He smeared gauze with a powerful antiseptic before laying it over the stitched wound and taping it securely in place. Then he dressed and waited. He stood at his bedroom window, watching, waiting, as the police talked to Lyra, wondering how well she would heed his earlier warning. Praying she would. Knowing it might be better for both of them if she didn't.
Chapter Four
He was a Breed.
Lyra answered the questions the police asked, filled out and signed a report, and waited impatiently for them to leave. Thank God she hadn't called her brothers before jerking that shotgun up and racing to the back door. She hadn't even thought of it. She had watched through her bedroom window as the moon broke past a cloud, shining clearly on the figures struggling in her backyard. She had recognized Tarek immediately.
Tarek Jordan was a Breed.
She had seen it in the fierce glow of his amber eyes as the light had shined into them, in the overly long incisors when he had snarled his furious orders on the back porch.
It made sense.
She should have suspected it from the beginning.
He had lived in the house beside her for months. His obvious discomfort in doing things most people did every day of their lives should have clued her in. The haunted shadows in his eyes.
His inability to cut grass should have told her something immediately. All men knew at least the rudiments of cutting grass.
The joy he found in a freshly made cup of coffee and homemade bread. As though he had never known it.
She had thought him a computer geek. That wasn't a
computer geek fighting in her backyard. That had reminded her of her brothers, practicing the tae kwon do they had learned in the military. He had reminded her of an animal, snarling, his growl echoing through the yard as he fought with the attempted burglar.
She should have known.
She had followed every news story, every report of the Breeds, just as her brothers had joined in several of the missions years before to rescue them. They had told her the tales of the ragged, savage men and women they had
transferred from the labs to the Feline Breed home base, Sanctuary.
Men near death, tortured, scarred, but with the eyes of killers. Men who were slowly being fashioned into animals—
killing machines and nothing more.
"There's nothing else we can do, Ms. Mason," the officer taking her statement announced as she signed the appropriate line. "We've called your security company, and they'll be out here tomorrow to repair the system."
"Thank you, Officer Roberts." She smiled politely as she handed the papers back to him, wishing they would just leave.
"We'll be going now." He nodded respectfully. It was about time.
She escorted them to the door, closing and locking it before pushing her feet into a pair of sneakers and waiting impatiently for them to pull from the drive.
The minute their taillights headed down the street, she grabbed her keys, threw open the door, and slipped onto the porch. Closing it quickly, she sprinted through the rain toward Tarek's.
She wanted answers now. Not whenever he decided to show. A frightened scream tore from her lips as she passed one of the thick evergreen trees in his yard and was caught from behind as another hand clamped over her mouth.
A hard arm wrapped around her waist, heated, muscular, nearly picking her from her feet as he began to move quickly to the house.
"How did I know you would do something so stupid?" His voice was a hard, dangerous growl in her ear as he pushed her through the living room door and slammed it shut. "I told you to stay put, Lyra."
He released her quickly, throwing the bolts closed on the door before punching in the code to the security pad beside it.
"You were too slow," she snapped. "What the hell was going on tonight?"
She turned on him fiercely, with every intention of blasting him over the previous hours' events. Her eyes widened, though, as she caught sight of his pale face and the bloodstained bandage.
"Are you okay?" She reached out, her fingers touching the hard, sun-bronzed flesh just beneath the bandage.
"I'll live," he grunted. "And stop trying to distract me. I told you to stay put."
His eyes glittered a menacing gold in the dim light of the heavily curtained living room.
"I don't obey orders so well." She licked her dry lips nervously. "And I was tired of waiting."
"The police had barely left, Lyra." He pushed his fingers through his damp hair with rough impatience. "I was on my way."
His voice gentled, though not by much as he stared down at her. For a moment, his expression softened and then turned fierce once again.
"You would drive a grown man to drink," he finally growled before turning to stalk through the house. "Come on, I need coffee."
"Do you know how to fix it?" She followed him quickly, the question falling from her lips before she could stop it.
"Hell no. But I'm f**king desperate," he snarled impatiently, his voice rough.
"Then don't touch that coffeepot, because I want some, too." She moved quickly in front of him before coming to a dead stop in the middle of the immaculate kitchen.
"Fine, go for it." He moved past her to the door where the tiles shone damply, the smell of disinfectant heavy in the air.
"What are you doing?" She was almost afraid to touch anything. It was almost sterile-clean.
"Blood." He grunted. "I don't want it staining the tiles." He knelt on the floor, a heavy towel in his hands as he mopped at the puddle of cleaner he had poured on the floor. Her brothers, bless their hearts, would have waited for her to try to clean it. She doubted they cleaned anything besides their weapons, at any time. The slobs.
"Do you ever cook in this kitchen?" she questioned him nervously as she moved to the cabinet and the coffeemaker sitting there.
"I'd need to know how to first," he grunted, working at the floor with single-minded intensity. "I'll figure it out eventually." She searched the cabinets until she found the bag of preground coffee and two mugs. The term bare cupboards definitely applied to this man.
"What do you eat?" The silence was stifling as he rose to his feet to watch her measure the coffee into a filter with narrowed eyes.
"I eat," he finally growled as he moved through the kitchen into a short hall.
Seconds later she heard water running in the sink and then a heavier flow, as though into a washer.