Chapter 22
Planting her hands on the edge of the table, Sam’s shoulders lifted to her ears as she leaned forward and braced her weight. Her eyes roved Bellis as she admired his body.
She’d woken to him squatting near the wall in his bedroom, watching her intently as she slept. It’d been a little disturbing and little sexy too. Now, they were in his kitchen, and as much as she wanted to study his home, her eyes couldn’t seem to leave him for more than a few fleeting seconds. His house was quiet with just the two of them, but it was a comfortable quiet, a kind she hadn’t experienced before. It felt…right.
Standing at the stove, Bellis was searing two giant steaks. When she’d told him she wasn’t hungry for food, he grinned and winked at her. “These are for me.” Apparently, the big bastard needed a ton of fuel to keep the machine that was his body moving. And what a machine it was.
His shoulders were wide, his upper body bulky with dark muscle that her hands itched to touch. Letting her eyes travel down, she admired the tapered waist, knowing without needing to see that he’d have washboard abs and that sexy vee that disappeared beneath his tactical pants. His hips were lean and his thighs were impossibly thick. He was exquisite, his body built to give her the punishing fuck that she needed, and holy hell did she need.
Lifting her eyes, she saw the amused glint in his, and surprisingly wasn’t bothered by it. He knew she found him sexy, so what?
“Tell me about your coloring, Demon. Why are you so different than the other Walkers?”
He was quiet a moment, and she wondered if he’d answer when he finally spoke, lifting his arm to glance at his exposed forearm where his sleeve was rolled up. “The other Walkers have a myth about me. They believe that the dark deeds I’ve performed, the heinousness of my missions, has marred my soul. They think the color of my skin is a reflection of the blackness in my soul.”
Sam eyed him intently. “That true? You a monster, Demon Skin Walker?”
“No and yes.”
Her eyes narrowed on him.
“I am a monster, Princess, but that’s not why I look like a demon.”
Relaxing her shoulders, she leaned back and lifted her palms, smoothing them down her thighs. “Genetic defect?” she guessed, not meaning to offend, but genuinely curious.
He chuffed a laugh. “No.” His chest expanded with his deep inhalation. “When I was a child, I shifted into animal form for the first time. I was just a kid, maybe six or seven. I was too young to know what was happening, and for reasons I’ll never know, my mother didn’t know either. I’d been watching the Jungle Book. It was my favorite movie. I practically had the damn thing memorized. One day, mid-movie, I changed to panther form. My mom lost her shit, understandably. She’d been sitting right with me, saw the whole thing.” A sad smile ghosted his lips. “She didn’t know what to do and I didn’t either. She picked up the phone and called the cops, then quickly hung up. They called back and she lied and said her kid was playing with the phone. I think she was afraid of what would happen to me if they came and took me.”
“So, what did she do?”
“She waited.” His lips thinned into a grim line. “She waited for me to change back into her little boy, but I didn’t. Didn’t know how. After a few weeks, the house was shredded. My panther had torn up the carpet and furniture, ripped up the walls. I’d pissed everywhere to mark my territory, and still she waited.”
“What happened when you changed back?”
When he leveled her a look, Sam sat up straighter. “You had to have changed back!”
Bellis swallowed hard and pulled his skillet from the burner, sliding it to a cool one in the back so he could focus solely on Sam. “I didn’t. Couldn’t. I wanted to. I could see my mom suffering, withering under the weight of what I’d become, what I was doing to her life.” He shook his head and looked toward the window. “She bought a cage, kept me in it, because she’d used all her leave from work to spend with me, and she couldn’t trust to leave me home alone. I hated it. My panther hated it. Eight hours a day I was locked up like an animal in a zoo, and then when she’d get home, I’d make her pay by running like a wild beast through the house tearing it up beyond what I’d already done.
After two months, one night she wrapped me in a blanket and carried me out to the trunk of our car. She closed me inside and then we drove. We drove a long way, and when we got to where we were going, she opened the trunk and she was crying. I was practically feral by this point, and I jumped out and trotted off toward the forest. She’d taken me to the mountains.” He jerked his chin toward the window. “These mountains.”
Sam asked on a quiet breath that said she was hanging on his every word, “And…”
He turned to look at her, his eyes gone hard. “And she left me there.”
“What?”
“She called me to her, but I didn’t go. I was too excited by the new scents and sounds. I hovered at the tree line watching her curiously. She cried so damn hard, and I…” He swallowed thickly. “I never went to her. She told me she loved me, and that she was sorry, and then she climbed in our car and drove away.”
“Wh-what did you do?”
He shrugged, feigning indifference. “I melted into the forest.” Shaking his head again he chuffed, “Didn’t even have the good sense to try and chase her down.”
