Dying Wish: A Novel of the Sentinel Wars (16 page)

She was a gift, and somehow he was going to have to find a way to let her go.

She pulled in a breath, which pressed her breasts against her modest button-up shirt. His gaze darted down. He was obvious. He hadn’t even tried to be anything else. As he watched, her nipples hardened beneath the thin fabric, making his mouth water.

She wanted him, too. He’d seen desire darken her eyes before, just as it was doing now. Her breathing sped, and a flush of pink swept over her cheeks.

He hadn’t had a woman in a very long time. He hadn’t even thought about sex until she came along.

His cock swelled against his jeans, aching with need. A sweat broke out along his spine and his body heated
in a rush. The scent of her skin filled the cab of the truck, making his head spin. He needed more of her.

Iain leaned toward her, intending to nuzzle her neck and breathe her in. As soon as his path became obvious, she went stiff and froze.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice wavering with fear.

He looked at her face, seeing barely controlled terror hovering in her gray eyes. Her hand flattened to her throat in an unconscious gesture of self-defense. The fine trembling of her fingers made him want to crush whatever had scared her.

And then he saw the scars lining her neck and realized that he’d been the one to frighten her.

She’d been fed from for two years. Her scars attested to that. He could only imagine how his approach had looked to her.

He had to go. Now. While his emotions were quiet enough he could think and remember his honor.

“Leaving.” Even that one simple word was hard to form. His jaw was clenched tight, his throat constricted around a scream he refused to let pass.

“You’re leaving me here? Alone? I thought that was a big no-no. Helen is sending help, but I don’t know how long it will take them to reach us.”

Her mouth was so fucking pretty. He watched it move, reached up to touch it. If only he could kiss her once, he knew it would calm his raging emotions. He couldn’t be expected to sit this close to her and not react. Not now, when she’d chosen to tie herself to him.

His finger slid over her bottom lip. It was smooth and incredibly soft. He could feel the slightest trembling beneath his fingertip, but she didn’t pull away. Instead, her pupils grew huge and she licked her lips, sweeping her tongue across his finger in a hot caress.

He had to taste her, kiss her. Just once before the storm of anger came raging back, before his monster began
howling again. He couldn’t trust himself then. It was too dangerous. But now, in this precious moment, he was more man than monster, and that man wanted just one taste.

Iain leaned forward, closing the space between them. Her breathing sped, and he could see her pulse beating hard and fast in her throat.

He moved slowly, not wanting to scare her.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she whispered.

He didn’t trust words. He’d say the wrong thing and ruin this chance to find out if she tasted as sweet as she looked.

Iain threaded his fingers through her hair, cradling the back of her head. His body shifted closer to her, until he could feel the heat of her knee touching his thigh. He leaned down and covered her parted lips with his own.

Jackie made a small sound of surprise, followed by a sigh of pleasure, which he greedily drank down. He’d meant to pull back after one quick kiss, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t that strong.

Her mouth molded to his, and he deepened the kiss, plunging his tongue past her lips. Her hands gripped his shoulders, and she leaned toward him, eager for more.

Iain lifted her to straddle his lap, and then let his hands move up from her narrow waist to pull her fully along his body. He felt her nipples harden against his bare chest, and cursed the fabric of her shirt for getting in the way.

She made sweet, needy noises as she kissed him back, tangling her tongue with his. She was like hot honey flowing over him, heating his skin. Her mound grazed his erection, sending a shock of lightning up his spine. She fit against him just right, but there were too damn many clothes in the way. If he didn’t get her naked and drive his cock into her, it might actually kill him.

His hand moved to her collar to work the top button free. She went stiff in his arms, lurching back.

“No. I can’t,” she said. But her skin was flushed and her mouth was red and puffy from his kiss.

“You want this as much as I do,” said Iain, his voice sounding barely human. His monster was waking, stretching its wings.

She swallowed and looked away, guilt and regret tightening her features.

How dare she deny him after what she’d done? She was the one who’d forced the union. Not him.

