by Pam Godwin
My teeth? I crashed my molars together, tried to override the strange pang with a deliberate one.
The dull throb persisted in my gums, pooling saliva in my mouth and making me crave things. Just a taste of his blood. A lick to quench this ungodly hunger.
“Dawn.” He grabbed my hand—the one I’d unknowingly wrapped around his wrist—and wrenched it away. “For the fuck of Eve, snap out of it!”
“Do not use my mother’s name like that.” I pressed the heels of my hands against my pounding head and slowly the ache in my gums receded.
“What did you see?”
“Nothing.” I lowered my hands and fixed my gaze on the wall.
“That wasn’t nothing.” He held his arms beneath the spray of water. “You were digging your nails in and licking your fucking lips.”
My mind ran in circles. What the hell had possessed me to touch him? It was beyond disturbing that I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I was certain I’d seen something in his veins earlier. Was it the sedative we’d been injected with? The Drone’s venom? Didn’t matter. I’d seen it twice and couldn’t see it now.
“I’m beginning to question your street cred.” He rubbed at a stubborn patch of blood on his arm. “How would the world react if they knew the fearless leader of the Resistance was mentally unstable?”
Fuck him. I didn’t give a shit what he or anyone else thought of me.
Water swirled in shades of rust down the drain between our feet. When the last of the blood washed away, only the faint dots of healing skin remained on his arms, and even those were vanishing before my eyes.
He shut off the faucet and shook out his hands on his way out of the bathroom. I lingered in the doorway as he lowered to the floor and dug into the piles of food with his fingers. There were no utensils, nothing that could’ve been used as a weapon.
“That could be poisoned.” I folded my arms across my chest and tried not to think about the brain matter stuck to the bottom of the cardboard.
“If our captor was going to poison us, he would’ve done it with the darts.”
“Did you see him? Or are you just assuming he’s male?”
He twisted the lid off an old, flimsy water bottle. “Just a guess.”
I’d made the same assumption. Less than twenty percent of the human population was female. A grim percentage considering there were about a hundred hybrids for every human. Half of the hybrids were female, but female hybrids didn’t leave their nests. Their sole purpose in life was to breed, breed, and breed again.
“You said you’ve been in this room a day or two.” I stared at his arresting profile. “Who carried me in here?”
“The door opened, and a dart shot through the crack.” He swallowed a gulp of water and nodded at the bedding. “You were there when I woke.”
“Is this the first time you’ve been fed?”
“The third time. The food always arrives the same way on a tray like this about every ten hours or so, by my estimation.”
“The hybrid children—?”
“They came the prior times but never attacked the gate like that. They wanted you.”
And Salem had killed them. To protect me?
My insides fluttered with that pull again, the demand to go to him so deep and confusing. I followed it out of curiosity, not trust, and sat with my injured leg stretched to the side, facing him with the cardboard tray between us.
“Where were you when you were captured?” My stomach growled at the intoxicating aroma of juicy seared meat.
“I was looking for shelter and stumbled upon a mansion. I assume we’re in the basement.” He lifted a hunk of fish to his mouth. “The dart hit me as soon as I stepped inside. What about you?”
“The same. I had a soldier with me, and he was…” My ribs squeezed. “He was decapitated by…I don’t know. It moved too fast. Do you think it was…?” I turned my head toward the door.
“A hybrid child?” He swallowed a mouthful of meat. “They’re deceptively fast and strong. Decapitation would require little effort.”
I shivered. “Have you killed one before today?”
“No.” He scooted the cardboard toward me until it bumped my leg. “You?”
“Nope.” I picked at the boneless fish, the meat falling apart as I lifted a pinch to my mouth.
The flavors exploded on my tongue, smoky and sweet with hints of lemon and ginger.
“You like it?” He watched me as if memorizing the bliss on my face.
“Yeah. We should probably savor it. Since you killed his pets, I doubt we’ll get another meal.”
“Maybe I did exactly what he wanted. He left the food after I killed them.” He gestured at the tray. “And bandages.”
