She swallowed thickly. “Did Ronan make your mother a zombie before or after you were born?”
Disgust filled his eyes.
Her heart broke.
“Before,” he said softly.
Chapter Seven
Bastian held his breath and waited for the realization to hit Morgan. His chromosomes consisted of thirteen parts necromancer, thirteen parts reanimated death. Tension moistened his palms. The unbearable need to pace twitched his foot. He counted back from five and then waited some more.
He expected her to start screaming any second now.
Morgan’s gaze on his didn’t widen with fear. She showed no pity or disgust. “If your mother was dead and your father was alive, what does that make you? You aren’t a walking corpse. I can see the vein in your neck pounding. The dead don’t have a pulse. You’re as alive as I am.”
He gripped the back of his wet shirt and pulled it over his head. The soggy material splattered to the floor. Her eyes widened as she looked at his naked chest. He pointed to the crude biohazard symbol Ronan had long ago carved into his flesh. As much as Bastian hated the constant reminder, the emblem fit. He, Nolan, and Rory were the three claws superimposed over the circle of evil, their father.
An edge crept into his voice, one he wished he could have hidden from her. “I’m a contaminated biohazard.”
Cold fury filled her eyes. “Who did that to you?”
“This isn’t about me.”
“No. This is about Ronan. He did that to you, didn’t he? You aren’t contaminated, Bastian. You’re a good man. One who risks his life every day on the job. One who falls to his knees in the middle of a life-or-death battle to save his brother. One who gave a beaten, naked woman he didn’t know his jacket. You didn’t have to help me, but you did.”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m innocent. Do you know how many died so my brothers and I could live? Every day we were in our mother’s reanimated womb called for a human sacrifice. Every day. Ronan decimated entire villages: men, women, children—hell, he even slaughtered babies. The council of necromancers viewed us as the unholy trinity.”
Emotion filled her eyes and poured off her. No one outside his brothers had ever looked at him like that. He had a sudden and ridiculous need to touch her, to feel her skin under his. He, a man who loathed being touched, wanted her delicate fingers trailing along his cheek.
“The sins of the father do not fall to the sons. You didn’t ask to be born. If you hadn’t come when you did, I’d be a zombie slave or whatever you called it. What runs through your veins doesn’t matter to me, so stop looking at me like I’m about to pull out a flamethrower.”
A flamethrower? Who was this woman? Bastian leaned close, his nose almost touching hers. Time to shake some self-preservation into her. “My sins are my own, and they are many. Believe me. You have no idea how dangerous I can become, the things I’ve done.”
She gave a short, pained laugh right in his face. Damn if it wasn’t sexy. “Are the things you’ve done worse than Ronan’s crimes? Honestly, I can’t imagine you doing anything more evil or destructive than him.”
“Nothing is worse than Ronan.”
“Tell me about this council of necromancers.” Her topic change slammed the door shut on his genetics, and he was oddly hopeful about her response.
“Not much to tell as they don’t exist any longer,” he said slowly. “Every few decades a new council forms, tries to keep track and regulate the use of magic. They also like to punish those who abuse their power. Ronan does his best to eradicate any organized necromancy. Over the last four hundred years he’s brutally hunted down every council member who’s ever existed, eliminated them and then their descendants.”
“Ruthless.”
“Le diable lives for vengeance, pain, and suffering.” He ran a hand down his face and hoped it would scrape off the fatigue. “No more questions. Let’s get you patched up.”
Morgan lowered her elbow and pressed flat to the bed in preparation. Her breaths came in agonized gasps now that her outrage, however adorable and frustrating it had been, faded.
“Will it hurt?” she asked.
“Not any worse than it already does.”
He parted her unbuttoned shirt and didn’t need any light to see the damage. In the bathroom he’d memorized every hurt. Even now the color of broken blood vessels along her pale skin practically glowed. Angry gashes splayed across her stomach and resembled a tiger mauling. Crisscross bruising outlined several partial tread tracks belonging to the bottom of a size 11 boot.
