There was an edge to his words as he said them, and he glanced away from her, out into the night. “I’d stay in close contact with Danny, so you’d know all that’s happening here. You’ve done more than enough, more than anyone ever should have asked you to do. I know you wanted to do it, but you have to learn there are others that can help carry this load. It may even help your cubs, seeing that you have the confidence to trust them to other capable hands.”

She looked down at her lap, then back up at him. “Do you want me to go?”

Those dark, piercing eyes shifted, and that edge she’d heard in his voice was there in his gaze. “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t. But if I ever see in your heart and mind that’s what you truly want, what you need, I will put you on that plane.”

“And what do you see there now?”

He shook his head, his lips curving without humor. “It’s a mess, more than I’ll wade through. A man can get bogged down in the female mind when it’s like that and never find his way out again.”

She swallowed. “What if I want to stay?”

He leaned in so those intense eyes were much closer. His hand drifted across her lap, up her arm, and then settled on her throat, a collar of flesh and bone that made every nerve ending aware of his touch. When he saw her reaction to it, crimson flame flickered in those dark depths.

“If you stay, you will not disobey me again. I mean this, Elisa.” Those fingers tightened infinitesimally, making her lift her chin in response, her heart beat faster. “What you did was incredibly rash, and served no purpose. If Jeremiah had harmed you, how do you think he would have felt? And what did you plan to do once you chained yourself there?”

Her cheeks pinkened. “I hadn’t really gotten that far.”

“Exactly.” He stopped, let out a sigh and settled back. She felt the loss of that touch, oddly wanting it back, but then he was speaking again. “You’ve done well with them, Elisa. You also managed to take two very practical vampires, myself and Danny, down this insane path and show us it’s not entirely insane.”

Her look of surprise showed, for he inclined his head. “Despite your belief that I’m a tyrant merely for the joy of it, I do notice things. And I can change my mind. Hence the calls to Lord Marshall. But this is not a full reversal of the boat, Elisa. There’s a long way to go, and I know you’re smart enough to see the signs that it might still go badly in the end. So I need you to give me another truthful answer. Can you obey me from here forward, no question, no detours, no arguments? Trust me absolutely, before you’ve really learned to believe in that trust? I know it’s not an easy thing to ask, but I need to see in your heart you can do it. It’s important, if we’re going to succeed in this.”

She wanted to. Oh, how she did. She wanted to believe the whole world wouldn’t come crashing down if she let someone else hold these particular reins, but she was afraid she was running away from what had been such a heavy load for so long. And she was afraid of how she’d fill her empty hands, what thoughts would take her over, if she let those reins go.

“I’ve never met someone with such foolish determination and courage.” He snorted, eyeing her. “You’re not running from anything. Sooner or later, Elisa, we all have to face our pain. You’re . . . among friends. We’ll help you, the same way we’ll help the fledglings. You’re not back at the station, where you have to pretend all’s well because you don’t want to add to Danny’s guilt. You can be what you need to be here. Kohana, Chumani, the others . . . They’ll all help.”

Tears threatened, but she managed to hold them back, give a quick nod. “I don’t want to go.” The idea of getting on that plane made her belly ache, and it wasn’t all because she’d be leaving the children.

Those red sparks in his eyes had a matching flicker through every aware part of her body, like tiny fireflies. “All right, then. Offer me your throat.”

Her heart immediately rabbited up into that very area. She put her hand on the center console and stretched over it, coming to him. He slid his arm around her waist, his hand cupping her arse as it came off the seat, and the gearshift pressed into her stomach before the impression was lost in the more distracting pressure of his fangs, piercing into her skin. She drew in a breath, her nipples tightening in that open triangle of space between them where she was painfully conscious of the proximity of his body.

The pain of the bite and ache of her still-tender ribs should have helped ground her, but instead she wanted him to pull her across, make her straddle his lap. His hard, heated length would impale her, fill this restless emptiness inside of her.

He tightened his grip, his half growl making her shiver. Her life was in the hands holding hers. Maybe in more ways than one.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll trust you, sir. And I’ll try really, really hard not to disobey ever again.”

She felt a smile against her throat, and the warmth of it dissipated some of her worries. At least until she heard his next thought.

It’s time to take you home and give you an incentive to do just that. It’s time for your punishment.

