Devoured: Brides of the Kindred 11 (37 page)

Chapter
Thirty-four

“There is no need for you to
sleep on the couch. It does not look very comfortable,” Garron said, frowning.

“I want to. I’d rather sleep
here.” Tess began pulling the extra set of sheets over the scratchy plaid
cushions. To be honest, she couldn’t stand sharing a bed with the big Kindred
the way he was now. She didn’t want to lie beside him and think about how they
had slept entwined the night before and how they would never sleep that way
again. The couch, lumpy and scratchy though it was, was preferable to that.

Garron simply shrugged, his
broad shoulders rolling with the gesture.

“If it pleases you.”

“It does,” Tess said. “Besides,
Yipper told you to avoid stressful situations tonight.”

“And sharing a bed might be
stressful because…?” He frowned, clearly uncomprehending.

Tess bit her lip, remembering
the way he had wanted her. How desperate he had been to touch her, to taste
her. And now the idea of lying beside her completely naked probably wouldn’t
even make him break a sweat. Hell, she was wearing the sexiest nightgown she had—it
wasn’t very risqué but at least it was made of lace and it molded to her
curves—and his eyes had never even left her face.

“It just
would
be,” she said, turning away to tuck a corner of the sheet
around the cushions. “Or maybe not. But it doesn’t matter—it’s better this
way.”

“As you wish.” He shrugged
again. “I will take a shower and get to bed. Unless you would like a shower
first?”

“I’ll take a bath later—after
you finish.” The way she felt now a good long soak in the tub was about all she
had to look forward to. “Just leave me some hot water.”

“Certainly. Good night, Tess.”
He nodded in a completely civil manner, as though they were casual
acquaintances who meant nothing to each other.

Which
is basically what we are, now,
Tess
thought.
And all we’ll ever be again.

She waited for him to walk away
but he didn’t. Instead he stood there frowning.

“Garron?” she asked after a
moment. “Is everything okay? With the, uh, implant I mean?”

“I
think
so.” He sighed and looked at her. “I want to say something but
I don’t know how.”

Her heart began to thump even
though she knew it was stupid.

“Yes?” She tried to keep her
voice even and steady. “Just say it.”

“I…” He shook his head. “I
hardly know how to put this. I know—I
remember—
that
we were…close to each other. That we cared for each other and had…sexual urges
to be together.”

“Yes,” Tess said carefully. “We
did. Do you…are you, uh, feeling any of that now?”

He shook his head. “No, I feel
nothing. Except…”

“Except what?” Tess leaned
forward, hoping against hope.

A frown creased his face.

“Except that it…
bothers
me to know that the cessation of
our mutual urges upsets you. I know it isn’t logical or right but it does.”

“Oh, Garron.” She went to him and
put her arms around his waist but it was like hugging a block of warm,
breathing wood. He simply stood there and let her hug him without moving. After
a moment she looked up and saw a look of confusion on his face.

“Tess…” he said at last.

“Do you want to hug me back?”
she asked, trying not to cry.

“I…I’m not sure.” Slowly his
large, muscular arms came around her shoulders in a tentative embrace. He
dropped his face to her hair and inhaled deeply. The arms around her tightened.
“Your scent,” he whispered. “It…makes me remember…so much.”

“Do you feel anything now?” Tess
asked, looking up at him hopefully.

“I…do. Something strange.
Something…” Suddenly he stepped away from her, out of her embrace.

“Garron?” she asked, biting her
lip.

He shook his head. “I think…I
begin to see what you meant when you said sleeping in the same space would be
stressful. I believe I should go take a shower now. Perhaps a very, very cold
one.”

“You think so?” Tess took a step
towards him but the big Kindred took a step back.

“I’m sorry but I think it would
be better for us to stay apart.”

“Of course,” Tess backed up at
once.

“I…” He closed his eyes for a
moment as though collecting himself. When he opened them, the cool, impassive
expression was back on his face. “I will leave you now.”

“All right,” she whispered.

“Good night.” Garron sounded
cool and collected again—utterly in control. Apparently the moment of
emotion—if that is what it had been—was over.

Tess watched him go, the silver
and black button of the implant winking at the back of his neck. As he left,
the little spark of hope inside her died.

Don’t
be stupid,
she told herself
sharply, brushing away the useless tears that rose to her eyes.
What were you hoping for—that his damn
implant would fail? And where would that leave you? As dr’gin chow. You have a
suicide wish or something?

“Or something,” she muttered to
herself, wiping her eyes again on the sheet.

