Here, she thought again. Speaking of here… where was she?
Sam blinked a few times and slowly straightened to look around. She was in a nicely appointed room with natural stone walls. Wood floor. Arched windows with stained glass on top. It was beautiful; she loved stained glass. On one end of the room was a fireplace built into the wall. The other side sported a bar, and across the bar, she could make out all the stainless steel appliances of a kitchen.
There were two couches in front of the fireplace, one full size, the other a loveseat, both black leather. A standing lamp graced one corner, its shade constructed of the same stained glass as that in the window. A plush white furry rug covered the center of the floor.
Sam slowly made her way to the window and looked out. It was a long way down.
An apartment, then. She was in an apartment, and from the view and the number of stories below, she was guessing she was on the top floor. A penthouse suite, perhaps. Figures, she thought. For some reason, it was hard to picture Jack Colton in anything less, even though she didn’t really know him. Actually, she knew almost nothing about him….
That thought furrowed Sam’s brow and made her feel dizzy again. She turned to the kitchen. At one end of the marble countertop sat a fruit bowl filled with Honeycrisp apples; her favorite. She grabbed one and bit into it as she made her way around the marble topped bar to the refrigerator. The appliance was high end, decked out with screens and buttons galore. There was not a fingerprint on it and nothing to mar its surface, not a single photograph or Post-It note. She opened it up, was greeted by a cold blast of air, and looked inside. She perused as she continued to devour the apple.
It was incredibly well stocked with everything from cut and stored fruit to a drawer filled with fresh vegetables, several packages of uncooked meat, eggs, cheese, milk, and a host of canned and bottled drinks. But what caught her eye almost immediately was what lay dead center of the top shelf, securely saved in a glass pastry storage container.
“Italian wedding cake,” she whispered. “No shitting way.” It was her favorite cake, and she was hungry enough just then to eat every ounce of the three-fourths of cake that was apparently left over. She tossed her apple core into the nearby wastebasket then pulled the cake from the shelf with one hand. She hissed in pain as she grabbed a diet soda with the other hand, and kicked the door shut with her boot. Everyone she’d ever met had taken the opportunity to scoff at the fact that she ate shit like this while drinking diet soda, and her reply was always the same: She’d rather eat her calories than drink them, plain and simple.
Though right now, she would have taken almost anything to drink. If she hadn’t been so scared that something bad would go down at any given moment, she would have grabbed a beer instead.
She set both the cake and drink down on the counter and proceeded to open every drawer in the kitchen looking for a fork. In the process, she found four different kinds of weapons, not the least deadly of which was a handgun. She ignored them all – she had no idea how to use them – and took her newly found fork and super healthy meal into the living room.
“Okay,” she said as she crawled onto the couch and curled up with the cake on her lap. “It’s time to get diabetes.”
She ate. And as she ate, she tried to figure things out. About Raven and her secret, about the medallion she’d pulled out in the alley and the fact that she’d left Sam alone in the ER room. About the Hunter and his maniacal band of evangelical shifter-haters. About the warlock that was with them and what horrid magic they might now have at their disposal. About the last twenty years she’d spent running and running and running. And of course – about Jack Colton.
She stopped eating for a moment and dropped her fork. The cake was gone. She’d eaten it all. Her body was on fire, all of her adrenaline gone, all of her fight or flight instinct slipped away, nothing left but the raw, wounded mass of flared nerves and open injuries that was her beaten body. And her cheeks were wet.
She’d been crying.
With a hiss of self loathing, she roughly wiped her cheeks with her palms. The movement hurt horribly. And that made her even angrier, fueling her enough to see her jumping off the couch and throwing the cake platter across the room. It hit the stone wall and shattered beautifully, cascading outward in a waterfall of deadly shards.
They tinkled across the hardwood floor… Samantha sobbed. It was a wretched sound, pulled up from somewhere deep inside. It shocked her and she covered her mouth with her hand. No, she told herself as it threatened to come up again. Keep it together.
