“Fuck,” Drantos cursed.
Dusti watched him stand. He refused to meet her gaze before he spun around to stomp out into the woods. She whimpered the second she lost sight of him. The reaction scared her, and worse, made her certain she had lost her mind.
Maybe someone had slipped her drugs. Maybe that iron shot Bat had given her had been defective and she was experiencing some freaky hyper-aphrodisiac reaction.
Kraven turned his head to frown at her. “Lay your ass down and curl up with your sister. It will pass now that he’s gone. Take some deep breaths. That will help too.”
Drantos couldn’t go far. His instincts demanded he keep Dusti within sight. His body hurt with the need to go to her and finish what he’d started. It became so strong he actually grabbed hold of a tree trunk to stay put.
Kraven had made a valid point. He wasn’t in control and Dusti was fragile. He might accidently cause her harm by being too rough. He needed to calm.
It helped as time passed and he breathed in fresh air that didn’t carry her scent. He hadn’t suspected she might be his mate when he’d tested her blood. She’d tasted good and had affected him, but the truth hadn’t really hit him until he’d been seducing her.
No damn way would Decker get Dusti. She was his.
He finally got his lust under control. Kraven’s suggestion of taking care of his own needs wouldn’t have fixed the problem. It was Dusti he wanted. The urge to protect her and keep her close overruled everything else. He slowly released the tree and returned to her side.
She lay facing her sister. Kraven sat behind Bat and regarded him with a frown. He glanced away from him to view the other passengers. Most of them had settled down to go to sleep or were already snoozing.
“You’re still pretty tense,” Kraven whispered. “You didn’t jack off.”
He clenched his teeth. “It won’t help.”
“Shit. I hope to never suffer what you are.”
He gently tucked the blanket closer to Dusti. She tensed, her body rigid. He knew she hadn’t fallen asleep. He pulled his hand back, too tempting to continue touching her. It wasn’t the time or the place.
“We need to get them out of here. I feel as if we’re sitting ducks.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Kraven reluctantly agreed. “It’s going to be tough traveling with them and they’ll slow us down…unless we give them a ride.”
He winced. Dusti didn’t believe anything he’d told her. She wasn’t prepared yet for the reality of how much her life had changed. He wanted to ease her into it, and seeing him in shift would terrify her. It would make her fight whatever attraction she felt toward him with more conviction. Terror tended to do that.
“No.” He glanced down at Dusti and then back at his brother. “Watch your words.”
“Showing is knowing,” his brother muttered.
“It’s too soon. It’s better to reveal ourselves slowly over time.”
“I understand your caution but that plan is going to hell if Decker’s enforcers find us before we can reach home. Is that really how you want her to learn the truth of your words? Did you even warn her how we look?”
Kraven had a point. Dusti would know he hadn’t lied if any of Decker’s clan found them. She’d be confronted with evidence in the form of what her eyes could actually see. The shock of seeing a shifted VampLycan in animal form might damage her mental health, since she was so resistant to everything he’d told her so far. He bit his lip, debating what to do.#p#分页标题#e#
Kraven continued, “Isn’t the most important thing getting them swiftly to where they’ll be safe and we have backup? We’re going to be outnumbered if Decker sends a dozen of his enforcers after us. You can deal with the fallout later.”
Drantos wasn’t so certain of that. Dusti had already suffered enough traumas in a short period of time. Humans could hear stories of other kinds of creatures and chalk it up to harmless fiction, but he’d heard of people whose minds had snapped when they were actually confronted by the world they didn’t know existed.
He focused on Dusti, picking up her rapid heartbeat. He reached out again and ran his hand over the blanket covering her hip. She shifted just slightly, pulling away. He let her.
“We’ll leave at first light—and walk it,” he decided. “Decker doesn’t know we’re with them. He’ll expect to find his granddaughters waiting here to be found by the rescue party and totally unprotected. We’ll skirt any areas where we think we might run into them. They’ll make a beeline for where they think the plane went down.”