He looked tired, as if the boulder he’d been carrying on his back had finally tipped over the edge. Kalina reached for his hand, then gave him a small tense smile when he took it and held on tight.
“Did you get what you needed from Hernandez?” Rome asked quietly.
“Yeah, I did. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. Send the jet, we’ll be ready to fly when it arrives,” X said.
“Where’s Caprise?” Nick asked.
“She’s in our room,” X said.
There was an awkward sort of pause in the conversation. Bas spoke up, saying, “We had some action here this morning as well.”
Nick leaned forward as if that would somehow get him closer to X or his sister. “What kind of action?”
“Rogues. Three of them taunting at the perimeter of Perryville. We took them out but it’s not a good sign,” Bas told them.
“We? Please don’t tell me my sister was hurt,” Nick said, a tortured look on his face.
“She’s fine,” X said. “I don’t think she’s ever fought another cat and—”
“Caprise was fighting? She shifted and she was fighting? What the hell, don’t you have enough guards for that, Perry?” Nick’s calm was quickly shattered.
“The important thing is that she’s all right,” Rome interrupted. “Eli’s already called the pilot. You two get back here as soon as possible. Bas, do you need help following up with your Rogue problem?”
“No. I’ve got teams out searching now. We’ll handle it. Keep me posted on what you find out about this new attacker,” Bas told Rome.
“Will do. Let’s plan to talk to all the FLs later this week. I’ve got a feeling whatever we uncover now will soon affect us all,” Rome said.
“I agree” were Bas’s final words before the line was disconnected.
When the room was silent again Rome looked to Nick. “You have to get a grip on this thing with X and Caprise. She doesn’t need you two butting heads when she comes back to find out her guard is dead.”
“You don’t understand,” Nick started to say.
Rome continued to look brutally serious. His compassion, even though Kalina was sure it was there, was carefully masked by the serious nature of their current situation. “Look, X is our friend. He’s our brother.”
“And she’s my sister, Rome. Tell me you wouldn’t feel pissed the fuck off if it were your sister he was with. You know how he is.” And in return Nick’s frustration filled the room like a huge gray cloud.
“I know what and who X is and I trust him with my life. With Kalina’s life,” Rome stated finally.
Nick shook his head. “This is different, Rome. It’s so different.”
“It’s life, Nick,” Kalina chimed in. “We don’t get to pick and choose who we mate. It just happens.”
“That’s the problem. They’re not going to mate. That’s not the type of man X is. Rome knows this and I know this. And that’s why I have such a problem with this whole situation,” Nick said only a fraction calmer than he’d just been. Worry was clearly etched in the shifter’s eyes, in the slump of his shoulders. This wasn’t easy for him—especially so soon after his ordeal with Ary. It was a lot for anyone to withstand, but if anyone could get over it and move on, Kalina was sure Nick Delgado could. He simply had to want to move forward. That was the hard part. She was quickly learning how stubborn these male shifters could actually be.
Still, Kalina wasn’t 100 percent sure of what Nick was talking about. There seemed to be a lot left unsaid between him and Rome. But what she did know without a doubt was that the sound in X’s voice when Caprise was mentioned was not that of a man who had no feelings for that woman. X probably hadn’t figured that out yet—and if she knew Caprise, as she was sure she did, Kalina was certain she didn’t know it, either.
The two of them were in for a stark surprise.
Chapter 18
Her limber body moved in ways X had never seen before. She bent at the waist, flattened her hands on the planks of the patio floor. Her knees did not bend and she rested there for what looked like an uncomfortable amount of time. When she returned to a complete standing position, she leaned to the side, her entire torso bending like a flower in the wind. She circled and arched her back. Then she came up on her toes and did some sort of spin that left him breathless. She lifted a long leg, planted her ankle on the railing of the patio, and leaned over so that her head touched her knee, her hand cupping her foot.
His dick was hard, his body alert to every sexual tendril sifting its way slowly down his spine. His chest constricted when she stood straight and turned, her gaze immediately finding his.
Caprise had sensed his presence. From the doorway, he could see her nostrils flaring, her eyes darkening, and her nipples growing to ready peaks beneath the thin white T-shirt she wore. She’d scented him.
X inhaled deeply, picking up a warm musky scent himself, one he’d never smelled before. Then, because this was the only way he knew how to do this, he took a step toward her and said, “Seth’s been killed. He was attacked by another shifter. Not a Topètenia.”
Of all the things X accepted himself as being, a psychic was not one of them. So there was no way for him to predict that Caprise—of all the women he knew, on legs he’d admired when she’d danced on that pole and when they were wrapped securely around his waist—would crumple to the ground.
With a curse he took another step, caught her before her head hit the railing, and lifted her into his arms. Her eyes remained closed as X held her there, like a baby in his arms. He didn’t sit down, didn’t have to because he doubted she weighed more than 130 pounds. He made a mental note to see that she ate more. With her head resting against his shoulder, the scent he’d smelled upon entering the room was even stronger. It was intense and played with his senses as if he were a kid in a candy store. He wanted so much and then that didn’t even seem like enough. This shit was making him angry.
“Caprise.” He said her name because he needed her conscious. Needed her to talk to him, argue with him, whatever to keep his mind off what the hell was going on with his senses.
“He’s dead because of me,” he heard her say in the barest whisper. “It’s my fault.”
“You weren’t even there” was his reply. “We need to get packed so we can go back.”
She shook her head then. “I don’t want to go back. I should never have come back.”
“Why do you say that?” X asked, thinking of what had made her run away in the first place. “Why shouldn’t you have come back to your home?”
“It’s not my home. It’s Nick’s home and my parents’ home. I don’t have a home.”
She sounded like a teenage girl, and when X looked down into her face he almost thought she was one. Her eyes were open, barely, teardrops teasing her long lashes, as if waiting for permission to fall. And as X surveyed the rest of her face his gaze lingered on her lips. He’d kissed those lips that morning when they were in the elevator. The significance of this act—X had never kissed another female before. It was too intimate, a word he had long since dissociated himself with. And yet he’d kissed Caprise without a second thought. Why he was thinking of that right at this moment, he had no clue.
“Your home is Havenway,” he heard himself saying even though X would swear his mind was taking a walk down the carnal hall of fame. He wanted her again, his entire body ached for her. And yet he stood perfectly still, holding her like a baby, talking to her in a calm, solid tone he didn’t even know he possessed.