by Kita Bell
He felt sick.
This woman, this beautiful silver-eyed tigress lying beneath his palm was his amati. Eva. Eva is mine. Not Khael’s Lis from the memories – but Eva. Beautiful, stubborn, lovely Eva.
MyEvita, Brand thought, even as his mind and memories warned, Do not make the mistakes Khael made. Listen to her. Be with her. Know her. Love her. Take her. Marque her. Keep her…
Brand’s hand tensed. “Evita…” He hesitated. She probably didn’t even know that the amati bond was a possibility. Most Kaspian didn’t – because it was a bond that only happened for his own family.
Eva wriggled beneath his palm. “I thought you were going to heal me, Brand. But I should have guessed: it was a ploy to stare at my body. But I thought you would had seen it all by now – since you pulled me from a snowbank and all.” The hint of a smile in her voice almost undid him.
Brand opened his mouth to tell Eva, in all blunt honesty, what she was to him – and self-preservation hit hard.
Hell, he wanted her – he wanted her badly. But would she stay? Would she try to complete the bond with him? Or would she disbelieve him and fight to leave…
Brand didn’t know anything about her. Not really.
Eva was brave and she was beautiful. But she didn’t know enough to care about him – she didn’t know enough to believe in him. She didn’t know enough to stay with him and let him protect her.
Even if they were meant to spend a lifetime together, they were strangers.
And did he trust her? With the truth of his ability, his secrets?
No. He didn’t trust anyone but his family.
He wished he could, but…no.
Yet, as Brand stared at Eva, everything inside him screamed, “Mine!”
It was too much to hold.
Eva was watching over her shoulder, a puzzled, sleepy expression in her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Brand rasped, and met her quicksilver gaze. Golden sparks flashed in their depths, prisming outward like a promise, and he wondered what his own gaze looked like. Brand swallowed. “Thinking. Give me a minute.”
Eva slowly nodded before laying her cheek back against her arms. Brand stared down at her – felt the soft abraded skin beneath his palm – and grit his teeth in a silent snarl. The Sakai – Rohe – who had done this to Eva would pay. That needed to be investigated too. But all Brand could do for Eva right now was to make sure her wounds were closed; she would have to heal the rest.
She was injured, she needed food, but despite that, her body was beautiful. Brand wanted to lean down and taste it, to caress it. He was tempted and yet…tomorrow, when she learns that you won’t take her home, she will hate you.
He would have to delay that knowledge for as long as possible. Because something told him, when Eva found out – she would run.
*Brand settled for healing Eva instead. When he was done, she murmured, half-asleep, “I have an ability too. But it’s mostly useless.”
“No ability is useless. What is yours?”
“I said mostly useless.” She shifted, a flicker of tension in her spine and Brand smoothed it out before she continued, “I know when people are going to die. My chest cramps up, and suddenly I can’t breath, and I just know.” She shifted again. “Sometimes I see flashes of them, sometimes…not.”
A chill coursed down Brand’s spine. “Always? Any person?”
“No. Just family. People I care about. Sometimes…sometimes I can change it. If I get there fast enough. If I can find them before it happens.”
“I know many tigers who would love to have that ability,” he said quietly. If he had known what would happen to Lis…to his father…to the Elisaie – so many lives could have been saved. So much would be different today. Perhaps the members of Brand’s family were known for their abilities – but Brand also knew that not everyone from the other Gens possessed such talents. It was a matter of bloodlines and power, and age. “Abilities are to be treasured, Eva. I can think of a handful of occasions in my past when your ability would have come in useful.”
“It’s only useful if you can get to them in time. And if it works. It doesn’t always work. It didn’t warn me about…” a pause, a shake of her head as her scent turned sad. “Brand, what I meant to say was, if I had a real ability,” she yawned, nestling further into the sheets, “I would want it…to be like yours. Exactly…like yours.”
Minutes later, she was asleep. Brand touched her hair, letting the soft warmth of it drift through his fingers as the familiar darkness rose inside him.
