CHAPTER 3
Everything was hazy, wrought with pain and fire, but Talon was deeply aware as he gazed up at the female standing over him in the large dimly-lit nightclub, a female who had defended him, that she was something to him.
Something powerful.
Something beautiful.
Incredible.
But also something impossible.
She was human.
A grunt left him as the pain blazing in his side grew stronger again, sending a fierce wave of agony rolling through him that tried to steal consciousness from his grasp. He fought it and the encroaching darkness, afraid that if he succumbed to it that he would pass out and the beauty standing before him would disappear, and when he woke she would be gone.
Nothing more than a memory.
Or a figment of his imagination.
She leaned past him, over the bar, and when she moved back to stand before him again, a dark towel hung from her right hand.
He opened his mouth, but nothing more than a croak came out of his bruised throat. He grimaced and tried again, pushing words past his cracked lips.
“Are you real?”
Pale pink full lips curled into a soft smile that reached her dazzling blue eyes and she crouched before him, a fearless and alluring little thing, and whispered, “I am. Rest easy.”
She took his hand, her touch electric, sending a fierce sizzle along his skin, and placed the towel against his left side. He stared at her as she put his hand over it and pressed down, her palm warm against the back of his hand.
“Keep pressure on it.” She glanced up into his eyes. “Io will be here soon. She’ll help me take you somewhere safe.”
Somewhere safe.
Talon wasn’t sure that was possible, but he didn’t want to tell her that, because he was lucid enough to understand that this somewhere safe she spoke of was her home, and he would be alone with her.
With this mesmerising and bewitching mortal.
His cat prowled beneath the surface of his skin, restless and hungry despite the pain that kept it held within him, caged there. Normally when he was injured, he had no inclination to shift, but something about her made him want to turn all tiger on her and drive her into submission.
There was fire in her, a spark that fascinated him, one he hadn’t seen in a female in a long time and had never considered a mere human could possess.
He had never realised before meeting this female that humans could have so much courage and strength, had been oblivious to it, believing them all weak creatures, frail and cowardly, who would last five seconds in a world of shifters, fae and demons if those species decided to make this world theirs.
The way she had stepped between him and the jaguar, placing herself in harm’s way to protect him.
A stranger.
It fascinated him.
Changed his entire opinion of her species.
Shattered it in fact, so the truth could shine through.
There were humans who were brave, strong of heart and body, ready to stand and fight for the sake of species far more powerful than they were.
There were also humans who were strong of heart and body, and ready to enslave and torture the very same species in their quest for knowledge and power.
Archangel.
He growled low in his throat, a reaction he couldn’t contain as he thought about them, one born of anger and grief, of suffering and a desperate need for vengeance.
He narrowed his focus back to the female, shutting out the memories of his time in Archangel’s hands, not strong enough to face them right now.
He was in her hands now, and he hoped she would be gentler with him than Archangel had been, would show him that not all humans despised his kind.
Those pretty blush lips parted to reveal straight white teeth, and then she froze and looked off to her left, leaving him wondering what she had wanted to say while staring so deeply into his eyes that he was left feeling empty as she tore her eyes from his, as if her gaze had stolen a piece of him.
He looked in that direction too and frowned as a slender, tall female with a regal air strode towards him beside the bar, skin-tight black armour hugging her figure. She twisted her sleek fall of black hair into a knot at the back of her head and shoved a silver pin through it with an air of irritation that said she wanted to stick it in someone.
Who?
The jaguar following on her heels or him for coming here and disturbing the peace?
The jaguar snarled at him, baring fangs, and Talon got the warning loud and clear.
He looked away from the female. The jaguar’s mate.
She wasn’t a shifter though.
Immortal, yes, but not a shifter. How was she meant to help the human take him to her home?
The answer hit him when he risked a glance at the female and noticed something about her.
Pointed ears.
An elf?
Talon had never met one before.
A hazy notion hovered at the edges of his mind, a feeling that crept in and slowly came into focus as he tugged at it. There had been an elf at Archangel. He vaguely remembered there being one. Or had it been two?
They hadn’t been prisoners though. He frowned, trying to put the pieces together, a growing feeling gnawing at his gut as he focused, becoming clearer at the same time as his memories.
They had been guests. He had caught their scent once, when being dragged from the cage and taken to his cell. He had overheard the guards muttering about working with the fae.
It had surprised him then, and it rocked him now.
The elves were allies of Archangel.
They were in league with them.
The female meant him harm. She meant to hand him over to them so they could lock him up again, could torture him. For what purpose? Why were the elves helping Archangel with their terrible experiments?
He wasn’t sure, but he wouldn’t rest until he knew, and he wouldn’t allow this female to come anywhere near him.
He wouldn’t go back.
“Traitor,” he snarled through emerging fangs and used his right hand to push himself away from her, shuffling on his backside towards the exit.
He didn’t make it far before the pain became so intense he couldn’t breathe.
The vicious roar of the jaguar sounded around him, echoing through the empty club.
Darkness swept up and he pushed it back, refused to let it take him and leave him vulnerable when he needed to fight.
