Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 05 (4 page)

“Looks to me like the perfect time to argue,” she shot
back. “I’m a soldier, Kier. Same as you. I don’t need to hide behind your
back.”

Kierland knew it was true, especially after seeing how
fiercely Morgan had fought during the battle in England the month before. But
he was still…concerned. That grueling confrontation with the Casus had simply
been too close. He and his friends had left the fight barely standing, and
they’d been lucky they hadn’t lost anyone. Another minute and someone from
their group would have undoubtedly gone down with a serious injury, if not
worse. But they’d fought with the sheer determination to do whatever it took to
keep their friends and loved ones protected, and Kierland knew that the
fortitude and strength that could be tapped into when fighting for the ones you
cared about was something that the Casus would never understand.

The jackal in the center of the group had obviously
been given their description over the phone, because he scanned the crowd with
slitted black eyes before pinpointing that feral gaze on Kierland. With a curl
of his lip, the shifter said something to the man at his right, jerking his
chin in their direction. Though the crowd had stopped dancing for the second
time that night, the music continued to blare through the speakers. Just as a
heavy, bone-jarring drumbeat began to blast through the club, the jackals
rushed at them like a great battering wall of fury. Kierland took a deep
breath, then gave himself over to his natural instincts as the bloodthirsty
battle began.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Morgan
fighting with the graceful poise and agility that he’d come to expect from her.
He still didn’t understand how the guards had been able to get the better of
her just before he’d lost his mind and kissed her. He’d seen her fight enough
times to know that it didn’t matter if she was outnumbered and outsized. She
was always fast and wily enough to avoid the brunt of blows directed at her,
while delivering a maximum amount of damage. For whatever reason, she’d
faltered earlier, but she was in prime form now, ripping through her targets
with an efficiency that he couldn’t help but admire.

And it was strange, how fluidly he and Morgan had
always fought together, when they chose to stop bickering long enough to
actually focus on the other’s actions. Still, it was a bloody, messy brawl, and
the bastards got in some good shots against them both, though Kierland tried
hard to put himself in the way of any slashing claws that were aimed for the
female Watchman.

He didn’t know how long the fight might have gone on,
if the sudden sound of distant police sirens hadn’t filled the air. Though no
one from the crowd had bothered to offer them any assistance, someone had
apparently thought to call the police.

Obviously in no mood to tangle with the local human
authorities, the jackals snarled their intent to “finish them off later” and
disappeared through the front of the club. Kierland waited until the bastards
were out of sight, then shifted his hands back into human form and wrapped his
fingers back around Morgan’s delicate wrist. “Let’s go,” he grunted, quickly
moving with the exodus of patrons who were heading for the rear exit and
choosing escape from the police over the chance for another dance.

Shuffling out with the others into the cobblestoned
street, Kierland instantly looked to the skies to ensure that nothing was
preparing to swoop down on them from above. There were too many damn dangers
for Morgan to be out on her own, and the Death-Walkers were especially a problem,
considering the ones they’d encountered so far were able to take a vaporous
form that enabled them to fly.

“You got a flask on you?” he asked. They’d started
carrying flasks of salted holy water after learning that the combination could
be used to scare off the Death-Walkers. Unfortunately, they still didn’t have a
clue how to kill the creatures, but Kierland was hoping his sources would be
able to come up with something soon.

“I’ve got my flask,” she told him, sticking close to
his side as he pulled her through the crowd.

“It was stupid for you to come here,” he grumbled,
keeping his hold on her wrist. “Too much of a risk.”

“Yeah, well, a phone call wouldn’t have done the trick.
You’d have just run off before I could finish what I’ve come to say.”

Kierland couldn’t imagine what that could actually be,
but forced himself to be patient until they were someplace quiet and out of
danger. And in the meantime, he still had plenty to say about what she’d done.
“The point is that you shouldn’t have left Harrow House for any reason,” he
growled. “It’s the only place that’s safe right now. I can’t believe Quinn—”

“Your best friend doesn’t have any say in what I do.
God, Kier. I’m not a child.”

Ha. As if he thought of her as a child, even with that
new haircut she was sporting. She’d had long bangs cut into all that straight,
shoulder-length brown hair since he’d left England. It made her look younger,
like the girl he’d known all those years ago, and his gut clenched at the
memory. But he sure as hell didn’t think of her as a kid.

Itchy. That was how Morgan Cantrell made him feel, as
if he had a million freaking ants in his pants, all of them skittering over his
skin. Tall and slender, with shadowy gray eyes and a heart-shaped face that
looked as if it’d been carved from fine porcelain, she was undeniably
beautiful. She had the firm, lean physique of a woman who was a trained
fighter, and yet, she still carried a sensual, earthy aura of femininity that
was hell on any man’s libido. Not to mention how it affected the predatory side
of a male’s nature. Kierland’s wolf had always been mesmerized by her, to the
point that it all but howled every time she walked into a bloody room.

In fact, it was the wolf’s fascination—its incessant
craving for a taste of her—that had finally sent him slumming tonight in the
first place.

Kierland didn’t resort to the club scene often, but
these were desperate times. He’d been forced to be close to Morgan for too damn
long and had needed to get away. Though he’d barely said two words to her in
the past month, he’d felt her presence at Harrow House as if she were a part of
him, plastered against his skin. When he’d slept, she’d filled his dreams, and
his waking hours had been spent constantly wondering where she was…what she was
doing. It’d driven him crazy, the way she got on with the others, her
acceptance a given, as if she was already a part of their growing unit, when
all he wanted was to be rid of her.

The sharp squall of the approaching police sirens
filled the air, and he moved his grip to her hand, pulling her along behind him
as he started running down the street. “Come on. I have a car parked a few
blocks away.”

