by L. E. Wilson
He grinned at her. “I’m all right. It’ll take more than a little demon possession to get rid of me.”
“So, you’re not…?”
“Oh, no. He’s in there,” he answered her unspoken question. “But apparently not by his choice. He doesn’t come out to play much.”
Shea wiped her eyes. “I’m so glad you’re still with us. Even if there’s a little more to you now.”
Luukas reached out a hand to her, but she stayed out of reach of his touch and didn’t come forward to meet him. He let his hand drop. “Shea. Where have you been?”
Ryan noticed that neither of the other guys made a move towards her. And the women were still barricaded in the kitchen.
“We went searching for you,” Aiden said. “But you were just bloody gone. We dug through the rubble, all that was left of the mountain when Luukas was finished with it, but we didn’t catch a scent of you anywhere.”
“We kept digging anyway,” Nik picked up where Aiden left off. “You weren’t there. What happened?”
Shea held up her hands. The palms showed signs of recently healed cuts. “I was there.”
“Not possible,” Aiden told her emphatically. “We searched…”
“I was way down there, somewhere in the bowels of hell underneath all of those underground tunnels.”
“But we dug all the way to the altar room. All of the tunnels leading there were caved in!” Nikulas’ horrified expression matched Aiden’s.
“Not all of them.” Shea eyes softened as she looked between the three males. “It’s okay, guys. I’m here now. And I appreciate that you went looking for me.”
“Three times!” Aiden stressed, holding up three fingers for emphasis. “We went there three times in the last few weeks. And we were about to go again when Christian finally took enough time from his holiday in Mexico to ring us.”
“Fuck off, Aiden.” Christian grinned and gave him a playful shove.
Ryan stood in the background with the other women, wondering why there was no hugging going on. Pats on the back. Something. Instead they all just stood there staring at the female vampire.
Her beautiful green eyes finally landed on the four of them still in the kitchen. “Who is this?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
Luukas stepped in and took over then. “Come here, Keira.” He waited for her to join him before making the introductions. But as soon as she stepped forward, Shea bared her fangs and hissed at her, her torso leaning forward on her hips as her hands fisted at her sides.
Keira, Ryan was surprised to see, showed no fear towards the threat, but gazed at her steadily from Luukas’ side. The hair on Ryan’s arms suddenly rose straight up as the air around her became infused with magic.
“Keira. No.” At Luukas’ command, the air around her calmed down. Stepping in front of his mate, he bared his own fangs at his Hunter in a spine-chilling snarl. “Shea, restrain yourself,” he growled. “Keira is MINE.”
Her eyes were wild as she tore them from the woman and focused on him. “How can you protect her?” she hissed in fury. “She’s the reason that bitch was able to hold you! She’s the one that kept you there! She tortured you! Oh yes, I heard all about it,” she told him. Then she turned to Christian. “You’re his Guardian! Why are you just standing there?”
“Shea, you need to calm down,” Christian told her.
But she ignored him, turning back to Luukas. “You should’ve killed her the moment you had the chance. And if you can’t do it, then I will.”
Before anyone had the chance to move, Luukas had crossed the space separating them and had Shea by the throat. Her body jerked spastically in the air, her eyes rolled back in her head, and her keening cry mixed with his bellow of anger. He shook her like a ragdoll. Once. Twice.
“Put her down!” Christian yelled as he and the other males surrounded the two of them. “Luukas! You can’t touch her! Put her down!” When he didn’t seem to hear him, he joined Nikulas and Aiden as they physically tried to get him to release her. But it was like trying to pry open the jaws of a steel trap to get it to release its prey.
It was Keira that finally saved the female. “Put her down, vampire. She won’t hurt me.” His eyes flickered over to her and she held them with her own. “You need to release her,” she told him. “She’s only trying to avenge you, and rightly so.”
After a moment, he opened his hand and Shea fell to the floor. She lay in a heap, coughing and trembling and trying to catch her breath. With a moan, she flopped over onto her back.
The other three males all bent over her, but were careful not to touch her.
“Are you all right?” Aiden asked.
Emma pushed her way through them. “Back off. Let me see her.” She glanced up at Nik as she knelt down by her side. “I can touch her, right?”
He nodded once.
Ryan watched as she picked up Shea’s hand and held it in her own. “Shea? Can you hear me? My name is Emma.” She noticed that Nikulas stayed right next to her, his center of attention now on his female.
Shea’s eyes fluttered open and she stared up at Emma. After a moment, she nodded. “I’ll be okay.”
“Good.” Emma smiled. “So, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t kill my sister. She didn’t do those things to Luukas of her own free will. She did it to save my life.”
“Doesn’t change anything,” Shea croaked.
It was Nikulas that spoke this time. “Yeah, well, how about this? Keira is Luukas’ mate. Like, as in fated. Emma is mine. So, you might want to think about that before you go trying to off the females we not only love, but need to survive.”
Shea pushed herself into a sitting position and Emma helped her, ignoring the glare the vampire gave her. “Are you fucking serious?” When Nikulas just stared at her with his steady blue gaze, she laughed nervously. “You’re not serious.”
“I am.”