Needed to escape.
As the pain abated, and the risk of passing out faded, the world drifted back together with the feel of hands on his forearms, restraining him.
Hands that held him firmly, but didn’t belong to the jaguar.
Talon opened his eyes and looked at the delicate hands on him, touching his bare flesh, stained with his blood. Not strong hands. Not immortal and unyielding, able to break his bones if he tried to escape.
They were tender, their touch comforting, their grip meant to restrain him with their gentle understanding and not force.
He lifted his eyes to meet blue ones.
The mortal.
She crouched before him, close to him, so close he could feel her heat and her scent rolled over him, sweet like honey and vanilla. Gods, he wanted to drown in that smell, wanted to roll in it and cover himself in it, to rub against her so he would smell of only her.
And she would smell of him.
A touch of colour darkened her cheeks, but she didn’t release him and didn’t move to distance herself.
She stood her ground, noble and courageous, determined to bend him to her will.
“Iolanthe won’t hurt you,” she whispered softly, her voice a gentle breeze that carried away his fear and his panic, and part of his pain, sedating him and easing his tiger side. That part of him settled, the desire to fight and flee fading as he looked into her eyes and let her words wash over him. She glanced at the elf. “Will you, Io?”
He looked there too, in time to see the elf nod.
“I’m no traitor… and I don’t have a clue what he’s blathering about. Is he delusional?”
The female had a way of insulting people with barely a handful of words that he had never encountered in his three hundred plus years.
The jaguar standing guard beside her slid her a look, rolled his eyes and sighed in a way that said he had given up trying to iron out this particular wrinkle in her personality and was just going to roll with it now.
“Elves work with Archangel now,” Talon muttered, and didn’t fight the human as she helped him back into a sitting position with his shoulders resting against the front of the bar.
The elf shrugged. “I know. My brother spent some time there with the prince.”
Talon’s guard went back up so fast it made him dizzy, the sudden spike in adrenaline sending strength surging through him and rousing his tiger instincts, bringing them back to the fore.
She spoke of the two guests.
She knew them.
She was in league with them.
“You mean me harm,” he barked and pushed the human away from him, launched a hand up to grab the rail around the bar above his head, and hauled himself onto his feet. He growled at the elf, his fangs punching long from his gums and fur rushing over his shoulders and arms as he called on more of his strength. His tiger instincts roared it was a trap. “You mean to hand me over to your brother and your brother will hand me to Archangel… and return me to the nightmare.”
A wave of dizziness, stronger than before, crashed over him and his knees buckled.
The little human caught him under his arms and steadied him, and he froze with his back pressing against the cold brass bar and her firm body warming his front.
Talon gazed down at her, awareness of the world around him washing away again.
Gods, she was achingly beautiful.
“It won’t happen.” Her soft voice offered the comfort he needed, soothing the raging beast inside him, placating it and subduing him with a speed that left him shaken.
What power did this female have over him?
It was dangerous.
He was dangerous.
As much as he wanted her, as deeply as he needed her, he couldn’t have her.
The sandy-haired shifter casually leaned his left hip against the bar and folded his arms across his chest. “It might if he doesn’t start cooperating… but it will be a jaguar shifter returning him by kicking him out of this club and leaving him on the curb for Archangel to find. I still think he did something to make him deserve being there.”
“No.” He lunged forwards, filled with a need to grab the jaguar and fight him to make him listen and believe him.
He hit an obstacle, a soft wall of feminine curves and enticing scent mingled with comforting warmth that stopped him in his tracks.
His gaze dropped to the mortal’s again.
His strength left him, as if her calming presence sucked it out of him, tearing down the barriers and the need to fight, twisting it into a need to surrender and give in. To let go.
To let her be strong for him.
He shook his head, but he couldn’t shake the memories as easily. They clung to him, refusing to let him go, torturing him with the past.
“I did nothing,” he whispered brokenly, lost in her blue eyes, almost able to feel the warmth of the sun on his bare skin as he gazed into their endless azure depths. “They took me… and others… a night raid… a fae town. The others…”
Darkness closed in around the blue and he swallowed hard.
Her hands pressed against his sides, gentle pressure that kept him with her as she softly said, “Don’t push yourself. You need to rest.”
“The others…”
She slowly shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do for them as you are now.”
He knew that. He had barely escaped with his life, might have been dying on the curb outside if not for the female standing in front of him, gently holding him. He knew it but it didn’t stop the need from ruling him, pushing him to do something, even when he didn’t have the strength.
It would be suicide.
“You going to let it go for now and focus on healing?” She canted her head, causing her long blonde ponytail to sway across her shoulders.
He ached to brush his fingers through the silken threads, lift them to his nose and inhale her scent. Gods, she had such power over him, and he didn’t really know her. His tiger side purred at the thought of rubbing against her hair, smelling it and then lowering his head to tease the nape of her neck with his teeth and lave it with his tongue.
Talon nodded slowly, a little lost in his fantasy, in the seductive proposition of surrendering to her and his animal instincts.
