“Oh yeah?” He straddled one of the stools lined up at the island. “Like what?”
Tieran returned her attention to the sink. “Your mom was telling me about when you were born and how she wondered for the entire nine months whether or not she would give birth to a dog.”
“Wolf,” he muttered.
“That too.” She exchanged another look with his mother and they both doubled over again.
He waited them out.
“Ahem.” Judith cleared her throat and straightened just as the sky lit up through the window above the sink. “I had this nightmare for months after you two were born that I’d go into your room and find two puppies there, yipping and bouncing up and down to get out of your cribs.”
“That’s great, Mom, scare her to death.”
She spun around, a dirty serving spoon yielded like a weapon and a serious look on her face. “That’s why I told her, Caelan. Nobody took me under their wing when I met your father. No one told me what carrying a shifter child was going to be like. And I was too…in shock…of what was happening to go to your father. Besides”—she glanced again at Tieran—“he’s a man. What the hell would he know?” she said, grinning. Tieran’s lips quirked.
Great. They were ganging up on him. A clap of thunder rattled a precarious stack of dishes.
“Wow.” Tieran jumped toward him. “Maybe we should get going, Caelan.”
“Uh-huh.” He didn’t move from his perch. Now it was his turn to smirk. Tonight they were going to sleep in his bed. After they fucked in his bed, anyway.
“What do you mean, ‘uh-huh’?” Tieran balanced on one foot and put her hands on her hips. Didn’t matter. This was one battle she wouldn’t win.
“Storm’s already here, my own. I’m not driving in bad conditions and endangering your safety.”
“But I—”
“We’re staying here, Tieran.”
Her body deflated in defeat. Score one for the Prime, he thought and secretly smiled.
“He’s right, my dear. The last thing you need tonight is to have an accident. There are plenty of rooms here, aren’t there, Caelan.”
He nodded. “Absolutely.” But the only one you’ll be staying in is mine.
“There, see?” His mother patted Tieran’s shoulder. She still looked a little weary. “He can be thoughtful when he tries. Now, then, I’m going to head home before the brunt gets here.”
“Thanks for all your help, Judith.”
“You’re very welcome, dear. Remember, anything you need. I know how bone-headed my son can be.”
Thank God for his mother. He hadn’t thought far enough ahead to think about these things. Of course his mate would need some guidance. Being human, his mother was perfect, and she was the one person willing to tell Tieran anything she wanted to know. He saw the bond already forming between them and his heart gave a little jump.
He stood and hugged the smaller woman. “You want me to drive you?”
“Oh, no, I think I can manage, Caelan. It’s not even raining yet.”
“All right. Call us when you get there so we’ll know.”
“I will.” She wiggled her fingers at Tieran who smiled and waved back.
“I like your mom,” she said when the door shut behind his mother.
He shrugged. “She’s okay.”
“Caelan!”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” He took her in his arms and pulled her close. “You held up well today.”
“Yeah, so, what am I? A side of beef?”
He chuckled. “Mmm. Yum. Can I taste?” He bent his head and took possession of her lips. “Best beef I ever ate,” he whispered against her mouth. Her hands slipped into his back pockets and his cock hardened. “God I want you.”
“What else is new?” She tucked her head under his chin. “Caelan?”
“Hmm?”
“Is…Eli going to be here tonight?”
Damn it. He was thinking about making love to her and she was still worried about his brother. Honestly, based on their earlier conversation, Caelan was more than a little worried about his twin himself. Not about the murders, that was ridiculous, but about whatever was eating away at his normal, playful self.
He sighed. Might as well get this over with. “He lives here, Tieran. This is his home. What would you have me do, throw him out?”
She shook her head against his chest.
“Look.” Caelan lifted her head with both hands. “His rooms are all on the other half of the house. You don’t even have to see him if you don’t want to.” She would never know how much it hurt to say those words. It tore him apart for her to be afraid of his twin. Especially since the two of them had always been inseparable. What would he do if his mate and his twin couldn’t come to terms with one another?