She got settled on the couch and
then listened to the water running in the little bathroom. She could imagine
Garron in the shower—she knew how mouthwatering he looked when he was nude. If
he was himself she would have gone to join him. But that wasn’t possible. He’d
asked her to keep her distance and that was what she had to do. The possibility
of any kind of romantic or sexual relationship between them was over—over for
good. It would be better if she just accepted that and moved on.

Sighing, she turned over, facing
the back of the couch, and waited for him to be done. When he was safely out of
the shower, she intended to take a nice long bath. Maybe it would make her feel
a little less like crying. In the mean time, she would close her eyes and rest,
just for a minute…

A quiet scratching sound from
the direction of the front door woke her. Was it her imagination? Maybe some
coons digging in the trash outside? They were always a problem around this
area. It was quiet for such a long time she almost fell asleep again. Then,
just as she was nodding off the scratching resumed.

Tess frowned and forced herself
to wake up enough to stumble up and off the couch. The little cabin was a box
of shadows with only a few bars of light coming in through the cheap Venetian
blinds over the windows. She padded over to the door and put out her hand,
intending to open it and scare away the raccoons that must be digging around
out there.

Except
what are they digging in?
whispered
a little voice in her head.
You and
Garron grabbed a bite to eat at the HKR building. It’s not like you brought any
food home for them to smell. So what are they doing scratching around the front
door this time of night?

The thought stopped her cold and
she suddenly felt much more awake than she had been. She drew her hand back
from the knob. The little voice made sense. What
were
raccoons doing outside her door in the middle of the night?
And was it really coons making the noise?

The scratching sounded
again—very loud in the quiet cabin. This time Tess realized that it was coming
from the lock. It was a metallic sound, almost as if someone was scratching
something metal with a wire.

Like
maybe someone scratching the inside of a lock, trying to pick it?
whispered the little voice again.

Tess went cold all over.
This isn’t right. Have to get out of here.
Slowly,
quietly, she began backing away. But before she could get two steps back from
the door there was a final sounding
click
and it suddenly swung open.

A big dark shape which had been
crouched in front of it rose slowly. The moon shone behind him, making him nothing
more than a black silhouette but Tess would have known that shape anywhere.

“No,” she whispered, backing
away.

Suddenly the shadow was on her.
One hand grabbed her wrist and the other slapped something sticky over her
mouth. The scent of too-sweet, cloying aftershave filled her nostrils, making
her want to gag.

“Hello, Princess,” a familiar
voice hissed. “I hope you’re ready for your punishment because you’ve certainly
earned
it this time…”

Chapter
Thirty-five

Garron woke suddenly from a
sound sleep with the feeling that something was very,
very
wrong.

It was a scratching or clicking
sound that woke him at first but then the scent reached his nose—or rather, a
mixture of scents that set off all kinds of alarms in his head.

The first thing he noticed was a
sickly-sweet smell. Where had he smelled that before? It seemed somehow
familiar—suddenly it came to him. He’d smelled it faintly—
very
faintly—coming from the domicile of Tess’s ex-mate when he’d
gone to rescue her.

The second smell was instantly
recognizable—the bitter scent of Tess’s fear was floating to him from the
living area of the small cabin. The short hairs at the back of Garron’s neck
stood up and a low growl began to build in his throat. Somewhere deep inside
him, his
dr’gin
stirred, stretched,
and began to come to life.

Suddenly he realized what was
happening and what was
going
to
happen if he wasn’t careful.

No!
he told himself sternly.
Don’t give in to emotion—don’t let the
implant fail. Just take care of the situation and remain calm.

Trying to take his own advice,
he climbed out of bed and stalked quietly down the hallway leading to the
living area. After a moment, he could hear someone speaking in a soft, hissing
whisper.

“That’s right, Princess, going
to punish you
good
this time. You
thought you could run away on me, go off with another man when you’re
mine?
Oh, Princess, you’re in so much
trouble. It’s more than a whipping offense this time. I might have to get a
knife…maybe give you a new tattoo, you think?”

There was a soft, muffled sob
that Garron recognized as Tess. He was trying to hold on to his calm but inside
him, his
dr’gin
was fully awake now.
It was roaring, telling him that something was happening to their female—that
she was in danger, that something must be done…

Be
quiet!
Garron told it
desperately.
I don’t need you—I can
handle this. Go back to sleep and let me think!

He kept his back to the wall and
stayed in the shadows as he looked out to assess the situation in the living
area. A human would have seen nothing but black, indistinct shapes in the
darkness but Garron’s night vision was Kindred sharp—he saw everything in a
glance.

Pierce, Tess’s ex-mate, had her
immobile in the middle of the room. He had one arm wrapped around her waist,
pinning her arms to her sides. There was a gray rectangular patch—maybe some
kind of adhesive—across her mouth so she couldn’t scream.

