Kinked (Elder Races, #6)

She never once lost command of the placement of those huge, gray-to-black wings, and once when her opponent, a massive, thousand-plus-pound polar bear, lunged to strike at her, she leaped into an aerial cartwheel that carried her soaring over his head. As she had flown over him, she reached down in an almost leisurely movement, the talon of one finger extended, and raked a thin, teasing cut along his muscled back.

It was a blatantly gratuitous maneuver, but it was so precisely executed, and the smile on her face was filled with such feral gaiety, Quentin found himself shouting along with all the others. In that moment all thoughts of resentment were temporarily suspended for sheer love of the artistry she displayed with such abandon. She owned that fight from beginning to end.

When she put her opponent on the ground for the last time, Grym, who had been leaning against the box railing beside Quentin, straightened and threw a fist pump into the air, roaring, “MY GIRL!”

The sentinel’s ferocious glee had broken Quentin out of the moment. Remembering it now, he scowled, shifting position carefully in his tiny space in an effort to get more comfortable. He sensed Aryal’s body tense. When he looked at her, he saw that her gaze had cut sideways. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he tried to get comfortable.

Unbidden and unwanted, Alex’s words echoed in his thoughts. You’re both sentinels for a reason, you know, and we need you.

Damn that pegasus.

Quentin was born a killer. He had the instincts of a predator. Despite that, he had never killed indiscriminately. His impulse to throttle Aryal was one thing, but the quiet intention to murder her was an entirely different thing. It was too far off even his screwed-up moral compass.

You can have all the right reasons in the world. They don’t mean shit, my friend, if what you do causes harm.

He shifted again as his admittedly dysfunctional conscience nagged him. He had thought he had the right reasons last year, and then he’d ended up causing so much harm. This time, hell, he didn’t even have any right reasons. She just drove him crazy.

So quietly that only he could hear her, she hissed out of the corner of her mouth, “Stop moving.”

In a quick, neat move, he took the magazine from her lap before she had a chance to react. Her whole body twitched as she made an aborted move as if she would snatch it back before she could stop herself. He flipped through the pages without really looking at them while she glared at him. On his other side, Mom tucked away her Sudoku book, slipped a circular foam airplane pillow out of a canvas bag and anchored it around her neck, then settled back in her seat for a snooze.

He was saturated with Aryal’s scent, drowning in her presence, and there wasn’t any escape for eight and a half more hours. Thank God her flight had washed away that irritating hint of arousal. Honestly, he couldn’t figure out what she and Grym saw in each other. They didn’t match in the slightest.

“It’s going to be a long month for you, isn’t it?” he muttered.

The look on her face turned heartfelt. “Gods, yes.”

Everything about her goaded him. Unable to stop himself, he said, “I just can’t figure you and Grym out. You’re so mismatched. Other than you, he seems so sane.”

For a moment an amused smile hovered on her lips. “That’s because you’re an idiot.”

He stared at her mouth. The anger that had been simmering all day had to come out somehow. He switched to telepathy. So what did you see earlier this morning when you spied on me at my bedroom window?

Her eyebrows shot up, her amusement vaporizing. That’s what set you off this morning, isn’t it?

He turned to look at her full on, his expression burning. What did you see?

Something complicated flashed across her angular, upswept features. Funny, he wouldn’t have tagged her as complex. Then there it was again, a hint of arousal in her scent. It was invasive, filling his lungs as he involuntarily took a deep breath. Unwanted. Delicious. A muscle in her narrow jaw flexed, and she looked furious.

Comprehension dawned. He laughed, low and angrily. He said, It’s not you and Grym at all, is it? You into chicks?

Once he’d said it, he couldn’t strip the image from his imagination. Aryal, bending over another woman, perhaps a petite one like the brunette hooker, one of her long, lean hands palming a breast while they kissed.

Fury at his own unruly imagination battled with his body’s reaction. His unruly cock began to stiffen.

Aryal’s gaze flashed. She said very softly between her teeth, “I’ve had a few chicks in my time. They’re tasty little morsels, like soft, pink hors d’oeuvres. You got a problem with that, asshole?”

FUCK. The shock of her words bolted through him, and a new image blazed in his mind. Aryal, crouched between a woman’s thighs, her dark head nestled at the woman’s pelvis.

His stirring cock turned into a raging hard-on. His entire body stiffened, rebelling against it, as his own scent filled the air. The ridiculousness of it didn’t escape him. There they sat, hazardously trapped and betraying themselves by reeking of their own cravings, while the passengers around them napped, oblivious to it all.