“I’m sorry. It’s not fair of me to judge him, you’re right.”
“I know I am,” he said to try and lighten the mood. “I’m always right.”
Her eyebrows arched. “And on that note, I’m going to ask you to point me to the nearest bed. I’m exhausted.”
“Not too exhausted though, right?” Caelan led her out the door, into the foyer and down the long hallway to his room. “We can play around, huh?” He looped his arm around her shoulders and casually flicked at her nipple with his thumb. The nub immediately hardened and pressed against her T-shirt. “Oh, man, you don’t know how long I’ve waited to touch you.”
Pushing her back against the wall, he tunneled his hand beneath her shirt and devoured her mouth. “I can’t wait.”
Tieran returned the kiss just as hungrily. “I can’t do this.”
Her breasts were firm, the nipples taut under her bra, and he fumbled with the front clasp to free them. They filled his hands a second later, smooth and warm. He yanked the T-shirt up and bent to take a nipple between his lips. She arched into him when he sucked the first one deep into his mouth.
“Oh, God.” Her head shook back and forth on the wall, her hands pressed against his shoulders. Something in her voice made him stop.
“What is it, my own?”
A slow tear tracked its way down her cheek. She sniffed once and tried to smile but he could see it was false.
“How can you make me want you so bad?”
He shrugged. “It’s the same for me.”
She patted his chest and this time a real smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “I believe that, I really do, but while you can apparently go on for days, I can’t.”
Jesus. Now that he looked closely, he saw the shadows beneath her eyes. She hadn’t slept well the night before and then she’d been subjected to his pack with no break. His mate was exhausted. And here he was about to fuck her in the hallway. Her chest still heaved from his foreplay, yet her eyelids looked ready to close any second.
He pulled her shirt down, covering her reddened breasts. “I’m an insensitive jerk, aren’t I?”
“Pretty much.” She yawned so big her jaw popped.
“Hey.”
“You said it, not me.” She dropped her forehead to his chest. “I just want to sleep. Just for a little while before I have another vision.”
What the… “What the hell do you mean, ‘another vision’?” He bracketed her face in his hands and lifted until she looked at him. “You know you’re about to have another one and you didn’t tell me?” If he was growling at her, tough. He meant what he said earlier about not keeping secrets.
Her eyes widened and searched his frantically. “I…I…God, I must have forgotten with everything that was happening.”
“Wait a minute. Are we still talking about the woman from the paper this morning?” His heart settled back into a more normal rhythm. Of course they were. She hadn’t had one today, and if it always followed the twitch then that’s the one she’d have. No wonder she wanted to sleep.
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish. “No. Well, yes, technically I guess, but I’d forgotten about that. No. This afternoon when the detective”—
she shivered in Caelan’s arms—“when he touched me, it happened again.”
Tieran jerked upright, banging into his chin. If she kept doing that, he’d end up with broken jaw. Damn. He tasted blood on his tongue.
“Do you think he did it?” Her voice was frantic and she dug her fingernails into his forearms, diluting the pain of his jaw but making his eyes water all the same.
He shook his head to clear it. What the hell was she talking about?
“Caelan. Do you think the detective did it?”
“No. Hayward’s a detective on the case. You probably just picked something up from him because of that. He’s been at all the scenes, knows everything there is to know about it, except who did it,” he muttered, disgusted.
“Damn, you’re right.”
“Like I said, I’m always right.” At least, he hoped he was in this instance. Michael Hayward could be a bastard in his own right, but he was a cop, first and foremost. He fought for the shifter side and kept their secret when it would be so easy to go wolf in front of other cops to hunt a lead. Not to mention he’d kept Caelan up to speed on the case every day.
Tieran’s deep sigh brought him back. She yawned again, making him yawn too. Since his cock had long since wavered, it was time to hit the sack.
