Despite all his growling and threats, his arrogance, I liked being next to him. He made me feel safe. It was a bizarre emotion. I was never safe.
I closed my eyes. That seemed like the only reasonable way out of the situation. If I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t drool over him.
“So you didn’t want to see me hurt?” he said. His voice was deceptively smooth and soft, the deep, throaty, sly purr of a giant cat who wanted something. Admitting that I took his well-being into consideration might have been a fatal mistake.
“I didn’t want you to have to kill Derek.”
“And if he had gone loup?”
“I would have taken care of it.”
“How exactly were you planning on pushing Jim aside? He was the highest alpha. The duty was his.”
“I pulled rank,” I told him. “I declared that since you had accepted the Order’s assistance, I outranked everybody.”
He laughed. “And they believed you?”
“Yep. I also glared menacingly for added effect. Unfortunately, I can’t make my eyes glow the way yours do.”
“Like this?” He breathed in my ear.
My eyes snapped open. He stood inches away, anchored on the tub floor, his arms leaning on the tub wall on each side of me. His eyes were molten gold, but it wasn’t the hard, lethal glow of an alpha stare. This gold was warm and enticing, touched with a hint of longing.
“Don’t make me break this bottle over your head,” I whispered.
“You won’t.” He grinned. “You don’t want to see me hurt.”
We lunged for each other at the same time and collided, crazy with need and starving for a taste. Warnings and alarms wailed in my mind, but I shut them down. Screw it. I wanted him.
He found my mouth. The thrust of his tongue against mine made my head spin. He tasted like heaven. I kissed him back, nipping, licking, melting against him. It felt so good . . . His lips traced a fiery line from my mouth to the corner of my jaw and down my neck. My whole body sang in warm liquid triumph. His voice was a ragged whisper in my ear. “Only if you want to . . . Say no, and I’ll stop.”
“No,” I whispered to see if he would do it.
Curran pulled back. His eyes were pure need, raw and barely under control. He swallowed. “Okay.”
It was the most erotic thing I had ever seen. I reached for him and slid my hand up his chest, feeling the taut muscle.
He caught my hand and kissed my palm gently. Heated, tightly controlled want shone in his eyes. I pulled my fingers free, pushed from the wall, and kissed his throat just under the jaw. This was bliss. There was no hope for me.
He growled, closing his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Pulling on Death’s whiskers,” I murmured, letting my tongue play over his skin, rough with stubble. He smelled divine, clean and male. My hands slid up his biceps. His muscles tensed under the light pressure of my fingers. He was trying very, very hard to stand still and I almost laughed. All those times when he’d called me “baby” . . . Revenge was sweet.
“Is that a yes or a no?” he asked.
I slid against him and nipped his bottom lip.
“I’ll take it as a yes.” The steel muscles of his arms flexed under my hands. He grabbed me, hoisted me up onto him, and kissed me, thrusting into my mouth with his tongue in a hot, slick rhythm, greedy and eager. I threw my arms around his neck. His right hand grasped my hair; his left cupped my butt and pushed me closer against him, his erection a hard, hot length across my lap.
Finally—
“Let me in,” Derek growled at the door.
Go away.
The guard said something. Curran’s hand found my breast and caressed the nipple, sending an electric shock through my skin, threatening to melt me . . .
“Yes,” Derek snarled. “I’m a member of the damn team. Ask them.”
“Curran,” I whispered. “Curran!”
He snarled and kept going. The door swung open.
I hit him on the back of the neck. He submerged. Help. I’ve drowned the Beast Lord.
Derek strode to the edge of the tub. Curran surfaced at the other wall. His face wore a snarl. “What is it?”
“The Reaper woman brought another box. This one had a hand in it. Not Livie’s, doesn’t smell like her, but a woman’s hand. Smells about two days old, maybe more. They must’ve iced it.”
I closed my eyes and let the reality sink in. Somewhere a woman was missing a hand. Her body was probably eaten. Revulsion squirmed through me, followed by indignant rage.
“Turn the hand over to the Red Guard. There’s nothing we can do about it until tomorrow,” Curran said.
Derek left.
Curran watched me from the other end of the tub, the water separating us like a battlefield. His eyes were still glowing like molten honey backlit from within. I had to get a grip. To him it was a contest of wills. He said he’d have me, I said he wouldn’t, and he wanted to win at any cost.
“You missed your chance. I’m not coming anywhere near you, so you might as well turn your headlights off.”
He moved toward me.
“No.” I’d sunk a lot of steel into that “no.” He stopped.
“You wanted me,” he said.
Lying would only give him greater satisfaction. I had to keep him on the other end of the tub or I would throw myself at him again. “Yes, I did.”
“What happened?”
“I remembered who I am and who you are.”
“And who am I? Enlighten me.”
“You’re the man who likes to play games and hates losing. And I’m the idiot who keeps forgetting that. Turn around, so I can get out, please.” And he almost had me, too.
He sprawled against the tub wall in a leisurely fashion, showing absolutely no indication of moving.
“Fine.” Let’s get this over with. I crouched on the bench and rose quickly. The water came to my midthigh.
A rough noise emanated from him. It sounded almost like a groan.
I climbed out of the tub, grabbed my towel, wrapped it around myself, and left. No more tubs for me. Not for a long, long time.
CHAPTER 29
I AWOKE EARLY. TOO EARLY—THE CLOCK ON THE wall said three thirty. I lay with my eyes open for a few minutes and finally rose, swiped Slayer, and snuck out of the bedroom to the outer door. Derek perched on a chair by the doorway. He looked at me with yellow eyes.
“Where are the Guards?” I murmured.
He shrugged. “Must be a shift change. They sat by the door for the last six hours and then got up and left.”
“How long have they been gone?”
“Three minutes.”
Could be a shift change. I doubted the Reapers would try anything funny.
The curse of the Wolf Diamond guaranteed they would try to win it. Mart’s goal was the gem, since he had to have it to attack the Pack. The rakshasas didn’t seem to like even odds. They preferred to have an advantage, and without the Wolf Diamond, the shapeshifters would wipe the floor with them.
I felt reasonably confident about tomorrow’s fights. True, Mart’s speed was ungodly and their magic was nothing to spit at, but our team was well-balanced and the shapeshifters fought like an oiled machine. Even when the Reapers entered the Pit as a team, they broke the fights into individual duels.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
“Where are you going?”
I told him the truth. “I want to see the Pit.”
He nodded.
I snuck through the hallway and headed to the Pit. I just wanted to run my hand through the sand and settle my memories, then I would be able to sleep. The fastest way to the sand lay through the gym. I just had to cross it and I’d come out next to the Gold Gate.