Feral Passion (18 page)

“The next time you do something like
this, I will hold you down and beat sense into you. I’m
not
even joking right now, Mary. And
I know a couple of people who would be more than willing to
help.”

Placed inside in what she was assuming was an
ambulance, someone wrapped a blood pressure pump around her arm,
and she watched in horror as a needle came for her. Ulrich sprang
into the back of the large car with them, grabbing onto the hand of
a dark haired doctor, shaking his head.

“I wouldn’t do that... Anything with
needles and we are
all
dead.”
Mary could only agree with his warning.

“But, chief... It’s required, especially with
her status...” the tech said, stuttering.

Ulrich stared the man down while Mary felt
bad for the man as his stutter worsened and he backed up. “You
should also know that when you don’t listen to the leader’s
brother, bad things happen. Needles? Are a no. Thank you for
understanding,” he said curtly, eyes blackening with his
warning.

The tech swallowed nervously, Mary glaring at
her brother for making the poor guy nervous. She could have told
him plain and simple that she didn’t want the needle shoved inside
her skin without Ulrich’s help.

Lights of the city rushed through the car as
they traveled quickly, the blackness of gone day illuminating the
never ending sky. For the first time, she wondered how long she had
actually been out there, and how much risk she has posed by talking
with Kevin.

She lay on the gurney, eyes trained on the
cieling of the sterile van, thoughts racing as she struggled to
understand everything. Surely Kevin wouldn’t have kept her there
had he realized that she was in danger, would have forced her
awake. But then...

Mary jackknifed, eyes wide. “Oh my god!” she
screeched, hands flying to her mouth. In seconds, her brother was
up ad clutching her shoulder, everyone in the van coming to
attention at her scream.

She stared at her brother, eyes wide and
panicked, trying to breath. “Kevin,” she choked out, body
shuddering as she remembered what he had told her.

Her head fell into her hands, horror roiling
through her as dangerously as a train would have. At that moment,
she much wished one would come rolling along to kill her. Her eyes
closed as tears stung her eyes, heart lurching in her chest.

She didn’t want to go through with what Kevin
had told her.

Co-leaders was just a euphemism for bonding.
Her hands shook, eyes watering unstoppably. Was it the cold that
was still imprinted inside of her being, the cold in her heart, or
the fear of what was to come?

“Mary?” Ulrich asked, the worry in his voice
biting her.

“What.” Her voice was groggy, wavering--close
to tears.

“Are you...hurt?” he asked, uncertain. He
pulled her in for a hug, one that she would have accepted if she
hadn’t been told what she had been earlier.

She said nothing in reply, only stared down
at her hands, extracting herself from Ulrich. Was she that bad of a
leader that she had to be forced into a binding with Jacques? God,
she prayed that it had just been a bad dream--even while she knew
it hadn’t been.

“Where is Jacques?” she asked, voice soft,
resilient.

Ulrich got confused. “He’s at the station
with his friend. They couldn’t come with me because of protocol,
but they’re waiting for us there,” he explained, crossing his arms
over his chest, frowning.

“Why did you come looking for me? I wasn’t in
any trouble, not like it was a big deal that I went missing for a
couple of hours.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

“Why did we go looking for you?” he
repeated, astounded. “Because it’s close to midnight, and only a
couple of hours ago we got a call saying that you were sited passed
out from an anonymous caller who only gave us that much
information! As leader, you have responsibilities! You can’t
just
leave to take a break
,
Mary. You can’t just
excuse yourself of
your duties!”
By the time he was done, his voice had
risen to a coarse shout.

She shrank back from the anger in his voice,
eyes widening. Sure, they had fought before--what brother and
sister didn’t--but never had it seemed so...angry. A weight on her
shoulders pressed down, almost made her sob, hoping that it would
relieve the pain she was starting to feel.

Not just from her legs, but her very soul.
“I’m sorry...” she started, voice faint, hands twisting in her
lap.

“You should be. What you did was plain
fucking
stupid
,” he grated,
both of them ignoring the looks from the techs as they finished
checking her out.

“Ma’am, we have to check for a concussion,”
one of them broke in hesitantly. holding up a small pen light.

Swallowing, holding back the threat of tears,
she let them check and knew that they wouldn’t find one. Mary
hadn’t been hurt at all, besides about what Kevin, Ulrich, and
Jacques had said to her. Why did it feel as if the universe was
turning on her?

Static was heard as the receiver up front
went off. “Arriving in less then two minutes.”

What the driver said was true; they were out
of the ambulance and she was being wheeled into the hospital
corridors, as much as she protested.

Everyone was tense around her, and she could
have slapped every single one of them for it. It’s not like she had
been attacked or anything, and she knew for a fact that she wasn’t
close to dying. Except for the pain in her legs that was spreading
everywhere, she was perfectly fine...physically.

Mentally? Not so much.

Mary was silent as they put her in a room,
ran small tests on her, and basically annoyed the hell out of her.
Small talk was barely made, the atmosphere sterile and awkward,
stiff and closed off.

Ulrich wasn’t in the room, just her and a
human female nurse. Looking at the woman who was checking her
vitals, she realized that the sooner the new hospital--well,
clinic--was up, everything would be so much better--and safer.

The nurse left silently, placing Mary’s
jacket next to her slowly.

She hopped off of the bed, taking a breath as
her legs took the brunt of her landing, knowing that it had been
dumb of her to get up after still feeling like a frozen icepop.

Mary didn’t hear the door open.

Arms came around her body, a scream building
in her throat, all too late.

Chapter 29

Relief, sharp and painful, coursed throughout
Raffaele as he held Mary in his arms, alive and safe, uninjured and
still as pure as she had been. Ulrich had been lenient enough to
give him small details and had even let him be the first one to
have time wth her.

