Blood Lines

TWENTY-THREE

"WOULD you slow it down?" Cynna said.

"No." Cullen knew he was driving too fast. He didn't care. He was back in the Mother-damned car when he needed to run.

The Wiccan healer—one of Sherry's people, so she was among the best—had checked Rule out earlier that evening. She couldn't do anything, with or without the coven's backing. It wasn't a matter of power, but knowledge.

They had a Catholic archbishop in their task force. He couldn't do a damned thing, either. Whatever was happening to Rule, it wasn't possession. It wasn't anything anyone knew a goddamned thing about.

Including him. They rocketed around a corner, tires squealing.

"Deja vu all over again. Every time I let a man behind the wheel today, he goes too fast. Slow down, Cullen. Now."

He glanced at her—and yelped. "You pulled a damned gun on me!"

The barrel of a snub-nosed revolver stared at him. So did a pair of tired but determined brown eyes. "I'm not in the mood to splatter all over the pavement tonight. I'm not in the mood for stupid men who won't listen. And I am so not in the mood to argue. Slow down."

He gave a quick bark of laughter and eased off on the accelerator until they were going a sedate forty. "Better?" he asked mildly.

"Much." She holstered her weapon. "Ah… you're pretty cheerful about being drawn on."

"I needed a good laugh."

"You find it funny to have people point guns at you?"

"You weren't going to use it. Shooting the driver at seventy miles an hour is a tad risky, even for you." He grinned. "Silliest thing I've seen in years. Got to love a woman who knows how to overreact."

"Glad I could improve your mood. Want me to brighten things even more and put a bullet in your leg?"

He chuckled. "You're pissed."

"You're just full of insight. That's my hotel."

"Right." He slowed further and pulled into the parking lot. "Where now?"

"Use the side entry—it's closer to my room." She twisted to check on his other passenger.

"Sleeping Beauty still out cold?"

She nodded. Cynna had the front seat this time, Timms the back. He'd fallen asleep the moment he curled up back there and didn't seem likely to wake for anything short of the last trumpet. Cullen marveled at his ability to sleep so soundly with a freshly broken bone, having experienced a few breaks in his time. Maybe the man had fewer pain receptors than most people.

Of course, Timms's body didn't flush out painkillers within minutes the way Cullen's did. There were advantages to being human, Cullen conceded. Not many, but a few.

He pulled to a stop near the side entry and shut off the engine.

"Cullen." Her. hand on his arm was almost as big a surprise as the gun had been. "We're going to fix Rule. Just because we don't know how yet doesn't mean we can't do it."

"Right." He took a deep breath, let it out. He was too old to believe in fairy tales. Right didn't make might, bad things did happen to good people, and determination didn't always win the day.

But you didn't get far without it. "Right," he said again, meaning it this time, and opened his door.

"For crying out loud. I make it safely inside all the time, you know."

"I'm going to kiss you. I could do it here, but—"

"If you get any mushier I'm going to tear up." But she didn't object to the idea. She didn't object when he took her hand, either.

Weird. They were holding hands. He might wonder if he was going through a second adolescence, but he hadn't been much for holding hands in the first one. He wasn't even going to go to bed with the woman—yet. He just wanted a little taste. A kiss.

How long had it been since he stopped at kissing?

But it felt good to hold her hand. He'd forgotten how good a simple touch could be. He'd trained himself not to need it; a clan-less wolf couldn't afford that need, because humans didn't understand. If you touched one of them, male or female, they thought it meant sex.

Or, in his case, they hoped it did. His lips quirked.

She dropped his hand to dig out her key card, which she needed to unlock the side door at this hour.

"How can you afford to stay here?" he asked.

"Hey, I negotiated. I get off-season rates year-round, and only pay for the nights I'm actually here, which averages about ten a month." She located the card and stuck it in. "There's a lot of demand for a good Finder. I fly all over the country, then when I come back, I get maid service, room service, laundry facilities, a gym, a pool, cable, Internet—"

"I get it. You like staying here."

"What's not to like? I guess someone who's into owning stuff wouldn't be happy, but it works for me."

The lock snicked. He leaned around her to open the door and hold it for her.

She gave him a funny look.

"I've got manners. I don't always bother with them, but they're around when I want them." His position put him close to her, close enough for her scent to stir him. Heady, familiar, and welcome, arousal began tightening his body.

It had been a long time since he took the time to anticipate going to bed with a woman instead of just doing it. He decided he liked it. He trailed his free hand down the side of her neck. "Besides, ladies first has always been my motto." He wasn't referring to doors.

She got that. Her eyes smiled at him—pretty eyes, he thought. The color of whiskey. The rest of her face stayed solemn. "Good motto, but some ladies like to go second and third, too."

"Greedy, aren't you?"

"When my head isn't hurting." She walked through the door, and he let it close behind them. "I guess you do know how to flirt."

"Meaning?"

She gave a one-shoulder shrug. "I didn't think you were interested. Until I asked about sex, you didn't flirt, didn't give me any looks… you know."

He'd hurt her feelings. Cullen considered that as they headed down a hall—hotel standard, with beige carpet, beige walls. Did she prefer to live someplace where nothing of her showed? "You're going to accuse me of being an arrogant ass."

"I already have, lots of times. Not always when you were around."

"Been thinking about me, huh?" He flashed her a grin. "Lots of women do."

"We're getting to the arrogant part already, I see."

