Jared (12 page)

Jared’s shoulder flexed under his shirt as he brought
the door forward to close it. “I’m not the one scaring her.”

The man stopped the door with the flat of his palm.
“You don’t get to have everything your way, Jared.”

“I don’t see why not. She’s my woman. I brought her
here.”

“But she’s not yours by pack law or vampire law, which
means she gets to choose.”

“It’s late, Ian. She’s exhausted and not in the mood
for this.”

Ian slid past Jared. “Which is why I’m here. To see if
she needs anything.”

Raisa swallowed as the door closed and the amber-eyed
man strode across the room, Jared close behind. She was trapped in a room with
two of the most dominant creatures on God’s green earth, and both thought she
smelled good. She started to stand. The man held up his hand, forestalling her
effort. “No, stay comfortable.”

It wasn’t a matter of comfort—it was a matter of
advantage—and with her sitting and him standing, he had all of it. He got to
her side before she could get to her feet, trapping her within the chair. She
mastered her start of fear. Calm stroked along her fear. Jared. She clung to
his energy as the big were squatted before her and lifted her chin. “I’m Ian
D’Nally. Leader of the D’Nally weres.”

Pulling out her manners wasn’t as easy as it should
be.

“Raisa Slovinski. You have a beautiful home. Thank you
for sharing it.”

He searched her face, his thumb rubbing her cheek.
Behind him she heard a rumble. Jared. She sent her energy along his. They
couldn’t afford to alienate the weres. She’d gleaned from the edges of Jared’s
mind that this was the only safe place for days, so she bit her tongue when Ian
tilted her head to the right and then the left.

“Why are you so weak?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it a recent thing?”

“No.”

“Have you been living alone?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

This was beginning to sound like an interrogation.
“Almost three hundred years.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“I don’t care what you believe.”

Ian smiled, and a distinct possessiveness entered his
touch. “You should. How did you come to be on my mountain?”

“I was dragged here.”

“By whom?”

This was definitely an interrogation. Raisa met Ian’s
gaze squarely. “What gives you the right to question me about anything?”

The man smiled, revealing white, even teeth and
larger-than-normal canines. “Little girl, I can do whatever I want. I’m the
D’Nally.”

She jerked her chin off the shelf of his hand. “Which
means nothing to me.”

“If you mate with one of my pack, it will mean
everything to you.”

“I’m not mating with any of you.”

Instead of bristling, he nodded. “That is, of course,
your choice, but don’t think a blanket ‘no’ is going to discourage my men. Your
arrival has caused more than a few fights already.”

“Over what?”

“Over the opportunity to court you.”

She didn’t think she’d said more than one “Thank you”
in the way of encouragement. “I can’t help it if your men are unstable.”

“No, you can’t, but you should understand that they
regard you as a prize worth fighting for.”

She did not want to be a prize. “You said I’m weak,”
she hastened to point out.

Ian glanced over at Jared before rising to his feet.
“Then it will be up to your mate to be strong for you.”

“She doesn’t need a were.”

Ian shrugged. “She needs a man. As weak as she is, she
is a sitting duck for the Sanctuary.”

She opened her mouth to protest. Jared squeezed her
shoulder, cutting off what she was going to say.

“She has me.”

“But you are not her mate.”

“Don’t you ever think of anything else?” Raisa asked,
exasperated.

Ian shook his head. “Not much. Forever’s a long time
to be alone.”

Yes, it was. For a moment, Raisa shared the loneliness
she saw in the big were’s eyes, and then Ian blinked and she was alone in her
emotions as his expression regained that hard impassivity and those amazing
eyes dimmed to amber in that extraordinarily masculine face.

“The women must go nuts over you.”

The words just popped out. Ian laughed, and Jared
growled. Raisa wanted a hole to open up in the floor. Ian touched her cheek.
“Would you be wanting to throw your hat into the ring?”

“No, she wouldn’t,” Jared snarled.

Who the hell was he to tell her what to do? Raisa
cocked her head to the side and smiled at Ian. He was a handsome man with a
kindness that appealed to her. “If things were different, maybe.”

That fast, the easygoing leader was gone and Ian’s
intensity narrowed to a laser precision, pinning her to the chair. “Different
how?”

She got the impression it wouldn’t matter if she told
him she wanted the moon delivered to her feet, he would give it to her. Jared’s
hand came down over her shoulder, warm and hard. Possessive. In front of her,
Ian’s gaze narrowed on the gesture. Dangerous lights began to spark in the
depths.

“She’s an outsider, Ian,” Jared said in a careful
drawl.

Ian blinked and then smiled a smile that did nothing
to soothe Raisa’s nerves because she could feel that incredible will of his
seething behind the polite facade. The were would make a deadly enemy.

The backs of Ian’s fingers grazed her cheek. “But a
better friend.”

It was her turn to blink. He’d read her mind? Weres
could do that?

“Yes.” Ian glanced up at Jared, his long hair falling
over his right shoulder. “She doesn’t have control of her thoughts or energy.
That is dangerous.”

“I know.”

“She needs to be taught.”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of teaching but of
strength.”

Ian considered her for a moment. “You could be right.
She’s very weak.”

Raisa leaned back into the cushions, wanting away from
Jared’s aggression, Ian’s interest, just wanting . . . away. Deep in her
abdomen, she felt the first curl of hunger, followed quickly by a twist of pain.
The exertion of the last two days was taking a toll on her reserves. She
gritted her teeth against the agony to come, keeping her voice even and her
thought patterns balanced as desperation clawed inside. “She is sitting right
here.”

