Impulse (50 page)

“I want to know that I can ask for this and it’s mine to take. No bargaining. No explanations. No negotiations.”

“Little Raven, I’m yours for the taking,” he said against my lips.

His mouth melted against mine, moving with slow indulgence. It was languid and relishing. I could kiss that man for hours and never tire.

Logan nuzzled his cheek against mine. “There’s no need for you to be shy about asking for what you want in bed.” I squirmed, trying to escape, and he hooked his arm around my body to keep me still. “I don’t like that you shut down on me. Whatever it was like with the men in your past doesn’t matter,” he said, stroking the flat of my belly. “If you have needs, then I want to know what they are. If you want my mouth on your body, then you only need ask and I will taste every speck of you.”

I smiled warmly at his words.

“Do I still make you nervous?” he asked, rolling me over to face him again.

Butterflies roared, taking pattern in flight. My admission was a heavy perfume in the air, and he stroked my cheek with the pad of his thumb. Logan only made me anxious when he was soft with me. My ambivalence with him was shifting day by day.

“I like that,” he murmured. “You’re so unlike other females and I never know what you’re going to do from one minute to the next. Even your fire-breathing makes my animal growl with delight.”

“Are you saying you like my sass?”

“Mmm,” he said, squeezing my backside. “I also like your ass.”

I laughed and tilted my head up, opening my eyes. I blinked once. Then twice. Shit! I could
see
him. The color was a hazy blue, but his light eyes rimmed in black stared past me. I shot up so quickly Logan’s expression hardened.

“What’s wrong?” he said, rising up. I could
see
his nostrils flaring, picking up the panic in my scent. His long hair was a tangled mess and his knee rose, blocking the view that I wanted to see the most.

“Are the lights out?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Logan, I… I can see you.”

He reached for the nightstand in a panic, nearly knocking over the lamp as he switched it on.

A blaze of light ignited in my head and a blood-curdling scream poured from my lungs.

Chapter 37

Searing pain roared through my skull, reaching corners I didn’t know existed.
I shielded my face, unable to stop screaming from the unbearable agony that pulsed in my watering eyes. Logan threw a blanket over my body just moments before the door crashed in and there was a struggle.

Christian’s voice fell to an octave that would have made a shadow hide. “Do not
move,
Chitah.”

Imagining Logan pinned naked to the floor with his fangs bared might have been funny if not for the fact that flaming spears were driving into my skull. I rolled to my stomach, moaning against the pillow.

“Call the bloody Relic!” Christian shouted. “I have this under control.” Justus’s heavy boots stormed down the hall.

“I’m only going to ask you once to get off me, Vampire. If you don’t let me check on my female, you have my word that I will personally end your life.”

A Chitah’s threats were never empty.

“Let him up,” I yelled. “Logan, don’t threaten him.”

Christian’s voice vibrated in my ears as loud as a scream, and yet I knew he was speaking under his breath to Logan’s face. “I don’t care if you’re her Siamese twin; you will
not
touch her until the doctor gets here. That is on
my
order as her guard. Now put your goddamn trousers on.”

Tears streamed down my face, soaking into the sheets. The pain was crippling.

“Where do you hurt?” Christian asked.

“My eyes,” I cried.

“Right now? When did it start?”

“I don’t know.”

“Turn off the lights,” Christian shouted. “All the way into the hall. I want a complete blackout!”

“She’s on her way,” Justus confirmed. “What happened?”

“Keep the lights off,” Christian stressed as he sat down on the bed. “Look at me, girl. Move your head away from your arm. Keep your eyes closed and tell me if you feel any pain.”

I rolled to my back and coolness touched my face as I sensed the absence of light.

His thumb pressed against my eyelid. “Does that hurt?”

“No. There’s a dull ache, but they don’t hurt anymore.”

“Open your eyes.”

Hell no.

“Do it, Silver,” Justus urged from across the room.

My lids pried apart by sheer force—lashes opening like a flower yawning at sunrise. I touched the corners and rubbed away the tears with my fingertips. Slowly the room came into focus. There was so much detail that I could even make out the painted trees along the walls, and the strands of hair on Logan’s head that were lighter than the rest.

Christian cursed under his breath.

“I can see,” I whispered.

“Silver?” Logan called out from the corner of the room.

“Give me a minute.”

The room was a blue haze—almost grainy. Christian’s heavy brows sat over his wide eyes. My new sight brought such vivid detail. His angled jaw was square and his nose straight, with a shadow of hair across his jaw and chin. On one cheek was a single, thin line where his smile usually ended up. More like a hard smirk than a smile. Christian’s eyes didn’t seem as hollow as I had imagined them before, but inviting, as if he were drinking in the world through their liquid depths.

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“Tell us what’s happening,” Logan said sharply.

Christian leaned in. “You realize that it’s pitch-black in this room?”

My breath caught and I sat up, holding the blanket against me. When I shook my head, a black mane of hair spilled across my shoulders. “Did you change me?”

His mouth turned to the side. “There’s more involved in creating a youngling, but I’ve never given over that much blood to anyone. We’ll wait for the Relic. Feck me,
your eyes
,” he marveled, pushing up my lid. “They’re fully dilated.”

I should have been petrified, but my body swelled with relief. My eyesight was back and even if I had to avoid lights for the rest of my life, then I’d be okay with that.

“Is this how it feels for you? I can see
everything
. I can even see the mud on Justus’s shoes!” I laughed, and Justus reached down, blindly rubbing at the edges of his soles.

