Illicit

by Pryce, Madeline

  Every bone in her body turned liquid. She crumbled, time speeding up again. Her ass hit the ground, the impact snapping her slack jaws together and pitching her backward toward the smooth stones lining the clearing. He dropped to the hard ground in a slide, ice and rock scraping his knees. Thrusting out his hand, he caught the back of her head millimeters from impact. Not trusting she was okay, he pulled her into his lap.

  He cradled her against his chest, looked down at her ashen face. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. He pushed her tangled hair from her forehead, pressed trembling fingers against her neck. The steady drum of her heartbeat was the best thing he’d ever heard.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Peter asked, looking to his uncle for answers. The leopard inside raged, demanded to know why his mate lay injured.

  “Exhaustion; healing takes a lot out of her. The bigger the wound, the more energy it takes to heal. She’ll be okay in a few hours, she just needs to sleep.”

  “She does this often?” he asked, dumbfounded.

  The youngest of the Pard spoke up, and since Peter didn’t recognize her, he figured she must have been born after he’d left town. She cast eyes the identical shade to Mark’s toward the ground. She didn’t even attempt to look him in the eye; none of them did. “A couple of times a week, at the clinic she and Greg run. They help all the shifters who come in needing medical attention. I work at the reception, and Mom, she arranges the transportation. We’re the only clinic around for...well, I don’t know, maybe we’re the only one.”

  “Greg founded this...this clinic?”

  “After you left town,” James answered.

  How fucking selfless of him to put Eva’s life in jeopardy so she could heal complete strangers. Peter nodded, hatred festering a hole in his stomach. He cast his gaze to the leopard in front of him. The hole in his neck was gone, the only sign of the injury the bloodstained fur and saturated ground.

  She’d fucking healed him.

  As he watched, the cat opened his eyes, looked around with a dazed expression. Mark staggered onto all fours, fell promptly to the side as if drunk. David cooed softly against his ear. “Mark, you’re okay. Eva healed you, just calm down and you’ll be able to shift.”

  The feline shook his head, as if to clear the cobwebs. Peter had seen enough. He lifted to his feet, Eva still unconscious in his arms.

  “I’m going to get Eva home.” He looked to David. “Once you get Mark settled, you and,” he pointed to the girl, “what is your name?”

  “Becca.”

  “You and Becca head over to Eva’s house. I want to talk to both of you.”

  David nodded. “Yes, Alpha.”

  James stepped in front of him, fixated his gaze on Eva. “Perhaps it would better if I take Eva home.”

  Did the old man think he was going to hurt her? A growl echoed and Peter held Eva a little tighter in his arms. His. “She is my mate.”

  Nodding, James backed away. “I’ll see to the Pard, then.”

  “You do that.”

  Melody Grayson, Mark’s mother, stepped forward. While everyone else had aged, she appeared to be untouched by time. Her blonde hair still hung around her shoulders in waves, and her blue, blue eyes still held warmth. Once upon a time, she’d been his surrogate mother.

  “Give me the girl and at least put your pants on before you go hiking through the forest,” she said.

  He clenched his jaw, looked from Eva to the woman in front of him. She had a point, however reluctant he was to admit it. Stepping forward, he set Eva in Melody’s arms, her weight no more of a burden to his fellow shifter than to him. He dressed quickly, hadn’t even finished pulling on his sweater before he reached for Eva.

  Melody met his eyes for a moment. “Don’t make me regret handing her over to you.”

  The boy in him swallowed at the motherly warning. The Alpha hissed, snatched his mate and stepped away. “Take care of your boy.”

  Peter turned his back to the Pard and started the familiar, two-mile hike through the forest. In his arms, his angel slept. Images of the way he had treated her haunted him. He saw her thrust up in the bed, arms bound. He heard the sound of their wet flesh slapping together as he pounded into her as hard as he could. Her sweet blood still lingered on his tongue.

  Fucking Christ, he was going straight to hell.

