Prince of Shadows (10 page)

“Can you talk to me now?”

“It’s silly,” she murmured. The loop of her arms loosened slightly, but she didn’t move away. “Just a bad dream. I haven’t had them for a long time.”

He hesitated, then whispered, “What kind of dream? A scary one with monsters, like the ones that used to chase you when you were little?” He made his tone light and gently teasing.

“Only now the monsters are real.”

His arms tightened. “I’m not going to let anything hurt you.” His tone roughened. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I hear my mother crying, and then it’s me who’s crying, and I can’t seem to stop. I was so afraid. I can’t make them stop.”

Them?
Cale was all sharp attention now. “Who, Katy? Was it just Michael? Or did the others hurt you, too?”

She stiffened and began to shiver again. “They wouldn’t stop.” Her breaths were quick and labored. “They took turns putting their . . . their hands on me.”

“That won’t happen again. Not ever. Not as long as I’m alive. Do you hear me, baby? Not ever.” He continued to stroke her hair as his eyes went flat and dangerously dark.

“And then you saved me.” Her palms rubbed over his arms and shoulders, her body relaxing as his own was drawn tight with tension. “I think I can go back to sleep now.”

Soon after he tucked her between the luxurious covers, she was slumbering peacefully, while he was wide awake, as taut and primed as a contact mine with an unwary foot about to step off the plate. Finally, he carried his cell phone into the other room. His call was quickly answered.

“What a surprise. Run out of things to do with a virgin?”

“I need you to do something for me.”

“You want favors from me? Oh, that’s rich.”

He sighed heavily, impatient but desperate enough to play her game. “Syl, please. I need your help.” He explained his situation, knowing she wasn’t going to like it. He hadn’t figured on how
much
she wasn’t going to like it.

“This is for her?” she growled. “Go to hell.”

“Syl, what’s it going to cost me?”

“You know what I want.” Her purr was soft yet predatory.

No sense leading her on. “It’s not going to happen, baby.”

She rebounded with a brusque “Just meet with me, then.”

“All right. I’ll see you in the morning?” She’d hung up.

Cale stood watching his future mate sleep. She was so unassumingly lovely that his chest hurt, just looking at her. He wouldn’t sleep until he’d settled all debts. He wouldn’t rest easy until their bond was complete. And he wouldn’t relax until she sat on their clan’s throne beside him.

The villain was going to get the best of this game, too.

ten

Kendra stood looking through the front door’s sidelight, watching her protector meet with another female.

Cale’s cell rang early. She heard him answer as he moved out into the living area. She’d almost gone back to sleep, pleasantly wrapped in the sense of safety she’d experienced in his arms the night before, when the front door opened and quietly closed. Curious, she’d padded barefoot to the other room and all of a sudden was involved in some unsavory spying.

Cale stood on the walk by the detached garage. He wasn’t wearing a coat and chafed his arms to keep warm in the early-morning chill while speaking to someone in shadow. And then another pair of hands was rubbing his shirtsleeves with an intimate familiarity. A woman’s hands.

The hair bristled on Kendra’s neck with stunning ferocity.

She wasn’t a fool. She knew Cale was far from celibate, that he did a regular rotation of available bedrooms along with the rest of his unmated brothers. Two lusty kisses were hardly going to keep him satisfied. Still, she’d thought . . .

Take my hand and my heart.

Apparently only words. Had she really wanted them to be more, to mean more?

That didn’t keep her from scowling as the female tucked something into his hand, stepping forward to give Kendra a jolt of surprise. Sylvia? Cale and
Sylvia
? She never would have imagined. There was obviously something more between them than a conversation, for Sylvia reached up to catch him about the neck, bringing him down to meet her ready and waiting lips. True, he rolled his head away, but at that moment Sylvia noticed Kendra watching, and her gaze glittered maliciously. Kendra faded back, uncertain how she should react. And then there was no time as Cale reentered the house.

He drew up when he saw her, then closed the door behind him. She could have let it go and pretended temporary blindness. Wasn’t that what a good Terriot mate was supposed to do? She wasn’t feeling particularly meek at the moment. “A little cold to be out walking in your shirtsleeves.”

“I was taking care of some business,” he told her without blinking an eye.

“Business? Oh.” She walked up to him, seized his jaw in her hand, and scrubbed her thumb over his mouth. “Your
business
left her lipstick on you.”

All it took was the slight twitch of his smile for her to realize what she was feeling. Rage. Screaming, scratching, unholy possessive rage.

His bland answer didn’t help. “I had business with Sylvia. I thought you were sleeping, so I didn’t ask her to come in.”

“Inviting Sylvia to come in wouldn’t have bothered me.”

“Not as much as Sylvia inviting me to come in her does?”

