Binding Ties The Sentinel Wars - Shannon K. Butcher Page 0,95

pile that she was in no condition to fight.

“It’s Joseph,” she heard him say. “Lyka’s in pain. Some Slayer thing, she says. What do I do to help her?”

Andrea’s voice came through the line, angry and indecipherable.

“I can’t lock her in a room. We’re not at Dabyr. We’re out looking for Eric.”

Joseph stroked her back as her muscles squeezed down to fit someone with a much smaller frame than hers. She tried to pant through it, but it didn’t do squat to help.

“It’s a long story,” said Joseph. “All I need to know is what to do for her. She’s suffering. As her mate, it’s my duty to make it stop.”

Joseph paused while Andreas went on a furious rant.

“You knew this could happen when you sent her to me,” said Joseph. “You knew she was a Theronai and didn’t tell me. I’m the one who should be pissed that you hid what she was from me. She and I could have started bonding weeks ago.”

Andreas’s rant continued, but he was losing steam fast, likely dealing with his own need.

“No, it’s permanent. No way out.”

After a few seconds, the tone of Andreas’s voice changed to one of weary acceptance.

Joseph’s hand involuntarily tightened at the back of her neck. “Seriously? That will fix her?”

“Yes.” The word came through loud and clear, and, instantly, Lyka knew her brother had ratted her out.

Chapter 34

Joseph had always known that the Slayers were private people, keeping to themselves and protecting their secrets with an almost cultlike ferocity, but even that hadn’t prepared him for what Andreas had told him.

“You’re mated to my sister now, so you might as well know how to deal with this. It’s going to happen every time the moon is full, at least when she’s not pregnant.” The Slayer’s voice was tight with pain. “She needs sex.”

“Seriously?” said Joseph. “That will fix her?”

“Yes. If you do it right, it will. But she’s fertile now, so unless you’re both ready for young, wear a fucking rubber.” There was a muted groan of pain, as if he’d covered the phone with his hand.

“Is that’s what’s wrong with you, too?” asked Joseph.

“Yeah, but I’ll live. Just take care of my sister and you’ll live, too. I don’t like it that you let her leave the protective walls of Dabyr.”

“Neither do I, but it wasn’t exactly my decision. She tricked me.”

“Lyka is good like that.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Gotta go, man. Hurt my sister, and I’ll kill you.” Andreas hung up.

Joseph looked down at Lyka, who was doing her best to absorb her knees into her chest. Pain trickled out of her through the luceria. She was shaking, pale.

He couldn’t stand to see her like this.

“Andreas told me what to do,” he said.

She opened one eye, revealing a narrow pupil and plenty of fury. “Keep your hands off. I’ll be fine.”

She looked anything but, and even if she hadn’t, he could feel a little sliver of what she did.

It wasn’t good. It reminded him far too much of the pain he carried around before she’d taken his luceria and freed him of it. The least he could do was return the favor.

And if it got his hands on her sweet body in the bargain, then all the better.

“I know why you’re afraid,” he said. “You don’t have to be. I’ll protect you.” If she wasn’t ready to have a kid, then he’d respect that. He didn’t have any condoms, but there were other ways to take care of her. “I won’t come inside you.”

She looked up at him with a feral light glowing in her catlike eyes. “You don’t understand,” she said. “But you will.”

And then she pounced.

She shoved him back to the floor of the tree house in a move that was far more suited for combat than foreplay. She landed straddling his hips, her hot hands splayed across his naked chest. Her mouth covered his in a kiss so demanding, he could feel the air being pulled from his lungs. Her tongue thrust into his mouth, giving him a taste of wild need.

The mental shields she’d been using to keep him out crumbled, and a torrent of emotions came spilling out. All the pent-up desire that had been rolling around in her for hours broke free and invaded him, becoming part of him.

He was instantly hard, aching with the need to bury himself in her over and over.

This was no gentle desire. It was all jagged angles and hot, sharp edges.