Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 05 (32 page)

Reading the question in his eyes, she gave him a soft
smile, then explained. “I just realized that you never look at me when you
come. You always turn your face away. But it’s so beautiful, seeing the wolf in
your eyes, feeling your pleasure burning down on me. It’s like I can see right
inside you, Kier. I love it.”

HE SHUDDERED, HIS THROAT working, but he didn’t say
anything. He didn’t need to. Morgan could see the stunning emotions glistening
in his pale gaze, could see the longing rushing through him, and it stole her
breath. Melted her down, until she was a warm, boneless pool of love and desire
beneath him, needing him forever…for always.

And then the fever-hot warmth of his gaze turned cold,
something stormy and dark ripping through him, and he let go of her knees as he
carefully began to pull himself from her body. “Damn it,” he growled, his lip
curling with anger. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?” she asked, shivering from the look in his
eyes as he slid her a quick, icy glance, then turned away.

“Too much of the wolf was still in me,” he muttered,
moving to his feet, his body changing before her eyes, completing the
transformation to his human form. He found the clean set of clothes she’d laid
out for him and, keeping his back to her, he started pulling them on. “Why
don’t you get it?” he grunted, his anger intensifying as he yanked on his
boots. “I could have ripped you in two, Morgan.”

“But you didn’t,” she pointed out in a low voice,
reaching for her own clothes. “And I loved it, Kier.”

“You didn’t deserve it,” he muttered, glaring down at
her as he shoved both hands through the thick, tangled strands of his hair, his
big, beautiful body all but steaming with frustration.

“Well, I happen to like all sides of you, Kierland.
Not just the playboy one.”

He gave a tight, bitter laugh, and lowered his gaze,
his hands braced loosely on his lean hips in one of those rugged, purely
masculine poses that pulled the gray cashmere of his sweater tight across his
magnificent shoulders. “Let the beast out of its cage,” he warned, “and who
knows what will happen.”

“I’m not afraid of your beast. Or you,” she told him,
pulling her sweater back over her head as she moved to her feet and fastened
her jeans. “I’ll take you both on, Kier.”

“No, you won’t.” His voice turned hard, brooding, and
another wave of chills broke out over the surface of her body. “Because you’re
leaving.”

“What? The cabin?”

“No.” He slid her a shuttered look, then stalked away,
heading across the sparsely furnished room to stand before its lone window.
“You’re leaving the Wasteland,” he rasped, staring out at the twilight darkness
of the afternoon. “I’ll go on and find Kellan by myself. Ashe can take you back
to England.”

“What? What the hell are you talking about?” The
hoarse, shocked words scratched against her throat, and she swallowed, feeling
sick.

He braced one rugged hand on the frame of the window,
the rage and tension vibrating from his big, muscular body striking against her
like a physical blow, and she reached out, digging her fingers into the back of
a nearby chair for balance. “This is too dangerous,” he said in a hard voice.
“Last night was proof of that. I want you out.”

“Well that’s too damn bad,” she argued, furious with
him for thinking he could toss her aside so easily. “Because I’m not going
anywhere. And you need me to find Kellan.”

The firelight gleamed against the auburn strands of
his hair as he shook his head. “We’re close enough now, I should be able to
find him on my own.”

“Maybe,” she conceded, her voice thick. “But nothing’s
definite. You’re willing to take that risk?”

A pause, and then he let out a deep, gritty sigh. “If
it means getting you out of here, then yeah. I’m willing to risk it.”

Morgan was so angry, she could feel the fury as if it
were something more than an emotion. Something that was a part of her. A living
thing coiling through her body, seething and twisting and shredding her insides
raw. “So that’s it? You’re just done with me?”

“I should have never even started with you.” His voice
shook, his tall frame shuddering, as if on the verge of something explosive.
“Worrying about you always led to trouble. I’m not going to keep doing it, damn
it. It stops here.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered, the soft words
thick with confusion.

