Under His Wings (8 page)

No Nicolai.

Before she changed her mind, she charged down the staircase,
again pausing when she reached the bottom. Her fingers curled around the
railing as she crouched down on the last step and sucked in a breath, trying to
hear over her pounding pulse.

Voices. Plural.

She couldn’t detect the words, but the deep timbre of male
voices came from the direction of the back porch.

Now was her chance.

She didn’t think, didn’t slow down to give herself time to
be afraid of Nicolai catching her. Wrenching open the front door, she flew over
the threshold and scurried across the porch and down the stairs.

In seconds that felt like years, she was in the car turning
the ignition. She cringed as the engine roared to life, but the grinding noise
didn’t stop her from pulling the gear into drive and smashing her foot on the
gas pedal.

The car bucked then shot out of the driveway.

Barely easing her foot off the accelerator, she jerked the
steering wheel to the right and the vehicle veered onto the quiet deserted
street. The houses went by in a blur and once she passed out of her
neighborhood relief edged in, nudging out the panic.

The speedometer didn’t dip under sixty, but she sighed and
released her death grip on the steering wheel.

“Shit!”

She slammed the brakes and yanked the wheel so hard a twinge
spasmed across her shoulder blades. Tires screeched and the noxious odor of
burning rubber penetrated the rolled up windows as the car skidded into a wide
arc, her front tires coming to a jarring rest against the curb.

The hippogryph in the middle of the street glared at her
through Nicolai’s purple eyes.

Its heavy brown-and-white body quivered and its large brown
wings flared wide, the white tips easily reaching either side of the road.

Tamar stared at the beast outside the driver’s-side window,
frozen.

“Wow,” she breathed. He was…wow.

A shimmer rippled the air like a massive heat wave that rose
from the ground and covered the hippogryph in its power. In the next moment
Nicolai strode toward her, long legs eating up the distance in seconds. She
received a brief glimpse of a stunning naked man before blue denim encased his
lower body, though that amazing chest with its primitive scroll of artwork
remained bare.

The grim set of his mouth, the narrowed slits of his eyes,
the fists balled at the sides of his tree trunk-sized thighs—those tell-tale
signs of fury snapped her out of the awe-induced stupor and got her ass moving.

As she fumbled with the gear shift, a tiny voice of reason
whispered,
The man can freakin’ fly. Why do you think you can outrun him
when the first time went so well?

But logic had escaped on the same boat as common sense.

Finally, her trembling ceased long enough for her to grip
the shaft. But before she could put the car in gear, her door flew open and
Nicolai destroyed any hope or thought of fleeing the scene.

“Move over,” he said.

Beneath the soft, carefully enunciated words simmered an
anger that lashed out at her, its heat licking her exposed skin.

He didn’t wait for her to obey his command. Nicolai lowered
his bulk into the Honda compact, shrinking the interior to a fraction of its
original space. With a flick of his wrist, he released the lever and the seat
jacked back several inches, granting him a little more space to fit his legs
beneath the dashboard.

He looked like a clown stuffed into a circus car. All he
needed was about eight more of his buddies to pile in with them.

Pressed against the passenger side door, Tamar clapped a
palm over her mouth, stifling the hysterical giggle that bubbled up her throat.

Nicolai shot her a black look which she responded to with a
helpless shrug. With another fierce scowl, he shifted the car into reverse and
drove them back to her house.

After five tense minutes, they pulled up in her driveway.
She didn’t wait for Nicolai to turn the engine off before she jumped out of the
car and hurried across her lawn to the house. Not that her mad dash mattered.
He was hot on her heels, his breath heavy on her neck.

A shiver danced down her spine.

And not from fear. Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl. The man
had just hawked her down, transformed from a beast to a man in front of her
eyes and did she tremble with well-earned horror? Nope. That tingly curl
tightening the small of her back was lust. Unbridled
oh-look-at-all-those-muscles lust.

She twisted the doorknob and the front door swung open as
she’d neglected to lock the house during her escape attempt. A dark, ominous
growl caused goose bumps to prickle her skin.

