Seduction's Shift (22 page)

Sabar laughed as he left the room. Darel didn’t.

His mood was somber as he looked down at the still body in front of him. She didn’t look that old, maybe twenty at the most. Her skin was dark, like his. Her nails were fake and long and colored a hideous black that made everything about her appear dismal. That shouldn’t have been a problem for him, but Darel didn’t like it for some reason.

He remembered Kalina Harper, remembered the way her scent had permeated his senses, making him need and hunger more than he ever had in all his life. Every female he’d taken since then had been a substitution for the one who’d gotten away. He didn’t know the
curandero
and didn’t really give a damn about her one way or the other. But if he got the opportunity again, he was fucking Kalina, no questions asked and damn the consequences. She owed him that much for embarrassing him when he’d tried capturing her for Sabar weeks ago.

There was a sound, the sheets rustling as the body moved. Darel moved closer, picking up one long braid in his hand and rubbing his fingers over the textured hair. She moved again; this time the wisp of a bra she wore slipped and one dark nipple was revealed. His mouth watered. Her eyes remained closed as he reached out to rub a finger over the puckered nipple. His hand hovered there for what seemed like endless moments, lightly touching her as his dick grew harder.

She stirred again, this time lifting a hand to clasp his wrist. Darel’s eyes moved to her face, saw her eyelids flutter open to reveal smoky gray eyes. She didn’t smile at him, but Darel didn’t need smiles. She did, however, press his hand closer onto her breast. He obliged by squeezing the palm-size mound tighter. She made a sound that vaguely resembled a moan. And Darel lowered his head, took the nipple between his teeth, and bit down. Her back arched, and he sucked her entire breast into his mouth with force. Ripping the material from her chest, Darel gorged on the next breast, then pushed past the thin panties and cupped her mound. She moved beneath him as if she were trying to give him more.

He wasn’t turning it down. Pulling her bottom half off the bed, he pressed a palm to her back and bent her over. Her body was so pliant that, whatever he did, she obliged without a word. If he’d stopped to really pay attention he would have noticed that she moved like a rag doll or that from her mouth a steady stream of white foam bubbled. But all Darel saw were plump ass cheeks that he readily separated with one hand while his other hand unzipped his pants and pulled his erection free.

In the next instant he was buried deep inside her, feeling the warmth and tightness of her core grabbing him tightly. It was a good thing shifters were immune to human diseases such as sexually transmitted afflictions and cancer. Because Darel didn’t know anything about this female. He didn’t know her name or where she came from, nothing. Right now it didn’t matter. As he closed his eyes and slammed in and out of her wet pussy, the face he saw was of a lighter complexion, with hazel eyes that turned golden when she was in cat form. He twisted his hand in the long braids of the female he fucked, but his fingers felt the short silken strands of another.

Her name echoed in his head, her scent filtering through his nostrils. He pumped harder and harder, not giving a damn if he was hurting the female beneath him. He lifted her legs, planted her knees up on the bed, and continued to pound deep into her core until his head fell back and he roared as his release pumped deep inside her womb.

Pulling out of her once he’d finally caught his breath, Darel turned his back and pushed his still-hard cock back inside his pants. He was taking deep breaths, trying to steady his thoughts as well as his heart rate. His cat was wild, ready to break free and do some serious damage.

And apparently so was someone else.

He felt her nails on his shoulder and turned to tell her not to touch him. What he saw when he looked into her face rendered him speechless for a few seconds.

The long braids seemed frayed at the ends, giving her a wild look. Her eyes bulged like the retinas would burst right out of the sockets. Now he saw the foam, trailing down her chin. She raised her arms again and clawed his face with her nails.

Darel grabbed her wrists, pushing her back so hard her body flipped over the bed. She bounced up again and took one leap that landed her right in his face once more. This time she opened her mouth and bit him on the shoulder. His cat—already raging just beneath the surface—broke free. His clothes ripped as muscles bunched and stretched and he fell to the floor. When he stood again and looked at the woman it was through the eyes of his cat. The thick heavy scent of sex lingered in the room, along with another acidic stench the man couldn’t name.