“Come on, baby, let’s put you to bed.” He led her to his room and stripped her completely before turning back the covers and sticking her between them.
She snuggled in. “Mmm.” Her eyes were closed and her lips parted on her soft breaths before he could even get undressed. After switching off the light, he slid in next to her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. Burying his nose in the crease of her neck and shoulder, he inhaled her scent. Her body melted into his. God, he loved her.
Chapter Ten
She was scared out of her mind. The harsh light dangling precariously above her made sweat trickle off her forehead, between her breasts and down the length of her spine. Every few minutes a sob burst out of her and fresh tears would mingle with the snot coating her upper lip, making her entire face wet.
The man had pinned her arms behind the chair with some kind of plastic cording. Her hands were sticky with the blood oozing from where she’d tried to free her wrists so many times. Her shoulders burned in agony. She’d been sitting here for so long she’d already urinated on herself twice. Dropping her chin to her chest, she moaned as the crude gag bit into the long-ago cracked corners of her mouth.
The stench of her own bodily fluid made her stomach clench. How long had he been gone? A day, two? Completely disoriented, she had no idea. Maybe he wasn’t coming back for her. Would she die sitting in this chair in a place no one would look for her?
Daniel. God she would miss him so much. Half of her soul was already missing without him near. The man had ripped her sanity to shreds the minute he’d stuffed her in the back of his car, a foul-smelling cloth pressed to her nose and mouth. The next thing she knew, she woke up here.
She cried out through the gag and rocked the chair from side to side. Anything that might give her a new position, a chance to escape. She grunted, pulling at the bindings at her wrists and ankles.
No use. She was too weak after so many draining hours.
She jerked her gaze up. A sudden scratching noise meant she wasn’t alone anymore. Her heart pounded as she searched the cavernous, decrepit space the years had not been friendly to for the millionth time. Beyond the circle of light surrounding her, darkness impeded her vision.
There. From that corner filled with what looked like decades old crates. She heard it again, like a footstep on the dirt-ridden floor. She felt him watching her, waiting. A match lit up the shadows and then the glowing red butt of a cigarette cut through the darkness like an evil eye, taunting her.
She whimpered. How could anyone stand there and not care? What kind of beast was he?
She knew. Deep down inside, she knew she was about to become another victim of the man Daniel had talked about. He’d warned her so many times. “Stay close to me always, my mate.” Oh, God, what had he done to Daniel? Killed him? No, he was still alive, she felt him in her heart. He was looking for her. The whole pack would be looking for her.
It would be too late, though.
After what seemed like an eternity, her tormentor dropped the cigarette. In the silence she heard him grind it out with his shoe, crushing the demonic red dot. He would come for her now.
Her attempted scream sounded more like a moan through her overused vocal cords and the fabric forced between her lips. Her head fell forward in hopelessness. A curtain of dull, greasy black hair that had somehow been left out of the gag swept forward, shielding her gaze. She was glad for that at least.
The man laughed, the sound exploding through the dark spaces and bouncing off the metal walls, mocking her with its repeat. Her spirit fell even further.
With a heavy, obvious tread, he walked toward her in slow deliberation. She promised herself she would not look at him, would not let him see any more of her terror. She failed. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him approach. He swaggered toward her. Not drunk, but God, preening. A ball cap cast a shadow over his face, obscuring his features.
He stopped in front of her and reached out to her face, caressing her cheek with the back of his hand. A pathetic whimper escaped her. She looked down her nose, her eyes nearly crossing, her breath heaving through her runny nose. There was a strange mark on top of his arm, at the wrist, peeking out from beneath his watch. She sobbed at his horrible, gentle touch. With wild eyes, she stared back at him. Pleaded with him. Begged.
One corner of his mouth curled into a snarl. Her stomach rolled with a fresh batch of tears. His hand moved to tangle in the mess of her hair and jerked, forcing her to look up. He sneered at her as he stepped to her side.
