sick,” she said worriedly, yanking the cup back. Water droplets spewed from the half empty cup. One drop in particular held his attention. It slid down her chest, right to the swell of her breasts.
He swallowed, eyes darting up to her eyes. Her face was flaming red.
He was surprised that Auro and Lyne were not in the room with them, watching them. Hell, he was surprised they had even let him out of that cell. His eyes narrowed on her, jaw clenching. He had seen the way she clutched Lyne, stared up at him with adoration, with a desperate look on her face. Any man would have gave into her wishes with that look, he thought with disgust.
Lyne had looked all too ready to help. How long had he been out? he asked himself, staring at her harder. A bruise was forming on her cheeks, and her arm was already a dark purple, dark red lining the painful mark. It wasn’t half as bad as what Talon was suffering, but it looked painful, even for a woman.
She was not as associated with them as he had thought. He almost started to feel bad, when he remembered that she had been the cause of his most recent beating.
He snarled.
The woman jerked, hand hitting hard against an open wound. She gasped, flinching back as he growled and snapped at her. Yet he made no move to touch her.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, taking her lip between her pearly whites. A tic started in his jaw,, and he forced himself to release a painful breath. “If you hadn’t have moved, that wouldn’t have happened.”
He growled again.
She glared, the fire in her eyes shocking him. “Listen, you part beast part man — whatever you are,” she said, eyes flickering down to his already healing chest. “I’m trying to help you. If you’re going to bite my head off, at least do it when you’re strong enough to drink alone.”
Her sharp snap was greeted by a tense silence. He stared at her. She stared back.
“I don’t know your name,” he said haltingly, almost asking her for another drink of water. Talon refused to ask her for anything — she was lucky he was even talking to her.
The woman stared at him for a second, the debate clear in her mind. Tell him, or not tell him —
“Jamie. Jamie Saxton,” she finally said, a sigh wrung from her lips. She went back to dabbing the cloth on his chest, rinsing the blood from his chest and arms.
She didn’t ask for his name, didn’t even meet his eyes. Frustrated, fed up, he grabbed her hand and forced her to stop, making her look at him with suspicious blue eyes. “I am Talon,” he said, trying to remember his last name. Jamie raised a thin eyebrow at him, mirth causing her eyes to twinkle.
“Talon?” she asked, tugging at her hand. He nodded, staring at her intently. The hot water was the only amount of pleasure he allowed himself to feel. He dropped his eyes from her pale and bruised face, choosing instead to deny himself the pleasure of watching her.
“Like a bear claw?” she asked, obviously trying to keep up a conversation.
He shook his head silently, turning his face into the pillow as the stinging pain washed over him. Her hand dabbed even more lightly at his tightly drawn breath.
“You know,” she said nervously, the tangy scent thickening the air around them, “I wondered why you were here. Auro seems to hate you.”
“I wouldn’t know why,” he said shortly. Her hands were working magic on his chest, the light feathery touches almost undoing him. If he weren’t so wary of her, he would have shivered in reaction. Instead, he had to force the hardness at his hips to lower, to let the blood flow somewhere else.
Talon almost groaned.
“How long have you been here?” she tried.
He shrugged.
“Did they feed you?”
He turned his head away.
“Talon,” she said, quietly, softly, her voice but a gentle caress. Talon tried not acknowledge how caring her hands were, how the tenderness of her eyes did weird things to him. Just a glance at her face almost had him spilling the secrets of the world.
When he said nothing, she got frustrated. And started ranting. “I think that you’ve been here for a while. And that plate wasn’t for show — you just threw it out of the window. And your back... Talon, it looks like someone took a chainsaw to it.”