Close. So very close. The unknown male was on the move, but—
Jesus fucking Christ. He spotted the bastard.
Pushing a wheelchair and dressed like an orderly, the male paused, slowing to a stop in the middle of the hallway. Wick stopped walking and widened his stance, blocking the end of the corridor as he sized up the stranger. Tall. Strong, but on the lean side. A Dragonkind male who carried himself with the confidence of a warrior. But odder still, the male sported a spider tattoo on the side of his neck and burgundy streaks in his hair.
Dark-blue eyes met his.
Wick snarled.
The warrior’s mouth curved. The stud piercing his eyebrow winked as he dipped his chin and stared at him beneath the curve of his brows. The look was pure challenge, a primal “fuck you” that spoke volumes.
“Heads-up, sunshine.” His gaze fixed on Wick, the asshole bent his head, bringing attention to the person seated in the wheelchair. “The party’s getting started.”
Shifting in her seat, his passenger blinked.
Wick’s focus flipped to her and—
“Fucking hell,” he growled, recognition instantaneous. “Jamison.”
The fucker smirked. “Pretty, isn’t she, Nightfury?”
Right, on both counts. Though how the male knew he was a member of the Nightfury pack was a puzzle. One best left for another time as Wick turned his attention to the first declaration. Which was… Jesus… a total understatement. The female was more than just pretty. She was beautiful. Incredible. So powerful her connection to the Meridian pulsed in the air around her.
Unexpected in every regard, considering her injuries.
Some of the bruises he could see. Others he couldn’t. But even battered by circumstance, her energy glowed, lighting her up from the inside out.
As his reaction to her went cataclysmic, Wick sucked in a quick breath. High-energy, his ass. She was a Meridian-infused inferno, burning bright, the deep oranges and reds of her aura flickering like firelight. Urgency thrummed through him, making him want to get closer. Reach out. Maybe even… he swallowed a mouthful of saliva… touch her to see if she zapped him with energy shards. The resulting jolt would no doubt be one for the record books and—
Wick’s brows collided.
Holy fuck. What the hell was his problem? Reach out and touch her? God be merciful, he’d lost his mind. Nothing else explained the sudden urge. Or the undeniable tug he felt when he looked at her. Something about her tempted him to a dangerous degree, shaking his foundation, waking his dragon half, cutting through to shred his well-used rule book. The one that housed the no-touch, no-talk, make-very-little-eye-contact edict by which he lived.
Unable to help himself, he looked her over anyway. Not that he wanted to—really he didn’t—but he needed the intel. Assessing her injuries would determine the best way forward and…
So what?
He enjoyed the way she looked. Big deal. But as sleepy blue eyes met his and his dragon growled, liking what it saw, Wick abandoned his excuses. He wanted her. For the first time in his life, he wanted a female. The admission damned him. His dragon didn’t care, fixating on her as though she were manna sent from the sky. She blinked, a slow up and down. Wick frowned. Something about her response was all wrong. She was too sluggish. The realization reset his internal barometer in a hurry. Dilated pupils. Lax muscles. Blank expression. His gaze cut to the IV plugged into her arm. Comprehension struck like a sledgehammer.
Drugged.
The male holding her prisoner had cranked up the volume. Now Jamison sat in murky mental shadows. Compliant in the face of danger. Relaxed when she should be fighting. A sitting duck, vulnerable in every sense of the word.
“Venom…”
Primed for a fight, Venom growled in answer. “How dead do you want him?”
“Alive enough to talk.”
A good strategy considering the male’s interference. Something about the warrior didn’t sit right. The scent he wore—his magical vibe—was all wrong… decidedly un-roguelike. So, yeah. No doubt about it. Figuring out what the asshole wanted—the why behind the hostage taking—needed doing before he took the bastard down for touching Jamison.
“Half-dead it is,” Venom said, tone full of anticipation. “You deal with her.”
He intended to.
With his dragon half riveted on her, no other option existed. Primal need had taken hold. Now compulsion ruled, rousing instinct, shoving intellect and reason out of the way. No time to think or ask why. The how was more important. He needed to span the distance between them to become her shield. ASAP. Before the clock ticked down and time ran out. Before the tatted bastard used her as leverage. Before the fighting started, and the female he’d sworn to protect got caught in the crossfire.
J. J. couldn’t believe her eyes. Both were playing tricks on her, making her see things that couldn’t be there. Impossible things. Beautiful things. Things like oh, say… a sexy as sin dark-haired stranger. Squinting hard, she leaned forward in the wheelchair. Her get-a-little-closer idea didn’t help clarify matters. Her vision was shot, wavering in and out of focus, shading everything in an ethereal light… making him glow around the edges.
Otherworldly. He must be an alien or something. Nothing else explained the glow. Or the fact his eyes shimmered in the dim light. The golden glimmer drew her deep, held her aloft in the mind-fog and…
Huh. Weird, but she recognized him somehow, from somewhere, for some reason.
Which didn’t make a lick of sense.
The idea that she knew him was, well… far-fetched. Inaccurate. Way off base. Especially since J. J. knew she’d never met him. A girl didn’t forget a guy who looked like that. One encounter would sear him into a woman’s brain. And that kind of imprint? It never faded or got lost in mental debris. It endured for all time. Logic told her so, gathering evidence, refuting fact, and yet… she couldn’t shake the feeling. He felt too familiar, safe in the same way a bunker would while a tornado raged, ripping apart the landscape overhead.
Raising her hand, J. J. rubbed her eye. Bad idea. The movement turned her head. Her mind sloshed, sliding sideways inside her skull. As clear thinking went by the wayside, she frowned at Mr. Gorgeous. Where, oh where, had she seen him before? Was he another for the moment friend or something better? Both excellent questions. Neither of which she could answer. A shame, really, ’cause… yup. The answers seemed important, but as J. J. leaned toward the blunter side of dull, she struggled to care.
Another bad decision no doubt.
The thought tickled her funny bone. Weird, she knew, but… God. For some reason that was funny.
Unable to stop herself, she huffed, the sound half-laugh, half-snort. The wheelchair creaked beneath her. Rubber tires rolled forward, and J. J. forced herself to refocus. Hmm, lucky her. He was still there. Boots planted at the opposite end of the corridor, Mr. Gorgeous looked good enough to eat. She ran her gaze over him again and sighed. Wow… just, well, wow. Power personified, he exuded a lethal amount of confidence. Big. Strong. And badass. Too handsome for words, never mind reality.
Ah, and there it was… bingo, a conclusion that fit.
He wasn’t real. Her drug-addled mind was in overdrive. The result? She’d conjured the golden-eyed god out of thin air.
“Shoo,” she whispered, hoping the sound of her voice would make the apparition disappear. She craved clarity. Wanted a shot at regaining some semblance of control. Which meant the dark stranger—vision extraordinaire—needed to go… and go quickly. No way could she think straight with him standing there, looking beautiful, cluttering up her visual field. “Time for you to go.”