“We have more tolerance to light than you apparently do.”

Logan utilized his nose to read the scents in the air. The sound of the bed stirring made him tense up. He was handsome, standing several inches taller than Justus with disheveled post-sex hair in his face. I admired his svelte body in the pair of loose denims that hung unevenly from his hips and covered most of his feet at the ends. Even in the darkness, Logan’s eyes were magnificently intense—it was difficult to look directly at them.

Christian snapped his head to the right and jumped to his feet. “Stay back, Chitah.”

“I know you’re doing your job, but he’s not a threat and you know it. I want him beside me,” I ordered.

The man I’d just made love to strode across the room barefoot until his legs bumped against the bed. The look on his face was stone and his lips pressed into a thin line. Without sight, he still knew where Christian stood. I took Logan’s hand and held it.

“Logan stays until the Relic gets here.”

He angled toward the Vampire and lifted his chin. “Leave this room.”

Christian glared at me. “You were not to get excited or upset, and apparently being around that one,” he said, jerking his thumb, “is doing just that. Keep your eyes closed until she gets here. I’ll get your night clothes.”

Logan placed his hand on Christian’s shoulder. “Put a finger on her delicates and I will put a pain in you that will give your ancestors nightmares.”

Justus said nothing. Had I shamed him by having sex in my own bedroom? Was he the least bit happy that I could see, or afraid of what I’d become? If I did change into a Vampire, would he cut me loose? All those thoughts blinked out when Logan smiled at me.

My God, I could see again.

***

“What were you doing when this happened?” Page asked, setting her black bag down on a chair. Much to my surprise, she didn’t look anything like I had imagined, but her question distracted me, as did my audience.

My chest heated up like a sunburn. The men stood like statues in a park, waiting for my answer.

“Please, Silver. It’s important that I know exactly what transpired when your vision returned.”

Logan cleared his throat and lifted a proud chin. “I was pleasuring my female.”

My palm smacked against my forehead. “Is it possible to die of embarrassment?” I whispered to the Relic.

“Was it during sex or after you climaxed?” she asked in a clinical voice.

Yes, it
was
possible to die of embarrassment. Justus buried his face in his hand and Christian glared at Logan with disdain.

“I think I can guess,” she said quietly.

How could a woman ask me such a personal question in a room full of men?

Page’s cool fingers pushed on my abdomen. “I think the blood did the trick.” Her mouth crumpled over to one side of her face. “I need your eyes, Vampire. Come assist me.”

Christian waltzed over with his hands tucked in his pockets and disgust painted all over his features. “It’s Christian. Continue to call me Vampire and I will address you the same, Relic.”

Page shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat.”

She blindly reached for her bag and Christian tossed it on the bed in front of her. Even in the dark, Page cut him an intentional glare. It was obvious that she fought against the same bullshit I’d been complaining about for the past year with immortal men.

“Silver, how do you feel otherwise?”

“Fabulous. I feel like myself again. There’s nothing out of the ordinary—well, that’s not true. For a few minutes, small sounds were amplified, but that seems to have gone away.”

“I’m going to cut you,” she announced.

Christian snatched her right hand, which held the scalpel. “The hell you will.”

“Let go of my hand,” she bit out through clenched teeth.

Justus stepped forward and narrowed his eyes in the dark. “Guard, take your hands off her,” he said in a stony voice.

The threat in his tone was chilling and Christian complied, stepping away and shaking his head angrily.

“I need to assess if anything has changed in her healing abilities, and that requires testing her blood,” Page said. “My advice is to assist me in doing my job, or leave the room and I’ll work blind if I have to.”

“Christian,” I urged, but he shook his head.

She fished a scalpel from her bag and I cut the tip of my finger under her direction. It was a small incision—just enough to get a few drops of blood.

“Sorry, I’d normally do this with a needle, but I’m not that talented in the dark.”

Christian snorted. “Why does that not surprise me,” he murmured.

“I’ll do a full CBC and a few other Breed-specific tests later, but this sample will allow me to see what’s going on.”

I took the glass slide from her hand, carefully holding the edges. “Let me help you,” I insisted.

“Place a drop of blood on it—not too much. I have some equipment with me in the hall.”

She kept her gloved hand out, palm up, and I placed the slide at the base of her fingers after collecting a sample. Her thumb pushed on the edge to keep it secure as she turned around. “By the way, keep an eye on your cut and tell me if it heals unusually fast.”

A few moments passed and the blood continued to trickle. “It’s not healing,” Christian observed. “Patch her up, doc. I think you got what you need.”

“I concur. Silver, I’ll be back in a few minutes after I study the sample and we’ll finish up.”

Page left and Logan stormed across the room like a straight-line wind. His eyes narrowed when he found my arm and lifted it, using his nose to scent out the wound. Christian quirked a brow when Logan sucked on the tip of my finger, rolling his tongue around the nick.

“It’s just a cut, Logan. No big deal.”

Chitahs could release a chemical in their saliva that was a healing agent for superficial wounds, and yet his tongue on my skin still made my belly coil up.

Logan’s hardened expression lightened when he sat on my left side with one arm draped over my right shoulder as if shielding me.

“Anyone up for a game of charades?” I joked.

Justus held the wall up with his shoulder and a few minutes later, Page swung the door open and felt her way inside.

“There’s a cat in the hall,” she blurted out in a shaken voice. “I almost tripped over it. At least, I hope it was a cat.”

Justus rolled his eyes right up to the ceiling and I laughed.