about to do to her.
“Am I the only one getting a La Belle et La Bête vibe here?” Meara leaned against the doorway, studying her fingernails.
“Quit calling me a beast,” Ryan said, grinning at his sister. “Hey, you want to ride to my place and the hospital with me, to make Bane feel better? You can sleep in the car.”
Bane stood, stunned, as Ryan started toward Meara. She would do that? Invite his sister along, just to make him feel better?
He could never deserve this woman.
Fuck that.
He flashed forward and pulled her into his arms. “If you’re the beast, what does that make me, Doctor?”
“It’s Ryan, okay? You don’t have to keep calling me ‘Doctor’ after you, after we, well. You know.” She grinned, blushing. “And, duh. Obviously, you’re Beauty. It’s totally unfair, and quit making me admit it.”
“I’ll go with you. Meara can stay here.”
“You will not. You need to take care of Hunter. I’ll be perfectly fine,” she told him, eyes snapping with the beginning of temper.
He bent his head to hers and took her mouth in a searing kiss, not stopping until she was trembling in his arms, and then finally raised his head, his own temper flaring. “If you’re lying to me about returning, Heaven itself will not keep you safe.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “If I punch you in the head for these melodramatic comments, you won’t feel all that safe, either. I took boxing lessons once, you know.”
Before he could think of a single response to that, she kissed his cheek, twisted out of his arms, and ran down the stairs with Meara.
Luke followed Bane to the landing, and they watched Ryan and Meara chat with Mr. C and then head into the garage. Just before she left, Ryan smiled up at them and waved, and then she was gone.
“You know better,” Luke finally said.
“Don’t.”
“Claiming her? What were you thinking? What are you thinking? She’s human. She’ll grow old and hate you when you don’t. Or, worse, she’ll beg you to Turn her and…”
Bane waited for the rest of the sentence. Was unsurprised when it never came. “And she’ll die. Like your lady did, Luke. It’s been fifty years. Don’t you think you could take a chance again?”
Luke’s laughter singed the air with its bitterness. “Like you did? What happened the last time you fell in love?”
The last time Bane had thought he was in love. With a woman who’d had all of Ryan’s fire but none of her goodness. She’d betrayed him. Tried to kill him, so she and her lover could rob him of all he had.
He’d killed the lover but left her alive to suffer for it.
And then she’d died in a fire. In the fire.
And he’d never trusted a woman with his heart since.
“Meara told me. Seventeen ninety-six. The fire that destroyed all of Savannah. Almost nothing was left, and certainly nothing was left of you,” Luke said, speaking aloud the ugliness that had iced over Bane’s soul more than two centuries before. “So, why her? Why now?”
It was a good question. Unfortunately, he had no answers, so he shrugged. “The heart wants what the heart wants? Get some rest. We need to find that necromancer. Tonight.”
The expression on Luke’s face was priceless.
When Bane reached his room, though, the smile faded, and he looked at his hands, which had started to shake. He was dangerously long past feeding, and he’d given too much to Hunter. Plus, he hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep lately.
Let’s quit lying to ourselves, shall we? You’re shaking like a junkie who can’t get his fix—except your fix isn’t drugs, but Dr. Ryan St. Cloud.
It was true. He’d had to fight his own instincts with everything he had to keep from stopping her. To keep from imprisoning her in his rooms, tying her up, tying her down, never, ever letting her go.
He crossed to a mini-refrigerator and took out two bags of blood, heated them with a swift pulse of magic, and then downed both, one after the other. There was one problem solved. Now, to sleep.
It wasn’t until he’d shoved open the door to his bedroom that he remembered his bed. “Temper, much?” she’d said. He smiled at the memory.
He yanked the mattress and some blankets into a pile, walked into the bathroom to wash his hands, and stumbled to a stop at the sight of her clothes, forgotten on his floor. Almost in a trance, he bent to pick them up, his hands clenching convulsively on