He didn’t have time to examine it any further, as the female lunged for him once more. Her arms moved quickly as a war cry was wrenched from her mouth. She wanted to harm him, to kill him if she could. Her eyes looked frantic, filled with fear and defense. Without recourse the male cat came up on its hind legs swiping at the female, with one heavy paw ripping the side of her face off.

With blood spewing all over the bed and the carpet, the female continued to come at him. She seemed to feel no pain as she charged him again. He doubted she had a clue she was fighting a jaguar and not a man. The cat used its body to block her this time, ramming into her so hard she crumpled to her knees. With a deep roar, the male turned, quickly latching its massive jaws on the back of her neck and locking. She whimpered and thrashed beneath him for longer than she probably should have. His teeth sank deeper into her skin, piercing her skull. There was a series of cracks; the body beneath him seized and shivered, then finally went limp.

The cat pulled away from her, pacing back and forth in the room. It was a clean kill, and yet the animal felt a strange rising inside. Its flanks heaved with its motions, blood dripping from its sharp teeth. The door opened and the cat turned to the sound, ready to pounce again if necessary.

But it was only Sabar standing in the doorway, an eerie gleam in his cat eyes.

Chapter 21

Ary refused to cry.

He wasn’t worth it.

The bastard.

Instead she paced the floor. Pulling an elastic band from her pocket, she gathered her hair into a ponytail and continued walking the length of the room she’d been using in Nick’s house.

Nick’s house. Nick’s rules.

She should have known. Her heart pounded as her cat pressed for release. It had been a couple of days since she’d been able to shift and run free. In the forest she ran daily. In the city she didn’t think that would be possible. In which case she was going to slowly lose her mind. Nervous energy bubbled inside her, coupled with the irritation of her conversation with Nick. Correction: That hadn’t been a conversation. He’d made demands, puffed his chest all territorially, and barked orders just like her father used to do.

Her teeth bared in rage, claws emerging from her fingers. She wanted to scream. No, she wanted to run.

Finally unable to stand the four walls that seemed to be closing in around her, Ary opened the door quietly and slipped out. Nick was still downstairs—she could tell because his scent was like a lure to her own. Her body instinctively wanted to go wherever his was. But she resisted, moving with the customary quiet of a cat through the kitchen and to the front door. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed Nick standing out on his balcony, a cool breeze sifting through the open door, causing the curtains to billow in its wake. Ary flipped the lock and slipped through the door without another glance back.

She took two steps before being grabbed by the arm and turned around so fast her neck almost snapped.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ezra, the shifter guard assigned to Nick, said in a stern voice.

Ezra and Eli were twins, both about six feet tall with coffee-toned skin. They both had green eyes, the color of creek water, with brownish tints around the edges. Their hair was cut low and left to wave on top. With large builds and lethal stares, they could intimidate in both jaguar and human form. The only difference between the two, which Ary had noticed the first time she’d seen them at Rome’s house, was that Ezra wore a diamond earring in his left ear. Eli had no earrings as far as Ary had seen.

“I’m leaving,” she answered him finally, trying unsuccessfully to pull her arm from his tight grip.

“Not without Nick,” Ezra told her.

“He’s not my keeper!”

Ezra laughed. “No, he’s your mate.”

“That’s a load of bull, too,” she quipped.

“Say what you want, that’s the way it is. I’m not letting you leave without him, or without him telling me to do so,” he told her seriously, tightening his grip on her arm.

He looked like one of those men on the television who wrestled with his tight T-shirt on and jeans belted at his waist. His arms were huge. Trying to break away from him was futile.

She opened her mouth to speak then quickly closed it. The argument most likely would have continued, but the elevator doors opened and Rome, Kalina, and X stepped off. As if that weren’t bad enough, another door opened behind her. Ary knew without turning around that it was Nick.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, looking from her to Ezra.

Ary thought the guard would happily announce that she’d been trying to escape her prison, but he only smiled and nodded his head to her as if giving her permission to do the honors.

