He leaned back and the ladder-back chair squeaked a protest. “Nah. Too much work.”
She really wished the chair would break. He was so arrogant that he needed to be brought down a peg or two. “Then I guess you’ll be doing without.”
As one, the men broke into laughter. “What?”
Caleb shook his head and smiled, taking a seat beside Jace. “One thing a were never is, is without.”
She rolled her eyes. “You just had to go to the sex factor, didn’t you?”
Jared leaned back in his chair, rocking it to the edge of tipping over and snagged a bun. “You started it.” He tossed the pastry to Derek who caught it deftly. “We’re just playing along.”
Derek took a bite. “They’re a little dry.”
Allie reached behind her. The handle of the rolling pin slipped into her palm. “You do have a compulsion to live dangerously.”
Derek stretched and she blinked at the amount of muscle that bunched and flowed with the movement. “You can bury me six feet under when it goes away.”
Caleb’s swat on her butt had everyone looking at her; Derek smiling, the brothers frowning.
“What?” She raised her hands. “It’s not like I’m interested.”
Derek’s smile broadened as he brought his arms down. His gaze dropped to her chest. “Are you sure, darling?”
The pulses of sexual energy coming off Derek made her vividly aware that she’d left her bra off that morning in deference to the heat of the stove. She crossed her arms over her chest. Dealing with Caleb was enough. She didn’t need a wild card like the werewolf tossed into the mix. “I’m sure.”
“If you change your mind in the future, you know where you can find me.”
Good grief, along with long life, had the good Lord handed weres an excessive amount of ego and confidence? “Do me a favor, would you?”
“What?”
She smiled at him. “Hold your breath until I hunt you up.”
Instead of taking the comment as an insult, Derek just laughed out loud and the interest she could sense in him increased. “How long are you planning on holding a grudge for that first night?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
She held his gaze. “Your life expectancy.”
More laughter around the table. Caleb’s hand cradled her hip, his fingers stroking along the full curve. “Stop flirting with the man, Allie.”
“I’m not flirting, I’m aggravating him.”
“With a were, that’s one and the same,” Jace cut in.
Derek chuckled. Displeasure whipped through Caleb’s energy, blending with the antagonism she felt toward the big were. Heightening her need to irritate him.
Allie turned in Caleb’s grasp to glare at him. “What is it with you paranormal men? When you got in line for long life, did you sneak back for a double dose of arrogance?”
Derek reached for another bear claw. “Yup.”
Allie pushed his hand away from the treat. “I reserve those for friends.”
The smile left his tanned face. “What makes you think I’m not your friend?”
“Something about the way you like to toss me into dirty stalls, leave me to the mercy of my bladder, and then use me as bait.”
“I’ll own up to the first, but the last was all Jared and the boys.”
“You could have stopped it.” It still irked her that no one had. Chairs creaked as weight shifted in them. Tension in the air increased.
“No. He couldn’t.”
Allie looked down into Caleb’s eyes, drawn by the certainty in his voice. The uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach wasn’t completely due to the return of her insatiable hunger. “He could have tried.”
“No.” His hand slid up to wrap around her waist, his fingers warming the turbulence within. “No more than anyone here would let you die, they couldn’t let me die.”
“Your brothers don’t even like me.”
“That’s not true,” Jared cut in.
She wouldn’t have questioned the statement from Slade or Jace, but Jared? “Oh, c’mon.”
He looked at her with those eyes so like Caleb’s, the strength of his personality hitting her like a blow, the lack of a smile on his face giving her nothing to hold on to. “You’re one of us now. We can like you as much as we want.”
Which told her nothing. Caleb pulled her fully into his embrace. Comfort flowed over her, soothing the fear wedged beneath her resolution to make the best of her situation. She stepped away. She wanted a good foot between them. She got an inch. She turned and pushed at his hand.
“You know I’m not interested in Derek, right?” She ignored the were’s dry “Ouch.” “It’s just that I’m not used to all this freaking testosterone twenty-four seven. It’s like being in the middle of a freak-fest.”
“I know.”
Derek laughed outright, his throat muscles rippling with the sound. At the base, his pulse throbbed. Her inner radar leapt to attention, reminding her that not only was the were big and handsome, he was breakfast on the hoof. “I’ve got a peace offering if you’ll take it.”
“What is it?”
He snagged another bear claw, his grab faster than her prevention. “My mother wrote a cookbook a while back. I’ve kept it.”
“How long is a while back?
“A couple hundred years.”
It was a measure of how much she’d been bombarded with in the last two weeks that Allie didn’t even blink at the two-hundred-year reference. “Is it like ‘ancient cooking devices for dummies’?”
“Yup. She wrote it for the new brides in the congregation.”
A werewolf who wrote recipe books for the congregation? “You realize you are all just totally blowing my TV-induced conceptions of the paranormal?”
“They could use some shaking up,” Slade cut in, tossing his hat toward the rack by the door. It hit the edge of the hook and fell to the floor. “You’ve got some dangerous notions when it comes to vampires.”
Shut up. Caleb shot the mental order at Slade, but it was too late. Slade had Allie’s full attention.
