by KH LeMoyne
Quietly, she followed and placed the duffel on the kitchen counter, wondering how she’d managed to sink to a new low. He might be the most notorious shifter enforcer of her time, but she knew better than to believe rumors. Whatever the details of his past, no one doubted his allegiance to his alpha or that his alpha commanded those kills.
Living a shifter’s life in the shadows around humans required more humanity than animal instinct. Breslin seemed to have mastered those skills. And while he’d hardly spoke to her, he’d avoided the crass and belligerent comments used by her father’s men, and kept from groping her with his deadly hands.
She’d been around enough overblown testosterone to recognize the difference between a man out of control and one with a rigid hold on his emotions and his actions. Bringing up her mistake and apologizing would only make the situation worse.
Her damp clothes had long since gone from uncomfortable to a seeping chill in her bones. She unzipped the bag and dug through the contents, pulling out one spaghetti-strapped workout top in brilliant pink. Please let there be something else to put over this. Not that beggars could be choosers, but she prefer not to be half-naked in hot pink.
Yes. She dug a sweatshirt and matching set of sweatpants from the bottom, the first with a Calgary emblem and hockey player emblazoned on the front, the second with maple leaves running down the legs. A tiny bear emblem graced the seat of the pants.
Great, now she knew he had stolen a bear shifter’s clothes. At least they looked warm.
Metal rattled behind her, and she spun around, clutching the clothes to her chest. Breslin squatted beside a portable propane heater, adjusting the settings.
“You’ve got fifteen minutes to change. I’ll be outside.”
And then he was gone. Yep, she needed to rein in her smartass comments. Not everybody deserved the animosity she liberally dished out with Karndottir’s enforcers. Not to mention that, bad tempered and mean, they still had a stake in keeping her alive, if only to use her to climb to the top alpha role. Other men didn’t pose the same threat, and Breslin hadn’t done anything to deserve her ire.
She dropped her wet clothes on the floor by the heater and sighed as she slid the dry sweats up her legs. Frustrated with the desire to summon warmth and send it throughout her body as any normal shifter would, she called to her bear. Emptiness rang back through their shared communication channel, along with an absence of primal heat.
Suppressing a sigh, she shrugged on the sweatshirt as the back door slammed. She’d missed her opportunity to run, but in all honesty, she hadn’t thawed enough to get her extremities working.
He stood with his back to her, but after one deep sniff of the new aromas in the room, she nearly launched herself at him.
He dragged out a chair for her and continued pulling items out of several plastic bags.
Nonchalance only worked until she got within sight of the table. “Is that roasted chicken and mashed potatoes?”
She plopped into the seat and dragged a large bucket toward her. He slid into a seat across from her. Not caring about threat or danger, she eased the tops off the smaller cylindrical cartons and a covered aluminum tray. “Sides—and lasagna.”
She couldn’t hide the reverence in her voice. Heaven help her, she was going to drool all over this food. The enforcers who’d caught her days ago, bastards that they were, had given her only ladles of water and no food.
“What, no meatloaf?” she asked, joking. He’d brought enough food to make up for all the days she’d missed and then some. What enforcer came prepared with bags of food?
She removed several more items from a side bag and glanced at the receipt taped to the top. The call time stamp indicated twenty-five minutes ago. He’d been lagging behind her and—? “You ordered food while we were on the way here and slipped out to get it in the time it took me to change?”
He glanced up as he shoved several plastic utensils and paper plates across the table to her. The intensity of his gaze deepened, flecks of midnight and gold highlighted in the steely gray. “I have people. They have phones. And women take a long time to get dressed.”
“That last one is so lame.” Instead of arguing more and wondering why he was doing this, she fished out several pieces of chicken and two servings of lasagna, and dropped them onto her plate.
