Chapter Sixteen

Thomal squeezed the high barstool between tight thighs, hunching over his drink like a prisoner protecting his stash. Muscles all over his body were gnarled into aggressive knots. He'd fed a little over an hour ago, but instead of making him go all Tao-chill like it should've, his mood was downright abominable.

He was back to bonding withdrawal. Oh, joy.

Every artery, vein, blood vessel, and capillary inside him was a wild beast snarling at him for more of Pandra's blood. Besides the stuff tasting like orgasm-in-a-can and being laced with Fey Super Powers, he'd sort of been inches from dead an hour ago, and one dosage of red yummy wasn't nearly enough to get him completely back on his feet. He wanted—needed—more. Then there was the insistent roar of his dick. Varcolac males weren't wired to feed on a new mate and then not get down to the business of bumping fuzzies. The boner he'd sprung in the garage hadn't ever entirely settled down, leaving his body filled with several quarts of adrenaline with nothing better to do than make him want to kill every organism on earth. Big wonder no one else was sitting at the bar.

Picking up his shot glass, he clonked it on the bar. "Another, Luvera."

Luvera Parthen cut him a look from beneath her black lashes while she finished drawing a beer at the tap. Luvera was a long-time waitress at Garwald's Pub, now part owner, seeing as Garwald had recently entered his elder phase.

Since marrying Alex Parthen, Luvera had changed a lot. First off, she'd given up wearing baggy, formless clothes, astounding everyone with just how pretty she was, and now she radiated all kinds of newfound confidence. Overall, she was doing a better job of de-nerdifying herself than Alex. That dude was holding onto his pocket-protector like it was a childhood blankie. In her time slinging drinks, Luvera had probably seen men and women in every state of crappy disposition, yet the look she tossed Thomal leaned really heavy toward worried.

"Um…hold on a sec," Luvera told him, heading off to deliver the beer. Or maybe she was stalling for time while she figured out how to handle him.

The hell if he needed handling. Hiking himself high on his stool, he leaned over the width of the bar and snagged the bottle of Jack Daniel's from among the other—

A strong hand on his shoulder re-parked his ass on his seat. None too gently. The bottle of Jack was pointedly removed from his grip.

He pivoted on the stool, his upper lip wrinkling toward a preemptive sneer. Wunderbar. Jacken and Toni. The Bobbsey Twins of Buzz Kills. He narrowed in on Jacken. "You in the mood to get skull-fucked?"

Toni heaved a sigh.

Yeah, not exactly a career-promoting thing for a guy to say to his boss. But Thomal didn't see any point in being subtle in his current frame of mind.

"Sure, sounds like something right up my alley," Jacken returned in a tone blasé enough to bring Thomal to his feet.

Jacken gripped Thomal's shoulder again and shoved him back down. "Soon as you're not weak as a guppy, Costache, you go ahead and hand me my balls. Meantime, go to your mate."

"My mate?" The word dropped a Harry Potter Jelly Slug vomit jellybean onto his tongue. "You mean that bitch with a capital C?" He glared at Jacken. "May I please have my Jack Daniel's back?" He left off the you fucking asshole, but still showed Jacken a set of half-jacked canines. "We can toast my miraculous return from the grave."

"You've re-awakened your bonding withdrawal," Toni told him.

"No shit, Sherlock."

Jacken bit out a snarl. Probably not feeling the love for Thomal's tone.

Why was Toni here, anyway? Probably because a female should be a calming influence on a newly bonded male—which he still sort of was, seeing as his cells had never completely settled—but this particular female happened to be half-sister to the slut-bag. And the only thing that would truly settle him was the slut-bag herself, which was a thought that made him want to tear his brain out of his head and bean Jacken with it.

Toni held up a hand. "Exactly, Thomal. You've been through this before, and you know how miserable you're going to be if you don't go and scent Pandra."

"And," Jacken grated, "you're putting other people in danger."

Thomal scanned the bar. True, but he couldn't help that, except maybe to remove himself from the public arena, which was probably Jacken's exact point. A Varcolac male newly out of The Change went into automatic protection mode, treating every male like a rival and a threat to his woman, no matter who the guy was. Even if his brother, Arc, got within spitting distance of Pandra, Thomal would want to kill him. Thomal laughed hollowly. Arc close to Pandra? Right. And tomorrow morning angels would fly out of his butthole, too. "I don't want anything to do with that black-eyed human trampoline." Over the bar, Thomal eyed the bottle of Maker's Mark snuggled with its other amber buddies.

"Very well," Toni said. "You should know, however, that I've had Pandra moved from her jail cell. She's now in Budapest up on the third floor of—"

Thomal let out a mighty roar as he catapulted off his barstool; no thought, no consideration, only the animal instinct of my mate is no longer contained but accessible to other males taking over his frontal lobe and sending him lunging off his seat.

He was immediately slammed back on it, his ass hitting the top of the stool and then his boots reaching for the ceiling as he flipped over backward. He landed on his stomach, peanut shells and sawdust billowing around him. He hissed air through set teeth and long fangs. High idiot points awarded to the reptilian part of his brain for making him move in a hostile manner near the pregnant mate of a Varcolac male.