“True.” I wondered if the bandages were meant for Salem or me. “Do you think he knows you heal quickly?”
Shrugging, he plucked a clump of rice from the pile and popped it in his mouth. “Want to know what I think?”
He flashed a fanged smile, one that suggested his thoughts had nothing to do with the conversation.
I narrowed my eyes. “If it has to do with the scent of my virginity or the color of my pussy hair, keep it to yourself.”
“For a virgin, you have a deliciously dirty mouth.”
“Yeah, well…” I scooped a bite of rice. “I was raised by three men.”
“One of your fathers is a Catholic priest.”
“Roark?” I choked on a starchy swallow. “If you heard him talk, you’d question how I turned out so reserved.” A pang twisted in my chest. I missed him so much. “Anyway, I grew up with men—soldiers—training, traveling, fighting side by side. There’s no room for girly sensitivities in a testosterone-filled army.”
“Yet you never gave it up to one of your soldiers.”
“No.”
I’d fantasized. Oh boy, did I ever. I’d bunked with men for years, watched them bathe in rivers and work out half-nude and drenched in sweat. It was torture on my hormones, but there wasn’t a human man alive who would touch me and risk the wrath of my fathers.
I stared at Salem’s soft lips. How many women had he kissed? Fucked? How many hearts had he broken? As dangerously attractive as he was, I bet he knew the female form with practiced intimacy.
At first glimpse, he didn’t look like the rugged barbarians who fought at my side. His clean-shaved jaw, aristocratic features, and neatly trimmed hair evoked images of a civilized coupling, one where he wooed and coaxed with refined patience. But his polished appearance was deceiving. The crass way he’d spoken to me, the barely restrained hunger in his eyes, and the unapologetic air of brutality he carried in his posture—all of it promised a hard, rigorous fucking. He would pin me in place with an unforgiving grip, drive his teeth into my flesh, and thrust with inglorious abandon.
My inner muscles tightened, and my nipples hardened beneath the bandana. Here, locked in a room with the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen, I didn’t have my fathers’ threats to protect me. Didn’t have the distractions of Resistance missions and battles. For the first time in my life, I was idle, weaponless, and hyper-aware of my gnawing sexual hunger.
As that realization dug in, I busied my trembling hands with the food, dividing the piles in half.
“What were you going to say?” I directed my gaze around the room, anywhere but at the mouth-watering man in front of me. “Do you have a theory on why we were captured?”
“I think our captor knows we’re both different.”
My reputation as the prophecy preceded me, but… “How would he have known you are different?”
“I’ve been in Canada for a few years.” He chewed a bite of fish, swallowed. “Maybe he was watching me. I have the teeth and speed of a hybrid, but I can control the hunger.” His crystal eyes found mine. “I think he locked us together to see what would happen.”
“Sex.” My voice was as bold as the fire flaming my face.
“Yes. Sex.” The solicitous sound of that word on his tongue produce
d a warmth of moisture between my legs.
If I were imprisoned with him for any length of time, it could happen. I could have sex with him and find out what all the talk was about. As far as attraction went, I’d never been so distractingly affected by a man. It wasn’t just his sculptured gladiatorial build, masculine bone structure, or enthralling eyes. It was the way he looked at me as if he’d just found something he’d been craving his entire life.
If that was the case, how lucky for him. And convenient.
“You live in Canada?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Near the southern border of Alberta.”
“That’s a really far walk.” Like fifteen-hundred-miles far. “What were you doing in the middle of nowhere Yukon?”
He draped an arm over a bent knee and leaned forward, his gaze predatory. “I was tracking someone.”
Ice slid down my spine. I didn’t need to ask. The answer pulled up the corners of his lips.
“Me.” I gritted my teeth.
“You.”
CHAPTER SIX
I wasn’t an expert on stalking, but over the years, I’d put some arrows in a few creepers—both hybrid and human. The pressing question wasn’t how Salem knew who I was or even why he was following me. Though I was terribly curious about the latter.