In his other hand, Pierce held a
knife. It had a long, sharp silver blade that reflected the moonlight coming in
from the shaded windows. He was drawing it up and down Tess’s cheek in a
threatening way. He hadn’t cut her—yet. But from the way he was talking, he was
planning to do that and worse.

“Maybe if I carve my name where
you’ll see it every time you look in the mirror you’ll finally get the picture,
hmm Princess?” he hissed in her ear. “I’ll carve it on your cheek, shall I? Or
maybe I should just carve ‘whore’ on your forehead. Because that’s what you
are—a little
whore
running off on me.
Well let me tell you, you’ll never get a chance to run again. Not when I’m done
with you…”

Tess made a soft, muffled moan.
There were tears in her eyes but it was clear she didn’t dare move. She was
trapped and this bastard was about to start slicing her up.

At the sight of her tears and
the scent of her fear, so strong in this room it was almost overpowering, a
switch seemed to flip inside Garron. The impassive calm he’d felt ever since
he’d been implanted with the emotion damper was abruptly and completely
shattered. He stepped out of the shadows with a roar that shook the cabin.

“What the Hell?” Pierce looked
up, the knife in his hand frozen by Tess’s cheek.

“Let…her…go.” Garron’s voice was
hardly recognizable in his own ears. It sounded deeper somehow, more
animalistic.

“Well, well—so you’re the
bastard who’s been fucking my wife. Nice to meet you, you son of a bitch,”
Pierce snarled. If being confronted in a dark room by a six foot eight
massively muscular Kindred with glowing eyes bothered him, he didn’t let it
show.

“She’s not your mate—not anymore.”
Garron heard the animalistic rumble in his own throat and knew the
dr’gin
was close, so close to the
surface.
Be careful,
whispered the
voice of reason in his head.
If you let
it out, you might kill them both. Be careful…be careful!

“Oh, she’s mine all right. And
you’re going to stand there and watch while I prove it.” Leaning over Tess,
Pierce licked the side of her face, starting at the edge of her jaw, sliding
his tongue up, and ending right at her hairline. Tess moaned and writhed in his
grasp but she couldn’t break free.

At the sight of another male
hurting and frightening the female he loved, Garron thought he might go
completely insane. A red curtain of rage dropped over his vision and he took
another step towards them, his hands flexing into fists. Goddess damn it he was
going to rip this bastard into tiny, bloody bits!

“I don’t think so.” Pierce
raised the knife again. “Come any closer and she’ll be maimed for life. Think
I’m bluffing? Watch.” He placed the wickedly sharp tip of the silver blade
right at Tess’s temple. “Don’t know how much you know about our anatomy, you
big bastard, but the human face really isn’t attached to the skull. You cut it
just the right way…” He slid the knife down, slicing from her temple to her jaw
and Tess gave a muffled shriek behind the gag. “And it’ll come…right…
off.”
He lifted the knife, preparing to
cut some more.

“No!”
Garron couldn’t stand it anymore. Deep
inside he felt the beast that had slept within him for years boiling to the
surface. Dimly he understood that his
dr’gin
was rising, that the implant in his neck was no longer working to keep the
monster in check, but he didn’t care. All he could feel was rage that this
bastard had dared to threaten Tess. All he could see was the cut on her face.
All he could smell was her blood and fear hanging in the air and that scent,
more than anything else, was making him crazy.

It’s
coming!
he thought.
It’s coming and I can’t stop it.

I
don’t
want
to stop it.

Then he knew no more.

* * * * *

Tess gave a muffled gasp when
Garron changed. One moment he was himself—a big, muscular guy with black hair
and glowing turquoise eyes—and the next moment he was a completely different
creature.

It happened so fast she didn’t
see the transformation, even though she was watching. But suddenly, there in
Garron’s place, was a creature bigger than the biggest grizzly bear standing on
its hind legs. Its fur or feathers—Tess couldn’t tell which—were pure white, almost
seeming to shine in the dark cabin, and it had razor sharp talons that curved
into cruel hooks like an eagle’s.

When it turned its vast, leonine
head, Tess saw that the only thing it had in common with Garron was its
eyes—they were a deep, pure, glowing turquoise that shone like search lights as
it studied her and Pierce.

There was a moment of pure,
breathless silence as the
dr’gin
seemed
almost to float before them in midair. For some reason, gravity didn’t appear
to affect it which gave the whole encounter a slow-motion, dream-like quality.

That was until it opened its
mouth and roared.

Curving, knife-like teeth
glinted in the moonlight and a sound that was a cross between a lion’s roar, an
eagle’s shriek, and the loudest alarm claxon Tess had ever heard split the
air—and felt like it split her eardrums as well.