Not knowing if she had been okay enough to
even stand, or be awake, he had been over-joyed to see her stand,
although she had moved stiffly. Unable to hold himself back, he had
strode over and embraced her as he had wanted to from the moment he
saw her in the hospital’s parking lot only a couple of days
ago.

“Oh--” Mary’s voice rang shrilly, causing him
to wince. His hand snapped over her mouth, shushing her.

Fearful that he had hurt her, he turned her
in his arms to get a look at her face, scanning for bruises or any
sort of injury. Raff held her gently, yet firmly in case she got
weak kneed and fell. She was slightly wobbly, as if she couldn’t
stand right.

“Are you alright?” he asked, holding her
jaw.

Mary didn’t reply, only stared at him, eyes
wide yet emotionless. Then, she yanked herself form his grasp and
back peddled, wrapping her arms around her chest defensively.

“Hey...” he said quietly, watching as
her eyes started to tear up, even though she wasn’t looking at him.
It seemed that she was looking everywhere
but
him.

“Where is my brother?” she asked,
seeming to not hear him at all. Her voice was jerky, full of
suppressed emotion that only made him wince because deep down, he
knew that
he
was part of why
she looked so close to breaking down.

“Don’t know,” he said, walking close to her,
ignoring that she backed up till she was completely against the
wall. Her wide, red rimmed eyes met his pained blue ones. Raff got
close enough that he just had to move an inch closer and they would
be pressed together, enough that he could feel the heat radiating
off of her body. “What I said earlier...” he started, hand coming
up to barely brush his thumb against her cheek.

Her face turned from his, breath catching on
a small sob.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you, I
promise. The last thing on
Earth
that I would ever want to do is hurt you,” he murmured,
uncharacteristically tender and worried about her.

He heard her breath catch, not with tears,
but in an honest gasp. He watched the blush spread up her cheeks,
she started to smile. Then it fell.

Her eyes hardened. “You made it clear
that you didn’t
want
me know
you, and it seemed at the time that you could care less about my
feelings. Not like they are important to you anyways. I’m sure you
have millions of long legged blond women just waiting for you back
at your home.”

Raffaele shook his head, not angry but
regretful. “That came out the wrong way, Mary. Have I given you any
inclination that I wouldn’t want you, to talk to you, at all in
these past days?” he asked, looking at her with a small smile that
was close to speaking his heart. He completely ignored what she had
said about the long legged woman--she was hitting to close to
home.

Her brow wrinkled. “Well... What you
said...”

“I already told you, love. I didn’t mean it
to come out that way,” he explained calmly, watching her eye brows
scrunch even more.

“Why didn’t you come get me, if you cared so
much?” she finally deanded, looking up at him with suspicious
eyes.

“To find you earlier, or after you walked out
on me?” he asked, crossing his arms.

Mary flushed. “Both.”

“Well,” he started chidingly, grabbing her
hand to sit her on the white, sterile hospital bed. “I had to take
care of getting my uncle out of here the first time. I couldn’t
just leave him and Chase here. And I had thought that you were to
angry at me, and that I should hold back a bit, to let you cool
off.”

She bit her lip, considering. Confused,
out of his place, and wondering what the hell was going on with him
to make him act like this to her--to
any
one. Raffaele brought his hand up, cupping her
cheek. He tried to stop himself, he really did. It was just hard to
when she looked so uncertain, as if she had lost her mind and
couldn’t think straight and needed his help doing so--which he was
all too willing to give.

Finally, Mary asked--more like whispered,
“And when I was in the woods?”

“Ulrich wouldn’t let me. Romero explained
that since I had no tangible clue as to where you might be, I
couldn’t take the risk--being a civilian here, and also a leader. I
wanted to though... God, did I want to,” he said gruffly, dragging
her into his chest.

They sat there for several seconds, Mary
awkward in his arms, Raffaele enjoying how well she fit there.
Suddenly, everything seemed as if it were okay, and that this had
been happening for forever. His nightmare with the unknown woman
was long gone from his mind as he craddled Mary to him, thankful to
the gods that she was alright.

But... “Why were you even out there?” he
asked into the sweetness of her hair, starting to frown.

“Uh... I... Uh, well, I...”

He pulled her head back gently by her hair to
see her face, to narrow in on the sudden blush that was consuming
her face, all the way down to under her shirt. Eyes trailing down
farther, to the cleft of her breasts, he stared openly at the full
curves that were displayed across his view.

Slap
.

“The hell...” he exclaimed, rubbing his
temple. He swore, the hit that her fist dealt to his head was going
to cause a migraine to dangerous proportions. “What was that for?”
he asked, growling.

“What do you
think
?” she asked, astonished. Mary motioned
towards her chest. “You ogled!”

“Ogled? What? Alright, woman. Let’s get
something straight--Raffaele Atono Jacques does
not
ogle,” he said pompously, giving her a
look.

Mary just stared at him blankly, still pulled
away from his chest--the exact opposite of what he wanted. He
reached for her again, but she pulled back, giving him a look that
suggested confusion.

“What?” he asked, grabbing her arm and
dragging her next to him, happy that she didn’t give that much of a
fight. After worrying for hours, almost crying, then beating
someone’s ass, then coming close to murdering someone, he was
so...grateful that she was there, next to him, pressed against
him.

He forgot all about the business
boundaries, the things that should have kept them apart from each
other. Raff forgot about their stations, their prohibitions, the
danger, and only focused on the fact that his woman--his
fated female
, was safe and next to
him.

Mary didn’t answer him that question, but she
answered the most important one. “I had to take a break,” she said
simply, seeming to unknowingly lean on his shoulder.

Raffaele glowered. “You risked your
life to take a
break?
” he
demanded, arm tightening around her.