“I make mistakes because of you!” he snarled, turning
away from the window to face her, his gorgeous face set in a hard, emotionless
mask, while his pale eyes blazed with fury. “And Nicole paid the price for it.”

“Nicole?” Morgan shook her head, completely stunned.
“What in God’s name are you talking about?”

“At the academy. I…I wanted you. But I couldn’t let
myself have you.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his voice
a dark, gritty slash of sound. “It screwed with my head, how badly I wanted
you. I made unforgivable mistakes, because I let you get to me. I didn’t want
you hurt, and Nicole died because of it.”

Morgan wrapped her arms over her middle, shaking so
hard that her teeth were chattering. “I…I still don’t understand.”

He pulled one hand down his face and dropped his head
back onto his shoulders, staring up at the ceiling. “I didn’t want you to be a
part of the attack that was ordered by the Consortium.” His breath roughened,
his Adam’s apple moving beneath the corded stretch of his dark throat as he
swallowed. “Not because I thought you were too weak, but because I couldn’t
stand the thought of you being in danger. Of anything happening to you. That
was why I refused to attack with the full unit of trainees. Instead, I took a
few cadets with me to take out the nest, but it wasn’t enough, and the bastards
got away. They killed Nicole in retaliation.”

Morgan couldn’t believe what she was hearing, her
thoughts spinning as she began to piece together more of the crazy puzzle that
made up their troubled past. “Kierland, you can’t blame yourself. They were
monsters. It’s not your fault they killed her.”

Lowering his head, he locked his turbulent gaze with
hers. “She wasn’t a random victim, Morgan. They chose her because they’d
recognized me. Because I was the screw-up who let them get away.” A tired,
bitter laugh that held nothing but anger and pain, and he cursed something
rough under his breath, his profile stark as he turned his face to the side,
staring at some distant point on the wall. “She didn’t deserve it. What they
did to her. And the last words we ever said to each other were ugly as hell.”

“You had a fight?”

“Yeah.” Another low, bitter laugh slipped from his
lips, and he popped his jaw as he shoved his hands back into his pockets. “She
accused me of being ‘emotionally absent’ in our relationship, and she was
right. It was the truth, because I was just using her to keep myself away from
you. The night they killed her, I should have been there, but I’d left her
alone. I left her without protection because I was too damn worried about you.
I knew you were going to be at the drill that was taking place in the woods
that night, and so I was heading there to keep an eye on you.”

Her chest ached for him, her heart breaking at the
pain she could hear vibrating in his deep voice. “Still, it wasn’t your fault,
Kier.” Morgan wished he would let her come closer, but could tell that he
wouldn’t, and she didn’t want to force him from the room. “What happened to
Nicole was a tragedy, and I’m sorry that she suffered…that you lost her, but
you can’t keep blaming yourself for her death.”

He snorted, the auburn strands of his hair falling
over his brow as he shook his head and muttered, “Like hell I can’t.”

“If she loved you, and I don’t know how she couldn’t
have, then she wouldn’t have wanted you to feel this way. She wouldn’t want you
spending the rest of your life blaming yourself for what happened.”

A heavy, breath-filled silence, and then he slowly
looked in her direction, holding her stare, and she shivered from the raw force
of his gaze. “Will you tell my why you were so determined to stay away from
me?” she whispered.

For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to
respond, but then he blew out a rough breath, and his voice dropped as he
answered her question. “Because I knew there could be something between us.”

“And why would that have been so bad?” Her own voice
was choked by emotion, her control shattering as she realized that this was it.
That the next few moments were going to determine where they went from there.
“Why won’t you let yourself feel anything for me, Kier? Why did you fight it so
hard? Was it because of my bloodline? Because you were ashamed of me?”

“Jesus, Morgan. Why would I be ashamed of you?”

