Heart and Soul (18 page)

He didn’t make it far; he tripped over Leandra’s balled-up body and ended up on his ass, staring into her ashen face. The blood trickling from her mouth almost hypnotized him, and he reached out to touch her. Just before his fingers would have touched her skin, he curled his hand into a fist and swore under his breath.

Closing his eyes, he blocked off the flow of power that was draining Leandra’s life away. He clamped his shields down, and just like that, the storm of fear that had been choking the room was gone.

Shoving to his feet, he stared at Leandra, watching as her body contorted while she starting coughing up blood. Once the spasms passed, her eyes opened, but she wouldn’t look at him. Slowly, Malachi looked toward Kelsey.

Her hands were scorched and red, covered with blisters that were already healing. Witches didn’t burn as fast as vampires did, but they did burn. Guilt seared his gut as he realized what she had been ready to do to stop him.

She started toward him, but Malachi shook his head, and without a word, he disappeared.

 

 

LEANDRA EASED AWAY FROM LORI’S HANDS AS SHE repeated, “I’m fine.”

She wasn’t, not really. Her entire body felt like she had been beaten black and blue, and she was so damned weak, she couldn’t support her own weight for more than a minute.

“What in the hell were you thinking?”

Leandra looked up and met Eli’s gaze. She swallowed against the knot in her throat, turning to bury her face against Mike’s chest. “Leave it alone for a while, Eli,” Mike said, his hand cupping the back of her neck. But she knew he was wondering the same damn thing. She could feel the rage inside of him, hand in hand with the fear.

Could she make them understand? Was it insane? Hell, there was a part of her that didn’t understand either. A part that was almost frozen from fear. She turned her head a little, until she could see Morgan’s bed.

The woman hadn’t moved at all. She looked pretty much as Leandra remembered, paler, a little thinner. But she wasn’t the same. In her gut, Leandra knew that.

Gently, she pushed away from Mike, bracing herself before she shoved herself to her feet. “You need to sit down,” Mike said, catching her arm as she swayed back and forth on her feet.

Wordlessly, Leandra shook her head and started for the bed. The room spun around her, and she groaned, pressing the heel of her palm against her temple as pain splintered through her head. “Damn it, Lee,” Mike snarled.

Stubbornly, she continued toward the bed and finally, Mike just wrapped an arm around her waist and half carried her to the bed. Leandra sagged against the bed, closing her eyes for a minute as she tried to steady herself.

Words circled through her head. An image of the Hunter from her dreams swam before her eyes, and Leandra could hear her voice: “
I am bound to her for some reason.”

Whether she was comatose or not, if the woman on the bed was still Morgan, Leandra would have felt that. She reached out, touching her fingers to a smooth, pale cheek.

“This isn’t Morgan,” Leandra murmured quietly. “If Malachi had killed her, he would have been killing an innocent woman.” It was more than that, but Leandra wasn’t certain any of them would believe her.

“Can you explain that?”

Leandra met Eli’s gaze with a hesitant smile and shook her head. “No. I can’t. But I know I’m right.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

As Leandra let go of Lori’s wrist, she fell back against the pillows piled at the head of the bed. The silence in the room was tense, and Lori didn’t speak as she quickly bound her wrist and left.

As the door closed behind her, Leandra looked across the room and found Mike staring at her with a stony, unreadable gaze. “Feel any better?” he asked quietly.

“A bit. Eli said I’ll have to feed three or four times daily for a few days.”

Mike didn’t comment, just turned his head and stared out the window. Long, tense moments of silence passed, and Leandra was ready to scream with frustration when Mike spoke again, “He nearly killed you.”

“I know that,” she said testily. “But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t let him kill her.”

“I would have been fine with it if you did.”

Leandra blew out a breath and crossed her arms over her chest. “I did what I had to.”

“I know that,” Mike bit out. “But . . .”

His voice trailed away, and he lowered his lids, hiding his gaze from her. He folded his arms across his chest, his entire body tight with tension. There was a nervous energy simmering just below the surface; one wrong word and Leandra had a feeling that energy would tear free.

“But what?”

“I know you did what you feel you had to,” he said quietly. His voice was a low, rough growl, a sure sign of just how fragile his control had become. “But he was killing you—and I couldn’t stop it. There’s not a damned thing I could have done.”

Ahhhh . . .
Like a piece of a puzzle had fallen into place, she understood. Mike had felt helpless, and he tolerated that about as well as she did.

“I had to rely on somebody else to save you.”

Kicking free of the covers, Leandra sat up on the edge of the bed. She made sure the room wasn’t going to start spinning before she stood up. She didn’t want to try to walk to him, only to fall on her face halfway there. The room stayed steady though, and when she pushed to her feet, she only swayed once.

He turned his head toward her, and she held his gaze with her own as she crossed the room toward him. “Relying on others isn’t something I do very well. It sucks, I know.”

A faint smile curled his lips but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s putting it mildly.”

He opened his arms as she reached him, and she moved into them, cuddling against his chest. “None of them were able to reach me, though, Mike. When it really mattered. You were the only one able to do that.” And she wasn’t just talking about when she was trapped in that dreamworld, either. Even before Morgan had come onto the scene, nothing any of them had done had chipped through the ice she had wrapped herself in.

“Is that supposed to make it all better?” he asked.

Leaning back, Leandra stared into his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe this will.” Rising on her toes, she pressed her lips to his, a gentle, chaste kiss. Then she whispered against his mouth, “I love you.”

His body stiffened against hers as his hands came up, framing her face and holding her still as he pulled away. Dark, turbulent gray eyes stared into hers. His thumb trailed across her lower lip, a soft, absent caress that sent hot little shivers dancing down her spine.

