Jared (35 page)

Darn it, she’d been projecting again.

Slade pushed his chair away, letting it roll him over
to another computer at the glass-top table adjacent to a weird-looking device.

She glared at Slade and then glanced at Jared. He
looked angry enough to spit bullets. “Gee, thanks.”

No woman in her right mind met a man as angry as Jared
at a disadvantage. She made it halfway to her feet before Jared reached her.
She braced herself for his yell, leaving her totally unprepared for his kiss. He
hooked his arm around her waist. She caught herself with her hands on his
shoulders as he lifted her up. Her head fell back into his shoulder. She braced
herself for the descent of his mouth. When it came, she took his anger and
fear. He was coming at her too fast, too hard for her to give him anything else
but understanding.

She opened her mouth at the stroke of his tongue,
clinging to his shoulders as he bent her back, dominating her body, her mouth,
her mind, and right at the moment she was about to flip from understanding to
anger, it gentled and became something else. Something softer, hungrier,
something that called up all the emotions she was trying so hard to keep
hidden.

“I should probably point out, before this goes much
further, you two are not alone.”

Jared’s fingers clenched in her hair, holding her
still for the last sweep of his tongue before drawing a breath away. His gaze
locked with hers, his hazel eyes now almost completely green from the emotions
pouring through him. “If you ever try to keep me from you again,” he whispered,
“you won’t like the consequences.”

“Stop threatening me.”

“That wasn’t a threat.”

With a sigh, she touched a bruise on his cheekbone.
“Are you hurt?”

“Just a scuffle.”

His fingertips touched her temple and followed the
shape of her face down to her chin. “Are you okay?”

“Not a mark on me.”

He frowned. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

Rats. He was beginning to catch on to her evasive
tactics. “I’m not hurt at all.”

Slade punched some buttons on a keyboard. “Keep that line
of questioning up, Jared, and you’re going to hurt my feelings.”

“Hurt feelings are not my concern.”

“Fine.” More taps on the keyboard. “Then maybe you can
make this a priority because until I have an answer, I can’t remove the
implant.” He turned the screen toward them. “Who’s Miri?”

SLADE had peeked after all.

Rai stared at the screen, frozen in the horror at the
gravity of her failure. Miri’s face stared back at her, unscarred, with full
cheeks that spoke of health. Her dream version of Miri. The way she preferred
to think of her. And in her eyes, dear God, in her eyes there was such joy,
such a love of life Raisa almost didn’t recognize her. In that picture, she was
a far cry from the pale, tortured, barely sane woman Raisa knew. But there was
something in that picture she did recognize: strength.

Miri was the strongest woman Raisa knew. Weathering blows
that would have devastated other women, Miri held on, believing in the mate
who’d deserted her, believing if she held on long enough, she could save her
child. The child who now, thanks to this slip up, might be without hope. She
moved away from Jared and Slade. Isolating herself.

I’m sorry, Miri.

The need to run was almost overwhelming. The secret
was out. For good or bad, it was out. Partially only, but no matter how much
she stalled, eventually they’d either pry or figure out the rest. Should she stall?
Confess? Lie? Why couldn’t she be a natural at this? What was she supposed to
do?

“Who’s Miri?” Jared asked, holding her gaze, every
ounce of his formidable personality focused on her.

“No one important to you.”

It wasn’t a lie. She’d promised Miri she would find
Miri’s mate and only reveal her secret to him. Jared wasn’t Miri’s mate. “Is
she in trouble?” Slade asked.

So much trouble, but confiding in the wrong person
would put the nail in her coffin. Miri had been emphatic about that, emphatic
about the prejudice and politics that would have most preferring she and her
child dead. Raisa glanced helplessly at Slade. Out of the corner of her eye,
she saw Jared move. It only took one step for him to reach her, one step for
him to draw her into his arms. One step for him to eradicate the emotional
distance she’d tried to put between then. His power wrapped around her more
seductively than his arms. “Does she need our help, Raisa?”

Yes, she did. Raisa closed her eyes against the urge
to tell him everything. To lay the problem at his feet.

“Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Tell us,” Slade echoed.

They were reading her mind. Oh heavens, she was
falling apart. Thoughts spilling over the dam she was putting on them. At least
the vital one hadn’t poured out. She still had a chance to honor her promise.
She opened her hands flat against Jared’s chest. “I really can’t tell you.”

“Because you made a promise?” Slade asked, his voice
as smooth as silk, reverberating with an otherworldly undertone.

“Yes.” And because she couldn’t be responsible for the
death of an innocent child and that child had only one hope. Its father. A man
who wasn’t standing in this room.

“Sometimes breaking a promise is the only way to keep
it,” Slade stated in a perfectly reasonable tone that resonated with logic.
That made such perfect sense. Temptation slid up alongside her resolve. Jared
and his brothers were born saviors. Much more suited to this kind of thing than
she. If she handed them this burden, they wouldn’t bumble along with it as she
was doing. They’d know exactly who to trust, and more important, who not to.
She opened her mouth. Jared placed his finger over it.

“Cut it out, Slade.”

The insidious need to reveal all died an abrupt death,
disappearing as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a subtle mental trail of
energy that led straight back to Slade. Raisa blinked and stepped out of
Jared’s arms. They dropped away reluctantly, his fingertips lingering on her
skin as she grappled with understanding. “You hypnotized me.”

Slade dipped his chin in a slight nod. “Quite
effectively, too, if I do say so myself.”