She inhaled several bites and slowed as she puzzled over his actions. Certainly his alpha hadn’t ordered him to feed her. Alphas weren’t known for their compassion. Her clan had survived several brutal attacks from other territories, which everyone seemed to feel was normal. Karndottir had insisted shifter lands were still wild and ripe for the taking—the last vestige of wilderness to be conquered. The sentiment left her unprepared her for sitting down to a civilized dinner with a neighboring enemy.
Of course, her alpha never had those conversations with her. Nope, Karndottir only shared news with his henchmen. However, she’d spent painstaking years building her own loyal underground network. She had her own way of finding out what was going on, from people she valued too much to risk exposing them to the enforcers. She kept the members of her network isolated and safeguarded against each other—with her being their only contact.
Unfortunately, she was also the single point of failure in her network.
Her stomach growled, and Breslin didn’t bother to look up from his pile of cheeseburgers, instead pushing more containers of food in her direction.
Grabbing the closest, she spooned mashed potatoes right into her mouth. He wanted her to eat, then she’d eat. There was no point in questioning his motives. She already felt guilty enough plotting to escape when his back was turned.
He’d probably take that personally and not say a word when he caught up with her either.
She didn’t doubt that staying with him was the wiser option, but she refused to think about that option.
First, she’d finish eating, for heaven only knew she needed the energy. As a shifter, her body repaired faster when injured than a human’s, even without transformation into her bear. Yet, lately, that hadn’t been the case. It was as if her soul was being slowly sucked away with her shifter skills trailing not far behind. Probably another reason her captors hadn’t fed her, trying to keep her weak.
Alert to the persistent silence as she’d been stuffing her face, she looked up. He didn’t even look her way but took a large spoonful of macaroni and cheese before shoving the container her way. Any normal person would be full by now, but he seemed to know she wasn’t. She dug into the few items left, though most of the containers on the table sat empty. Breslin had done his fair share of eating and had polished off the rest of the chicken and half of the lasagna, not to mention the sides. However, she won the award for inhaling food.
What did it say about her that she felt no remorse for being unladylike? Well, ladylike wouldn’t have helped her survive her years in the clan. Plenty of shifter ladies had fallen willingly and by force to her father’s capricious desires and the dictatorial mating rules of his wolf-shifter teams.
As she licked her fingers, her eyes widened when Breslin fished out two final smaller boxes and a large jug of milk from the last bag. He opened the boxes, and the sweet scent of chocolate filled the air followed by—oh no, he didn’t. Goddess, yes, he had.
He slid the first box toward her, and she bit her lip. Hardly disguising her yearning, she glanced at the generous slice of chocolate cake with thick chocolate frosting.
Yep, that might work for some people. Instead, she cast a furtive glance at the carrot cake in front of him and tried not to salivate. The cake was so moist, it glistened. And the cream cheese frosting, well, that was her downfall. Did she dare?
What the heck, you only live once, and she already had a death sentence hanging over her head.
His fork was on the downward motion as she pounced. She’d already calculated the weight of her fork and the speed needed. Refusing to consider the consequences of her actions, she’d snagged a bite out of his cake and
stuffed it into her mouth as his fork tines landed on empty cardboard.
Mouth full, and lips tight together, just in case he felt the urge to come after that bite, she waited and savored. Unable to resist, she swallowed, licking her lips for any lingering sweetness with a small growl of satisfaction.
He looked at his fork and then at her with one raised brow. Deftly, he grabbed her chocolate cake and shoved the remaining carrot cake her way. “Cooties.”
She waited, gauging whether he was angry or amused as she contemplated making a run for the door in case her cake turned out to be the cougar’s favorite. Either way, the carrot cake was going with her.
Without looking up, he gestured at her with the tines of his fork for her to eat.
Eyeing him warily, she finished as he inhaled the chocolate cake in two large bites. She watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed and almost choked on her own bite as a purr vibrated in the room. Guess the cat liked chocolate.
He held the milk jug aloft in offering. She waved it away and watched in fascination as he lifted it high and drank in large gulps until the jug was empty. She couldn’t turn away as he licked the milk mustache from his lips. Fine full lips.
