“Take her to the fucking medical ward.”
That was the last thing I heard for a good long while. My body had already figured out one crucial detail—I was safe, so I needed to stop fighting nature and just sleep.
I slid under without even fully realizing it had happened.
* * * * *
When I woke up, it was to the sound of a roar.
It was bigger than anything I’d ever heard.
And there was a tiger crouched by the bed. A giant tiger.
Chang stood by my head, smiling down at me like he wasn’t at all worried about the tiger. As he saw my eyes opened, he leaned over and studied me. “Kit…you look awful.”
I actually felt a lot better than I had. The pain in my head had receded to an almost tolerable level and I was almost positive I was no longer losing copious amounts of blood.
I heard another roar and just couldn’t stop myself; I tried to look. It didn’t send unending streams of pain ripping through my torso. Startled, I touched a hand to my side and Chang eased the blankets down a bit. “We had our healer deal with some of the damage. Not all. But you should be feeling better…are you?”
“Yes.” I dared on glance down and then froze. “Chang…?”
He touched my shoulder gently. “It’s okay, Kit. You have my word.”
His word. Okay. I trusted that. His word was pretty much Damon’s. But I couldn’t stay flat on my back considering what I’d just seen. No way. Swallowing my pride, I held his liquid black gaze. “Help me sit up?”
“Of course.”
The room spun in awful, terrible spirals around me but there was no denying one very simple fact. There really was a tiger near the foot of the bed. Pacing and snarling. And it was nearly double the size of any normal tiger.
I stared at it for a long moment. “Why is that here?”
Somebody shoved the doors open and I winced, pressing a hand to my temple as the noise sent more pain chasing through my skull. It was a lot better than it had been. But not gone. Not by far.
At least there weren’t two women standing there glaring at me.
One was enough, I was pretty sure.
She was tall, probably over six feet in height, beautiful and poured into tight leather with what looked like a corset for a shirt. Her dark hair was scooped back into a ponytail and she had high cheekbones, a mouth slicked blood red and her eyes stared at me with a gaze that made it clear…she found me very lacking.
“Wow. Are you doing your shopping at Dungeons R Us?” I asked. “That’s an awesome look for you.”
Her lips peeled back from her teeth and she snarled at me.
Chang rested a hand on my shoulder. “Sam. You should know better than to think you can storm in here,” he said, his voice almost absurdly gentle.
“She doesn’t belong here.”
The tiger pacing between her and the bed roared and this time, it shook the very room.
“Doyle,” she said quietly. “You are to report for security detail.”
Doyle? That big-ass tiger was Doyle? Okay, I’d known, in theory, he shifted into a tiger. But theory and actually seeing that shape-shifter tiger—that giant shapeshifted tiger were two different things. He was huge.
As he roared again, I realized something else—he was also pissed.
Chang cleared his throat. “I’ve requested Doyle’s reassignment.” He smiled and flicked a speck of lint from his sleeve. “It was granted this morning.”
Her eyes flashed and went green before bleeding back to brown. “You had no right.”
“I disagree. I’m Damon’s adviser, Sam. He leaves me in charge to handle day-to-day matters while he is gone and this is a day-to-day matter.”
“She’s a fucking security breech and under my domain.”
At that, I started to laugh. I would have laughed harder, but it hurt too much. “Sister, do I look like a fucking security breech?”
“Call me sister again, nugget, and I’m going to hurt you,” she warned.
I flexed my hands and wondered if I could steady my bow. I was pretty sure I could. Although I doubted it would be necessary.
As she took a step toward me, the tiger swiped at her with a massive paw.
She sprang backward, catlike in her speed, in her grace. Still, those claws just barely missed grazing her. “Doyle, I’m going to hurt you, too, if you try that again.”
“And you’ll face a reprimand,” Chang said, his tone bored. “He’s following orders.”
Orders—?
“Whose fucking orders?” Sam demanded.
I was kind of curious about that myself.
Then I felt a prickling, familiar rush and I closed my eyes. Both dread and delight thudded in my veins and I sagged against the headboard. “Daddy’s home.”
Chang smiled. Doyle roared.
As the door opened, Sam turned and bowed her head.
I had to fight not to puke as my head started to spin and dance on my shoulders. I didn’t want him to look at me and see me puking.
For a minute or two, Damon didn’t even seem to notice me.
“Whose fucking orders, Sam?” he echoed back at her.
Thunderheads piled up his eyes as he stared at the woman.
Doyle sat down on his huge haunches and batted at the air with one paw. There was something almost mischievous about it, like he was pointing at the woman and laughing.
Damon came prowling forward, stopping just a few feet away. “My fucking orders,” he whispered in her ear. “Now get the hell out of here.”
She moved. Not quite running, but pretty damn close.
As the door swung shut behind her, Doyle let loose with another one of those deafening roars.
I groaned and covered my ears with my hands.
Not that I didn’t appreciate the odd switch and the cute, overgrown tiger/protective bodyguard deal just then, but the roars…” Do you have to be so loud?” I grumbled.