25

ELISA tried to stay calm as Mal steered her into his office. In the Jeep, he hadn’t seemed angry anymore. While she knew some of his anger was justified, given that he hadn’t been about to do what she thought, she didn’t know how much more she could take tonight. The week had been full of rioting emotions, as she dealt with Mal’s silence and what it meant, the fact Jeremiah had second-marked her, what had happened with Leonidas, and then of course the foolishness that had driven her little drama tonight.

Not sure of what lay ahead, she wished she could escape to her bed, even if it meant having to suffer alone with that ball of sexual heat Mal had planted in her stomach with his provocative touch, his demanding words.

Mal didn’t take a seat behind his desk. He gestured her to the chair in front of it, then sat on the edge of the pirate chest, his legs braced out on either side of her body. Her feet in the canvas sneakers looked small, aligned neatly together in that V-shaped space. His restless energy caged her there as much as his body.

“When you arrived here—what now seems like centuries ago—Thomas brought a letter with him, from your lady. She described you as obedient, docile to a fault. Obviously, you cleverly managed to conceal your split personality from her.”

Whatever else she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been this sudden switch to a sardonic tone, one that seemed deliberately intended to goad her. He cocked a brow. “Why don’t you tell me what you would do in my place?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir.”

“Oh, now you have nothing to say. Childishly contrite and almost meek, with your eyes down and your chin on your chest. The spitfire who dared to get in my face with her asinine demands mere minutes ago would have plenty to say. It wouldn’t be a pathetic and simpering ‘I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir.’”

She didn’t know what asinine or simpering were, but they didn’t sound complimentary. Her fingers closed into balls on her lap. “With all due respect, sir, you could have told me anytime this week what you were doing. Instead, you left me thinking—”

“What gave you the impression you have the rights of an equal, Elisa? Because Danny unwisely let you forget what a servant’s role is?”

No, because of the way you touch me, make me feel. She didn’t want to say it that way, hadn’t meant to think it, but now she had. She shook her head, weary with it, stared at his knees. “You said we were in this . . . together. I’m not sophisticated, Mr. Malachi. I’m not Chumani, who can understand that what’s in a woman’s heart and what a man wants aren’t the same thing, and be so casual about it.”

He studied her a long moment, giving nothing away. The direction of her lowered gaze took her over the terrain of his spread thighs, the denim stretched over the muscle and length of them, the curve of the groin area, something she shouldn’t be thinking about, but it was right there after all. Might as well enjoy something before he started chewing on her again. Then she saw the puncture in his arm, still healing from Jeremiah’s bite.

He’d saved her, and it wasn’t the first time. She would have been angry with anyone she cared about if they risked themselves in a way she perceived as pointless or foolish. So if he was angry maybe it was because . . . he cared.

That thought alone halted her mind in its tracks. The simple truth of it was too normal, too obvious, but she was almost certain she was right. She wouldn’t ask, wouldn’t question it, and if she was delusional, so be it.

Not thinking too much about why she was doing it, she slid out of the chair, knelt before him. Looking at his arm, she saw it was indeed healing, but that didn’t make it hurt less. “Thank you for saving my life,” she said quietly.

You’re welcome.

To hear his voice now in her head, gruff and yet with a certain note of kindness, disarmed her in a way that his scolding hadn’t.

“Elisa, I’m not going to let this one slide. I’m going to punish you, because you need to remember how important the boundaries are.” And because, if I don’t punish you for scaring away half my life span, I might choke you.

Had he meant for her to hear that? She assumed he did, but it made that warmth spread, despite the implicit threat. He bent then, clasping her elbows to bring her back to her feet. Her fingers whispered along his thighs and came to rest on his shirt front, close to his waist. “Elisa, look at me now.”

She shook her head. The way she was feeling, she’d look at him with moony calf eyes and he’d laugh at her. Of course, by not obeying, she was just proving his point, wasn’t she?

His broad chest rose and fell in a sigh. He didn’t let her go. Instead, he tilted his head down, sliding his jaw against the side of hers. Though vampires didn’t have facial hair, his jaw wasn’t like a woman’s skin. The hard firmness to it was unmistakably male. He slid his nose along her cheek, his mouth so close. Her head jerked up then, her eyes meeting his.