Edge of Hunger

by Rhyannon Byrd

  “That’s what you meant last night,” he muttered, throwing his bloodstained shirt over one sweaty shoulder. “At the motel. When you said I’m more Merrick now than human.”

  Quinn nodded. “That’s right.”

  “How far is it going to go?” he asked, hating the cold touch of fear creeping up his spine. He wanted a cigarette, but had left his pack up in the room he’d slept in last night. Not that he’d actually slept. He’d been too afraid to fall asleep, half terrified that he would dream of Molly again…knowing exactly what would happen if he did.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll still look like a man when not in Merrick form,” Quinn assured him, as if he cared what he looked like, when he couldn’t have given a rat’s ass. That wasn’t the problem. It was the idea of constantly walking around with this ugly burn of hunger in his gut, stripping his insides raw, that scared the hell out of him. “But you’ll retain much of the strength and heightened abilities of your primal bloodline,” Quinn went on to say, “at all times.”

  Son of a bitch.

  “Enough gabbing,” Shrader suddenly muttered, shifting to his feet in an effortlessly fluid move that made Ian wonder if the guy was even feeling a twinge of pain. With a deliberately taunting look in his eyes, he flashed Ian a sharp, predatory smile. “Now that I’ve had my catnap, I’m ready to beat down what’s left of you, Buchanan.”

  “As entertaining as that sounds, I think he’s done for the day,” Quinn offered in an aside, after glancing at Ian’s savage expression.

  Shrader pushed his hair back off his face, then laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. “And I think he needs a good meal or he isn’t going to be worth shit out here on the training field, either today, tomorrow, or the day after that. This is just a waste of our time.”

  “What does that mean?” Ian demanded in a graveled voice, while something uneasy twisted in his gut.

  Rolling his eyes, Shrader explained. “No matter how bloody good you are at fighting, you’re too damn weak. Until you’ve properly fed, you won’t be able to go two rounds with that Casus prick.”

  “Fed?” he grunted, knowing damn well what the man was talking about.

  “Isn’t there something you crave?” Shrader drawled, his hazel, catlike eyes glittering and bright as he held his stare.

  “You’re talking about blood,” Ian said flatly, his throat tight, mouth dry…while the sound of his pulse roared in his ears. It’d been almost two days since he’d shared that second dream with Molly, and he’d felt every minute that had gone by, the hunger growing stronger with each passing second.

  “The blood’s part of it,” Quinn offered at his side.

  “What do you mean part of it ?”

  “You can’t just drink,” Shrader muttered, sounding disgusted by his ignorance. “Well you could, but you’re not a vampire, so you probably wouldn’t want to.”

  “Then explain it,” Ian growled, forcing the words out through his teeth.

  “You crave blood and sex. When you’re Merrick, the hungers are combined into one primitive need, so you’ll want them together. That’s why, in the old days, the unmated Merrick males had agreements with the gypsies. Just bedding a woman isn’t going to do anything for you but get your rocks off. But if you feed while riding her—” a gritty burst of laughter rumbled deep in Shrader’s chest “—let’s just say your Merrick is going to be a really happy boy.”

  “And until you feed properly,” Quinn added, “you’re not going to be strong enough for your Merrick to completely break free. Your fangs will still release, if there’s an opportunity for nourishment, but otherwise, you’ll be unable to make the transformation. Food is only going to sustain your body. The Merrick, it lives off the blood.”

  “He’s right.” Scott’s deep voice suddenly rumbled at his back. “It needs to happen, and it needs to happen now.”

  Turning around, Ian fisted his hands at his sides as he took in the sight of Scott and Molly standing together, side by side, as if they were the best pals in the world. While he’d spent the day outside getting his ass kicked, Scott had been cozied up in the library with her, going over his mother’s journal and examining the cross. The idea of the two of them alone together in the house had heat crawling up the back of his neck that had nothing to do with the record-breaking temperatures scorching the mountains…and everything to do with possession, while his gut twisted with the raw, caustic burn of jealousy.

  Molly stared at his face for a long, breathless moment, then trailed her heavy, luminous gaze down his body, as if he were something tasty that she wanted to slip in her mouth and savor for hours on end. He reminded himself that he wasn’t the kind of man to be brought to his knees by a woman. But when her tongue touched the plump center of her upper lip, her focus centered on his hard, dust-covered abdomen, he damn near hit the ground. And he knew precisely what would happen if he did. With his knees buried in the sand, he’d reach for her, pulling her to him, and bury his face in the plump V nestled there between her sweet little thighs, gulping in desperate lungfuls of her warm, womanly scent.

  Hell, in another lifetime, he’d have groveled at her feet, begging for whatever she was willing to give him. Sex. Love. Companionship and compassion. Even commitment…trust. Things he could never accept from her in this world, no matter how badly he wanted them.

  And aside from the sex—things he wouldn’t even know how to offer her in return.

  It drove him crazy—the fact that he couldn’t trust himself to touch her, when he wanted it so badly he actually hurt. The destructive pain lingered in his gut, in his muscles—God, even his skin itched for the feel of her against him, under him, wrapped around him.