It'd gotten him punched in the chest by Jacken.

Thomal pushed to his feet, a vague part of his mind aware of the entire bar holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen next.

After all the growling and hitting that'd just gone down, the bar's gawking rubber-neckers probably hadn't expected Thomal to run. But that's what he did. His brain wouldn't allow him to do anything else but race out of the bar, traveling at invisible speeds for the woman he hated down to the deepest part of his soul, the woman whose very existence carved a huge slice of shiny siding off the persona he'd tried to create of himself as a badass warrior. Now everyone probably thought he didn't have what it took to kill a woman. Damn him, he should've ignored that something about Pandra and ripped her throat out.

Crashing into the mansion, Thomal took the stairs three at a time to the third floor, careening past Seville, Stockholm, Lucerne…till he saw the door with the red, white and green-striped Hungarian flag painted on it. Did someone think it'd be so ha-ha-ironic to give Pandra the room Thomal had lived in before all males had been moved downstairs to the second floor, all females on the third? Buncha douches.

He burst into Budapest without knocking and skidded to a halt.

Pandra was flipping through some paperbacks at an exotic-looking desk, the wooden legs carved into twining vines of flowers.

Not much had changed since he'd lived here. The whole place still mimicked the inside of a hookah bar: dark, earthy colors and gauzy lampshades, large beaded pillows and a beanbag chair mounded in the corner like a lopsided pile of soft serve ice cream. Being in here had always made him feel weirdly out of place, like he should've been shuffling around in a pair of dirty slippers with his head haloed in ganja smoke. He much preferred his new home in Oslo downstairs.

Pandra startled to her feet.

He did his own startling on the inside, his stomach see-sawing at the sight of her.

She appeared like she smelled now, so…fresh. Her black eyes were no longer flat and dead, and her facial structure had lost some of its toughness. Was it because she was sans immortality ring now? Or because she was their prisoner and cowed a bit? Or was it all an illusion created by what she was wearing: light gray stretch pants and a tank top in lavender, both of which showed off her nubile hotness to the nth degree and seemed way too plain and nice for her usual sleaziness. A wayward tendril of blonde hair had escaped her braid to curl demurely against her throat, and her bare feet displayed cute little toes squishing into the carpet that simultaneously made him want to crack them off at the stem and paint a cool, retro design on each nail—something that would totally fit her. And how the fuck would he know that?

He hardened his jaw. He was sick and damned tired of feeling batshit crazy around this woman. "Go over to the bed," he ordered her.

No reaction.

Not a single thing registered on the little ol' wifey's face, not surprise or a go blow yourself, not the hint of scorn or even a desire to smoke-check his balls. Nothing.

Thomal smiled sharply. Nicely done. But he was too good at reading adversaries not to sense the heightened tension in Pandra, despite her robotic outerwear. He prowled forward, circling her, tasting her scent in the back of his throat. "When I come in here to feed," he said in low, distinct syllables, "you are to stand over by the bed, your back against the bedpost, hands at you side. Do. You. Understand?" He stopped in front of her, trying to make himself look threatening, but found himself distracted by the front of her tank top. Was she wearing a bra? The way her nipples pushed out from the cotton like bubblegum balls, he'd say not.

She shrugged. "Very well." She took up position at the bed as he'd described, her hands wrapped around the post behind her. The posture thrust out her breasts, her tank top pulling taut across the two succulent, generous mounds, the sweet peaks, both nipple and aureole now, outlined against the fabric.

His cock stirred. Ignore it, Costache. He strode up close to her. A misting of perspiration glistened in her cleavage, and he found ruthless satisfaction with that. This close, her scent wafted into the core of his brain like an opiate, settling the thumpity-bumpity his insides had been going through for, hell, days now. His upper lip quivered toward a sneer. He hated that she made him feel okay.

He leaned into her, stacking his hands one on top of the other on the bedpost just above her head, his chest crushing her breasts. He licked his lips, his blood thrumming a wild beat. His strike was purposely aggressive, his fangs plunging deep, the suction of his mouth rough. Blood poured onto his tongue, too fast, too much, drowning his cells. His knees shook from the rush of sensation. He couldn't get over how good this woman tasted. Salty-sweet. Rejuvenating. Right. His.

Pandra squirmed a little. Not from discomfort, despite his lack of gentlemanly treatment, but because Fiin?? was working its magic. She released a low moan and pressed closer, her beaded nipples caressing his chest through both of their shirts. His cock swelled up stiff against his Levi's, the answering force of his own desire nearly making him go bug-eyed with the effort it took to hold it back. He needed to get his fangs out of her. But the newly awakened part of him only wanted to fill himself up with her, so full he'd never feel wrong again. How hosed was that? This woman was actually poison.

Forcing himself to wrench out his fangs, he jolted backward, the rapid cadence of his breathing matching hers.

Her gaze was smoky with desire. She tilted her chin up, her lips soft with invitation.