She screamed behind the piece of
duct tape Pierce had slapped over her mouth and writhed in his grip.

Perhaps stunned by the noise,
Pierce loosened his hold on her and Tess was at last able to break free.
Clapping her hands to her ears, she stumbled backwards, tripped and fell
against the couch.

To her right, Pierce was also
retreating.

“Holy
fuck,”
he breathed, his eyes wide with fear. What the sight of an
angry Kindred warrior had failed to do, the
dr’gin
accomplished effortlessly—clearly Pierce was scared to death.

But as Tess knew from
experience, her ex was even more dangerous when cornered. She watched in horror
as he dropped the knife he’d been using on her and pulled a gun out of his
belt.

“Come on, you fucker,” he
hissed, aiming right at the brilliant white hide.

“Watch out—he’s got a gun!” Tess
shrieked—or tried to. To her horror, she realized she still had the duct tape
over her mouth. She clawed for the edge of it as Pierce advanced on the
floating
dr’gin.
But before she could
rip the duct tape off, the white beast roared again and flowed forward with a
sinuous grace that seemed to belie the laws of physics.

There was a loud
bang
and another deafening roar. To her
horror, Tess saw that a dark crimson patch had appeared in the white
feather-fur covered hide and was quickly spreading.

Yet the gunshot wound didn’t
slow the
dr’gin
down a bit. It gave
that alarm-claxon roar again and came straight at Pierce with its curving fangs
spread and its claws extended.

“Fuck!” he shouted and fired
again. And again and again.

Three more crimson patches
appeared on the pure white hide but the wounds only seemed to make the
dr’gin
angry. It flowed forward, losing
none of its animalistic grace, as Pierce staggered back, trying to get out of
its way. Suddenly he tripped and fell flat on his back.

The
dr’gin
pounced.

Tess watched in horror as it
grabbed Pierce’s right leg, the curving talons sinking deep into his flesh, while
its impossibly long fangs closed around his ankle. There was a crunching sound
and his entire foot, still clad in one of the expensive Italian driving loafers
he loved, suddenly disappeared into its red maw of a mouth.

Pierce shrieked with horror as he
stared down at the spouting stump where his right foot had been. He scrambled
backward but the
dr’gin
was by no
means satisfied. It flowed forward, going for another bite.

Somehow Tess scrambled onto the
couch and drew her feet up, breathing hard as she watched the scene playing out
right in front of her. Pierce was literally at her feet, just in front of the
old plaid couch, and though she didn’t want to see what was coming next, she
found her eyes were glued to the action—unable to look away.

“Leave me alone!” Pierce yelled
hoarsely. “I won’t…you can’t…” He raised the gun again but before he could pull
the trigger, the
dr’gin
lunged
forward and engulfed his hand and most of his arm in its massive mouth. There
was another dull
crunch
like a thick
celery stick being broken and suddenly his elbow was nothing but a bloody
stump. The
dr’gin
chewed twice then
swallowed everything—even the gun—before coming back for more.

Pierce shrieked, his face going
gray in the moonlight. His big body fishtailed across the floor like someone
having a seizure but there was no escaping now. The
dr’gin
took his other foot and calf next…then it bit a huge chunk
out of his torso. Slippery ropes of intestine spilled out of the gaping hole in
his side and blood sprayed in a crimson-black arc, spattering the couch, the
wall, and Tess, who was still watching mutely with wide eyes.

“My God, oh my
God,”
she whispered, squeezing herself
into a ball. She had hated Pierce for a long time—he had hurt and abused her
and betrayed her trust more times than she could count. But never, even in her
most vivid revenge fantasies, had she imagined watching him be eaten alive by a
hungry beast.

“Tess!” he gasped and she saw
that somehow he was still breathing, still alive even after all the blood he had
lost. How was that even possible, she wondered numbly. How could he survive
when the
dr’gin
had eaten over half
of him?

“Tess!” he said again, blood
bubbling from between his lips. “Make it…stop. Can’t…you can’t…let it…hurt me.
Kill me…”

Tess shook her head, her
blood-spattered hair flying. She couldn’t stop the
dr’gin
now—no one could. She remembered what Garron had said about
its insatiable appetites when it first emerged. It was going to eat its fill
and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

“Tess!” Her ex sounded angry
now. “Tess, you can’t—”

At that moment the
dr’gin
lunged forward and took his
entire head in its vast mouth. There was a muffled shriek and a snapping sound
and what was left of Pierce’s body went into one last, violent spasm. Then he
went limp in the
dr’rin’s
jaws and
there was nothing but the wet, messy, crunching sound of the beast feeding.