Chapter 2
Bishop flicked a glance at where Jenny lay reclined in the passenger seat of one of StoneCrow’s humvees. He’d covered her with a blanket and was currently sweating his balls off because the heat was blasting on high. Pissed as he was, he couldn’t—in good conscience—leave Jenny lying there soaking wet and shivering the way she’d been. He wasn’t sure if she was sleeping or passed out but was certain it had to be the latter because he sure as shit hadn’t been able to sleep without being drugged.
Hands tightening so hard on the steering wheel that it creaked, he forced himself to calm as he glanced at her again. My Angel. Yeah, she was his, his Angel, and an Angel who clearly didn’t want him.
She’d been running since she’d found out what they were to each other and after he’d attacked her in the infirmary, she’d run again.
Shame seared him at the memory of his actions. He’d been sick, sick for a long damn time. He’d been going to the infirmary for the past six months, and never once had he met the Chief of Surgery, Dr. Jenny Houlton. Nope, she’d always been busy or gone. Her Nurse, Stoney, who he now figured was her partner in crime, had been the one to diagnose him with fatigue and some lame ass excuse of contracting some form of lime disease from being bitten by a Montana tick while shifted.
He shook his head, disgusted with himself for believing the lie. He should have known better. Skin Walkers didn’t contract disease, but he’d believed it at the time because his appetite had disappeared and he’d been unable to sleep. Hell, he’d been unable to do most anything except sit around and be uncharacteristically agitated, his inner beasts as restless as they’d ever been.
For months he’d withered, surviving only on nutrient injections and more drugs to force sleep. He’d been genuinely concerned that something was really wrong, but the fact that his visits to medical confirmed an insignificant illness, he’d taken the bait and simply waited it out. The problem was, he never got better, and even then the Chief down at medical refused to see him.
It wasn’t until just recently when RedKnife KillsPrettyEnemy approached him that everything had changed for Bishop.
Redknife told him about the affliction. Bishop had never heard of it before. All he knew were the mumblings he’d heard about King and RedKnife finding their mates. RedKnife had sought him out though to tell him exactly how it had struck and exactly what the symptoms were. RedKnife told of the sudden onset, the initial attack followed by the inability to eat, to sleep. He’d relayed how he’d felt a constant itch beneath his skin, which was invoked by his inner beasts urging him into action.
Everything fit except the initial attack. For both King and RedKnife, the affliction had been triggered upon locking eyes with their fated mate, their Angel. That had never happened to Bishop. Hell, he’d never even laid eyes on Jenny until the day he’d confronted her in the infirmary, and what a confrontation it’d been. The second he’d locked eyes with her, it felt like a bolt of lightning tore through him, and he knew. He just simply knew. Hell, even if he hadn’t, the look of shock on her face that had been quickly swept away by a look of guilt was enough confirmation for him. In those brief moments, he knew two things with all certainty. One, Doctor Jenny Houlton was his, and two, she’d known about it the entire time.
The realization of her betrayal had been shocking to his already stressed system. In a fit of rage and a selfish need for relief, he’d slammed the door behind him and locked it, sealing them into the exam room. She’d been in the act of giving herself an injection. He assumed it was the same supplements she’d been having Stoney give to him. She said his name, and it had come out tremulous and uncertain. Just the sight of her and his name on her lips triggered every bestial urge inside him. Like some feral fucking animal, he attacked.
Even now his shame was so great that he couldn’t even bring himself to give her more than a cursory glance, lest she wake and turn horrified eyes on him.
If she thought he was a monster before, there’d be no question now. His eyes flicked to the rope that bound her ankles. He reached over and lifted the blanket to double check the binds that held her hands. A vision tore through his mind of Jenny spread out and tied down on a bed. He knew exactly what her glistening pussy would look like. He knew how her luscious tits would strain upward as she struggled against the binds. The imaginings had his dick going instantly hard.
Yep, fucking monster!
He covered her back up, satisfied she was secure and thought about what he was going to say to her. The last time he’d seen her, he’d just attacked her, taken her, and then she’d fled. He let her go then, but not this time. There’d be no more running, not from him or from their affliction. He deserved answers, and he intended on getting them.
Pulling off to the side of the road, he made quick work of moving Jenny from the passenger seat to the back bench seat where she could lay more comfortably. He didn’t know how long she’d be out, but she’d looked damn uncomfortable slouched over in the passenger seat. Besides, he didn’t trust himself to keep his hands off her.
He covered her with the same blanket and ignored his inner beasts who raged that the reason she looked uncomfortable, even now, was because she was tied up and still shivering from the cold.
He slammed the door hard and climbed back into the driver’s seat before pulling onto the road. The persistent need to soothe and protect her was almost all-consuming, and in direct contradiction to his actions.
He raged inwardly, She did this! She’d played with him, hid from him, had him drugged. He was so damn strung out on his need for her that it had incited him into actions that he’d never thought himself capable. By denying him and his right to know what was happening to him…to them, she’d turned him into some rabid fucking beast. A beast that needed her so damn bad right now it had his back teeth aching. Feral. That’s what Monroe had called it. He was feral right now and it sure as hell felt like it. Just being this close to Jenny had the roaring pulse in his veins drowning out everything else.
His eyes flicked over his shoulder to steal a glance at her. The need to bury himself inside her again was pounding through him like a damn freight train, and it had self-loathing searing an acrid path down his throat as he swallowed hard. He’d already forced himself on her once and while he’d vowed it’d never happen again, but by the Gods, he ached to. He wanted to be buried so deep inside her that she wouldn’t know where she ended and he began.
“Shhhhit,” he grumbled and forced his eyes back to the road.