She turned to try to find the restroom in the flat, when suddenly there was the second and now readily recognizable flash of a portal opening. She lowered her hand as the exit cleared and Jack once more stepped into his living room, crunching glass beneath his boots.
The portal closed behind him, he looked down at the glass, and the room was silent. Slowly, he lifted his head and met her gaze. “I’m not even going to ask, Firebird. You need rest, and your wound needs tending to.”
“What… What happened?” she demanded, retreating a step out of self preservation. Jack was covered in blood. It was a simple darkening of the black clothing he wore, and a smearing of a little red across his cheek. His hair was damp with it here and there, or possibly sweat. It was tousled with battle, and he smelled like fury, barely contained.
Either her sense of smell was getting better, or he was just that angry.
“You were right. They are after you. Once you left, they attempted to do the same.”
They attempted, she thought. Meaning, the weres and shifters had other ideas about that. Clearly, some of them had attacked the Hunters, turning the tables, and there’d been a fight. And she guessed Jack wouldn’t be there if the good guys hadn’t won. At least for now.
“And Raven? Where is she?” Her voice shook.
“She’s a firecracker, that one. Almost as bad as you. She was the first to attack. Darius Walker and I both moved in to protect her. All hell broke loose.” Jack ran a tired hand through his mussed-up hair and let out a hard breath. “When the dust settled, five Hunters lay dead, three were missing. Along with Walker.”
“They took him?” she asked, eyes wide.
But Jack didn’t respond. And Sam realized he hadn’t told her whether Raven was okay.
“Is Raven –”
“She’s alive and well, safe in her apartment. As promised. Samantha, do you have any idea why they would be after you in particular?” he asked point blank, pinning her to the spot with that damned laser beam eye.
“Well…” she stuttered, “I f-figured it was because I turned into a dragon. In front of them.”
Jack shook his head. Obviously, the reasoning didn’t sit well with him. But he said nothing further on the subject. “I need to redress your wound, Sam. The master bedroom is down the hall, second door to the right. It has a master bath. There are clothes in the closet that will fit you. Get cleaned up, and lock the doors behind you when you do.” His gaze turned hard. “Both locks.”
Sam considered him – all six and a half feet of towering black clothing, muscle, and someone else’s blood – and she wondered whether he was hoping to protect her from someone else with those locks, or from himself.
Chapter Twenty-One
Samantha let the water run over her and closed her eyes as the bathroom steamed and her muscles relaxed. She’d decided on a shower. It wasn’t the best thing for the open hole in her shoulder, she knew. But she also knew the shoulder would heal eventually no matter what she did. As long as she wanted it to, it would. It was part of being a shifter.
And when she’d found herself in Jack Colton’s bedroom, face to face with his monstrous king sized bed, its black sheets and four very strong looking posters, the stone walls that reminded her of a dungeon and a five star hotel at the same time, she was so overwhelmed, she stood frozen in front of the door for what must have been five full minutes. Eventually, she’d pulled herself out of her stupor a
nd made her way to the walk-in closet.
Half of it was filled with Jack’s clothing. Lots of black. Leather. Boots. The kind of clothing women wished all straight men would realize they needed to wear.
The other half was filled with women’s clothing. At first glance, one would think Jack Colton was a cross dresser. The thought made her smile even now, as water continued to run hot over her. But upon closer inspection, it was clear the clothing was made for someone much – much – smaller. As were the shoes beneath the plethora of jeans, shirts, dresses, skirts, and the drawers of under things. As a matter of fact, they were made for a woman Sam’s size.
Exactly Sam’s size.
And it had occurred to her then and there that so far, there had been everything Sam liked about life in Jack’s apartment: her favorite cake, her favorite apples, her favorite drinks, her favorite types of clothing and shoes all in her size. The comfiest couches, a fire place rather than a television as the center piece in a living room. Stained glass windows.
