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Naked pain crawled over her features, turning the stor of amber fire "I’m sorry, Clay You went to prison because of me"
"Don’t flatter yourself You didn’t uts or tear off his face"
She pressed a hand to her stomach "Don’t"
"Why not?" he pushed, a caustichis fiercely protective instincts where Tally was concerned Again, he reminded hiirl he’d have split his veins to keep safe "I killed Orrin while you were in the roonore it like it never happened"
"We don’t have to talk about it"
"You used to have ainst the fading daylight But she took a step forward, anger vibrating through her frame "That was before I had a man’s blood spray across my face, before my head filled with his screa could hunt in complete quiet - in either hue that day that the animal in him had risen totally to the surface For those blood-soaked minutes, he’d been a human insane, a leopard on two feet They had had to shoot an overdose of animal tranqs into him to pull hi he’d seen as he lay on the floor, his face pressed into still-warm blood, was Tally curled up in a corner, face flecked with blood and other things, pink and fleshyand gray, luh hiainst the chalk white skin visible between all that red Some of the blood had been her own Most had been Orrin’s
"You used to have ht in the h not to care about anyone outside of his pack, especially not those who dared harm his packmates Back then, Tally and Isla had been the sole members of his pack He’d always known he would kill to protect either of thee the subject"
"I’ I saw on the outside" He brushed a finger over those freckles of hers "They rew up"
"No, they didn’t," she snapped, and - for the first tiirl he’d known "They’ve s"
"You own them now," he said, amused as always by her antipathy toward those tiny spots of pigment "They’re yours"
"Since the creams don’t ery, I guess they are"
He alone Oh, the power Talin had over him She could make him crawl The realization of his continued weakness for a woman who found the violent heart of him repulsive, turned his next words razor sharp "Give me your key"
She took a wary step back "It’s stalled I can - "
"Givekey or find another fool to help you"
"You didn’t used to be like this" Big, haunted eyes, soft lips pressed together as if to withhold emotion "Clay?"
He held out his hand After a taut second, she put the flat computronic key on his palm Most cars were keyed to the owner’s print, but for that very reason, rental places gave out a preprogra in each new customer It saved time, but it also let thieves steal the vehicles Idiots "Get in"
He stalked around the Jeep without another word and took the driver’s seat By the ti and juh ti back the way she’d come
The bar was on the outskirts of Napa, close to the ed the area, forests that were a part of DarkRiver’s territory He headed toward the cool privacy of those trees, doing his best to ignore the spicy fe as that scent was, there was still soht then, he wasn’t in anyon pure adrenaline
"Where are we going?" she asked ten minutes later as he drove thee firs that dorowled low in this throat, too da polite
Talin felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise in pri Clay had always been less than civilized Even trapped in the claustrophobic confines of the apartment complex where they had met, his animal fury contained beneath a veneer of quiet intensity, he had walked like a predator on the hunt No one had ever dared bully Clay, not boys twice his age, not the aggressive gang-bangers who lived to terrorize, not even the ex-cons
But that was then - his current behavior was so to scareher jump in her seat "I don’t have to try You’re scared shitless anyway I can s insult"