Wow, he was pissed.
Now the muted setting made sense: a neutral room, soothing light, a book. The deep magic fed the beast within him. It took a monumental effort of will to restrain it. With the flare so close, Curran was a powder keg with a short fuse. I had to be careful not to light that fuse. Nobody outside the Pack, except for Andrea, knew I was here. He could kill me right now and they would never find my body.
We shared a silence for a long moment. Magic blossomed, filling me with giddy energy. The short waves again. They would ebb in a minute, and then I’d be exhausted.
Guilt gnawed at me. He could control himself in my presence, but I apparently couldn’t control myself in his. “Curran, up on the roof…That is, my brakes don’t work sometimes.”
He leaned forward, suddenly animated. “Do I smell an apology?”
“Yes. I said things I shouldn’t have. I regret saying them.”
“Does this mean you’re throwing yourself at my feet?”
“No. I pretty much meant that part. I just wish I could’ve put it in less offensive terms.”
I glanced at him and saw a lion. He didn’t change, his face was still fully human, but there was something disturbingly lionlike in the way he sat, completely focused on me, as if ready to pounce. Stalking me without moving a muscle. The primordial urge to freeze shackled my limbs. I just sat there, unable to look away.
A slow, lazy, carnivorous smile touched Curran’s lips. “Not only will you sleep with me, but you will say ‘please.’”
I stared at him, shocked.
The smile widened. “You will say ‘please’ before and ‘thank you’ after.”
Nervous laughter bubbled up. “You’ve gone insane. All that peroxide in your hair finally did your brain in, Goldilocks.”
“Scared?”
He cleared the distance between us in a single leap. I barely had time to jump to my feet. Steel fingers grasped my left wrist. His left arm clasped my waist. I fought, but he out-muscled me with ridiculous ease, pulling me close as if to tango.
“Curran! Let…”
I recognized the angle of his hip but I could do nothing about it. He pulled me forward and flipped me in a classic hiptoss throw. Textbook perfect. I flew through the air, guided by his hands, and landed on my back. The air burst from my lungs in a startled gasp. Ow.
“Impressed yet?” he asked with a big smile.
Playing. He was playing. Not a real fight. He could’ve slammed me down hard enough to break my neck. Instead he had held me to the end, to make sure I landed right.
He leaned forward a little. “Big bad merc, down with a basic hip toss. In your place I’d be blushing.”
I gasped, trying to draw air into my lungs.
“I could kill you right now. It wouldn’t take much. I think I’m actually embarrassed on your behalf. At least do some magic or something.”
As you wish. I gasped and spat my new power word.
He grunted like a man trying to lift a crushing weight that fell on his shoulders. His face shook with strain. Ha-ha. He wasn’t the only one who got a boost from the flare.
I got up to my feet with some leisure. Curran stood locked, the muscles of his legs bulging his sweatpants. He didn’t kneel. He wouldn’t kneel. I hit him with a power word in the middle of a bloody flare and it didn’t work. When he snapped out of it, he would probably kill me.
All sorts of alarms blared in my head. My good sense screamed,
His eyebrows came together, as a grimace claimed his face. He strained, the muscles on his hard frame trembling with effort. With a guttural sigh, he straightened.
I beat a hasty retreat to the rear of the room, passing Slayer on the way. I wanted to swipe it so bad, my palm itched. But the rules of the game were clear: no claws, no saber. The second I picked up the sword, I’d have signed my own death warrant.
He squared his shoulders. “Shall we continue?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
He started toward me. I waited, light on me feet, ready to leap aside. He was stronger than a pair of oxen, and he’d try to grapple. If he got ahold of me, it would be over. If all else failed, I could always try the window. A forty-foot drop was a small price to pay to get away from him.
Curran grabbed at me. I twisted past him and kicked his knee from the side. It was a good solid kick; I’d turned into it. It would’ve broken the leg of any normal human.
“Cute,” Curran said, grabbed my arm, and casually threw me across the room. I went airborne for a second, fell, rolled, and came to my feet to be greeted by Curran’s smug face. “You’re fun to play with. You make a good mouse.”
Mouse?
“I was always kind of partial to toy mice.” He smiled. “Sometimes they’re filled with catnip. It’s a nice bonus.”
“I’m not filled with catnip.”
“Let’s find out.”
He squared his shoulders and headed in my direction. Houston, we have a problem. Judging by the look in his eyes, a kick to the face simply wouldn’t faze him.
“I can stop you with one word,” I said.
He swiped me into a bear hug and I got an intimate insight into how a nut feels just before the nutcracker crushes it to pieces. “Do,” he said.
“Wedding.”
All humor fled his eyes. He let go and just like that, the game was over.
“You just don’t give up, do you?”
“No.”
The magic drained again. A dull ache flared across my back—must’ve landed harder than I thought. The ache spread to my biceps. Thank you for the squeeze of death, Your Majesty. I slumped against the wall.
“Why are you hell-bent on their wedding?”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to wipe away fatigue and this conversation. “You really want to know?”
“Yes. What is it, guilt, revenge, love, what?”
I swallowed. “I live alone.”
“And your point is?”
“You have the Pack. You’re surrounded by people who would fall over themselves for the pleasure of your company. I have no one. My parents are dead, my entire family is gone. I have no friends. Except Jim, and that’s more of a working relationship than anything else. I have no lover. I can’t even have a pet, because I’m not at the house often enough to keep it from starving. When I come crawling home, bleeding and filthy and exhausted, the house is dark and empty. Nobody keeps the porch light on for me. Nobody hugs me and says, ‘Hey, I’m glad you made it. I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried.’ Nobody cares if I live or die. Nobody makes me coffee, nobody holds me before I go to bed, nobody fixes my medicine when I’m sick. I’m by myself.”
I shrugged, trying to keep my voice nonchalant. “And most of the time, I like being by myself. But when I look into my future, I see no family, no husband, no children. No warmth. I just see myself getting older and more scarred. Fifteen years from now I’ll still drag my beaten, bloody hide to my place and lick my wounds, all alone, in a dark house. I can’t have love and family, but Crest and Myong have a shot at happiness. I don’t want to stand in the way.”
I glanced at Curran and saw something in his eyes—understanding? sympathy?—I couldn’t tell. It was there for a brief moment and then he pulled his mask back on, and I was greeted with the impenetrable face of an alpha.
