Under His Wings Page 8

  As soon as Lukas uttered the words, the muffled cough of a car engine reached Nicolai’s ears…and grew fainter as the seconds passed.

  “Shit.”

  The last image he saw before shifting and rocketing into the sky was the grin splitting his second-in-command’s face.

  * * * * *

  Tamar clutched the doorknob, her ear plastered to the door.

  The frantic pace of her heart tripled as Nicolai’s heavy footsteps neared the bathroom and paused. She shut her eyes, pressed harder. If her ear came away painted a coat of powder-blue, she wouldn’t be surprised.

  After several long seconds, the resonant tread moved again and, an instant later, her bedroom door opened and closed.

  She expelled her pent-up breath, the whistle like the leak of a balloon.

  Now to get the hell out of here.

  Tamar wasted no time unscrewing the lock before twisting the knob and jerking the bathroom door open. Like a windup toy on speed, she darted around the room, yanking drawers free and snatching up clothes with no regard to whether they matched or not. Tank top, jeans and flip-flops. She tugged them on in record time, grabbed her keys off the dresser and crossed the bedroom. Cracking open the door, she listened then cautiously peeked around the door jamb.

  No Nicolai.

  Before she changed her mind, she charged down the staircase, again pausing when she reached the bottom. Her fingers curled around the railing as she crouched down on the last step and sucked in a breath, trying to hear over her pounding pulse.

  Voices. Plural.

  She couldn’t detect the words, but the deep timbre of male voices came from the direction of the back porch.

  Now was her chance.

  She didn’t think, didn’t slow down to give herself time to be afraid of Nicolai catching her. Wrenching open the front door, she flew over the threshold and scurried across the porch and down the stairs.

  In seconds that felt like years, she was in the car turning the ignition. She cringed as the engine roared to life, but the grinding noise didn’t stop her from pulling the gear into drive and smashing her foot on the gas pedal.

  The car bucked then shot out of the driveway.

  Barely easing her foot off the accelerator, she jerked the steering wheel to the right and the vehicle veered onto the quiet deserted street. The houses went by in a blur and once she passed out of her neighborhood relief edged in, nudging out the panic.

  The speedometer didn’t dip under sixty, but she sighed and released her death grip on the steering wheel.

  “Shit!”

  She slammed the brakes and yanked the wheel so hard a twinge spasmed across her shoulder blades. Tires screeched and the noxious odor of burning rubber penetrated the rolled up windows as the car skidded into a wide arc, her front tires coming to a jarring rest against the curb.

  The hippogryph in the middle of the street glared at her through Nicolai’s purple eyes.

  Its heavy brown-and-white body quivered and its large brown wings flared wide, the white tips easily reaching either side of the road.

  Tamar stared at the beast outside the driver’s-side window, frozen.

  “Wow,” she breathed. He was…wow.

  A shimmer rippled the air like a massive heat wave that rose from the ground and covered the hippogryph in its power. In the next moment Nicolai strode toward her, long legs eating up the distance in seconds. She received a brief glimpse of a stunning naked man before blue denim encased his lower body, though that amazing chest with its primitive scroll of artwork remained bare.

  The grim set of his mouth, the narrowed slits of his eyes, the fists balled at the sides of his tree trunk-sized thighs—those tell-tale signs of fury snapped her out of the awe-induced stupor and got her ass moving.

  As she fumbled with the gear shift, a tiny voice of reason whispered, The man can freakin’ fly. Why do you think you can outrun him when the first time went so well?

  But logic had escaped on the same boat as common sense.

  Finally, her trembling ceased long enough for her to grip the shaft. But before she could put the car in gear, her door flew open and Nicolai destroyed any hope or thought of fleeing the scene.

  “Move over,” he said.

  Beneath the soft, carefully enunciated words simmered an anger that lashed out at her, its heat licking her exposed skin.

  He didn’t wait for her to obey his command. Nicolai lowered his bulk into the Honda compact, shrinking the interior to a fraction of its original space. With a flick of his wrist, he released the lever and the seat jacked back several inches, granting him a little more space to fit his legs beneath the dashboard.

