Lover Mine(5)

Pillow talk for the sociopath.

Now his eyes glowed for another reason when he came to her, and if he knocked her out, she usually regained consciouness with him wrapped around her body.

Xhex turned away from her reflection, and froze before taking another step.

Someone was downstairs.

Leaving the bathroom, she went to the door that led out into the hall and inhaled slow and deep. As the scent of sweaty roadkill wafted into her sinuses, it was clear whatever was hoofing around down below was a lesser--but it wasn't Lash.

Nope, this was his minion, the one who came every night before her captor arrived to make him something to eat. Which meant Lash was on the way to the brownstone.

Man, wasn't it just her luck: She got snatched by the only member of the Lessening Society who ate and fucked. The rest of them were impotent as a ninety-year-old and existed on an air diet, but Lash? Fucker was fully functional.

Going back over to the window, she put her hand out toward the glass. The boundary that marked her prison was an energy field that felt like a prickling heat as she came into contact with it. The damn thing was like an invisi-fence for things bigger than dogs--with the added bene of no collar being required.

There was a little give in it . . . as she pressed forward, there was a hint of flexibility, but only up to a point. Then the molecules that were agitated pulled together and the burning sensation got so acute she had to shake her hand out and walk off the pain.

As she waited for Lash to come back to her, her mind drifted to the male she tried never to think of.

Especially if Lash was around. It was unclear how much her captor could get into her head, but she didn't want to take chances. If the bastard got an itch that that mute soldier was her well-of-soul, as her people called it, he would use that against her . . . and John Matthew.

An image of the male came to her mind, his blue eyes resonating in her recollection so clearly, she could see the flecks of navy in them. God, those beautiful blue eyes.

She could remember when she first met him, back when he was a pretrans. He had looked at her with such awe and wonder, as if she were larger than life, a revelation. Of course, at that point, all she knew was that he was packing heat in ZeroSum, and as head of security for the club, she'd been hell-bent on disarming him and throwing him out into the street. But then she'd learned the Blind King was his whard and that had changed everything.

Following the happy little news flash about who was all up in his biz, John was not just welcome to be armed; he was a special guest, along with his two boys. After that, he'd come in regularly and had always watched her, those blue eyes on her wherever she was. And then he'd transitioned. Holy hell, had he turned into a big one, and abruptly that stare had something hot added to the gentle shyness.

It had taken a lot to kill that kindness. But true to her assassin's nature, she'd managed to strangle the warmth out of--the way he looked at her.

Focusing on the street below, she thought of that time they had been together at her basement place. After the sex, when he'd tried to kiss her, when his blue eyes had glowed with the trademark vulnerability and compassion she'd come to associate with him, she'd pulled away and shut him down.

It was a case of lost nerve. She just couldn't handle the pressure of all that hearts-and-flowers stuff . . . or the responsibility that came with being around someone who felt like that about her . . . or the reality that she had the capacity to love him back.

The payback had been the death of that special look.

The solace she took was that among the males who were likely to try to come after her--Rehvenge, iAm, and Trez . . . the Brotherhood--John was not on a crusade. If he was searching for her, it was because he had to as a soldier, not because he was compelled to as part of a personal suicide mission.

No, John Matthew wouldn't be on the warpath because of how he felt about her.

And having already watched a male of worth destroy himself trying to rescue her, at least she didn't have to do that again.

As the smell of fresh grilling steak permeated the brownstone, she shut off her thoughts and gathered her will around her like a suit of armor.

Her "lover" would be here any minute, so she needed to batten down her mental hatches and get ready for tonight's battle. Pervasive exhaustion dragged at her, but her will ushered that deadweight out on its ass. She needed to feed, even more than she needed proper sleep, but neither of those was happening anytime soon.

It was a question of putting one foot in front of the other until something broke.

That and taking out the male who dared to hold her against her will.





TWO





Chronologically speaking, Blaylock son of Rocke had known John Matthew for just over a year.

But that was not a true reflection of the bromance. There were two timelines to people's lives: the absolute and the perceived. The absolute was the universal day-and-night cycle that for them added up to something like three hundred and sixty-five. Then there was the way that time period had gone, the events, the deaths, the destruction, the training, the fighting.