Oh, hell. She wasn’t going to outlast him with his demented game to teach her a lesson. She clenched her teeth so she wouldn’t beg him to come back and kiss her. Touch her. Give her release from this ache building in her core, tightening every nerve-ending in her body.
Amusement flashed briefly in his light eyes, then the fiend lightly brushed her sensitive nipple, and she bit her lip.
“Never disobey me again, Shadow,” he said, tone like granite.
She knew better than to blurt out her irritation, then he’d probably keep her here, shackled with his stupid ice cuffs, until she was old and gray.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” she muttered, refusing to look at him, so he wouldn’t see her fury.
“Next time, heed my warning. Right now, I don’t care that you gave me ease back in the cell. Never put yourself in harm’s way again. I’m too fucking perilous for you to take such chances with your life.”
With a wave of his hand, and the ice manacles cracked, splintering to the floor. Her hands freed, she clutched the ruined sweater together. Before she could stalk off, he grasped her arm. “Now…” The ominous word cut through her frustration, and. “We will talk.”
Meeting his hard stare, her stomach tensed. Just because she got hurt by the ice blast?
The girls had warned her he was dangerous. They—heck,she—hadn’t realized just how much until now. The man was ruthless in making a point.
He swept her into his arms and headed for the door. Still a little too shaky from what just occurred, she remained silent, but her mind raced. With his ability to sense lies, she was seriously worried about how much to tell him. Hell, what to reveal about what she was.
So far, she’d managed to wing her way through with half-truths.
* * *
Nik paced the length of his room after setting Shadow on his bed, his mind reeling. Terror, unlike anything he’d ever known, continued to rage through him, even if it was edged with desire. Dammit, he dragged his palms over his buzzed hair, trying to focus.
Pivoting, he examined her, reassuring himself he hadn’t caused any lasting. Obviously, she was okay when she mouthed off at him every chance she got.
She gripped the ruined sweater together, sending him sullen glares. At the blood smears on her cheek and neck, his heart shuddered at how easily he could have lost her. He did another head-to-toe psychic scan and found nothing. No dark souls, no darkness in her at all, except from her nodes.
He frowned, recalling the intense agony of his psychic shields splintering, of Shadow entering his cell moments before the souls escaped him…ice flying everywhere, hurting her. His panic at trying to get them out of her...of Shadow touching him, hugging him…then a sense of peace took over—
Peace? He must be losing his crazed mind.
Whatever it was, this reprieve from his endless torment would be transient, as his long, pain-filled life had shown him.
Nik rubbed his silent chest. No ruckus within, but this wasn’t unusual after the blood moon. The souls oftentimes quieted for a short while once trapped in him again after their failed bid for freedom. But the fight with Race caused his mind to blur out those moments of the souls escape and return.
Shit. He rubbed his jaw. Questions spun his mind.
Nik turned to her. At her mulish expression, yeah, he’d probably have to drag every word out of her. How did she calm him down and take away the agony of his curse?
“It seems there’s something you haven’t told me.”
A slender shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”
“What happened in the cell?” he asked again, because no human could escape the kind of souls he harbored. And those things wouldn’t just ignore her. They would have taken over her body and destroyed her mind within minutes.
Was that the “more” he first sensed in her five months ago? Was she somehow immune?
“Shadow?” he growled.
Her shoulders slumped, the fight in her disappearing. “I know you’re upset—”
“Upset?” Anger and fear resurged. “You put yourself in a dangerous situation!” Yeah, he was furious. And he never got mad or felt much of anything…untilher. “I hurt you. Those fucking ice splinters could have killed you!”
“Maybe.” Her eyes flared with annoyance. “But I’ll do so again if I have to!” She scurried across the mattress and sprinted to the bathroom, locking herself in.
Godsdammit. Nik went after her. She wasn’t hiding from him. At the door, he stopped dead as the truth struck him, causing his stomach to heave.