  “How’s he doing?” Scott asked the Watchmen, the quiet words jerking Ian out of his personal hell.

  “He’s good, I’ll give him that,” Shrader admitted, surprising him. “All those years of boxing made him strong and quick on his feet for a human, but he’s still got a lot to learn.”

  “And he’s still trying to fight with his fists,” Quinn added, “instead of keeping his fingers loose, the way they’d be with his talons.”

  “You used to box?” Molly asked into the brief pause, blinking up at him in surprise. She lifted one hand to shield her eyes from the bright glare of sunshine, and Ian knew they were all watching her, as captivated as he was by the feminine lines and movements of her body. His gaze dropped to the sight of her breasts pressed against the dark blue cotton blouse she wore, the outline of her nipples tight against the soft material, making him want to growl. The primitive, predatory sound rumbled deep in his chest, and it took everything he had to choke it back and hold it inside.

  Instead of answering her question, Ian ground out one of his own. “What are you doing out here?” he muttered, when what he really wanted to ask was what she’d been doing inside all day with Scott.

  Reaching out to him, she grabbed his right hand, turned it over and laid the cross across the sweaty heat of his palm. “You’re going to need this,” she said softly.

  Ian scowled, the expression born from his trembling reaction to her touch as much as it was from the cross. “I told you that I don’t want the damn thing.”

  “The training is important,” Scott said, “but you need to figure out how to use this Marker as a weapon. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but it won’t work for me.”

  “I don’t know what to do with it,” he argued.

  Scott’s pale green gaze narrowed. “Maybe not, but you’re never going to figure it out if you don’t try. For all we know, it only works for a Merrick, which means I can study the bloody thing all day long and it isn’t going to do anyone a damn bit of good.”

  “Elaina’s journal entries reveal that she’d heard fragments of the legend, as well as stories about how the Casus were trapped,” Molly explained, squinting against the afternoon sunlight, the vivid rays glinting off her hair, making his hands itch to reach out and touch its silken weight. Fist his hands i
n it, and then pull her against his sweat-covered body, taking her to the dust-covered ground.

  He could see her lips moving, and gave himself the equivalent of a mental slap, forcing his mind to pay attention to what she was saying. “Ian, she also explains how she came into possession of the cross.”

  It was obvious from her expression that she expected him to be surprised by the answer. Wondering what it was, he nodded for her to go ahead and tell him.

  “Saige gave it to her.”

  “My sister?” he rasped, realizing that of all the possible scenarios, that was one he hadn’t expected.

  “Elaina writes of how Saige studied anthropology because she shared her passion for the stories about your bloodline, about the Merrick and the Casus. Saige has been researching the subject for years now, a fact which Kierland can confirm, since they’ve been watching her. According to your mother, your sister came into possession of the cross last year, after being on an archeological dig in Italy.”

  He cut a questioning, suspicious look toward Scott. “Then why didn’t you guys know about it?”

  The Watchman rolled his shoulder and winced. “My brother, Kellan, was assigned to her at the time, but he was…let’s just say easily distracted by the local attractions.”

  Ian snorted, shaking his head. “So instead of watching my sister, the way he was supposed to be doing, he was off getting laid?”

  Scott nodded. “Which is why we took him off the assignment and brought him back home, once we realized he was being remiss in his duties. But we didn’t know until now that he’d missed something this important.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “In Henning, watching your brother.”

  “And who’s watching Saige?” Ian demanded, wondering just how much his sister knew about what was happening. She’d always been as headstrong as she was willful when they were kids. It’d been years since he’d seen her, but he could only imagine she’d turned out to be hell on wheels.

  “A Watchman by the name of Paul Templeton is in South America with her. He’s not part of our compound, but he’s one of the best there is. She’s in good hands.”

  “You better hope she is,” he warned. “And with everything that’s happening, this Templeton had better be a damn sight better at his job than your brother.”

  “Kellan’s still young.” Scott sighed. “He still has a lot of maturing to do, but he’s good at what he does.”

  Shrader snorted, which earned him a hard glare from Scott, as well as a cuff on the arm from Quinn.

  Grinning, the Watchman lifted his arms in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, lay off. I didn’t say a word.”

  “Ian,” Molly murmured, drawing his attention back to her fey face, the freckles sprinkled over her nose more prominent in the sunlight, making her look impossibly young and fresh and innocent. “Your mother believed the cross was the first Dark Marker to be found. She also talks about stories that she remembers her great-grandmother telling her, about a divine ‘Arm of Fire’ that held the power to destroy a Casus for all eternity.”

  Rubbing at the stiff muscles in the back of his neck, he asked, “How did it work?”

  She lifted her shoulders in a baffled shrug. “That’s the thing. She didn’t know. And neither her nor Saige could ever find anyone who knew how it could be used.”

  Ian slanted a look toward Scott. “Any ideas?”

  “Beats me. Like I said, I’ve been studying it all day, but I haven’t come across anything useful.”

  “Arm of Fire?” Ian repeated, trying the words out on his lips while he stared at the cross, as if the answer would be revealed in its detailed designs. It was hot against his palm, the way it had been yesterday, when he’d taken it from Molly before slipping it over her neck. But it wasn’t hot like fire. The sensation was more like pressing your hand against sunbaked sand. Warm, but tolerable.

