“I don’t know how you do this to me, Tayla,” he whispered. “But I can’t help myself.” His hand grasped the back of her head and held her for his possession.
Instantly, fire zipped through her veins, lit her up from the inside. She opened to the penetration of his tongue, to the sweep against her teeth, the roof of her mouth. Closing her eyes, she let her body react, to coil tight with desire that was growing addictive. She’d felt nothing for so long, had been in an emotional void, a cold, deep sleep, but with every touch Eidolon changed that. It was as though she were waking up for the first time in a place where everything was new.
Stepping into him, she gripped his shoulders and pulled him closer. A groan rattled his chest, the sound of a male in need making her pulse spike. Shifting, she rocked her aching mound against his thigh, and he hissed, backed up.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “I can smell you. My brothers will, too.” He shoved the phone into her hand and turned away. “You are dangerous, slayer.”
She gaped, because she wasn’t the dangerous one in this situation. He could seduce her with a look, a touch, and she was growing weaker by the minute.
She started to close the phone, but a flashing number caught her eye. Looking more closely at the screen, she saw numbers filtering down. Thirty . . . twenty-nine . . . twenty-eight . . .
“Tayla? What is it?”
-Twenty-two . . .
Jagger had mentioned a countdown, but there was no way she was activating the spell. She closed the phone. Opened it again. The screen continued to flash numbers.
Eighteen.
I’m testing a new explosive that’s odorless, invisible, and can be hidden inside electronic devices like MP3 players.
Cole’s words careened through her brain, and her heart skidded to a halt. “The exit,” she gasped. “Exit. Now!”
She shoved past Eidolon, bile rising in her throat as she frantically searched for the doors Shade had brought her in through.
There. She darted toward them, and when a nurse shifted into a panther and pounced, she swung, sent the panther skidding across the floor. Pain exploded in her head, but it didn’t matter. The door. She had to get to the door.
“Tayla!” Eidolon’s shout chased her.
“Stay back!” She burst through the doors the second they slid open. Outside, she recognized the parking lot, and Eidolon’s BMW.
Searing heat burned her fingers. The phone glowed orange, pulsing like a stove element with its own heartbeat. As hard as she could, she threw it toward the far wall.
A hand closed on her shoulder. Wheeling around, she tackled Eidolon and took him to the ground, her body covering his as the explosion rocked the underground facility and jarred her teeth.
A tire flew past them, blasted through the space where Eidolon had been standing. Fire, stone, and metal rained down, pelting her as she lay on top of him. He hooked his leg over her back and flipped her, shielding her instead. Then, as the storm of debris eased up and the rumble died away, a louder noise rattled her from above, and she looked up into extremely pissed-off golden eyes.
Fourteen
Eidolon paced outside his office, and if Shade said one more time, I told you we should have wasted her, he was going to rip his brother’s head off.
Problem was, Shade was right. If they’d given Tayla to Yuri, the parking lot wouldn’t be demolished. But Tayla would be dead.
Clenching his fists so hard his knuckles cracked, he wondered why that thought bothered him so much. He’d been ready to kill her himself after the explosion. He and Shade had dragged her to Eidolon’s office, shoved her inside, and then left her there while they cooled off.
“You ready to deal with her?” Shade asked. “Can you deal with her?”
“Don’t start.” Eidolon threw open the office door, more to get away from Shade’s accusations than to finally deal with Tayla.
She looked up from where she sat on his desk, shoulders hunched, feet swinging like a punished child. Her eyes were reddened as though she’d been crying, but he knew she hadn’t. The effort she’d expended to not cry, however, was obvious in the tight set of her mouth and the way she swallowed repeatedly.
He halted just out of arm’s reach and held his fists at his sides to keep from touching her out of anger—or something worse, like comfort. When he spoke, he dug deep to find the impartial, cold Justice Dealer voice he’d used for decades.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you for what you’ve done.”
She looked him straight in the eye, every ounce the warrior he knew she was. “I can’t.”
“That was easy,” Shade said, as he moved to the opposite end of the desk, caging her in. “Let’s take her outside—”
“No.” She pushed her tangled mop of hair back from her face. “Not yet. There’s something you need to know. One of your staff, I think . . . Yuri?”