by Lara Adrian
For reasons he had no interest in examining even now, he had stood in the center of the carnage he’d wrought, wanting nothing less than complete obliteration.
Fire and cinder, smoldering rubble. He had wanted the Crimson lab erased from existence, nothing but a scar of black ash on the empty lot where it stood.
And whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not, he knew that his want for destruction had more than a passing connection to Elise. It had been her face he’d seen in his mind as he lit the place up. It had been the thought of her grief that made him savor each of the Rogue deaths he delivered tonight.
Shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat, Tegan headed against the wind and cut down a South End side alley. He wasn’t sure where he was going, although he supposed he should have known. He recognized Elise’s shitty neighborhood even before he turned onto the street that would eventually dump him onto her block.
Tegan still couldn’t fathom her living in such squalid conditions. As the widow of a high-ranking Breed government official, Elise had to be more than financially set. She could have lived in any of the Darkhavens, wanting for nothing, whether or not she chose to take a new mate. That she had chosen to leave her old life to exist topside among basic humankind was surprising. She’d seemed so sheltered and fragile when he met her some four months ago. He couldn’t have been more shocked to find her earlier tonight, awash in Minion blood and armed like one of the Order.
But for all her defiance and resolve, Tegan had not missed Elise’s weariness. She’d appeared bone-tired and exhausted, in a way that seemed to go deeper than just plain fatigue. He supposed that was why he found himself outside her apartment again now.
He wasn’t about to go to the front door. It was late, she was probably asleep, and so long as it was dark outside, his priority one was the Order.
When he rightly should have kept on walking, Tegan instead slipped between Elise’s building and the one next to it, heading around to the back. The interior of her first-floor unit appeared dark as pitch from outside, but the acoustic foam covering the windows would have blocked out nearly any light. Even with the soundproofing in place, Tegan could hear the heavy bass of her stereo and the competing chatter of the TV. He ran a hand through his snow-dampened hair, then pivoted around and paced three long strides into the strip of backyard behind the place.
Forget about her and just walk away.
Yeah, that was damn well what he should do, all right. Put the heartbroken, beautiful female with the apparent death wish out of his head and walk the fuck away.
Except …
He crept closer to the building, scowling at the blocked glass of the windows. He didn’t hear anything other than music and television noise, but that was the thing that pricked his warrior’s senses onto alert.
That, and the faint tickle of a blood scent coming from within the apartment. Elise’s blood. His nose registered a subtle heather-and-roses sweetness that could only be the Breedmate inside. She was bleeding—perhaps not a lot by the trace scent of it, but it was impossible to tell much with brick and glass and three-inch-thick foam in the way.
Tegan opened the sash lock on the window with his mind—the second time he’d perpetrated a B&E on her place in one night—and lifted the heavy pane from outside. There was no screen, and it took all of a second to push away the acoustic panel and peer inside.
There were no lights on, but his vision was even sharper in the dark. Elise was there, on the futon, curled up in a tight, fetal ball, and still wearing the white terry robe from her shower several hours ago. Her arms were wrapped around her head in a protective cage, the short crown of silky blond hair mashed and spiked in complete disarray from her sleep.
She didn’t even stir as Tegan hoisted himself over the windowsill and swung himself inside, although he moved in silence and the audio racket in her place was deafening. Tegan willed the stereo and television to mute—and that’s when she suddenly shot straight up, not quite awake but jolted into a semiconscious panic.
“It’s okay, Elise. You’re all right.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. Her lavender eyes were wide, but out of focus, and not just from the lack of light in the apartment. She moaned as if in pain and flopped off the futon in a clumsy sprawl, her hands casting about frantically for the remote near her feet. She grappled for the device and began pushing the buttons in a frenzy. “Come on, turn on, damn it, turn on!”
“Elise.” Tegan walked over to her and knelt down beside her. He scented more blood on her and when he lifted her chin with the edge of his hand, he saw that her nose was bleeding. Scarlet droplets stained the bright white lapel of her bathrobe, some fresh, and some from an earlier bleed. “Jesus…”
“Turn it on!” she howled, then she glanced over and saw the open window, the loose acoustic foam hanging askew. “Oh, God. Who moved that panel? Who would do something like that!”
She pushed herself to her feet and hurried over to repair the breach, slamming the window closed and throwing the lock. Her hands moved restlessly over the soundproofing as she tried to wedge the material back into place over the glass.
“Elise.”
No response, just a deepening sense of anxiety radiating out from her petite form under the white terry robe. With a keening moan, Elise gripped her temples in both hands and slowly sank to the floor below the window, as if her legs just gave out beneath her. Huddled tight on her folded knees, she leaned forward, rocking herself back and forth.
“Make it stop,” she whispered brokenly. “Please … just … make it stop.”
Tegan approached her slowly, not wanting to upset her any further. With a curse, he crouched down, and carefully put his hand on the delicate arch of her spine. Fingers spanned wide, his senses open to the connection, Elise’s pain shot into him like an electrical current.
