by Vivi Andrews
Please God, let there be a condom.
He dove for the footlocker containing his possessions, wrestling with the lock as Rachel followed, holding her flannel top closed in a strangely modest gesture.
Adrian threw open the trunk, rummaging through it without regard for his usual, orderly packing system. The toiletry bag was buried at the bottom. When he pulled it out of the trunk, his blood-deprived brain almost thought it heard a symphony. He yanked open the bag and there it was. Salvation.
What the fuck was he doing?
That single, rational thought somehow found its way through the lust fogging his brain.
Then she reached around him, plucking the condom from his fingers with one hand while the other wrapped around his cock and all his higher brain functions gave up the fight.
Rachel stroked her hand up Adrian’s cock, her face pressed to his shoulder to inhale the scent of him. Her Adrian, back in her arms. Yes. She used her teeth to rip open the foil packet and rolled the condom up his length, giving him an extra stroke for good measure.
He turned, hands sliding beneath the loosely flapping fabric of her pajama top, lifting her, placing her against the wall and pinning her there with his body, every point of contact a searing, erotic heat. He nipped her lower lip, her throat. Guiding her legs around his waist, he fitted himself against her core and pushed inside. She stretched around him, every sensation amplified by the fact that it was him. Her hawk.
His yellow eyes gleamed, nothing human left in them as they shone into hers. Deeper, harder, until she was sobbing his name, clutching his shoulders, and that first violent tear of pleasure ripped through her.
He bared his teeth and pounded into her, hard and unrestrained until she felt the prick of his talons delicately pinching her hips as he found his own release inside her with the intense, burning silence that she remembered so well. She whispered his name, holding him to her with arms and legs, as if she could hold on to that fleeting feeling.
Spent, he collapsed onto the futon, holding her against him. She wanted to wallow in the moment, to stretch it out for an eternity, but the jab of his talons was a little too sharp now that her afterglow was fading. Rachel had never been into pain.
“Careful,” she whispered. “Your talons are sharp.”
Talons. Adrian froze. Moving carefully, slowly, he withdrew his hands. Now that she pointed them out, he could feel them, the sharp points where his fingertips should be, but he needed to see them as well. He hadn’t been able to partial-shift any part of his body other than his eyes since he’d escaped from the Organization. Part of him hated the loss of her warmth as Rachel leaned slightly away from him, her eyes questioning, but his thoughts were tangled up in talons and wings.
He lifted his right hand and both of them stared at it—the knobby, bony knuckles tapering to fierce, razor-sharp talons. They may have come when he called them in the dream or after, with her, with his release. He hated to lose them, even for a second, but he called to his human hands, watching as his fingers reshaped themselves into something wholly human.
Was he healed? He probed for the hawk, the other half of his soul, in the dark of his mind, but it was still lost. His talons. His eyes. It came to him in pieces, but withheld the most important part. His eyes burned, shoulders aching for the loss of his wings.
“Adrian?”
He jolted. Rachel lay against him, the length of her aligned to the length of him, but he’d momentarily forgotten her presence—not that he’d forgotten she was there, but more that the presence of her was so natural, such an extension of him that it was simply accepted. Her voice startled him—but it was the rightness of her in his arms that sent a jolt through him, not the disruption.
Shit.
What had he done?
Adrian set her away from him sharply, rolling to his feet and clenching his fists to fight the instinctive urge to help her to hers. He peeled off the condom, dropping it in the trash, and yanked up his pants, securing them clumsily. What the fuck had just happened? He’d reached for her like his long-lost mate and she’d come into his arms as if she belonged there. Wrong. So wrong.
She scrambled to her feet, the sounds impossibly loud and clumsy. He should have heard her approach him and woken. She shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on him, even in the middle of a nightmare. His instincts should have raised the alarm before she got so close—but it felt so fucking right to have her close.
Wrong.
“Are you all right?” she asked, her voice a little rough. From sleep or arousal. Her heart still beat too quickly, her rapid breath raising her full breasts beneath the god-awful flannel top that she held closed with one hand. The beginnings of a bruise marred the perfection of her left cheekbone and he reached out to brush his fingers delicately beside the spot before he could stop himself.
“Did I…?”
Her slight grimace was answer enough before she said, “I got in the way when you were in the dream.”
Regret pierced him. That he could have harmed her felt more wrong than everything else in this chaotic interlude. “I’m sorry.” For everything.
She waved away his apology. “It doesn’t hurt.”
He couldn’t tell if she was lying.
And that was always the problem with Rachel. He’d never been able to tell when she was lying.
He didn’t trust easily, but she had been the exception. It had been too easy to trust her and it would be too easy to do it again. He’d listened to instincts that swore she was his in an inescapable way, and he’d been wrong.
And now here he was again, falling too easily into her arms. He could be with her—he couldn’t seem to stop himself—but he couldn’t let himself be swayed by what she made him feel.
She’d delighted in his pain while he was in captivity. He remembered the malicious cheer in her voice. He couldn’t trust himself to trust her now. Not when she could be Mother Theresa or Machiavelli and he couldn’t tell the difference because he wanted her—and desire was the great blinder.
