“Screw you,” she called after him. There was a thought. She scoped out his lean, tight ass with interest.
Tiago ignored her and dumped the ashtray in the bathroom trash. He paused, looking down in the trash can. If anything, he looked even angrier than he had before. He looked fit to murder somebody. The strong, proud bones of his face clenched like a fist.
Her eyelids closed in a slow blink as she tried to process. If he was that mad at her, she should give some serious thought to running. And she would too, just as soon as she found her feet again.
A shiver rippled down her spine. She rolled onto her side, tucked her knees against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She didn’t want him that mad at her. She didn’t want anybody that mad at her.
Tiago walked back to the bed. She could have sworn she heard a rumble of thunder in the distance. He squatted by the bed and rubbed her shoulder with a giant callused hand. “Where are you hurt, faerie?”
His gentleness was so unexpected, coming as it did from such a wrathful, clenched-fist face, that it almost did her in. Her eyes filled with tears. She gestured to her side.
Icy shock ran over his skin, followed by a blast of heat. Tiago didn’t know where to put his rage. That bastard Fae hadn’t punched her in the alley. He had knifed her.
“Let me have a look.” He tried to raise her T-shirt.
She resisted. “I already cleaned and bandaged it.”
He exploded. “Goddammit, woman! I said let me have a fucking look!”
Her eyes went wide and she froze. The force of his anger was palpable. It beat against her skin. Thunder rolled, this time closer. It was almost overhead.
She had heard the stories about Tiago. The thunder and lightning came when he really lost it. Cautiously she uncurled, her eyes wide. She made herself lie passive as she stared up at him. Sometimes with dominant Wyr warriors the best thing you could do was stay quiet and get out of their way—or in this case, acquiesce. Sooner or later their rampaging always ground to a halt and then they could listen to reason again.
He put one knee on the bed and leaned his weight on it as he lifted up her T-shirt. The bandage covered her ribs under her left breast. She winced as he peeled back the bandage to look at what was underneath.
“Do you know how irritating you are?” she said. “Because if you don’t, I’ve got time.”
“This looks deep,” he said in a quiet voice. Lightning flashed outside. Thunder exploded with a boom. She jumped and shivered. He put his hand briefly against her narrow waist. “Ssh now, be easy. The dressing is soaked. I’ll change the bandage.”
She knuckled her eyes. Damn it. She hadn’t slept in two days. She was starting to come down from the singing part of the drunk. He was acting far too serious and concerned, a storm was brewing outside, and all the fun was packing its bags and ditching the party. She tried to hold on to it.
“You know, technology in the twenty-first century is pretty cool,” she told him. “I’m going to DVR my own meltdown and e-mail it to my therapist.”
He didn’t so much as crack a smile.
She drooped. She uncurled as he urged her to lie flat. He removed the soiled bandage and with a careful, velvet-light touch he cleaned the wound and covered it with cotton padding again. At one point he bent down close to her skin and sniffed the wound. Okay, so that looked a little weird but she knew what he was doing; he was checking with his Wyr sense of smell to see if he could detect poison. He caught her eye afterward and gave her a tight, quick smile that was probably meant to be reassuring, but he didn’t speak. He seemed busy with his own internal issues. Lightning struck the parking lot. Her shivering deepened. That was just downright sexy. No, spooky. No, sexy. Damn it!
“All right, I’m all done for now,” he said. His soft, even voice was somehow so much worse than his yelling voice. He taped the bandage in place. Then he looked at her, and the fury in his dark eyes stabbed her. “We know everything that matters.”
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 asshole is going to be lucky to live out the week if I have anything to say about it. I can’t fucking believe he didn’t call 911 as 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, 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 a Wyr who was 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. Damn it, don’t be nice to me! She sniveled. “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?”
“All of it.” She spoke in an absent tone of voice as 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.”
As he started gathering up her packages, she opened up his wallet.
A plain white card was just inside. Strong masculine writing slashed across it. It said, “Put me back.”
She drooped. Rats. He must have talked about her with the other sentinels who were much better versed in her character flaws. She tucked the wallet into his back pocket. He reached back and patted her hand. “I’m taking the bags out to the car,” he told her. “Be right back.”
He walked out. 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.
Her head fell against his arm as he carried her out of the motel.
She sang, “Sad, sad, sad, sad.”
Thea Harrison, Dragon Bound
(Series: Elder Races # 1)
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