Sentinel's Hunger (3 page)

Had she instinctively known what the doctors were going to do to her? Had she been afraid that her body might have a negative reaction to the jolt of electricity?

Michael neared the hospital emergency entrance much sooner than he’d anticipated, took a deep breath and braced himself. Then stepped into total chaos.

Several of the hospital security force were roaming the floor as if searching for someone while a handful of police questioned the emergency room staff and patients.

Michael was instantly eight years old again, with the police questioning him outside his mother’s hospital room. They wanted to know why his mom had tried to commit suicide. Her rich, hoity-toity parents, on the other hand, stood nearby raving about Michael’s misbegotten birth and blaming him for his mother’s condition.

Michael shook off the memories and glanced around the reception area that looked like it had been hit by a cyclone.

Metal chairs were overturned, papers and files were strewn all over the floor, and ER staff and clients alike roamed the triage area as if in shock or for something to do.

A couple of clerks made themselves useful trying to retrieve the displaced files and records while the police questioned others.

He spotted a familiar face and squatted beside her to help. “Hey Betty, what happened here?”

The young clerk blew a blond lock of hair out of her face, dazed blue eyes immediately brightening when she saw him.

Michael had to stop himself from smiling at her lovesick reaction.

He’d read her and several of the nurses’ interest before but had never
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taken any of them up on their secret desires.

None of them could handle what he liked and had to offer, despite what they thought.

“That woman you and your partner brought in earlier had some sort of episode, for want of a better word, and flew out of here like a whirling dervish. And when I say flew, I mean she literally flew.”

Michael frowned as he stood up with Betty and handed over a stack of files he had rescued. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Wish I were.”

He glanced in the direction of the treatment room where Xevera had been and saw several doctors frantically working on another patient. He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed that she was gone. It wasn’t like he’d been looking forward to seeing her weak and sickly. It would have been too much like seeing his mother at her lowest, or remind him of his mother the way every sick and injured woman in his care did.

He jerked his thumb in the direction of the room. “What happened over there?”

“Your girl attacked Dr. Raman before she hightailed it out of here.”

“Attacked how?”

Betty shrugged. “One of the nurses went in to check with Dr.

Raman on another patient and found your girl hugging and kissing him. When your girl let him go, he flopped to the floor in a coma. The nurse called security and the rest is history.”

She was more dangerous than he had thought. Was she as dangerous as the male of her species? What had he thought coming back here? That she and he had some kind of special bond because of who his father was? If anything, his heritage should have made him more wary of her, not attracted to her.

Attracted was an understatement; his hard cock could attest to that. He plain wanted her, had from the first moment he’d seen her unconscious on the pavement.

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Gracie C. McKeever

He had to ask himself again, what kind of sick fuck this made him.

Was he as sick as his father, or maybe just as alien? “Any idea where she went?”

Betty shook her head. “That’s what all the cops are here to find out.” She stared at him, eyes widening as if realizing why he had returned. “You came back to check on your girl?”

The way Betty kept referring to Xevera as ‘his girl’ made him feel even more responsible for the strange woman than before, felt connected as if they belonged to each other.

Sure, they belonged together, as much as two misbegotten demon spawns belonged together, and Michael was going to make sure they made one hell of an unholy alliance. There was no other kind for him.

First, he had to find her before she did any more damage, or worse, killed someone.

Michael slowly backed towards the pneumatic doors as Betty followed. “See you later, Betty. I’m running late for a date.”

“I’ll bet.” She smirked, files clutched to her breasts as she paused.

“Sure you don’t want to talk to the police first? You might be able to tell them something that could help.”

“I’m sure I told the doctors everything I know.” He waved at her and turned to rush through the exit just as an ambulance pulled into the docking area.

Michael lingered to the side as two doctors met the paramedics and their patient. The paramedics were the same two that had answered the earlier call to
The Tunnel
with him and Allan and had picked up the bouncer.

“Must be a full moon. We’ve got another two guys screaming about some alien cat woman who attacked them.”

“This one looks a little worse off than the bouncer,” one of the doctors said.

“Him and his friend are. This one’s got multiple broken bones and contusions, unresponsive to painful stimuli, pupils dilated…”

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Michael found himself sprinting back the way he had come to retrieve his SUV. On autopilot, he got in, slammed the door, keyed the ignition and tore from the curb to the nearest light before he realized he hadn’t a clue as to where he was going.

From what Betty described, Xevera had fed from the doctor, but he was sure she hadn’t taken enough to sustain her flight from the hospital and the attack on the two men.

And what made
him
such an expert? It wasn’t like he was a demon or vampire hunter in his spare time, though he’d told himself again and again since he’d returned from The Gulf that if he ever came across the monster that had ruined his mother he’d kill him.

She was close by. He could feel her.

Impatiently, he drummed his fingers against the dashboard as he waited for the light to change. When it finally did, Michael drove down the narrow cobblestone streets glancing left and right until he caught remnants of her essence.

He slowed his speed, pulled to a stop at the curb, and lowered the passenger side window to peer at the figure huddled in a doorway of an abandoned loft space.

Michael leaped from the SUV and circled around its front before he forced himself to slow down and take it easy.

She was injured and weak. He felt her pain and her hunger as intensely as a sharp knife driven into his gut. She might strike out to protect herself. Despite his being different, he was sure he wasn’t different enough to be completely immune to her attack. He definitely wasn’t emotionally or psychically immune to her.

The idea that his mother hadn’t fared too well at the mercy of one of Xevera’s kind didn’t escape him, but it didn’t stop him from going to her aid either. He had an agenda that didn’t include avoidance or fear.

