Jared (30 page)

Though he didn’t want it to, the brush of her energy
calmed the violence of his. And suddenly he had a very good idea what her
attackers experienced. And he was willing to bet they’d never put two and two
together. Rai was about as far from a ditzy blonde as a woman could get. “Tell
me, did they even know you were the one making them impotent?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Who me? The scatterbrained,
emotional blonde? The weak and sickly vampire who was pretty much the laughingstock
of the collection?” She shook her head. “No. I’m completely harmless.”

Jared smiled and touched the grin lurking at the
corner of her mouth. “Almost makes a man pity the sick bastards.”

She leaned her head against his chest. She fit nicely
under his chin. “Then maybe you could let it go.”

“Not a chance in hell.” Her start made him shake his
head. She needed to understand something about him. “I’m not a tame little
teddy bear that you can wrap around your finger or trick into doing what you
want, Rai.”

“I don’t want you risking yourself for me.”

“I’m also not a child you need to protect. I’m a man,
and I take great exception to anyone taking advantage of you.”

“They hardly took advantage.”

He placed his thumb over the spot on her upper lip
where the memory of a cut lingered. He met her gaze, letting her see his fury,
his determination. “They’ll pay for touching you.”

Her response was another roll of her eyes. “Life is
too short to be so hung up on things that can’t be changed.”

“We’re vampires. We’ve got forever, and maybe you’re
right, the past can’t be changed, but parts of it sure can be corrected.”

Her smile dimmed. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

She really couldn’t give a damn about the Sanctuary
bastards being punished. In her mind, she still saw herself as living on
borrowed time and that made the past irrelevant. As if anyone hurting her could
ever be irrelevant to him. As if he’d ever let anyone who’d hurt her live. “I
can protect you, Rai.”

Her smile returned. “I certainly hope so.”

“You’ll be safe at the Circle J.” He rubbed gently at
the implant. “Slade will take care of this.”

“Not if we sit here playing twenty questions.”

She had a point. He lifted her arms over his head and
stepped back. She unwrapped her legs. He let her slide down his body, groaning
as the pleasure of the contact whipped though him. Her soft hiss of breath
spoke of her own desire. He helped her untangle the turtleneck and pull it down
over her head.

As she tugged the collar down off her face, she said,
“You’re a very dangerous man, Jared Johnson.”

“I try, sunbeam.” He turn her in the direction of her
stuff and slapped her butt smartly. “Now, go pack up your stuff and let’s get
moving. The night’s wasting.”

She shot him a grin over her shoulder that should have
made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Instead, it just made him want to hug
her for the pain it hid.

“You are so predictable.”

“Tell me that again tonight.”

She stopped mid-bend, giving him a delectable view of
her ass. His cock throbbed. The toss of her head was pure challenge, a blatant
cover for the stress that lingered beneath the false gaiety. “What do you have
planned for tonight?”

He pretended not to notice. The damage to their union
needed repair. If faking play created a bridge, he’d take it. “You’ll see when
we get to the Circle J.”

The arch of her brows was a pure feminine challenge.
“Is that supposed to be an incentive?”

He grabbed his shirt off the floor and shrugged into
it. “Definitely.”

JARED’S SUV was hidden in a copse of trees about ten
miles down the road. In the faint moonlight, it was very hard to see even
though Raisa knew where it was supposed to be from Jared’s approach. He walked
up to an empty space between two big trees. He grabbed at something and yanked.
Camouflage netting separated from the surrounding bush. Glows of energy
immediately appeared.

Holy heck. Raisa blinked. “What is that?”

She hurried over to the mysterious netting, awe and
excitement surging through her at the chance to examine the strange material.
Anything that messed with the properties of energy fascinated her.

“Something Slade came up with to cut down on car
theft,” Jared said, gathering up the edges of the portion he held.

She reached for the netting where it rested on the
hood and then stopped, glancing at Jared. “May I?”

He smiled and waved her on. “Go ahead.”

Raisa ran her hand under an edge. The energy glow
disappeared from around her fingers and the upper part of her palm. The part
that was covered by the heavy netting.

“You might want to move your hand.”

Jared gave another tug. The netting began to slide
down the windshield. “I’ll help.”

“Get back.”

Faster than she could blink, he yanked her out of the
way of the tumbling mesh. She fell, slipping out of his grasp. A portion of the
netting fell on her foot. It might as well have been the SUV. She couldn’t
move. There was a strange sucking quality to the weight. Before she was done
studying it, Jared pulled her clear. The pressure on her joints was immense.

“Are you okay?” His hands were all over her, probing,
searching.

She didn’t take her eyes off the netting. She pushed
his hands away. “I’m fine.”

She rolled up onto her knees and crawled the two feet
to the strange mesh. It looked about as substantial as gossamer. She glanced
over at Jared as he squatted beside her. “It shouldn’t be so heavy.”

“Yeah.” Jared grabbed the corner and slid the rest off
the vehicle. It hit the ground with a solid thump. “Slade’s not real happy with
that. If you want to get his goat, just ask him how his mesh issue is going.”

She lifted the edge. It took all her strength. “What
makes it so heavy?”

“It has something to do with the way it absorbs
energy.”

He didn’t make any effort to roll it up. She hazarded
a guess as to why. “You can’t lift it, can you?”

He shrugged and pushed his Stetson back. “Not yet. I
will be able to in a second though. It releases the energy pretty quickly once
contact is broken.”

