Gabe gazed at himself, his brows lowered severely over his eyes as he assessed the changes. Though blood clearly smudged his chin, there were no bruises or cuts.
What the hell was going on?
“What do you mean you didn’t get the job done? It was a simple task. Kill the fucking marshal. Where are the others I hired to help you?” Jimmy sneered coolly, his dull brown eyes pinning the larger Sanguen with a hard look.
The Sanguen had two angry purple rings around his eyes and a white strip across the bridge of his nose. “Probably in fucking Incog’s meat locker. That marshal is one mean son of a bitch. He sliced up the others. Never seen nothing like it before.” He shook his head and threw back the small shot glass of blood, lightly laced with human blood. He felt the burn spread slowly through his body, welcoming the slight buzz in his head. It would block out the sight of that blood spraying all over the parked cars as that fucking marshal hacked up his friends.
“The marshal killed them all?” Jimmy’s face was turning a dark red. “How can one fucking person kill five people?”
The Sanguen raised one shoulder. “Damn crossbreed bitch wouldn’t go down.”
Jimmy paced through the thick carpeting in his office. “You shot her up with the drug I gave you?”
“Hell yeah. She slowed down but it didn’t fucking stop her like you said it would. She fucking hamstrung Riordan. He bled out later. Bitch.”
Jimmy cursed vividly. His buyer wanted the marshal dead. Too much was on the line to fail in this. The marshal had to die. Why his buyer requested the young girls to bleed was beyond his understanding. Adult females would have a much stronger effect. Perhaps he just needed a sample of something better than the weak blood of a sniveling brat.
He peered at his image in the mirror behind his desk as an idea began to form. One finger traced down the scar on his cheek thoughtfully. He owed that damn crossbreed bitch. Since she’d nearly busted him two years ago she’d been a constant thorn in his side, seeming to be everywhere. He’d lost much of his business with the good House boys that lived in the city. They didn’t want to get caught by the bitch and sent back to their House doyens for punishment. There was nothing he’d like better than to put her out of his misery. For good.
He’d initially thought to kill the marshal and sit back and let the crossbreed bitch wither and die but perhaps he could do himself one better.
A small smile curved his thin lips.
“Since your friends are gone I guess that means you get all of the cash if you finish the job.”
The Sanguen turned, his eyes slightly glazed from the small amount of human blood he’d given him. Just a small amount. Too much would make the bastard useless to him.
“Interested?”
“Hell yeah, I owe that bitch.”
You and me both.
Jimmy smiled at his reflection in the mirror.
“There’s another grand in it for you.”
The Sanguen’s unnaturally burning eyes were intent on him. The sorry bastard would agree to anything he wanted.
“Whad I gotta do?” he slurred.
After walking over to the wall, Jimmy slid a panel back and reached inside to retrieve a vial. He fingered the crimson-filled tube for a moment before sliding the panel shut and turning back.
“First go home and take a bath. Use vinegar.” His finger slid slowly over the scar again, his dull brown eyes glittered with malice. “And then do exactly as I tell you.”
KEL OPENED HER eyes to Gabe’s face looming over her with a dark, angry expression. She sighed and closed her eyes again. Maybe if she just pretended she was still unconscious he’d give up and go away. But his heat just continued to simmer above her, that spicy scent of his tickling her nose. It awakened parts of her that just needed to stay asleep right now because she just didn’t have the energy to fight them. Finally, she decided she’d rather just get the lecture over with instead of being tortured by that tantalizing scent of him.
Either way fate must think she obviously hadn’t suffered enough tonight.
“You were dying. Why didn’t you say something?”
With a groan she opened her eyes and attempted to sit up. She was so not having this conversation from the flat of her back. As she raised herself on her elbows she waited for the spinning. It didn’t come. She was feeling much steadier. One glance told her she was nearly through the bag of blood. There were no windows so she wasn’t quite sure what time it was. Was this her first or second bag? How long had she been out?
“You make it sound all melodramatic.” Kel croaked and cleared her throat. The cotton balls were back. And the scent of him was driving her to distraction. “It wasn’t like that. I know my own limitations.”