“But, they were just stories…”
“Yeah, we thought so too. But here we are.”
Ryan stayed in the background with Christian, Grace, and Aiden, who had come to stand protectively in front of his “luv”, arms crossed over his chest like a bodyguard. She had to hold back her laughter when Grace looked at her and rolled her eyes behind his back.
Shea got to her feet, shaking off Emma’s hands as she tried to help, then apologized to her at Nik’s warning growl. “I’m sorry I tried to kill your sister.”
Emma laughed. “I don’t think it’s me you should be apologizing to.”
She glanced at Keira and Luukas. “Sorry,” she said.
Luukas stepped forward. “I love you like a daughter, Shea. But if you so much as send a threatening glance at my witch again, I will kill you before you harm her.” He paused a moment to let that sink in. “Are we clear?”
Lowering her eyes with respect, Shea mumbled, “Yes.”
“I can’t hear you.” Keira put a hand on his arm, but he shook her off. “I can’t hear you,” he repeated.
She raised her eyes and clenched her jaw. “Yes. I understand,” she stated clearly.
“Good.”
As he turned away to pull Keira under his arm, Shea turned to the group watching in silence from the kitchen. Her eyes lit on Ryan and widened in disbelief.
Ryan frowned. Why was she staring at her like that? Had she been talking out loud to the voices again? They were there, as always, although they weren’t screaming for once. However, her head was beginning to ache between their mutterings and all of the commotion going on in front of her.
“What’s up, Shea?” Christian asked.
She tore her eyes from Ryan. “You’re bringing them home to hang out with us now?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, like we’re so innocent all of a sudden. Your dancers,” she answered. “Don’t tell me you’ve found one of those sluts that you actually like enough to fuck more than once.”
Christian bared his fangs in a snarl, and only Ryan’s grip on his ha
nd kept him from leaping at his friend. “She’s just lashing out,” she started to say, but he talked over her.
“Shut the fuck up, Shea.”
“Why? It’s no secret that you go through whores like her so many times a night it’s a wonder your dick hasn’t fallen off.”
Ryan looked up at Christian. “What is she talking about?” But he was still as stone as he glared at the other vampire.
“Did she just say what I think she said?” Grace asked Aiden.
“Seriously?” Emma asked Shea.
“Yeah, not cool, Shea,” Nik muttered. “Not cool at all.”
“SHEA!” Luukas’ angry voice cut through the tension in the air. “In my office. NOW.”
Visibly shaken and hurt, she stalked away from them and threw herself into a chair in front of his desk.
Luukas turned to Ryan, who was trying really hard to keep the tears in her eyes from overflowing. “Pay her no mind. I will deal with her.”
But she just smiled and shook her head. After all, the female hadn’t been wrong. She was exactly what she’d pegged her to be. And an addict to boot. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I will worry about it. You are a guest in my home. And you are Christian’s. No one is mistreated in my home…unless it’s by me.” He kissed Keira on the head and then walked calmly into the office, shutting the door firmly behind him.
He was wrong. She wasn’t Christian’s. She wasn’t anybody’s.
“So,” Keira broke the silence that Luukas left behind him. “Anyone hungry?”
As the girls started to bustle around the kitchen while the guys plopped back down on the counter stools to wait for them to eat, Christian pulled Ryan aside. “Ryan…” he paused and put his hands on his narrow hips, but he didn’t seem to know what else to say.
She studied him, wanting to believe that Shea’s accusation didn’t mean what she thought it meant. But his body language told her all she needed to know. “Yeah, okay. I got it.” Brushing him off, she wandered into the living room and sat down in the chair. When she looked up, Grace was there with a plate of food for her. She was nervous, and Ryan’s skin prickled as she shared her agitation.
“I thought you might be hungry.” Setting the plate down on the coffee table with a fork and a napkin, she stood there a bit awkwardly before asking, “Would you like something to drink?”
Ryan eyed up the stroganoff-looking casserole and shook her head. “I’m good. Thanks.” Picking up the fork, she shoved a mouthful of noodles into her mouth, hoping the jittery woman would go away. She didn’t even taste the food, and wouldn’t be able to tell someone exactly what she was eating if they asked.
She didn’t know why she was so upset. What did she expect? For him to profess his undying love to a junkie stripper that he wouldn’t even have met if he hadn’t been held against his will? For all she knew, they were probably both suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.
Shoving another forkful of food into her mouth, she chomped down so hard she thought she felt one of her teeth crack. It didn’t matter. She didn’t need to stay here. The monster that was after her was nowhere near here, he was down in Mexico. She’d eat, tell the girls thank you, and get the hell out of Dodge. She could make her way on the streets. She’d done it before. She’d be fine.
Her fork fell to her plate with a clank as the ever-present voices escalated to a fever pitch around her. They buzzed around her like a hoard of bees, getting louder and louder until tears filled her eyes and she pressed her palms to her ears. Like it would help.
“Are you okay?”
Shit. She was still there. Ryan lowered her hands, trying not to wince at the banshees screaming in her head. “I just have a headache.” Understatement of the year.
“I can ask Keira if she has something that would help?”
But Ryan shook her head, “No, no. It’ll go away. Thanks though.”
