Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(10)

She rubbed the pointed tip of one ear, which was burning in embarrassment. “Apparently the whole world does,” she muttered. “I never even saw the guy with the cell phone.”

“That ass**le is going to be lucky to live out the week if I have anything to say about it. I can’t f**king believe he didn’t call 911 soon as he realized someone was being attacked.” He took her hand and held it. “Now I want you to tell me, why didn’t you call, and why do you want me to go home?”

She pulled her hand away and tucked it against her chest. “Don’t be nice to me.”

“I’ll be whatever the hell I want to be,” he snapped. “Why didn’t you call?”

She muttered, “I’m supposed to do this on my own. No Wyr allowed.”

“That’s old news,” Tiago said. “Plans have changed.”

Just like that? Plans have changed? She scowled at him. “Hey, cowboy, remember what I said. I’m gonna be Queen. I don’t think you get to boss me around like that.”

He rubbed the back of his head and raised his eyebrows at her. “How are you going to stop me?”

“Screw you,” she said.

“You’ve said that already,” he pointed out. “I’m getting bored now.”

“Yeah, well, it’s the only thing I can think of at the moment,” she muttered. With a Herculean effort she managed to keep from looking at his crotch again.

“The game’s changed. Deal with it.”

Her gaze bounced around his dark saturnine features. The force of his presence was such that the tiny hairs on her arms rose. It cremated the numb state she had managed to achieve with the alcohol. He had the extreme physicality of an apex predator, his body tempered by years of fighting, the thick muscles corded with sinew and veins. His Power was a heavy, sulfurous force that pressed her into the mattress.

She struggled to sit up. Suddenly he was bending over her. He eased one huge arm underneath her shoulders to help her upright. She scowled and glared at him. “Look, you can’t stay, and that’s all there is to it. I’m all right. I handled everything.”

He snapped, “You have a knife wound between your ribs!”

“You should have a look at the other guys,” she told him.

Her words hit a stone wall. “We’re done discussing this,” he said. He walked over to the other bed. “What do you want to take with you?”

She pressed a hand to her side. “Get back over here so I can smack you.”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

“I mean it. Get your ass over here.” There she was, back to what was fast becoming her favorite subject.

“I’m so motivated to do that since it’s clearly in my best interest. I’m just going to assume you want all of this.” He stuffed things back into the bags.

His back was turned to her. She stared at his ass again. Really, it was the sexiest ass she had ever seen. First she got a close-up of his front, and now she got treated to the back view. Tight, taut and clothed in black like it had been gift wrapped just for her.

She patted him on the butt and told him, “Nice buns, cowboy.”

She started to pull his wallet out of the back pocket, and he grabbed her hand. Spoilsport. She sighed, opening her fingers, and he patted her as he let her go. “I’m taking the bags out to the car,” he told her. “Be right back.”

He walked out, and just like that she lost what little control she’d had over her life. She tobogganed right out of the fun bit of the drunk and plunged into the snowdrift labeled the sorry stage.

He came back and scooped her into his arms. He was such a mean barbarian, and he was being so careful with her, so gentle and nice. And she couldn’t let herself rely on him. She couldn’t let herself totally rely on anyone ever again.

THREE

Tiago tried to figure out how he could have wrecked his life so completely in just a day. One day. Twenty-four hours. Yesterday he had been merely irritated with cooling his heels in New York and doing unimportant stuff that could have been handled by someone—almost anyone—else.

Tonight in Chicago, he had lost all sense of irritation and had become downright desperate.

He paced in the parking lot of another motel, a Red Roof Inn, as he called Dragos, who answered on the first ring. Tiago said, “Got her.”

The dragon let loose a long exhale. “Good.”

“She was wounded. She’s okay, but she needs to see a doctor soon.” He explained what happened, or at least what he had found and what he had surmised, while his long stride ate up the distance of the parking lot.

Glowing streetlamps were surrounded with blurred yellow halos. A light rain had started to fall, miniscule silver meteors streaking through the illumination. Tendrils of fog rose from the sun-warmed asphalt. The tendrils twisted and curled around his steel-toed boots as though he stood in a Gorgon’s nest of transparent snakes.

He stood several feet away from the building and scanned it and the surrounding area with a hypervigilant gaze. The motel building had a couple of floors, rows of identical doors stacked on top of each other. He had secured a ground-floor room that opened directly onto the parking lot, so they could leave in a hurry if they had to. It was late enough that the motel was quiet, and the cars that dotted the parking lot were cool to the touch. He pivoted at the curb to start another lap.