She’d have told Slade everything he wanted to know if
Jared hadn’t stopped his brother. Crossing her arms over her chest, Raisa
looked at Jared. Everything they both wanted to know. She took another step
back, reinforced her mental barriers. It didn’t make sense that Jared had
stopped Slade. “Why?”

“The only one with the right to screw with your mind
is me.”

Lovely. Did that mean she could expect him to start
screwing with it forthwith? She licked her lips, her gaze darting to Slade and
then back to Jared.

“I wouldn’t have realized what you were doing in
time.”

Jared didn’t argue. “No, you wouldn’t have.”

She could only ask again, “Why?”

“It’s your secret, your promise.”

Things weren’t getting clearer. An inner tightening
flicked along her awareness. She clamped down harder on her mental barriers.
The tightening continued. In the next heartbeat she recognized it. Hunger. Her
hunger was returning. As if things weren’t bad enough. She dug her fingers into
her arms. “Could you move beyond the short-answer format?”

“I’m your husband. Forcing you to break a promise
through a mind rape doesn’t sit well with me.”

So he’d protected her. Sometimes she thought she’d
never understand him. Slade, however . . . The other man smiled at her, a shift
of muscle that went no further than his lips. “I’m not unnecessarily
overburdened with a code of honor.”

Except he’d taken on two weres—friends—simply because
they had been chasing her, and then he’d stayed with her, protecting her until
Jared had come. Yeah, he was devoid of honor. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

The scuff of Jared’s boot on the floor jerked her
around. “You’re not alone anymore, Rai. It’s my job to protect your honor as
well as my own.”

“Even when it’s not convenient?”

He nodded, not hiding anything from her. “Even then.”

She’d never met anyone like him. The chill of the lab
seeped under her skin. “You must be thinking, about now, that it totally sucks
being my husband.”

“No.”

“Even when I can’t tell you what you want to know?”

“Even then, but you’d do well to remember you’re a
Johnson now, and that means you have kin with whom to share your problems.”

“Would this be the same kin that sicced a pack of
wolves on me when we arrived?”

“The weres were only supposed to bring you back. Your
running triggered their actions.”

“So you say.”

“And to be fair, it was kin who took care of the
matter, and the weres have since put you under their protection,” Slade added.
“Which means you can count on them to help this Miri woman if she needs it.”

“So you say.”

He shrugged. “So I say.”

Jared brought her face back to his with a press of his
index finger on the side of her jaw. “It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.
I give you my word, Rai. I’ll do whatever needs to be done to keep solid the
promise you made.”

“Even if it could cause you trouble with the weres and
other Renegades?”

His right eyebrow went up. “It’s that kind of
promise?”

“Yes.”

“Shit.”

“Shut up, Slade,” Jared snapped out.

“Sorry, just thinking how we’re barely on the edge of
acceptable now with most of them.”

That wasn’t good. Raisa knew how strong the Sanctuary
was and how small Renegade numbers were, comparatively. “You can’t afford to be
involved in this, Jared.”

He closed the distance between them. “I already am.”

She tipped her head back to see his face. “But if you
just let me walk out of here, you’re none the worse for wear. Things will go on
normally. It’ll be as if I never existed.”

Pain in her arms alerted her to the fact that her
nails were cutting into her skin.

Jared smiled, the corner of his lip twitching as he
slid his fingers under hers, rubbing the backs of his index fingers over the
small stings. “That’s the best out you’ve got to offer me?”

“What more do you need? You haven’t exactly been
thrilled with being with me.”

“There are all sorts of thrills.”

His hands slid around her back.

“You don’t even like me!”

“You’re pretty, sweet, got a sharp wit and a smart
mind. What’s not to like?”

She folded her arms across her chest, needing the
barrier between his heat and her weakness for him. “You don’t trust me.”

“I can’t justify a reason for trusting you, that’s
true.”

For a woman who avoided lying by shading sentence
structure, that was a significant phrasing.

Probably doesn’t sound any more right than Jared
marrying up with a woman he doesn’t trust.

Could Jared actually trust her on a gut level but be
having difficulty accepting that because he couldn’t rationalize it?

She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, placing her
fingertips on his pulse. It was steady. Constant. Like Jared himself. If she
involved him in this, he wouldn’t flinch. He’d do what he thought he needed to
do.

“You don’t want to take this on.”

He turned his hand and caught her fingers in his,
bringing her palm to his lips. His kiss seared the center. “I already have.”

Slade’s chair creaked as he leaned back. “In case you
haven’t figured it out, pretty much we’re just waiting on your telling us what
kind of crap we’re neck deep into.”

This wasn’t all about them. “What if Caleb objects?”

“Objects to what?”

She spun around toward the door. Caleb stood there.
She licked her lips, fortified her mental barriers, and braced herself against
Jared’s chest. Caleb came out of the shadow into the artificial light. Like
Jared’s face, what she could see of his under the hat brim was bruised and cut
up. Unlike Jared, there was no softness of greeting about him. And the smile on
his lips could only be described as cold. In his hand he held a black hat.

Slade asked, “Where’s Allie?”

“My wife is resting.”

“Resting?” Slade scoffed. “What’d you do, tie her
down?”

Caleb shrugged and tossed the hat. Raisa flinched as
it came at her. Caleb’s eyebrow arched at the instinctive gesture. Jared caught
his hat.

“Nothing so drastic,” Caleb answered, still watching
her. “I mentioned I’d tried some cinnamon buns the next town over that had a
unique citrus accent.”

“That was a low blow. You know she’s not going to be
able to rest until she duplicates it.”

Caleb leaned his hip on one of the desks. “Which is
going to be hard to do without an example.”