Chapter Twenty

Jacken stood in front ofToni's bedroom door and fidgeted with the cold thermos he was carrying. Shit, just how many sandwiches short of a picnic was he? Three hours ago at Garwald's he'd all but planted his size thirteens on Toni's ass to get her away from him, and now here he was standing outside her bedroom. Fucking genius.

He should just go. He took a step backward, but then hesitated, staring at the Eiffel Tower on her door. Thing was, he might be a lot of damned things – a hard, difficult man, a real prick sometimes – but he was never undependable. Ask any of his warriors and they'd say he was the most reliable son of a bitch out there, a man anyone would want watching his six. And, no, maybe he didn't know thing one about being there for a woman, but that didn't mean it was sitting well with him that he'd let Toni down.

She'd needed him after that gut-wrenching near-Gwyn reenactment at The Outer Edge tonight. Not Thomal, but him. He'd figured out that much in the hours he'd paced his bedroom while Toni was being tended in the mansion's basement clinic. What she'd needed was still a bit of a mystery to a man with his limited understanding of females, but whatever it was, he'd been too catatonic with his own fear to give it to her. Yeah, him, a guy who faced the possibility of death in battle as easily as he picked out his breakfast cereal. A guy who'd been beaten, stabbed and tortured more times than he cared to count had been scared out of his ever-loving mind when he'd seen Toni on the ground in Stanga Town, banged up and covered in blood.

He swallowed convulsively as he pictured her in O??rat right now, serving as some Om R?u's party favor. He gripped the thermos in a hard fist. All right, enough of this crap. If he kept on like this, he'd end up standing in front of her door doing jack diddly squat, just like in Stanga Town, maybe start in on some blubbering. That'd be real fucking manly.

Drawing in a tight breath, he knocked softly on Toni's door. She didn't answer. Christ, knowing his luck, she'd off'ed herself because he was such an unmitigated bastard. Muttering under his breath, he pushed open the door and stepped into her room. No one was inside… no Toni hanging from a light fixture, either, at least.

He paused to look around, some of his tension easing. The place felt like Toni now. Her delicious scent saturated everything, of course, but more than that, she'd made the room her own with a collection of paperbacks on a corner bookshelf, a different bedspread, kind of a puffy, pale purple comforter, and about half a dozen framed photographs. Most were of an older blonde woman – probably Toni's mother to judge by the resemblance – and of a guy about Toni's age, strawberry-blond like her, but wearing glasses. A brother? Jacken shifted his boots restlessly, feeling oddly like an intruder, yet also suddenly wanting to know everything about her. Do you know that I once sat on my brother for fifteen minutes to get him to let me play with his red fire truck? That kind of shit was, you know, really cool to find out about.

He swiveled his head abruptly at the sound of retching coming from the open door of the bathroom. Ah, hell.

He crossed into the bathroom and stopped just inside the doorway, his gut twisting. Toni was slumped against the side of a gargantuan bathtub, her eyes watery and still haunted with the trauma she'd endured, her face colorless except for a vivid bruise on her jaw. His heart took a nosedive into his soft spot at full speed, the way it always seemed to do whenever he saw her looking so damned vulnerable. Fuck him for failing to protect her better.

"Go away," she told him, though not unkindly. "Don't you know that girls don't like anyone to see them barf."

"Here." He stepped forward and offered her the thermos. "Drink this. It'll make you feel better."

She didn't take it. "How's Dev?" she asked thickly, wiping a small towel across her mouth.

"Recovering. More worried about you." A sentiment he could totally relate to. He squatted down on his haunches and pressed the thermos into her hand.

"What is it?"

"A mixture of juices: my own recipe. I, uh, have a bit of personal experience with puking over the things Lorke can do to a person."

"Oh." Her eyes ran over his battered face. "You look like reconstituted hell, by the way."

He propped a forearm on his thigh. "I suppose it wouldn't surprise you to hear I've been called worse?"

She snorted at hearing the words she'd spoken to him at Garwald's repeated back to her. Lowering her eyes, she added, "I owe you my thanks, Jacken. I would've died out there tonight if you hadn't saved me from that fiend. Of course" – her chin came back up – "I'd like to point out that it wouldn't have been an issue if you hadn't kidnapped me in the first place."

He pressed his lips together into something close to a smile. "Noted."

She fiddled with the thermos lid for a moment. "What … happened out there tonight, Jacken? I've never seen a knife do what it did to Dev. It just exploded in his shoulder. And that giant man walked through what looked like a spray of electricity as if it was no more than a field of daisies." She met his gaze. "What's going on?"

He sat back on his heels and sighed. "Are you sure you want to know? I mean, Christ, you're still not entirely convinced you're living among Varcolac."

She eyed him intently through a long pause. "I think I need to know."

He massaged the back of his neck. "All right, then. Here it is. The man who attacked you is Lorke, one of the leaders of a neighboring town called O??rat, home to another species of human. Like Varcolac, their people are incredibly strong and fast, but their Peak 12, their aggression gene, is mutated, escalating their hostility and violent behavior off the charts. They lack impulse control and a sense of morality, they're nearly impossible to kill, and they can create enchanted knives called B?taie Blades, which you saw in action on Dev today. All of that makes them very dangerous beings. We call them Om R?u." He paused. Here comes the fun part …. "Regular human lore and legend would probably refer to them as demons."

She blinked once, then dropped her face into her hand. "Oh, God. Of course. Yes. "Demons" and "vampires" all living in unhappy discord together half a mile below the earth's surface. Why not?"