She began pulling her fingers from his bare arm, but he slapped his palm over them, holding her in place. He didn’t want her to stop touching him yet.

She glanced down, then back up until she was looking him right in the eye. Her words came out precise and sharp. “Let. Me. Go.”

Possessiveness washed through him, bringing with it another barrage of feral rage. The monster woke, ravenous and angry. She was his. She’d tied herself to him and she deserved whatever she got.

Wait. That wasn’t right. A niggling of doubt wormed its way into his thoughts. He was supposed to protect and cherish her, not push her to do things that were against her will. Wasn’t he?

There was too much going on inside of him. He couldn’t sort it out. He couldn’t figure out the difference between what he wanted to do and what he was supposed to do. And the monster would not shut the fuck up and give him a minute to think. It pounded at him, demanding to be set free. Everything was too jumbled and confused for him to have any hope of sorting it out.

“I need to go,” he told her, his voice shaking with emotion. If she wasn’t nearby, he couldn’t hurt her. It was the only way he could think to protect her.

“You’re sick. I can’t leave you alone, but we can’t do…
that
anymore, either.”

“I’m fine.” That was such a huge lie. He was being
crushed from the inside by the need to touch her again. “I just need to get out and clear my head.”

Before she could stop him, he grabbed his sword from the floorboard, tumbled out of the truck, and slammed the door shut behind him. He walked a few feet away before the cold hit his bare chest.

It didn’t matter. Chilly air wasn’t going to kill him. But if he did anything to hurt Jackie, he’d kill himself.

He sucked in huge breaths of cold air and kept his back to her. He couldn’t see any Synestryn, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Even though the traces of blood he’d wiped away were small, that’s all it took.

Part of him wished they’d come. He wanted to fight, to kill. He needed to vent some of this rage before he did something horrible.

Iain paced like a caged animal. How could he have let this happen? She was supposed to have chosen someone else. Saved someone else.

He heard the truck door open and close again, but he didn’t dare look at her. He kept his eyes on the trees in the distance, hoping she’d take the hint and go away.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He could feel her presence against his back, like sunlight glowing on his skin. “You should go back to Dabyr.”

“And leave you here? I don’t think so. Get back in the truck. You’re going to freeze to death out here.”

He was still burning inside from that kiss, but he heard the shiver in her voice and was powerless to control his reaction. His leather jacket was on the seat. He went back and retrieved it, draping it over her shoulders, being careful not to touch her. If he felt the smooth heat of her skin, he might forget what was real and what wasn’t.

She looked small and vulnerable, huddled in on herself with his jacket swallowing her up. It made him want to bare his teeth and growl at the world in warning to stay away from her.

“I think you should be the one wearing this, not me,” she said.

He didn’t trust himself to speak. He stared at her for a long time, watching the wind whip her dark hair around her face. Seeing her eased him somehow, quieting some of the chaos roiling inside him. He could have stared at her all night, but they were exposed out here. He was no longer bleeding, but there were traces of his blood on her jacket. It wouldn’t be long before one of the demons picked up on the scent.

He grabbed the suit jacket, tossed it into a metal trash bin near the rest-stop bathrooms, and lit it on fire with a blowtorch he had stashed in the back of his truck. Hopefully that would keep the demons from coming here once they were gone. There were no guarantees, but it was the best he could do, given the situation.

It was time to get Jackie back home. He had never before trusted anyone enough to tell them about his soulless state, but he was going to have to now. He needed help figuring out how to get her out of the mess she’d inadvertently stepped in, and now that Gilda and Angus were dead, he could think of only one person who might have some answers.

“Time to go,” he said.

Iain helped Jackie into the truck, and then slid in behind the wheel. He hit the highway, plowing through the miles at a breakneck pace. Jackie was silent beside him, splitting her attention between what was in front of them and what was behind. He could feel her anxiousness sliding through their newborn link.