  He looked like a clown stuffed into a circus car. All he needed was about eight more of his buddies to pile in with them.

  Pressed against the passenger side door, Tamar clapped a palm over her mouth, stifling the hysterical giggle that bubbled up her throat.

  Nicolai shot her a black look which she responded to with a helpless shrug. With another fierce scowl, he shifted the car into reverse and drove them back to her house.

  After five tense minutes, they pulled up in her driveway. She didn’t wait for Nicolai to turn the engine off before she jumped out of the car and hurried across her lawn to the house. Not that her mad dash mattered. He was hot on her heels, his breath heavy on her neck.

  A shiver danced down her spine.

  And not from fear. Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl. The man had just hawked her down, transformed from a beast to a man in front of her eyes and did she tremble with well-earned horror? Nope. That tingly curl tightening the small of her back was lust. Unbridled oh-look-at-all-those-muscles lust.

  She twisted the doorknob and the front door swung open as she’d neglected to lock the house during her escape attempt. A dark, ominous growl caused goose bumps to prickle her skin.

  Oh God. That couldn’t be good.

  “I took you for an intelligent woman,” he said as soon as they entered the living room. She wheeled around at the quiet thunder in his voice, unwilling to have this powerful creature at her back. She shuffled backward. He stalked forward.

  They swapped step for step in a ludicrous tango until her calves hit the edge of the couch. Leaving her with no place to go.

  Her heart plummeted toward her stomach before it rocketed back up in her throat. It lodged there, cutting off her air. Blood pounded in her eardrums and perspiration prickled her skin.

  Don’t black out. Don’t you dare black out and leave yourself wide-open and undefended.

  “Obviously I was wrong,” he continued, oblivious to the anxiety attack that dragged at her consciousness. Nicolai closed in on her, his chest almost bumping hers. Down at his sides, his large fists flexed as if he were restraining himself from snatching her up and shaking the living daylights out of her. Black and gold dots danced at the edges of her vision. “What the fuck were you thinking? Do you have any fucking idea what could have happened to you?” he roared.

  She recoiled from the blast, one arm rising to cover her face and the other over her chest. As she fell back on the couch, her knee came up, history teaching her to block any possible blows to her kidneys and stomach.

  Whenever Kyle had become this enraged, violence followed.

  He’d started with the belittling—she was worthless, a burden, a cripple. Then it was the isolation. Outside of her doctors and therapist, he wouldn’t allow any of her friends into the house to visit, claiming Tamar wasn’t in her right mind after the crash. Next he confiscated her checkbook and her accounts, making her totally dependent on him for every bite of food, every purchase of medication. And finally, the physical abuse.

  First it was a shove off her walker. And when she tumbled to the floor, Kyle had refused to help her up, leaving her there, helpless and humiliated for hours. He graduated to pinches on her thighs or slaps across her back or chest when she asked for assistance with cooking or cleaning the house. Then he escalated to raining blows, beating the shit
out of her for no reason at all.

  Once she woke to a fist to the back of her head followed by a punch to her injured shoulder. She’d rolled over and had ended up on the floor, her left leg crumpled beneath her. While she’d slept, Kyle had moved her cane from beside the bed where she’d left it the night before. So Tamar had lain there, defenseless and vulnerable. And Kyle had continued the attack while she held up her good arm in the only semblance of protection she could manage.

  That had been the last time he’d touched her.

  Afterward, when she’d crawled over the bedroom floor, dragging her injured arm and leg, and hefted her body into a chair, she’d vowed it would never happen again.

  Maybe Kyle had taken a look at her battered and scratched body or her swollen and bloody face and realized he’d lost it, had crossed a line. Or maybe he’d realized unlike the previous assaults, these bruises couldn’t be hidden. Nevertheless, when she’d threatened to call the police and have him arrested for domestic violence, he’d agreed to leave and never return. He’d kept his promise.