She flushed hot, but her reply was cool. “No. Not as much.”

“Why would it bother you? We’re not bonded or even mated.”

His direct question skewed her temper. “Why?” Why, indeed? She’d spent her whole adult life as a guest in someone else’s home. This, for all intents and purposes, was hers.
He
was hers. And another female had trespassed. “You—you made me promises.”

“Yes, I did. I promised to protect you, and I will. I promised to make you my queen, and I’m going to. What other promises did I make?”

“You promised you’d never hurt me.” The slight tremor in that accusation made her wish she’d chosen to stay silent.

His tone immediately deepened into a low, caressing rumble. “I wasn’t aware I had. Now I know. It won’t happen again.”

“Just like that? I don’t believe you.”

The tolerant humor disappeared from his expression. His eyes narrowed into an ominous squint. “I won’t lie to you.”

“What do you call sneaking out to meet with someone not even twenty-four hours after accepting me in front of everyone?”

“I wasn’t sneaking. Why are we even discussing this? I was trying to be considerate of you. And she was kissing me. I didn’t ask for it or expect it.” When Kendra turned away, he came up behind her, placing his hands upon her shoulders to confess, “The only female I’ve ever enjoyed kissing is you, and that’s not going to change.”

She trembled at that vow, but the chafe of her temper had her shrugging him off and stepping away. “Belief would come easier if you didn’t stink of her.”

Without a word, he went into the bathroom. She heard water sloshing in the sink, and her resolve quivered. His claims upset her more than what she’d seen him doing. Which was what, exactly? Standing out in plain sight while a female with whom he’d probably had an intimate relationship kissed him? He hadn’t denied it, gotten angry, or told her to mind her own business. He’d sworn it wouldn’t happen again.

What was his word worth? Did he cast it out like dice over felt in Reno? Or did he mean what he said?

Kendra turned as Cale reentered the room. His features were set, his approach so quick and forceful that she instinctively backpedaled in an attempt to maintain the distance between them. When the wall prevented further retreat, she braced in sudden panic as he boxed her between the bracketing of his arms. He leaned in until their faces were inches apart.

“You don’t need to worry about Sylvia,” he told her. “Or any of them. They mean nothing to me. They never have. If you don’t want me to be alone with them, I won’t be.”

Kendra’s heart pounded—in alarm, in acute awareness. His deep-set eyes, so intense, so piercing, pinned her in place. Each breath brought in the clean, masculine scent of him, that mix of familiarity and wild unknown. His voice growled like the rev of a powerful engine as he continued. “I could convince you right now. I could take you down on the floor and erase all your doubts by sealing our bond. Then you’d know I belong only to you. I’m ready. I’m more than ready.” He tasted her leap of fright as his mouth brushed her throat. “Or just believe me. Your choice. Make it now.”

Her answer was faint. “I believe you.”

“Good.” He pushed off the wall and strode into the bedroom, calling, “Put on something warm, baby. We’re going for a ride.”

There was nothing Kendra could do but hang on tight as they screamed down out of the mountains on Cale’s motorcycle.

She’d hesitated when he wheeled it out of the garage. “Don’t we have to check with someone first?”

He’d blinked and then laughed. “I go wherever the hell I want, and you’re with me. Who’s going to tell us no?”

She’d never been on a motorcycle, and the panic she’d felt when he strapped on the full-face helmet was quickly forgotten at the first throbbing pulse of the engine through Cale’s hard thighs. She let him tuck her hands under his jacket, next to the heat of his body. And off they went, flying free and fast, away from Bram Terriot’s influence.

Cale drove with the same daring intensity with which he did everything else, pushing right to the limit. He slalomed between the much slower vehicles and navigated corners without easing back on the throttle, putting them perilously close to sheer unrailed drops. She should have been terrified, but it was all new and breathtaking: the ride, the majestic scenery whipping by, the exhilaration, and mostly, the driver.

There was no way to communicate except through gestures. He’d pat her helmet, and she’d answer with a squeeze that she was fine. His gloved hand massaged her knee possessively as everything inside her tightened.

Brigit would have blamed Kendra’s response on the mode of transportation, likening the powerful bike to straddling a really big vibrator. No wonder she was so stirred up and restless. She was probably the world’s only twenty-seven-year-old virgin, and she had the most dangerously exciting man she’d ever met trapped between her legs.

Her intimate knowledge of the opposite sex was practically nil, blocked by her childhood horrors and her cousin’s rabid protectiveness. She had no hands-on experience to guide her. Only Silas’s chaste embraces and their two hasty kisses that in no way compared to the sizzling thrill of Cale’s. She hated to give the mauling of Michael Terriot and his friends any power over her, and ignorance was her worst enemy. As long as she didn’t know, fear had the upper hand. If Cale was ready and eager to reveal the forbidden pleasures of sex, why shouldn’t she let him?

