And they had met a grisly end.
“What did this?” Grey looked up at Lyra as she came to a halt beside him. “Those creatures you were talking about?”
She stared at the corpses, her face paling. The fear he had felt in her grew stronger. It shone in her blue eyes as she slowly lifted her hands and twisted them together in front of her breasts, rubbing at her shackles.
A chill went through him.
It hadn’t been a something that had ripped the poor females to pieces with its claws.
It had been a someone.
“Who did this, Lyra?” He rose to his feet and stepped between her and the corpses, so she was staring at his chest instead. “I’m getting the feeling you know… and I want to know what we’re up against.”
Her eyes leaped up to his, shock flaring in them and her feelings.
Because he had said ‘we’re’, treating them as partners. He wanted to be more than that with her, even when he knew it was impossible.
“I can’t protect you unless I know what I’m up against.” And he would protect her, even if whatever had killed the females ended up killing him too.
He would give his life for her.
She looked back down at his chest, stared straight through it as if she could still see the corpses. “I can’t be certain, but I saw him once, during an inspection close to the dragon realm… a few weeks after they had captured me.”
“Who?”
Her blue eyes lifted to meet his again. “A fallen angel.”
Shit. That wasn’t good.
“He ripped one of the slavers apart because he had failed to inform him straight away that he had procured a hellcat.”
He liked the sound of that even less. It had a cold feeling sinking into his bones, sucking all the warmth from his body.
Lyra shuddered and held herself, and gods, he wanted to hold her too. He wanted to pull her into his arms and cage her in them, to shield her from the world and her fears, and make her believe they would never happen.
He wouldn’t let them.
He would protect her.
“He came to see me.” Her fingers dug into her arms. “Evil. Cold. I’ve never felt such evil… such darkness.”
She released her arms and held her hands out to him, her wrists close together.
“He placed new shackles on me.”
That coldness became a sinking feeling, one that had his hackles rising and a need to get Lyra out of the open sweeping through him.
“He swapped them for different ones?” Grey stared at them.
She nodded. “He did it with others too. My first set of shackles were old, battered, so maybe he thought they weren’t strong enough to hold me.”
Or maybe the son of a bitch had been up to something.
He reached for her shackles.
She shrank away from him and he stopped and raised his eyes to hers.
“I won’t hurt you. Trust me, Lyra… I just want to get a closer look.” He held his hands out to her, palm up, offering her the chance to be in control.
Something flickered in her eyes, something that said she wanted him closer to her, needed him as fiercely as he needed her, but she was afraid of it.
He slowly edged his hands forwards, not wanting to startle her.
She pulled down a deep breath and moved hers towards him, and barely tensed as she settled the metal cuffs in his hands.
He was careful not to touch her bare skin as he leaned forwards and inspected the thick silver cuffs, gently turning them around her wrists. When he reached the side where the ring for the chain was, something caught his eye.
It was small and he would have missed it if the golden light of the sky hadn’t highlighted it at the moment his eyes had swept over that spot.
An engraving.
He peered closer.
That cold feeling became ice in his veins.
It was an inscription.
“I don’t like this at all,” he whispered to her hands.
Lyra leaned over and looked at the cuffs, and then up at his face. Damn. She was close. Tempting. He dropped his eyes to her lips and then forced them back up to hers.
“There’s a spell on these restraints.” He pointed to the small line of words.
He couldn’t understand them, but he knew a spell when he saw it, had met a travelling witch once when she had come through the pride village en route to Kincaid’s castle, the old werewolf warrior who had allowed Grey’s pride to make their home on his remote estate in Scotland.
“I know. It makes them flex with my form when I shift and stops me from breaking them. They could also use it to stop me from attacking them. The more important members of the group had a word they could use to freeze me for a minute… although none of them ever tried it so I’m not sure how true that part is.”
Grey slowly shook his head. “I think there’s more than that in this spell.”
She drew her hands back towards her, and he wanted to growl as they left his and the distance between them grew again.
“What?” She looked down at the cuffs and then up at him, that fear returning to colour her eyes and make him want to hold her and tell her everything would be alright.
He crouched and checked the cuffs of the two dead females, and found a similar engraving on one of their bonds.
“Grey?” Lyra came to stand beside him again, her eyes locked on him, demanding an answer to her question.
He straightened to his full height. “I think maybe there’s a tracker on them. I can’t be certain… but it would explain what happened here.”
“You’re saying the fallen angel can hunt me using them?” She spoke slowly, a trickle of fear running through her and into him, one that made it hard for him to resist the urge to gather her into his arms and whisper promises to take away that fear.
He would protect her.
She looked at the cuffs.
“I heard the males talking once,” she whispered and then her voice gained volume and confidence as her fear began to abate and she found her strength again. “It was during the march after the fallen angel had placed these cuffs on me. They mentioned another group who had caught a hellcat once but he had lost the chance to sell her when someone had attacked their auction… most of his stock had escaped, but apparently he had been furious about losing the hellcat.”