“Doesn’t it absorb energy from the ground?”

“No. It’s not tuned to natural energy. Just
mechanical.”

She touched it again. So it was tunable. She
experimented with a light probe. It felt strange and discordant until she
realized that was because she was used to fielding energy that emitted rather
than drew. Once she made the adjustment she could sense the pattern.

Jared stood and took a step forward. “That should do
it.”

He took the edge next to her and tossed it over to the
other side. The fabric floated through the air. She got to her feet and grabbed
the other corner. She could lift it with one finger. She gripped the edge and
brought it up to Jared who held the opposite side.

“This is amazing!”

“I told you Slade was impressive.”

She could hear the pride in his voice. He took the
edges and folded them lengthwise before rolling it up. “You love your brothers
very much, don’t you?”

“They’re tolerable.” As dry as the tone was she could
hear the love. Men! Always having to keep things cool. He glanced over at her,
those hazel eyes sharpening as he asked, “How about you? Did you have any
siblings you were close to?”

“There was such a gap between my sister and I. She was
only two when I came to work for Nicholai. So no, there wasn’t a chance to
really form a relationship.”

“I don’t think I could have done this without my
brothers.”

“You mean live as a vampire?”

He nodded, walking over to the truck. She followed as
he continued. “It’s pretty much always been the Johnsons against the world.”

He unlocked the hatch and tossed the netting into what
looked like a terra-cotta box. Picking up the lid from the floor, he settled it
on the box and then strapped it down.

“What keeps it from draining the energy from the car?”

“The box.”

The innocuous looking container sat on what looked to
be a rubber bed, no doubt to keep it from being tossed around on the rough
mountain roads. If the energy coming off the mesh was intriguing, the energy
coming off the box was positively fascinating. She reached for it. He caught
her hand. “You can study it later.”

The hurt caught her by surprise. She’d forgotten the
distrust between them, the time in the cave having lulled her into a false
sense of security.

Jared stepped back, taking her with him. He closed the
hatch. “We need to get going.”

The comment jerked her head up. Was there danger? She
scanned, detecting nothing. “I thought we were safe here.”

As far as she could tell, nothing stirred.

“There’s no such thing as safe anymore.” He opened the
passenger door. “Your coach awaits.”

Just for the heck of it she asked, “What makes you
think that I want to go with you?”

“You don’t?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

He pointed to a pass way up the mountain. “The next
Renegade compound is that way, through there.”

“Over the mountain?”

“Exactly.”

She glared at him as if the location of the next
compound was completely his fault. “I hate up.”

“So you told me the first time we met.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“You whined the whole way.”

“I did not!”

“Not out loud, but you sure did project.”

She grabbed the handle. “You can’t hold me responsible
for what you hear when you snoop.” Halfway up to the interior, his hand cupped
her butt and gave her a boost, not pulling away immediately, lingering to give
the sensitive flesh a little squeeze.

“But I can hold you responsible for insisting I can’t
block you.”

“I didn’t do that.” She gasped, settling into the
leather seat.

He smiled at her, one hand on the door frame, the
other on the edge of the open door. “The heck you didn’t. You have a real
problem keeping out of my head.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say fast enough. The
door closed with a decisive click that implied the final word. She grabbed for
her seat belt. No way was he having the final word. The problem was, by the
time he got settled in his own seat, she still couldn’t come up with a
response. Dammit. Mostly because it was true, but that didn’t mean she liked
it.

His grin as he slipped the key in the ignition was knowing.

“Oh, shut up.”

“I didn’t say a thing.”

“You were thinking it.”

He raised his eyebrow. “How do you know that?”

“Not because I was in your mind.”

His hand cupped her chin, turning her face toward him.
“I don’t mind you in my mind, sunbeam. Unlike you, I don’t have any secrets,
and there’s always the upside.”

“Upside?”

His eyes gleamed and his grin turned as wolfish as a
vampires could get. “You’ve got damn sexy energy.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She threw up her hands,
bizarrely embarrassed. “Energy is not sexy. It’s just . . . energy.”

He actually laughed. “Tell that to me next time you
stroke it, soft and sweet, along my cock.”

“I’m . . . I’m . . .” Good grief, what could she say?
That she was sorry? That would just sound ridiculous because there probably
wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t enjoy that. Another thought hit her. A
horrifying one. She wasn’t always in control of her energy. “Do I do that to .
. . everyone?”

As soon as the words left her mouth she knew she
didn’t. She didn’t know how, she just knew.

“No.” The glance Jared cut her from the corner of his
eye was razor sharp. “That pleasure you reserve just for me.”

“If I ever slipped?”

His hand tightened on the wheel before relaxing. The
powerful SUV surged onto the road with a low growl that barely covered the
laugh that rumbled in his throat. “That’s not a worry. I keep a very close eye
on your energy.”

RAISA grabbed the hand grip above the door as Jared
turned the SUV onto what appeared to be little more than a cow path. On either
side of the vehicle, along the edges of the woods, she could see and sense
flickers of movement.

“Jared?”

“You see the wolves?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry, they’re McClarens.”

“And that means . . . ?”

“They’re friends.”

“You have an alliance with more than one were pack?”

“The McClarens are damn near kin. With Ian’s pack we
have a reciprocal tolerance. As long as no one brings up my younger brother’s
name, we get along well enough.”