Blood Trails

by Alianne Donnelly

  “Damn,” Hunt said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say she hates your guts.”

  “But you know better.”

  “Yeah. Right now, she hates way more of you than just your guts.”

  *

  She was going to kill him. Hailey was going to let the leopard have her merry way and rip him to shreds. And she’d do it with glee and joy in her heart and damn the consequences. Dying would be worth it if she managed to dispatch him before she kicked the bucket.

  That goddamn piece of shit bastard mind reader had knocked her out without giving any thought to what it might do to her. He could have knocked out her human side and triggered a full shift. He could have killed her!

  He simply had to die.

  He’d probably lived a full life. Seen things in other people’s minds as if he’d lived them himself. Who knew what kinds of adventures he’d had without ever leaving a planet? There would be nothing to regret. Not like he would be missing out on anything. It was his time.

  As far as she was concerned, that was the danger of living more than his fair share of life. He’d exhausted all the possibilities prematurely, so Nature—meaning Hailey—would be shutting him down. Now. This very minute.

  Him, and the son of a bitch he’d dragged to her while she’d slept. She scented another. A male. What the hell was this? Would he make a paying circus attraction out of her now?

  Bastard was sooo going down.

  Ugh. And she was still wearing the same clothes from, what, a day ago? Two? She actually smelled. What the hell!

  “Where are you, you asshole?” she yelled. “You better start praying!” Funny, though, she wasn’t going all leopard claw. Not even a hint of fangs. Did he think he could manipulate her now? Fine. She’d just kick his ass the good old-fashioned human way.

  Hackles standing on end, hair wild, she followed her nose to the door that led out of the room. When she tore it open the bastards, both of them, stood there without a care in the world. “You—” she pointed to Jeremy “are a dead man.” To the other one she said, “You can wait your turn.”

  The stranger actually laughed at her. “Oh, I like her.”

  It set her teeth on edge. “You wanna be first? Fine by me.”

  His easy smile turned into a snarl. Were his eyes glowing? “You don’t want to mess with me, little girl.”

  “Back off, Hunt,” Jeremy said.

  Hunt? The Hunt. What the hell was he doing in her room? She tilted her head to one side. “So you’re the boy who lived. That makes us practically family. Guess it’s true you can’t pick your relatives.”

  Hunt snorted. “You should be so lucky. I’ll bet you would have preferred me to that deadbeat you call father.”

  Her eyes widened. No way…

  Hunt tapped his temple with a couple of fingers. “Amazing what the mind can do.”

  No way! “Are you kidding me?” she yelled. “There are more of you? And who the hell gave you permission to snoop around inside my head?”

  “Oh, she’s prickly.”

  “I said back off, Hunt,” Jeremy said. “Just get out. I can handle this.”

  “Handle this?” Hailey repeated.

  “Oh yeah, I can see you’re a real pro,” Hunt deadpanned.

  Hailey snarled and attacked. She didn’t care which one of them. Both were going down so what did it matter?

  Hunt didn’t even let her get close. He did something—and Holy shit! she didn’t even register what—and she went flying back against the wall. The picture frame shattered behind her, glass shards digging into her skin before both she and the glass dropped to the floor. Ow!

  The pain infuriated her more and she felt the leopard mirror her. It would take over soon and for once Hailey wanted to let it. Finally she felt fangs in her mouth, and her claws lengthen and dig into the floor. But when she set her sights on Hunt again he wasn’t even looking at her.

  Probably because Jeremy had a gun trained on him, a twitchy-looking finger on the trigger. “Shoot him,” she thought him. If he dispatched Hunt it meant less work for her. Then she’d just have to kill one of them.

  “Shut up,” he snapped. At her. What the hell was this? Hailey was the only one in this company with any right to be pissed off. He didn’t get to rain on her ass kickage. Claws dug deeper into the floor, scratching long grooves.