Forcing myself to remain seated on the floor, I looked him directly in the eyes. “How did you know where to find me?”
It wasn’t like I advertised my travel schedule. I strategized missions in the murky hush of abandoned buildings, temporary camps, or—on rare occasion—at home base in Hoover Dam. Those meetings included only my fathers or my most trusted soldiers in the Resistance.
“You crossed through my territory about a month ago.” Salem watched me from inches away, his eyes aglow with an unnatural inner light that swirled his irises like molten glass, wickedly hypnotic…
I blinked, breaking the spell. “You have a territory? Who the hell are you?”
“I’m no one.” He leaned back and picked at the dwindling pile of meat, chewing and swallowing as if to draw out his damn answer. “I made a place for myself. It’s out of the way. Fortified against intruders. Big enough to share with some friends who look out for me as I do for them.”
“What kind of friends? Humans? Hybrids?”
“Hybrids.”
“How?” I stood and tugged on what was left of my one-legged pants. “You can’t be friends with hybrids.”
“I can.” He leaned back against the wall, wearing an amused expression. “When they can’t impregnate or turn you, they’re really quite amicable.”
He couldn’t be turned into a hybrid. The implication of that was mind-boggling. My fathers and I couldn’t be turned because we carried my mother’s immunity. Over the years, Michio had experimented with our blood, trying to develop a vaccine. It seemed to work on the few humans he tested it on, but eventually their bodies rejected the antivenom and shut down. None survived.
I paced the concrete room, covering the length in just a few strides. “Obviously, you’re immune to the hybrid’s bite. I mean, you just got bitten and nothing happened. But you have hybrid friends? That’s just… I don’t understand. Do you hang out with them?”
“Sometimes.”
I rubbed my temples, struggling to imagine hybrids doing anything but raping and killing. “What do you do with them? Drink whiskey and trade world-domination tactics over a buffet of human throats?”
His eyes narrowed but maintained their lustrous glow. “Judgey isn’t a sexy look on you.”
“Judgey?” I stabbed a finger toward the door. “A hybrid child decapitated my friend! What do you think your hybrid buddies would do to me?”
He shrugged. “Maybe you should be more receptive to people that are different than you.”
“They’re not people!” Anger inflamed my face as I pointed at the scars on my throat. “Do you how I got these? And this? And this?” I gestured at each faded mark in turn, on my chest, midsection, and arms. My entire body was a tapestry of dental records. “Oh, and how about this one?” I positioned my injured thigh beneath his nose.
“Love bites?” A smile struggled on his lips until it split into a deep, rumbling laugh.
Heat raced over my skin and gathered between my legs. I couldn’t ignore the enticing, palpable, sinfully sexual way his laughter affected me. But I didn’t have to like it. “You know what? Fuck you.”
“Judgey and bitchy.” His expression sobered, his voice low and clipped. “Sit the fuck down and finish eating.”
“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest. My defiance felt a little bratty and a lot stupid, but I didn’t care. “You still haven’t explained your stalking.”
He nudged the tray of food toward me with his foot and reclined lower against the wall, eyes hooded. His posture reminded me of Jesse—the bored slouch, hands casually clasped across his stomach, expression slack. My dad did that whole devil-may-care thing whenever he wanted me to think he wasn’t paying attention. But I knew damn well he was always listening, watching.
I sat beside the tray and snatched the bandages and medical tape. The wound on my thigh wasn’t festering. No pus. A little pink at the edges, not the angry red of infection. Satisfied it was healing, I wrapped my leg.
“My friends…” Salem arched a brow as if waiting for me to interject.
I pulled my lips tight, refusing to give him the satisfaction of another argument.
“My friends spotted a redheaded human woman riding through Alberta.” He huffed a laugh. “I didn’t have to be a wizard to know it was you, Eve’s infamous daughter, leading her gang of human rebels into Canada. How many breeding facilities did you take out?”