The bed bounced and I whimpered, groaned and buried my head against my knees. It took forever for my skull to stop vibrating, or at least it seemed that way. Then I realized my skull wasn’t vibrating. The bed was. Warily, I looked up. The tiger sprawled out, stretching that massive body over the foot of the bed and the bed was vibrating because the massive thing was purring…or something that sounded terribly close to it. Before I could figure out how to handle that, a hand curved over the back of my neck and then Damon was there.
Right at my side, staring at me.
I groaned and turned my head, staring at him. “Hi, honey. You’re home.” I went to move against him, but stopped with a gasp as my healing body protested.
He sighed and just moved in, settling into position behind me. “Remember how I told you I’d try harder, Kit?” He rested his head on my shoulder. “I’m trying hard now. Really, really hard.”
“Hey. I made it out okay.” I didn’t need to go into detail about Justin. I would figure out something. Somehow. I always did.
“I know.”
I closed my eyes. “Why is Doyle guarding my feet?”
Damon kissed my brow. “I think he’s wanting to keep you in one piece so you’ll teach him how to use those swords. He doesn’t do much of anything but talk about it now. I may have to sweet talk you into it, just to shut him up.”
“Doyle hates me.”
Something nudged my foot.
I looked up at saw the tiger rubbing his head against my foot, the way a housecat might when he was looking for a cuddle.
“Doyle doesn’t hate you. He’s just an idiot kid who managed to get his head out of his ass. Cut him some slack.” Damon nuzzled my neck.
I might have grumbled a little more.
I can’t remember. The darkness came up again, but this time, it was gentle, easing me under. Rest. I needed to rest.
* * * * *
The dreams weren’t unexpected.
Rick’s hands, his voice—right before I’d plunged the silver-coated blade into him—so cold, so cruel.
Full of malice and the need to hurt. I’d been at the mercy of that sort of man before. My body remembered it. Once I was lost in the dreams, those memories rushed out to taunt me.
The pit…back to the pit.
But this time, there was no rope for escape.
Rathi was there.
Not at first. There was a wolf at the mouth of the pit and he jumped down. I think I might have screamed, but I don’t know for certain.
Any sound I tried to make was a waste of breath, though, because nobody would come for me here. I was trapped, drowning in my own filth and the wolf turned into Rathi before he attacked me and threw me against the wall.
Nobody is coming for you, bitch.
I stared at him, fumbling for the knife I had at my back.
He just laughed. You think that will work against me? Don’t you remember what I am?
It would work. It was silver and he’d just turned into a wolf.
He smiled.
You really are stupid, Kit. You always have been.
I lunged at him and he knocked me down.
Before I could get back up, he was on me, one forearm against my throat so I couldn’t scream, the other tearing at the pitiful rags that made up my clothes. And all the while he laughed.
* * * * *
Cold—
I choked on the water as it came raining down on me. Cold as ice and stinging my flesh.
“Come on, baby girl…wake up.”
A familiar voice, that low, achingly-familiar rumbling in my ear.
And icy water pounding against my skin.
Sputtering, I shoved against Damon’s chest. “Damn it, what in the hell is wrong with you?
“Finally,” he muttered.
He shifted in the massive shower and turned the water to hot.
“Put me down,” I snapped, my head aching, buzzing, spinning—
The dream.
Not another one…
Damon pressed his face against my neck. “I’ll put you down in a minute. Maybe sixty of them. Ninety tops.”
“You can’t stand here like this for an hour or an hour and a half, Damon,” I mumbled even as my heart ached a little.
One hand stroked down my spine, tugged me closer. “Want to bet? You scared me, baby girl. Wouldn’t wake up. And after yesterday…damn it, sometimes I just want to chain you to me and never let you out of my sight.”
“Not going to happen,” I said, sighing. I tucked my head against his chest and closed my eyes. As his arms came around me, I decided maybe this wasn’t a bad place to be for a few minutes. Sixty, maybe. Ninety minutes, tops.
The dream clung to me, nasty and thick, sticking in the back of my throat and turning my limbs to sludge. “How long was I down?”
“You started crying about an hour ago. I left it alone for a few minutes,” he said against my temple. “Just made Doyle leave once you started getting restless. But you didn’t wake up and I figured it was going to be a bad one so I tried to wake you up, but I couldn’t.”
I nodded. Under my cheek, I could feel the sodden material of his shirt and I lifted my head, frowning at him as I splayed my hand over his chest. “You’re dressed…”
“I never got around to getting undressed.” He covered my hand with his. “Once you fell asleep, I didn’t want to risk moving around because you were hurting pretty bad. Then I fell asleep, too. Didn’t seem worth the hassle.”
“And then I wake you up with a nightmare.” Dropping my head onto his chest, I groaned. “Sorry.”
“Don’t do that.” He said it against my hair, voice flat and uncompromising. “You don’t ask for that hell to come into your head, do you? No reason to be sorry for it.”
I managed to bite back another apology. He was right. I knew that. I wouldn’t want him apologizing for things he couldn’t control, either, but the impulse was still there.