Grey didn’t like the sound of that at all.
“I need to find a way to get these fucking things off you.” He reached for her wrists and barely stopped himself from grabbing her and trying to wrestle them off her.
That dark need to dominate her returned as his guard dropped, his fury over the thought the fallen angel might be tracking her right now, coming to take her from him, unleashing it. It goaded him into claiming her now, before it was too late.
He staggered back a step, horrified by the need that slammed into him, and that he almost wavered, almost gave into it this time, his fear of losing her giving it control over him.
He turned and stumbled a few steps away from her, each harder than the last, fighting himself with every one, desperate to place distance between them.
When he was over twenty feet from her, he couldn’t move another inch, couldn’t convince himself to place any more distance between him and her, or to leave her as he should.
She would be vulnerable without him near to her.
He needed to protect her.
He needed to claim her.
Gods. He tunnelled his fingers into his silver hair and gripped his head, growling as those dual needs warred inside him.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Lyra’s soft voice was closer than expected, and he growled as he realised she had moved towards him.
He snapped his fangs and snarled at her, desperate to drive her away because she was tearing at his fragile control.
He couldn’t take it.
He didn’t want to hurt her.
She stood her ground. “It isn’t because of what I’ve been through… it’s something else. You
keep pushing me away… why?”
As he lifted his head, tired and weary from fighting his instincts, he lost his grip on them and they stole control, swept through him to obliterate the part of him that wanted to keep her safe and protect her, even from himself.
He saw it in her eyes the moment she realised the answer to her question.
They widened slowly.
“Your nails are black.”
CHAPTER 10
It wasn’t possible.
A surge of fear had Lyra wanting to take a step backwards, away from Grey, but she planted her feet to the black dirt and refused to obey it. She had no reason to fear him. Didn’t she?
It hit her hard that the male standing before her was much more than she had expected.
Much more than she had believed.
“You said you had a family… a pride… that you’re a tiger… were you lying?” She couldn’t bear the thought that he might have been.
Was he just like the other hellcat male, the one who had tricked her and sold her into slavery?
Had he been out to deceive her?
“No,” Grey bit out, his blue eyes holding hers, an edge to them that pleaded her to believe him and not hate him.
“But hellcats are solitary.”
He shook his head. “I’m not a hellcat, Lyra… I’m a tiger.”
He was lying.
Now that she had seen his nails turn black, and the fires of her kind raging in his eyes, she could feel it in him.
He was a hellcat.
He stepped towards her. “I’m a tiger… but in my bloodline, there was a cross-breeding. One of my ancestors wanted to make my family stronger, so they mated with a hellcat.”
Gods.
She had foolishly hoped he had been about to tell her that she had gone crazy, that everything that had happened had gotten to her and she had been imagining it.
He wasn’t pure hellcat, but he had the blood of one in his veins.
“I don’t understand it,” he muttered to his hands as he lowered them in front of him. His silvery eyebrows furrowed and she felt a glimmer of his pain and confusion, and fear. So much fear. “I don’t want to feel this way. I… I can’t be around you. I’m sorry, Lyra.”
He turned away from her.
Lyra stopped him with a handful of words straight from her heart.
“I need you.”
She wasn’t sure whether she meant she needed him to protect her from the fallen angel, or needed him physically, emotionally. It just came out, a blurted confession that only seemed to pain him.
He growled and looked back at her, his eyes vivid blue, glowing brightly in the low light, and his voice hoarse and low. “Don’t say things like that. I can’t…”
“I’m sorry.” She risked a step towards him, the need to comfort him overwhelming her, seizing her so fiercely she couldn’t stop herself from moving closer to him, even when part of her was aware she would only cause him more pain by doing so. “I didn’t mean to push you.”
Because he was doing his best to resist the instincts he didn’t understand.
It touched her, deeper than he would ever know.
It told her how much he cared about her and how fiercely he wanted to protect her.
Because of his tiger blood, the compulsions and needs he felt were weaker, only a fraction of what he would have felt around her if he had been a full-blooded hellcat, but they were still powerful.
They were taking their toll on him.
He was bearing it for her though.
Gods, it was noble, and beautiful, of him to fight them so fiercely for her sake.
His legs gave out and his knees hit the dirt, and he bent forwards and dug his fingers into the black earth, hanging his head between his arms.
“Please, Lyra,” he rasped. “I don’t want to hurt you. Get away from me.”
This was the reason he had left when she had spoken with the elf in the tavern, and the reason he had tried to make her leave.
This was the reason he had drawn his own blood.
He had been fighting his instincts for her.
“Go!”
Lyra shook her head even though he couldn’t see it and slowly approached him. She wouldn’t leave him when he was suffering because of his genes, because of her. She wanted to help him through it, needed to soothe him and assuage those instincts somehow to free him from their grip.