They cut around the next building, ducking into a dark
alleyway. He concentrated on looking for any potential dangers as they sped
down the narrow passage, and tried not to think about the woman running along
behind him.

“You’re going to have one heck of a hangover,” she
told him, making a soft sniffing sound.

“Doubtful.”

“Haven’t you ever heard that liquor can get a man into
trouble? It’s stupid to get drunk,” she lectured him, “especially these days.
You need to stay alert.”

Kierland snorted. “I’d agree with you, if I was
actually drunk.”

“Come on,” she drawled. “You smell like a distillery.
I’m getting high just from the fumes.”

In a dry tone, he said, “That’s because I had a bottle
of whiskey cracked over my head back at the club.”

“No way. Who did it?”

His tone was even drier than before. “I think one of
the blondes objected to the way I was fighting her brothers.”

She snickered, snuffling something that sounded like
“Classic” under her breath. Then she said, “Still, that doesn’t mean you’re
sober. I saw you with a drink.”

“A drink. As in one. I weigh a solid 230, Morgan. It
takes a helluva lot more than one drink to knock me on my ass.”

They turned out of the alley and onto a sidewalk that
bordered a wide, busy street. As they slowed to a fast walk, cars sped by,
throwing slashes of color across them with their headlights.

After a moment, she coughed, then said, “Are you, uh,
telling me that you’re not actually sauced?”

“’Fraid not.”

“Then what was that kiss about?” she burst out.

Ah, so that’s what has her so uptight, he thought,
running his tongue over his teeth. Damn it, he should’ve just gone with the
alcohol-induced-stupidity plea when he’d had the chance.

Without looking at her, Kierland rolled his shoulder and
answered, “I was just trying to get your attention. At the time, it seemed like
the only way to get you to stop terrorizing my date.”

She pulled her hand from his grip and crossed her
arms. “You mean dates.”

“I’d planned to settle on one,” he said reasonably.
And it was the truth. He’d just needed a female for the night to help him burn
off some steam. Ironically, the swans had appealed to him simply because they
were so unlike the woman currently giving him hell.

The woman he’d been trying hard to forget.

“One of them, huh? How noble,” she offered with a
heavy dose of sarcasm. “And like I said before, they started it.”

Kierland slid her a curious glance from the corner of
his eye. “You usually aren’t so easily riled.”

“And you usually don’t go for the drug scene,” she
shot back, her slight shrug pulling the fabric of her sweater tight across her
breasts. They weren’t heavy or overly large, but a man would have had to be
blind not to notice that they were…well, perfect.

And Kierland, unfortunately, had excellent eyesight.

“I wasn’t there for the drugs,” he muttered, ripping
his attention away from her. He stared straight ahead, determined not to look
at either her or her perfect breasts, because once he started, he couldn’t be
entirely certain that he’d be able to stop. She might be one of the most
irritating individuals he’d ever known on the inside, regardless of their
species, but he couldn’t deny that on the outside she was exactly what he liked
in a woman.

It was just one of those maddening anomalies in the
universe that made it clear someone up there either had a really sick sense of
humor…or just got a kick outta screwing with some people’s lives—because there
was no doubt that the world would’ve been a hell of a lot simpler for Kierland
if he’d gotten off on short blondes, instead of leanly muscled brunettes with
prickly attitudes.

“And at any rate,” she murmured, “I wasn’t terrorizing
your dates when you kissed me. I was getting mauled by one of their bastard
bodyguards.”

He grunted in response, and walked faster, figuring he
had a better chance of getting her to shut up if he kept her busy trying to
keep up with him. “Get in,” he ordered a moment later, jerking his chin toward
the sleek black Spider that sat parked on the curb.

A soft whistle fell from her lips as she ran her hand
over the cold, shiny roof. “Nice. When’d you pick this up?”

“A few days ago.” She climbed into the passenger seat,
and Kierland slid behind the wheel. It was a testament to his mood that not
even the low purr of the V6 could soothe his nerves when he started the engine.

“How’d you get the Consortium to approve the
purchase?”

“Actually, I paid for this one myself,” he explained,
and she accepted the news with a quiet nod, since she knew he and Kell had
inherited a near fortune from their grandfather.

“You always did like fast cars,” was all she said in
response, before fastening her seat belt.

He waited for her to make some scathing comment about
how he liked fast women, as well, but she seemed too absorbed in checking out
the Spider’s sleek interior, a low, almost sexual kind of murmur falling from
her lips as she ran her hands across the butter-soft leather of her seat.

Kierland ground his jaw, knowing he was in trouble
when he got off watching a woman fondle his car. Pulling out into the traffic,
he blurted out the first words that came into his mind. “You handled yourself
well back there against the jackals.”

MORGAN SEARCHED FOR ANY hidden sarcasm in the gruffly
spoken words, but couldn’t find any. It was a reflex reaction, since most
people, aside from her family, treated her like she was something inferior.
Kierland was one of the few exceptions. At least when she’d first met him. He’d
pushed her harder than the others in her class, expecting her to be better than
her peers, because in the field she would have to be if she wanted to survive.
And then he’d demanded that she go above and beyond even the highest
expectations of the academy. It’d made her feel foolishly special, until she’d
discovered that he’d secretly harbored doubts about her abilities. The
knowledge had been one more pain on top of many, and she had never forgotten.

Clearing her throat, she finally decided to be
magnanimous and said, “You weren’t too shabby yourself.”

In fact, she’d been mesmerized by his viciousness.
Though she’d seen Kierland fight on numerous occasions, it never failed to
amaze her how dangerously beautiful he was during combat, his body moving with
a powerful, animal-like grace that rendered him invincible. Tonight, he’d
slashed through the group with a ferociousness that she’d never seen from him
before, and it had been nothing short of breathtaking, her soldier senses still
humming with pleasure.