Things like this.
She stroked the line of his stubborn jaw, relishing the rough stubble of his beard as she rubbed herself against the delicious hardness of his erection.
Bayon growled, then with a last thrust of his tongue he wrenched his lips free to bury his face in the curve of her neck. He bit into her flesh with enough pressure to send white-hot lust jolting through her.
She hissed in pleasure. Yes…oh yes. She needed this.
Running her hands down the impressive width of his back, she grabbed the waistband of his jeans, impatiently trying to tug them down.
“Off,” she muttered in frustration.
“Wait.” With a harsh groan, he arched back to stare down at her flushed face. “Keira.”
Her hands skimmed to the front of his jeans, struggling with the snap. “What?”
“Stop.”
She frowned, wrapping her fingers around the massive erection that pressed against his zipper.
“Why?”
His pained groan echoed through the cave. “Because twelve hours ago you didn’t even remember me.”
She abruptly turned her head, pretending an interest in the nearby waterfall. “I was…confused.”
She could feel the heat of his gaze searing over her profile. “And now you’re not?”
“I know what I need.”
“And what’s that?”
She reluctantly turned back to meet his demanding gaze. “I need to know you’re real,” she breathed. “That I’m real.”
“Shit.” His face twisted with an agonized regret, then before Keira could guess his intent, he was seated on the ground with her trembling body cradled in his lap. “I have you,” he murmured as she instinctively tried to escape his hold, pressing his cheek to the top of her head. “And I’m not letting go. Not ever again.”
She should have been pissed. This was supposed to be a hot, sweaty bout of sex that would ease the hunger she’d had for this male for years and prove once and for all that she was out of the damned cell.
No fuss. No muss.
Just a glorious knowledge that she was able to do exactly what she wanted.
But as swiftly as her desire had exploded, it altered to a different, but just as savage need.
Comfort.
The feel of Bayon’s hand softly stroking up and down her bare back. The warm, familiar musk of his cat. The sound of his heart beating beneath her ear.
She snuggled against him, feeling the magic of the land seep inside her.
It should have added to her comfort.
The magic had healed her cat. It soothed the damage done to her human form by the damned collar. And with every passing second it was repairing the damage to her mind.
All fan-fucking-tastic things, if there wasn’t something buried in the depths of her brain that was wigging her out.
Something she wasn’t prepared to deal with. Not yet.
“No one knows I’m here?”
“No,” he swiftly assured her, nuzzling his face in her hair. He was such a cat. “But you realize they’re going to skin me when they find out I didn’t tell them you’re alive?”
She grimaced. It wasn’t fair to force Bayon to choose between protecting her and his loyalty to fellow Hunters, but the suffocating dread that enveloped her didn’t give a shit. And for now she wasn’t strong enough to battle through it.
“I’m not ready,” she muttered.
Thankfully Bayon didn’t press, perhaps sensing she was still dangerously fragile. “Can you tell me how you disappeared?” he instead demanded.
She paused, trying to sift through the memories that were a strange patchwork of perfect clarity and murky confusion.
Now that she was home, she could clearly remember her childhood playing in this cave with Parish. And the day she’d taken command of the Hunters. And even eyeballing Bayon when he was too occupied to notice her fascinated survey.
But the second she tried to concentrate on the events leading up to her kidnapping, her brain began to sputter and shut down. Like a computer with a virus.
“It’s still fragmented,” she admitted, her voice tight with frustration.
His hand continued to run a soothing path up and down her spine. “We thought you were dead.” He was forced to halt and clear his throat as he relived the day of her disappearance. “Parish could sense you were being attacked, then suddenly his connection to you was severed. He searched for you for months, but his cat was convinced you were dead.”
She hissed with dark fury, knowing her death would have tormented her brother. It wouldn’t be enough for Parish to mourn her passing. No, he would’ve made certain he carried the full weight of guilt for having failed her.
Damn, but she wanted to make those bastards pay for what they’d done.
“I think they had some sort of black magic that blocked my connection to my cat,” she said.
“That’s what Raphael said when he was ambushed.”
Keira tilted back her head in surprise. “Raphael was attacked?”
“Yeah, just outside the borders.” Bayon’s expression was guarded, as if he were hiding something from her. “He was shot with a dart by a human who was tattooed with a raven in front of a full moon.”
Pain ripped through her head as a shard of memory pierced through the black hole that surrounded her kidnapping.
“The Mark of Shakpi,” she breathed, squeezing shut her eyes as a wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm her.
Chapter 3
Bayon cursed as he felt Keira tremble in distress.
Goddammit. The last thing he wanted to do was cause this female more pain, but they had to discover if her disappearance had anything to do with the attack on Ashe. For all they knew the bastards were already plotting another assault aimed to kill the vulnerable human and her precious baby.
Now he feared he pressed the still-weakened Keira too far.
“Keira.” He urged her head against his chest as he reached behind him for the blanket he’d been laying on. Gently he tucked it around her naked form. “Are you—”
“I’m fine.” She sucked in a deep breath. Then another. “Just give me a minute.”
“Take your time,” he murmured softly, savoring the feel of her in his arms.
Yeah, she was only there because he’d been the one to rescue her, but his cat didn’t care. It only knew that he’d waited for an eternity to have this woman curled in his lap, her head resting over his heart.
Then, as if to remind him of just how little right he had to hold her so tight, she opened her eyes and forced herself to share what she recalled of her kidnapping.
“I remember I was meeting with Sean.”
His muscles clenched at the reminder that she’d chosen a mere mortal to warm her bed while slamming the door in his face.
“Your human lover?”
She lifted her head from his chest, studying his rigid expression. “He wasn’t my lover.”
Bayon frowned. “No?”
Her lips thinned at the disbelief in his voice. “No, he approached me at The Cougar’s Den one night. He said he’d heard rumors there was a new gang in the area who were spending a lot of time in the bayous.”
Bayon hesitated, reeling beneath her blunt confession.
Shit. Did she have any idea how often he’d tormented himself with the thought that her last hours had been spent with her human lover instead of with the family who would have protected her?
And now he discovered that she’d lied to him…he gave a sharp shake of his head.