Grace sat down on the couch cushion cattycorner to her. “I’ve only been here a few weeks myself.”
Why are you still talking? Ryan thought. And then she mentally kicked herself. Grace was just trying to be nice. There was no need to be a bitch.
“Were you kidnapped too?” she asked. Okay, so she hadn’t exactly been kidnapped. But she had been coerced.
Grace just laughed. “Uh, no. It’s a strange situation, I know. Being the reason they live or die.”
Huh? She waited for her to say more, but after a few minutes of watching her eat, Grace changed the subject instead.
“You have to be exhausted. Let me go see if it’s all right for me to show you down to Christian’s place as soon as you’re done eating.”
“Thanks.” As Grace got up and walked over to the group in the kitchen, the good-natured teasing and pleasant conversation suddenly became hushed and secretive. Ryan ignored the uncomfortable feeling that they were all whispering about her and concentrated on not wincing from the noise going on inside her head. She felt a hand on her shoulder and twisted around to find Christian holding his hand out to her.
“Come on, it’s been a long trip. Let’s go get some rest.”
Ignoring his hand, she rose from the overstuffed chair and picked her half-eaten plate up to return it to the kitchen, but he took it from her hand.
“I’ll get that.”
She handed him the plate and then stood there uncomfortably while he handed it off to one of the girls and told them that he was taking her “home”.
Home.
Ryan pushed down the rush of tears that threatened to overwhelm at the word, but a few escaped in spite of her best efforts. She hadn’t had a true home in years. To hide her hormone rush or whatever the hell this was, she went to wait for Christian in the foyer without saying goodbye to anyone. If she’d known where she was going, she would’ve walked right out of the apartment.
He found her there a minute later, calls of “bye!” and “see you tonight” following on his heels. She followed him out of the apartment and to the elevator where she stood just in front of him with her arms wrapped around her middle. She refused to look at him.
The bell chimed and the doors opened and they stepped inside. Christian punched the button for the floor below them. As the doors closed them in, he turned to her with that same half pitying/half ashamed look he’d had on his face since the female vampire had denounced him. He took a deep breath. “Ryan…”
“Don’t.” She cut him off before he could say anything else. She didn’t want to hear his bullshit explanations. Hugging herself tight, she fought the urge to clamp her hands over her ears again.
“Ryan. Please. I’m asking you to listen…”
She rolled her eyes as the doors opened and practically sprinted out into the hallway. There were four doors on this floor, two on each opposite side of the hallway. A neutral grey carpet and light grey walls lined with colorful prints of the city led the way to each door.
Anger radiated off of him in waves as he followed her out and walked past her to the door on the right. Punching in a code on the panel on the wall, he flung open the door and waited for her to precede him inside.
She walked through the foyer and into the main room. The apartment was similar to the one they’d just come from, only smaller, and there was no office area. But the far wall was made of glass from floor to ceiling, and the lights of the city of Seattle provided a beautiful view as they twinkled in the early morning hours. Taking a quick glance around, she noticed Native American tapestries on the walls and furniture that reminded her of Arizona or somewhere else southwesterny with its warm colors and rugged geometric patterns.
Christian came up behind her and put his hand on her arm, but she twisted away and walked over to the windows. Her head was pounding from the voices, or entities, or whatever they were, but at least they’d calmed down a bit. “I’d like my own room, please,” she tossed over her shoulder. She couldn’t sleep in the same bed with him, if she could manage to sleep at all.
Her statement was greeted with nothing bu
t silence. A wave of sexual hunger flowed over and around her in the next second, and her traitorous body responded eagerly.
“I don’t think you really mean that,” he said softly from right behind her.
She nearly jumped out of her skin and spun around to face him, steeling herself against those brilliant eyes. The way he looked at her never failed to get her heart racing and her panties wet, but she felt dirty enough as it was. She was just another one of his playthings, and things had already gone far enough. If she slept in the same bed with him, there’d be no turning back. She knew that.
“I’ve never meant anything more in my life.” Her voice had a steely edge to it that surprised even her.
The muscles in his jaw clenched and unclenched. “I only have the one bedroom here.”
“I’ll crash on the couch.”
Hands low on his narrow hips, he glared down at her. She glared right back. A moment later she felt a slight intrusion on her thoughts, and as the voices were pretty quiet, she assumed it was Christian poking around in her head. He’d already admitted that he could influence people’s thoughts. As soon as she realized it was him, the walls slammed up, the same walls she used to try to block out the voices, and it must have worked, for she felt him retreat from her head again.
“You take the bedroom. I’ll sleep out here.” He walked through a door past the kitchen, and returned a few seconds later with blankets and a pillow under one arm.
“I’m not taking your room,” she insisted.
“Ryan…”
“It’s your room. I’ll be fine out here.” Her tone brooked no more argument.
He inhaled deeply, his clenched jaw belying his patient tone as he said, “The bathroom is there.” He pointed to a door over by the foyer. “Or there’s one off the bedroom with a shower if you change your mind.”
“Thank you.”
Dropping the stuff in his arms on the couch, he started to make up her bed.
“I can do that,” she told him.