He felt the splintering agony of the migraine that gripped her, felt the hard thud of her heartbeat ringing in his ears as if it were his own. He tasted acid on his tongue, his teeth aching from the force with which she clenched her jaw to combat the torment that was riding her.
And he heard the voices.
Nasty, corrosive, terrible voices that were traveling on the air around them, silent to all but the psychically sensitive Breedmate crumpled before him on the floor.
In his mind—through the connection he held with Elise—Tegan registered the belittling argument of a couple down the hall. Across the way, a man was lusting for his own daughter. In the apartment above Elise’s, a junkie was shooting a month’s worth of child support into her vein while her hungry baby wailed, utterly ignored, in the other room.
Every negative, destructive human thought and experience within a radius Tegan could only guess at seemed to home in on Elise’s mind, pecking away at her like vultures on carrion.
It was hell on Earth, and Elise was living it every waking moment. Maybe even while she was asleep. Now he understood the foam panels and the audio racket. She’d been trying to drown out the input with other noise—the stereo, television, and even the MP3 player that lay in a tangle of wires on the kitchen counter.
She was deluding herself if she thought she could cope like this in the human world. To say nothing of the insanity of her intent to pursue vengeance on the Rogues and their Minions.
“Please,” she murmured, her soft voice vibrating against his open palm, “I need it to stop now.”
Tegan broke the contact and expelled a curse through gritted teeth.
This was no good. He couldn’t leave her like this. He should turn her over to the Darkhavens. Maybe he would. But right now she needed relief from the pain she was feeling. Even he wasn’t cold enough to sit back and watch her suffer.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Relax now, Elise. You’re okay.”
He gathered her up into his arms and carried her back to the futon. She was so light, too light, he thought. Elise was a petite woman, but she felt as weightless as a child against his chest. When was the last tim
e she’d fed? Holding her this close, Tegan couldn’t help noticing the sharp angle of her cheekbones, the frailty of her jawline.
She needed blood. A good dose of Breed red cells would give her strength and quiet some of her psychic pain, though far be it from Tegan to volunteer. Elise was a Breedmate, one of those rare human females born genetically compatible with members of the vampire race. Feeding her from his vein would revitalize her in many ways, but putting his blood into her body would also create an unbreakable bond between them. That kind of link was reserved for mated pairs, the most sacred of Breed vows. Only death could break a blood bond, so there were few among the race who approached it lightly, or out of charity.
Elise was widowed, and the several years she’d obviously gone without a male’s blood—not to mention the damage she was inflicting on herself every day she lived among humankind—were starting to take a heavy toll on her. Tegan carefully laid her down on the bulky futon mattress.
He was slow and easy as he stretched out her lean legs and arranged her in what he hoped was a comfortable sleeping position. The terry-cloth robe she had on gaped from thigh to sternum, the belt at her waist having come undone and hanging loosely. He had to work to pull the ends of the sash out from under her, all the while trying his damnedest not to notice the wedge of creamy white skin that was exposed to him in the process. It was impossible to pretend he was blind to the feminine curves, or to the buoyant swell of her small, perfect breasts. But it was the sudden flash of a gorgeous thigh that sucked most of the air out of Tegan’s lungs.
There, on the inner side of her right leg, was the tiny teardrop-and-crescent-moon birthmark that all Breedmates bore somewhere on their bodies. Elise’s rested at the most tempting part of her thigh, just beneath the downy triangle of her sex.
“Ah, fuck.” Tegan reeled back, saliva surging into his mouth at the instant, swelling urge to taste that sweet spot.
Off limits, man, he told himself harshly. And way the hell out of your league.
His movements were quick now, his breath sawing past the tips of his emerging fangs as he tugged the ends of her robe around the nakedness of her body. Her nose had begun to bleed again from her migraine. The trickle of bright scarlet smudged the soft white skin of her cheek. He dabbed away the blood with the hem of his black tee-shirt, trying to ignore the sweet fragrance that called to everything in him that was Breed. Her fluttering pulse was like a drumbeat in his ears, the rapid little ticking of her carotid drawing his eyes to the graceful line of her neck.
Damn, he thought, mentally wrenching his gaze away. His own appetite sharpened just to be near her. He hungered now, fiercely, even though it hadn’t been that long since his last hunt. Not that the street-weary, foul humans he took his nourishment from could compare to the tender beauty spread out before him now.
Elise winced behind her closed eyelids, moaning softly, still in pain. She was so vulnerable right now, so defenseless against the psychic anguish.
And at the moment, he was all she had.
Tegan reached out to her and smoothed his fingers over her cool, damp forehead. He gently pressed his palm over her closed eyes.
“Sleep,” he told her, putting her in a light trance.
When her breathing slowed to something close to normal, and the tension eased out of her body, Tegan sat back and watched her slide into a calm, restful slumber.
CHAPTER
Six
Elise woke up slowly, feeling as though her consciousness had been transported somewhere far away and tranquil, only to be returned to her body like a feather carried gently on the breeze. Maybe it was a dream. A long, sweet dream … a peace she hadn’t known for months. She stretched a little on the futon, her bare legs rasping against the terry-cloth of her bathrobe and the soft crush of a blanket that covered her from chin to toe. She snuggled deeper into the pleasant warmth, sighing, and the sound of her own breath startled her.