“Any ability but mine, Eva. Any ability but mine.”
Chapter 3
Eva spent most of the next day sleeping in the motel room, only to wake in a brief panic as she felt Brand lift and carry her to his car. Satisfied that Rohe was nowhere near, it was a little while before she could fall asleep again, but when she finally did wake the second time around, it was dark outside and she was cheek-down against the vehicle’s luxurious leather seating; Brand was riding beside her and an expensive wool coat that carried his scent had been draped across her body.
“Where are we?” she asked groggily, pulling up onto one elbow, and he looked over from the book he was reading to give a faint smile. He was close enough she could feel his warmth.
“On the road.”
She snorted in amusement. Of course they were on the road. “That is obvious,” she said dryly, straightening in the seat then flushing as she realized that she was still wearing that same old blue sweater. It was long enough to be a dress on her, but…she was still sitting in an enclosed vehicle with two incredibly sexy males, and not a pair of underwear in sight. And her hormones seemed to have gone into overdrive. “How far until we reach North Carolina?”
Brand shrugged, trading a glance with Joshua in the rearview mirror. “It’s a long drive. You can’t travel the entire way like this, Eva. We need to get you some real clothes.”
She flushed, pulling the coat over herself and prayed that he couldn’t smell her arousal.
If only he wasn’t so…well, handsome.
The three of them drove for several more hours before Joshua pulled over at a twenty-four hour Walmart. Eva had moved to get from the car, but then Brand had picked her up and, to her shock, carried her across the snow-packed parking lot.
“I can walk,” she said, embarrassed and trying to keep the sweater from riding up. She wasn’t used to being treated like this. She wasn’t sure how to react.
Brand shrugged, then carefully set her on her feet after they cleared the entranceway. “No point. The skin on your soles is still tender – and I can carry you easily enough.”
As Eva stepped into the store, the harsh fluorescent lighting reminded her of the halls in Rohe’s Asylum, and she shivered – and then wanted to shiver again, but for an entirely different reason, as Brand’s hand slid to rest on the small of her back.
Damn hormones, she thought, and tried to get herself in hand. “How far are we from…from Rohe?” she could barely bring herself to utter that name. But she needed to know.
Also, it effectively doused her desire.
“It’s a quick stop, Eva,” Brand said, his deep voice slightly rough. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” Eva just nodded, a knot of foreboding lodged in her throat. But foreboding over what, she had no idea. All she knew was that she felt jumpy…unsettled.
“Make it quick,” Joshua said, glancing at his phone, dialing. “I’ll touch base with Seth, see if he’s pulled up any info on Rohe or the tranquilizers she used. The two of you do what you need to do, and hurry.” He glanced at Brand, a frown in his steely eyes. “I’ll get the food, meet you at the car. Something…” he shook his head. “My gut tells me that something’s going down in Vermont. We should have called a tracker in to investigate that goddamned place,” he muttered. “Sakai aren’t supposed to be in this area of the country. They aren’t supposed to be in this country at all. We aren’t in bloody Europe.”
“We know. Seth
likes the fact even less than you,” Brand said, his palm pressing into Eva’s back, steering her to the left. “He’ll get answers. But the Asylum’s off-limits until we have more information. So remember that before you call in any friends to do you favors.”
Joshua grimaced, half-waving his hand in acknowledgement as he split toward the right side of the store, raising his phone to speak into it in some foreign language. Eva and Brand moved toward the clothing section.
She felt nervous, awkward. After last night, Brand had barely spoken two words to her. Yet, each time she looked at him, he was watching her. Studying her – listening to her. As if he were assessing her for something.
It was disconcerting.
Eva swallowed, slanting a glance at him from the corner of her eyes as she padded down the cold off-white tile of the aisle. “What language was Joshua speaking? On the phone, I mean.”
“Greek. Old Greek. Seth prefers it,” Brand said matter-of-factly, as if people spoke Ancient Greek every day. He pointed toward the benches near the waiting room. “I’ll be over there. Find whatever you need, I’ll pay for it.” Then he glanced down at Eva’s bare feet. “We’ll stop at the shoe department next.”
