He studied her, his gaze enigmatic. “Either you bind yourself to me, or I kill you.” His expression said he didn’t much care which.
She looked away, blindsided by the swift, unexpected pain of that blow. A blow he probably hadn’t even intended.
She meant nothing to him. Less than nothing. And she hated that it hurt.
Delaney swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I need my cell phone,” she said tersely. “I have to call my boss and let him know I’m okay.”
“No.”
“Is the FBI looking for me? Did they see you kidnap me? Did they give chase?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She gaped at him, lunging to her feet to face him. “Of course it matters.”
“They’ll never find you. You’re dead to them now.”
She stared at him, her jaw slowly dropping. “I have a job to do.”
“Your only job now is whatever I say it is. You’re not going back to the FBI.”
“If you’re trying to be an ass, you’re succeeding brilliantly.” She stalked toward him. “I heard you tell the guy on the phone that if I went through with this, I couldn’t betray you. So I can go back.”
“You’re staying here.”
Blast it. “Then I’m not doing this.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“I didn’t know you were going to lock me up!”
He turned and picked up a royal blue silk nightgown and tossed it to her. “Put this on. Nothing underneath. Leave your hair down and your feet bare. It’s your wedding dress.”
She stared at the thing. “I’m not getting married in a nightgown.”
“It’s not a nightgown. It’s a ritual gown.”
The fabric was gorgeous, but there was nothing to it. No sleeves, no lining. Nothing underneath?
“What’s the ritual? Sacrificing me to your tiger god?”
He didn’t reply, just continued to watch her with that hard, cold expression.
“I’m not getting married without underwear. Or without my gun. Not with wild animals on the loose.”
He took a step toward her, his mouth compressing dangerously. “You’ll do whatever I tell you to do.”
She threw the gown on the floor. “Go to hell.”
He lunged for her, grabbed her arm, and hauled her roughly against him. “I don’t like this any better than you do, but it’s either bind yourself to me or die. I gave you the choice already. You chose this. You chose me.”
“I was delirious.”
His jaw went hard as he released her with one hand and flicked open a switchblade three inches from her face.
“It’s not too late to change your mind.” The tightness of his mouth spoke of barely leashed violence, but in the agitated flutter of those angel wings in her head she sensed an unhappiness as raw as her own. He was being forced to tie himself to a woman he didn’t love.
No, not forced.
He could have let her die.
Her fury ebbed as her heart began to ache for him almost as much as herself. “Would you really kill me?” she asked quietly. She already knew the answer.
The anger drained out of him as he retracted the blade and shoved it back in his pocket.
“No.” He released her along with a sigh that echoed with pain. “But if you won’t go through with this, I’ll have no choice but to step aside while someone else does. The survival of our race is too important.” He shook his head. “Not just to us. If we die, there will be no one left to keep the Daemons from returning. Imagine thousands of creatures terrorizing the human population. Creatures worse than my twin. A dozen times worse.”
She shuddered and stared at him, her mind struggling to accept round after round of evidence that the world was so much more complex than she’d thought. “So I really don’t have a choice?”
His mouth turned rueful. “You really don’t.”
“But you do. A human death can’t mean that much to you. Why bind yourself to me when you could have let me die? When you don’t want me?”
His mouth turned up in a wry half smile. “Who says I don’t want you?”
As she stared at him, he bent down and picked up the gown, then met her gaze again, his expression softening just a little. “Come on, D. Let’s get this over with.”
It wasn’t quite the marriage proposal she’d dreamed of, but there had been something in his expression, something in his words that eased the ache inside her. Not much, but maybe it was enough. Especially since she clearly didn’t have a choice.
“I need to get cleaned up.”
He handed her the gown and nodded toward a door in the corner. “Bathroom’s in there. I’ll see if I can find you a brush or something.”
She nodded and took the gown from him. As he started to turn away, she stopped him. “Tighe?”
He turned back to her.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For not letting me die.”
His gaze seemed to search hers for several moments, then he lifted his hand and traced her cheekbone with his thumb in a feather-light touch. “You’re welcome.” Then he turned away.
Delaney opened the shower curtain to find a host of items on the sink that hadn’t been there when she climbed in. A toothbrush still in its wrapper, a comb and brush, a hair dryer. Beside them lay a small zipper pouch she discovered contained a small collection of makeup basics. Someone else’s collection, by the looks of it.
Staring at them, she was reminded how little she knew the man she was supposedly marrying. Did he have a girlfriend? A dozen girlfriends? With looks like his, she’d be amazed if he didn’t.
Was he in love with someone else? Was she doomed to have to watch him parading other women through her life?
The ache in her chest tightened, annoying her. The only way she was going to survive this was to stop caring. Hadn’t she learned that lesson when she was eleven? The only way to survive, period, was to stop caring about anyone.
Which had always been easier said than done.
After she dried her hair, she put on a little makeup, then slipped the blue silk over her head. The sleeveless, scoop-necked gown slid sensuously down her body to midcalf, skimming her curves but not hugging them tightly. The color was gorgeous on her. A perfect nightgown. But she was far too busty ever to consider leaving the bedroom without a bra, especially in a gown like this. It would only highlight every bounce and jiggle.
Just the dress a man would pick.
With a sigh, she opened the door and stepped into the bedroom.
Tighe turned from the window to face her. “The dress looks good on you.” His tone was still reserved, but there was a truth in his words that warmed her. Heated her.
“Thanks. It’s a beautiful nightgown. Just how many people are going to see me in it?”
“Five, other than me. And it’s not a nightgown. It’s one of a collection of ceremonial gowns that have been passed down for thousands of years.”