There was a hissing sound at her ear. She grew lightheaded from fighting to breathe and imagining what he would do to her. The metal glinted, catching the light from the one bulb he’d somehow rigged in this shitheap of a warehouse that otherwise hadn’t seen electricity for more than twenty years.
Her panic multiplied a million times when he held a wicked-looking knife above her face, making sure she could see the jagged edge of the steel blade. She cried out, squirming and pulling at the hair fisted in his hand.
“Things will be so much better when I’ve taken over,” he rasped. He lowered the knife and used the razor-sharp edge to caress her cheek. “We won’t have this problem when I am Prime.”
Eyes wide with shock, she inhaled sharply at his implication. He smiled and pressed the cold metal to her exposed throat.
She fought him, screaming and jerking, even as he pricked the delicate skin.
Her whole body shook with great uncontrollable convulsions. An arc of red spurted in front of her as he shoved her head forward so she could see the damage he’d invoked.
Her heart thumped once. Twice. Her eyelids grew so heavy she couldn’t hold them open and yet her body seemed to dance still. His laugh erupted in an evil howl, his eyes glittered a feral golden brown.
Daniel.
Tieran bolted upright in bed, her chest heaving as she fought the dream off. Her head swam from the suddenness of her movements. Predawn shadows cast a gray tint over the unfamiliar room and the curtain in the open window fluttered with the slight breeze.
She glanced around at her surroundings before remembering where she was. Caelan must have opened the window sometime during the night. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she was tired.
With a shaky hand, she scraped back the damp hair clinging to her face and away from her eyes, trying to erase some of the disorientation that often clouded her memory after a vision.
“What is it, baby?” Caelan mumbled, reminding her that she wasn’t alone. He rolled to his side next to her and settled an arm across her thighs. His fingers gently squeezed her hip, calming her a fraction, before his soft snoring announced he’d already fallen back asleep.
As s
oon as the rotation in her brain settled, her stomach took over, sending bile rushing up her esophagus then dropping back down again.
Damn it. Tieran threw a hand over her mouth and stared opposite her at what she remembered to be the bathroom door. She hoped to hell she made it to the toilet before she puked in front of wolf-man. The last thing she needed was for him to hover like a mother hen again.
Right now she needed privacy, not overbearing protectiveness.
“It’s his job as your mate to protect you, Tullabelle.”
“I can’t imagine what in the world I need protecting from here in his bedroom.”
“You will soon, Tulla. Keep him close.”
Tieran snorted and looked at Caelan’s arm draped across her lap. He couldn’t get any closer than he was. Well, he could, had, but she wouldn’t go there. God forbid her grandmother start spouting stories of her and Pawpoo again. She shivered with the sweat beginning to dry on her nude body, and eased out from beneath the muscular limb pinning her to the bed. She didn’t even recall getting undressed.
Her feet tangled in the sheets. Doing her best not to disturb him, she fought her way out of them, her awkwardness making her even more clumsy. Finally free, she stood beside the bed. Caelan was now planted on his belly, his arm outstretched where she had been.
Tieran angled her head and stared at his broad hand. Palm down, the tops of fingers were sprinkled with dark hairs. She swayed on her wobbly knees. He was wearing a sporty, expensive watch. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? And why did she care that she hadn’t taken notice? It was a watch, big deal.
But there was something else. Tucked beneath the watch, a dark tattoo peeked out. She squinted, trying to get a closer look at its shape, but the watch was too much in the way. A watch that he had looked at when his car had broken down.
Did Eli have the same watch? She couldn’t remember and her brain felt like mush.
Her tummy rolled again, this time coming closer to blowing loose. She pivoted and took off for the bathroom, stumbling on the discarded jeans she guessed Caelan had stripped off her the night before. Off balance, she slammed her toe into the leg of the bed and howled in pain.
Seeing Eye Mate Page 16