Skye's Trail (23 page)

It was all he could do not to give in to temptation and stomp on the gas. Still, he knew a moment of panic when he got to where she’d told him to meet her and he didn’t see her.

Before true fear could set in, she slipped from behind the building and hurried to the car. Rico’s jaw tightened when he saw the condition she was in. He’d seen her run all night long tracking and not look as weak and drawn as she did right now. If Gian had done this to her, then he was going to pay for it.

She didn’t need to be told to get down so that she wouldn’t be seen. Rico didn’t need to be told to hurry.

He didn’t ask where she wanted to go, but took her to his house. She remained quiet even as he led her into the kitchen and sat her down. “You look like you’re getting ready to drop. When’s the last time you had something to eat?”

Fire raced through Skye and for a moment she was trapped in the night, in Gian’s eyes, remembering the hot, metallic blood that had slid down her throat. Though he could heal her and replenish her with his blood—last night his blood had been neither medicine nor sustenance—it had been magic that bound her to him.

Rico’s hand on her face brought her back to the day, to the kitchen where he hovered over her, concern and caring so obvious on his face that Skye felt tears threaten. The surge of emotion shocked her, leaving her momentarily frozen, trapped in his eyes.

“Hey, you’re starting to freak me out here,” Rico said, the soft way he caressed her face sending a hot flame of love through her.

Skye blinked and turned to press a kiss on his palm. “I’m okay. It was a long night and I haven’t eaten since LA.”

Rico brushed his mouth over hers. “I make a killer omelet. You like jalapenos?”

“Yes.”

“Good. One specialty omelet coming up.” Rico turned away from where she sat at the table and began gathering what he needed to cook.

Fuck! How could he resist her when she was like this? Soft, in need of more than just his cock.

He tried to work up some righteous anger, but didn’t get any closer than outraged protectiveness. “Did he hurt you?”

Skye’s hand went immediately to the medallion. But the gesture made her think of Haley’s nervous habit, so she forced her hand back into her lap. “No.”

The muscles in Rico’s back tensed. “Then why is there a search party looking for you?”

“Gian wanted me to stay until sunset, but there are things I need to take care of.”

Rico turned from the refrigerator with a carton of eggs in his hand. “You were being held against your will?” There was anger in his voice, but his expression said that he’d use the law to see that Gian paid.

“No.”

Rico’s face tightened as though he didn’t believe her. Anger radiated off of him as he moved to the counter and began to chop ingredients for her omelet.

An unfamiliar exhaustion settled on Skye. Until the craving to take mates had overwhelmed her, she’d spent most of her time hunting, surrounded by people and yet separate.

Nothing in her life had prepared her for this—for dealing with so many conflicting feelings and realities. She balanced on an emotional razor edge, bound to two dangerous men, uncertain how to integrate them into her life, how to meld what her body needed with what her soul demanded—equality, unity, a cohesive union like her mother shared with her two mates.

Skye rested her head in her hands and let her mind escape to what it was like to run as
other
, to streak across the desert unencumbered by human thought or emotion, to exist, to live, to embrace something greater.

Pain ripped through Rico’s heart when he turned and saw Skye. With her shoulders hunched and her face buried in her hands, she looked utterly defeated. The need to comfort and protect her warred with the need to regain control of his life.

Since this thing with her had started, his life had become chaotic, weirdly disjointed. It was starting to affect how he did his job, how he saw himself.

Every cop instinct he possessed urged him to go at her now, when she was vulnerable. But he couldn’t bring himself to press her for answers. Instead he put her meal down in front of her and stroked her hair. “Go ahead and eat then take a hot shower. We can talk afterward.”

Skye accepted the reprieve and consumed the meal rapidly, barely able to stop long enough to take a breath. Rico laughed and cooked up another omelet, this time adding a couple of pieces of toast. “Either my cooking is unbelievably great or you’re starving.”

“Both,” she said before attacking the second serving. She could feel her strength building with every bite.

“Another?” Rico asked when she’d cleaned her plate.

“No. I’m okay now.” She stood and took her plate to the sink then followed as Rico led her through the house, through the bedroom with its masculine scent and huge four-poster bed, and into an equally impressive bathroom. Without a word he began unbuttoning her shirt. She reached over and did the same to his before removing the rest of her clothes.

Rico’s face tightened momentarily then darkened as his eyes moved along her naked body. His fingers followed, sending erotic pulses through her as he traced a line from the bite mark on her neck, to the one over her heart, to the one on her inner thigh.

Fuck! It was starting again. He’d wanted a few minutes to hold her, to feel her skin touch his before they started talking. The shower had seemed like a safe enough idea. But now lust slammed through his system.

When her fingers traced a similar line from his neck, to his heart, to his thigh, his cock grew larger, his balls heavier—a male animal on proud display for his female.

Rico ground his teeth against the need pouring through him. He’d never been a biter, never been one to let a woman mark him. But the sight of the marks on her body had him wanting to sink his teeth into her before pressing her mouth to his skin so she could reclaim him.