  Kyle hadn’t come back and she had sworn her sentence as a punching bag for that bitter, resentful and angry piece-of-shit had ended. She would never be a victim again. Ever.

  And yet here she sat, cowering on the couch, praying Nicolai would back off, that he wouldn’t hurt her. The rational part of her mind noted the shock then appall that slackened his features. Underneath his anger, she detected concern. Concern for her safety, concern for her.

  But old habits died hard. The instinctive need to protect herself from harm overrode logic.

  Nicolai shifted a step away from her, granting Tamar more room and space. “Who hurt you?” he asked, the whisper soft, deadly.

  She shook her head, but abruptly cut off the gesture when Nicolai closed his eyes and uttered a blistering curse under his breath. When he lifted his lashes again, purple fire lit his gaze.

  “Don’t tell me no one,” he snapped. “Who was it? The person you lied to the police about?”

  Tamar couldn’t hold back her soft gasp. How had he known about that? Nicolai hadn’t been at the hospital…had he?

  “Shit.” He stalked away from her, disappeared out of the room. The front door banged open and she knew he’d left the house. Several minutes passed. Tamar uncurled her body, lowering her arms and leg, although she didn’t move from the couch.

  Bit by bit, the fear and terror edged away and reason moved in.

  As huge and intimidating—and supernatural—as Nicolai was, he hadn’t hurt her. If that had been his intention, tonight had presented him several opportunities. Yet he’d taken advantage of none of them. The cool logic helped beat back the fight-or-flight adrenaline that slowly ebbed from her blood stream.

  A voice from deep within murmured she could trust him. But experience and memories warned her that when it came to people—men especially—in the past her radar had been terribly off. She couldn’t afford to blindly place her belief in someone just because he had gifted her with multiple orgasms in her dreams.

  Heavy footsteps echoed in the hall seconds before Nicolai reentered the living room. He halted several feet from the couch as if granting her breathing room. Somewhere between her heart and stomach, a tiny flicker of warmth flared to life at his consideration. Even the fierce scowl darkening his face didn’t detract from the butterfly wings tickling her stomach.

  “I’m sorry for taking my anger out on you. I shouldn’t have. When you left, it scared the shit out of me. I followed Evander here,” he said from between gritted teeth. “Remember I told you that earlier? What if he had been waiting to take you as soon as you stepped out of your house? I wouldn’t have arrived in time to save you. You would be dead by now, Tamar,” he said. “Dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. The full weight of her rash decision crashed into her. Panic had propelled her down the stairs and out of the house. She’d been so worried about becoming the prisoner of another man, she hadn’t considered the consequences of her actions. Potentially deadly consequences. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”

  Nicolai stared down at her, but she squared her shoulders and met his censure without flinching. After a tense high-noon showdown, he shoved his fingers through his hair, tugging on the thick waves.

  Ouch. Tamar did wince now. It was a wonder he didn’t come away with a fistful of the golden strands.

  “Listen,” he said. Then paused. He lifted his hands, palms up, and glanced down at them as if they contained the rest of his sentence. His frustration was palpable and Tamar got the impression he didn’t explain himself often. “I understand this is a shock to you.” Understatement. “And I know what I’m asking of you.”

  Did he?

  Someone as strong and powerful as he couldn’t possibly comprehend the powerlessness of being totally dependent on another person…at their mercy. He could transform into a gigantic half-eagle, half-horse mythical beast capable of ripping a man from nape to nuts with one swipe of his talons.

  Yeah, she doubted he fully grasped what he was asking of her.

  “If there was another way to keep you out of harm’s way, I would try it.” He lowered to the chair adjacent the couch. “Evander isn’t going to stop. He loves the hunt and won’t quit until he runs his prey to ground. And I don’t have to tell you he’s a sadistic bastard.”

  “No,” Tamar rasped. “You don’t.”

  “Tamar.” He reached a hand toward her but drew back at the last second. The grave expression had returned and his sensual features could have been hewn from stone. “This is my fault. You’re in his sights because of me.”

