Chapter 17
The rapid pounding of her heartbeat was loud in Hawke’s ears.
Iridescent colors rippled up and down the exposed skin of her arms and neck in waves.
The bones in her face shifted slightly under her skin.
And her eyes glowed with pink fire. Everly moaned, on the verge of her first shift, and he was terrified for her.
She didn’t know to go with the change. She would fight it, like Kohl had, and it would cause her more pain than was necessary. Hawke forced himself to steel his nerves. It wouldn’t do any good to freak out along with her.
The door clicked softly as Kohl removed Devon from the room. Hawke knew he was probably sending her below ground until he knew it was safe. He returned a few seconds later.
Still holding Everly’s face between his hands, Hawke shook his head just enough for him to see.
“I’ll be right outside,” Kohl told him. “Do I need to clear out the club?”
“Not yet,” Hawke told him. “Everly, I need you to focus. Focus on me and breathe. Just breathe.”
Shadows shifted behind her eyes, and someone—or some thing—else looked out at him.
This wasn’t good. She would have to shift eventually, but it would be better to do it in a controlled environment, like out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Not inside the club.
He heard the door close again and decided to try a different tactic.
“You know, when Kohl shifts, the creature he becomes doesn’t recognize me.
Or anyone he’s close to, really.” He thought about that for a moment.
“Except Devon,” he corrected. “He recognizes Devon. He even saved her once while in his shifter form when some vampires from our coven followed them out to his property one night. He burned three of them alive—don’t look at me like that, they were assholes—then he swooped in and picked Devon up as she ran away from a fourth and flew with her to his favorite field.
The dragon side of him is fond of soaking up the warmth of the morning sun.
” He paused. Her eyes, burning and watery, stayed glued to his face. His distraction appeared to be working.
She frowned at him, her tongue still sounding a bit thick for her mouth as she said, “How can he sunbathe if he’s half vampire?”
“He can’t. That’s the thing. He ends up passing out, and when he wakes up back in his normal form, he has to run like hell to the closest shelter before he bursts into flames.”
Her eyes, still teary but tinged with only the slightest wisps of fire now, widened in fear for a male she barely knew.
Hawke rubbed her temples with his thumbs.
When he felt her begin to relax, he released her face.
Immediately, her teeth began to chatter, and gooseflesh covered her arms as the heat of her almost-change subsided.
She rubbed her arms. “That would be terrifying. Can’t he tell the thing inside him not to take him there?”
Hawke smiled as her cheeks reclaimed their normal color. “It appears his dragon has a mind of its own.”
She drew back, tilting her head to the side as she pulled her sweater back on. “Will I recognize you?”
He gave her a little shrug. “Guess we’ll eventually find out.” He looked her over. “But not today, it seems.”
Her jaw tightened, halting the chattering. Before Hawke could think of what to say that would help put things in perspective, she asked, “Do vampires feel anything? Other than thirst?”
The question, completely off topic, threw him for a bit of a loop.
He studied a soft, red curl lying along the curve of her cheekbone.
Right at this moment, Hawke was feeling way more than he should.
He was feeling so many things he was worried it was going to affect his judgment when the time came to do what he needed to do with her brother—and at some point in time, possibly her.
He should tell her what she expected to hear. Tell her what he should to end this thing between them right now. The lie was right there, on the tip of his tongue…
But he couldn’t bring himself to tell it.
“I feel things,” he told her when she finally got up the courage to look at him for an answer.
Her eyes, clear as the morning sky just before dawn, searched his face. “Do you feel anything…for me? Other than the urge to drink my blood.” Her tone was teasing but her emotions didn’t match. No. Her emotions were dead serious.
Though he knew the entire time where she was headed with this, the question hit him right in the gut.
Maybe it was the way she held herself so carefully, like she would shatter into tiny pieces if he touched her.
Maybe it was the set of her jaw and the way she so carefully and distinctly pronounced each word.
Or maybe it was the way a fire of a different kind all together burned through the mist in her gray eyes.
Maybe it was because he’d been through enough shit in his long life to know he shouldn’t—couldn’t—have any kind of feelings for this female.
And, yet, he did.
Only they weren’t simple “feelings.” They were fucking cyclones of emotion that raged through him every time the faintest whisper of her scent reached him.
Every time he heard her laugh. Every time she lit up a room simply with her aura.
It seemed impossible after so short a time, and yet, there it was.
Hawke straightened, setting himself away from her. He needed to regain control of this conversation. “My feelings for you, or lack thereof, aren’t important right now.”
“They’re important to me.”
“It won’t change anything.”
“Because you don’t want it to.”
“Because it’s not possible.”
She was silent then, but the way she looked at him spoke volumes.
Hawke sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Everly, sometimes hard choices have to be made.”
She stood and pulled his hand away from his face.
Her mouth twisted into something resembling a snarl, and he blinked in surprise.
