by Cynthia Eden
But her hands rose and pushed against his chest. She shook her head at him, and Tanner’s gut clenched.
That damn vamp was right. And Tanner had been wrong. Marna didn’t want to have sex with him. She was still angry.
Some women don’t want animals.
His breath seemed cold in his chest. Strange, when the water was so warm.
“This time,” Marna told him, and her voice had become a husky rumble that skated right over his flesh, “it’s my way.”
Uh, her way? He’d take her any way.
The water poured over them, and she gave him a smile of pure sin. Not an angel.
Then she stepped out of the shower. Naked, body glistening, she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
Compared to her, he was big, rough, and scarred.
But her eyes were hot as they tracked over him, and Marna licked her lips as she stared at his erection. “If you want me,” she said, “come and get me.”
Just the kind of game that the beast inside liked. Nothing was better than a hunt for your mate.
Mate.
The word had slipped through his mind again, but as she disappeared through the open doorway, he knew that was exactly what she was.
Did she realize it?
Tanner yanked the shower knob and turned off the blasting water. The drip, drip, drip of the water followed him as he followed her, nice and slow. No need to rush. He’d get her in his bed.
Sooner, not later.
Tanner didn’t bother drying off. What was the point? She had him so hot steam was rising from his own skin.
The bedroom was dark. The bed was empty. His gaze scanned to the left. The right—
“Get in bed,” Marna told him.
His eyebrows rose. Since when was Marna into giving orders?
But he’d keep playing, for now.
He climbed into the bed. Still naked, she crept from the shadows. Did she know how well he could see in the dark? She should. The lady seemed to know all the secrets that shifters carried.
Marna stared down at him; then she climbed onto the bed. The mattress dipped beneath her weight.
Her hands pressed against his legs. “I’ve been wondering . . .” Her breath blew lightly over his aroused flesh. “Just how you’d taste.”
Then she put her mouth on him, and Tanner couldn’t think about anything else.
Hot. Wet.
She kissed him. Sucked his flesh. Took him deep into her mouth.
Too damn good.
His flesh stretched even more. His balls tightened. Her mouth and tongue were hesitant at first, as if she was unsure, but she was so sensual and her mouth felt fucking great.
His hips arched toward her. He wanted to bury his hands in her hair and push her to a faster, harder rhythm. Instead, his claws sank into the mattress on either side of him. He wouldn’t push her.
Pleasure.
He’d take what she gave him—and they’d both burn with pleasure.
His claws dug deeper. Her tongue licked over him.
Tanner’s eyes squeezed closed. Her mouth . . . Marna was one fast learner. But he didn’t want this to be just about him. “Stop,” he growled out, “before I come.”
Another lick. Another silken caress of lips and tongue, but then she pulled back. His eyes opened.
“I like the way you taste,” she whispered.
He lunged off the bed. Tumbled her back onto the mattress. In one move, Tanner parted her legs and drove into her in a thrust so deep they both shuddered.
Not enough.
He withdrew. Thrust again. Her legs wrapped around him, and her hips arched. Harder. Faster. Their pants filled the air. His orgasm pushed down on him. So close.
Her first. The thought that he was the first man to know her sweet flesh still staggered him. The first, the only.
He pushed into her again. Again. She was wet and hot, and he took her breast into his mouth. Licked. Sucked.
She gasped his name. Her sex clenched around him. Almost there. Almost.
He drove into her once more. Felt the climax that shook her whole body. When she opened her mouth to cry out, he caught the sound with his own lips.
Then he came. So long and hard that his body felt hollowed out and empty when he was done. Pleasure. So intense that it left him wondering . . .
How the hell did I go without her for so long?
Nothing had ever been this good. No one else ever would be.
He was so fucked.
His claws had retracted. He lifted his hand and brushed back the hair from her cheek. Her lashes rose as she stared at him. Hell, he had to be crushing her. Tanner eased his cock from her silken sheath, hating to take his body from hers, and it was right then that he realized—
No protection.