A wave of black rage boiled up from his gut, like magma from the core of Hell. "Do you think I'm going to kiss you now? You've got to be kidding." He curled his upper lip. "I've seen where that mouth of yours has been." The image came to him in a blinding white flash: Pandra's lips wrapped around Arc's cock, sucking it into her throat. The bonded male in him yowled mine! mine! mine! corroding his anger into cold fury.

He grabbed Pandra by the back of her neck, swung her around toward the bed, and shoved at her. He felt her tense in objection for a moment, but then she let him face-jam her into the mattress, her hips hanging off the side of the bed. "Bet you're the type who likes a good, hard fuck, don't you?" Bracing one knee beside her, his other foot planted on the floor, he ripped her stretch pants down the backs of her thighs. No panties. His cock jerked painfully against his jeans.

"Force me now, you fucking cum dumpster." He grabbed a handful of her butt cheek and squeezed. "Let's see how well you do when you don't have your little helpers with you and I'm not locked in chains." He swept two fingers down the valley between her buttocks and arrived at her labia, soft and slick. Sweetly aromatic. His stomach stumbled into a roll-over. Fiin?? had prepared her for him. He ground his jaw as he tried to make himself ram his fingers inside her, violate and humiliate her like she deserved.

But someone started playing a discordant drum set inside his head, a pounding, painful rhythm against his cranium. The scent of this woman blared MATE to his neurons in high def surround sound, and his brain was telling him that he was trying to do a very bad thing here.

Well, shut up! Shoving a hand into the small of Pandra's back, he held her in place as he moved to stand behind her. One-handed, he wrenched open his blue jeans, his erect cock jutting into readiness between the vee of his zipper. He took hold of his dick in his fist, then shifted his gaze to her face.

She was staring at the headboard blankly, her hands resting on either side of her head. Not doing a thing. Just lying there. Fight me, bitch! He grabbed her hips and muscled her back toward his cock. Her body was limp as an empty pillowcase. Fuck! Breathing through his teeth, he moved back from the bed. No matter how much he might want to hurt this slag, he couldn't. Now that he was bonded to her, his male Varcolac instincts were all about protecting his woman from harm. He'd had his chance to fuck her up in that seedy hotel room, and lost it. Because he'd been weak.

Tucking himself away and zipping up his jeans, Thomal jolt-stepped over to the desk and sank down into the chair, propping his elbows on his knees. He buried his head in his hands against the memory that had been jostled loose; Thomal in fifth grade on the playground, straddling D?nu? and whaling on him for calling Thomal "stupid" one too many times. Thomal had gotten in a good half dozen hits, including a bone-breaking tag to the nose, before he realized that D?nu? was just lying beneath him, arms over his face, whimpering. Not fighting back. D?nu? was a complete dick and had deserved to pay, but something about beating on a person who wouldn't defend himself had left Thomal feeling…really wrong. The experience had stayed with him, and as a young adult, Thomal had ended up deciding that protecting people who needed it was a helluva lot more noble than painting pictures of them. He'd switched gears and followed Arc into the Warrior Class, a decision that had earned him his father's approval, locking in the rightness of it.

"Pull your fucking pants up," he growled at Pandra. His eyes watered. It was from bile sitting in his throat, but a part of him also wanted to cry.

He heard her rustling with her clothes.

"For as long as I can remember," he told her in a hoarse tone, "I've dreamed of what it would be like to mate. To gain my other half, to become a man, to spend every hour of every day making love to my wife, loving her. That's what other Varcolac males get to do. It's what I've watched my friends do." He glanced up, his upper lip trembling.

Pandra was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands on her knees, her feet hooked on the bedrail. Her face displayed its usual utter lack of emotion.

"I was supposed to have had that with Hadley, my girlfriend…ex-girlfriend now that you've come along and screwed my life away." Hadn't that been a delightful meeting with Hadley when she'd come to see him in the hospital nine days ago. He'd never forget the look of devastation, pain, and—this one had been peachy keen—betrayal on her face. She'd left ??ran? the next day, completely removing herself from his life. He wouldn't even be able to secretly keep tabs on her because Hadley had decided to change her identity to avoid getting kidnapped again for being a Dragon. "Hadley was sweet and nice and affectionate. She would've been a great wife, a fantastic mother to my children."

Pandra's face remained an impassive mask.

Thomal closed his hands into hard fists. So much he wanted to be able to hit her, sock that nothingness clear across the fucking room. "You stole that from me," he seethed, glaring. "Do you have any idea how much I hate you for that?"

She waited in silence, maybe thinking he didn't expect an answer. Finally, her blonde brows twitched upward, and she cleared her throat. "Yes, I believe I'm beginning to cotton on to that." Something passed through her gaze.

He couldn't tell what it was. How could he? Her eyes were like vats of black sludge.

"I do appreciate your candor on these matters, thank you." She stood and crossed into the bathroom, shutting the door.

With his jaw knotted and twitching, he sat back in the chair and absently reached for a small glass bottle on Pandra's desk. He flexed and released his hand around it for several moments, then glanced at it. Nail polish, in a flashy, fluorescent blue. The perfect color to make Pandra's toenails into something killer.

He bent forward again, squeezing the nail polish in his hand and pressing his fist to his forehead.

What the hell was wrong with him?