I lifted my head and tried for a game smile. “Well, if I have to wake up to a stinging shower of ice, this isn’t a bad place to do it,” I said, making myself take stock of the area. I’d used the shower a time or two, but up until a few weeks ago, it had been in the process of being redesigned. It was finished now and I had to admit, it was…wow.
Dark grayish-brown tile made up the walls and multiple showerheads, all of them placed at varying angles lined the walls. It was designed in a jagged Z and the bottom edge of the Z where we were held a bench. I turned my head and then did a double take. “Wow, Damon…you’re not one for skimping on the little luxuries, huh?” I stared at the gas fireplace tucked into the wall in front of us.
“Well, I’ve got this lady in my life who sometimes complains about being cold. I wanted to make sure she never felt cold while she was in here.” He stroked a hand down my back and rested it low on my spine.
“So that’s all for my benefit?”
He snorted. “Well, maybe for both of ours. I like the heat.”
Rubbing his chin over the top of my head, he murmured, “Can you talk about the dream?”
Rathi—
Screams echoed in my ears and I knew they were mine. Had I screamed while I slept? I hoped not. Even thinking about that made me cringe in shame.
“I’ll tell you later,” I whispered.
I needed something else then. Needed to not think.
Lifting my head, I grasped the wet material of his shirt and tugged at it. “You’ve always been really good at distracting me in the shower,” I teased. I leaned in and flicked my tongue against his lips. “Why don’t you do it again?”
He watched me, dark eyes hooded. “You need to not think, baby girl?”
“Badly.”
He didn’t give me the distraction in the shower.
Figures he wouldn’t cooperate and nothing I said or did would change his mind.
He did take the time to stroke me down, head to toe, with some of the soap he knew I liked, although I don’t know how he got his hands on it. I had it made for me and it wasn’t anything you could buy at a store or online.
He washed my hair and tucked me back onto the bench while he dealt with his wet clothes and washed up, his gaze ever watchful…hungry. It was the look that turned my blood into lava and made me wish for crazy, needy things.
Crazy, needy things that he had the damnedest way of understanding.
I was about ready to self-combust by the time he turned off the shower. I went to stand up and he was already there, picking me and carrying me out of the ridiculously lush enclosure, setting me down and drying me off with a towel that was even warmer than the water had been.
“You do realize if you try and do something nice and gentleman-like, I’m going to punch you,” I told him.
He laughed a little.
“You do realize I can still see where something took a bite out of your side, Kit.” He splayed a hand over the wound. It didn’t ache nowhere near bad as it had earlier, although I could still feel the tug of healing flesh deep inside. “And there’s still some swelling here…” He touched gentle fingers to the back of my scalp and I grimaced at pain emanated out, a little starburst radiation.
“I know. They didn’t do a full healing. But I’m not fragile.” I turned around and slid my arms around his neck, leaning against him and pressed my lips to his. “I’m bruised and battered—doesn’t mean I’m broken.”
“No…you’re not. But I think I can take you in the bed instead against the damned wall,” he muttered against my mouth.
Hot little shivers raced through my belly and I smiled as he trailed his lips down my neck, biting me right where it curved into my shoulder. “Oh, I can deal with that, I think.”
He boosted me up and I wrapped my legs around his hips, sighing in pleasure as I felt the heat of him nudging me between my thighs. This…just this. This was what I needed, what I wanted.
I curled around him, my nails digging into skin as he went to lay me down and he shuddered. “Drives me nuts the way you do that.” He nipped my lower lip.
“Do what?” Whatever i
t was, I needed to know so I could it a lot.
“Do everything.” He trailed a path down my collarbone, caught the tip of my nipple in his mouth and tugged. “Everything you do drives me nuts. Either you make me want to beat my head against a wall, or I want to put you against a wall and do this…”
He slid a hand between us and I gasped as he pushed a finger inside me.
“That?” I managed to gasp out. “That’s all I make you want to do?”
The laugh that escaped him was caught between a groan and a laugh. “This. A hundred other things…Kit, shut the hell up.” His mouth on mine made sure I did just that.
And as he settled between my thighs, I wasn’t too interesting in talking anyway.
He came inside me and all the dark, awful shadows faded away.
There wasn’t any room for them when he was here.
And when we were together, like this, there wasn’t room for anything, or anybody but us.
* * * * *
Damon lay stretched out beside me, one hand on my belly. He had a leg flung over my thighs like he wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to go anywhere.
“Tell me now?”
I closed my eyes.
“Just don’t start growling at me,” I warned him. “I’m already…”
The word fragile popped into my head and I wanted to stab it with my sword until it was dead, dead, dead. But how I could I kill a word? “I’m already messed up and I don’t need you growling at me, okay?”
“You’ve had enough shit happen,” he said, even as his fingers started to flex on my skin, like a cat kneading its claws. In a way, I guessed that’s exactly what was happening. When I was stressed or pissed, I popped my wrist and flexed my fingers, absently reaching for the sword that always whispered in the back of my brain.
When Damon was brooding, he had a habit of doing things like this…if he felt comfortable letting his guard down.
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