by Naima Simone
What the fu—
Her mind screamed get the hell up! The desperate order jump-started her system into survival mode. She scrambled gracelessly to her feet. Shock, horror and grim determination surged through her body, keeping her standing even as she weaved slightly with exhaustion. Feet spread apart, arms outstretched and her gladius clenched between her hands, she faced this new threat.
“You won’t find me so easy…” She frowned. Wait a minute. Straightening to her full height, she lowered the sword until the tip of the blade touched the ground.
White-blond hair.
Scars.
Bastien?
Her disbelieving gaze skipped from the top of his towering length, down his heaving chest to the hard thighs straining against his pants, then made the incredulous tour back up.
Bastien.
Terror released its grip on her chest and a relieved breath wheezed past her tight throat. His particular shade of hair, the bright-green eyes were unmistakable…
Lady.
The eyes. Fangs.
Well now.
Those were new.
Chapter Three
“Be it ever so humble…”
Sinéad tossed her keys on the bench just inside the foyer of her home littered with flyers, magazines and unopened mail. The metal hit the wood with a reverberating jangle and cracked in the brooding silence like a report of gunfire.
Nerves stretched to the snapping point danced a jig in her stomach—a stomach that pitched and rolled like the Flying Dutchman. She removed her coat and tossed the garment on the back of a nearby chair, but the comforting weight of her scabbard and gladius remained strapped across her back. No, staying armed in the presence of a guest wasn’t the most polite welcome, but she’d be damned if she left herself completely vulnerable in front of this male.
After what she’d witnessed in the alley, she had every right to be jittery. Hell, even her notorious, emotionally challenged cruxim sisters would have paused at facing a half-man, half-hippogryph, half—whatever the fuck he was—after the male had beheaded a vampire with his bare hands…er, claws.
A shiver scurried down her spine.
The red eyes or fangs hadn’t caused the shock ringing through her…well okay, yes, observing those characteristics on Bastien—a hippogryph—had been a huge knock-her-on-the-ass surprise. His people assumed the front half of an eagle and the hindquarters of a horse when they shifted from their human forms. Without the glowing eyes and elongated incisors. Those traits belonged to vampires…and cruxim.
When vampires and cruxim hunted or became I’m-crazy-for-Cocoa-Puffs enraged, their normal eye color shifted to the crimson heart of the hottest flame and their canines lengthened and sharpened to finely honed points.
The similarities ended there.
While the scourge of the vampires fed on and murdered the weaker human race, cruxim stalked, drained and destroyed the bloodthirsty predators.
Five months ago, she’d been a part of the hunt. She’d scoured the streets in search of the creatures that preyed on mortals for food and sport. But now she belonged to the frailer human race. Yet it appeared she wasn’t the only one who had experienced life-altering changes.
The back of her neck tingled, the hairs standing at strict attention. Though Bastien moved soundlessly behind her, his looming presence seemed plastered against her spine. Heat poured from him like a fiery pyre, the flames licking at her nape and down her skin. A foreign sensation tightened then unfurled in her stomach. An undulating banner of warmth rippled out toward her breasts and between her thighs. The tingle, edging closer to a funny sort of ache, converged at the tips of her breasts and the top of her sex. She shivered again.
This menacing male with the dark silences wasn’t the Bastien she’d found and healed. That male had been gentle, kind, almost…sweet. Not red-eyed, fanged and temperamental.
He prowled around her living room, paused by the curtained window, twitched the fabric aside and peered out onto the dim, quiet street. Apparently satisfied with what he did—or didn’t—see, he paced away, moving to the cherry wood mantel over the large fireplace. He stopped in front of the lone framed photograph on top of the otherwise empty shelf. Long, elegant fingers skimmed the heavy, scrolled picture frame and she followed the caress with a fascinated focus. She should be alarmed at how she tracked his movements. She definitely shouldn’t wonder at the tenderness he dealt the iron metal…but she did.
