Page 37 of The Huntress

Callie left with a bounce to her step, trailing Gabe. The moonlight was once more beautiful, perhaps because all was well. Gabe had kept his word, and Val lived, sort of.

“Thank you.” Callie drew in a deep, satisfying breath of the cool night air.

He scooped her into his arms and broke into a run, reversing their earlier mad dash between his home and the stronghold. She gripped his shoulders, holding on as she worried her bottom lip. How to tell him she wasn’t staying?

“Is there a process to this Rite of thing you mentioned?” She closed her eyes, not needing the moonlight to paint his features any handsomer than they were.

“Sex, often.” His voice was hoarse, but when she peeked at him, he kept his focus ahead.

There went her heartbeat, dancing the mambo or something with complicated steps.

As soon as he lowered her to her feet outside his front door, she shook her hands to rid herself of restless energy. “I can’t talk you out of claiming me?”

He shook his head. “Announced, witnessed, permission received, and if we don’t convert you soon, many will try to take you from me.”

She huffed. “This is barbaric.” She paced in the dark confines of his tunnel, rubbing her damp palms on her denim-encased thighs. “As it is, you’ve tried to help me and you have my thanks for that. There’s no need to embroil yourself further. Gabe, you shouldn’t claim me. It’s suicide, don’t you see that?” She paused, waiting for his response.

His chest froze as if he’d stopped breathing. Did they even need to breathe? She pressed her hand to his temple. He was hot to the touch. So ice-cold suckbloods were a myth. She’d heard they didn’t need oxygen. In his continued silence, she fought the urge to press her ear to his chest to make sure there was a heartbeat. Blood flowed through their veins, so it needed pumping somehow.

“So is facing a werewolf at noon,” he said, at last with a voice hoarser than grinding gravel against rock. “That doesn’t mean I should fear it. Iwantyou, Callista.”

He surprised her with his soft dry lips caressing hers before he hardened the kiss. She moaned under the onslaught. After all, this suckblood had years to perfect the art of kissing, and under his lips, it was truly an art form. Designed to seduce, he didn’t even have to use thirty percent of his tricks on her. She was a disgrace to womankind, to the force, to the Devereaux name.

But to hell with it.

He tasted like sin—hot, wet need, yearning, and love—all in one.

A fang must’ve nicked her lip since she tasted salt and iron. His tongue slid along the tear, and he growled, his arms trembling. He pulled away, sucking in breaths, his irises swirling silver and dark gray.

“Syl announced it into law,” he said, his breath cooling her heated lips.

Just like that? The rest of her life decided for her? She studied his face, wishing she could read his mind. He must know how she felt about all this. In shock, undecided, tempted. She’d been pretty vocal since they’d left the hall. She needed to meditate on it all, to decide what this meant and whether there was an escape. A divorce, of sorts.

“So this means I’m yours for an eternity?”

“As I am yours,” he whispered, opening his door and ushering her inside.

Chapter Fourteen

CAPTAIN’S CONNIPTION

“Callie!Wherethehellare you?” Barrows’s voice came through her smartwatch.

She yelped, not having expected to hear from him on her day off.

“I’m kind of dealing with a family crisis,” she said into the watch.

“Captain’s having a conniption,” Mike said, in a bored tone.

“No one says conniption anymore, Mike.” Callie chuckled.

“From where I’m standing, she’s having one. That your police vehicle is at a last-known suck-fest location? There’s your problem. Like I said, where the hell are you?”

“Shit, she’s here?” Callie faced Gabe, running a caressing gaze up his denim-hugging thighs and T-shirt-encased torso.

He wasn’t doing anything illegal, hadn’t even participated in the festivities, but fear burned in her chest. She couldn’t let any harm befall him. Not on her watch. Not even married an hour, and already her “husband” was in danger. Typical of her.

“Damn straight. Now get your ass here and fix this. Oh, I have your gun and badge. I snagged it before she spotted it lying there on the hood.”

---