Delaney jerked. “This dress is not thousands of years old. It would have disintegrated eons ago.”
“The fabric was woven with power and magic, as well as silk. That’s why nothing else can touch your skin during the ritual.”
Power and magic. She shivered. “Not even my gun?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Especially not your gun.”
She glanced at his slacks. “Are those thousand-year-old Haggars?”
A grin lit his face for one brilliant moment, flashing his dimples and filling her chest with a terrible and wonderful pressure.
“They’re not Haggars. And what I’m wearing doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“This is the channel for my power.” He tapped the golden armband with the tiger’s head.
Oh.
Tighe held out his hand to her. “Come on, D. Let’s get this ritual over with.”
She took his hand, and he pulled her lightly into his arms and kissed her hair. “Trust me, brown eyes. It’s all going to be okay.”
To her dismay, tears threatened in her eyes, and she buried her face in the hollow of his throat, craving his touch, needing his strength.
His arms closed around her, and she clung to him, the pressure in her chest growing, expanding, cutting off her air even as it filled her with a terrible, anguished joy.
He said it was all going to be okay. But she wasn’t sure of that. She wasn’t sure at all.
Because, heaven help her, she was falling in love with him.
Chapter Twenty
Tighe led Delaney through what she could only describe as a gaudily decorated mansion and down a long, long stair into a basement that had to be a good twelve feet below the ground. No regular lightbulbs lit their way, only a couple of pairs of electric sconces made to look like candlelight.
With each step down, Delaney’s uneasiness mounted, her hands fisting and clenching around air. If she’d ever needed to be armed, it was now.
The scent of fire teased her nostrils as curls of smoke lifted on the air. A bead of sweat rolled between her breasts. When she thought of weddings, her mind burst forth with pictures of sunshine and flowers, and yards and yards of white. Not dark stairs and smoke.
Wedding, my ass. Some kind of gang ritual, more like it. Or human sacrifice.
A shiver of fear snaked its way down her spine.
Of course, Tighe hadn’t called it a wedding, had he? He’d called it a mating ceremony.
Mating ceremony? Like some ancient fertility rite? That included sex? He’d better not even think about it.
What did she really know about this man? Nothing. She knew nothing about him except that he seemed to be trying to keep her alive. Which was all well and fine as long as his friends agreed. But she’d heard them on the phone when she was trying to bleed out. They’d all been in favor of letting her die.
What if they overpowered him? Or what if he lost it and turned into Wolfman Tiger again? She couldn’t protect them both. She was weaponless. Shoeless. Pantyless.
Tighe reached back and took her hand, his warm fingers closing around her ice-cold ones. “Control your fear, Agent Randall. No one’s going to hurt you unless I lose it again. And it’s your fear that makes me lose control.”
His use of her title had the desired effect, calling on years of training and control. Even as it reminded her that her career, everything she’d worked so hard for, might well be gone.
She knew Phil must be frantically searching for her whether or not they’d seen her captured. An FBI agent on the trail of a serial killer suddenly disappears. What was the Bureau going to think? That she’d gotten too close to him again. Phil wouldn’t be looking for her, she realized. He’d be looking for her remains. And when he didn’t find them? It wouldn’t much matter. He’d still think she was dead.
And in a way, maybe she was. Dead to her old life at least.
Goose bumps rose on her skin as she followed Tighe down the long stairs. She wasn’t entirely convinced she wasn’t about to die in truth.
When they reached the base of the stairs, Tighe led her through a dark, dimly lit hallway toward a wide archway flickering with firelight and curls of smoke. Low voices met her ears, too low to make out the words.
As Tighe led her through the doorway and into the room, Delaney stared around her warily, in no small amount of awe.
The room wasn’t overly large, but the ceiling was higher than most and arched, giving the space the feel of a cave. A feeling heightened by the six small fires burning around the edges of the room, casting flickering shadows on the dark-paneled ceiling and walls. There was something intensely primitive about the atmosphere, a feeling only strengthened by the half-naked men.
Five men other than Tighe stood scattered around the room, each wearing nothing more than a pair of pants or jeans and an armband similar to Tighe’s, though each armband seemed to have the head of a different animal on it. Maybe they weren’t all tigers after all.
Never had she seen such a worrisome display of pure, undiluted male power. Not a one of them was under six-six, with a couple well over. Each possessed powerful shoulders and thick, dangerous muscles.
If they turned against her, she was dog meat.
A shudder tore through her as she remembered where she was. What these men were. And just how true that could turn out to be. Dog meat. Tiger meat.
Forget sacrifice. For all she knew, she was dinner.
Tighe squeezed her hand. “You’re safe, brown eyes. Happy thoughts, hmm?”
“Happy thoughts?” she muttered. Right. Her thoughts were on the fact there were no windows. No possible chance of escape.
One of the men came toward them, a man with a mustache and goatee and cold, pale eyes. The eyes of a psychopath.
“Lyon says you don’t want the altar?”
And the voice of the man who kept telling Tighe to kill her. Great.
Tighe shook his head. “I won’t need it.”
The psychopath’s expression didn’t change. He turned that pale gaze to her, flicking it over her dispassionately as if deciding between a thigh and a breast.
She squeezed Tighe’s hand, desperate to control the shudder that threatened to tear her apart.
The psychopath turned away.
“Happy thoughts, D,” Tighe murmured.
“I was just thinking about dinner.”
“I can imagine what you were thinking, but you have nothing to fear. No one’s going to touch you but me.”
The men were all looking at her, most with a disinterest bordering on disdain. As if she wasn’t worth their time. Is that what they think of all humans?
The last man her gaze landed on nodded to her with something almost approaching friendliness. A man with a long, aristocratic face and sharply arched brows.