Impulse (8 page)

“It’s not complicated,” he’d say. “You can’t outrun us, so prevent us from running.”

He assured me that I had a better shot than a man would, because a male Chitah would hesitate before hurting a woman.

“Sweetie, you make it too fucking easy,” he growled.

I pulled out my blade.

His laugh was rough like the motor of an old pickup truck. “You think your puny little knife is going to faze me? Your mouth may be poisonous but your scent is exquisitely insecure.”

I saw his moves coming a mile away. After a few dodges, I sharpened my light and prepared to lay it on him. He must have sensed the change in my plan and, quicker than I could think, he pushed me against a wall and took hold of my wrists. The knife tumbled to the ground and he leaned in close, scraping his vile fangs across the soft flesh of my neck.

I shuddered, reminded that all four of his canines could kill me in a heartbeat while anything less meant I’d be paralyzed and at his disposal.

His breath stank of sour gum, and his callused hands squeezed the skin painfully around my wrists.

“How about I torture you for a little while?” He wrinkled his nose. “Nah, then I wouldn’t have the box. Tell you what, let’s make this
fun
.” The pitch in his voice sent a chill through my spine like a warning. “I’ve seen who you’re tramping around with, so allow me to send him my regards.”

My eyes squeezed shut in anticipation of a bite to my jugular; I’d seen what those canines could do and knew that a Chitah never gave an empty threat. Instead, he threw off a scent so pungent and thick that it coated my tongue. I wrinkled my nose in disgust and turned my head as he laughed.

Logan’s scent was never that strong, nor vile. It was pure ambrosia. Chitahs also had the ability to mark a woman with a scent so undetectable that it worked as a repellent toward other Breed men. I asked Logan if he ever used it on me and he never admitted to it.

He never denied it either.

This was my first experience with another Chitah’s raw power, and it was noxious and frightening all at once.

His grip loosened with an overzealous confidence that I was a meek woman who would buckle beneath his dominance. I punched him in the throat, dropped to my knees, grabbed my dagger, and with one clean swipe sliced it across his Achilles’ heel.

Both of them—leaving him incapacitated.

“Good luck if you can bend over far enough to lick
that
wound. Tell Nero I’m not his bitch.”

But the Chitah had already fallen to the ground, clutching his ankles and screaming in pain. I flashed across the empty parking lot and it was one of those moments you dread, like a cliché scene from a movie, when I realized that I had dropped the car keys in the alley. A text came in from Logan.

Logan: I just found out about the bombing. Levi is joining us and we’re on our way.

I asked him to pick me up at a twenty-four-hour diner at the end of the street. It took me a few seconds to flash there and I fell against the wall and caught my breath.

A silver car eased up with Logan in the driver’s seat.

Overall, I behaved as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Nope, no lunatic shoved me around in an alleyway and sprayed me with armpit love.

Levi—Logan’s younger brother—had stepped out of the passenger side to switch to the back seat when he crinkled his nose and glared at me.

“Logan, give me a minute,” he said, slamming the door.

All of the Cross brothers inherited the same penetrating gaze. Although his features were rugged and quite different from Logan’s, with his short hair and thick build, there was something easy about Levi. It was his generous smile and the way his bright eyes arched like golden moons. His tattoo was not dangerous, but Latin for “truth.” Despite how opposite they were, Logan and Levi had a tight relationship.

His brows knitted and he lowered his voice. “Who marked you? Do you realize that if Lo catches a whiff of what you’re wearing he’s going to flip his switch?”

A couple crossing the street distracted Levi’s attention. The man lit up a smoke while his girlfriend’s heels clicked on the asphalt as she hurried toward the ice-cream shop with the pink neon sign.

“I’ll explain everything in the car,” I said in a tired voice.

“The hell you will. I’m not letting him
anywhere
near you,” Levi cautioned, stretching out his words. “Turn around and flash your ass off; I’ll cover you.”

“You want me to run? That’s ridiculous!”

Logan leaned over the passenger seat with a hard stare.

“I’m not playing around. Look at me, female.” Startled, I stepped back. “You said you didn’t want him to revert back to being a murderer? Then you better run like hell, because that man will paint blood on the moon when he finds out another male has marked you.”

A chill ran down my spine. Could something so small push Logan over the edge? I didn’t waste time to ponder and flashed around the corner. An old fire escape hung down from an apartment. I couldn’t outrun a Chitah, but maybe he’d lose my scent. Halfway up, I heard the ladder rattle below as Logan was right on my tail.

I leapt onto the roof, fell to one knee, and jogged to the other side. The door that led inside the building was padlocked.

“
Fuck
,” I hissed.

“Silver, what’s come over you? Stop running from me!” Anger fueled Logan’s voice.

I slowly pivoted around. Logan raked his fingers through his hair and paced toward me. As the space closed between us, the back of my legs bumped against the ledge of the building. A gust of wind blew his long hair to the right and he stopped—eyes locked on my feet.

“Don’t move, Silver. Do you want to tell me why Levi pinned me to the sidewalk while you ran away?”

I swung my leg over the low wall when he stepped forward. He abruptly stopped, flicking his eyes to the perilous drop several stories below. A car horn sounded a million miles below us and a jet raced overhead.

“Stay where you are,” I warned. “Don’t come any closer.”

Logan tilted his head to the side and his jaw hung lax as he struggled to pick up my scent. The wind cooled my cheeks as it gusted from his direction.

In a split second, it shifted.

Wild strands of black hair rippled in front of my face and tangled together. That’s when his eyes widened and Logan drew in a deep breath.