“Well, maybe you could provide me with some facts, and I could stop speculating.”
Slade being Slade was happy to oblige. He picked up his hat, dusted some lint from the brim, and put it on the hook. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know how you came to be. I want to know if there are others like Simon and the D’Nallys. I want to know why I can’t—”
Slade came back to the table. “That’s a heck of a lot to want to know.”
“I’ve been saving up.”
Caleb shook his head at Slade. “Now is not the time.”
“She deserves answers.”
Allie glared at Caleb. “Yes, I do.”
Caleb sighed as Allie leaned away from him. Obviously, he wasn’t going to get much work with that new gelding tonight. Not with the way Allie was chafing at her confinement. “She’s got enough to deal with.”
Jared took advantage of Allie’s distraction to grab a bear claw. “Her change would probably be a lot easier to deal with if she had some background.”
Of course, Allie was in agreement with that. “Absolutely.”
The only security Caleb had to offer her was the illusion he knew what was happening to her and had it and everything else under control. If she knew they had no clue as to what was happening to her, if she knew how close the D’Nallys were to breaching the compound, she’d have no sense of safety at all. “No.”
“Fine, if we can’t talk about Allie, we’ll talk about you.”
“Jared.”
Jared ignored the warning, tossed the bear claw to Derek, and turned to Allie. “Did you know Caleb was changed by a female?”
Allie perked up. “No, I didn’t.”
Shit, now they were going to have to relive this, and in doing so, bring up all Jared’s festering anger. The day was definitely going from bad to worse.
“Sh
e found him after he’d been bushwhacked and jumped him when he was too weak from blood loss to fight.”
“Damn it, Jared, when are you going to let it go?”
“When the devil starts making snowballs in hell.”
Caleb ground his molars. The night of his conversion welled out of his memory. Weak, out of his head and in pain from a gut shot, worry for his brothers uppermost in his mind, he’d watched her step out of the twilight looking like an angel, long blonde hair flowing past her hips, highlighting the ethereal thinness of her build and her pale, perfect skin. She’d touched him, her brown eyes moist with sadness. Warmth had swamped the cold encasing him. He’d embraced it fully as she lowered her head. He’d taken her bite, thought the ecstasy a sign of God’s deliverance and forgiveness for the shadier things he’d done to keep him and his brothers together and alive. When, in that last moment, she’d asked him if he was sure, he’d said, “Yes.”
And so she’d changed him, giving him the second chance he’d asked for, even if it wasn’t the one he’d anticipated. And he, in turn, had passed it on to his brothers. “The only person to blame for what we are is me.”
“She manipulated your mind,” Jared snapped.
“I don’t need you telling me how it was,” Caleb snapped right back. “I was there.”
“When I find her, I’m going to put her out of her misery.”
It was an oft-repeated refrain, and Caleb was sick of it. “If you want to blame someone for being a vampire, blame me.”
Jared leaned back in his chair. “I’m comfortable with who I have pegged.”
Caleb sighed. “She was very fragile, Jared. Converting me might have killed her.”
“Obviously not, as we’re all still vampires.”
“You’re clinging to a myth. Killing her won’t change us back.”
“Maybe.” The hate in Jared’s voice spilled into the room. God forgive him, he’d done this to Jared. To all of them. Not the woman. She’d been innocent. He’d bet his soul on that. He closed his eyes and remembered her face with its elfin piquancy, her weakness, the sadness in her eyes. And felt some sadness of his own. “She needed help.”
Beside him, Allie stiffened. Too late he realized she’d tapped into his mind. Her snarl blended with Jared’s “Bullshit.” A mental touch revealed the primitive jealousy consuming her. Her vampire didn’t like his thoughts on another woman.
“Relax, Allie. It was a long time ago.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. Her nails dented her skin, driving the blood from the area, making deep valleys in the soft flesh. “You liked her.”
He tightened his grip on her hip when she would have pulled away. “She saved my life, what wasn’t to like?”
He ignored Jared’s snort, focused on Allie’s glare. He sighed. “She needed help, baby, and I didn’t give it. It’s guilt, not lust I feel.”
“Heck, Allie, you can’t blame a man for his thoughts,” Derek cut in.
That stubborn chin came up. “Yes, I can.”
The challenge stood. Around them, the other males stilled. Anticipation thickened the air. The soft scent of female anxiety drifted over the heavier scent of lust. His, the were’s, and his brothers.
He didn’t like the mix, the tension. He stood. Something wasn’t right. “Allie?”
“What?”
He met the others’ gazes. The way their eyes averted from his told him one thing. He wasn’t imagining things. “We’re all done with the questions.”
“No.” Anger, desire, and fear packed that one syllable.
He backed his first order with a mental one. It was rejected just as summarily. The longing of the other males reached out, touching the edges of his private line with Allie. Hungry, needing, wanting. Caleb bent, his instincts screaming a warning. He needed to get her out of here. Ignoring Allie’s surprised cry, he tossed her over his shoulder and grabbed his hat. Her fists beat on his hips as he carried her from the room.