Her breath hitched in her chest. She’d been on the receiving end of those graceful, strong digits. The touch had been fleeting, almost gone before it’d been there, but she remembered the rough pads grazing her jaw. Even then, the contradiction between the durable, calloused tips and the gentle brush had startled her. Had caused her to flee not only him, but the alien feelings—awe, fear, excitement—that had swamped her in a torrential downpour. Contrary to popular belief and myth, cruxim did possess emotions. Yet from the time their training started, they were taught to sublimate all their feelings—passion, anger, fear, joy, grief. They were weak, an Achilles Heel to a warrior. Cold. Exacting. Merciless. These traits were valued and drilled into cruxim from the time they picked up a sword. And for an empath such as Sinéad, the training had been more rigorous, more demanding so her gift didn’t control her, but she controlled it. And for hundreds of years she’d succeeded.
Except for the day Bastien stroked her face.
Yes, she’d run that day, abandoning him in a purely mercenary act of self-preservation.
Bastien turned, the photo in hand. The picture was recent, only months old. To someone else, the paved asphalt behind the row of attached yellow, dark blue and red brick homes would appear nondescript. Yet the empty, innocuous lot had been the site of her first kill two hundred years ago. The buildings had been more ramshackle, the area grimier, but she’d taken down her first vampire on the gravel, had fed from the vein of her enemy after the singing high of battle. Had experienced the first raw punch of power contained in the flowing fluid. The exultant memory had drawn her, urged her to capture the site on film to remind her newly human self of who she used to be—a fearless, capable, skilled warrior. A cruxim.
She forced her gaze to his piercing emerald eyes. Not quelling under the weight of his close scrutiny required every bit of discipline that had been drummed into her over the centuries. She almost lifted a hand to her face to check and see if she’d missed some of the vamp blood she’d scrubbed away in the ratty convenience store bathroom she’d stopped at on the way home.
Yet she didn’t evade Bastien’s unblinking inspection. Her instincts shrieked, warning her to remain vigilant—to be careful of revealing even the slightest hint of vulnerability. Betraying such a flaw would hand the hippogryph a dangerous edge in their silent war of wills. Five months ago, her hackles wouldn’t have raised to insistent attention. But back then he hadn’t sported daggers in his mouth or had a glare that burned hotter than a red halogen beam.
And she hadn’t been mortal.
“Popular tourist spot?” he asked, a fingertip tapping the glass.
Sinéad shrugged a shoulder as she settled on the arm of her couch.
“It called to me,” she said, uncaring how evasive the response sounded. The hippogryph wasn’t an idiot. Hell, one picture stood on a mantel created for a wide collection of mementoes and knickknacks. Common sense argued the image was important. But damn if he would pry the significance from her. She couldn’t afford the sign of weak sentimentality with this unpredictable male.
Bastien replaced the frame on the shelf behind him without breaking the penetrating stare cutting into her with the sharpness and precision of a scalpel.
“So-o-o.” Sinéad tilted her head to the side. “What’s new?”
He crossed his arms over his massive chest and arched a blond brow several shades darker than his bright hair. Even beneath the black knit of his long-sleeved sweater, sculpted biceps bulged and pressed tightly against the thin material. Whoa. Slowly, she straight
ened from her casual slouch. Nonchalance segued to a tension that centered in her belly. Taut ropes stretched from the firm knot directly behind her navel, extending to her lungs, breasts and between her legs. Pleasure rappelled down those quivering lines before surging back up in a disconcerting but breathless cycle.
“Oh you mean besides the fact you transformed me into some…” his lips curled into a feral snarl, “thing I don’t recognize?”
That got her attention off his muscles and back to the blazing glare pinning her to the couch arm as effectively as a forearm to the throat.
“What?” she rasped. Her mind blanked, the accusation rebounding against the walls of her head, gaining speed with each pass until the words blurred together. You…transform…thing. Youtransformthing. Youtransformthing. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I didn’t stutter.” His brows slammed down to form a deep vee. “Whatever you did to me months ago—”
“You mean when I saved your life? Is that what you’re referring to?” She shot to her feet, fury streaming through her. The overwhelming force of it flooded her system and, if she’d still been immortal, she knew her eyes would have been flaming crimson. Fangs would have been heavy and razor sharp in her mouth.