Then he swiped a hand over his face—along a chiseled, square jawline finely covered with a half a day’s growth of blond shadow. Before she could come up with an excuse for staring, he stood and gathered the trash from around the table.
A stronger, hotter appetite unfurled deep in her belly as she watched the play of his muscles beneath a T-shirt stretched tight over his chest. Her recent memory replayed an image of those muscles—hard, lean, and oh so warm. He was good enough to eat. Hell, chocolate cake might become her favorite too if eaten off the proper place setting of a dangerous, well-muscled shifter.
Nope, not going there.
Where in the hell were these thoughts coming from anyway? She stuffed the last bit of cream cheese frosting in her mouth in defiance to her traitorous thoughts. He was here to escort her to the firing squad, making him her enemy, not her friend.
And he definitely wasn’t her friend with benefits, not that she’d ever had one of those. Her few wild oats consisted of one-night stands with humans. They posed no threat, since she was stronger than they were and they weren’t out to claim her. Disappearing afterward never posed a problem either. Of course, the brief connections were empty and the sex had been tepid at best.
With several bags of trash gathered in one hand, he stared at her long enough she almost twitched in her seat. He slowly lifted a hand toward her face. She forced herself not to move as his thumb brushed against the corner of her mouth. He pulled his hand back and stared at a dollop of frosting there with intense inspection.
A second later, he pushed his thumb into his mouth. Those gunmetal eyes pinned her again. A blaze of heat swept beneath her skin and blossomed in delicious tingles in all her lady bits.
Before she had time to think, he’d leaned in again and covered her lips with his. Too stunned to move, she closed her eyes and relaxed as he opened and licked across her lower lip. He spun away as quickly as he’d surprised her, ready at the back door while she sat there, frozen. Too embarrassed to even look at him, she didn’t move until she felt his hesitation. When she glanced over, she caught a bright, predatory gleam in those brilliant eyes.
“You should get some sleep. We’ll leave in a few hours.”
Holding her breath, she waited until he’d left and she couldn’t sense him anymore. Her heart pounded double-time as she raced to the space heater and turned it off. The blankets and pillows he’d brought from the other room were stacked beside the unit, warm and toasty and tempting. Not that she’d reap the benefits from his act of kindness.
Nope. This was her only chance. She regretted the betrayal, but she wouldn’t get another chance to warn the Wilsons. She organized the pillows and wrapped the blankets over them. It might look like she was asleep when he came in, not that it would fool him up close. Unless he intended to sleep with her.
Her heart fluttered again, and she shook her head. What nonsense. He’d been playing with her mind with that kiss, keeping her off-kilter. Focus, Rayven.
She ticked through her plan. Depositing their trash in someone else’s outdoor receptacle would take him a few minutes. If she kept to the backyards and smaller streets, she’d make it to the Wilsons’ in ten minutes tops.
Sure, she was burning through energy at a rate that would leave her as limp as a wet dishrag. But she’d hide and rest after the family was safe and gone, until Breslin caught up with her. She didn’t doubt for a moment he would. Everything about his attention to details since she’d first seen deadly-and-sinfully-handsome looming above her had confirmed he’d earned his reputation. The enforcer, both man and cat, was a born hunter.
A pissed-off one when he found her gone. But regret didn’t have a place in what she had to do. She reminded herself of that as she pulled the back door shut and backtracked her way to the street. She’d buy herself some extra time by retracing over her old trail, and provide an interesting test for the big kitty.
She hurried along, pulled the sweatshirt tighter around herself, and drew back her shoulders, pretending she still had a menacing cougar protecting her back.
8
Breslin leaned against the shed of the next-door neighbor’s cabin and watched Rayven flee. Of course she’d run. What else had he expected from her? That because he treated her with respect, she’d willingly obey his orders to stay put?