  He glanced back at Scott again. “And you really have no idea what we’re supposed to do with it?”

  Scott shook his head, the deepening lines around his eyes and mouth revealing his frustration. “Believe me, I wish I did.”

  “Looks like you’re going to have to figure it out,” Quinn murmured at his side, staring at the cross, same as Ian. Even Shrader stalked closer for a look.

  A wry, pained smile twisted Ian’s mouth. “I hate to cultivate negativity here, guys, but I don’t have a goddamn clue what to do with this thing.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Molly said softly, the gentle smile playing at her lips making him grit his teeth.

  “Why don’t you go on in and get cleaned up,” Scott said a moment later. “We’ll have dinner in an hour and talk things over then.”

  Closing his fingers around the cross, Ian gave them all a curt “Later” and set off toward the house, half-terrified that Molly wouldn’t follow him, staying behind with Scott…while even more terrified that she would.

  And then, drawing in a deep breath, he caught her scent just behind him, though she remained silent, not saying a word. It wasn’t until he’d entered their suite, and was just about to head into the room he’d taken, that she touched his back, her fingertips cool against the searing, sweaty heat of his skin.

  “Ian?”

  “What?” he grunted, aware of the fact he sounded like a total bastard.

  “Are you going to keep avoiding me?” she asked softly. “You walked out on me last night, and we haven’t talked all day.”

  He choked back a snarling sound of frustration. “I haven’t been avoiding you, Molly. I’ve been busy getting the shit beat out of me.”

  She pulled his stained shirt away from his body and stroked his shoulder, her touch gentle, tender, conveying a depth of longing he was surprised he even recognized. He’d never before been in tune with a woman enough to notice or even comprehend such things, until Molly. There was something connecting him to this woman—some kind of primitive, intense, piercing awareness—that magnified every sensation. That made him hyperaware of her every breath, every gesture, every shadow of emotion that crossed her face, the powerful need conveyed through the simple touch of her hand against his body.

  Quietly, she said, “Will you talk to me, then?”

  “I’m not trying to be a jackass, Molls. It just isn’t a good idea,” he muttered, slipping the cross into his back pocket. She touched a sensitive place on his spine, and just like that, he went hard.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  Yeah, why not? his conscience taunted.

  Ian turned around to face her, his gaze settling hungrily on the pink swell of her mouth, remembering how it tasted. How she felt beneath his lips, and he wanted to shout…to seethe…to rage against the maddening injustice of finding that the one thing he needed to make his world right, he couldn’t have. He wanted to put his fist through the wall. Wanted to rip something apart with his bare hands. But most of all, he wanted to drown himself in her, in that pulsing glow of heat that burned inside of her, that he could feel ignite every time he got close to her. That smoothed its way into his body through the touch of her skin, her breath, her taste…melting things inside of him that had been frozen solid for too damn long.

  He started to move forward and grab hold of her, when Shrader’s words rushed back at him, making his breath hiss through his teeth.

  You need blood and sex. When you’re Merrick, the hungers are combined into one primitive need, so you’ll want them together.

  Craving crawled through him, thick and meaty and raw, like a physical thing inside his body that had substance…that had its own agenda. Ian closed his eyes, trying to block out the physical temptation. But he could still see it in his mind’s eye. Her lush mouth. Flushed face. The tender stretch of her throat as she tilted her head back to stare up at him. Could remember how the hot, drugging flavor of her blood slipped over his tongue, burning like pleasure in his belly.

  You’re losing it, asshole. Big-time.

  “I’m trying to understand, Ian,” she told him, her t
one sharper than before, and he opened his eyes to watch the slow spill of frustration wash over her expression. “To give you the space you need without pressuring you into something you’re not ready for. But you can’t keep avoiding me. This is ridiculous. I heard what they said out there…about you needing blood in order to release the Merrick. What am I even doing here if you won’t let me help you?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to stop running every time you see me,” she burst out, her velvety brown eyes glittering and bright with a constantly shifting well of emotion. “To talk to me, to tell me what’s going on in that thick head of yours, because I swear to God, Ian, I don’t have a clue!”

  “I can’t,” he suddenly snarled, stepping back from her, the wild, furious look in his own eyes warning her not to follow. “I mean it, Molly. I can’t deal with this right now.”

  Looking like an enraged she-cat, she moved closer, forcing him to retreat a step…and then another. “Like hell you can’t. You’re going to deal with it, because I’m not letting you walk away from me again. I don’t get it, Ian. What are you so afraid of?”

  What was he afraid of? Christ, the list was growing longer each day, every time he had to be in her presence, every second that he wasn’t. He was terrified of the way she looked at him. Of the way she made him feel. Of the infuriating fact that he couldn’t control himself with her. He owed her the explanation, dammit. He knew he did. But all he could say was, “It’s not going to happen.”

  He turned away from her, ready to escape and slam the door behind him, when she said, “Then you’re the biggest coward I’ve ever known.”

  “Is that really what you think?” he asked without facing her, his hands fisting and flexing at his sides, while his pulse echoed through his skull like a deafening, primal roar.