“According to his diaries, it began by chance—he found an urchin boy and brought him to his old laboratory in Alexander’s territory. He intended for the boy to become a cleaner. Then his hunting dog ran into the room and he was struck by the idea of melding them. He called it a ‘glorious moment of genius.’”
Naasir pulled up Andromeda’s leg so it lay across his body. She turned a little farther and swept her wing over him. The heavy warmth, the scent of her, it anchored him to the joyous present where he had his mate in his arms and Osiris was long dead, never to commit his atrocities again.
“He tried to meld the boy and the dog then and there. The two died in a twisted mess of limbs and organs.” Naasir’s heart raged at the knowledge that that had been merely the start of Osiris’s murderous reign. “The failure only fueled his ugly desires. He bought children from poor families, or simply abducted them, paid poachers and hunters to bring him the young of animals.”
Lifting Andromeda’s hand to his mouth, he kissed her palm and forced himself to remember the peace he’d felt under the ice. No sadness, no pain, no horror. “The boy who is part of me grew up alone until the tiger cub. Osiris either stole or bought the boy when he was a baby—I never found out which.”
He ran his hand through Andromeda’s hair, bunching it up in his hand, then letting it escape in a burst of color and life. Pretty. “In his diaries, he called us his hope.” Such an ugly use of the word. “And though I wish he’d never had the satisfaction, he succeeded with the tiger cub and the boy. Osiris never worked out why and all I can tell you is that the tiger cub and the boy were best friends who helped one another survive.” The instant of change was blurry in his memory, but he knew there had been pain, such agonizing pain.
Andromeda rose up and, expression stripped of all traces of civilization, said, “I’m glad he’s dead.”
He squeezed her waist with the arm he had around her. “I tried to kill him immediately after my transformation, but I was too weak.” It had felt as if he was a broken doll, his limbs useless and his mind dull.
“It took me months and months to start thinking clearly again, though my thought patterns weren’t ‘human.’ Neither were they animal.” Rather, an amalgamation of the two. “I had to learn to walk again, talk again. Osiris wanted to know why I had two legs instead of four, why the boy’s form had taken precedence over that of the tiger cub, so he did more experiments.”
Andromeda’s eyes glinted. “I’m glad he’s dead,” she repeated, “but I want to bring him back to life so I can hack out his black heart and feed it to him.”
Naasir bared his teeth at her. “I knew you were my mate.” He drew her close with a grip around her nape, parted her lips with his own and licked his tongue against hers until her wing fluttered over him and her thigh rubbed against his.
Sliding his hand under her tunic to palm her breast, he rolled her over onto her back. His nostrils flared at her scent. Moving his hand down her quivering abdomen, he slipped it under the loose waistband of the jeans and stroked two fingers through her slickness. When he raised his head, her lips were more swollen than before and her breath shallow.
“Any more questions?” Lashes shading his eyes as he watched the rise and fall of her chest, he circled his thumb around the slippery nub at the apex of her thighs.
Gripping his biceps with one hand, she tried to glare at him but pleasure kept rippling over her. “Beast.”
He grinned. “Your beast.” Nipping at her lower lip, he used his teeth to tug at the soft flesh while he moved his fingers with a playful dexterity that made her give a startled moan and orgasm in sweet little flutters he wanted to lick up with his tongue.
His mouth watered.
Putting his lips to her ear, he said, “You’re going to be my dessert after dinner tonight. I’m going to lick you up like honey, sink my fangs into the delicate, plump flesh between your thighs.”
Her body jerked, her thighs clenching on his hand. She didn’t startle when his claws released, though he was holding flesh so soft and fragile. No surprise. His mate was as wild as him and she knew he would never hurt her.
Trembling fingers wove into his hair but her teeth on his jaw were sharp. “Not if I get my mouth on you first.”
He growled and tore off her jeans and ten minutes later, Andromeda lay sweat-drenched and naked on his chest, while his heart pounded, his entire self stretched out under the sunshine in sated bliss.
When Andromeda finally pushed up on his chest to face him, she looked deliciously used, marked by his bite and by his kiss. And the affection in her eyes . . . He basked in it. “How long till we have to go in?” he asked.
“Hours yet.” She pushed back his sweat-damp hair as his eyelids lowered. “Don’t go to sleep yet. I do have one question.”
Lazy, he didn’t bother to open his eyes. “Hmm?”
“The fact you’re a chimera doesn’t explain your vampirism.”
Naasir yawned. “Osiris was afraid I wasn’t a true, immortal chimera, that I’d die before he’d unearthed his answers. He also wanted to keep me a child so I’d be easier to control.” Especially after Naasir’s last attack had left him with claw marks shredding his face.
“Not that it would’ve saved him had I stayed a child. The day Raphael found me—after hearing about what Osiris was doing from a courier who’d seen more than he should—I’d jumped on Osiris from the ceiling, clawed out his eyes and made him slip on the stairs. His skull cracked hard enough against the stone to leave him unconscious.” At which point, Naasir had ripped out his throat and clawed open his chest cavity. “But that was Osiris’s rationalization for Making me.”