More Than Blood (13 page)

With a sigh she brought her arms up and around, sending the two men holding onto her flying forward. Even with the drug raging through her system she was stronger than the bloodsuckers. They hadn’t expected that. Shimmering in midair they reappeared next to her, more cautious this time. She almost went down to one knee with the effort it took to throw them the first time. She wasn’t about to let them get that close again. Stumbling to the side, she shook her head and buried her elbow in the face of the man lunging in to grab her from her left. She heard the satisfying sound of bones and cartilage in his nose being pulverized before he shimmered back out of her reach.

Kel blinked several times, trying to clear her vision. It felt like she was looking up through the surface of water. The smell of blood tainted the air, and she smiled as she delivered a side kick to another man coming at her from the right. He swung a knife at her wildly, and she distantly registered a sharp pain just before her small foot made contact with his chest. Even as the sound of cracking bones filled her ears, she shimmered behind him, grabbed his head between her small hands before he hit the ground, and snapped his neck. Then she promptly fell back, cracking her ass hard on the concrete. The dead Sanguen fell on top of her. It should have smarted, but she felt nothing. She felt oddly numb. She couldn’t even move the weight of the Sanguen off of her.

They must have shot her up with some kind of sedative. An incredible lethargy weighed heavily on her body and she didn’t think she’d be able to rise. At least right now. Her body would process the drug quickly, like it did everything else. She just had to wait it out. Meanwhile the burning in her side was damn uncomfortable and permeated the fog in her brain.

“Shit!” Kel cursed thickly when she reached down to touch her side beneath the weight of the damn Sanguen and felt the dampness but she already knew what she’d find. She could smell her blood. Actually, she thought drunkenly, she could smell a lot of blood. Kel heaved the body off her with a groan and rolled to her side.

“
Shimmer.
”

Kel jerked her head up drunkenly at the growling command, and immediately her unguarded body reacted. Gabe was magnificent. He spun, the knee-length jacket flaring out as his arms slashed at the men he fought. The two short swords glittered in the golden light of the setting sun and he wielded them with a remarkable skill, shimmering in and out among the four men around him. He was poetry. Violent and bloody poetry, but inspiring in motion nonetheless.

And he was seriously outnumbered.

Struggling to her hands and knees, she painstakingly crawled a couple feet toward them and extended her claws on one hand. When one of the bastards shimmered in she swiped at his leg, severing his Achilles tendon. He screamed in agony and shimmered out. That should even things up a little.

“Fuck it all, woman. I said shimmer.”

“Whatever, Ferrar,” Kel slurred softly. Feeling a little nauseated she hung her head for a moment and willed the world to stop spinning. Whatever they shot her up with was strong. Her body was having a hell of a time trying to work it out of her system. The smell of blood was heavy in her nose, and she struggled to determine if it included Gabe’s. She didn’t think so, but she couldn’t be sure. She needed to look to be positive he was still holding his own. Although she didn’t know what she’d be able to do if he wasn’t. She’d figure something out.

She struggled to gain a sitting position and then let her head loll back on her neck. Blinking, she focused on him and frowned. Two men littered the ground, ripped apart, and Gabe was slashing furiously at the last man with his silver blades. He spun and slashed, shimmering in and out around him.

Kel had never seen anything like it before. His lean, lithe body moved smoothly, like a lethal dancer. The red flickered in the centers of his green eyes as the last man sank to the ground, and Kel almost laughed. The sight of him like that made the muscles in her stomach roll and clench with instantaneous desire. She was sad, but damn, the man was sexy.

And he left a serious mess, she thought as her gaze strayed over the carnage. Four bodies littered the parking garage, and Kel seriously hoped none of her neighbors pulled in. She fumbled for the phone on her belt and called for cleanup, never taking her eyes off of him.

Gabe was cleaning his blades on the shirt of one of the fallen men, his chest heaving with the exertion of the fight. Sliding the cell back into her belt she braced herself against the gritty cement and watched him with an embarrassing intensity. The new churning in her stomach had nothing to do with the drug and everything to do with the sexy Sanguen standing a couple feet from her.