He’d hoped in spite of whatever plan was milling around in her head, she’d have the sense not to run. It didn’t take covert tactics to figure out her thoughts were churning a mile a minute on the other side of the table from him. At least she’d eaten enough to reassure him that her shifter metabolism would kick in and accelerate her healing process.
But after that kiss—a huge mistake—she’d stared blankly into space. The sweet blush to her cheeks urged him to do more and force a reaction from her. Fortunately, he’d come to his senses in time. She tasted too good for him to give in to temptation. Tasted way too tantalizing—too addictive. His cougar screamed mate, yet that struck him as a cosmic joke as he watched her disappearing into the distance.
He should be glad she’d shown her true colors as a little schemer deep into plotting her escape. She wasn’t a good candidate for a cougar who hadn’t shared the soft touch of a woman in far too long. Not that he should touch her ever.
However, running was stupid. He’d given her credit for more intelligence than this. Her body needed rest, not a brisk run with her animal refusing an appearance.
Somewhere along the way to pick up dinner, and again as he’d disposed of the trash, his cougar clued him in with a gut-wrenching tug to get his attention to the reality of her situation. The delectable bear shifter with the mesmerizing violet eyes wasn’t choosing not to shift. She couldn’t reach her beast. His cat had sensed her try and fail. Whether due to her long avoidance of her inner bear or because she’d been born that way, he didn’t know.
With a snarl, Breslin pushed away and stalked down the street, hidden by the cover of night and the moonless sky. He didn’t blame her for running, but he had a job to do and she was making this harder on both of them. One made harder as he kept reminding himself that just because she tasted sweeter than the frosting from her lips, didn’t mean she wasn’t as conniving and ruthless as her father.
He had to admit, while he still wanted justice more than his next breath, he wouldn’t give up another opportunity to watch Rayven devour another meal he provided. The woman didn’t hide her appetite behind bagged lettuce and diet dressing. His cat had jumped with glee when she attacked his cake. Entertainment and seduction in one luscious swoop. Her total lack of fear pleased him and enticed him. Most shifters barely hid their discomfort in his presence. Their fear, if he was honest. Despite the raging success of romance novels portraying women who desired lethal, brooding men, in his experience, real women stayed clear of men who p
osed a risk.
At least she’d chosen the carrot cake over his chocolate, though from the heated look in her eyes as he’d finished eating it earlier, that might not be a sure thing. He picked up his pace, aiming to intersect with her in two blocks even as his thoughts spun back, analyzing the last few hours.
She’d created a whirlwind of unfamiliar sensations inside him. Desire, he’d experienced in the past and conquered without difficulty. He also stayed clear of relationships. He didn’t form attachments. Satisfy his basic needs—yes. Ensure a female experienced satisfaction—definitely. He was a killer, not an asshole.
But he’d never felt the compulsion to find someone of his own. He’d never searched for a permanent warm body with familiar curves to welcome him home like others in the clan.
His only close relationship was with death. One he couldn’t seem to give up. As Callum had aptly noted, he now experienced death without getting his hands dirty. Becoming embroiled in the quirks of another person until they were special and dear wasn’t for him. If he considered such superfluous feelings after just a taste of Rayven, touching and pleasuring her might prove his fatal addiction. Unfortunately, none of his training with Vendrick had prepared him for such an eventuality.
So here he was with his thoughts verging on lunacy? Not that he needed a smack to the head to recognize that. The taste of her skin beneath the delicate cream cheese frosting had almost brought him to his knees. Now he craved a taste of something more.
One way or another, this woman was going to be the end of him, making him a fool.
For someone who’d spent as much time as he had examining all the possibilities and calculating the odds, he should have anticipated the likelihood of Gauthier having offspring. Yet he hadn’t. Did he have a target on his soul? A tainted mark that would remain until he’d suffered beyond his endurance? He’d already given up his life to make amends for the past. What more could he do? Given the circumstances, he should be damned pleased she’d run.