The stainless steel appliances were something she had always dreamed of owning. Hell, an apartment to put them in was something she’d dreamed of owning too. Or a house. But she’d always been on the run.
Which was another thing that ran through her head as she stood in the closet, her eyes glazing over with every brand new, still-tagged dress or pair of designer jeans she took in. There were clothes in that closet that she’d literally looked at online, that she’d dreamed of owning. Big name brands: Burberry, Balenciaga, Dior, Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balmain. She couldn’t help running her hand over the studs on the Balmain leather jacket. It was one she’d admired for quite some time.
Big, comfy sweaters, leather jackets that cost thousands, boots that were handmade in Italy, red carpet dresses. There was half a million dollars’ worth of clothing and shoes in the closet alone.
Then and there, she decided on a shower. She was beyond confused about what to think any longer. Jack Colton was not a Hunter, he was wealthy beyond imagination, and he didn’t want to hurt her. But he’d hunted her for two decades. Samantha’s best friend was a guardian. The Shifter King had been kidnapped, and for some reason Sam cared. The Hunters were after her – her, in particular. And she’d been shot.
A shower would be wonderful.
So there she was, standing under the waterfall of water that didn’t seem capable of getting cold. She had no idea how long she’d been there, and she didn’t care. She was safe there. Warm. Comforted. She’d always loved long, hot showers.
Another of my favorites, she thought. But she couldn’t possibly accuse Jack of giving her a long, hot shower, could she? Unless he fixed the water heater so that it never stopped working. With the amount of money he seemed to have, that actually didn’t seem far fetched.
Sam sighed, reached back, and turned off the water. She hated to do it, but she’d finished scrubbing her body and washing and conditioning her hair long, long ago. Also with her favorite soap, shampoo and conditioner. That, she could attribute to Jack.
So he did his homework, she thought. But that didn’t answer her burning question: Why? Okay. It’s time to find out once and for all.
She got out of the enormous solid marble shower, dried up, and looked under the sink for a first aid kit. What she found was an army sized box filled with gauze, bandages, and topical medications. She did her best tending to her own wound, which looked horrid. It was red, swollen, and bruising. Two of the stitches the doctor had given her had popped and were useless. It was bleeding ever so slightly. But it didn’t look nearly as bad as it would have on a human. She was healing already.
Once she had it bandaged, she ran a Mason Pearson brush through her hair with her good arm, and got dressed, choosing jeans, a white tee-shirt, and good, solid boots from the wardrobe. On burning impulse, she pulled the embellished Balmain red leather jacket from its hanger, yanked off the tag, and slid it over her body. “Holy shit,” she whispered as it slipped into place and she felt like royalty. “Whatever happens, I’m taking you with me,” she said to the jacket.
Then she grabbed a hair tie from the drawer full of them and put her long, curly hair in a pony tail. The brush had done wonders with it, and she was starting to understand why the damn things cost several hundred dollars a piece. There was no frizz, only beautiful shining spirals and waves.
The last thing she did was break out a brand new extra soft tooth brush and brush her teeth. Once she’d swished and spit, she wiped her mouth and faced the bathroom door. After a deep breath, she unlocked it and walked through the master bedroom, making certain not to look at the bed.
She paused before unlocking the second lock, but then realized she was being stupid and slammed it open, stepping out into the hall. There were sounds coming from the kitchen, and a crackling told her he’d started a fire, too. The environment was warm and inviting.
Jack stepped out from behind the bar counter when she entered the living room. It was clear he’d showered as well; his hair was still slightly dark and damp, his clothes were changed, and he looked and smelled clean. She could scent the shampoo and soap even from across the room. There must have been at least two bathrooms in the apartment.
He was dressed once more in black, but this time he wore a short-sleeved tee-shirt that hugged his sculpted biceps and revealed the tattoo on his forearm. Black jeans, boots as strong and gripping as her own, and of course the eye patch finished the outfit.