  Slowly, she straightened. His fault? She tilted her head to the side and considered him from under her lowered lashes. “I don’t get it. Your fault, how?”

  Nicolai sighed, glanced away before his lavender eyes settled on her once more. “He blames me for his brother’s death and is taking out those I care about to punish me.”

  Confusion swirled in her chest along with a surge of pleasure. Those I care about… She shoved both away and concentrated on the implication behind his words. “That doesn’t make sense.” She frowned. “I barely know you. And he couldn’t have found out about the—” She cleared her throat. “About the…uh…dreams.”

  Nicolai stared at her, his intense scrutiny unsettling.

  “You are the image of my wife.”

  Wife.

  Oh God.

  The word reverberated in her head, growing louder with each bounce against the walls of her mind. Her stomach plummeted toward her feet while bile soared for her throat. A wife… She hadn’t once considered the possibility he was a husband. God, for some inexplicable reason the idea broke her heart. Thinking of him touching this faceless, nameless woman, making her explode with pleasure as he’d done with Tamar in their dreams, grieved her.

  “Pria died. She was killed.”

  The relief would have brought her to her knees if she’d been standing. But shame immediately bombarded her. His wife had died—her relief was callous in the face of that tragedy.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and meant it. Her mother’s death had nearly sent Tamar into the grave with her. She could only imagine the agony Nicolai suffered having to bury his wife. It must have been unbearable.

  “It’s been a while. Nearly five hundred years ago.”

  “Still it must—” She gasped and her spine hit the back of the couch. “Five hundred years?” she repeated and gaped at him. “Just how the hell old are you?”

  He scowled and Tamar shrugged, too stunned to be polite.

  “Nine hundred years old,” he supplied stiffly.

  “Damn,” she whispered, awed. Her gaze touched on the broad unlined forehead, the blade-like cheekbones and wide, sensual mouth. No wrinkles—not even a laugh line. He appeared to be in his late-twenties or early-thirties, not old enough to have witnessed the events she taught her students. “How is that even possible?”

  His bark of laughter echoed in the
room. “You can ask me that after everything you’ve seen?”

  “I know, I know,” she murmured. “But up until twenty-four hours ago I believed hippogryphs were relegated to Greek mythology and Harry Potter, and humans were the only inhabitants of earth except for the occasional UFO.” She shook her head. “Excuse me if some of this continues to bowl me over.”

  He dipped his head, acknowledging her point even as his lips twisted into a wry smile. “I’ll give you that. Especially since I’ve had nine hundred years to become accustomed to the idea.”

  “Will you tell me what I’m dealing with?”

  The hesitation was small but there. She cocked her head to the side and studied him. “Let me guess,” she drawled. “If you tell me, you’ll have to kill me.”

  Nicolai threw her a sharp glance, eyes narrowed to lavender slits. “Don’t joke about that.”

  She snorted. “Oh please—” Once more she drew up short as an ugly, incredible thought entered her head. “You wouldn’t really have to kill me.” She swallowed. “Would you?”

  Muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “clusterfuck”, Nicolai surged to his feet. Tension vibrated from him, agitation in every stride of his long-legged pace.

  “Let’s get this out of the way,” he growled. “I’m not going to hurt you. And I won’t allow anyone else to touch you.” His head whipped around and he pinned her to the couch with a hard stare. “Understand?”

  Tamar nodded, choosing not to utter a word. Silence was probably prudent at this moment.

  “My people have existed since the beginning of time. We’re one of the oldest races—”

  “One of?”

  After the blast of another glare, she held up her hands in the ancient—he would know better than her exactly how ancient—sign of submission. “Sorry. I’m listening.”

  “Yes,” he said. “We are one of many races that live in secrecy. As the world grew more populated and smaller, we had to learn to adapt or become extinct. Our existence depends on our ability to remain hidden to humans and appear as one of you.”

  “So my neighbor could be a what? Werewolf?” she blurted, again violating her resolution to remain quiet. But damn, this was just too much to take in!