That meant no Mating Heat.
He grinned.
That meant Miss Gypsy Rum McQuade definitely wasn’t his mate, no matter Dane’s suggestion that his hunger for her indicated it.
Becoming addicted to her was a definite threat. But he could handle an addiction. He could walk away from it. Just as he had walked away from several of them while being tested in the labs for any weakness.
And that made her fair game, because he wanted nothing more than to fuck them both into exhaustion.
CHAPTER 3
Pulling into the parking lot behind the store an hour later, Gypsy watched in surprise as her sister’s short-wheelbase four-by-four black pickup pulled in beside her.
Sliding from the Jeep, she set the roof into operation again, waiting as Kandy slid from her truck, closed the door and locked the vehicle before meeting her at the front of the Jeep.
“You’re out late.” Gypsy lifted her brows suggestively as she watched her younger sister.
Kandy was even more delicate than Gypsy. At five four, she sometimes looked far too tiny to even be a McQuade.
“Look who’s talking,” Kandy laughed back a bit nervously, her turquoise eyes gleaming back at Gypsy as they moved toward the downstairs apartment her sister had moved into the year before.
“Not so late for me,” Gypsy murmured as Kandy unlocked the door, then followed her sister into the cool interior.
Flipping on the lights, Kandy instantly dispelled the shadows that filled the roomy, inviting openness of the apartment.
As in Gypsy’s upstairs apartment, the door opened into a wide entryway that flowed into the open kitchen, dining area and living room. The rooms were divided by a long counter, inset with a chef’s dream of a stove and oven.
Fall colors and dark wood gave the apartment an inviting warmth that Gypsy’s didn’t have, while the scent of various baked sweets still filled the interior. Her sister could make a cake that would melt in the mouth and send the senses into orgasmic bliss.
Yet Gypsy knew, despite her parents’ dreams, it wasn’t a life Kandy really wanted for herself.
Unfortunately, Gypsy didn’t think her sister knew what she did want instead.
“Did you check in with your guard dogs tonight?” Kandy set her purse on a table just inside the door as she slid her keys into it and glanced back at Gypsy. “Commander Breaker and his sidekick were convinced you’d been kidnapped, had run off to Fiji with a lover or were lying dead in the desert somewhere when they couldn’t find you.”
Gypsy rolled her eyes as she strode to the bar and sat down on one of the high stools as Kandy moved to the fridge.
“They finally caught up with me at the Crooked Toe,” she drawled. “What is with those two anyway?”
Kandy paused as she set a covered pie dish on the counter and stared back at her sister in surprised amusement. “You haven’t figured it out yet?”
The knowingness of her tone had Gypsy grimacing at her sister’s knowledge that Rule Breaker’s intent was no more than to get her into his bed.
“Don’t start on me, Kandy,” Gypsy ordered her, pointing an accusing finger at her with a fierce glare. “We’re not going there tonight.”
“He wants your body,” Kandy announced, her lashes lowering as she gave her sister a quick wink. “Really bad.”
“He can want on.” She rolled her eyes before folding her arms on the counter and watching as her sister dished up apple pie, set it in the warmer, then moved to make coffee.
Kandy didn’t ask if she wanted it, but then, it was rare for Gypsy to visit with her like this too.
Watching her sister as she moved about the kitchen, Gypsy felt the guilt and grief that filled her whenever she spent much time with the other girl.
Kandy had been ten when Mark had died. She had never known the brother Gypsy had known. The smart, incredibly funny, and always intensely protective young man who had given his sister her freedom while standing by carefully to ensure no one dared to hurt her as she tried out her teenage wings.
Her sister had seen the danger of slipping out, the parties, and the truth that monsters really did exist in the world. And it changed her life almost as much as it had changed the lives of Gypsy, their parents, his best friend, Jason, and Mark’s former fiancée, Thea Lacey.
All of their lives had been scarred because of Gypsy’s carelessness.
They ate the pie and Gypsy drank her coffee as the tension slowly began to build between them, just as it always did.
“Time for me to go to bed,” Gypsy announced as she slid back her saucer and cup and rose from the stool before Kandy’s nervous tension ended up affecting her further. “Catch you in the morning.”
Throwing her sister a quick smile, she turned to head for the door.
“You didn’t ask me why I was out so late tonight, Gypsy.” Kandy’s observation had her pausing and turning back to her.
Blue-green eyes watched her, the delicate, almost elfin features far too serious and, Gypsy realized, maturing when she hadn’t been looking.
Just because she hadn’t questioned Kandy’s whereabouts didn’t mean she wasn’t well aware of where her sister had been. Like Mark, Gypsy took her sister’s safety seriously. Unlike Mark, she didn’t let Kandy know she did; that way, if anyone, especially the Council’s Breeds, was looking for a weakness and found Kandy, they’d be convinced that the younger girl couldn’t force Gypsy into giving her life for her.
Even though she knew she would do for Kandy just as Mark had done for her.
Die for her.
“You’re nineteen, Kandy,” she finally answered, swallowing against the sudden tightness in her throat. “I guess I thought you’d tell me if you wanted me to know.”
A flash of hurt gleamed in the younger girl’s eyes before she turned away.
“That’s how it works, then?” Kandy picked up the dishcloth on the counter beside her, more to have something to hold on to than to actually clean the counter, Gypsy thought.
“I guess.” She had no idea what was going on now. Her sister rarely, hell, had actually never questioned her about anything other than how her day was going.
“Then if I want to know anything about you, I should just wait for you to think to tell me because it’s really none of my business, right?” Kandy questioned her softly, though Gypsy could see a gleam of determination in Kandy’s eyes that didn’t make sense.
“I don’t want to fight with you tonight, Kandy,” Gypsy breathed out roughly, reaching back to release the elastic band holding her hair back. “I’m really tired, and I just want to—”
“Go home and stare into the dark until dawn like you did while you were at home?” Kandy questioned suddenly, the quickness of the question catching her off guard, reminding her of why she stayed out so late most nights.
Gypsy flinched.
“Exactly. Good night.” She moved to the door.
“Do you know what, Gypsy?” Kandy’s harsh question stopped her as she opened the door and started through it.
“I’m sure I don’t want to know,” Gypsy sighed, keeping her back to her sister, aching at the bitterness churning inside her now.
“I didn’t just lose my brother that night in the desert, I lost my entire family,” Kandy whispered, the words, the grief in her sister’s voice driving a brutal, sharp-edged stake straight into Gypsy’s soul. “I became an orphan, and none of you ever realized it. Or maybe you just fucking didn’t care.”
Shock held her for long seconds, stealing her breath before she swung around to face her sister. But she wasn’t there. Disappearing into her bedroom on the other side of the room, her door closing quietly, Kandy had evidently said all she had to say.
Gypsy shook her head.
Kandy was wrong.