An odd shiver coursed down Eva’s spine as she looked at the clothing. She wasn’t rich. Her Gens wasn’t rich. And Walmart wasn’t exactly expensive…but… “I’ll pay you back.” She’d keep her expenses to a minimum. As soon as Eva was back at the Gens, she’d have her old clothes again.
“No need,” Brand shrugged, as if money meant nothing to him, and Eva was reminded – again – that he was from Kade Gens. An unsettling sensation lodged in the pit of her stomach. No. There’s no reason he’d look at me twice. He’s rich, he’s hot, and apparently, he speaks Ancient Greek. Fluently.
Last night must have been her imagination. The feel of his hands on her body – the slightly rough sound of his voice, as if he needed something, and more, needed it from her – those were probably delusions of her sleep-fogged recently-traumatized mind. Wishful thinking, Eva thought dismally, as she scooped up a pair of jeans from the racks and chose a dark blue sweater. It wouldn’t be the first time.
They found a bra and underwear in the next department – Eva didn’t bother with anything expensive, since she was going to pay Brand back, rich or not – and moved on to the shoes. Where Brand remained just as silent and withdrawn.
“You’re brooding,” Eva realized finally, almost irritably, as she slipped on a pair of size eights and glanced up to realize that – yes, no imagination about it – this time he was definitely staring at her ass. Gold flecked his sapphire gaze when he raised it to hers.
“Am I?”
Eva ground her teeth in irritation. “And now you’re evading the question.”
“I don’t think,” Brand said quietly, as he crouched before her to examine the fit of her shoe as if she were still ten years old, “that you actually asked me a question, Eva. Keep these on. I’ll pay for them at the checkout.”
This time, Eva did hiss at him. “I’ll pay for them. When we reach North Carolina.”
“No you won’t,” Brand said, still in that unconcerned tone, and scooped up the empty shoebox along with her new clothes. They started for the front of the store. “I’d make you pick out more clothes, except something tells me you’d fight me on them.” Brand nodded as they passed the outerwear. “So in light of my restraint, choose a coat.”
“Maybe I don’t need a coat.” Eva glared at him, irritated by his attitude. Besides, she couldn’t afford a coat.
Brand arched an infuriating eyebrow. “It’s winter outside, Eva. Maybe you haven’t noticed, or maybe you actually like to lie in snowbanks, but most Kaspian would be cold.”
She flashed her teeth at him. “God, you’re bossy.”
“Dully noted. Now pick a coat or I’ll pick one for you.”
Not just bossy. Overbearing.
“You’re one of those people who thinks they know what’s best for everyone else,” Eva said as she narrowed her gaze; Brand responded with a long, almost bored, look. The two of them stood like that for a moment in the midst of the abandoned late-night Walmart. And Eva realized that, for once, she might have just met a man who could be as stubborn as she was. If Rainey were here, she’d die laughing. Though that realization didn’t do much to restore Eva’s good humor.
Rainey’s not here. If I want to see Rainey, I’ll have to pick a stupid coat so this stupid male will let us leave the store and get back on the stupid road. Or we’ll be here all night.
Eva cursed, ripped the first coat off the rack she saw, and stomped away before Brand could say anything. Her new sneakers squeaked on the cement floor, and she heard Brand’s quiet footsteps follow behind.
“At least you picked a warm one,” he had the gall to say at the checkout, and Eva growled at him, earning a wide-eyed stare from the human woman behind the register. Not that the female wasn’t already ogling Brand. Eva wanted to claw the cashier’s eyes out, especially when the woman’s fingers touched his arm – for a moment too long – as she took the empty shoebox.
Not that she had any claim on him.
Eva snarled and left Brand behind to flirt with the slutty cashier. I don’t need to see this. She’d wait in the parking lot.
“Not that I have any reason to be angry anyway,” Eva muttered, stopping beside the smoker’s bench. Most of the snow had been scraped away from the slushy parking lot, but the wind was cold and biting, and Eva huddled beside the bench, wishing she had at least taken the coat rather than leave it with Brand.
