Blood Lust - Alexandra Ivy Page 0,66

Why was she so determined to leave him?

“Go where?” he demanded.

There was a long, stubborn silence before she allowed him to glimpse the aching defeat in the depths of her velvet eyes.

“I won’t let this happen,” she whispered.

The truth hit him with the force of a sledgehammer to the gut, nearly sending him to his knees. She’d been running not to get away from him. But because she intended to...

No. He couldn’t even allow the thought to fully form. Already the air was sizzling with the heat of his fury, the ground vibrating beneath their feet.

He’d destroy the world if he let himself think about what might have happened if he hadn’t sensed she was lying.

“Shit.” His voice was a muted roar, his fingers unwittingly digging into her flesh. “There’s no way I’m letting you hurt yourself.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Bas.”

He jerked her forward, wrapping her in his arms so tightly he knew it must be difficult for her to breathe.

He couldn’t help it. He needed to feel her pressed against him.

So close she couldn’t possibly escape.

“I told you no,” he snarled. “That’s final.”

She trembled, her head lying against his chest. “This isn’t your decision,” she said softly.

His head lowered so he could bury his face in the curve of her neck, breathing deep of her sweet scent.

“I just made it my decision,” he informed her.

“Then you’ll condemn Valhalla to death. Including Molly,” she rasped, a tear trailing down her cheek to drop onto his jaw. “Is that what you want?”

Of course it wasn’t what he wanted.

But he wasn’t sacrificing this female.

No. Fucking. Way.

* * *

Lana perched on the edge of the narrow bed, her fingers absently trailing through the silver strands of Molly’s hair.

She wasn’t sure what had lured her into the nursery at this late hour. After her meeting with Calder, she’d shared the information with Wolfe, who’d made the instant decision to attack the Brotherhood compound. He’d pointed out that they couldn’t risk the clairvoyant leading their enemy to Myst. Not when she had the potential to give them a weapon of mass destruction.

Lana had agreed, returning to her own office to alert the human authorities. She tried her best to keep her dealings with the mortals as civil as possible, and once she’d explained the group was a danger to her people, she managed to get their grudging agreement.

After that she’d eaten the meal that Wolfe had sent on a tray, knowing he would come pester her if she didn’t. Besides, she’d been starving.

But while she knew she should get some long-overdue rest, she found herself unable to sleep.

There was . . . something in the air.

A buzzing sense of urgency that refused to give her peace.

So instead of being tucked in her bed, she’d found herself wandering through the quiet hallways, her feet instinctively bringing her to this shadowed room.

If what the Master of Gifts had said was true, then this tiny girl had the ability to alter the course of high-bloods’ history.

She would be a source of fascination for the healers and scientists. A beacon of hope for those who craved power. And a focus of hate for those who feared the magic that ran through the blood of her people.

But for tonight she was just an innocent child.

Grimacing at the biting need to protect Molly from her inevitable future, Lana didn’t move when she caught the familiar scent of raw male power and heard the rumbling sound of Wolfe’s voice as he spoke to the healer who was in charge of the nursery.

Then, moving with the liquid silence that marked him as a Sentinel, he entered Molly’s private room to study her with a brooding expression.

“I thought I told you to go to bed,” he chastised, his voice low enough not to wake the child even as it held a thread of warning.

She arched a brow, able to see the chiseled beauty of his face despite the darkness. The warm copper skin. The midnight eyes. The proud thrust of his nose.

The arrogance that was so much a part of him.

“And I thought you were organizing our . . .” She hesitated, glancing toward Molly. The little girl looked as if she was deeply asleep, but she well knew appearances could be deceptive. “Visit to the compound?”

“Done.” Wolfe folded his arms over his chest. “We leave in an hour.”

A sharp fear twisted her heart as she rose to her feet. “What do you mean ‘we’?” She held his dark gaze. “Do you plan