“Now tell me.”
Damn him for making everything easier. Making her like him.
“I formally refused Clark.”
“About damned time.”
She licked her lips and tugged at her hand. He didn’t let her go.
“Now just tell me whatever it is that has you think I don’t want to hear.”
You’re going to be mad.”
“So I’ll be mad.”
“Blade thought it was a good idea.”
Oh why had she just blurted that out as if Blade thinking anything made it all right?
Cole sighed and she couldn’t blame him for the weariness in it. “Blade again? For someone I never see he wields a lot of influence.”
“Blade’s . . .” She shrugged. How could she describe the big man with the dark eyes, dark hair, and deadly ways? She settled for the truth. “Blade is an enforcer.”
“And this means?”
“He enforces Reaper law. He’s on the high council. I think.”
“You think?” She spread her hands wide before curving them around her cup of coffee.
“Reapers don’t know much about themselves. But nobody knows anything about Blade. He’s just”—she shrugged again—“Blade. And when he arrives, things change.”
“And the council changed their minds about me because of him?”
“Blade said if you could accept the conversion, I could have you.”
“Have me? Like a cow brought to market?”
She looked at him. She hadn’t missed his internal start at the word “conversion.” He was avoiding that aspect for a reason. “You were very vocal about wanting me. They merely granted you your wish.”
“And yours.”
The guilt washed over her, too hard and too fast to hide. Across the table Cole went still.
“And what did you do, Miranda?”
Miranda, not china doll. Oh God. She didn’t want to tell him this. Cold sweat broke along her forehead, down her back. She felt light-headed, clammy, drowning in dread. She clutched the coffee cup so hard her fingers hurt.
“You’d already had two bites.”
He stared at her.
“One from the wolves and one from me when we . . .”
His hand went to his shoulder. “When we kissed.”
She wondered if it tingled like her palm did when she touched it. “Yes.”
His hand dropped to the table. His fingers curved around the spoon like one grasped the hilt of a knife.
“Go on.”
Her stomach dropped, leaving a black void where her courage should be. Inside, she began to shake. “Normally, it takes three bites to make a human a Reaper.”
She waited for that to sink in. It didn’t take long. Cole’s expression didn’t change, but his energy got cold and dark and seemed to contract inside him into a hard, scary ball of intensity. Everything in her said run. She braced her hands on the table, ready to jump. His hands slapped down on hers, grabbing her wrists, pinning her in place across the wooden surface.
“What the fuck did you do?”
His grip hurt but not near as much as it was going to when she confessed. She pulled her own energy in, walling herself up in her mind, trying to block out the world. She wouldn’t stand a chance against him if he got violent. He’d kill her. And she’d let him, she realized. Because she deserved it. She’d betrayed him.
His grip tightened painfully on her wrists. “What did you do, woman?”
She couldn’t help a gasp. Turning her arm over, Cole frowned when he saw the marks of his fingers. His grip loosened but not enough for her to get away. He grazed his thumb over the marks. Almost like an apology.
He asked her again but so much softer, “What did you do, china doll?”
“I had to make a choice.”
“Miranda . . .”
It was a warning. She didn’t want to heed it, but he didn’t give her a choice. He stood, keeping one of her arms pinned to the table. He walked around until he towered over her. His hand circled her throat while his thumb pressed up under her chin. When he pressed up, she had no choice but to get to her feet. They stood hip to thigh, breast to chest. This close she couldn’t miss his scent, that spicy, earthy smell that was uniquely his.
She should have been terrified, but that wild part of her that didn’t recognize caution leapt to attention. Simmered. Cole held her there balanced on his hand. Her life was his to take. And it felt so damn right, she wanted to cry. She was his. He could have anything of her. Even the truth.
“I refused that time.”
He relaxed slightly. “So they had someone else do it?”
“Nobody else could. Blade said the third time had to come from me.”
He snorted at the enforcer’s name. “But you didn’t.”
She shook her head. Not then, but when she’d bitten him that first time, she’d done it on purpose. Hedging her bets. She hadn’t known that one time would be all it took, but it didn’t matter. If she hadn’t bitten him then, he wouldn’t be Reaper now. She dragged her eyes up to his, feeling the stupid, pointless tears welling past her control. “With you it might have only taken two.”
“You converted me?”
Knowing it wasn’t going to make any difference she whispered, “Not on purpose.”
* * *
Not on purpose.
Cole wanted to spit at the paltry denial. Wanted to rage at the betrayal. At her. He tightened his grip on her neck, expecting her panic, feeling her acceptance.
It would be so easy to snap her neck, Cole thought, anger pounding at him, pushing him forward. Just a little pressure there, a little twist here and she’d be dead.
Reaper. She’d made him into a goddamn Reaper. Rage tore through him with unrestrained force, black and powerful, narrowing his vision until all he could see was his hand on her neck and the acceptance in her sad brown eyes. His hand actually shook, and she stood there, damn her, daring him to kill her. Was he going insane?