Oh God. That couldn’t be good.

“I took you for an intelligent woman,” he said as soon as
they entered the living room. She wheeled around at the quiet thunder in his voice,
unwilling to have this powerful creature at her back. She shuffled backward. He
stalked forward.

They swapped step for step in a ludicrous tango until her
calves hit the edge of the couch. Leaving her with no place to go.

Her heart plummeted toward her stomach before it rocketed
back up in her throat. It lodged there, cutting off her air. Blood pounded in
her eardrums and perspiration prickled her skin.

Don’t black out. Don’t you dare black out and leave
yourself wide-open and undefended.

“Obviously I was wrong,” he continued, oblivious to the
anxiety attack that dragged at her consciousness. Nicolai closed in on her, his
chest almost bumping hers. Down at his sides, his large fists flexed as if he
were restraining himself from snatching her up and shaking the living daylights
out of her. Black and gold dots danced at the edges of her vision. “What the
fuck were you thinking? Do you have any fucking idea what could have happened
to you?” he roared.

She recoiled from the blast, one arm rising to cover her
face and the other over her chest. As she fell back on the couch, her knee came
up, history teaching her to block any possible blows to her kidneys and
stomach.

Whenever Kyle had become this enraged, violence followed.

He’d started with the belittling—she was worthless, a
burden, a cripple. Then it was the isolation. Outside of her doctors and
therapist, he wouldn’t allow any of her friends into the house to visit,
claiming Tamar wasn’t in her right mind after the crash. Next he confiscated
her checkbook and her accounts, making her totally dependent on him for every
bite of food, every purchase of medication. And finally, the physical abuse.

First it was a shove off her walker. And when she tumbled to
the floor, Kyle had refused to help her up, leaving her there, helpless and
humiliated for hours. He graduated to pinches on her thighs or slaps across her
back or chest when she asked for assistance with cooking or cleaning the house.
Then he escalated to raining blows, beating the shit out of her for no reason
at all.

Once she woke to a fist to the back of her head followed by
a punch to her injured shoulder. She’d rolled over and had ended up on the
floor, her left leg crumpled beneath her. While she’d slept, Kyle had moved her
cane from beside the bed where she’d left it the night before. So Tamar had
lain there, defenseless and vulnerable. And Kyle had continued the attack while
she held up her good arm in the only semblance of protection she could manage.

That had been the last time he’d touched her.

Afterward, when she’d crawled over the bedroom floor,
dragging her injured arm and leg, and hefted her body into a chair, she’d vowed
it would never happen again.

Maybe Kyle had taken a look at her battered and scratched
body or her swollen and bloody face and realized he’d lost it, had crossed a
line. Or maybe he’d realized unlike the previous assaults, these bruises
couldn’t be hidden. Nevertheless, when she’d threatened to call the police and
have him arrested for domestic violence, he’d agreed to leave and never return.
He’d kept his promise.

Kyle hadn’t come back and she had sworn her sentence as a
punching bag for that bitter, resentful and angry piece-of-shit had ended. She
would never be a victim again. Ever.

And yet here she sat, cowering on the couch, praying Nicolai
would back off, that he wouldn’t hurt her. The rational part of her mind noted
the shock then appall that slackened his features. Underneath his anger, she
detected concern. Concern for her safety, concern for
her
.

But old habits died hard. The instinctive need to protect
herself from harm overrode logic.

Nicolai shifted a step away from her, granting Tamar more
room and space. “Who hurt you?” he asked, the whisper soft, deadly.

She shook her head, but abruptly cut off the gesture when
Nicolai closed his eyes and uttered a blistering curse under his breath. When
he lifted his lashes again, purple fire lit his gaze.

“Don’t tell me no one,” he snapped. “Who was it? The person
you lied to the police about?”

Tamar couldn’t hold back her soft gasp. How had he known
about that? Nicolai hadn’t been at the hospital…had he?

“Shit.” He stalked away from her, disappeared out of the
room. The front door banged open and she knew he’d left the house. Several
minutes passed. Tamar uncurled her body, lowering her arms and leg, although
she didn’t move from the couch.