Kendra wanted to know. And she wanted him to teach her. She was totally aroused by what she’d already seen of his tough, muscular body, by what she’d tasted in his kisses.

She thought of Sylvia’s mocking smile.

She couldn’t stand not knowing!

Her palms flattened against Cale’s hard middle, subtly exploring a terrain as formidable as their surroundings. A nice trip, but not enough. Fingers bunching in his shirt, she eased the fabric from his waistband in an effort to find bare skin.

Cale’s muscles tensed. The bike took a sudden wobble, requiring both his hands to correct it. After a lengthy moment passed, he reached beneath his jacket to jerk his shirttail free, then guided her hand under it. While he kept his focus on the road, she took advantage of his forced distraction to learn the textures and contours of his body, from granite pectoral swells, to brutally corrugated abs, down to the trickle of hair disappearing into his pants. Unbearably fascinated by what lay beyond, she let her fingertips prowl along the edge of his waistband until he once again seized her hand, this time not so carefully, and rubbed her palm roughly along zipper to inseam.

The feel of him stirring was a startling rush. She continued to caress and coax that steady rise, the fact that he was piloting the bike like a rocket around hairpin turns adding an extra thrill. The close fit of his clothing surrendered a compelling outline for her to follow as she learned the shape and size of him. An incredible education. She couldn’t stop stroking, circling, squeezing until he pulled her now cold hand away to slip beneath his coat again. His pulse thundered against her palm with an urgency that matched the throb of his groin.

If he pulled off the pavement, dumped the bike, and took her down in the gravel right then, Kendra wasn’t sure she’d object.

They’d reached the desert basin before she got her breathing under control. Just outside the abrupt hotel spires of Reno, Cale turned in to an upscale condo community landscaped with a blend of desert plants and artificially bright green grass. He pulled up outside one of the two-story four-unit buildings of tile and adobe, and cut the engine. Kendra slid off onto ridiculously rubbery legs to confront Cale with his untucked shirt and penetrating stare. She fumbled with the strap to her helmet until he came to her aid.

“Did you enjoy the ride?” His voice sounded like the gravel she’d been tempted to roll around in.

“Yes.” She cleared her throat, timidly meeting his gaze, because she sure as hell couldn’t look down without going all shades of red. “Very much. It was . . . my first.”

“Oh?” He sounded surprised, though he’d known she’d never been on a motorcycle before—but then they weren’t talking about the bike, were they?

Cale’s knuckles touched beneath her chin so she couldn’t avoid his smoldering stare. “I’m glad you took it with me. And that you weren’t disappointed.” He cinched her up against his side. “C’mon, baby. I’m ready for some breakfast.”

She looked around in confusion, about to ask whom they’d come to see, when the door opened and sixteen years melted away.

“Hey, Momma. Coffee on?”

“Cale?”

Vera Terriot made an inarticulate sound and flung her arms around his neck. He released Kendra to hug her tightly, and in that brief moment, his tough features collapsed in an agony of emotion. Then Vera caught the sides of his face, pushing him back so she could look into his eyes, searching intently. Apparently satisfied by whatever she saw there, she let her fingertips caress his face until the concern returned, making her ask the same thing Kendra had asked Brigit.

“Has something happened? Are you in trouble?”

He laughed and gripped her hands in his. “Does something have to be wrong for me to come see you? Look who I’ve brought with me.” He turned her so that her attention fell on his guest.

Vera seemed puzzled and then stunned. “Kendra? Oh, my little girl, all grown up.”

With the scent and softness of Vera Terriot enveloping her, Kendra was overcome by memories of her and her own mother, and tears ran in a river of bittersweet joy. When she blinked her eyes clear, she saw Cale regarding the two of them through a gaze as poignantly cloudy as her own. A small, satisfied smile made his expression heartbreakingly tender as he said, “I told you I’d bring her.”

Vera leaned back, her arm about Kendra’s waist. “All the way here on that thing? Cale, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking it’d be nice to have a pretty girl wrapped around me for an hour and a half.” He grinned wide, but his eyes held none of that mischief as they touched on Kendra’s.

She smiled back with a slight tug of devilry. “It was exciting. My first.”

Cale’s gaze flared like the striking of a match.

Vera glanced between them, brows lifting. “Come inside. Let’s warm those hands up.”

“I took care of that, Momma,” he said easily, and after he appreciated Kendra’s blush, he led the way through the door.

The interior of the small apartment was immediately familiar. Kendra recognized the pictures on the walls, the knickknacks scattered about every surface, the photographs of Cale from birth to adolescence. There were none after.