The parking garage had stopped spinning, and it didn’t take as much effort to keep herself upright. Thanks to her Guardian heritage, her metabolism worked drugs through her system at an amazing rate. She doubted the men who attacked them had been aware of that.

Gabe turned his strangely flickering eyes on her and slid his blades into the sheaths strapped to his thighs. His nose flared, and his eyes lowered to rake over her body. He could smell her blood.

“Whoa!” Kel yelped when he suddenly shimmered in front of her to scoop her up under the arms like a child and deposit her on the trunk of a nearby sports car. “Holy cow, warn a girl or something.”

Gabe ignored her as he jerked her shirt up to get a better look at her wound. He pulled off his jacket and threw it up on the trunk and quickly jerked his shirt up and over his head. He might have pressed it to the knife wound in her side, she wasn’t exactly sure. The last thing she would remember with any clarity was the sight of his wide, smooth chest and the smell of his heat rising and surrounding her.

It was a
very
distracting combination.

His body was hard, the muscles of his chest and shoulders finely sculpted beneath his golden flesh. He was saying something to her. Distantly she thought he might be lecturing her, which could be a good reason why she wasn’t actually hearing any of it. Who wanted to hear words when they had a beefcake buffet at the tip of their nose?

Beefcake buffet?

Had that thought really gone through her head? Those drugs must have sent her on a trip because she wouldn’t be sliding her hands up the rock-hard ripples of his stomach if she wasn’t under some kind of influence, would she? His whole body jerked at the touch, and she thought maybe he might have stopped talking. Good.

Allowing her fingertips to slide up and over the bulge of his pectorals she saw he wore some kind of carved stone medallion around his neck on a leather thong. She circled it with her finger and wondered what the symbol meant. His hands clamped around her wrists, stilling her exploration, and she looked up into his face.

Kel couldn’t turn her head away, getting caught and drawn into the depths of those green eyes. The centers were flickering with gold and red, like twin flames. That ever present desire flared hot and consuming, engulfing them. Kel drew his scent deep into her body and allowed it to infuse her.

It was unlike anything in her experience, waking her instincts and bringing parts of her nature to roaring, screaming life. She felt so alive, every part of her throbbing with want. She pulled her hands free and speared her fingers into the dark blond hair that fell around his face and jerked his head down to hers with a growl. She needed to taste him.

The kiss was rough and demanding. Gabe speared his tongue past her lips into the moist heat of her mouth, and her body jerked against his as that white-hot electricity of their attraction arced through her. She slid her hands down over his shoulders and over the heated skin of his back, tracing the firm, roped muscles in her descent to his waist. His skin was so smooth and hard beneath her questing hands. Her fingers reached those blades, the metal still warm from the heat of his large hands. She moaned at the memory of how he’d moved with those sleek weapons in his hands and arched into him, clutching the hilts. Even his weapons were sexy.

Kel could feel the rumble of his chest against her, feel his humor. “Only you.”

His hips pressed her back into the steel of the car and she lifted her legs around his waist, wanting to feel the heavy ridge of his erection closer to where she ached. The rough texture of his jeans was delicious through the thin silk of her panties. With a low growl he ground himself against her and a sharp streak of pleasure shot out from between her thighs to spread to the rest of her body. Sliding her hands down, she grabbed his ass and jerked him into her, needing to feel it again.

Gabe jerked her head back with the hand buried in the short, silky strands of her hair. His lips slid from hers and she gasped for the air she needed so desperately as his mouth left a hot, wet trail over her jaw to her ear. The heat of his mouth sent body-racking chills of pleasure through her and she nearly came off the trunk of the car when he speared his tongue into the cavern of her ear.

Kel undulated her hips against his as the sensation deepened and grew with every stab of his tongue in her ear, with every press of his hips into hers.

“Mine.” He breathed hotly into her ear, sending another wave of tremors through her body. The hard ridge of his cock rubbed at her clit, the friction causing a sizzling through her bloodstream. “Only mine.”