He glanced aside. Yeah, he'd figured as much.

"Okay …." She opened the thermos and gulped some juice. "Okay, so how do I come into this? Why did that Lorke monster want to kill me? It didn't seem like he was just acting out of simple demonic impulsivity."

"Your death is the last thing Lorke would've wanted. He was trying to knock you senseless enough to kidnap you easily into O??rat. He wants to breed you, same as we do. Lorke and his kind can have children with regular females, but those offspring turn out weaker, and with fewer Om R?u traits, so they want your Dragon bloodlines."

Her face reddened and her brows drew down. "And you've known about this all along," she accused, struggling to a standing position.

He stood, as well, his head down to hide a grimace.

"Why the hell didn't you warn me, Jacken?"

"Roth doesn't like to scare the new acquisitions any more than they already are." Another topic of contention between the two men.

"That's great." She plunked the thermos on the edge of the tub. "Have you ever lost a woman? Holy crap," she hissed when his face colored. "Jacken, please." She grabbed his forearm. "You have to get me out of this place before something worse happens. Please. I'm in mortal danger here, stuck in the middle of some … some bloodline war between your kind and these Om R?u."

He paused for a moment, struggling to overcome the feel of her hand on his arm so that he could stay in this conversation.

She moved closer, her demeanor changing. Her eyes turned limpid blue. "You said that you know what it's like to feel trapped, remember?"

He became aware of her body heat, warm and feminine, and how it laced with her scent in a way that was entirely too intimate for his well-being and sanity. What she'd said was even more dangerous, forging a connection between them that had no right to be there. Had no place to go. Why had he said that to her at The Shank Took, damn him? The next time he had the brilliant impulse to comfort a woman, he should just stab himself.

He gave his feet a stern command to retreat – run like hell would've been even better – but couldn't get any body part to obey. "I'm sorry," he managed to get out, "but sending you to the surface isn't the answer. Not anymore. There's a new faction of Om R?u, a Topside Om R?u, hunting you. They were at Scripps Hospital the same night we were, also trying to kidnap you."

"What?" She let go of him, her lips parting in shock. "What are you saying? That I can't ever go back?"

The expression on her face twisted his innards into knots. "Only under full guard." Yeah. Lame. "If you went back to the surface to live, the Topside Om R?u would eventually find you and take you. Your bloodlines are just too valuable. And I can guarantee that, as much as you think you hate it here in ??ran?, life with the Om R?u would be a living nightmare. Trust my experience on this."

"Good God," she breathed, her lips bloodless. "This isn't happening." Tears pooled in her eyes.

A bolt of panic shot up his spine. "Toni … please, don't cry. Okay, uh …. Varcolac males can't handle … we don't do so well with that." Despite his warning, a tear trembled along her lashes, then slid down her cheek. He watched it in outright horror, his knees turning to sand. "Just give ??ran? a chance," he said quietly. "I know you can't feel it, yet, but this is where you belong." He shoved a hand through his hair. What in hell was he supposed to do with a crying woman? "I can keep you safe here," he tried, "I promise. Nothing bad would've happened to you tonight if you hadn't escaped your Protection Team."

"No," she cried, burying her face in her hands. "No." Her shoulders began to shake and little hiccupping noises came out of her.

He stared down at the delicate crown of her head, his arms dangling loosely at his sides, his belly sagging into his boots. Blinking a couple of times, he finally lifted his hand, held it in a hover over her head for a second, then plunked it on top of her hair.

She froze.

He froze. Now, uh, what? Her crying quieted a bit. That was good. He began to pet her head. Whoa. Her hair felt even softer than it looked. A sinew quivered in his jaw as emotions he couldn't name muscled his chest to the floor and pinned it there. The shape of her head felt so small and vulnerable beneath his large, callused palm.

She stopped crying.

Holy shit, he'd made her stop. Him! His lungs expanded. He was King of the World.

Impulsively, he grabbed both sides of her head and gently pulled her forward. She didn't resist, just stepped closer to him. Shutting his eyes, he pressed his nose to the top of her hair and breathed in deeply. Stupid, stupid, stupid ….

Her scent swirled through the lobes and crevices of his brain, locking inside there with a feeling of absolute rightness. He shuddered.

Angling her head up, Toni caught his gaze. Intimacy warmed the air around them, wrapping their bodies in a private cocoon.

He lost himself in the drowning blue depths of her eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid ….

Toni lifted a hand to his bruised cheek, touching him lightly with her fingers.

He inhaled a slow, uneven breath. Two fingers against his skin and he wanted to die.

"Lorke has the same teeth tattoo as you do," she said softly, "but here…" She moved her fingers up to his temple.

His heart stopped, dread squeezing his chest.

She dropped her hand, but never took her eyes off him. "The man who pounded ink-soaked tacks into you," she said, the caring tone of her voice both wonderful and terrible, "the man who made you feel trapped … that was Lorke, wasn't it?"

The moment of intimacy between them evaporated. No, more like – ka-blooey! – it exploded, all the old cage doors slamming shut inside him, walls going up, guards put on full alert. He should thank her for it. Long experience had taught him that it was way fucking easier not to feel a thing rather than deal with all the pain and defeat, all of the heart-wrenching disappointment that was surely heading his way from this woman.

"Yeah, you figured it out," he told her flatly. He paused a beat for emphasis, then shoved the three damning words past his lips. "Lorke's my father." He gestured at the thermos. "Drink that," he instructed, then turned hard on his heel and walked out.