“Saved my life?” He snorted. “Cursed it. Fucked it up.” His arms lowered to his sides and he stalked an ominous step closer. “Call it what you want. But I damn sure don’t feel saved…”
Suddenly, he stilled, went completely rigid. His wide chest rose then fell. His thin nostrils flared. The scowl darkening his handsome visage deepened. He shifted even closer, the distance between them a recent memory as his tall, solid frame crowded her. The unyielding wall of his pectorals crushed her breasts and the firm columns of his thighs pressed against her legs. He bent his head and his silky white-gold waves brushed her cheek as he nuzzled the dip where her shoulder and neck met. His nose grazed the length of her throat, traveling up under the shelf of her jaw, inhaling deeply.
Emotion—delight, rage, despair, fear—and something so dark, so seductive slammed into her, she gasped. The chaotic vortex threatened to drag her down into its powerful winds. She couldn’t control the pull, couldn’t protect herself from the overwhelming force.
She’d felt this torrent once before. And she’d run from it—literally.
Breathe. The command bounced against the walls of her head above the shrieking gale. Lady. There were so many emotions. His. Hers. She couldn’t decipher which belonged to whom—couldn’t separate them. Couldn’t…take…them.
She stumbled back, but his arm slashed out. His fingers gripped her upper arm and held her in place. Against him.
“Stop,” he barked, his breath a hot, damp blast over her flesh. The pitiless order cut through the psychic nor’easter. Shaken, she hastily erected a flimsy barrier. But, Sweet Lady, if he didn’t release her there was no way the fragile shield would hold.
“Let me go,” she said, voice weak, shaking. Nerves tingled just under the surface of her skin where he clutched her. Fiery sparks leaped on the ends as if they’d been jump-started by cable wires connected to his touch.
Bastien jerked his head up. Sparks crackled in his jeweled, fierce stare. But he did as she’d demanded. He freed her and stepped back. Fury spasmed across his face before his expression smoothed into a cold, forbidding mask.
“What the hell are you?” he snapped.
* * * * *
His fingers curled into fists at his thighs as he fought past the red haze in his brain. He’d known this female in particular abhorred his touch. Hadn’t he seen her reaction in the days after he’d awakened from his healing coma? He’d reached for her and Sinéad had flinched away from him, horror contorting her beautiful features. And the next day she’d abandoned him.
He narrowed his eyes. Well he may still disgust her but damned if she would leave him this time around. Hell no. This time he would hunt her down until she gave him what he needed—answers. Freedom. His fucking life back.
Ruthlessly, he shoved aside the resentment and rage to concentrate on what he’d discovered with one whiff at her throat. Thoughts—illogical thoughts—darted through his mind. The healer in him analyzed the data transmitted to his brain from his senses. That lightning-striking-earth scent that belonged solely to the cruxim race was there, yet… He closed his eyes, drew in another draft of her scent. He filtered past the fresh, morning-dew fragrance having nothing to do with her race’s DNA and everything to do with the woman. Like wet, fat drops of moisture caught on vibrant, Irish green grass.
With a disgusted growl directed at his errant thoughts, Bastien delved deeper, searching, dissecting. Yes, the aroma of cruxim he’d detected lingered. And that was the problem. It…lingered. As if it were buried so deep within her body only faint traces of it emanated from her skin. The baffling—impossible—scent dominating her cells was…
“Human?” His eyes popped open. Disbelief filed his voice to a cutting bark. “You’re human?”
Her quicksilver eyes, indigenous to her race, flashed at him like bolts of electricity across an overcast sky. “Very good, Dr. Gregory House.”
“Cut the sarca—” Surprise trumped his irritation for a moment. “What do you know about House?”
Sinéad snorted, edged several paces to the left, placing more space between. “I’m human,” she spat. “I don’t hunt anymore. I don’t battle. I don’t do anything but eat, sit on my ass and watch television.”