With a growl he reached down with one hand, slid his long fingers around the elastic edge of her panties. His thumb stroked lightly over her engorged clit, the callused pad sending shivers through her. Two of his middle fingers slid through the slick cream of her body and ringed the little tight opening to her pussy, teasing shivers from her.

Kel whimpered under the onslaught of sensation.

His grip in her hair tightened to the point of pain as he pulled her head back farther with a jerk; his eyes burned a path down her body, focusing with an incredibly arousing intensity on where his fingers teased her pussy. His fingers pressed just inside her before retreating and pressing again.

“So hot.” He breathed roughly against her cheek. “I can feel that sweet little pussy squeezing my fingers.” The thrusts of his fingers deepened, his thumb keeping a steady light pressure. His lips left a wet trail over her cheek to her neck. “Come for me, baby. Come on my hand. Let me feel you.” She could feel the pressure of his mouth sliding down over her exposed neck. Panting from the pleasure his fingers were wringing from her body, she jerked under the feel of his mouth.

The heat of his tongue left a moist trail over the pulse there and without any warning he buried his fangs into the pulsing length of her neck. Kel’s body jerked, her muscles drawing up tightly at the shock and pleasure of it as he sucked greedily from her. Her pussy clamped down around the intrusion of his fingers pressing deeply inside her with tiny strokes, and she arched with a cry. With each draw of his lips on her neck she peaked higher and higher until she trembled uncontrollably against him. She was held in the tight grip of pleasure, her body pulled taut, arching into his until he ripped his mouth away with a gasp.

As she floated down, Kel felt a coldness settle over her flesh. There was something important she was missing here, but the blissful numbness settled heavily over her, pulling her further down. She heard Gabe curse violently, and he caught her limp body up in his arms as she slid bonelessly down the gleaming side of the sports car. She opened her mouth to comment on his choice of words, but nothing came out, and then the blackness settled too heavily over her for her to try again.

“DAMN IT!” GABE cursed, pressing his forehead to hers as he tried to regain control of himself. Her blood slid through his body, infusing him with strength and vitality. Blooding usually gave him a feeling of renewal and satisfaction, but drinking from Kel was different. It was more. It was standing in the fires of hell and feeling the rain of heaven fall down over him. He felt amazingly connected to her. Contented.

Gabe gently cradled her limp form against the length of his body, intently listening for the rhythmic pump of her heart. It was slow but steady. What the hell had he been thinking? He’d mishandled Kel from the first instant he saw her, binding them with blood without her consent and now blooding her when she obviously had lost enough from the slash in her side.

He glanced around him at the bodies that littered the concrete as the fury burst through him. He wanted to kill them all over again. Pressing his shirt against her side, he brushed his lips over her forehead and into her hair. Her skin felt cool and clammy. He needed to get her to her apartment. She needed fluids.

Tires squealed and he jerked his head up to watch two vans screech to a halt. Several people in gray overalls jumped out and froze, eyes scanning the scattered bodies before coming to rest on him and Kel’s pale limp body in his arms.

Two men stepped forward and Gabe darted his seething eyes from one man to the other, frowning darkly. The thick smell of the blood was disorienting, nearly overwhelming him, but he could easily discern the two distinct smells of each man’s aftershave. He could also smell the light, natural scent of females beneath their perfume.

Gabe’s eyes darted to the other figures in gray. Two women carefully stayed back as the men advanced another step.

What the hell was going on?

Shaking his head, he gave a short barking cough to clear the scents from his nose. The onslaught on his senses was overwhelming. Nauseating.

“Just lay the woman down and step back,” one of the men said in a calm voice, taking another slow step forward.

Gabe felt something dark and cold rush up into his chest, roaring through him. Making a low threatening noise, he bared his fangs at the man, who immediately stopped where he was.

No other man would touch her. Only him.

Cradling her closer he easily delved into her mind, their bond much stronger from the amount of blood he’d taken from her. The slow beat of her heart thudded in his ears, urging him to get her to safety. He’d need the image of her apartment from her mind to be able to shimmer them there.