No noise.
No blaring music or chattering television, even though she couldn’t sleep—could hardly function—without them.
Her eyes snapped open and she waited for the psychic assault to hit her. But there was only silence. Dear Lord. Seconds passed, then a full minute or more … and there was only blessed, wondrous silence.
“Sleep well?”
The deep male voice carried from across the studio apartment somewhere. She smelled toast browning, and the buttery scent of eggs sizzling in a fry pan. Tegan was standing in her meager kitchen, apparently cooking breakfast. Which only made the surrealism of the morning that much more complete.
“What happened?” Her voice was a soft croak in her throat. She cleared it and tried again. “What are you doing here?”
Oh, God. He didn’t have to answer because she remembered as soon as the words left her lips. She recalled the migraine that had laid her low, and the unexpected return of Tegan some hours after he’d found her following her run-in with the Rogues. He’d come back and broken into her apartment for some reason. Had muted the cushioning noise that she needed so badly.
Elise remembered waking in agony. In a flood of humiliation, she remembered collapsing in a blind hysteria near the window, trying to fix the soundproofing—which was all neatly back in place now, she noticed.
And she also remembered the sensation of being soothed into a calming state of numbness …
By Tegan?
Holding her robe in place, Elise moved aside the blanket and carefully eased herself into a sitting position on the futon. She still didn’t trust her surroundings, certain the blast of mental anguish was going to hit her at any moment.
“What did you do to me last night?”
“You needed help, so I helped you.”
He made it sound like an accusation as he leaned back against the counter near the stove, watching her with a look of cool detachment. He was dressed in night battle clothes: a black knit tee-shirt and black fatigues; his leather gun holster and belt of terrible-looking blades lay on the counter across from him.
Elise met the sharp, measuring gaze that was fixed on her from across the room. “You knocked me out somehow?”
“Just a mild trance so you could sleep.”
She clutched the lapels of her bathrobe in her fist, suddenly very aware of the fact that she didn’t have anything on beneath the loose drape of the terry-cloth. And last night, this warrior had put her in a forced doze, leaving her totally at his mercy? A tremor of alarm ran through her at the thought.
Tegan must have read the look in her eyes because he scoffed a bit, low under his breath. “So, you Darkhaven folks see the Order not only as cold-blooded killers but rapists as well? Or is that distinction reserved primarily for me alone?”
“You’ve never hurt me,” Elise said, feeling bad that she’d let her ingrained biases doubt him. “If you wanted to do anything harmful to me, I think you would have by now.”
He smirked. “Such a ringing declaration of faith. I suppose I should be flattered.”
“And I really should be thanking you, Tegan. You helped me twice last night. And I never thanked you for your kindness a few months ago either, when you gave me a ride home from the Order’s compound.”
“Forget it,” he said, shrugging one broad shoulder as if the topic were closed before she’d even had a chance to crack it open.
That November evening was never far from Elise’s mind. After viewing Camden on video surveillance captured by the Order, Elise had dissolved in one of the compound’s many corridors. Bereft, in shock and denial, it had been Tegan who’d found her. Incredibly, it had been Tegan who took her out of the compound and drove her to her Darkhaven home in the waning hours before dawn.
She had embarrassed herself with tears that wouldn’t end, but he’d let her spill them all. He’d let her weep, and even more astonishingly, he’d let her crumble against him, holding her through her grief in silence. With his strong arms wrapped around her, he held her together when she felt like she was being torn into pieces by
her anguish.
He couldn’t have known he’d been her rock that night. Maybe it had meant nothing to him, but she would never forget his unexpected tenderness. When she’d finally found the strength to remove herself from the car, Tegan had merely watched her go, then drove away from the curb and out of her life … until last night in that alleyway when he’d saved her from the Rogues.
“The trance I put you in last night is still active,” Tegan said, evidently deciding to change the subject. “That’s why your talent is muted now. The block will hold so long as I’m here to keep it in place.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, drawing her eye down to the elaborate pattern of dermaglyphs that tracked up his forearms and disappeared under the short sleeves of his shirt. Where glyphs served as emotional barometers on members of the Breed, Tegan’s were only a shade darker than his golden skin tone at the moment, giving away nothing of the warrior’s mood.
Elise had seen his impressive Breed skin markings once before, when she’d first spoken with him at the Order’s compound a few months ago. She didn’t want to stare, but it was hard not to marvel at the swirling arcs and elegant, interlocking geometric designs that distinguished Tegan as one of the oldest of the race. He was of the Breed’s first generation; if the depth of his powers didn’t out him as such, the prevalence and complexity of his glyphs certainly did.
But the fact that he was Gen One also made him most vulnerable to things like sunlight, which, at the current hour of morning, was a very real concern.
“It’s past nine A.M.,” she said, in case he hadn’t noticed. “You stayed here all night.”
Tegan merely turned away to spoon up a plateful of scrambled eggs. He turned off the electric burner, then popped the toaster and added the slice of bread to the plate. “Come over here and eat while it’s warm.”