  “She’s losing it,” Hunt said calmly and she knew he was saying it for her benefit. They were both telepaths. Whatever they had to say to each other they didn’t have to say out loud. “If you delude yourself into thinking you can deal with this, she’ll kill you before you can blink.”

  The male was catching on.

  “Leave, or I shoot,” Jeremy said.

  Hunt’s hands changed, claws lengthening. His were bigger than Hailey’s. Of course. He had to be all fancy and have a beast that was the largest big cat in the animal kingdom. But her beast was still prettier. That was why she’d chosen it.

  “She needs to be controlled,” Hunt said. “It’s obvious she can’t do it by herself.”

  “She,” Hailey repeated, her voice deeper, more like a growl, and her words hissing between her fangs, “has your scent now, asshole. She can track you back to your den. And whatever she finds there, will bleed.”

  The next few seconds were a blur. Hunt snarled and charged her, she pushed up to retaliate, then the gun went off and they froze, each looking at the other for injuries. Hailey’s back was bleeding from the glass shards but she didn’t feel any other pain. Then again, given the state she was in, she probably wouldn’t feel a bullet through her lung.

  Jeremy stepped between them and shoved Hailey behind him, gun trained on Hunt again. “Touch her again, and I will kill you.”

  “You helped save Dara,” Hunt said, his voice a low growl somehow formed into syllables. “That is the only reason why I’m not ripping both your throats out now. But if she comes near me or mine again, I will kill her.”

  “Noted. Now get the fuck out.”

  Hailey couldn’t see past Jeremy but she heard the growl and then the door slamming shut. It was a feeble barrier against a man like that, she knew, but it still made her feel a little braver and she stepped out from behind Jeremy to go after Hunt.

  He caught her arm in a bruising grip and snatched her back to face him. “Are you suicidal?” he yelled. “What the hell is wrong with you? How could you even think of threatening his mate like that?”

  His hand on her was shaking, and he looked absolutely furious, but there was fear in his eyes. Hailey broke away from him. “You still have yours coming,” she told him.

  “Grow the hell up. I’m getting sick and tired of your hissy fits. In case it escaped your notice, I just saved your life. Any time you want to thank me for that, feel free. Otherwise, I wouldn’t mind a little peace and quiet.”

  Wow. He got sexy when he was mad.

  Oh, now where had that come from?

  That tranq was seriously messing with her head. Or maybe the adrenaline spike was causing her to get stupid. Either way, she itched to get physical and she didn’t particularly care how. She could go after Hunt, or beat the hell out of Jeremy, or tear his clothes off and screw his brains out. None of the options were mild, or gentle, or ladylike. She felt wild, out of control, and at the same time it was as if she had a clear goal. Work off the steam.

  And she still smelled, and now she had blood on her. That miniscule part of her still capable of disgust made her shudder. “I’m going to go take a bath,” she said in as reasonable a tone as she could. “It would be in your best interest not to be here when I come out.”

  “Why? So you can go after Hunt again? I don’t think so.”

  “Such deep concern for my welfare,” she said, her tone cutting. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you actually care about me.” It was the perfect opening to either trigger a confrontation—which, given all the angry sparks crackling in the air between them would lead to the kind of sex that left you utterly boneless�
��or shut her down with a single, well-aimed verbal arrow.

  Jeremy didn’t do either.

  He backed away and turned to stare out the window as if he was pretending he was out there instead of in here with her.

  Apparently he didn’t need words to shut her down. “Good thing I know better,” Hailey said, for some reason disappointed with his non-answer. She spun on the balls of her feet and silently padded to the bathroom.

  Chapter Twelve

  What the hell just happened? One minute he’d been watching Hailey sleep and the next he’d been shooting at the ceiling and getting between two seriously pissed-off shape-shifters, hell-bent on ripping each other to pieces. Real smart.

  How the hell had his life come to this? It couldn’t all be coincidence. One decision to accept a case did not just spiral into chaos by accident. There had to be some kind of force out there with a grudge against him. Something wanting to screw with his life.