“Don’t tell me about hard choices, Hawke.
I know all about them. Every choice I’ve ever made in my life has been hard except for—” She snapped her mouth closed abruptly.
“Except for what?” Was it wrong that his heart pounded in anticipation? Should he despise himself for being so weak that he wanted to hear the words? “Except for what, Everly?”
“Except for the choice to be with you,” she whispered. “That choice was easy. It was right. And nothing you say will ever convince me otherwise.”
He inhaled sharply in an attempt to clear his head, and her sweet scent filled him.
Hawke froze and ground his teeth together, keeping his fangs concealed.
But it was no use. This female with her questions and her imperfect smile and her laughing eyes had burrowed her way under his skin.
It was more than the bloodlust, more than the sex.
It was the way she embraced her life with a joy he hadn’t felt in a long time.
It was the way she flayed him open with her frank honesty.
The way she cared for a brother she barely knew.
The way she gave herself openly, trusting him not to hurt her.
Hawke couldn’t lie to her. Not when she stared at him with her heart in her eyes. He took her hands, pressing his forehead to hers briefly. “This thing between us, whatever it is, it has to stop.” He raised a hand when she was about to argue. “It has to stop. You’ll hate me when this is all over.”
“No, I won’t.”
He pulled back to see her expression better. Something fluttered in his gut. A warning, perhaps. “You won’t?”
“No.” Rising up on her tiptoes, she pressed a kiss to his lips. “Because you’re not killing my brother.”
Pain lanced through his skull. His vision cleared just in time to see Everly throw the keyboard back on the desk and turn to run. If nothing else convinced him she was a shifter, the strength in that hit just fucking did.
He caught her before she made it to the door, spinning her around and wrapping his arms around her. She struggled, but he wouldn’t release her. Kohl was standing right outside. Hawke was actually surprised he hadn’t come in yet. Even over the music, he should’ve heard the commotion.
When she finally realized her plan was thwarted and she wasn’t getting away, she took a deep breath, the movement pressing her breasts against his chest, and lifted her chin. “Let me go.”
Hawke knew she wasn’t talking about being in his arms. Not entirely. “I can’t do that, honey.”
“Why not? I’ll go get my brother myself.”
“And then what are you going to do?” She wriggled in his hold, and he released her, hanging on to her hand when she would’ve walked away.
“Before you think of smashing that monitor over my head next, you should know that Kohl is right outside that door. Even if you manage to knock me out—which isn’t likely—you won’t get very far. ”
Everly pulled her hand away and walked around the desk to stare down at the camera feed. A tear escaped to run down her cheek and she quickly dashed it away.
Hawke pushed his hair back out of his face.
He had no idea what to say or do to make her feel better.
And maybe there was nothing he could say.
The situation was what it was. And sometimes hard choices had to be made.
All he knew was there was no way in hell he was allowing her to go after her brother alone so she could go off and get herself hurt…
or killed. He’d known who Everly was when Hawke had mentioned her, but with him getting shot up with whatever the fuck it was Parasupe was injecting him with, that could all be different now.
When Hawke saw him just forty-eight hours ago, he could still talk coherently.
Not so much today. The gods only knew what condition his mind was in.
As though she knew exactly what he was thinking, Everly said quietly, “He’s my brother, Hawke. Wouldn’t you do everything you could to help Kohl?”
“That’s different.”
She laughed without humor. “It’s not different, and you damn well know it. What if it was Kohl stuck in that cell? Don’t stand there and tell me you wouldn’t try to get him out. That you wouldn’t try to help him no matter what they’d done to him.” She waited expectantly.
Hawke opened his mouth to deny it, but in the end, he knew she was right. “What do you want me to do, Everly? I can’t just walk in there and set him loose, even if I wanted to.”
“What would you do if it were Kohl?”
He shook his head. “I have no fucking idea.”
“But you would get him out.”
He scrubbed at his face. She had him there. He couldn’t lie to her about it. Letting his arms fall back to his sides, he said, “I would try.”
But she wasn’t done. “And what if it were Kohl who was out of his mind and couldn’t control his anger?”
Hawke didn’t even have to think about it. “I would put him down before he could hurt anyone. And I would mourn him with the respect he deserves.”
She stared at him for long seconds, and then she sank into the office chair and put her head in her hands.
Hawke went to her and gently pulled them away.
When she raised her head, he saw tears were running silently down her cheeks.
He brushed them away. “I’m sorry, honey.
I wish I could tell you something different.
But I’m not going to lie to you about what could very well turn out to be a very fucked up situation. ”
She gave him a sad smile. “I do appreciate that. Even if I don’t want to hear it.”
He pushed a red curl back from her face. “We’re going to take out that fucking laboratory, and if we can save your brother, we will. But I will not allow him to hurt anyone. I will not allow him to hurt you. On that, you have my word.”