His breath came out in a shuddering sigh, from just that innocent caress. "All I am to my clan is muscle, so I have to be the best muscle I can be."
I curved my hands on either side of his waist, following along all that lean, hardworking muscle. Such a small touch, but it made him close his eyes and sigh. That reaction alone let me know just how long it had been since someone touched him. It made me sad for him. And then I felt something in the hallway, something hot and powerful, and angry . . . I turned back and went for my gun in its holster, but like Ethan's gun it was under my shirt. I was on one knee, my shirt still in the air as I raised my gun up to aim at the door. Ethan was going for his gun, but he wouldn't reach it in time.
Chapter Fourteen
MY FINGER WAS starting to pull the trigger as the door burst open, and I had a second to see that it was Alex in human form. If I'd been truly human I'd have shot him, but I had the reflexes to stop in time and aim the gun at the ceiling, though a moment later I wasn't sure I'd made the right choice.
I had a heartbeat to see him, a second to have that moment of frozen, crystal-hard vision, when adrenaline and violence slow everything down as if you have all the time in the world to do something, to see it coming. It's an illusion - if you see the same moment later on film, it's all so fast. But it let me see bits of things so clearly and the rest was lost. Alex's dark red hair was shorter than last time I'd seen him, almost shaved. He flashed yellow tiger eyes at me, his human face set in a snarl of rage as he rushed in a blur of speed and power at Ethan, who had his gun in his hand, but no time to aim, and if he had, would he have shot his prince?
Alex's body hit Ethan's and sent the other man back against the machinery behind us. Metal snapped, and groaned, as it broke underneath them. A harsh, coughing roar came out of Alex's human throat as he snarled into Ethan's face.
I was yelling, "Alex! No! Alex! No! Stop!" I aimed the gun at him, and moved with it aimed so that I had a clear head shot while he snarled into Ethan's face. I had the shot, but I couldn't take it. I'd kill Alex at this distance, and he was my tiger to call, which meant when he died, I might die too, and so might everyone that I was metaphysically tied to. Fuck!
I holstered the gun and let it fall to the floor, and went to them. I had the angle now and could see that one of the metal pipes had pierced Ethan's side. There was blood all over that nice upper body. Fuck! I couldn't risk shooting Alex, but I wouldn't stand there and watch him tear Ethan apart either. I went back to my pile of weapons for a blade. But I'd forgotten what Ethan was, all he was to his clan: muscle.
His fist moved in a pale blur and Alex staggered back, blood flying from his face. Alex fell to the floor, catching himself on one hand. Ethan began to drag himself down the pipe. The sight of it twisted my stomach; God, it had to hurt. His power rolled off him in waves, and three of my tigers loved the taste of it, the heat of it, the disaster of it, because just watching Ethan force his body down that pipe in his side, I knew that when he got off that pipe the fight would be on.
I stepped between them, which if I'd meant to fight either of them would have been stupid, but I wasn't planning on slugging it out with either of them. I didn't so much drop my metaphysical shields as just find the anger that always seemed to be bubbling right below the surface of me. Feeding on sex was Jean-Claude's vampire line, the line that descended from Belle Morte, Beautiful Death, but anger, that was mine. The anger came to me as if it were a warm shower to touch and caress my skin. It felt so good