“You ever find her? I mean, when you finally shifted back? Someone found you, right? A little lost boy in the woods. They found you and took you home, right?”
His eyes suddenly looked haunted. “She killed herself eight weeks after she dumped me in the forest. The authorities never found me, and assumed she killed me too. Years later, I had one of the Sentries question her old neighbor, some lady about my mom’s age. After she’d dumped me, mom moved to Belt to be closer to the mountains. Her neighbor told the Sentry that my mom went to the forest every single day looking for me. Every single day for eight weeks. She said mom was obsessed with finding her lost son. The lady tried to convince to her call the cops and get a search team but mom said they wouldn’t understand. The lady thought my mom was crazy and was just making me up.”
“She loved you.”
“She took me to the woods, left me there, and drove away. That’s not love.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you, but obviously your mom was trying to do the right thing, and she went back for you. That means something, so don’t fucking shit on it.”
His eyes hardened. “Just telling you what happened.”
“But… So, how’d you become dark?”
He rolled his head on his shoulders. “Without guidance, and with mom gone, I thought I was now an animal. I stayed in panther form and went off to find my…pride.”
Sam was afraid to ask, but had to know. “How long?”
Bellis looked at her.
“How long were you in panther form?”
“Doc says best guess is sixteen years.”
Sam’s mouth fell open.
Bellis grinned. “Don’t go feeling sorry for me, Princess. It wasn’t that bad. I learned a lot.” He winked at her. “Can do more than most Walkers because of it. I have more experience with my animal side, makes me stronger, more stealthy, more vicious, more lethal.
Interesting. Since he was so forthcoming with answers Sam asked, “And do you have any experience with women?”
He canted his head and crossed thick arms over his broad chest. “Why? You wondering if I’d know what to do with you?”
“Yes,” she answered honestly, and her instant reply must have shocked him, because his smile slipped, and his arms slowly uncrossed.
“Yeah, Princess. I have experience with women.”
Now Sam angled her head and studied him intently. “Odd. You don’t seem like a man who’d chase after women.”
“I don’t. They chase me.”
Sam grinned. “Cocky much?”
He shrugged. “You’d be surprised how many women fanaticize about being fucked by a…Demon. Out in the open they pretend to fear me, hide from me. Behind closed doors, there isn’t anything they wouldn’t do.”
Still grinning Sam nodded, ignoring the green monster that reared its ugly little head inside of her. “Women are taught to hide a lot. Even from a young age we’re taught that it’s okay for boys to burp out lout while it’s un-ladylike for us.” She shook her head. “Hold it in, they say to girls in regard to so much. When it comes to our emotions, desires, our hopes and dreams, we’re commanded to keep it all in. But, when it comes to food, nope, we’re directed to take in as little of that as possible. We’ve got to be pretty if we expect a man to want us, after all. Because you’re the prize, not us. Right?” Her grin disappeared and her lip curled back as her eyes narrowed on him. “Stupid fucking bitches should just say what they want.”
“And what is it you want, Sam?”
Her neon eyes lifted to his and she hesitated only a moment. “You. I too am fascinated by the Demon Walker. I want a ride.” She cocked her head. “You interested in giving me one?”
When he didn’t respond, Sam smiled. “Of course you are.” She hopped off the table. “You think I don’t see the way you look at me?” She took several leisurely steps toward him, linking her hands behind her back before leaning forward to whisper. “I see the way you watch me, Skin Walker.”
“I’m your guard. I’m supposed to watch you.”
She clucked her tongue, “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Not like that.” Watching him, she lifted her hands to the zipper on the front of her suit, fingering it without pulling it down while watching him. “Did you know that when you get excited those bright blue pupils of yours dilate?”
Bellis jerked his head to the side and pinched his eyes closed, hissing in a breath through his wicked incisors before opening them and shaking his head hard, as if he could rid himself of the tell.
Watching him, Sam grinned, then slowly started pulling her zipper down.
Bellis’ head whipped around at the sound and his pupils were so damn blown out that his eyes almost matched hers.
“This is the part where you tell me you don’t fuck Skin Walker enemies, and then you run.”
Bellis’ eyes lifted from her exposed skin to lock on hers. She was throwing his words back in his face, and he couldn’t fault her for it, because he deserved it. “But you’re not a Skin Walker enemy, are you Samantha?”
Suddenly, she swallowed hard. It’d been one thing to torment him when she thought she held the power, but when his eyes dipped back to the vee of exposed skin she was flashing, and he crossed his arms as if challenging her, she knew he was calling her bluff.
It took her only a moment to decide. The zipper skimmed over her navel and then veered toward her hip, ending in the middle of one thigh.