Obsession Untamed (30 page)

She kicked him in the shin with her bare toes. “Twiceyou risked everything to find me.Twice. Don’t you dare get on my ass about helping you.”

“I’m immortal. You’re human!”

“As everyone keeps reminding me! I’m made of flesh and blood, not soap bubbles. I might not heal as fast as you do, but I do heal. Don’t try to lock me away to protect me, Tighe. I won’t have it.”

She stilled, her words hanging in the air. She’d yelled at him about what not to do the next time, but it didn’t look like there was going to be a next time.

“Oh, Tighe.” Her eyes filled with tears.

With a growl, Tighe hauled her into his arms, burying his face in her hair with a shudder that shook the entirety of his big body. For long, long minutes he held her like that, shudders rocking him at regular intervals, while she clamped her arms around him and held him tight.

“I’m not mad at you, D. It’s not you, thoughgoddess , when I think of what I could have done to you like that…”

“I was so scared I wouldn’t be able to reach you.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want to lose you.”

The tears got away from her, and Tighe held her as she cried, stroking her back and running his hand over her hair.

“Don’t cry, D. Kougar and Hawke will come up with something. We’ll beat that bloodless sucker, yet.”

But there was no real belief in his tone. Nothing but bleak despair.

When she got control, he pulled back until he could see her face, then cupped her cheek in his warm palm. “Are you really okay? I had a vision, D. I saw him stripping you, tying you down.Touching you. ”

His words brought back that nightmare. Delaney shivered, the chills rippling over her skin.

Tighe pulled her against him, cradling her head. “I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. You were right there, and I couldn’t help you.I couldn’t reach you. ”

“I’m okay. I knew you’d come for me.”

“Always.”

Butalways spoke of a future they didn’t have.

How could this be it? How could this man, whom she’d just found,whom she loved , be dying? The weight of her grief was almost more than she could bear.

Chapter Twenty-six

Tighe held Delaney in his arms, deep in the bowels of Feral House, his heart filling with a pressure he wasn’t sure he’d survive even if they did manage to kill his clone in time.

Was this love? He’d thought he’d been in love once before, but now he wondered.

Was this what real love felt like? This feeling that he couldn’t breathe? The certainty that before he’d found her he’dnever breathed? Neverlived ? And now he might only have hours.

Hours.

The knowledge echoed through his mind like the death knell it was. For the first time in his long, long life he faced true death. There had been threats to his life before, certainly. Mage battles.
Draden attacks that for short periods of time had gone south. But he’d always known he’d prevail. And he always had.

He was immortal.

Face-to-face, he’d be able to defeat the clone, he was sure of it. But his enemy fought from the shadows and behind the faces of the people he loved.

This time he might well lose.

The worst part was, for the first time since he was marked all those centuries ago, he had a strong reason to live. To watch over Delaney as she lived her life. To do whatever he could to make her short years safer, richer, even if she insisted on returning to her own world with no memory of him. He’d visit her in his cat form, then once she was asleep, he’d cloud her mind and hold her. She wouldn’t be lonely. He’d make certain she was never lonely.

Slowly he pulled back, framing her face as he clung to her gaze, reassuring himself she was really in his arms, shaken anew by how scared he’d been that he’d never hold her like this again. Emotion caught in the back of his throat, burning a line all the way to his eyes.

“Goddess, D, when I realized you were missing, I nearly died.” A shudder wracked his body. “When I finally figured out where you were, I heard you scream. I thought I was too late.”

She brushed her cheek against his chest. “He touched my head with his hands. It felt like he poured acid in me. I really thought he’d planted something in me, but the Shaman couldn’t find anything but shadows.”

He slid his hands in her hair and pulled back to meet her gaze. “But you’re all right?”

Her eyes filled with pain as she looked at him, but it was a pain not of the flesh. Grief, plain and simple.

He kissed her softly, reverently, drinking in the feel of her. The taste. Memorizing her sweet lips, so warm, so soft and precious. If all he had left was a few hours, he’d spend them like this. With her.

Tighe pulled away, then swung her into his arms, startling a quick gasp from her. “I need to make love to you, D.”

Delaney hooked her arm around his neck and pressed her lips to his cheek. “I need to make love to you, too.”

A pleased growl rumbled in his chest. “I need a shower first. I must stink like five-day-old garbage.”

She shuddered. “I think my sense of smell has been permanently burned away.”

Her words made his chest ache, and he remembered that kitchen, that smell, and could only guess what a horrifying experience that had been for her. His grip on her tightened, and he pressed his head gently to hers as he carried her, safe in his arms at last.

He took her back through the gym and into the open shower at the back, where he lowered her slowly to her feet. Kissing her briefly, he turned on one of the showers and began stripping.

Delaney did the same, lifting the soft pajama shirt to expose her beautiful breasts.

“Not here, sweetheart,” Tighe said softly. “There’s someplace else I want to make love to you. I’ll only be a minute.”

Delaney managed a sad smile. “I need a shower as badly as you do. Probably worse, considering where I’ve been.”

He stared at her, understanding dawning slowly. “Is there a reason you didn’t shower the past two days?”

She pulled off her pajama bottoms and tossed them on the bench. “I was out of it as long as you were, though not quite in the same way. The moment I woke up, I came for you, Tighe. Themoment. ” Her gaze met his, her eyes filled with a silken strength and a tenderness that made him ache with love.

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her fiercely, tenderly, telling her silently what was in his heart. But the slide of her nakedness against his had his body revving, his eyes changing. If he didn’t put distance between them soon, it would be over here and now. And this was not where he meant to make love to her.

