What is it?”

Her talons dug through his shirt. “My head,” she
gasped.

Her head? He brought his hand over hers, feeling the
pounding emanating from one spot at the base of her skull. The pain was wrong,
discordant. Not a headache, but then what? He slipped his fingers beneath hers
and pressed.

She grabbed his wrist and yanked. “Don’t!”

There was something hard under the skin, about the
size of a pea, a foreign body attached to the top of her spinal cord.

“What the hell is that?”

She pulled his hand away. He allowed it because, until
he knew what he was dealing with, he wasn’t going to mess with it.

Her brown eyes about melted his heart as they met his.
“You were right not to trust me.”

“I’ll decide what’s right and what’s not.”

And it definitely wasn’t right. There was a device
implanted in Rai’s skull. His fingers itched to go back to that spot. His mind
and body pulsed with the urge to remove the object.

“You can’t.”

He’d been projecting. Another pain swept over her,
centralized, sharp, and directed to do damage. Son of a bitch, this had
Sanctuary written all over it. “What in hell did they do to you?”

She didn’t ask him who he meant. “It’s to control me.”

“Yeah, I figured that, but for what?”

“I’m supposed to get information.”

“On what?”

Her eyes were wild, lost. “On the Renegades, but I’m
not good at it, don’t know what to look for to satisfy them.”

“Which means?”

“Eventually my head will explode.”

She was serious. “Like hell.”

He put his hand over the spot again, reading the
energy. Nobody was popping her head while she was his mate. “You can’t control
it?”

“If I break the energy, they’ll send the detonation
signal.”

“And since you don’t know what that is . . .”

“I won’t be able to block it.”

Another pain shot through her. He siphoned off as much
as he could, thankful that he was already on his knees as the shock of it hit
him.

“Can you stop it?”

“Yes.”

He thought a second. “By giving them information?”

She nodded and immediately winced. “It’s a
transmitter.”

He hazarded a guess. “Which you turn on.”

He took her whimper as a “Yes.”

She grabbed his hand and squeezed through the next
pain. He held her, sustained her, while his own mind worked. They could use
this. “If you give them something, will the pain stop?”

She shrugged. “If they like it, supposedly.”

“You don’t know?”

She cut him a glare. “It’s my first time as an
impressed spy. I’m not familiar with all the ins and outs.”

Neither was he, but no one had the right to hurt his
wife. “Tell them you heard the weres are planning an attack on a compound west
of here.”

She stared at him for a long time, her gaze searching
his, indecision in the depths. She didn’t know whether to trust him. He was
tempted to let her stew in the same agony consuming him, but then the Sanctuary
kicked up the pain in her head. She fell against him, wavering in and out of
consciousness. He lifted her chin, her extreme pallor reflecting a ghastly
white in his night vision. Her eyes were almost flat black with agony, giving
the uncomfortable impression of a corpse.

“The only person you have to fear killing you is me.”
And he couldn’t hurt her, no matter what the provocation.

She blinked. A tear rolled from the corner of her eye.
He smoothed his finger over its path, breaking it. “That being the case, you
can send the information. They’ll like it.”

After a pause, she nodded and took a breath. Using his
shoulder as a brace, she struggled to her feet.

He stood with her, steadying her with a hand on her
arm, the fineness of her build emphasized by the amount of pain she was
enduring. She was too delicate for all this shit. “What in hell are you doing
now?”

She pointed down the tunnel.

He grabbed her hand again. “Send the information.”

She shook her head, cried out, and took one step and
then another. He caught her before she could fall.

“Not here,” she gasped.

“Why?”

“Because I think,” she stumbled again, dragging him
forward with her. “I think they can track me when I transmit.”

“Can they track you otherwise?”

She shook her head and immediately her knees buckled.
“They think it’s defective.”

He noted the wording. “They think?”

She nodded, moaning as the movement sent pain knifing
through her skull. “It took a couple days, but I figured out how to block it.”

“How?”

“It’s a constant signal. I learned it.”

That made sense. “So they can’t track you that way?”

“No.”

“But they think it’s because their equipment is
defective?”

“Yes.” The look she cast him was wry. “They don’t
think I’m very bright.”

She said that like she was sharing a secret between
friends, reminding him again of what he’d thought they had. The trust he’d
almost given her. How she’d betrayed him. And as the next wave of pain rolled
over her, he didn’t damn well care about any of it. Sinner or saint, she was
his, and she was going to stop hurting.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand.”

“What?”

“If they sent you out, why are they hunting you?”

She licked her lip. A hard shudder put a quaver in her
voice. Sweat dotted her temple. “The ditzy blonde factor.”

“I’m not following.”

“They think I’m lost.” Her whisper was strained.
“They’re trying to get me back to the right place.”

They thought she was just lost. Jared shook his head
and stared at her in amazement. One of the smartest women he’d ever met and
she’d convinced them she was the type to get lost.

She grimaced and grabbed his hand. “We need to go
now.”

“Why?”

Sweat beaded her brow, dripped over her cheekbones.
“It hurts too much for me to hold out much longer.”

“Damn, you are something.”

He scooped her up in his arms, wrestling with his
rifle as she looped her arms around his neck.

“Good something or bad something?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“But you like it?”

He shook his head, getting to his feet. “At this
point, sunbeam, I don’t think it matters.”

“Oh.” Such a small disappointed noise in the midst of
such pain and turmoil. It shouldn’t have mattered to him that her feelings were
hurt. Hell, he didn’t even know if she was the enemy. There were also more
important things to focus on, like getting her to a place where she could
transmit the information to make her pain stop. But it did matter, and he
couldn’t get that small disappointed “Oh” out of his mind as he ran through the
tunnel, scanning as he went, listening to the sounds around them. He stopped at
the entrance, manipulated the illusion covering it and then carried her out
into the frosty air. She shivered in his arms, with pain or cold he didn’t
know. She pressed her mouth into his shoulder burying her whimper against his
chest.

Son of a bitch! “Make the call.”

She shook her head. “Too close.”

“How much longer do you have?”

“I don’t know.”

He stopped dead. “What in hell do you mean you don’t
know?”

“I told you this is my first time!”

He’d been operating under the assumption she knew how
long she had before things got lethal. “You didn’t think to ask?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t risk
the D’Nallys.”

Another bloody bead of sweat dripped down her temple.
He swiped at it with his thumb. It was supposed to be a simple gesture, but the
minute he touched her skin, his need was to linger. Caress. The same need
rasped in his voice. “I’m not risking you.”

Raisa patted the back of her neck. “You forgive me?”

He hadn’t forgiven her, he hadn’t forgotten, but right
now, none of that mattered. “You’re dead set on this?”

She trembled. “I can’t hurt anyone.”

Interesting choice of words. Sweat left a dark smear
on her pale white skin. A bloodred tear escaped her control, to run in a bright
trail down the side of her cheek. Damn stubborn woman. “Then we’d best get
going.”

He ran, hugging the shadows, aware he was going too
fast, aware it wasn’t safe, but helpless to do anything else. Every beat of her
heart, every whimper that passed her lips was a countdown to a resolution he
couldn’t accept. Halfway between the were compound and the safe cave he tucked
them into a rock fall. Buried in the shadows, he growled, “Make the damn call.”