She hovered in front of him, on the balls of her feet as if she would rush forward into his arms at the slightest indication that he would welcome it. But no matter how he wanted her, how he ached for her in a way he’d almost forgotten how to feel, he couldn’t take that last step. Not with the cruel edge of her voice ringing in his memory.
If she would just admit it…
“How could you do it? Even if you had to, how could you?” She was supposed to be the exception.
Her eyes flared with shock and hurt. “Adrian… I explained. They knew about us—”
“Not that. The experiments. Why did you have to make them think you enjoyed hurting me?” Why had she had to make him believe it?
He needed to know, but he saw the denial closing down her face before she said a word. “I never—”
He couldn’t listen to her lies. Not tonight when everything was raw.
“Go back to sleep, Rachel.” He turned away without waiting to see if she would obey. He didn’t want to see the hurt on her face, didn’t want the guilt. He snatched his holster from the floor near the door where he’d been using it as a pillow before everything went sideways. He finished fastening his pants on the porch, hooking the holster to his waistband.
The icy night air felt right on his skin, the veil of falling snow just the mask he needed so he didn’t have to look at himself—or his desire—too closely. Wrong. She was wrong. It was an illusion that made her feel so right. Mistakes and lies.
He just needed to remember that.
“Damn it, Adrian!”
He leaned against the exterior wall, listening to Rachel cursing inside. She had an impressive repertoire. Surprisingly varied.
He’d never heard her lose her temper before Lone Pine. Not when they were sneaking around, always united, and he’d mooned over her like a freaking puppy. And not
later, when he was her prisoner. She’d always been calm then. Chillingly so.
His memories of his time as a guest of the Organization were a foggy jumble at best, but he remembered with absolute clarity the first time he’d heard her voice inside those cells. It hadn’t been immediately after his capture. He’d had weeks to build up elaborate rationalizations for why she’d sedated him and handed him over to her bosses.
And all it had taken was the sound of her voice to shatter them all.
He’d been blind—thanks to one of the many operations to investigate the unique properties of his corneas—but he knew her voice, even with all the compassion stripped from it.
She’d been giving orders. The others bowing and scraping to her. He’d said her name, but she hadn’t responded—except to tell his jailers to determine the exact amount of pressure required to break an avian shifter’s bones. For science.
And he’d fucked her tonight. And it had been fucking amazing. Fuck.
Something rustled in the woods, snapping Adrian out of the memory. Rachel was still muttering curses inside, but he focused his eyes and ears on the trees to his left.
If he hadn’t been a raptor, he wouldn’t have caught the movement. Dominec was that good.
The tiger blended with the shadows, the pale rusty yellow and white of his fur making him all but invisible in the snow. A hundred yards out. Watching the cabin with lazy feline focus.
Adrian had begun to wonder if he was just being paranoid about Rachel’s safety, but he didn’t feel paranoid now. He pulled the tranq gun from its holster at his hip, holding it loose at his side with his uninjured hand. Grace had handed him a freshly filled tranq gun following the riot. After the day he’d had—the riot, the nightmare, taking Rachel like a fucking animal because his defenses were down and no force on earth could have stopped him—he was primed and ready for a fight.
Just try to get past me, big guy.
For a long, interminable moment, the tiger didn’t move. Adrenaline sharpened Adrian’s focus, honing his edge. He was in a staring contest with a psycho with six-inch claws and he wasn’t going to blink first.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a handful of seconds, the Siberian lifted from his crouch, turning with a flick of his tale and loping back toward the pride.
Adrian leaned back against the exterior wall of the shack, but couldn’t make himself relax. The memories of what had been done to those nine unlucky prisoners today were too fresh in his mind.
He wouldn’t let that be Rachel. He didn’t love her. He couldn’t let himself. But she was his to protect. So he settled in to guard, rolling shoulders tense with strain. This was supposed to be a safe haven, but they would never be truly safe.
Chapter Twenty
Rachel stumbled through the snowdrifts hiding roots and rocks, struggling to keep up with Adrian’s quick, sure-footed pace far more than she had when she’d been making the same trip blindfolded. She glared at his back as she fought to keep her feet, certain she was on her own if she started to go down—Adrian hadn’t come within five feet of her since he’d arrived this morning to escort her down to the main compound. She couldn’t even catch his eye.
She certainly wasn’t the first woman who had ever been slept with and then ignored, but she would never understand what prompted a man to devour a woman like she was oxygen, make her feel like she would die on the spot if he couldn’t keep touching her, and then turn around and pretend she didn’t exist. He’d been ravenous for her—and in Rachel’s book, that meant something, no matter how distant and taciturn the icy Hawk wanted to play it in the morning light.
Her left foot caught on a tree root and she pitched sideways, catching herself against a tree, both palms lightly scraped by the rough bark. She’d been right before—there was no way she’d be able to find her way back to the cabin without an escort. She was a city girl. The path may be clear to a shifter like Adrian, but to her it was just woods, woods, and more woods.
It was with distinct relief that she stepped out of the forest and onto the wider, more cultivated—and thank goodness, cleared of snow—paths close to the heart of the pride.
