Savage Craving - Cecilia Lane Page 0,16

green and black tea.

She found the bathroom similarly stocked when she cracked open the medicine cabinet. The contents were like a tiny pharmacy. Antacids and cold meds nestled up next to sleep aids and bandages. Lilah paused with the mirrored door halfway closed and eyed the sleeping pills.

Hm.

She’d been attacked. Sent home. Attacked again. Her bodyguard was something other than human and her tolerance for monsters that could kill her with a swipe of their claws was at its freaking limit. And he wanted to plop her in the middle of a town swarming with more like him? Who very well could whisper her location to the ones sniffing after her? She’d take hitchhiking over sticking with Seth any day.

Lilah calmly sat at the table and sipped at a mug of tea when Seth graced her with his presence again. She ignored the shiver that worked down her spine when his eyes fell on her and jerked her chin at the other mug. "There's tea if you want some."

Seth eyed the woman across the table. He'd tried to give her enough time to settle and maybe even slip into a bedroom for the space she obviously wanted from him. The yard was checked and double-checked, and Jaime updated on what had happened back at the apartment. She'd been near apoplectic with rage over the SEA agent not watching closely enough and vowed to get to the bottom of things by their next call.

And still, he stayed away.

His head ached and his stomach clenched the longer he kept his vigil outside. He was off balance. Unsteady. Given the chance, he’d have found a fight and sunk into that faint sensation of the lion that didn’t exist and gladly dealt with the pain the next day. Or drank until he passed out and woke with the world still spinning. Those, he understood. Lilah was a damn mystery.

Something about her hit him harder than any of the punches he’d taken over the years. She set his heart to racing, made him want to pant with need, drained the color from the rest of the world so she seemed the brightest object in the universe.

She effortlessly got under his skin and now offered him tea?

Suspicious, he took a seat in front of the mug laid out for him. “Thank you,” he said gruffly.

Lilah flashed him a smile that didn’t hit her eyes and wrapped both hands around her mug. Her fingers twitched like she wanted to drum them against the ceramic. She stopped herself and rubbed a hand over the back of her neck. “I wanted to apologize for acting like a pouting child earlier. This has been… difficult, to say the least. It’s not every day a girl finds herself the target of a hit.”

Seth softened. "Not every day someone survives what you did. That takes luck and some balls."

“Thank you,” she murmured. She ducked her face and took a sip of her tea. “So, do you have many stash houses for your unwilling charges?”

Seth barked a laugh. “It belongs to the security company I sometimes work with. You never know when you’ll need to cut and run to keep a troublesome woman safe.”

He raised the mug to his lips. Sourness hit his tongue.

Seth glared over the rim of the mug and spit out his sip. Carefully, trying not to frighten the already on-edge woman, he set the mug on the table. “What did you put in this?” he asked in a hard voice.

Her long lashes shaded her eyes before she lifted them to meet his look. Pure innocence stared back at him, at odds with the wariness in her scent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her pulse jumped. He could hear the beat plain as day and see the throb along the column of her neck. “I’ll search you if you don’t cut the shit. This is your only warning.”

Her scent shifted. Fear disappeared. Irritation stung his nose when she lifted her chin and met his gaze. “What? I won’t like you if you’re angry?”

Seth snorted. He was almost impressed. When push came to shove, she unsheathed her claws.

Up against him and full-blown shifters like Jasper, though, she was still just an overconfident cub that didn't realize the danger she faced.

Fire built in his center. For the fuckers who wanted to hurt her. For her own stubborn refusal to accept his protection. He shot out of his seat with a growl and rounded the table in the time it took her