  Chapter Nine

  Peter carried Eva through the dark house. He didn’t bother with lights. Beneath his feet, bleeding and raw from his shoeless two-mile hike, the hardwood floor stung with every step. He welcomed the throb, using the pain as a distraction. He crossed through the large open-style kitchen into the living room, past his father’s study, and then up the staircase.

  His attempt to see without seeing failed.

  Nothing was like he remembered. Mission style furniture, wood, sleek and simple, replaced overstuffed couches and chairs. The walls he’d dented during his adolescent rages were repaired, the damage hidden beneath a soothing green paint. Not one fist-sized hole remained. The evidence of his ongoing battle with his father erased.

  In the darkness, silver frames glinted, catching his eye. Photos were everywhere. They hung on the walls, stood sentry along the gray stone mantel place, and lined mahogany bookshelves. He couldn’t look away. Each picture captured Eva at different stages of her life. She’d been an adorable child with big brown eyes and curly pigtails. During her teen years, her hair had changed numerous times, straight, short, dyed, all of which she pulled off with an air of sophistication that didn’t belong to a sixteen-year-old girl.

  His throat caught when he found the more recent photographs, the dozen climbing the staircase. These ones depicted her true beauty. He paused, adjusted Eva in his arms and stared at one in particular.

  The setting sun shone at Eva’s back and glistened off bare shoulders exposed in her white sundress. Her beaming smile and sparking eyes radiated a happiness he could almost reach out and touch. Behind her, soaring mountains, crystal-blue lakes and evergreen forests fought to be the center of attention. Nothing competed with Eva’s beauty. Nothing even came close.

  He tore his gaze from the photo, kept moving. This was no longer his home and these certainly were not his family pictures. Nose to the air, he followed Eva’s scent until he found her bedroom. On either side of her open door, two additional rooms stood. One had been Peter’s, the other his father’s. Now, both doors were firmly shut, the finality of it a strange reflection on his life.

  Inside her bedroom, he found himself once again stopping. He looked around, raised an eyebrow at the decadent four-poster bed positioned in the middle of the room. Carved into the posts, flowing angels wrapped upward, melting into the sheer, gossamer canopy. The woodwork matched a dresser, its top overflowing with more photos. Greg. The Pard. Eva and James in front of Lost Isle on a sunny day. There were no group photos. Nothing to indicate a life outside of Greg and James. Gently, he set Eva in the middle of her mattress. She slid from his arms, limp and yielding, much as she’d been after he’d fucked her within an inch of her life.

  He tugged off her boots and socks, unbuttoned her jacket. Hesitating for only a moment, he stripped off the rest of her wet, bloody clothes. The only thing he left on, the only item not ruined, was her red lace panties.

  Looking down at her, his heart sped. Even though blood stained her skin and dirt smudged her cheek, she was beautiful. Chilled air brought goose bumps to her exposed skin, her body begging for his warmth. Full breasts beckoned, the ripe, berry-colored buds tight from the cold. Tearing his gaze away, he ran a hand down his face.

  He spun toward her dresser, and his eyes locked onto a photo of her and Greg. Mistake. Arms wrapped around each other, Eva’s lips pressed against his father’s bearded face. They’d been a family. Something stabbed at his chest, deep, where he’d only go if forced, where his anger toward his father still lived.

  Before he could analyze his reaction, he crossed the hall to the bathroom and grabbed a washcloth. The least he could
do was clean her up. From the bite on her neck, red painted her throat and smeared across her chest. Carefully, and as objectively as possible for a perverted asshole who’d in one day turned her life upside down, he washed the blood from her skin. When he was through, he pulled off his sweater. Doing his best not to grope her, he brought the fabric over her head, threaded her arms through the sleeves. Passed out cold, she never stirred, never uttered a word of protest or thanks.

  He stepped back, shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and admired her. Even though her curls were tangled and his sweater covered her from neck to below her knees, she still managed to look sexy. She rolled onto her side with a soft moan. His heart beat faster. Damn, had she caught him staring? No. Eyes still closed, she brought her knees to her chest, curling in on herself, burrowing deep into his scent. A shiver trembled through her, left her quaking in the middle of the too-big bed.

