“Tala!” my sister cried out, her face a desperate mask of relief and hope. She still wore the floral dress. It was ripped and stained, but she wasn’t bleeding and she didn’t appear injured.

“Tessa,” I whispered. “Thank the gods.”

A small smile lifted my lips just as the fuzziness in my head expanded. The Fire Wolf snarled before setting me gently on the floor.

“I need to free them,” he said urgently.

I managed a nod as I blinked and tried to stay conscious. But a second later, I was slumping against the wall, and the last thing I remembered seeing were the cell doors being ripped from their hinges before I sank into oblivion.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 19

I awoke to the feel of sheets swirled around me, and the warmth of sunshine on my face. Blinking, I opened my eyes. Above me, my old familiar light fixture dangled from the ceiling.

I blinked again, wondering why I was so freakin’ sore until I felt the mattress shift next to me.

A yelp tore from my throat when I came face to face with the Fire Wolf. In my bed. In my apartment. In Chicago.

His amber eyes pinned me with a look full of heat and burning questions.

“Hi?” I offered by way of greeting and was about to ask what he was doing in my bed when everything came flooding back to me. New York. The club. Our scorching kiss in the alleyway. Him finger fucking me and my revelation that I was his mate. Rescuing Tessa. Everything going wrong. My forbidden power being revealed.

“Oh shit,” I breathed, but then in the next breath I bolted upright. “Where’s Tessa?”

“Safe. She’s asleep in her room.”

I scrambled out of my bed before he could say another word and didn’t breathe again until I stood in her doorway and saw her sleeping on her bed.

She was sprawled across her mattress, tangled in her sheets, her long hair spread across her pillow like a draped flag. She slept deeply, her breaths low and even. She was even dressed in her favorite lime-green pajamas.

He was right. She was safe.

I sagged against her doorframe, then slowly retreated to my room, my legs nearly crumpling beneath the weight of my relief. I barely made it back to my bed before I collapsed onto it.

The hunter was still lying there. His dark hair was tousled, his amber eyes bright. He hadn’t moved following my mad dash to Tessa’s room. His long body was stretched out, but then he rolled closer to me until he nearly laid on top of me.

Okay then. I brought a hand to my forehead. “What day is it? How long was I out?”

“Ten hours.”

I gaped. “Ten hours? But what happened?” Scattered memories returned to me of what had gone down in the final moments in the club. Death. Destruction. Flames. It’d all been a massive shitshow.

“The club has been burned to the ground. I killed everyone, well, mostly everyone, a few escaped, but I freed those held captive in Jakub’s collection.” He sneered the last word, and my fuzzy mind sped up more and more, clearing with every second. Those supernaturals had been kept in cells. Cages.

The blood drained from my face. “Who the hell is Jakub?”

“That has yet to be determined, although, that’s not what I’m most interested in right now.”

My eyes widened when it hit me what the Fire Wolf wanted to know. Panic seared through me, but before I could fling off the covers and get away, his strong hands locked around my waist and pinned me to the mattress.

I was so stunned by his action, that for a moment, I lay completely still beneath him. His large body was directly over mine, our chests nearly touching. My heart picked up a staccato beat, as his decadent cedar and citrus fragrance flooded my senses. Another flash of heat filled his eyes, and his nostrils flared.

Shit. My cloaking spell wasn’t in place. It must have fallen off when I’d released my forbidden power.

He inhaled, that golden glow lighting the back of his eyes as his wolf prowled forth and savored my scent. And since the cat was out of the bag, I didn’t bother reining it in. It felt so nice not to hide. Besides, it might distract him, which could work to my advantage.

I attempted to cross my arms, but the hunter’s hold tightened. A sly smile lifted his lips as he settled further on top of me.

Smug bastard. He was enjoying this, but dammit, I would be lying if I said I didn’t love it too. But that couldn’t happen. The dude only wanted me because his wolf told him to.

“Well?” I arched an eyebrow. “Care to explain why you’re manhandling me again?”

“You’re not leaving this room until you tell me exactly what you did to me at that club.”

So I’d been right. He wanted to know about my forbidden power—exactly what I’d feared.

“Fat chance.” I called upon a huge dose of my magic and used it to shove him away in a gust of telekinetic wind.

My abrupt onslaught must have taken him completely by surprise, because he shot to the foot of the bed while I managed to scramble to the bedside without actually laying a finger on him.

“So what is this?” I asked as I calculated the distance to the door. Crap. It wasn’t a straight shot. “You get to pin me down whenever you want, but I can’t touch you uninvited without losing a limb? That hardly seems fair, don’t you think?” My chest rose and fell quickly. No way could I make it out of my room without plowing right into him. So, what then? The window? I grimaced. It was a three-story drop to the ground. Ouch.

The Fire Wolf blinked. His surprised expression disappeared, and a smile took its place. “You’re strong enough to get away from me.”

A worthy mate. Those unsaid words hung between us. Did he know yet, what I was? If he didn’t, I wasn’t going to enlighten him.

Feigning innocence, I shrugged and raised my hands. “So sue me.”

Flames entered his eyes, and he advanced on me, arcing across the bed in one giant leap.

Oh, crap on a stick. I hadn’t expected him to actually jump across the bed. You know, that whole respecting one’s privacy thing. A bed, after all, did seem too intimate to be a fighting arena.

“Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?” I spat out, then leapt to the side in the hope that I could evade him. But the room was small and the door, unfortunately, was now completely on the other side of the Fire Wolf. Of course, he didn’t seem to have any intention of letting me reach it. “It’s rude to invite yourself into a woman’s bed without an invitation. And, it’s even ruder to be in the same bed with her while she sleeps, and you know, kinda creepy.”

He chuckled darkly, the sound telling me that he was enjoying this little cat-and-mouse game way too much. “I’m afraid my mother didn’t teach me much of anything, let alone manners in the bedroom.”

“Oh, right. I forgot she was a demon.” I dodged to the side when one of his heavy arms swiped out.

But it sucked for me ’cause I miscalculated the hunter’s next move. It didn’t help that my limbs still felt heavy and shaken from the eruption of my forbidden power. I was definitely not on top of my game.

The Fire Wolf’s huge arm locked around my waist, and he brought me back to my bed. In a split second, he had both of my wrists pinned above my head and his entire body settled on top of mine. He was as heavy as a slab of concrete, making it hard to breathe let alone escape. Damn. Just damn.

Of course, his huge body was also pleasurably hot. Every sinewy and chiseled muscle sank into me. I would have struggled, squirmed against him, but something told me that would not end well for me and my overactive hormones, and given the growing length that I felt against my body, something told me that his wolf would love it a bit too much.