His heart stopped. Shifters didn’t generally have to worry about condoms. They couldn’t catch the diseases humans spread and as for pregnancy—well, most shifters wanted to be able to have kids. Only they couldn’t have a child with just anyone. Their partner had to be a perfect genetic match-up. One strong enough to carry a shifter child.
One strong enough to be a . . . mate.
Like Marna was.
“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t look at her eyes. He pulled her back up to the head of the bed. Arranged her on the pillows and made sure to tuck the covers around her.
But she laughed. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about. Trust me, Tanner, I think I was the rough one, not you.” Her little nails had dug into his back, and her legs had squeezed so perfectly.
He liked it rough.
He shook his head. She didn’t understand. “I didn’t . . . use anything.” Not any of the times he’d been with her.
Fucking blind. That’s what he’d been. Desperate. Crazy or—
His jaw clenched. Or maybe he’d been trying to hedge his bets. Had he done that? Unconsciously? Had the beast wanted a chance to take her—all of her?
“Use anything?” she repeated and Tanner forced himself to meet her stare. Her eyes widened. “You mean—”
“I mean you could be pregnant right now.” Angels could get pregnant, just like any other fertile being. Since his mother had been an angel, Brandt had certainly been proof of that.
It didn’t happen often, so maybe they’d have luck on their side, but it could happen. “I’ll get condoms,” he said. “We’ll be safe from now on.” He wouldn’t make this mistake again.
She simply stared back at him. Uh, yeah, why wasn’t she freaking out on him? He’d just told her she could have a shifter hybrid in her belly right then. And she was just . . . staring at him.
“A child?” She bit her lower lip and tilted her head to the right. “I’ve never thought about having someone of my own like that.”
Well, it wasn’t like the hypothetical kid would just be hers. He’d never walk away from his child. “I wouldn’t be like my father.” His voice came out rough, gravelly. Tanner cleared his throat and tried again. “I promise, if something . . . if we have . . .” Could he screw this up more? Probably not. He exhaled. “I would never hurt him.” She had to believe that. He would never hurt any child he had.
Voice soft, she said, “I never thought you would.”
What?
“You’ve never hurt me. Why would you hurt your baby?”
Because he was the product of one screwed-up family tree. Because he was violent inside. Dangerous. “I wouldn’t.” He’d sooner cut off his own hands than ever lay one on a child. No matter what else happened in this world, he’d never hurt an innocent.
He could still hear his own cries in his nightmares. It had taken the child he’d been a while to learn that the tears only made his father hit more. Hit harder.
He took another deep breath and just pulled in more of her scent. Marna would never hurt a kid. She’d love the child. Protect him. Always keep him safe.
What the hell? Was he starting to picture her carrying his kid now? “It might not happen.” He rolled away from h
er. Headed to the desk of drawers near the wall and found an extra pair of jeans inside. Kali, that doctor with the dark brown eyes and sad smile, had told him that she kept extra clothes upstairs for her patients.
He’d count himself as a patient then.
He glanced back at Marna. “I’ll be careful from here on out.” Shouldn’t she be yelling at him? Telling him how he’d messed things up for her? It wasn’t like she could actually want to be saddled with his kid.
Hybrids weren’t exactly the easiest of the supernaturals to raise. They both knew how the last shifter and angel mix had turned out. Brandt had been more devil than savior. “You can yell if you want,” he offered cautiously.
Her brows rose. “Why?”
Because I fucked up. Because I didn’t take good enough care of you. “Because I put you at risk! I could have gotten you pregnant.”
She shrugged. Shrugged.
She might just make him lose his mind.
Then she said, “I think I’d like to have a baby.” Her words almost broke him.
Careful now, he asked, “A baby . . . or my baby?” Because if any other dumbass came around her . . .
She might want a child with another angel. A pureblood. And Bastion had sure been sniffing around her.
Bastion could screw off.