Brand. God. What was wrong with her?
There was no reason to want Brand. He was annoying – he thought he knew what was best for everyone else. He was obviously bossy. He was handsome, but everything else was usually enough to disqualify him from even coming close to being her type.
Except the touch of his large, slightly-rough palm on her back still burned through her skin and, as they had ridden in the car that afternoon, Eva realized that she was swiftly growing to crave his scent. To need his scent. Like a junkie needing a fix. Even now, without Brand here, without something of Brand’s presence nearby, she felt edgy, unsettled.
Anxious.
It frightened her.
Eva angrily halted the twitch of her leg and searched out the car in the parking lot. The sedan was cold and dark, and she didn’t have the keys.
It was pointless to leave the warmth of the doors.
Last night she had been wet for him. How could Brand not have known? There was no way Brand didn’t know. Kaspian weren’t shy when it came to sex: they didn’t catch human diseases, and their birth rate was so low that any child, no matter how unexpected, was celebrated.
Well, Eva admitted, fixing her eyes on a glowing street lamp, most Kaspian aren’t worried about children. But she was messed up. So was Rainey. After the way their Gens had treated her mother, it wasn’t easy to make sex seem casual.
Even if Eva wanted it to be. Desperately needed it to be. If only so she wasn’t always so wary, like Rainey was.
Perhaps Brand had picked up on that.
Eva closed her eyes, tried to banish the image of the cashier’s hand brushing against Brand’s wrist. So casual. Almost a caress. Eva wanted to rip the woman’s fingers off, one by one, and that reaction made as little sense to her as her inexplicable lust did.
“Face it,” Eva sighed, breath puffing into the night air, “you’ve got it bad.” The sooner she was back at the Turner Gens, the better off everything would be. She could sink back into everyday life and forget that she had ever been kidnapped, forget that she had ever learned the meaning of “Sakai,” and forget that the wires of her libido had become inexplicably crossed for an evasive control freak like Brand.
“You want one, honey?” a store worker came out to sit on the bench beside her and offered a cigarette. Eva shook her head at the older woman, smiling a polite refusal.
Then, on a whim, since Brand was such an evasive contro
l freak, and because they had to be getting close by now, she asked, “How far are we from the North Carolina border?”
The woman gave her an odd look, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I always take the plane from Cleveland.”
That odd sense of not-quite-rightness Eva had been carrying with her tightened: “Cleveland? As in, Cleveland, Ohio?”
The woman dragged on her cigarette and gave Eva a bemused look like she thought she was crazy or on drugs or something. “That’s lake-effect snow you’re standing in, honey. Where else did you think you were, if not Ohio?”
Well, Virginia maybe.
Eva rubbed her arms, trying to stay warm, and switched her gaze to the dense wooded area on the parking lot’s left. But why were they in Ohio? It wasn’t exactly en route to North Carolina or anything…
And what is taking Brand so long? He better not have decided to hook up with that store clerk… God, she was being so irrational. She needed to get her hormones in check.
She needed to get her priorities in check.
Eva frowned and turned back to go back inside, to find Brand. But she had barely taken a step when the cold intensified and snow swirled across the ice of the dark parking lot. The wind shifted.
She smelled them.
Sakai.
Eva whipped around, saw the dark figures slinking through the shadows between the cars. The guards. Rohe’s guards – Rohe’s guards were here. In Ohio of all places.
Rohe. Rohe must want me back.
The terror that shot through Eva’s body was better than any adrenaline:
She didn’t think. She ran.
Brand tried not to listen to the mindless store music as he smiled politely at the cashier and waited for the woman to finish her price check on an empty shoebox. Goddamn. He should be outside with Eva right now, telling her what she was to him...
God, there was no way to explain that to her. What was he going to say: “Eva I know you don’t know amati exist, but guess what? You’re mine. Now let me Marque you?”
And the Marque was only half of it.