She’d seen bits and pieces of the main pride compound—a building here, a bungalow there—as she was taken to various locations during her debriefing, but it was a different matter entirely seeing the scope of it. Not just a glimpse before Adrian blindfolded her, but the breadth of it laid out before her. She understood now what he’d meant in saying it was a full-service pride. Lone Pine was a village unto itself.
They passed a school, two dining halls, several apartment complexes and a general store—which answered the question of where Adrian had gotten all the clothing and other supplies that magically appeared in the cabin, anticipating her every need. The pride bustled with activity in spite of the snow—nothing shut down in Montana because of a little of the white stuff. Not like her Georgia home.
At various points along the path there were laminated maps pinned to posts that looked like they’d just been driven into the ground. Directories, doubtless to cope with the influx of new shifters. And above it all, the Alpha’s mansion reigned from the top of the hill, the physical and emotional heart of the pride.
Adrian led her, always without looking directly at her or speaking, through the maze of pathways to a sprawling low-slung building with a giant red cross painted on the stucco face. He held the door for her and she stepped inside, looking around her with interest. They called it the infirmary, but it was larger and better outfitted than the name implied, reminding her of a well-funded private clinic or small country hospital.
A tall man with close-cropped dark hair mixed with gray came forward, his hand stretched out to greet her. “You must be the infamous Dr. Russell,” he said, with a ready smile.
Adrian scowled, but performed the introductions. “Rachel, this is Dr. Brandt. The infirmary is his domain.”
“I am indeed the master of all you see.” Dr. Brandt waved to encompass the waiting cots and sleeping machines. “At least Moira lets me believe myself to be.”
“Moira?” Rachel inquired.
“My right hand. She’s a registered nurse, but her role here is more as healer and midwife—honoring the old ways. She’s eager to talk to you, actually. To pick your brain about shifter babies. It’s rare she meets someone whose expertise on the matter outstrips her own.”
“I thought you’d be busier today,” Adrian commented. He stood apart from them, focused on the empty beds and silent machines so he didn’t have to look at her. “After last night.”
“Processed and discharged.” The words preceded Grace into the room as she strode out of a back hallway. “Shifters make shitty patients. Always checking themselves out against medical advice, right, Adrian?”
“Grace.” The hawk’s shoulders visibly relaxed as soon as the blonde Amazon walked into the room.
Rachel felt her own shoulders tensing in direct proportion to how much Adrian’s relaxed. Did he have to be so relieved to see Grace? She still knew nothing about their relationship. For all she knew, Grace was the one he went running to every time he left her.
Jealousy burned like acid in her stomach, but she did her best to ignore it. She turned to Dr. Brandt, intent on asking for a tour of his domain, but Adrian stepped between them and caught her hand. The fact that he was actually touching her was so startling that she missed the first few words of whatever he was saying to her.
“—so stay here until I come to fetch you and don’t leave Grace’s sight for a second. Understand?”
He was leaving. A flood of conflicting emotions joined the acidic wash of jealousy in her stomach—relief that she wouldn’t have his distracting presence looming over her shoulder all day, pride that she’d earned enough of his trust—finally—to be allowed on pride land without him watching over her like a hawk—ha—and fear that she would be defense
less without him. Not that she didn’t trust Grace to protect her, but she felt on some irrational, purely instinctual level, that she was safer with him.
“Rachel,” he said sharply when she didn’t immediately respond, giving the hand he held a light shake.
“I understand.”
“Good.”
Adrian dropped her hand, nodded to Brandt and Grace, and turned to march out the door without another word. He did love his dramatic exits. Rachel glared after him for a moment before Dr. Brandt caught her attention, a slight smile touching his mouth.
“Kathy and her mate will be in later,” the pride doctor said. “This morning we thought you could start bringing us up to speed on what you’ve learned and what techniques have proven effective in your treatment of shifters.”
Her treatment of shifters. She noticed the doctor very carefully didn’t mention the Organization or the word “experiments”, but Rachel couldn’t help a flush of shame at how she’d acquired some of the knowledge she had to share with them. Few of her patients had been willing and she had rarely been able to protect them from the experiments of the other doctors.
Seeming to sense her discomfort beneath his gaze, Brandt turned his head back toward the hallway from which Grace had emerged. “I wonder what’s holding up Moira. Why don’t I go fetch her so we can get started?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, disappearing into the back of the building, leaving her alone with the warrior princess.
Rachel eyed the leggy blonde. “Don’t you have something better to do than babysit me all day? Lieutenant duties?”
“Actually, you’re part of my lieutenant duties. I volunteered for babysitting duty so I could corner you later and have you look at some photos of the Organization prisoners and see what you know about them.” Grace grinned, flashing bright white teeth. “I’m also our field medic. EMT. Whatever. Figure it doesn’t hurt to know more about the risks of cross-breed baby-making, because I might be the first one on the scene if we have an emergency.” Her smile grew wider. “I also assigned Adrian perimeter duty to keep him busy so he won’t hover over you all day like a mother hen. You’re welcome.”