The visceral look on his face caused me to lean back. Deadly canines punched out and Logan flipped his switch, becoming a slave to instinct. His malicious obsidian gaze reminded me of what it felt like to be prey in the eyes of a hunter.

I held my hands out defensively.

Silence blanketed the rooftop. The air never felt so crisp and it was the first time in a long time that I was afraid of Logan.

My legs began to shake as the excess energy within me spiraled into a vacuum. Typically, it warranted nothing more than a catnap. Leveling down was Mage 101, but it was a little difficult to concentrate on controlling my energy when a man I cared about was looking at me as if he wanted to rip me to shreds.

Maybe I wouldn’t die from the fall, but as I glanced down at hard concrete below, I had second thoughts about jumping. I became disoriented, weightless, and suddenly saw the stars tumble as I fell backward. We were six stories up and I was about to become sidewalk art.

Logan surged forward with blinding speed and swung me around, placing me safely at his feet. He ran his nose up the length of my body and unfastened my blade, tasting the residual blood on the tip.

And just as suddenly as the whole thing started, the darkness in his eyes melted away. His primal mind relinquished control either because there was no imminent danger to me, or Logan was strong enough to push through it. Levi’s heavy boots crunched on the rooftop when he slowly paced in our direction.

“Hey brother, everything’s cool,” Levi said reassuringly, holding his arms wide. His eyes darted between the bloody knife and me. A Chitah wouldn’t harm a female, but I was also a Mage and Logan spent most of his life hunting down and killing my kind.

Logan rose to his feet and angrily threw his arm forward. The dagger embedded in a plank of wood that boarded up a small window by the door. Without a word, he lifted me into his arms.

“Put me down, Mr. Cross,” I protested. Not that I could fight him; his grip was strong and my will was weak.

“I’m taking the female home,” he announced to Levi.

His
home.

Chapter 6

Levi drove while Logan held me in his lap in the backseat of the car.
I napped against his shoulder, too weary to speak. Levi dropped us off at Logan’s condo and went home on foot.

It was a charming neighborhood—quiet. One I could imagine myself living in if Justus would ever move out of the sticks.

Logan carried me inside and we moved through the darkened house into a bathroom where he flipped on the light. The customized tub on the left was large and well-used, judging by the packages of salts on the ledge. He set me down and paced straight ahead, disappearing behind shower wall made of brown stones. The hot water squeaked on. I watched him with timid eyes when he knelt down before me and tucked his fingers inside of my jeans with the intent of removing them.

“Wait,” I said, catching his hand.

Logan lifted his eyes to mine and pulled hard enough that the button popped off and rolled across the floor. There was nothing gentlemanly about his touch. He handled me in a familiar way—like a man who had full rights to a woman.

First my shoes, then socks, and finally he stripped away my jeans and tossed them into a wastebasket.

My heart galloped with uncertainty.

Goose bumps skimmed over my arms when he pulled off my thin shirt. When his hands reached around to unlatch my bra, I realized that Logan was about to strip me down without so much as a kiss. This wasn’t romance—this was clinical. When his fingers pulled the straps of my bra, I crossed my arms and glared at his shoes.

Logan lifted my chin with the crook of his finger. “I don’t expect you to understand my actions, but I will
not
have another male’s scent on my female.”

My heart slowed down, submitting to the power behind his words. Logan tilted his head to the side, looking at me with the same predatory eyes as the night we met.

“Another male has violated you with his scent, and I’m going to remove these dirty clothes from your body. I intend to wash you clean,” he said in a voice so caged that it was as if an animal was prowling behind his words.

“Logan, I can’t just get naked in front of a man unless… unless it’s for the right reasons.”

I was scared. Plain and simple. I could barely read the intentions of a human man, let alone a Chitah who was led by impulse, and the possessive look in his eyes made me hesitate.

He extended his long arm, cupped the back of my neck, and coaxed me forward.

“Let me make something clear. I’m drunk with your scent and when I’m near you, I find it difficult to control my instincts.” His eyes slowly closed as if he were regaining control. “My body is hungry for you, Mage. Your kiss replenishes all the energy spent in restraining myself from advancing on you. It quenches my thirst and leaves me hungry for more.” The black rim around his eyes swelled as if an internal battle raged. “I have no intention of taking you tonight, but my hands
will
be all over your body.”

“But your eyes will not. That’s my condition,” I said. “This is embarrassing. Do you think that I can parade myself in front of a man so easily—one I haven’t been intimate with? Then you don’t know me; I don’t care what kind of women you normally date.”

His heated gaze soaked in every conceivable inch of my body and he stepped back, admiring the view with a lingering pause.

My jaw clenched. “What are you doing, Mr. Cross?”

I’d never been appraised like that before, and his eyes devoured me. He sensed my intent to leave and stepped in front of the door, removing his hair from the band that tied it at the nape of his neck.

“Undressing the rest of you with my eyes, Miss Silver,” he confessed with a throaty growl.

Logan licked the corner of his mouth, savoring the last crumbs of visual temptation before he reached out and flipped off the light.

“Problem solved,” he murmured darkly.

I jumped when his fingers grazed across my stomach and slid down, hooking at the hem of my panties. He slowly pulled them to my ankles and I reached for his shoulders to balance myself as I stepped out of them.

Bare shoulders, but he kept his pants and shoes on. I had never felt more exposed than I did standing naked in the dark in front of Logan.

“Go wait outside; I can do this by myself,” I insisted.

When he leaned in, his breath caressed my neck. “Not up for debate.”

“We’re going to trip and kill ourselves,” I argued. “It’s slippery in there and—”

“You’re right,” he said, mouth sliding closer to my ear. “Then we would be lying wet and almost naked together… in the dark.”