  He took two steps forward, pressed his knee to the mattress, ready to climb in and warm her. His cock hardened at the prospect of sliding behind her, of trailing his hand up her thigh and pulling her ass against his hardness. He stopped moving. What the fuck was he doing?

  Go to her, the leopard snarled, unhappy when Peter abruptly backed away.

  He’d seen the look in Eva’s eyes. He knew how believable he’d been in the clearing. She hated him, just as he knew she would. He pulled a comforter from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around her body. He lingered, smoothing the hair from her face. Although the swelling had gone down on her cheek, the bruise from this morning still colored her skin in sick greens and yellows.

  He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers gently. She wouldn’t remember come morning. Her mouth parted on a soft sigh. Before he could pull away, she ran her hand up his back, settling her palm at his nape. He froze. The one-second hesitation cost him. She spread her fingers through his hair, cupped the back of his head. She uttered a sexy rasp of sound, “Peter,” and then flicked her tongue across his lip.

  His stomach dipped, tightened, memory supplying the exact sensation of how her tongue felt doing the same thing to his cock. Drawn like a God damn suicidal moth to an electric zapper, he leaned into her. He cupped the marred side of her face and kissed her the way she deserved. Slow. Tender. Soft. When his heart raced out of control and his dick was hard as steel, he broke free.

  “Um,” she said sleepily, eyes still closed, mouth glistening. “I hate you.”

  A soft chuckle left him. “Yeah, well, I hate you too. Sleep.”

  “Okay.” And there she went, back to dreamland where soft kisses and fluttering stomachs were fantasies.

  With a shake of his head, he walked out of her bedroom. In the hall, his gaze darted to the door on the left and then the right. He probably shouldn’t. Did anyway. He went left, hand pausing on the brass knob he’d twisted a million times growing up. Hesitation warred with curiosity. Had his father boxed up all his crap? Or had he simply thrown it away? He turned the knob. Found it locked. His jaw tensed. Applying a bit more pressure, he forced the door forward, breaking the flimsy lock without much effort.

  He stopped breathing, couldn’t process what his eyes saw. Didn’t even know if he wanted to.

  His room was exactly the way he’d left it, right down to the silver boom box on the floor surrounded by cracked cassette tape cases. His desk still lived under the window. The only change was the layer of dust on his now-ancient computer with its massive monitor and floppy disk drive. Dull, battered hockey skates still hung from the closet doorknob. The twin-sized bed he’d slept in was still rumpled and half dressed to show the blue mattress beneath.

  Then there were the walls.

  Still painted light blue, and still ruined by the several holes ripping the drywall apart. Next to his bed, the large letters he’d written in dripping blood still read “I HATE YOU,” their color dulled to light brown by age.

  It was as if his father had locked the door and forgotten.

  “You shouldn’t be in here,” Eva said from behind him.

  He didn’t turn to look at her, couldn’t, not with the emotions rioting inside of him. “Get back in bed.”

  The single loose floorboard creaked at her approach. “Greg came in here almost every night.”

  His breath hitched, and he balled his fists as if somehow that would help get rid of what she’d just told him. “I said, get back in bed.”

  She spoke over him, ignoring his direct order. “He’d wait until I was asleep. But the floorboard creaks and it used to wake me up. I thought this was just another office, or storage space. We never talked about the closed rooms or the unmarked boxes in the attic. When I asked about them, he got angry with me. It was the only thing I did that ever made him mad.”

  She brushed past him, her scent curling into the room. Instead of following, he pressed his shoulder into the door jamb and watched her with avid eyes. She moved to his dresser, the first piece of furniture he’d ever made. With trembling hands, Eva picked up the lone picture frame sitting on the smooth, hard surface. He smelled her tears before he saw them. She turned to him, glistening tracks rolling over her cheeks.

  He didn’t deserve her tears.

  As if she’d read his mind, Eva swiped the moisture away and studied the picture she held. “You look just like her.”

  He shrugged, didn’t trust himself to speak.