He shrugged. He knew what he looked like. That Was reality, not arrogance. "My looks tip the scales too much in my favor, so I have a rule. No-flirting, no seducing, no come-ons unless a woman gives me the green light."

She stopped. "You're saying you're chivalrous?"

"Hell, no. Chivalry is sick—men pretending to moon chastely after ladies, when we all know there's no such thing as a chaste moon."

"Your own, twisted version of chivalry, then." She was delighted. "Is that why you're letting Timms hang around?"

"I can promise you he doesn't have designs on my body. Or vice versa."

She waved that off. "No, I mean he's like a feral puppy trotting around after you. I can't get over it. He couldn't stand you before."

"Timms doesn't know it, but he's looking for a pack. He's accepted me as dominant—not that he thinks of it that way, but he's not able to deal with other men as equals. He'll bully those beneath him and think of those above as his friends."

They'd reached her door, apparently, because she stopped in front of it—1014. She snorted. "He's not a lupus."

"Humans need packs, but you think you aren't supposed to, which is why you're all so confused—the XY half of you, especially. Drink, drugs, gangs, outdoing the Joneses—all symptoms of the need for a pack, and a defined status within the pack. The American cult of rugged individualism makes human men think thty're all supposed to be alphas, but it doesn't work that way."

She leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms and hiking her eyebrows. So skeptical. It made him smile. "Cult of rugged individualism?"

"Sure. It's a myth, a story people tell each other to make modern isolation more tolerable. America wasn't founded by rugged individualists but by people who didn't like the packs back home and wanted to form their own—religious packs in the northern colonies, wealth-based packs down South. They weren't a bunch of loners. They couldn't be—they needed each other to survive."

"What about all those rugged Westerners? Cowboys, wagon trains, frontiersmen—"

"The settlers relied on each other to survive, too. As for cowboys—rugged individualists, my ass. They're a perfect example of human-style packs. Ranch hands were sometimes misfits, but there were no real loners on a ranch. They banded together beneath a strong leader to tend cattle, care for horses and gear, and fight."

"Gunfighters—"

"Were outcasts, but still sought status, which is another way of saying they needed a place within the pack, even if it was based on fear. Trappers were the one exception. Some went native, living with one tribe or another, but others did live completely alone . for months at a time. And they were often a little nuts." He shook his head. "Humans aren't loners by nature."

"Neither are lupi." She tilted her head. Her eyes met his. The cool curiosity he saw there was less abrasive than sympathy would have been. That didn't make it welcome. "You lived like that for a while, though, didn't you? As a lone wolf."

"Shut up, Cynna."

She gave that wry, one-sided smile, neither offended nor, he felt sure, accepting his suggestion to avoid the topic. He took her face in his two hands, running his thumb along the sensitive hollow just beneath the jawbone. Her skin was a soft surprise. The filigree covering it, so obvious to the eye, was invisible to the touch.

He lowered his head slowly, enjoying the droop of her eyelids as her body consented to the kiss. Her musky scent pleased him, though her hair products did not; a whiff of bleach clung to the short, spiky strands, its smell masked by that of industrial-strength gel. And another scent…

Blood. Close up, he saw flecks of rusty red at the tips of some of those spiky strands. Not her blood, since her skin hadn't broken when her skull did, but there wasn't enough for him to sniff out the original owner, not in this form.

Still, the reminder helped. She was injured. And while he might have decided anticipation was intriguing, he was unaccustomed to waiting.

Their breaths mingled. Their mouths met.

Cullen meant it to be a quiet kiss—a taste, a sampling, letting fire brush without burning. Nothing that pushed either of them. He'd forgotten how badly he needed to run.

The first skimming touch of lips made him smile..His tongue asked to be let in, and she did, and she tasted even better than she smelled. She put her hands on his waist and clamped her teeth on his tongue.

' He pressed her back against the door. She was a tall woman, and he liked that. He could feel that strong-soft body all along his, the warmth and pressure delicious to him. Then she sank his good intentions. She cupped his butt, holding him firmly against her as she rolled her hips.

Wildness roared up and swallowed his brain. He forgot about asking and anticipation and all that rot. She was here and she wanted him.

He dove in. His hands needed to learn the feel of her—the curve of her hip, the welcoming fullness of her breast, the heat between her legs. His mouth wanted the taste of her throat, her jaw. And the rest of him—"

But her hand was pushing at him. Pushing his hand away from the zipper on her jeans. She got her mouth free. "The hall, Cullen. We're in the hall."

"Right." Slowly he pulled away. He expected to see smugness. It would be mixed with pleasure, because she'd been right there with him, but she'd drowned him, purely drowned him, and she knew it. "Sorry. I mean… your head. How's your head?"

"My head?" She blinked at him, her eyes dazed… with pleasure or pain? "Oh. It hurts, but…"

But she hadn't cared. For a few moments there, she'd forgotten or hadn't noticed. His smile started small and spread. "Oh, we are going to have us one hell of a good time, shetanni rakibu." He brushed her jaw with his knuckles. "Soon. But right now…" He't?ok a deep breath and straightened. His jeans were much too tight.

Hell, his skin was too tight. "Sleep well," he said, giving her cheek a last touch.

She licked her lips. "You, too."

Not likely—not right away, at least. He badly wanted to read the report Lily had gotten him, but first things first. As soon as he got his feral puppy settled, he was going running.

"I told you earlier that I could be patient when I have to," he said, releasing her. "I lied. I'm not a patient man."