He blew out a harsh sigh. “Yeah, they were. Nathan is the captain of my old patrol team. He was one of my best friends.”
“Then why aren’t you still with them? How could the Order just cut you loose?”
“I fucked up, all right?” His eyes flashed, hot and fiery. “That’s all you need to know.”
His curt, defensive reply jarred her. Whatever he’d done bothered him deeply. He may not trust her with information about his former friends or anything else, but there was no denying the honesty in his voice now. Nor in his handsome, tormented face.
Yet for all his irritation with her probing, his hands remained warm and soothing on her.
She sighed and let her eyes drift closed for a moment, hating how easy it was to melt into the pleasant heat of Rafe’s touch. Energy flowed back into her by the moment, drawing away her pain. With the power of his bare hands, he was reversing the physical toll she paid for using her ability.
Healing her, much like he had done for Fish the other night.
“You saved my life back there,” he murmured. “Hell, you saved both of us tonight. I should be thanking you for that, not snarling at you.”
“It’s all right.” She lifted her lids and found him watching her. The intensity of his gaze unsettled her, even as it stirred something deep inside her. Something more than just the remarkable energy of his healing hands.
His eyes searched hers as he continued to restore her depleted body. “I’ve never seen an ability like yours before. Jesus, Devony. Do you realize what you could do with a gift like that? No enemy could stand against you. You could be unstoppable.”
She never had enemies, not until a few months ago. As for using her gift? From the time she was a child, she had been cautioned to take care with her unique Breed ability. Her brother too. Both daywalkers, both the children of their genetically enhanced mother, Camilla, she and Harrison shared this incredible, inherited gift. They had been raised to respect the power they could wield at their will.
“I don’t feel very unstoppable now,” she said, mortified to still be lying helplessly across his lap. “As you can see, once the effect wears off I’m useless for a while. Total crash and burn situation.”
“So, this always happens to you afterward?”
“Yeah. More or less.” In tonight’s case, it was definitely more. Her limbs had felt stretched, wrung out. The rest of her body had felt sapped and deflated, a husk that was only now beginning to come back to life. Her vitality was returning swiftly now, energy moving through her veins and bones.
All thanks to Rafe.
And while there was nothing sexual about his touch, it was impossible for her to ignore the pool of heat that began to bloom in her core as his palms skated over her clothed body. She shifted on his lap, unsettled by the quickening of her blood and the arousal that was licking through her senses.
A quiet moan escaped her before she could curb it. Rafe answered with a low, strangled groan. His hand went still on her belly, and she felt the outline of his broad palm and each strong finger as if his touch were branding her.
“Rafe . . .” She didn’t know what she was going to say.
His eyes met hers, something unreadable flickering through them now. Her throat jammed with a hundred unsettling thoughts, words she hardly dared to speak out loud.
Especially to him.
His glance drifted to her parted lips and hesitated there. Was he thinking about the way her mouth had felt on his in the parking lot outside Ocho’s garage?
God knew, she had been unable to put that kiss out of her mind for even a second since it happened.
And in spite of her outrage at the time—in spite of her threat to ash him for it—right now, she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than to feel his lips pressed against hers again.
Now that her limbs were her own to command once more, she slid her hand tentatively over his.
Rafe’s expression darkened into a scowl. But in his eyes, embers smoldered. A tendon pulsed in his rigid jaw, as if her tenderness confused him.
Or worse, piqued his mistrust.
On a gravelly, uttered curse, he drew his hand out from under hers.
Clearly, he hadn’t intended their kiss to be anything more than a means to an end. Just his way of forcing her to reveal herself as Breed so he could use the knowledge against her.
If she had read anything more into it, the mistake was all hers.
“How do you feel?” he asked as his touch left her completely.
