Requiems knuckles were white, the veins on the back of his hands standing out in stark contrast. He could feel his pulse throbbing in his neck as he drove away from the offices of the security company where he worked. Leaving behind the two men who were closer than brothers and the women they loved. Leaving behind his family.
They had got the women back after they had been taken, used as bait to lure them into a trap. It was a foolish plan and one that hadn’t gone well for the men who had taken Rory and Bethany. They had left none alive.
Except her.
But the adrenaline was slow to leave him. He felt on edge, tense and ready for anything. There was no threat. He knew that. Not unless she was a threat.
Requiems eyes slid to the small woman who was curled in upon herself on the seat. Her hair in dirty lank tendrils hiding her face. She was pressed so closely to the locked door it was almost as if she thought she could escape that way. She should be dead. Yet somehow when it came to it. He just couldn’t do it. And he couldn’t let the others do it either.
She was the enemy. The enemy that had caused all of this. She deserved to die just as much as those men did but when it came to it, he just couldn’t take her life. She was like a familiar stranger and the thought of causing her pain was like a knife being twisted in his heart.
He wanted, no he needed to know who she really was before he went mad. Just being in the same car as her was making his dragon go crazed. Roaring inside his head to be let free. The primal side of Requiem wanted to wrap his talons around Mae and fly away. The urge to claim her was so strong it was taking all his will to keep his other self under control.
“Requiem” Her voice was tiny, barely a whisper and he averted his eyes quickly. It wouldn’t do to be caught watching her. Though it was hard. He wanted to watch her, to drink her in as if she was a glass of water and he was a parched man, but he couldn’t show any weakness to her.
She was the enemy.
“Requiem please just let me go, this is k********g you know. You could go to the jail”
Requiems lips quirked. Was she really threatening him with jail? Him? Like a jail could keep him if he wanted to escape. But he refrained from answering her. Who was she to scold him on breaking the law? Still he liked her courage. Not many people would dare chat back to a man his size, especially when they had seen his dragon. It reminded him of another woman, years before.
Requiem tossed away that thought with an angry shake of his head and stared straight ahead into the inky darkness. They would be home soon, and he would have to decide what he was going o do with her. He had to keep reminding himself that she wasn’t his mate. She wasn’t Amber. Amber was dead and it didn’t matter how much she sounded like her, how much she smelt like her or even how much his dragon was screaming for them to get closer she was the enemy.
She had betrayed him.
And she was Mae not Amber. She wasn’t his love she was his enemy.
“Where are we going? Requiem”
It hurt hearing his name from her lips. How long had it been? Years? A century at least and now to hear it from the mouth of someone who had betrayed him was like a knife in the heart.
He couldn’t answer her, hell he couldn’t even look at her otherwise he would just crawl into her lap, begging for her to hold him and sob. Requiems hands tightened and the steering wheel groaned. If he wasn’t careful, he would break it.
The car hadn’t even come to a full stop before he had the door open, letting the heavy rain hit his face he took a deep breath. He had to be cool.
He was a god damn dragon, how was it she could affect him like this. She was nothing. A traitor and he had no time or use for people who betrayed him. True, all those weeks on the phone, when he had thought she had been helping him, he had felt the attraction even without seeing her. The way she laughed at his complete ignorance on anything technical. The way she patiently explained it all. It had meant something to him. His mate was dead, but he could still feel. He still craved contact and god help him love and affection and for those few weeks he had thought she might be the one he could find it with.
He even had their first date planned out.
Except he never got to ask her because she had played him. Played all of them though sometimes it cut him deeper than the others.
Requiem couldn’t help the string of profanities that tumbled from his mouth as he stalked around the car, opening her door with a jolt only for Mae to tumble into his arms. He caught her easily enough, but it meant that her breasts were pressed against his chest, her face inches from his. In any other circumstances it would be almost romantic. Almost.
As she looked up at him with her wide scared eyes, he felt something inside of him soften and he tossed her away almost roughly, letting her drop to a heap on the wet pavement. She stank, sweat, old blood and fear all mingling together to assault his heightened senses, but it wasn’t that that had made him toss her away,
It was the fact that his dragon was clamouring for them to look after her. Every part of him wanted to wash the blood and grime away off her skin, he wanted to kiss her gently until all her fears were gone.
And Requiem couldn’t take it.
Inside his head his dragon was screaming one word over and over again.
MATE.