He fought to stay in control, to keep his body from taking over even as the desire to understand this thing between them was being weakened by the fantasies playing out in his mind.

He forced his words out, trying to keep from touching her. “Did you bite him like this?”

Her whispered “yes” made his cock jerk. Of its own accord, his hand reached down, encircling his penis, pumping once then squeezing when fantasizes of spewing his seed across her flat stomach, across her mound and her breasts seized his mind.

¡Carajo!
He’d never been this primitive.

He closed his eyes, tried to close his mind. “Fuck, I don’t understand this thing between us.”

His tortured expression gentled some of the lust that whipped through Skye’s body. She moved closer to the shower, hoping that putting some distance between them would help. She surprised both of them by saying, “I didn’t know it would be like this. I didn’t understand what it would mean to mark you…to lock you in my body that first night. If I’d known, I would have told you before we joined. I would have tried to give you a choice. I can still try to undo it. I don’t know if it will work, but I can try to make the need fade for you.”

Rico opened his eyes and saw the sincerity in hers, saw the same glimmer of defeat that he’d seen in the kitchen. Shit, maybe this thing was making a mess of her life, too.

“What about Gian?” When her eyebrows drew together in a silent question, Rico said, “Does he want this…fuck, it’s like an addiction…does he want it?”

“Yes.” She hesitated, wondering how much to tell him then deciding that in the end he would need to know all of it—maybe not right now, but eventually. There was no safety in ignorance. “Gian knows more about the Angelini than I do. He understands the bond.”

Rico’s cop instincts snapped into place and with it the feeling of control. He could handle the lust now, hold off until he had some answers. He forced his hand away from his penis and stepped toward her. “Angelini?”

“My race.”

His gaze sharpened. “I’ve never heard of them. Who are they?”

“Hunters, like me. Different, like I’m different.”

Shit! He didn’t want to believe that there were others like her, that she belonged to a race that was probably the stuff of nightmares—his balls tightened—or fantasies. But his cop instincts said she wasn’t lying, the memories of being locked in her body and orgasming over and over again were his proof.

He was close enough to smell her arousal, to feel the heat coming off her body. When her eyes dropped to his penis, it strained and bobbed in greeting. He stilled it with his hand then risked touching her face to draw her attention back to his.

“I thought you had no memory of where you came from. The file says you were found in a ghetto in LA and grew up in foster care. You were mute until you were twelve or thirteen, and even then weren’t cooperative when people tried to talk to you.”

Her eyes widened and Rico almost laughed at her surprise. “Believe me, the captain has a file that’s about five inches thick on you. He’s collected every scrap of paper with your name on it. It’s almost become required reading for anyone in the department.”

She laughed softly and Rico’s heart lightened at seeing fewer shadows in her eyes. When she rubbed her cheek against his palm in an affectionate gesture, it was all he could do to stop himself from pulling her into his arms. Only the need for answers held him back.

“There were always vague memories,” Skye said, “of my mother and her two mates—husbands. Impressions mainly, nothing to lead me to them or explain how I ended up in Los Angeles. Even now I don’t have the answer, but at least I know that I wasn’t supposed to be in that city. It’s not where I had been before.” She shrugged. “The memories only started coming back yesterday when I was in LA.”

Rico circled back to what she’d said before. “But Gian knew what you were before you knew?”

“Yes. He knew that I could bind him to me…he knew it before, during and after. He accepts it. He binds me to him in return.”

Rico’s eyes narrowed when her hand strayed to the medallion around her neck. It was the only piece of jewelry she wore, the only piece he’d ever seen on her.

He reached for it, a knee-jerk reaction that had him wanting to rip it off her neck. But when his hand closed around it, heat seared through his palm and straight to his cock.

“Fuck! What was that?”

Skye shivered. When he’d grabbed the medallion, a rush of power had surged through her—Gian’s power. “A safeguard, I think.”

“He’s Angelini?”

“No. But he’s powerful in his own right.”

Rico’s mind flashed on the blond man he’d seen in the Fangs’ parking lot when he went to get Skye. The guy had oozed power. If Gian was the same…

Rico gritted his teeth and reached for the medallion again. This time there was only a small pulse of heat, but it was there, real, and not something he imagined.

He used the medallion to pull her closer. For a split second he thought he saw a flame deep in the centers of her pupils. But as soon as their bodies touched, he threw his head back and closed his eyes as the pleasure of being skin-to-skin roared through him. He could almost believe anything, accept anything in order to experience this.

The damp, aroused heat of her beckoned and his cock responded, swelling further, its tip leaking. There were other answers that he wanted, but right now, he wanted this more.

His hands dropped to her hips and she pressed even closer. But when he would have lifted her, had her wrap her legs around him so he could finally feel the heaven of her tight channel, Skye stilled him with a hand to his chest. “You can’t have this and not the bond that goes with it. Every time we join, it deepens, it strengthens.”