Fight me, damn you.
She didn’t fight. She just stood there, sadness washing over his anger, sinking through the cracks, bathing him in understanding. He tightened his fingers a fraction more. Her face bleached white, the scars whiter still. But she didn’t run.
It took a hell of a lot to scar a Reaper.
It took a hell of a lot more to stand and let a man kill you. Goddamn her. Just, goddamn her. His grip loosened.
“Were you born a Reaper?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
His rage faded and his vision expanded. His hand still shook, but his thoughts cleared. “Did you do it for love?”
“God no.”
Which only left one option. “Were you forced into it?”
She nodded.
“Did you enjoy the experience?”
“No.”
He let her go. “Then why the hell would you do it to anyone else?”
She looked at him for the longest time, tears welling in her eyes. It tore his heart out that he’d wanted to tear her throat up. It tore him up more to know she knew he’d wanted to. Even for one blind minute before reason had returned.
She only said one thing.
“Wendy.”
It pissed him off from a whole other angle that she kept waving her daughter’s name in his face like a talisman. To keep from grabbing her he grabbed his coffee. He might be a Reaper. He might be going insane, but he wasn’t that easily manipulated. He took a swallow, then another. He had to take a third to keep from snarling as he asked, “So you all just got together and decided your need gives you every goddamn right you want to take away my choice of whether I want to live or die?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t pull your punches, woman.”
She didn’t apol
ogize, just whispered softly, “You had mating potential.”
He swallowed the last of his coffee, put the cup down, and turned toward her.
“Which according to Reaper law says I can do whatever I want to you. Take my revenge in any way I want?”
She swallowed hard, and then in that even voice he hated, said again, “Yes.”
“Because you feel you deserve it.”
She nodded. He was close enough to see the pulse pounding double time in her throat. He might not be able to feel the panic in her energy, but the woman was panicking. But she was also standing her ground, for some moral reason that made no sense.
He slid his fingers over her cheek, into her hair, clasping a handful of strands at the nape of her neck, tilting her face back as he brought himself all the way up against her. “So I could slap you if I wanted to?”
Her breath caught, her eyes widened, and her fingers clenched into fists. But she didn’t move. He took it as acceptance.
“My own private whipping post.”
She nodded.
“You’re going to let me take my anger out on you any way I want?”
“But not on Wendy,” she interjected.
“We’re not negotiating.”
Her eyes narrowed and her energy lashed out. “You won’t touch her.”
No, he wouldn’t. “I don’t beat up on little girls.”
She licked her lips. “Clark does.”
“I know.”
And there was the crux of the problem. No matter how mad he was. No matter that the rage inside him leapt like a living thing, Cole got Miranda’s point. She was a woman in the middle of monsters with a human child; she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Converting him had been her only way out.
“Tell me something. Did you know when you bit me that it could potentially change me?”
“No. Two bites never did anything to anyone.”
“And if you had known then?”
There was a potent silence before she confessed, “I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
“It’s all I have.”
Cole didn’t want to feel sympathy. He didn’t want understanding. He wanted an outlet. And damn it, he’d have one.
He walked over to the bed, dragging her with him. She wasn’t doing so well hiding her energy now. The closer they got to the bed, the more her panic beat at him.
He sat down and dragged Miranda over his lap, throwing up her skirts. He felt her surprise. Before she could figure out his intent, he swatted her ass three times fast. She cried out. The pained exclamation cut to his reason, stopping his hand mid-swat. He’d never spanked a woman in anger, and knowing that she was a Reaper and any damage would heal didn’t mitigate the guilt of losing control. Or give him satisfaction.
Taking a breath, Cole let his hand settle on Miranda’s ass, rubbing the round curves through the muslin. Putting an apology in the touch. Feeling the heat, feeling her nails dig into his calf through his denims.
Reaper or human, there were some things that he refused to do. He sighed and rubbed her ass again. It was a very nice ass, wide and round and firm with a cushion of fat over the top. It would be soft against his cock.
The lust hit him stronger than the rage. Son of a bitch, what was it about this woman that made him ricochet between extremes? She lay on his lap, stiff as a board, while he struggled with a need to push her to the floor, come over her, in her, and fuck her hard. Claim her, he realized. He didn’t want to rape her; he wanted to claim her. In the most primal way possible.
Cole shook his head. Maybe he was already crazy. Turning Miranda over, he pulled her up into his arms and sat her across his lap. There were tears in her eyes. From pain or fear he didn’t know. She had those emotions buried deeper than a pussy willow’s roots.
He propped her chin against the side of his hand. Stroking his thumb over the tears on her cheeks, he sighed.
“It’s a crazy road you’ve sent us down, lady.”
“I didn’t have any choice.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.”
“What would you have had me do?”