She whirled on her heel and headed toward a door on the other side of the living room. The beast within him roared an objection, demanded the man go after her, not allow her to leave his side. The brush of her ponytail against the small of her back waved at both man and beast like a taunting, dark-brown flag.
“What do you mean you don’t hunt?”
He sent the question telepathically, testing the limits of her humanity. With a true cruxim, he wouldn’t have a chance of slinking past her mental shields…
A solid sheet of silver slammed down seconds after the link connected. He grunted, the abrupt rebuff like a boomeranging slap.
“Get out of my head,” Sinéad snarled, moving lightning-fast for a mortal. Though the top of her head only grazed his shoulder, she still managed to push her face into his, her lip curled in a menacing sneer. If she’d still been a cruxim, he probably would’ve caught a flash of a wickedly sharp canine. “Try that again without my permission and you’ll be the newest soprano in the Vienna Boys’ Choir.”
Horrified and amused, Bastien held his hands up in the age-old gesture of surrender. Then lowered one to cover his crotch. “Sorry,” he apologized. When she continued to glower at him, he dipped his head in further acknowledgment of his trespass. “I’m sorry, really.”
Sinéad eased back a step, staring him down for several more seconds before resuming her path across the room. Bastien followed, surrendering to the need to keep her within his sight but maintaining a careful distance. “You don’t seem to have an issue with your mental shields.” She grunted and he pressed forward. “So if you don’t hunt anymore, what did I walk up on tonight? A date gone horribly awry?”
The flat of her hand slapped a white-painted door and it swung open. The door swayed like a pendulum behind her a second before he entered a large, cheery kitchen. Bright-yellow paint coated the walls and the sets of cabinets above a white, porcelain sink. The decorating was a hodge-podge of old and new. White-and-blue speckled granite counters flanked a huge stainless steel, top-of-the-line stove Paula Deen would have drooled over in jealousy. Even a microwave perched above the stove. A round blonde-wood table flanked by four lattice-backed chairs sat in the middle of the floor, inviting guests to come and dine on the food prepared in the amazing kitchen.
A dull thud followed by a metallic clatter dragged his attention back to the most incongruous chef he could have imagined. His eyebrows jacked toward his hairline as Sinéad shifted toward the industrial-sized refrigerator, granting him a full frontal view of…dinner?
>
“You eat this shit?” he demanded. Damn, he didn’t know which hurt worse—his offended sensibilities as a doctor or his stomach, which had been prepared for a meal including at least two of the basic food groups. Instead she slapped a can of chips—or crisps as Sinéad would call them in her light brogue—a cardboard box of puffed, sugared cereal and a jug of milk on the counter.
She slammed the refrigerator door and tossed him a glare over her shoulder before reaching up, opening a cabinet and withdrawing a bowl from a shelf.
“I’m new at the whole eating thing, if you remember,” she said, jerking a drawer open. The jangle of silverware filled the air as Sinéad curled her lip at him. “Besides, I don’t recall inviting your opinion of my diet or extending an invitation into my kitchen, for that matter.”
Every reminder of her humanity sliced at him, leaving tiny bleeding cuts on his soul. Yeah, he had no clue what she had done to him, what he’d become as a result. Yet he retained his power, his strength, his immortality. He was altered, true, but still a hippogryph. Yet Sinéad, born into a race of warriors, had been stripped of the characteristics and strengths that had defined her for the countless years of her existence.
Wasn’t this a kick in the nuts? For the first time since discovering what he’d become, he considered how Sinéad had been affected in this effed-up equation. Though anger and hurt still seethed in his gut, compassion sidled into his chest like a crafty thief. Both he and Sinéad were isolated, cut off from their people because their lives had collided and resulted in cataclysmic changes. A tiny section of his soul urged him to haul her into his arms, hold her close and offer the comfort she would undoubtedly reject. Probably with a well-aimed fist to his face. Good thing that compassionate part of him was small.