A snort sounded from across the lab, and Kel narrowed her eyes on Dr. Mahoney, who was hunched over a microscope with her back to them. Okay, maybe the doc had patched her up a few times and there was a fairly good reason they kept several units of her blood stocked. The doc could damn well keep that info to herself.
Gabe’s fierce green eyes never wavered. He focused intently on her and she forced herself to meet his stare again. Those green eyes bore into her, the golden center seething with his anger. It did something to her body that she was reluctant to accept. If she fell into what was there, accepted this bond he claimed was forged between them, what would happen to her?
Gabe was a damn marshal for the Ferrar House. She could lay several of the worst moments of her life at their door. She’d accepted what happened to her. It couldn’t be changed. She was content with who she’d become because of it. She was fine without him.
Too bad her body had other opinions.
She threw her legs over the edge of the cot and sat up. Running her fingers through the short strands of her hair, she sighed in resignation. “Can I at least get some water if you’re going to grill me?”
She could use an entire water cooler and about twenty hours of sleep right now but would satisfy herself with what she was going to get – the paper cup of water Gabe offered her and what was obviously going to escalate into an argument.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d lost too much blood?”
Rolling her eyes up to look into his face she put the cup to her lips to hide the smile. He towered over her with his fists clenched around the handles of his blades. He had a tendency to touch them when he was irritated. Kel thought the habit was a bit sexy. His shoulder-length blond hair was tousled as though he’d repeatedly run his hands through it.
“At what point would have been a good time? Before or after you laid me out on the hood of that car?” Kel said blandly, ignoring Dr. Mahoney’s cough. “Does the hood of sleek sports cars have special significance to your people or is that just a personal preference?” She looked down into the empty paper cup and swallowed hard. God, she was so thirsty. Gabe’s anger burned her from the inside out, and she jerked her head up to glare at him. He was creeping around inside her again like he belonged there, like he had a right to know what lay in the deepest core of her just because they'd shared blood. Or because she thought he had the best ass and the sexiest set of…blades.
“If you do not tell me, how can I properly care for you?”
“Properly care for me? What, am a pet goldfish or something?” Kel shot another glance up at the unit of blood hanging from the hook above her head.
Infuse already!
“Besides, I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it since I was twelve, no thanks to…anybody.” It had been on her lips to say “your people” and even though she’d stopped herself the words still rang between them.
He pulled his hand through his hair again and paced away from her. Those broad shoulders hunched forward in agitation and her eyes were drawn to the play of muscles. His scent seemed to surround her and her gums throbbed, an ache curling low in her stomach. She licked her lips and swallowed hard as she looked down into the empty cup again. Her reaction to him was getting worse and he wasn’t even aroused. He was just damn irritated and yet – still – she wanted to throw him down on the cold tile floor and lose herself in his heat.
With a frustrated sound she looked up at the blood hanging from the hook and gave it a little shake. She needed some air. There was a tingling in her gums that made her want to drag her claws over the vinyl top of the cot in frustration. She wanted him in every way possible. She wanted to feel his hard body pressing into her again but this time she wanted to taste the rich tang of his blood sliding across her tongue. She wanted it with a ferocity that was almost frightening in its intensity.
He swiveled and his gaze traveled slowly over her, the thin flare of his nostrils quivering as he scented her. His eyes devoured her but just as suddenly he shot a glance to the unit of blood running in a thin tube to her arm. His lips tightened, and he spun away from her again.
“Blood loss retards your ability to heal yourself,” Gabe recited, as though to focus himself.
“Sudden extreme blood loss,” Dr. Mahoney corrected, never looking up from her microscope.
“You obviously need to eat often.” His eyes darted a glance to her. “You are always hungry. What happens if you don’t get food often?”
“I get cranky,” Kel snapped, giving the IV pole an angry shake.
“Her body will begin to break down other cellular tissue for fuel. Although I have not noted such phenomena specifically in Kel” – Dr. Mahoney continued, casting a frown at her agitated patient who was rattling the tubing leading up to the mostly deflated bag of blood – “but there are cases where extreme hunger has initiated the feral, the beast that dwells within Guardians.”