“And very prettily, too,” Ian agreed with an
irritating arrogance before returning his attention to Jared. “She cannot be
allowed out without a protector. She would raise havoc with the men. So much
uncontained femininity would be too much temptation.”

Uncontained femininity?

“I’ll handle it,” Jared answered.

She almost got a crick in her neck trying to see
Jared’s face. He was impossibly tall, standing while she was sitting. “What do
you mean handle it?”

“It would have to be according to pack law for it to
be respected,” Ian continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

There was barely a pause. Jared’s jaw muscles flexed
and tightened, and a purely male smile tilted the corners of his generous
mouth.

“Of course.”

Raisa did not like the sound of that “Of course.” She
liked even less the satisfaction in his smile. Before she could ask what either
meant, Ian was kneeling in front of her again. “In the meantime, Miss
Slovinski—”

“Raisa,” she corrected. Jared rumbled his
dissatisfaction. It vibrated down the chair back and into her spine. She
ignored him. She’d never grown to accept being addressed formally as natural.
She wasn’t better than anyone else and wasn’t comfortable pretending that she
was.

Ian inclined his head, a small smile playing around
his mouth. “Ah, more hope for the hopeless.” His glance at Jared was nothing
less than a prod. “If you are not careful, my friend, you may find me your
first challenger.”

“I look forward to it.”

Aggression rolled off Jared in hard waves that crashed
into the equally hard waves of aggression coming off Ian. Good God, she was
surrounded by rampant testosterone.

“In the meantime, Raisa . . .” Ian pressed his
thumbnail into the inside of his right wrist, sending the potent, life-giving
scent upward. “I offer you my blood.”

The hunger surged, as it always did at the sight of
fresh blood. Starving, withered cells cramped in an agony of hope that this
time they’d be fed, that it wouldn’t be just another pointless taunt. Jared
swore. His energy raged around her, pushing at her mind. She blocked it out, her
world narrowing to that single spot of red, anticipation building as the first
drop plumped into a round promise of salvation, growing until it was too big to
balance on the were’s dark flesh. It slid down the inside of his wrist in a
potent lure. She leaned in, or maybe Ian brought his arm closer . . .

“Dammit, Ian, that’s not part of the game,” someone
snarled through the haze.

“All’s fair in this game, my friend.”

“Then you won’t mind if I rip off your head.”

“For the pleasure of her bite, I’ll risk it.” The rich
blood came closer and along with it a masculine scent that was not unpleasant.
“Feed, little one. Take what I offer freely.”

The argument, the order, flowed in the background of
her need. All she could see was that offering, all she could feel was hope.
She’d never fed from a were before. Maybe it would be different. Even possible.
Hunger bloomed to a relentless twining demand that cramped her stomach in an
agony of pain. She gasped and doubled over, closing her eyes against the
whimper. Ian and Jared swore in synch. Arms came around her, supporting her, an
incredible energy wrapped her in comfort—Jared. That drop of blood smeared
against her lips. Rich, vital, and wrong. Oh God, wrong.

She turned her head. Another pain hit, sucking the
breath from her lungs in a long moan. Hands stroked her head. A mind pushed at
hers, and then another, slipping through the splintering pain, taking over.

Feed.

The order came in tandem. She might have been able to
resist one of them, but the two together were too much, manipulating her
muscles and instincts, forcing her to do what they wanted. She bit down,
feeding as they demanded, all the while screaming a protest, knowing what they
didn’t as the were’s rich blood slid down her throat. Knowing the price she was
going to pay for daring to hope.

They forced her to take four swallows before her body
rebelled, all that hope imploding in an agony of searing burn. The blood ate at
her mouth, her throat, her stomach like a pool of acid. Wrong. So wrong. The
silent scream welled from her soul, spreading outward, that one word riding the
crest: wrong.

More swearing that came at her from a deep, distant
well, licking at the flames burning her from the inside out, and then she was
free. Free of their control, their mental presence, but not of the
consequences.

She threw herself to the side of the chair as nausea
clenched her stomach. A hand on her head kept her from pitching to the floor.
Violent and terrible, the nausea ripped through her in tearing spasms that knew
no end, just kept clawing at her stomach long after the last of the blood had
been expelled.

A hand slipped across her stomach and she was lifted.
She howled with the sheer agony.

“Jesus Christ, Raisa.”

More agony and then she was on her hands and knees,
Jared’s big body behind hers, his hand on her forehead keeping her head from
slamming into the floor. His energy probed the morass of reaction, stroking a
spot here, a spot there, searching, seeking, finding. The pain stopped with a
suddenness that left her gasping. She collapsed, her arms and legs trembling,
her body shaking. She was lifted and turned. She had a glimpse of Ian’s grim
expression before Jared’s came into view. It was white, rigid with emotion,
whiter lines etched beside his eyes and mouth. Flames raged in his eyes. He’d
stopped the awful pain. No one had ever done that for her before. She tried to
lift her hand, but couldn’t get it more than an inch off the floor. It flopped
back. “Thank you.”

It was a bare thread of sound, hoarse from her
vomiting, and in no way reflected the depth of her gratitude. It had no impact
on Jared’s expression, just seemed to bounce off the wall of his control. She
sighed, an unreasonable sadness invading the momentary peace. She liked it
better when he smiled. He was incredibly appealing when he smiled.

As if hearing her thoughts, Jared’s lips tilted in a
grim parody of what she envisioned.

Sleep. The ruthless command surged into her mind,
driving out all other thoughts, taking over. As the last echo reached the
deepest corner of her consciousness, the world faded to a deep, soothing black.

“I guess that answers any question of compatibility,”
Ian said from where he knelt beside Raisa’s still form.