Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(21)

She had met the original Grigori Rasputin once, as she had traveled through Russia to consult with a certain hermitic and irascible witch. She had found Rasputin to be an odd, intense man. He had been undeniably human and very likely insane, but anyone who could survive reputedly being stabbed, poisoned, shot multiple times, mutilated, and badly beaten before finally drowning, deserved a certain amount of respect.

“And,” murmured Rune, “the ankle-biter’s more than a bit rabid.”

Now both her eyebrows rose. “I do not find him so.”

“Of course not,” Rune told her, his tone cheerful. “You rescued him, you’re female and you cook him chicken. That makes him yours, heart and soul.”

Her mouth tightened. “He’s a ridiculous creature.”

“He’s a dog,” he said, his wide shoulders lifting in a shrug. “That’s what they do.”

She crossed her arms under her br**sts. Only later did she recognize it for a defensive gesture. “I did not ask for his devotion.”

Rune’s gaze darkened into an expression she didn’t understand, so she had no words for it. He said gently, “You know, there isn’t anything wrong with simply being kind for kindness’s sake, or other creatures responding to it.”

This conversation had not only turned uncomfortable, it was unnecessary. She looked away from his penetrating gaze. “Do you require anything else that will help you read?” she asked, her tone frosted with ice.

“No,” he replied. His tone was as easy and relaxed as the rest of him. “Not a thing. Thank you for the chicken.”

“Fine.” She turned to go but found herself unable to step across the doorway.

Being kind for kindness’s sake.

Now the tightening was in her chest. She pressed a hand to her breastbone, bewildered. She no longer knew her own body. It was betraying her in a thousand inexplicable ways whenever she was around this male.

She forced herself to say, “Thank you for staying and trying to help me.”

Twenty feet away, he took a breath. He replied quietly, “You’re more than welcome, Carling. It’s my pleasure to do what I can for you.”

Those words. He gave them to her so easily, like a gift. They were far more gracious than she deserved. She fled before her body could betray her in some other way.

As soon as Carling’s tantalizing and distracting presence left the kitchen, Rune was able to hit his stride with the text.

He also ate every scrap of the cold meat she had cooked for him, and good gods, it was pretty awful. Somehow she had managed to wreck the simple task of browning chicken in a skillet. The outside was charred black, and the inside oozed juice that was still pink. If he had been human, he would have been concerned about salmonella poisoning. As it was, Rune wasn’t a picky eater and had eaten some terrible meals in his time. His tastes had changed when he had first learned to shapeshift and socialize with other species, but he was actually not averse to eating raw meat when necessary, and he had endured any number of campsite disasters.

He started to chuckle again when he thought of her cooling the meat for him the way she did for the dog. Then he remembered how she had held herself when he had spoken of kindness, averting her face and eyes, and his laughter faded.

Both Wyr and Vampyre societies could be brutal ones. Sometimes conflict could only be settled violently. All of the sentinels were enforcers of Wyr law, but as Dragos’s First, Rune was the ultimate enforcer. If Dragos was ever actually not in a position to do so, it was Rune’s responsibility to hunt and take down even the other sentinels if they ever went renegade. The other sentinels were his friends, partners and comrades in arms. He was glad it had never come to that, but he never forgot the responsibility of his position.

For all of that, Rune was really an easygoing male most of the time, and quick to both laughter and affection. He was that rarest of creatures, a man’s man who had no problem admitting he enjoyed chick flicks and women’s fashion. They brought out things in women he adored, from the spiraling of emotions to mysterious heights and depths, to the flowering of wonder-filled feminine pleasure as a woman tried on new outfits and she discovered for the first time in the mirror that she was, in actual fact, beautiful.

From what he had seen, Carling was not quick to either laughter or affection. She did not inspire thoughts of comfort or cuddles. Had she once possessed those qualities, or had her experience of life really been that harsh and unyielding? He frowned. The scars covering her body told their own tale.

When he tried to imagine her giggling with a girlfriend, it bent his head. Rhoswen clearly worshipped her, and it was obvious Duncan felt something for her too, but as far as he could tell, those relationships were not on any kind of in-depth, equal footing. He suspected most women felt threatened by her, as well they should. Life had fashioned Carling into a sleek, lethal weapon, the double-edged kind that would cut off the hand of anyone who dared to wield it if they should try to grasp hold unwisely.

Taking that kind of weapon would take a hard, firm hand, from one who knew how and when to hold on with a strong grip, and when to let go and let the weapon free to cut where it would. No one mastered such a weapon. If one were lucky, one might gain respect, trust, alliance, an agreement to work together.

Carling was so shielded, and she had built up her personal arsenal over such a long period of time, he doubted if anything would change her at this late date. In that realization, at last he found the conceptual frame he needed in order to curb his fascination for her. There was simply nowhere for his fascination to go, and nothing for it to latch on to in any long-term way. She was brilliant, gorgeous, deadly and even quirky, but she would not allow someone to get too close, not even a dog.