“I was going out for some air. Is that allowed or do I have to stay locked in that condo until you say so?”

Kalina walked up, placing a hand on Ary’s shoulder. “Hello, are we interrupting something?”

Ary looked at Kalina, at her only friend in this new world of hers, and replied honestly. “I need to get out of here.”

Kalina only nodded. “We’ll go get some air.”

Rome looked a little strained but didn’t say a word, just took out his cell and sent a text. Ary figured it was to Eli, the other guard, to tell him they were coming down. The Faction Leader took their security very seriously. She had to hand it to him: The stateside shifters had a pretty good setup in place already. With the plans she’d heard they were currently making, there would be a democracy for the shifters in no time. Where she fit in to that, she still didn’t really know. Regardless of what Nick had said, it would be her decision in the end. On that, Ary was adamant.

*   *   *

“Let’s go inside,” X said grimly to Nick. “You look like you could use a drink.”

“A drink? I’m still trying to figure out what the hell’s going on. One minute she’s not here, the next she is and she’s yelling about some guy massaging motion lotion on her thighs, then she’s trying to leave. I don’t know what’s going on with her.”

Rome and X filed in behind Nick as he entered the condo. He heard the door close but moved into the living room to drop down onto the sofa again. He’d already spent an hour there wondering what had happened with Ary, without success. Now it seemed he was back in the same spot.

“So that’s why you’re so tense,” Rome said. “Another man touched your mate.”

He took a seat on the couch, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “You want to kill him, don’t you?”

X chuckled before Nick could even answer. “Who doesn’t Nick want to kill? He probably has a Rolodex with an alphabetical listing of everyone on his hit roster.”

Nick didn’t find that funny. Nothing about this situation was funny. Jealousy was a new emotion to him, and he wasn’t sure he liked it much. “How the hell am I supposed to feel?” he asked in response. Then he glared at X. “And if you came out of your cave for personal reasons once in a while you’d find some woman to drive you crazy, too.”

He was talking to X, who had already hit the bar to fix himself a drink. Each of their homes seemed to have a bar in at least one of its rooms. Shifters didn’t have the same reaction to liquor as humans; you’d never see a piss-drunk shifter puking in the gutter or falling off a bar stool. No, the shadows held their liquor perfectly. What the drink did was calm them a bit, taking the edge off their already volatile personalities. X almost always drank Hennessy, straight. Tonight was no exception. He poured a glass and downed it, then poured another.

“Don’t need no woman claiming me,” X said taking another swallow.

Nick knew that what his friend really meant was that he didn’t think a woman would claim him. X was really jacked up when it came to women. That didn’t mean he didn’t get sex when he wanted it, but other than the physical his mind just couldn’t process the concept of a woman or a mate.

Unlike Nick, who’d always known who his mate was and had accepted that he’d never have her. Until now.

“Mating makes us stronger,” Rome said.

“Elder Alamar tell you that?” Nick questioned. He remembered when Rome found out Kalina was his mate. The Elder had been the one to break the news to the infamous bachelor. Rome hadn’t taken it too well originally, but Nick had to admit he seemed to be settling into the concept pretty well now.

“I talked to the Elders while we were in the Gungi. It’s a proven fact that the joining increases the male shifter’s strength because he knows there’s a female standing behind him every step of the way.”

Nick nodded. “That old ‘behind every good man is a good woman’ bit, huh?” He didn’t automatically dismiss the notion, but he wasn’t totally sold on the idea, either. He was good without Ary, or at least he’d tried to be. Lately, however, he didn’t like to think about the time he was without her.

“Good shifters are born,” X said. “It’s in their genes.”

He looked sullen when he said that, and Nick and Rome shared a knowing glance as he took another swallow of his drink. Time to change the subject, they agreed silently.

“X has some information. We were coming over to see if you and Ary wanted to go out to dinner so we could talk about it.” Rome shrugged. “Now I guess the three of us will discuss the new developments.”

Nick decided it was better not to comment on the Ary situation right now. Especially since he still had no clue what had happened with her.