Man, as God was his witness, he was going to have that bastard's last breath squeezing out between his palms.
With a sigh, Bella released his wrist and eased back against the shower wall, her lids low, her body limp. The silk of the dressing down was wet and it clung to her legs, outlining her thighs, her hips... the juncture in their midst.
As the it in his pants thickened in a rush, he wanted to cut the thing off.
Her eyes lifted to his. He half expected her to go into seizures or something, and he tried not to think of all that ugliness she'd swallowed.
"You all right?" he asked.
"Thank you," she said huskily. "Thank you for letting me-"
"Yeah, you can stop that." God, he wished he'd protected her from himself. The Mistress's very essence pumped through him, the echoes of that female's cruelty trapped within the endless circuit of his arteries and veins, going around and around his body. And Bella had just taken some of that poison into her gut.
He should have fought harder against this.
"I'm going to carry you to the bed," he said.
When she didn't object, he picked her up, took her out of the shower, and paused by the sink to grab a towel for her.
"The mirror," she murmured. "You covered the mirror. Why?"
He didn't answer her as he headed for the bedroom, couldn't bear to talk about the horrible things she'd Page 102
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endured.
"Do I look so bad to you?" she whispered into his shoulder.
When he got to the bed, he set her on her feet. "The robe is wet. You should take it off. Use this to dry if you want."
She took the towel and started to loosen the tie at her waist. He quickly turned around, listening to a rush of cloth, some flapping, then the shifting of sheets.
As she settled in, some very base, ancient core of him demanded that he lay with her now. And not as in hold her. He wanted to be inside of her, moving... releasing. Somehow that seemed like the right thing to do, to give her not just the blood in his veins but the completion of the sexual act, too.
Which was totally fucked up.
He dragged a hand over his hair, wondering where the hell that bad idea had come from. Man, he had to get away from her-Well, that was going to happen soon, wasn't it. She was leaving tonight. Leaving to go home.
His instincts went nuts, making him want to fight to make her stay in his bed. But screw that stupid, primeval core of him. He needed to go do his job. He needed to go out and find that one particular lesser and slaughter the fucker for her. That was what he had to do.
Z headed for the closet, pulled on a shirt, and armed up. As he grabbed for his chest holster, he considered asking her for a description of the slayer who'd taken her. Except he didn't want to traumatize her... No, he would get Tohr to ask, because the brother would handle that kind of thing well. When she was returned to her family tonight, he would have Tohr talk to her then.
"I'm heading out," Z said as he buckled the leather dagger holder across his ribs. "You want me to have Fritz bring you food before you go?"
When there was no answer, he looked around the door-jamb. She was on her side, watching him.
Another wave of heavy-handed instinct pounded through him.
He wanted to see her eat. After the sex, after he came inside of her, he wanted to have her eat food he'd brought her, and he wanted her to take the stuff from his hand. Hell, he wanted to go out and kill something for her, bring the meat back, cook it himself, and feed her until she was full. Then he wanted to lie beside her with a dagger in his hand, protecting her as she slept.
He ducked back into the closet. Man, he was going crazy. Straight-up loco.
"I'll have him bring you something," he said.
He checked the blades on his two black daggers, testing them on the inside of his forearm, slicing into his skin. As the pain tingled into his brain, he stared at the puncture marks Bella had left on his wrist.
Shaking himself back into focus, he put his gun holster around his hips and ran through his twin SIG Sauers.
Both nine-millimeters had full bullet loads, and there were another