Bit by bit, the fear and terror edged away and reason moved
in.

As huge and intimidating—and supernatural—as Nicolai was, he
hadn’t hurt her. If that had been his intention, tonight had presented him
several opportunities. Yet he’d taken advantage of none of them. The cool logic
helped beat back the fight-or-flight adrenaline that slowly ebbed from her
blood stream.

A voice from deep within murmured she could trust him. But
experience and memories warned her that when it came to people—men
especially—in the past her radar had been terribly off. She couldn’t afford to
blindly place her belief in someone just because he had gifted her with
multiple orgasms in her dreams.

Heavy footsteps echoed in the hall seconds before Nicolai
reentered the living room. He halted several feet from the couch as if granting
her breathing room. Somewhere between her heart and stomach, a tiny flicker of
warmth flared to life at his consideration. Even the fierce scowl darkening his
face didn’t detract from the butterfly wings tickling her stomach.

“I’m sorry for taking my anger out on you. I shouldn’t have.
When you left, it scared the shit out of me. I followed Evander here,” he said
from between gritted teeth. “Remember I told you that earlier? What if he had
been waiting to take you as soon as you stepped out of your house? I wouldn’t
have arrived in time to save you. You would be dead by now, Tamar,” he said.
“Dead.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. The full weight of her rash
decision crashed into her. Panic had propelled her down the stairs and out of
the house. She’d been so worried about becoming the prisoner of another man,
she hadn’t considered the consequences of her actions. Potentially deadly
consequences. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”

Nicolai stared down at her, but she squared her shoulders
and met his censure without flinching. After a tense high-noon showdown, he
shoved his fingers through his hair, tugging on the thick waves.

Ouch.
Tamar did wince now. It was a wonder he didn’t
come away with a fistful of the golden strands.

“Listen,” he said. Then paused. He lifted his hands, palms
up, and glanced down at them as if they contained the rest of his sentence. His
frustration was palpable and Tamar got the impression he didn’t explain himself
often. “I understand this is a shock to you.”
Understatement.
“And I
know what I’m asking of you.”

Did he?

Someone as strong and powerful as he couldn’t possibly
comprehend the powerlessness of being totally dependent on another person…at
their mercy. He could transform into a gigantic half-eagle, half-horse mythical
beast capable of ripping a man from nape to nuts with one swipe of his talons.

Yeah, she doubted he fully grasped what he was asking of
her.

“If there was another way to keep you out of harm’s way, I
would try it.” He lowered to the chair adjacent the couch. “Evander isn’t going
to stop. He loves the hunt and won’t quit until he runs his prey to ground. And
I don’t have to tell you he’s a sadistic bastard.”

“No,” Tamar rasped. “You don’t.”

“Tamar.” He reached a hand toward her but drew back at the
last second. The grave expression had returned and his sensual features could
have been hewn from stone. “This is my fault. You’re in his sights because of
me.”

Slowly, she straightened.
His fault
?
She
tilted her head to the side and considered him from under her lowered lashes.
“I don’t get it. Your fault, how?”

Nicolai sighed, glanced away before his lavender eyes
settled on her once more. “He blames me for his brother’s death and is taking
out those I care about to punish me.”

Confusion swirled in her chest along with a surge of
pleasure.
Those I care about…
She shoved both away and concentrated on
the implication behind his words. “That doesn’t make sense.” She frowned. “I
barely know you. And he couldn’t have found out about the—” She cleared her
throat. “About the…uh…dreams.”

Nicolai stared at her, his intense scrutiny unsettling.

“You are the image of my wife.”

Wife.

Oh God.

The word reverberated in her head, growing louder with each
bounce against the walls of her mind. Her stomach plummeted toward her feet
while bile soared for her throat. A wife… She hadn’t once considered the
possibility he was a husband. God, for some inexplicable reason the idea broke
her heart. Thinking of him touching this faceless, nameless woman, making her
explode with pleasure as he’d done with Tamar in their dreams, grieved her.