He was a good male.
One her heart said she could trust.
When she kneeled before him, he lifted his head and his handsome face twisted in a grimace as he growled, the pained sound tearing at that heart.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, her hands shaking as she thought about reaching out and placing them on his where he gripped the ground, as if he needed to anchor himself to it.
He shook his head and his eyebrows furrowed.
She managed a smile for him, even when she was falling apart inside, the sight of him hurting drawing her closer to him, filling her with a need to touch him and let him know she was here with him, and she wasn’t going anywhere. He could snarl and snap at her, could try to drive her away, but she was staying right where she was.
With him.
She was going to help him through this.
Because as fiercely as she had fought it, there was no longer any denying it.
He was something to her, and she was something to him, and that was the reason his instincts had him locked in their grip, were tearing him apart with a deep need of her.
The part of her that lay damaged and broken by everything that had happened to her screamed at her to run even though this was where she wanted to be.
It sank in that she wasn’t strong anymore.
She wasn’t being strong by cutting herself off from the world. She wasn’t being strong by keeping Grey at a distance, locked out of her heart.
She was being weak.
Being strong would be taking the risk, having the courage to try again and trust in him. It would be believing in him.
She was tired of being weak.
She wanted to be strong again.
Her eyes dropped to his full lips.
She leaned in to kiss him.
CHAPTER 11
Grey pulled his head back before Lyra could sully herself by kissing him.
“We need to keep moving.” He ignored the trickle of hurt he could feel in her as he pushed onto his feet and took a step backwards, away from her, placing some much-needed distance between them.
He had no doubt in his mind now that the fallen angel was after her. The male viewed her as his prize, a replacement for a hellcat he had meant to sell but had been snatched from his grasp.
If Grey was right, and there was a tracker on her shackles, then it was only a matter of time before the male found them.
Grey was strong, but he wasn’t sure he was strong enough to fight a fallen angel.
In order to protect her, he needed to get the shackles off her as soon as possible and then he would take her far from Hell, away from this wretched place and the male who was hunting her.
Dragons had been able to use magic once. It was possible one of them could read the spell and tell him what it meant, and they might be able to remove the shackles for her.
Talon would have to wait a little longer to find out what was beyond that door.
Grey was switching his mission to protecting Lyra.
Once he knew she was safe, he would come back to Hell for his brother’s sake and finish what he had started.
Lyra took priority though.
She rose onto her feet, turned her back on him and started walking, her head bent and her arms wrapped around her as she trudged away from him, heading towards the dragon realm.
He deserved a little cold shoulder action he supposed.
It was for the best, even though it didn’t feel as if it was, even though part of him wished Lyra had tried again to kiss him and hadn’t given up so easily.
He strode after her.
She didn’t look at him, didn’t even acknowledge his existence, as he caught up with her. The air around her felt cold despite the heat of Hell, chilling his skin and seeping deep into his heart.
“I’ll find someone to remove your restraints when we reach the dragons,” he said to break the silence.
She didn’t respond. She just kept walking, her eyes fixed ahead, firmly away from him.
It hurt a little.
He rubbed at the spot above his heart that stung the fiercest, trying to alleviate the pain.
Gods, he had wanted to kiss her.
Still wanted to kiss her.
She had to know that.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her.
But he had.
She had shown him a sliver of trust, had been brave enough to overcome her fear and everything that had happened to her in order to touch him, to kiss him, and he had rejected her.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and shoved it through his short silver hair. He was a bastard. He glanced at her, hoping that he hadn’t shaken her just as she was finding her feet again.
He kept telling himself it was better this way as they walked in silence. Maybe when they reached the village there would be a portal and a dragon who could remove her restraints, and then she could go home, far away from him.
Maybe she would find a male who deserved her, someone who could be what he couldn’t for her.
Shit, but he wanted to be the only male for her.
Needed it so fiercely that he couldn’t breathe as he thought of her with another. He wanted to throw his head back and roar out his fury.
He felt her eyes on him, but by the time he had looked at her, they were locked ahead of her again.
He sighed.
And caught a scent on the stifling breeze.
His focus sharpened and he closed ranks with Lyra when he sensed a powerful creature ahead of them, so he was near enough to protect her if they attacked.
High above the mountains in the distance ahead of them, a shape loomed, so large that Grey’s instincts told him to go another way. Huge wings spread as the creature turned into a dive and swept downwards at breathtaking speed.
He growled and moved in front of Lyra as the dragon rocketed towards them, low to the ground, and she tensed as it flew directly overhead, a black shadow in the dim light, and wind battered them. Another snarl escaped him when the dragon wheeled around and came back, eyeing them as it made another pass, and then lazily flapped its enormous wings and banked left, heading into another valley.
Treasured by a Tiger Page 10