“Are we going, or do you want to go all kitty on her and get it over with?” The sharp female voice snapped him back to the room and he looked off to his right, at the elf where she stood with her hands planted against her hips and a sour look on her face.
How the hell had she known his thoughts?
Elves weren’t psychic.
The hard set of the jaguar’s face said he had picked them up too, or at least knew the look he had been sporting well enough to know what he wanted to do. The male’s golden eyes narrowed on his, filled with a warning and a promise of pain if he dared to lay a hand on the human, let alone run his tongue over the deliciously tempting nape of her neck.
The human blinked at both of them, and then at him, a beautifully confused edge to her expression. He wasn’t about to spell things out for her. If she didn’t know what they were talking about, that was all good with him.
She canted her head again and looked as if she was going to ask.
Iolanthe moved forwards, silent on the dark floorboards even though she wore heeled boots that looked as if they had been made for the express purpose of kicking arse. “You want some blood? It’ll accelerate the healing process.”
She offered her wrist.
The jaguar growled low and bared his fangs, leaving Talon in little doubt that taking the offered blood would end in his death and not his salvation.
He shook his head, politely turning her down, and pretended to ignore that baser side of his nature that growled at him to take the human’s blood instead.
Human blood had no healing properties.
His more animal side didn’t care about such trivial facts. It wanted to bite her. He wanted to bite her. His eyes betrayed him and shifted to her neck, to the back of it, just below her hairline, and he ached inside, burned with a need to sink his fangs in there and mark her.
Not going to happen.
She was human.
“Just need rest,” he muttered and looked down, meaning to check his wounds.
He got an eyeful of cleavage instead. Fuck. He hadn’t realised how pressed up against him the mortal was now as she supported him. The urge to drink his fill of the way her breasts were squashed up in her white shirt, and against him, lasted all of a second before it shattered under the blow of a single realisation.
He was bleeding all over her.
He shifted his left hand, swallowed hard as his fingers pressed against her ribs beneath her right breast and she gasped, a wicked little sound that stirred his blood.
“Bleeding,” he rasped, his words hollow in his ears, distant as he stared down at her and grew aware of every place their bodies touched.
She blinked, looked down at her chest where it pressed against his bare stomach, froze for a second in which he could feel her heartbeat pick up, and then she was two feet away from him and busying herself with her ruined shirt.
Talon sagged against the bar and fought a wave of nausea as he was forced to hold his weight up on his own. Damn. The little human was stronger than she looked, must have been bearing almost half of his weight for him. For a moment, he had foolishly believed he had been regaining his strength.
Fucking idiot.
His knees gave out, the human gasped again, and he grunted as he hit the floor.
“Shit,” she muttered and was beside him in a flash, her hands on his shoulders, pushing him back into a sitting position. “Sorry.”
He wasn’t sure why she was apologising.
She caught him under his arms and tried to haul him onto his feet. He would have helped her, but the world was spinning around him, blurring together into colourful streaks that made him dizzy.
“I’ll send word to my brother,” the elf said and he sensed her moving closer as the ground pitched beneath him. “Prince Loren will want to know everything you have to say about Archangel. If they’re up to something, he won’t stand for it.”
It was a relief to hear that, and not only because the elves being on the side of Archangel would sway the odds in their favour if it came to a war between the immortal species and the mortal hunter organisation.
It was a relief because he couldn’t detect any hint of a lie in what she had said. She was telling him the truth. He always knew when someone was lying. The fact that she wasn’t eased him, taming his instinct to survive and stopping him from viewing her as a threat. She closed in, ignoring the grumbling growls of her mate, and he felt coolness on his wrist and then he was on his feet so quickly the room decided to spin the other way.
Her grip was firmer than the human’s had been, strong and unyielding. Not soft and gentle. Not tender.
Not comforting.
Talon squeezed his eyes shut. “Need rest.”
“You’ll have it,” the mortal’s voice gently washed over him, soothing him and making him want to look at her.
He risked it, opening his eyes little by little, afraid that the room would still be spinning and he would vomit or pass out. Neither of those things would particularly paint him in a good light. He wanted her to see him as strong, the male he normally was on a good day, but she was seeing him at his worst.
One hell of an introduction.
“You’ll be safe,” she whispered as she gazed up at him. “I swear it.”
He believed her. He would be safe with her. Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to stay with her, that she was the only place where he would ever truly be safe.
Where he would ever truly belong.
She had seen him at his worst, and she looked at him with eyes that held compassion, and a flare of desire. When she saw him at his best, as the warrior he was and the powerful male he had been moulded into by his family, how would she look at him then?
Would she want him as fiercely as he needed her?
“The journey might be rough.” Iolanthe grabbed his arm, and tossed a smile at the jaguar. “Be right back.”
Before Talon could ask what she was going to do, she had caught hold of the human’s arm too and darkness swallowed them all, cold and clinging.
Like Death’s embrace.
And all he could think about was that he didn’t want to die.
Not because he wanted to avenge someone, or because he wanted to make Archangel pay, or even because he wanted to free the others and return to his pride.
No.
He didn’t want to die because he wanted to see her again.
His fated one.