Her injuries weren’t the worst he’d seen. Hell, they were tame compared to the physical damage he’d suffered at his father’s hands. Regardless, the sight of her abused flesh once again pissed him off. The muscles in his jaw ticked with each clench and grind of his molars. Against the sodden fabric of his jeans, his hands curled into fists.
How could one person do this to another? Bastian knew Ronan had laughed, smiled, and enjoyed every goddamned mark he’d left on her. Bastian knew because he’d been in Morgan’s place too many times to count. He’d watched his father torture his brothers when Bastian had been too weak to shield them.
“Are you okay?” Her voice was small and distant. “Bastian?”
He barely heard his name through the rage pounding at his temples. Nothing could change the past, but this—Morgan’s broken bones and bruises—he could fix. Determined, he pressed his palm against her stomach. She was so tiny his hand spanned the entire width of her abdomen from boxer shorts to the bottom of her breasts. She flinched at the contact, and he snatched his hand away as if burned.
She wrapped her hand around his arm, and he froze at the contact. Sweat gathered at his temples. Her touch mixed with his memories of his father’s games. Anxiety sent his pulse racing, and he willed her to let go.
“Sorry, your hand was cold,” she whispered as if she could sense how close he was to losing it.
He looked down at where she still touched him, and concentrated on the heat of her flesh against his instead of the panic. Morgan tightened her hold as if desperate for the connection but afraid he’d pull away. When he forced himself to still, she slowly loosened and turned her grip. She trailed the tips of her fingers along his forearm, wrist, and then up the palm of his hand. The touch was both torture and pleasure. He shivered. One slow inch at a time, she threaded her fingers through his and brought them palm to palm.
Undone from the simple caress, from his reaction to it, he pulled his hand from hers and mumbled, “Cold skin is a side effect of the…curse.” Of being half-dead.
He rubbed his palms together and told himself it was to generate warmth. In truth, it was to scrub away the lingering tingle. He pressed the tips of his fingers lightly against her stomach. Spreading his hand, he flattened his palm slowly so she could get used to the sensation.
She grimaced. “Better.”
“Liar,” he said with a snort.
Closing his eyes, he tried to put Ronan out of his mind so he could focus. He opened the door inside him and coaxed his necromancy to life. Magic flickered. A flame struggling to stay ignited in the rain had a better chance. He was exhausted from three days of vomiting and then the battle with his father. Healing Rory had stolen the last vestiges of his strength.
Bastian clenched his teeth and pushed on. He knew the mistake he was about to make, and did it anyway. Sluggish, like liquid moving through a clogged pipe, magic crawled through his veins and finally into his palm. Blue frost spread across Morgan’s stomach and tightened her skin in sporadic patches of goose bumps.
She arched off the bed with a gasp. The movement forced a half-strangled scream from her swollen lips. He couldn’t look at her face, couldn’t stand the pain he caused. He couldn’t take his focus off holding his magic long enough to repair the damage inside and out.
Rory’s anatomy books from countless sojourns in medical school were fresh in Bastian’s memory as he envisioned the inside of her body. W
ithout an X-ray and ultrasound, there was no way to tell the extent of her injuries. To compensate, he touched upon every internal bit he could remember. Spleen, kidneys, liver, intestinal track. He cured them all. Icy magic pulsed through his palm and healed.
The gashes beneath his hand closed and puckered into fading pink lines. He trailed up, between her small breasts, and pressed a little harder against her sternum. Under his palm, her heart hammered. Shivers racked her slender frame. Her chattering teeth were a vicious vibration throughout her entire body.
His magic, like all necromancy, was freezing. The mixed bag of genetics he’d inherited had no bearing on that. The spell he wove penetrated her skin, sought the broken parts, and fixed them.
The jagged bones of her ribs came together. Fused. The bruising from her neck down to her navel went through the stages. Black to bluish purple. Dark red to reddish brown. Brown turned to yellow before it changed to a pale shade of green. Finally, the splotches faded into smooth, porcelain skin.