Kel rolled her eyes. “I’m not likely to go hunting for small game in the city park when there’s a hot dog vendor on nearly every corner.”
“Does she have any irritation from the sun?”
“Not that I have observed. Any sun damage would be healed quickly, in any case. Perhaps mild photosensitivity may be an issue.”
Gabe nodded as though that were very important to know.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Kel snapped in exasperation. They were discussing her like she was a brand-new puppy. Rattling the IV pole again in agitation she responded in a mocking tone. “She wears sunglasses and can even put them on herself.”
Gabe glared at her, but Dr. Mahoney seemed to be mildly amused by her surliness. Kel wanted to snarl at them both. The doctor peeled off her latex gloves and tossed them in a waste can before coming over to deftly cinch the IV tubing. She pressed a piece of gauze over the needle before sliding it out. Kel bent her arm to apply pressure on the IV site.
“Yes, that is more like it,” Dr. Mahoney crowed as she completely peeled away a slightly bloodied bandage from Kel’s ribs. Looking down at herself she nodded. Instead of the oozing wound she’d last seen, there was a fresh pink scar. Within the next hour it would be completely gone. Perhaps then Gabe would get off her ass.
When she looked up Gabe was still staring intently at her. “You are angry. I can understand that. You resent my interference.” The green of his eyes was deep and intense. “I need to be able to protect you. It is a need I cannot control. I’m sorry if it causes you distress.”
“It causes me nuts,” Kel shot back, then sighed. “Listen, Ferrar, things will just go better for us if you let me take care of myself. If I do for myself then I don’t have to worry about…things not getting done. It’s safer.”
IT WAS AS close as she would get to admitting her fears. It was the closest he’d come thus far to the reason those shadows darkened her eyes when she looked at him. She used sarcasm and wit to hide a deep vulnerability that she resented and somehow blamed on his family. Despite her bitterness toward his House, she obviously feared depending too much on him, which told him that she wanted to.
He could work with that.
For now.
Despite her hostility he still felt the need to care for her, protect her. Her blood merged with his, flowing through his body, feeding all his organs, infusing every cell in his body with her. She was a part of him. She was his. There was nothing she could do to reverse it, to deny it. Soon her hunger for him would become too much for her to resist. The thirst for his blood would overwhelm her, and she would need to bleed him.
It was one of the reasons Sanguen males did not feed from the same female too many times. It sometimes signaled the female’s body that a bond was forthcoming. It could bring on the hunger in females.
Females took blood from their mates only and just for the initial bond. It served a dual purpose. His blood would bond to hers to serve as a warning to other males that she was taken and could no longer be blooded, and it also would make her body receptive to his seed. He was definitely not going to relate that information to her. At least not right away. He somehow suspected that particular truth would send her running.
He couldn’t risk losing her. Not at this delicate stage of their bonding process.
He needed her, needed her in a way that she didn’t quite need him. Not yet.
Gabe studied her. Her incredibly rich dark eyes betrayed a deep, carefully guarded vulnerability and a healthy amount of hostility. She was beautiful and dangerous. She had the delicate features of a Sanguen female and the core strength and instincts of a Guardian. The combination was heady – a lure he never imagined would have such an intense effect on him. Yet, beneath her sarcasm and cynicism, he sensed a vulnerability that called to him on a completely masculine level.
For a long moment they just looked at each other, and he could feel her closing herself off. Anytime he tried to merge mentally with her, she seemed to hold herself back from him, tolerant of the probe but cautious of revealing too much. While she was unconscious he’d been able to feel a deeper connection with her and he’d felt a yawning shadow in her that seethed with betrayal and pain. He knew she’d grown up in a Triumvirate home and that she believed his father, the Ferrar House doyen, was somehow responsible.
As though sensing the direction of his thoughts, she flinched slightly and plastered on the sarcastic little smile that she usually wore. Giving a last dab at the inside of her elbow, she tossed the gauze in the waste can and turned toward Dr. Mahoney.