He reveled in the connection even as he cursed it. This was how it was supposed to be. Being tied to her fulfilled his purpose in life. It was such a feeling of completion, it was hard to remember that it was utterly wrong for her—a depressing mix of useless and dangerous. And yet he couldn’t deny the power of her gift to him. His pain was gone. Not all of it, but most of it had
vanished when she’d taken his luceria and used his power to drive out the poison. The pressure that had built inside him had abated, leaving him feeling…light. After all those decades of agony, he was finally free. It didn’t matter that it wouldn’t last long. He soaked up the respite she’d given him, letting himself revel in it.

Iain hadn’t felt true joy in a long, long time, but he remembered it now. It felt a lot like this, and he had Jackie to thank for restoring some of what had been lost to him. The restoration was temporary, so he was determined to enjoy it while it lasted. Once he went back to the way things had been, he might not even remember how he felt now.

As soon as he could, he took an exit to hit the back roads. The chances of getting pulled over by highway patrol were a lot slimmer out here, and if he had to stop and fight Synestryn, there were fewer people to see it happen, or to get in the way.

“Do you see anything?” she asked, her voice trembling with fear.

He hated it that she was afraid, and wished he could do something to take it away.

The thought hit him hard, triggering a memory of a dream—one he’d had while poisoned. Jackie had been afraid. Cold and desperate. Now that he was awake, he realized what that dream had been. It was the vision the luceria had chosen to share with him, but now it was hard to remember, with only bits and pieces of it flickering through his mind.

Jackie had been a prisoner in a cave, huddling together with a little girl for warmth. She was scared out of her mind and weak from the last round of feedings. Zillah had nearly drained her dry before tossing her back in her cell. Her arms and legs were cold and numb. She was shivering, and yet her thoughts were centered around the child next to her and how she was going to protect her.

That had been during the first few days of her captivity. How she’d endured another two years was beyond Iain. How she’d stayed sane was even more of a mystery.

But she had, and now she was here, bonded to him in a way she didn’t understand. She hadn’t meant for it to be permanent. She’d meant only to save his life.

How was he going to tell her that she was now tied irrevocably to a man with no soul?

She frowned and glanced at him. “Are you in my head? Reading my thoughts?”

He tamped down on the rush of fury her question caused. She’d said it like he had no right to connect with her in that way, as if the very concept disgusted her.

“No,” he clipped out.

Iain had to get hold of himself and his raging emotions. He needed to find that blissful numbness he’d had for so long. It was simply a matter of discipline. All he had to do was exactly as he instructed the members of the Band of the Barren to do: pretend he was honorable as he’d once been. Pretend that the feelings battering him did not exist.

“I thought I heard something.” She shook her head in confusion. “I’m just paranoid. Drake and Helen are always carrying on silent conversations with each other. She claims she likes having him in her head, but my brain has a very brightly lit
keep out
sign, okay?”

Iain nodded and took control of his wayward thoughts, just in case they were loud enough to leak through to Jackie. He didn’t want her in his head, either, finding out what was wrong with him. At least not yet. Not until he had time to think and plan a way to free her. Right now the only way he knew to break their bond ended badly for him.

He wasn’t ready to die yet. His brothers still needed him.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Dabyr.”

“This isn’t the way we came.”

“I’m taking a back way.”

Her head thumped back against the seat in frustration. “I’m never going to get out of there, am I?”

The misery he heard in her voice made him ache. The need to reassure her bore down on him, and he had to grip the steering wheel hard to keep himself from reaching for her. She wouldn’t welcome his touch. She’d made that clear earlier. “You will. Just not today.”

The temperature inside the truck had risen, thanks to a constant pouring of heat from the vents. Jackie stripped off his jacket and laid it on the seat between them. He knew the next time he wore it, he’d be able to smell her scent clinging to the lining. He looked forward to the intimacy as much as he dreaded it.

“I don’t belong there, you know. I belong in my old world. It’s the only place that makes sense.”

“I know you think you don’t belong with us, but you’re wrong. You can’t see it now, but one day you will be a fierce warrior.”