Her labored chore of breathing softened, and she eased into the mattress He cupped the bruised, swollen mass of her cheek with one hand. “I’m going to touch your thigh with my other hand. Only your leg, okay?”
She nodded slowly. Gaze locked with hers, he rested his other hand on her quivering knee and slid it up her leg. Without releasing her eyes, he healed the damage his father had wrought. On the outside at least.
Her face smoothed into the shape and color he recognized from the woman he’d seen outside of the grocery store. He’d been wrong when he’d thought she wasn’t beautiful. The shape of her eyes, the point of her nose, and the inviting fullness of her lower lip enticed.
A sharp stab of fatigue wormed a hole through his gut. His stomach clenched, but he pushed the feeling to the side. He was dangerously close to exhaustion, leaving him more susceptible to the change from man to monster. Long ago he’d learned to master the pain and stick it in a place where it no longer hurt. This lesson was one of the first things Ronan had taught him and his brothers as children. If your arm was broken, you tied the bucket of feed to it with a rope. Cut your arm and needed stitches? Burn the flesh closed and sprinkle the charcoaled skin with salt. If you made a noise, so much as a squeak, you’d be beaten until the flesh on your back resembled bloody ribbons.
When the last of her hurts were healed, he fastened her shirt with fumbling fingers. The simple task of hooking buttons through eyelets was almost too much. He swayed on his feet. His vision narrowed, widened, and then turned black around the edges. He pulled the blanket at the bottom of the bed over her with shaking hands.
Morgan gripped the covers, and his wavering gaze shifted to her bloody knuckles. They were swollen and bruised. She’d fought hard. “Let me see your hands.”
She shook her head. “No, you’re done. You look exhausted and you’re trembling. Sit down.”
He gritted his teeth together. “I’m fine.”
“Now who’s the liar?” she snapped.
His lids fluttered shut, open. Dizziness swam to the surface. Flashes of lights exploded behind his eyes. Something inside his stomach shifted and loosened. He’d pushed himself into the change. Vomit crept up the back of his throat.
He turned and dashed into the bathroom. The pain of his shoulder scraping along the doorjamb was barely recognizable. He fell to the floor in front of the toilet. Bile stung his throat and watered his eyes as he retched into the basin. With each heave, his body convulsed. Sweat poured from his skin, the last of his meager warmth fleeing. He barely had enough strength to flush.
He wiped his mouth and rested his arm on the open seat for a moment. The chemical smell of the toilet roiled his stomach.
“Are you okay?” Morgan asked from just inside the bathroom.
He struggled to his feet and shuffled to the sink. His hand shook when he turned on the faucet and cupped a handful of water. He rinsed his mouth and face before grabbing the mouthwash. The strong scent of mint and the sting of the liquid almost made him throw up again.
His shoulders sagged with exhaustion, and no longer able to support himself, he dropped to the floor. Ass to the ground, he leaned his back against the counter and closed his eyes.
“Get Nolan. He should still be in the living room. If not, wake up Rory. He’s passed out on the couch.”
The rustle of clothing indicated she moved. He felt the heat of her body and knew she hadn’t followed his instruction. When he pried his eyes open, she was sitting cross-legged in front of him with her hands demurely in her lap.
“Are you sick because you healed me?”
He turned his entire body away from her and hoped she’d get the point that he didn’t want or need her company. “You should go.”
“No.” She pressed the back of her hand against his ice-cold cheek
Her touch electrified his skin, and he flinched. Exhausted, sick, and about to become a ravenous monster at any moment, he didn’t have the energy to censor himself.
With the last of his strength he gripped her wrist, squeezed. His voice was venomous. “Didn’t I tell you not to touch me?”
“I hear what I want to hear.”
She stroked his jaw. He shivered. Despite himself, he pressed into the soothing warmth of her touch. Why wouldn’t she just go away?
“Tell me what you need and I’ll get it,” she said softly. “I want to help.”
He turned to her. For long moments he just stared, the indecision weighing heavy. Hell, she already knew the truth about him. Why shouldn’t he just tell her the rest? He had nothing else to lose. If he scared her off, it was for the best.
