“My mate.” He tried to glare at her, but his lashes drifted down. When they closed, Elizabeth’s lips pressed together to hold back her tears as she nodded at Dawn and Seth. Seth led Dawn from the room, his arm around her, and as they walked down the hallway, the last of the pain, the dark fury and the past eased away from her.
She had done as she’d vowed. She had washed her hands in Jason Phelps’s blood. She had seen him defeated, broken. And she was walking away from it.
“I want to go home,” she whispered as they stepped into the elevator, Stygian and Styx moving in behind them.
“The heli-jet can have you in Sanctuary within a few hours,” he promised. Dawn shook her head, turned to him and framed his face with her hands. “No, Seth. I want to go to our
home. Now. Just the two of us.”
The joy that lit his eyes flamed in her heart.
“We’ll go home,” he promised, his head lowering, his lips stealing hers. “Right now.”
The kiss was a promise. A dedication. She had awakened to his love and she would never sleep without it again.
EPILOGUE
He slipped into the hospital room. And that was damned hard to do. There were so many Breeds positioned through the hallways, hard-eyed, merciless and waiting on blood to spill, that it was risking life and limb.
He was trained for stealth though, and he was trained to get in where others couldn’t. It was the sixth floor, a short climb up the shadowed wall. Cutting the window was a pain in the ass. And why the hell he was doing this he couldn’t figure out.
Fine, she had gone down. Collateral damage, right? How many other Breeds had died for the sake of the community at large? He couldn’t count how many dozen on two hands and all toes. But here was his stupid ass, climbing up a sheer wall and cutting into a window as he struggled to activate the security rerouter.
This was a three-fucking-Breed job. He was one Breed. Insane crap. But he just couldn’t let it go. The memory of her crumpled on the floor of that damned ballroom, blood spilling around her head. It was just too much. He couldn’t sleep for it. And when something messed with his sleep, then something had to be done about it.
Silently he eased the cut glass inside the room, inhaled slowly and grimaced. He’d disguised his scent as best he could, but it wasn’t going to hold for long. They’d catch him in under five minutes flat and then all hell was going to break loose.
But he was in, and stepping across the short distance to the hospital bed where she lay. Her parents must have dressed her in that immature neck-hugging gown. It was longer than he preferred. All prim and proper like some Victorian-era priss. She should be in silk thongs to display that fine ass, and nothing else. Because she had a fine curve to that ass. He gritted his teeth and grimaced in frustration.
There was a bandage around her head, but all those beautiful curls were still there. They flowed around her like black silk.
He reached out and touched one, whistling soundlessly at the feel of it. Damn, it felt fine. And in that second his c**k went hard as a rock as he imagined the feel of that hair against his sensitive flesh. That would be some damned erotic sensation there.
As he stared at her, something besides arousal twisted at his gut though. Something like…regret?
Hell, had he ever felt regret?
He shook his head, rubbed the back of his neck in confusion and tried again to figure out what the hell he was doing there.
Cassandra Sinclair was none of his business. If her father, Dash Sinclair, had so much as a thought of the creature sniffing around her, he’d hunt him down and tear him limb from limb. But this was almost worth it.
He reached out, ran his finger down the fine, ultra-smooth flesh of her cheek and knew he had never touched anything so soft.
I dare you.The memory of her pretty pink lips forming those words had his lips quirking. He leaned close, feathered her hair from her ear and whispered. “Never dare me.”
She jackknifed in the bed. Her eyes flew open, and a scream of pure terror erupted from her lips with such a suddenness that he couldn’t counter it.
He cursed, jumped for the window, grabbed the rope he’d secured beside it, and in the time it took for her screams to die he was on the ground and running.
Damn. Guess he shouldn’t have warned her, he thought with a smile. But he had. And he hoped, for her sake, she remembered it.