Tanner took a nice, long count to five. The red faded from his vision. He could actually stay sane. He could. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yours.”
The panther roared inside, pride filling him. Tanner advanced toward her. “Marna, I—”
Footsteps raced up the stairs. Heavy. Hard. Tanner’s head whipped up and around to the door just as a fist pounded on the wood. “Kali needs you downstairs, shifter!” Riley yelled. “Now!”
Marna jumped from the bed. Her back was to Tanner, and he glimpsed her wounds. He frowned a moment. The red scars looked like they’d risen higher, and when he’d touched them before, the ridges had actually felt more solid, too. He hadn’t really thought much about it then because he’d been too lost in the best orgasm of his life, but—
They look different. They felt different.
“Your brother’s dying!” Riley shouted.
He forgot about her scars and leapt for the door.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Marna raced behind Tanner as he hurried down the stairs. When he’d yanked open the bedroom door, she’d immediately conjured her clothes. Being naked in front of Riley wasn’t an option she was in the mood to consider.
She only wanted to be naked with Tanner. For Tanner.
He leapt over the last few stairs and darted toward the back room. Marna wasn’t sure what she expected—maybe a makeshift operating room like Cody had once had at his place in the swamp—but inside the tiny room, she only saw a bed. A wall of surgical instruments. And a line of refrigerators that hummed.
She took a breath and caught the heavy scent of blood.
“Usually vamps are the only ones who come to see Kali.” Riley was at her side. “We figured out fast that we needed one of our own to help us when things got desperate.”
The small woman with the dark eyes and fragile beauty—she was a vamp? The lady’s hands were currently covered in blood because she had her fingers shoved over Cody’s bleeding wounds.
“The sutures didn’t hold. The bleeding’s too intense!” The woman—Kali—glanced up, and Marna clearly saw the fear on her face.
Cody’s eyes were open. They looked faded, tired, but his gaze found Tanner’s. “I-it’s . . . okay.” His words were a bare whisper.
“The hell it is!” Tanner was at his side instantly. “We can fix you, Cody. We can fix you. Just hold on and—”
Cody’s body started to shake.
Marna stepped forward. “Give him my blood.” It had worked before, with Tanner. It would work again.
Kali looked at her. “I tried giving him a transfusion already. It didn’t—”
“You didn’t try my blood.” Marna held out her arm. “Take my blood. Give it to him.”
Kali frowned at her. The woman managed to look angry, desperate, and hopeful all at once. “And your blood’s special because—”
“It just fuckin’ is,” was Riley’s response as he took what actually looked like a protective stride toward Marna. “Now stop asking questions. Take the blood, and give it to the demon.”
“N-no,” Cody’s whisper.
Marna looked over at him. Tanner had put his hands on his brother’s chest, and she knew he was trying to stop the blood. Trying, but it wasn’t going to work. His fingers were just getting soaked in blood.
Kali reached for a needle and syringe. “You the right type?”
Humans had types. Angels didn’t. “I’m the only type you need.”
Kali’s brow rose, but she didn’t ask any more questions. She just said, “Then I’m gonna rig this thing because we don’t have time to waste. Your veins to his, and if he dies . . .” Her breath rushed out. “Then at least we tried.”
Marna wondered if the others could smell the light scent of flowers that had drifted into the room. Death was close.
“N-no.” Cody began to thrash on the narrow bed. “Don’t w-want . . .”
“You want to live, don’t you?” Tanner snapped at him. “Then you let us help you.”
Cody shook his head. “W-won’t take her . . . bl-blood. ”
Kali hesitated.
Tanner swallowed and stared down at his brother. Just looking at Tanner’s face hurt Marna then, and she rubbed at the ache in her chest. An ache that seemed centered right over her heart.
Voice quiet, Tanner said, “If you don’t take her blood, you’ll die. Are you really gonna make me watch you die?”