“I need to drink blood.”
She didn’t blink. Didn’t even flinch. Fucking balls of steel, this woman had. No expression whatsoever crossed her face. She held out her arm. “Take mine, then.”
“No questions?” he asked.
“You saved my life. Healed me. This will make us even. I don’t like owing debts.”
“There is a razor in the medicine cabinet.” He would not put his teeth into her skin, not when she still had the marks on her leg from the zombie who’d attacked her.
One of her eyebrows lifted. “No fangs?”
Bastian couldn’t tell if she was joking or serious. His eyes narrowed. “I’m not a vampire.”
She shrugged in a “whatever you say” kind of gesture. For the first time he realized he’d done a piss-poor job buttoning her shirt. He’d missed a few fastenings. The material gaped open to expose the horizontal line of her collarbone and the curve of her shoulder. He swallowed, unaccustomed to the sexual desire warming him.
He fucked because it was the easiest way to distract his prey while he siphoned their blood. Despite what Morgan might think, he didn’t have fangs. Normally he didn’t even have to break the skin to feed. With just a lick of magic, he could draw the blood through the pores. Unfortunately for Morgan, he was all out of magic.
When she rose and leaned over the counter, it gave him something else to focus on. The hem of the shirt crept up her thighs. His gaze trailed down her long legs. He paused at a sexy spot behind her knee before finding her shapely calf.
What in the hell was wrong with him?
She came back with a straight-edged blade, sat down across from him, and handed the razor to him. “I don’t know…half-dead, needs blood to survive. Sounds like a vampire to me. But what do I know? A few days ago I was under the impression I was crazy.”
He closed her fingers around the blade instead of taking it from her. In his condition he was liable to cut off one of her fingers by accident. “The cut doesn’t have to be deep; just score the skin a bit.”
Before he could finish speaking, she’d already drawn the blade up her wrist with a sharp cry of pain. The razor clattered to the floor in a splash of bright red between them. Blood streamed from the wound and rolled over her skin.
His stomach tightened. He wrapped a hand around her arm to pull her closer. Their gazes met, and only then did he press his tongue to
the cut. He licked the wound. Their combined gasps echoed in the bathroom. He wondered if her pussy tasted as sweet and rich as her blood did.
Laced in cinnamon and steeped with life, her magic intoxicated him. A moan rumbled from deep within his throat. Bastian drank deep. He tightened the grip he had around her arm and wasted no time in pulling her into his lap. More. He wanted so much more.
She spilled forward, her splayed knees naturally falling to either side of his thighs. Her trembling hand slid up his chest and settled on his shoulders. Tiny pricks of pain from where her nails dug in sent goose bumps racing over his skin. His lids fluttered. He fought to keep his eyes open and on hers.
At the spreading warmth of her magic, his own responded. A purplish frost surrounded them where their necromancy combined. He saw each delicate crystal in such fine detail. Jesus, he’d never felt so damn alive in his entire life. The blood coating his throat was thicker, tasted richer. Where she touched him, heat infused and comforted. The smell of the shampoo he’d washed her hair with stung his nose. She was his—branded in his scent.
Morgan’s head fell back, and his gaze traced the exposed line of her throat. Her eyes drifted closed. A breathy moan of pleasure left her. Through parted lips, her breath quickened as if she was about to climax.
Good, fucking Lord.
He shut his eyes, and images writhed behind his closed lids. His cock jerked to attention with a sharp jolt of inappropriate lust. He shouldn’t be imagining her naked. He shouldn’t want to see her spine bowed, chest out, inviting his mouth to her pebbled nipples. Bastian pictured himself ripping off her shorts and thrusting into her hot pussy while she made those same erotic sounds of pleasure. Decades of suppressed desire slammed into him. He was harder than he’d ever been before.
The blood in her veins flowed faster with her arousal. Her magic rushed eagerly into his mouth and sought out the core of him. More. He curled his hand around her hip and drew her against the bulge in his jeans. She rocked once. He encouraged her to do it again. No. Damn it. What the hell was he doing?
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