Admit that part of the reason she’d bitten him had been desire. He sighed, “Nothing different. But there is something you do need to do from here on out.”
He tapped his finger on her mouth, pressing it against those soft, full lips.
“What?”
“Don’t hide from me anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“What you’re feeling. Like right now. Your ass is smarting, you’re terrified, and . . .”
He realized he could smell her desire.
“Aroused.”
She blinked.
“Don’t hide what you’re feeling from me. That’s the debt I’m calling in. You owe me, and that’s what I want in repayment.”
“You want me vulnerable to you?”
She ought to sound horrified. He intended to take full advantage. “All the way, no holds barred.”
“And if I don’t agree?”
He pushed her off his lap. “Then I probably will go crazy. You, lady, are apparently my trigger.”
“I don’t want to be.”
He grabbed his hat up and headed for the door. He didn’t want to be a Reaper, but it was what it was. He opened the door. Dirk stood there, whether to keep him in or others out he didn’t care. Looking over his shoulder at Miranda, Cole jammed his hat on his head.
“Tough shit.”
13
Cole didn’t have to wonder where to find Jones. The Reaper was exactly where Cole would have been, doing exactly what he would have been doing had the events been the same at the Circle C. Cole walked up to the burned-out remains of the barn. The stench of burned wood hung in the air. Smoke still spiraled off some of the beams. Not much of the barn was standing, just one corner and part of the frame. The corner in which he’d huddled with Wendy, he realized. Son of a bitch. Reaching up, he touched the spot on his shoulder.
We don’t know what you are.
Well, there was one thing he knew. He wasn’t dead. Whether that was a blessing or a curse had yet to be determined. But he was still breathing and sane. Men called to each other over the bang of wood as timbers were pulled way. Jones looked up as Cole approached. Cole felt the touch of the Reaper’s energy. He blocked it.
“I haven’t gone loco yet.”
Isaiah straightened and took off his right glove, then his left. “There’s nothing saying you have to.”
“Nothing saying I won’t, either, is there?”
“No.”
“So there’s a chance.”
Isaiah tucked his gloves in his back pocket.
“Without a full-fledged conversion, there’s always a chance.”
That was news to him. “From the way Miranda’s jumping around, I thought it was a certainty.”
Isaiah leveled Cole a look as he stretched his back. “Did you hurt her?”
“No.”
Again Cole felt the touch of the other man’s energy, and again he pushed it back.
“And if I ever do, you have my permission to put my sorry ass six feet under.”
Isaiah cocked an eyebrow at him. “You think I need your permission for that?”
“Yeah.”
Someone hollered a warning. Men scrambled to get out of the way as a timber fell. Everyone watched as it hit the ground, bounced slightly, and lay still.
“Hell of a mess,” Cole said.
“Could have been worse.”
Cole thought of Wendy. “Yeah. How many men did you lose in that attack?”
“None but three are badly injured.”
“And the attackers?”
“Five. One of those was on the outskirts.” Isaiah looked at Cole out of the c
orner of his eye. “Your doing?”
“Yeah.” Grabbing a set of gloves off the end of the timber in front of them, Cole put them on. “You moving this?”
Isaiah took the other end. “You helping?”
“Beats the hell out of standing around. And I figure we can talk while we work.”
“Got some questions, huh?”
“A lot of them. Like number one, why does everybody keep asking me if I’m feeling all right?”
“I told you, some people don’t take well to the change.”
“But Miranda didn’t give ’em that final bite.”
Isaiah grabbed one end of the charred beam; Cole grabbed the other. They lifted. It didn’t feel nearly as heavy as it should have been. Some of that Reaper energy coming his way, maybe.
“So just what exactly can I expect?”
“I don’t know.”
“When can I expect it?”
“I don’t know.”
Cole swung the timber to the left to put it on the pile to the side. He let go of his end, catching Jones off guard. Cole had the satisfaction of hearing Isaiah grunt before he was forced to release his end, too.
“You don’t know a hell of a lot, do you?”
“Nope.”
“Do you even know what the hell you might have made me?”
“Believe it or not, we don’t know that, either.”
“How the fuck is that even possible?”
“Because we don’t know what we were made into.”
And that was a hell of a note. Cole slapped his hand against his thigh, resisting the urge to haul back and punch Isaiah in the face. Cole lifted his hat and ran his hands through his hair before settling the hat back on his head. “How long do I have?”
“I don’t know; there have been cases where it’s been a slow descent into madness instead of an immediate change.”
“So you’re saying that the danger isn’t over? That if I don’t agree to a third bite, I could marry Miranda, take on being a father to Wendy, and then this time next month suddenly be loonier than a rabid dog?”
“Possibly.”
“But not likely,” an unfamiliar voice added.
Cole turned to face the stranger. He was big, bigger than even Isaiah. He was dressed all in black. The darkness carried to his skin and hair. His eyes were darker still. His features sharp. His energy just . . . blank.
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