“YOU are a total ass.”
Caleb followed Allie up the back staircase, settling his hat on his head. Every step reverberated with the anger radiating off her. Her lush ass swayed with every slam of her foot on the wood, each stomp ending with an inviting jiggle that had his palms itching to capture it. He could smell her blood from where she’d driven her talons into her palms. She was still having trouble with control. “A complete and total jerk,” she reiterated.
“The situation with Derek was getting out of hand.” He couldn’t bring himself to mention his brothers. “I warned you not to go without a bra.”
She stomped up three more steps. “It’s hot in the kitchen.”
“Adjust your body temperature.”
“It doesn’t work for me.”
“Then wear a bra.”
She spun on the landing. “You have no right to tell me what to wear.”
His vampire reared in answer to the feminine challenge, his human pride right alongside. He took the next two stairs in one stride. Her eyes flew wide in alarm. She backed up, her feet shuffling in a rapid slide as she felt behind her for the wall. He followed. One step, two, until her back hit the sheetrock. He slammed his hands down on either side of her head, trapping her with his body. “And you have no right to drool over another man.”
The tension within her changed and refocused with her thoughts. He searched her eyes, probed her mind, but she’d shut him out. When the hell had she learned to do that? “You think other men want me?”
“Derek did.” And more disturbingly, so had his brothers.
She rolled her eyes. “He’s just yanking your chain.”
“If you gave him a glance, he’d be in your bed faster than I could slit his throat.”
“And that worries you?”
“It’s never going to happen.” The mere thought of the wolf anywhere near Allie made him murderous. “And if you really want him dead, keep using him to tease me.”
“Is that Caleb the vampire talking, or Caleb the man?”
The arch of her brows conveyed how she felt about his sense of duality. He ignored her sarcasm and answered with the truth. “Both.”
Her fingers wrapped around his, her blood dripped down, splaying over the planes before meandering into the crevices, filling the space between them, obliterating it. He tucked his thumb into his palm, cutting it, sucking in a breath as her blood blended with his. She frowned up at him. “I so don’t understand you.”
“You don’t need to understand me. Just obey me.”
“That’s not ever going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Remember me, Caleb? The woman who talks to voices in her head and doesn’t listen worth a damn?”
Oh, he remembered. He remembered the gut-wrenching fear that he wouldn’t get there in time when Dane had attacked her that first night. The horror that Dane would rape her, kill her before he could stop him. His complete fury that she had refused to run when he’d told her to. Her utterly insane decision to come back for him. Son of a bitch, he remembered.
Caleb brought their joined hands between them, bracing her chin on their linked fingers, making her look him in the eye. “When it comes to your safety, you will listen to me.”
She canted her head to the side, her brown hair sliding through the muted glow from the overhead light, picking up reds and golds, highlighting her face in flickers of color. “Or what? You’ll spank me? Oh, that will be effective.”
Another roll of her eyes and a total lack of concern. He touched his thumb to the center of her mouth, shaking his head as a smile fought with his anger. “You, woman, have enough sass for two people.”
“You like it.”
That he did. He rubbed the smear of blood off her chin. “At times.”
“But not now?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Why?”
This time when she tugged, he let her hand go. “You’re my responsibility.”
“Ouch. First I wasn’t your choice, and n
ow I’m a responsibility. On a scale of one to ten, you’re at a negative three on the win-the-girl meter.”
“That’s neither here nor there. As long as you’re safe, my work is done.”
“And my being safe involves wearing a bra and panties, doing what you tell me, and not attracting the interest of other men?”
He gritted his teeth. “Yes.”
She stared at him with those blue eyes that saw too much. And then she smiled, a totally inappropriate, completely Allie smile. “You don’t have to be jealous, Caleb.”
He notched his cock to her groin, annoyed she read him so easily, relieved she read him so easily. “You’re mine.”
Her smile blossomed to delight. Her bare foot rode up his denim-covered calf, her thigh dropping to the side, opening herself more to his thrust. “Tell me something—is it just me having sex with someone else that you’re worried about, or is there more?”
He brushed her bangs off her face. Another woman would have been screaming at him. Another woman might have used his desire against him. Allie wanted to understand it. He didn’t have anything else to offer her but what he felt in his gut. “You’re mine.”
He’d seen dying critters get less pitying looks than the one she gave him. “Caleb, you can’t hold me unless I want to stay.”
“Watch me.”
The pat on the shoulder she gave him was beyond patronizing. “You’re big, sexy, and intense, but unless you make this relationship worth my while, nothing will keep me here.”
If she thought he would lose her, she had another thing coming. It would be easier if she just fell into step like a more biddable woman, but a more biddable type would likely bore him, so they’d both have to learn to take the good with the bad. Starting with him here, giving her what she needed. He hitched her a bit higher in his arms. Her legs came around his waist, squeezing tightly. “So what would it take for a man like me to start interesting a woman like you?”
He opened his hand over her spine, easing the spasm of pain that shot through her back. The hunger spasm that she was trying to hide from him.
“You could start by reminding me why I fantasized about you so much before all this happened.”
Caleb Page 16