  “He never told me about her either.” She fingered the photo, and he knew Eva traced the shiny dark strands of his mother’s ebony hair. How many times had he done the same thing growing up?

  Swallowing, she looked up. “Is it true what you said in the truck, she was killed when you were five?”

  “Yeah,” his voice cracked.

  “Your eyes are identical. I’d wondered why yours were green and everyone else’s so obviously blue. I thought it was a Pard thing, thought you weren’t one of them.”

  “I’ve always been different from them, always been an outsider in the Pard. My mother shifted into a black panther. She hated the snow. Hated the sunless winters. Hated Alaska but loved my father.” Forgotten childhood memories rushed to the surface.

  Eva stepped toward him, her knees buckling on the second step. He rushed forward, caught her around the waist before she fell. He tightened his hold, felt his anger rising to a pitch he couldn’t control. “I told you to go back to bed,” he growled.

  He ripped the frame from her hand, threw it onto his bed and swept her into his arms. Despite his obvious anger, she wrapped her arms around his neck, clutching him close. She pressed her nose into his neck, an intimacy he was too raw not to accept. Hot tears soaked his skin, fought fire with fire until the only thing he felt was regret. He was such an asshole.

  “You left when I came, he should have told me. Why didn’t he tell me?” she whispered through the tears.

  He crossed into her bedroom, set her on the bed and stepped away before he did something stupid. Like licking the moisture from her cheeks, laying her back and sliding slowly inside her as he had in that fucking shower.

  “He never told you because he was ashamed of me.” Not waiting for a response, not wanting one, he turned and stalked from the room.

  He headed straight to the front door, taking two stairs at time in his quest to get there quicker. Only pussies ran. Peter crossed the several feet to the door, each step a jab of needles. All the while, he told himself fast walking wasn’t a run if you’re feet never left the ground.

  Coward.

  The cold was a welcome relief against Eva’s hot tears wetting his skin and he drew breath after breath of icy air. He pressed back against the closed door to the house, the wood freeze-burning exposed flesh. Puffs of breath streamed from his mouth and nose. What was wrong with him? He flexed his fingers, felt claws straining for freedom. His skin itched, the tickle of fur just under the dermis an annoyance, one he wasn’t giving in to.

  Take her, the leopard demanded. Now.

  “We aren't going back in there.”

&nb
sp; He paced back and forth in front of the arched-stone garage for thirty minutes before a battered pickup pulled into the driveway. Beside David, Becca sat in the passenger seat. Peter stood still and then straightened. The leopards got out of the truck, cast their gazes toward the ground and joined him.

  “Becca, go inside and make sure Eva stays in bed. If she needs anything, take care of it,” Peter said without preamble.

  The teen looked up, quickly lowered her gaze. “Yes, Alpha.” And then, she was gone.

  Wind gusted, tearing at his skin, and the first flakes of snow swirled down. The moment the ice hit his skin, it melted. Addressing David, he said, “I need you to shadow Eva. She goes nowhere without you.”

  The blond lifted his head, confusion clear in his blue eyes. He scooped a hand through his short strands, shook off the gathering snow. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you. I didn’t stutter.”

  A blush crept over his face, colored his pale skin. Peter knew the shade wasn’t from embarrassment. The first bitter tides of anger dulled the scents of winter, and he smiled. “Whoever killed Greg has his eye on Eva. She isn’t safe.”

  “James…” David suggested.

  Peter shook his head, cut the leopard off mid-sentence. “The old man wants to fuck her. Half this God damned town wants to sink their dicks into her.”

  The knot of David’s Adam apple bobbed. “What makes you think I don’t want to…screw her?”

  Rage struck fast. He grabbed David’s lightweight flannel shirt, fisted the fabric and pulled the other man up until they were nose to nose. “First, don’t talk about screwing my mate. Second, you’re batting for the wrong team. It was bullshit what you pulled out there tonight, jumping in during a challenge, but I get it. You wanted to protect Mark. You’re a strong fighter and you’ve got balls of steel, I admire that, but don’t do it again. Now, are you going to follow your Alpha’s orders or do I need to kick your ass again?”