“Quick shower, D.” He forced himself to release her and turned on a second of the four showerheads. He didn’t dare try to stand that close to her right now.

As Delaney stood watching him, she cocked her head. “Are you really going to take a shower with your sunglasses on?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

Her disbelief annoyed him. “There’s a reason I wear them, D. It’s important.”

But as he watched her, an aching hurt entered her eyes. “All we’ve been through together,knowing we could almost be out of time, and you’re still going to hide from me?”

A fist clenched inside his chest. “You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me.”

He stared at her, feeling trapped. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t possibly understand. Yet everything she’d said was true. And, goddess, but he loved her. He could bare himself for her, couldn’t he?

He lifted his hands and dropped them again. “It’s because my eyes go feral whenever I’m attracted to a woman.”

She gave him a look that said she clearly thought he was an idiot. “So?”

“So, they turn into tiger’s eyes. They’d scare the shit out of you.”

She fisted her hands on her bare, slender hips. “You’re kidding, right? Have you forgotten I was the one who got you out of there? I stared into your tiger eyes for what seemed likeforever , Tighe, and yes, I was scared. You were snarling and snapping, trying to bite my hand off, but the thing that scared me the most was that I wasn’t going to be able to reach you.”

With a growl, he stepped under the hot spray of the nearest shower and tipped his head back as that fist in his chest tightened. He heard her move,
then felt her arms slide around him as she pressed her cheek against his chest.

“You don’t scare me, Tighe.”

“Youlike kissing monsters?”

“Take off the sunglasses, shape-shifter.”

“Dammit. Can’t you just leave it alone?”

“Nope.”

In a fit of anger, he pulled off his shades and tossed them onto the floor. As much as he wanted to stare down at her with his animal eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t stand to see her own eyes change, fear filling their depths.

Delaney’s fingers curved around his jaw and with a feather-light touch, made him look at her. “Why did you use the wordmonster ?”

He forced himself to meet her gaze, bracing for her reaction. But she just continued to look at him like she always did. “It’s just a word, D.Animal, Feral, monster. It’s just a word.”

She shook her head even as she watched him with eyes warm and understanding, an understanding he wasn’t sure he could handle.

Lifting her hand, she pressed her palm to his cheek. “I love your eyes, Tighe. Because when I look into them, I see you. Even when you were in that feral state, the moment you came back to me, I saw you. Your fierce strength and gentle protectiveness. Your courage and honor and determination. Whether your eyes look like a man’s or a tiger’s, I seeyou. ”

He tore his gaze from hers and looked up at the ceiling. “Thanks.”

She released a soft snort. “Thanks? Tighe, for heaven’s sake, you’re an amazing creation. Rare, powerful.Beautiful. In all your forms.”

He heard her words, but the fist inside his chest only pinched harder. “You don’t understand.”

“Obviously not.”

Her soft palm slid across his chest. “Tell me. Help me understand. If you give me just one last gift, make it this.”

He groaned. “You don’t fight fair.”

“You can’t always win with fair.” Her soft mouth brushed his arm in a sweet kiss. “I want to understand you.”

“Let me finish my shower, first.” He needed space. Because she was getting too close. She was digging too deep.

Delaney sighed, her eyes frustrated and sad. “Okay.” She moved to the other shower and picked up a bottle of flowery shampoo Kara must have left down there.

He washed thoroughly, scraping his skin raw, lost in feelings and thoughts he didn’t know how to explain. Things he didn’twant to explain even if he knew how. But Delaney’s presence, the solidity of her acceptance, grabbed hold of him and wouldn’t let him go.

He’d give her the sun and the moon if he could. He supposed he could try to explain what he didn’t entirely understand himself. And if he was going to do it, it had to be tonight.

With a sigh, he turned off the water, wrapped a towel around his waist, and sat on one of the
benches, tipping his head against the wall behind him as she finished her shower. His gaze fastened on the rocklike tile of the wall across from him as his mind looked inward.

“I love living here, D, fighting beside these men. And when I shift into my tiger, it’s a rush unlike anything you can imagine. But I swear, I swear not a day goes by that I don’t think about how I’d give it up…” He shook his head. “I’d give it up…”

The words burned in his throat.

Delaney joined him, wrapping a towel around her dripping body as she sat down beside him. Her fingers stroked his damp arm. “For what, Tighe?”

Pulling her against him, he struggled to find the words for a longing he’d never given voice to.

His voice shook. “To hold my daughter again.”

Delaney started. He tasted her surprise. But all she did was press her head against his shoulder. “Tell me about her.”

Where to begin? But as he clung to her, the words poured out.

“She was precious. Perfect. Her name was Amalie, and the last time I saw her she was five, with dimples like mine and a cloud of golden curls that she’d flick back from her face as she ran from one discovery to the next. She had a quick mind and an insatiable curiosity, and from the moment she learned to speak, all she did was ask questions. Why do the clouds move? Why don’t all butterflies wear the same colored wings? Why did her cuts take days to heal and mine only seconds?”

“She was mortal.”

“Yes. My wife, Gretchen, was human. The children of such unions can be either, but Amalie was mortal.”

His eyes fogged, a lump forming in his throat. Goddess, but he missed her.

“Tell me about Gretchen.”

Swallowing back the emotion, he forced himself to push past the anger that thoughts of her always brought and think about the girl she’d been. For the first time in centuries, he thought of the girl he’d fallen in love with all those years ago.

“I met her when I was fifteen. She was a year younger, but I knew I was going to marry her. From the first day I saw her, I loved her.”