  Jeremy leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window. Oh, there was a force with a grudge, all right. Only it wasn’t out there, it was in here, and it had a name.

  Hailey.

  He tried to remember the last time he’d had this much trouble keeping a situation under control. Then he realized something he’d been in denial about for weeks now. This particular situation had never been under control to begin with. It was a perfect storm of trouble. Everything was wrong, or going wrong, or about to go wrong, and apparently there was not a damn thing he could do about it.

  Like Hailey.

  From the moment he saw her his mind had gone haywire. He couldn’t corral his thoughts worth a damn around that woman; could barely keep a civil tongue in his head and he might as well forget about using his mental tricks to win her over. He kept getting dragged over to her side instead. Willing or not. Conscious or not.

  What the hell was it about her that made his higher intellect shut down and take a vacation? He was a telepath, for Christ’s sake. He ought to be able to look into her head, find out what she wanted, and deliver. Easy.

  Wrong. All wrong. From beginning to end, that process failed again and again.

  First, getting inside that woman’s head was like beating his own against the wall. Either she knew what he was doing and confused the fuck out of him with her portents of doom, or she didn’t and confused the fuck into him with thoughts a nun would flail herself for in penance for a year. It was getting to the point where his dreams were tame in comparison.

  Never had he met a female who needed to get laid more. Jesus.

  Second, finding out what she wanted was impossible. She didn’t even know. Hailey was so entrenched in her I’m-dying-alone mentality that her needs and wants were going haywire. Like a woman condemned, she wanted everything and nothing at the same time. She wanted to live her last days out loud, and go slink away to die in private. She wanted to be tough, stand on her own, face the consequences of her actions, but she didn’t ever acknowledge that she might need something or someone else in the process.

  And as for delivery, well, Jeremy had a proven record of pissing her off like nobody’s business.

  Damn frustrating woman.

  He ought to be escorting her to Amelia’s lab right now. He had a job to do. Find Hailey and bring her to Amelia. Simple. Straightforward. An assignment like any other.

  Not.

  There was no staying professional and detached with Hailey. Everything about her drew him like a moth to the flame. He could see it burning, felt the scorching heat of it all over his body. Knew for a fact that it would eventually reduce him to ash. And still he kept going, kept reaching out to that flame, willing to burn if it meant he could, if only for a second, be warmed by its glow.

  Hailey had no idea what it cost him to keep his distance. Every time he saw her eyes cloud over with resignation and he somehow stopped himself from putting his arms around her and kissing her until her eyes glowed liquid again, a crack formed in the walls he’d built for himself to give structure to chaos. There were hundreds of those cracks now. Sooner or later those walls would shatter. What happened after that was anyone’s guess. Maybe Jeremy would end up being the one strapped to a table with needles stuck in his arms.

  Hailey kept chipping away at his control, stealing it piece by piece. What surprised him was how easily, how willingly he was parting with it.

  Even now when he should be in total damage control mode, making arrangements to keep Hailey away from Hunt and his family, his head wasn’t in the game. He was feeling like an animal. Wanted to mark his territory and warn others away.

  It was the adrenaline.

  No. It was the sight of Hailey going toe to toe with a male twice her size and easily five times her strength.

  It was the thought that she was in the shower right now, hot water soaking her, making her body relax and her eyes close as she tipped her head back to rinse her hair.

  It was how damn much Jeremy just wanted to be in there with her right now. Wanted it to be his hands rubbing soap into her skin, massaging sore muscles; his chest she leaned against, instead of the cold shower wall.

  He wanted her.

  As if his thoughts had summoned her, he heard the bathroom door open behind him. She didn’t make another noise until she cleared her throat from two feet away, but he sensed her approach like a static charge intensifying against his skin.

  “What is it?” he said without turning around.

  “Look, I wouldn’t ask, but there’s a piece of glass stuck in my back and I can’t reach it to take it out.”

  Glass? What?

  What the hell had gone wrong this time? Or rather, what had gone even more wrong?