“I don’t think I heard you,” Mike said, his face expressionless. “Can you say that again?”

Blood rushed to her cheeks under his intense stare. But she didn’t look away, even though she wanted to. He always made her feel so naked, like he could see clear through to her soul. “I love you,” she said, and her voice cracked a little at the end. Forcing a smile, she asked, “Did you hear me that time?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured, lowering his head and pressing his lips to hers. His hands tightened in her hair. “Can you say it again?”

This time, Leandra laughed. It bubbled out of her as she wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her body to his. “I’ll say it as much as you want to—well, for a little while.” Cuddling her face in the curve of his neck, she licked the smooth skin just above the pounding of his pulse, breathing in the warm, ripe scent of his body. “I love you. I love you. I love you. How is that?”

His hands slid down to her waist, and the breath left her body in a rush as he spun her around and pressed her to the wall, crushing his body to hers. “Again,” he demanded as he tore away the white T-shirt. The plain white cotton was the only thing she wore, and it fell around her in shreds, leaving her naked.

“I love you.”

One hard hand, hot and demanding, closed over her hip while he used his other hand to tear open his jeans. “One more time. At least,” he rasped as he spun her again and lifted her hips in his hands, guiding her thighs around his waist.

She locked her ankles together at the base of his spine, arching up as Mike pushed inside her with one hard, greedy thrust. “I love you.”

He pulled out, surged back inside. His balls slapped against her, a light, teasing touch, as he raked his teeth down her neck and repeated, “Again.”

“I love you.”

He withdrew slowly, making it a teasing caress that had her whimpering and arching against him. She clung to him, her nails raking his flesh, sobbing out his name. Each deep thrust was rough and greedy, followed by a slow, teasing withdrawal. “Say it again.”

It became a litany: those hard, demanding thrusts, followed by a rough, urgent command, and that slow, teasing withdrawal.

Mike palmed her breast, pushing it upward as he dipped his head and took one dark, swollen nipple in his mouth. He growled around her flesh—although he didn’t say anything, she knew what he wanted. “I love you—”

She could have said it a hundred times, a thousand, and Mike knew it wouldn’t be enough. Spinning away from the wall, he carried her to the bed and laid her upper body back on the bed, staring down into her eyes as he leaned over her. Slowing his thrusts down until he was barely rocking inside her, Mike hooked his arms under hers and threaded his hands through her hair. She convulsed around him, the tight, slippery wet muscles of her sex tightening around his cock in a series of slow, maddening caresses.

The smooth line of her neck arched as her head fell back, and Mike lowered his head, pressing his lips to her mocha-colored flesh. He felt her pulse leap under his lips, and he bit her there gently. Lifting his head, Mike stared down into her face. Her lashes were low, hiding her eyes from him. “Look at me,” he ordered softly.

The thick black fringe of her lashes lifted, revealing the glow of her topaz eyes. A slow, feline smile curved her lips, and her voice was a low, sexy purr as she murmured, “I love you, Mike.”

“Kitten . . .” he growled against her lips. He slid one hand down to cup her ass, lifting her hips higher. He changed the angle of his thrusts so that he stroked over the knotted bud of her clit with each stroke. “Come for me.”

As though she had just been waiting for him to say it, he felt the beginning tremors of climax shudder through her body. Her scent intensified, flooding his entire system. “That’s it,” he crooned, swiveling his hips in the cradle of her thighs. His skin tingled as his own climax edged closer, like a fire-breathing dragon far too small for his skin, stretching and burning him.

As she screamed out his name and climaxed under him, it boiled out of control and spilled out of him in a torrent. Too much, too hot. Mike roared out her name, the sound of it muffled against her flesh as he lowered his head. Sinking his teeth into her neck, he bit down, holding her in place.

And as he emptied himself, he heard her whisper once more, “I love you.”

 

 

THE AIR WAS COLD ENOUGH TO BURN HIS LUNGS, HAD he needed to breathe.

Malachi stood on the edge of the beach, staring into the ocean. Huge chunks of ice dotted the otherwise calm, smooth surface.

Alaska in early winter was a stark, harsh land. For reasons that he didn’t understand, it had always been a balm to his soul, but there was no peace here for him now.

Malachi suspected he wouldn’t find peace anywhere for a long, long while. If ever.

He had blood on his hands, but it hadn’t ever bothered him like it did now. The lives he had taken over the years rarely disturbed him. Maybe because he’d spent so much of his human life in a struggle to simply stay alive, he understood that with life, there was death. And he would rather take the lives of the predators than let the predators take the lives of innocents.

He liked to think that he had moved beyond the things that were haunting him. Mal had learned over the past few days just how wrong he was.

The soft, broken gasp of pain from Kelsey as she risked her own death by fire just to stop him.

The blood on Leandra’s mouth as he stole back the life he had given her when he fed her and brought her over.

Yeah, things could still haunt him.

This was going to haunt him for a long, long time.

The wind started to blow, the icy blast cutting into his skin. So damned cold, it felt like a thousand knives stabbing into his skin. He welcomed the pain.

Better the pain than the guilt, any day.

 

 

BRIANNA CLOSED HER CHART WITH A SIGH AND PUSHED away from the desk.

She was going to die of boredom before too much longer. With a glance at the clock, she headed out of the room a few minutes early. Eli was going to have to get another nurse here. No way she could keep this up for too much longer.

The door closed behind her with a soft click just as the woman on the bed shifted and lifted a golden fringe of lashes, revealing eyes as blue as the midsummer sky.