Michael knelt at her side, bracing himself for the worse, but when she didn’t move or otherwise try to attack him, he went closer and knelt beside her. “You’re going to be okay, Xevera. Can you hear
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Gracie C. McKeever

me?”

She opened her eyes and stared at him. “It is you.”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“I knew it. I smelled you.”

“I’ll bet you did.” He wondered what exactly he smelled like to her and whether or not she was as aroused by his scent as he was by her spicy vanilla musk.

His cock jerked as she curved her arms around his neck and held tight. He had a moment of panic when she pressed her lips to his neck and gently sucked but beat it down as he slid one arm around her back and the other beneath her thighs to lift her.

“You taste so
good
,” she murmured.

His balls tightened at this and he was just barely able to croak,

“Thanks.”

This was insane!

He wasn’t a schoolboy with a crush. Hell, he hadn’t ever really been a boy, hadn’t had a chance to be. Playing the man of the house from as far back as he could remember, moving from city to city with his mother, he’d always felt like a man trapped in a child’s body.

An alien trapped in a human’s body.

Xevera cuddled closer and nipped his neck. “Take me home, Michael.”

He swallowed hard and closed his eyes tight, fighting against the raw lust that scudded through him at the sound of her smoky voice in his ear and the scrape of her sharp fangs drawing blood from his throat.

Something about the command in her tone made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck in rebellion as much as her teeth puncturing his skin made his heart speed with excitement. Something about her words made him remember exactly what she was and what they were to each other in the grand scheme of things: enemies.

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“I’ll take you home,” he murmured and silently thanked her for reminding him why he’d come to find her in the first place.

He wanted revenge.

24

Gracie C. McKeever

The emptiness in her center raged to be filled, every organ rebelling against the hunger.

Sleep was no escape. The pain gnawed at her insides until she could not deny it any longer and finally opened her eyes.

Xevera glanced at her surroundings, vaguely aware that she was inside and in a bed—not the hospital, not the street.

The room was spacious and painted in warm shades of blue and brown. A theme of solid masculinity wove throughout the rest of the complementary furnishings and accessories, from the natural wood night tables and bureau to the two large wicker chairs.

The color scheme and earthy tones reminded her of Emsharra’s royal dwelling.

Aside from the pain and hunger, Xevera was more comfortable than she had been in a long time. The bed was firm but well-cushioned, contouring to her body as if it had been made for her. She was so comfortable, in fact, that she did not realize she was shackled to the ornately carved bedposts until she yawned and tried to stretch her arms and legs.

Xevera glared at her wrists and pulled against her bonds. She fully expected to break free and was shocked to discover that she could not.

Impossible!

She tried her ankles next and came against the same unbreakable restraints.

There were only a couple of elements that could suppress the strength and magical powers of an Inanna, iron being the main one.

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“Titanium. I took a chance and had them made when I got back from overseas.”

Xevera focused her gaze across the room to where Michael stood on the threshold, lackadaisically leaning against the doorjamb. She instantly felt heat and flickering moisture between her legs.

As soon as he noticed her looking at him, he unfolded his arms from across his naked, well-muscled chest, stood to his full height and strolled into the room.

Xevera knew from just looking at him that he was several inches taller than her six feet and remembered how small and safe she had felt in his firm embrace, an uncommon occurrence for a Sentinel-in-Command to be sure. Sentinels were usually the ones to protect and secure others, not the other way around.

He paused beside the bed, silently staring down at her as if giving her a chance to adapt to his imposing presence.

Or admire him, which Xevera did with quiet appreciation, devouring his broad-shouldered, lean-waisted form in one sweeping glance. From head to toe he was a perfectly aesthetic human specimen, could not have been more perfect unless he were Inanna.

Michael sat down in the wicker chair beside the bed, crossed one ankle over the opposite knee and balanced his chin on his pyramided fingers as he looked at her.

She stared back at him, challenging his obvious effort to unsettle her but found defiance difficult to accomplish when confronted with the penetrating glare of those slate eyes. “Why have you bound me?”

“To keep the world a safer place.”

“I am not a threat to anyone.” She instantly realized how ludicrous her words were and watching Michael arch one arrogant brow only solidified this knowledge. “I did what anyone would do under the circumstances. I defended myself.”

“Were you defending yourself at the hospital with Dr. Raman?”

Xevera gritted her teeth as she averted her gaze. She would not justify her actions to this man, nor would she be baited into an
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ideological or political debate with him.

When she did not answer, he asked her another question. “What were you and your friends doing at
The Tunnel
?”

Xevera raised her eyes to glower at him. “That is none of your concern.”

“I’m making it my concern, and you’re not leaving here until I get some satisfactory answers from you.”

Xevera released a particularly foul curse in her native tongue and pulled her arms and legs forward as far as they would go, which was not very. The hunger on top of the metal alloys binding her limbs rendered her weak as well as ill. “Release me, human!”

“I see someone needs an attitude adjustment. And after everything I went through to find and rescue you too.”

“Only to imprison me.”

“Just a precaution. But if you scratch my back, I just might be tempted to scratch yours.”

He leaned forward in his seat and gently caressed her slit with several fingers before flicking her swollen clit with his thumb.

Xevera gasped and bit into her bottom lip. She was already aroused since waking to find him staring at her from across the room, and her pussy uncontrollably trembled at the unprecedented and intimate contact. “How dare you!”

He chuckled, her indignation seeming to turn him on rather than off.

Xevera noticed his excitement when he sat back in his seat and she let her gaze drop from his sectioned abdomen where a fine sprinkling of cinnamon-brown hair arrowed down beneath the waistband of his jeans, to the considerable bulge behind his zipper.