The tall, dangerous looking doppelshifter cocked his head to one side, eyeing her carefully. “You clean up nice, Firebird. But how do you expect me to dress your wound through all those clothes?”
“I don’t. I did it myself,” she told him firmly. What she could have used just then was a pain killer. The wounded side of her body was starting to feel like nothing but a channel of throbbing demon fire.
Jack considered her long and hard. Then he lifted his chin. “If you weren’t the magishifter, I would insist. But I know you’ll heal.” He turned and opened a kitchen cabinet she couldn’t have reached in her wildest dreams. It was above the refrigerator. “And I knew you’d do it yourself anyway.” He grabbed something from a top cabinet, and turned to toss it to her. She lifted both arms instinctively to catch it, and winced when she did.
He noticed. “That’s what I thought. You popped stitches back there in that alley. Take two of those. It’ll help with the pain.”
Sam blinked, a little stunned at how he seemed to anticipate every single one of her needs. She looked down at the bottle, read the label, and thanked her lucky stars that he’d somehow managed to get ahold of a narcotic. There is no greater pleasure than the cessation of pain, she thought. It was a quote from a book she’d once read. And it was damned true. She was a firm believer that if the gods had meant for people to suffer their many agonies, they wouldn’t have given them plants like poppies and brains big enough to figure out how to refine them.
Sam took two of the pills from the container and popped them into her mouth as Jack came around the corner with a bottle of water. He twisted it open, handed it to her, and after just a flicker of hesitation, she took it, swallowing both pills down.
She gave him back the container with its remaining pills and steeled her nerves. “Jack, why do you have so many things that are… well… that are obviously for me? And,” she shook her head in wonder, “how did you know my size? You even got my bra size right,” she said, blushing. But she continued, because she needed to know. “And how the hell can you afford all of this?” She gestured to their posh surroundings. “What is your business, exactly?” What could he be doing that would make so much money?
“You’re my business, Samantha,” he told her.
She stilled, and that warmth was back, moving through her bloodstream like some sneaky kind of poison.
Jack paused, seemed to think a moment, and finally gestured to the couches. “Please,” he said softly. “Have a seat. I think it’s finally time we talked. Don’t you?”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Jack watched the woman of his every dream make her way through his living room to his black couch and slowly sit down. She was terrified. She was trembling, and as tiny as the movement was, he could see it. He had good eyesight. Her breathing was quick and shallow, and her heart beat out a rapid pace. He had great hearing. And of course, he could smell her fear.
He could also smell her blood.
Jack turned away for a moment running a shaking hand through his hair. He’d been doing this hand through the hair thing a lot lately; it was becoming a nervous habit. But right now, it hid his own trembling. Fuck, he thought. This isn’t going to work.
He had a million things to tell her, and they were short on time. But there she was – Samantha – in his own living room, fresh and clean and drop-dead gorgeous as ever, full of life and magic and possibility, every shifter’s wet dream, and twenty years of waiting was maybe, hopefully, coming to an end. He had the chance to make things right, to move forward, and not look back.
But she was bleeding. And, damned it all to hell, he was hungry. Hungry for her. Hungry in the worst way.
Maybe her guardian had never told her. Maybe she’d never read it, never learned it, and she just didn’t know that the way a shifter claimed his life-long mate was with his teeth. One bite. One deep, dark bite, and the bond was made, unbreakable by anything including death. A werewolf mated for life. And so did a shifter.
The last thing Samantha O’Neill needed right now was another wound. But her blood called to him, it sung to him, a kind of lullabye that made his muscles ache and his body shake and his eyes damn near glow. Reign it in Jack, he told himself.
But this honestly might have been the hardest thing he’d ever done.
Jack put his hands on his hips, still facing the wall. Seriously? he asked himself suddenly, feeling disgusted in his weakness. There were kids being bombed in foreign countries and he was standing there with the love of his life in his living room and this was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do?