  He turned around to ask and his words died in his throat with a very loud gulp. Hailey was holding a towel to her front, her wet hair streaming soft and smooth over one shoulder, her back obviously bare. She looked wide-eyed and hesitant, as if she expected him to yell at her. At the moment, yelling at her was the last thing on his mind.

  Her skin was smooth as silk, so damn inviting he had to stop himself from reaching for her. The vision of her naked and seductive was still fresh in his memory—he doubted he’d ever get rid of it. Combined with his most recent train of thought, that and the sight of her now, caused a reaction he couldn’t hope to disguise. “Turn around,” he said, his voice more gruff than he’d intended it to be.

  Hailey turned, presenting him with her bleeding back.

  Jeremy sucked in a breath and tore his gaze away from her to look for what had caused her injuries. He spotted the giant broken picture on the floor where she’d fallen. She must have slammed into it when Hunt had tossed her back like a rag doll. Anger made his blood run hotter. I’m going to fucking kill him! “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  She shrugged and the small action made one of the deeper scratches emit a fresh drop of blood. “Thought I could handle it on my own.”

  As usual.

  She seemed to have done an impressive job cleaning up most of the cuts but there two were still bleeding and one, as she’d said, had a small piece of glass still embedded. He firmly kept his gaze above the hollow at the small of her back and the lush curve of her ass barely covered by her pants below it. She’d pushed them as low as she could to keep from getting blood on them. “Go sit down,” he said. “I’ll need the med kit.”

  She held it up in her free hand and the towel slipped from her just enough to reveal the side of her breast. Jeremy swayed on his feet. He snatched the box from her quickly before she could see his hand trembling. Bleeding cuts. Focus on that. “Sit,” he said again.

  Hailey picked a chair and straddled it, leaning forward. Jeremy had to kneel to get to eye level with her back. She smelled like hotel soap and heaven. A drop of water trickled down the back of her neck and spine, tempting him to catch it on his tongue and trace its path back up.

  Bleeding back, he reminded himself. He was starting to get sick of this stay-detached song and dance. The woman he lo…

&n
bsp; He drew back. What. The. Hell… There was something wrong with him.

  The woman he cared for … no, that wasn’t right either.

  The woman in his care was hurt and he’d allowed it to happen. Yes, that’s what it was.

  Hailey twisted to look back at him. “Something wrong?”

  Jeremy shook his head hard. “Face forward.”

  Hailey rolled her eyes. “Yessir!”

  When she did as he told her, her back wasn’t just straight, it was the slightest bit arched. It accentuated the groove of her spine and the swell of her ass on the chair. He should have had her sit on his lap.

  Focus!

  He did. On the fact that he was so close he could feel the heat of her skin through his own clothes. On the slight hourglass curve of her torso and the shape of her legs where her pants stretched taut over them as she sat.

  Hailey shivered as if she could feel his gaze and he kicked himself for it, even while he wondered whether her nipples had beaded against that towel, whether he’d feel them through it if he cupped her breasts. Christ, he wanted to. So damn much.

  Bleeding back. Bleeding back!

  He cleaned the wounds as best he could with the limited kit. Took his time about it, too, holding the alcohol swabs just right so that his knuckles grazed her skin with every pass, and smoothing the bandage ointment over her skin with exaggerated care.

  The one piece of glass he left for last. The shard was about as long as the pad of his pinky, with only a glittering sharp edge peeking out. No wonder she couldn’t get it out herself. “Hold still,” he warned before he pulled it out and pressed gauze to the wound to stop the bleeding. She didn’t even twitch.

  Jeremy had to keep pressure on the wound for a moment before he could clean it. While he waited, he imagined his hand skimming the line of her shoulder, down her arm to her side, then slipping beneath that towel to her waist. He’d pull her against him and claim a kiss, a real one, long and deep, until she squirmed and begged for him to touch her.

  Hailey shivered again.

  “Are you cold?”

  She shook her head. Had she seen it? Had he been projecting without realizing it?