Lines of pain bracketed Cody’s mouth. “If . . . t-take it . . .” Every word seemed to bring him more agony, but he kept struggling to speak. “Go back to . . . wh-what I was . . . l-like . . .”
“You’ll never be that way again! I promise. I can help you. I can—”
“A-addic . . . ted . . .” was Cody’s hushed whisper. “L-lost.”
Marna lifted her hands and stared down at the faint, blue outline of the veins at her wrists. Someone who didn’t want her blood? Now that was a change.
“I’m not letting you die.” Tanner was adamant. Fierce. The way she liked him.
Blood dripped from Cody’s lips. “Pl . . . please . . .” His whisper was almost painful to hear. “One t-time . . . let mme . . . do . . .” His body jerked. “S-something . . . right.”
“You’ve always done the right thing!” Tanner yelled back. Yells and whispers. So opposite, but both so desperate. So sad. “You were the good one. The one who had a chance. We both know I’m screwed up. That I’ve got the bastard’s darkness in me.”
Marna frowned. Tanner didn’t have darkness inside of him. He was good. Kind.
Kali and Riley just watched the brothers and didn’t speak, and Marna found she had no words to say, either.
Another tremor shook Cody. “Please . . .”
Tanner’s hands were still on his chest. “What the hell am I supposed to do without you?”
“L-love . . . her.”
The words were so garbled Marna wasn’t sure if she’d heard correctly. Her gaze dropped to Cody’s body. His stomach . . . how much pain he must feel. How much suffering. Why hadn’t a death angel come for him yet? If Cody wasn’t going to take her blood, why did he have to suffer?
“Why?” The whisper was hers, but then she noticed . . .
Something was happening to Tanner’s hands. A faint glow appeared around his fingers. Frowning, she stepped closer. She’d never seen anything like that before, and in her very long lifetime, she thought for sure that she’d seen everything. “Tanner?”
“What the hell?” Riley’s voice. He’d seen it, too.
Kali’s gaze flew back to her patient. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to make this bastard live! If he doesn’t take the blood, he’ll—”
&
nbsp; “No.” Marna cut through his words. She was almost close enough to touch Tanner now. Only she was afraid to touch Tanner. That light . . . “What are you doing with your hands?”
Tanner stared at her, face tense; then he looked down at his hands, resting on Cody’s wounds. At the fingers with their faint white light.
“You’re a healer.” Kali’s voice was relieved. “Jeez, man, you should have said that right away. I thought you were a shifter—”
“I am.” He was still staring at his glowing fingertips.
Cody wasn’t jerking any longer. His eyes had closed. Were his wounds trying to close, too? It looked like less blood was pouring from him, but maybe she was just hoping too much.
Kali leaned in closer and stared at Cody’s wounds. “Then how the hell are you doing this?”
“I don’t know.” The light began to dim.
Cody’s body trembled.
“Don’t stop!” Marna realized she’d yelled and cleared her throat. “Your mother, Tanner . . . your mother was a healer.”
His hands weren’t glowing any longer. He stared at his fingers and clenched his fists. “But I’m just a killer.”
No, he was so much more.
He sucked in a deep breath. “I told you, I didn’t get any of her power. I’ve never been able to—”
Marna grabbed him and yanked him back around to face her. “Just because you haven’t before, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t using that power now.” Who knew what had happened. Maybe he’d just gotten desperate enough to unlock a magic buried deep inside himself. She’d sure heard of wilder things in her time. His mother had been a healer, and maybe Tanner hadn’t realized it, but she’d passed on her gift to him. “You’ve got your father’s beast inside, but you’ve also got part of her in there, too.”
He stared back at her. She could see that he wanted to hope but he was holding back. Too many years of facing the darkness alone?
He wasn’t alone anymore. “You can do this,” Marna told him. “Just try, Tanner. Try for me. Try for Cody.” If it didn’t work, she’d shove her blood down that demon’s throat. Marna wouldn’t stand by helplessly while Tanner suffered.