We’d leveled all four of the known nests in Canada, but I wasn’t about to acknowledge my objectives or successes to him. He was a stranger, and that made him a threat. Not to mention the twin blades of pearly whites hidden behind his lips.
But he hasn’t bitten me.
I wanted to trust him. This wasn’t my usual oh-I-hope-he-doesn’t-kill-me predilection. I felt an all-encompassing desire to count on him, to foster that dependency into something profound and long-lasting. As fucked up as that was, my need to believe in him went beyond my ability to tamp it down.
There was no sparkly-eyed thralldom going on here. I wasn’t even looking at his eyes. No, I was staring at a panorama of airbrushed skin, flat pale nipples, and a rippling terrace of muscle with V-cut indentions that drew an arrow downward, down, lower… Yeah, right there, where my imagination ran wild. Thin cotton pants sat low on his hips and outlined just enough bulge to guarantee his tantalizing masculinity didn’t stop at the waistband.
A fever spread through me, firing up my pulse. Why was I so recklessly drawn to him? Out of the hundreds of men I’d known through my life, why Salem? Because he was spectacularly, unequivocally, drop-dead gorgeous? Was I really that shallow?
“I’ll take your refusal to answer my question,” he said, “as an admission of guilt.”
Wait. What was the question? Oh, right. “Are you saying you approve of the breeding facilities?”
“I don’t give a shit how hybrids multiply or at what length the Resistance will go to stop them. As long as the politics and the fighting stay the fuck away from me, I’m happy to spend the rest of my life in my little piece of utopia, isolated and oblivious.”
“Utopia? On this planet?” I gaped at him. “You’re caged in a…a…prison, captured by a psychopathic hybrid. Probably multiple hybrids, who targeted me because of my position in the Resistance. Who knows why you’re in here, but you are. That puts you balls-deep in this great big unhappy world, lover boy.”
“I like when you call me that.” He licked his smiling lips. “Especially when you’re talking about my balls.”
“You’re impossible.” I touched icy fingers to my warm neck, hoping it wasn’t beet red. “Did you listen to anything I said?”
“Yes, and if I hadn’t given in to my curiosity, I’d be
at home right now, with a luxurious bed to sleep in and a plethora of delectable food to eat. Comfortable and happy. But you decided to come to Canada and pass through my territory.” His head canted as he studied me with an intense expression. “I’ve heard a lot about you over the years. A lot of speculation about the mystical powers you inherited from Eve.”
All folklore and bullshit. The only things I inherited were her golden eyes and crazy stubbornosity. “So you decided to check out my powers for yourself? See what all the hoopla was about?”
“Yep.”
“You realize that without a small army you wouldn’t have been able to get within forty yards of me.” I would’ve put an arrow through his eye the moment he tried to approach, and that was if he managed to breach my camp. “Yet here you are, conveniently sequestered for some unforeseeable future with me. Lucky break. Too fucking lucky. I think you set this whole thing up.”
“You call this lucky?” He swept out an arm, indicating the single pallet of bedding, the cardboard tray of food, and the steel door. “You should think through your accusations before flinging them around.” He dragged a hand down his face. “You’re goddamn exhausting.”
“I’m exhausting?” Frustration flared through me. “Let’s see…you’ve flirted and postured and laughed and begged for sex—”
“I do not beg.”
“—and admitted you’re a stalker—”
“Dammit, woman. I’m not—”
“But not once have you proposed an escape plan.” I pursed my lips. “If you were truly captured and locked away from your beloved utopia, why are you so nonchalant?”
“Maybe because I spent the first fucking day wearing myself out trying to escape this fucking room.”
Oh.
Not good.
The gravity of the situation sank my stomach like a lead weight. If he couldn’t escape, I couldn’t escape. Whether he was a hybrid or a human with extraordinary physiology like my fathers, the simple fact was I needed him to be my reinforcement. If…when I managed to get out of here, I faced an unknown enemy on the other side of that door. Without my weapons. A wingman with fangs would be invaluable.