“Then what is it? Because you can’t claim that you ran
off with Nicole because of my relationship with Ashe. I wasn’t even with him
when you started dating her.” She wanted to yell at him, to shout and scream,
but she could barely get out the hoarse, breathless words. “So what’s the real
reason? Because after everything we’ve been through, I think I have a right to
know.”

He lowered his head again, his chest rising and
falling as he stared at a distant spot on the floor. “I come from evil, Morgan.
From weak, nasty shit.”

She blinked, stunned, not knowing what to think. “What
are you talking about?”

“My father was a murderer.” Rough, husky words,
scraping against her skin. “A mean, jealous bastard who killed my mother during
one of his rages.”

“Oh my God.” Kellan had told her that their parents
had died in some kind of tragic accident when Kierland was a little boy, but
that was all. “What happened? Was she having an affair?”

He shook his head with a sharp, abbreviated movement,
and a muscle began to tic in his temple. “As far as I know, there was never
another man. Hell, he was so over the top, the simplest thing could set him
off. She probably smiled at the milkman the wrong way. Said hello to the
postman. That was all it took with him.” He drew in a deep breath, held it,
then slowly let it out as he said, “I was there when it happened. I walked into
the kitchen to ask if Kell and I could have some cookies, and she was lying on
the friggin’ floor at my father’s feet, bleeding out. He looked at me, stared
me right in the eye and told me to never love anyone. Said that it would rip a
man apart. Then he tore his claws across his own gut and killed himself.”

“And you think…” She couldn’t get the words out, her
mouth trembling.

He lifted his hand, rubbing at the back of his neck, a
feverish rush of color burning in his face. “I had hoped that maybe…that maybe
I wasn’t like him. And I was finally starting to believe it. Then you walked
into my class at the academy on your first day, and I knew that I was just like
the bloody bastard. That was all that it took.” He held out his right hand, his
fingers spread, and watched the way it trembled. “You smiled at me, and I knew
that I’d do anything—steal, murder, cheat—to have you. Keep you. Make you mine.
And in the end, I knew there was the chance that you’d end up just like my
mother. I couldn’t…no matter what it cost me, I couldn’t let that happen to
you.” His hand fisted, the dark veins thickening beneath his hair-dusted skin.
“I won’t let that happen, Morgan.”

“Are you anything like him?” she asked, tasting the
saltiness of tears on her lips that she hadn’t even realized were falling.
“Anything like the man that he was?”

He shook his head. Muttered, “I try not to be.”

“Then what makes you think you could ever act like
him? Just because he did something horrible doesn’t mean that you—”

“I know that!” he cut in, his deep voice thick with
frustration. “I’m not stupid. I know I’m not the same person. But I also know
that every time Ashe looked at you back then, I wanted to kill him. Rip him
apart with my bare hands. And I still do.” His chest shook with a sudden burst
of grim, breathless laughter that held nothing but more anger and pain, and he
slid her another shuttered look from the corner of his eye. “Maybe I have more
of my old man in me than you think.”

“So then what you’re saying is that you decided my
future for me, right?” She swiped at the tears on her cheeks, surprised by the
heat in her face, too much of her own anger and worry and pain burning inside
her. “Without even giving me a choice?”

“Don’t you get it? There was no choice!” he roared,
the harsh, guttural words slamming through the room like a scalding force of
energy, blasting against her.

Her hands fisted, her pulse roaring in her ears like
some kind of thrashing, destructive storm. “Damn it,” she cried, her voice
rising as she fought the urge to cross the distance between them and grab him,
locking herself around him in a hold that could never be broken. But it was an
illusion. A dream. Because no matter how tightly she gripped him, he would slip
away. No matter how desperately she struggled, it wouldn’t be enough. “Believe
it or not, you don’t always know what’s best for everyone!”

“I knew this was a bad idea,” he growled, his chest heaving
with the ragged force of his breaths. “I should have packed your little ass
back on a flight to England the second you stepped foot into that club on
Saturday night.”