Bound by Night(43)

For one glorious moment, relief gave Nicole a new lease on life. Hopefully a chamber of her own meant a shower and a bed.
Then she glanced over at Riker.
He looked both troubled and pissed, and once again, she wondered just how long she had left to live.

Chapter 14
Riker will take care of you.
Yeah, Riker knew exactly what Hunter meant.
Taking care of humans had never been a problem for Riker before. And it shouldn’t be a problem now. But son of a bitch, Nicole had gotten under his skin.
She’d saved his life, shown vulnerability and remorse over Terese’s death, and charmed him with her odd origami habit. And in return, like an idiot, he’d told this female things he’d never told anyone. No one in the clan knew that the baby Terese had carried wasn’t his. No one knew she’d killed herself.
Somehow, despite all the trouble Nicole had caused him, he’d confi ded in her. He’d laughed with her. And he’d gotten hard for her.
“Are we done here?” Riker asked Hunter.
Hunter gave an almost imperceptible nod and swung around to Grant, letting Riker know he was dismissed. “Nicole,” he said, almost as an afterthought and in a cheerful voice that made Riker’s hair stand on end, “I look forward to having a more . . . in-depth session with you.”
Before she could reply, Riker took her by the arm and hauled her out of there. She went willingly. Eagerly, really.
“Thanks.” Her boots thumped softly on the stone floor as they walked down the hall, her slender legs in  perfect sync with his long strides. “Things were kind of tense back there.”
Kind of? Hunter was in one of the worst moods
Riker had ever seen. Oh, he’d seen Hunter angrier, in full-blown, unreachable rages. But this was Hunter at his worst—or best, depending on which side you were on. The cold fury that started with Neriya’s abduction and ended with Lucy’s kidnapping was gathering deep inside him. It was the kind that rolled over everyone, including those he cared about.
Riker did not want to be in his path.
He steered the conversation away from his clan chief. “Did Grant bother you?”
“Not really. You were right about him—moments of confusion punctuated by spurts of lucidity.” Her hair, full of soft waves, brushed her shredded turtleneck as she shook her head. The wild, windblown bob looked good on her. Much better than the severe, straight, hairsprayed-to-hell way she’d had it when he took her from her mansion. “It was your chief. Intense guy.”
So much for his attempt to not discuss Hunter.
“Talk about your moments of confusion and spurts of lucidity.”
“Seriously?” She rubbed her arms, and he made a mental note to get her some warmer clothes. He also made a mental note to stop staring at her breasts when she did that. “He’s unbalanced, too?”
He waited to speak until a trio of females passed them in the hallway. “Some might say so, but nah, he’s the sanest male I know. He just has a tendency not to take things as seriously as some think he should.”
“Some. Like you?”
She’d hit that stake on the head. For a human, she was pretty astute. He didn’t answer that, though; clan business was none of hers.
“How are you feeling?” He didn’t like that she still hadn’t regained all the color she’d lost when she’d gotten ill in the cave. “Is there anything specific I can get you to eat or drink that’ll help your condition?”
“Oh, um, yes.” She stepped toward him to avoid being flattened by two males tossing a football as they ran through the passage.
“Hey, assholes!” Riker barked. “We have a common room for that. Not to mention a million acres of forest.” As the guys sheepishly offered apologies, Riker turned back to Nicole. “Go on. What can I get for you?”
“Low-iron, low-carb foods. As the iron builds in my blood, my pancreas is going to get wacky with the insulin.” She chewed her lip a little. “There are other issues that the medication handles, but they’ll take a lot longer to kill me.”
This was a complication they didn’t need. The sooner they got Neriya, the sooner . . . what? The sooner Nicole would be released so she could use the knowledge she’d gained to destroy them? Or the sooner they’d kill her to protect themselves?
Fuck. This was a lose-lose situation. He thought back to his military days and all the no-win situations he’d been thrust into. Somehow he’d come out of them alive. But not everyone had. No-win scenarios always resulted in someone’s death.
Like Jesse and Steve, both of whom he’d been close with since basic training. They’d all been together when they’d walked into the building at Fair child Air Force Base for what he’d believed would be  a briefing. Instead, they’d been sedated with drugged water and fed to vampires. Riker would never forget the next couple of weeks of torment as his body changed, his muscles, bones, and organs altering painfully fast. Gnawing hunger had nearly torn him apart as he threw up everything he’d been given to eat. The first bag of blood someone had thrown into his cell had been the best thing he’d ever tasted.