Page 66 of Pride
She could have sworn she heard his mentalharrumphas she kept her mouth shut. Deciding now would be a good time to start on her calls, Alice went to the living room, where she’d spotted a phone on the ridiculously ornamental side table next to the sectional. Masculine rumblings by the door prickled her senses, but she remained firm and dialed the private number for the Hildegard Abbey.
24
While Alice made plans,Parker checked equipment for the mission. He wanted to help Alice, but frustratingly, he actually didn’t know how to do the menial office tasks. Just like the cooking, he knew he’d come to rely on Alice in more ways than one.
She never complained, not even when he brought her a simple apple for a mid-morning snack. He couldn’t cook or make a sandwich. So it was an apple. For lunch it was takeout. By the afternoon, and she was still on the phone making calls. He sat at the piano and practiced with his bionic fingers until they slipped from mental fatigue. But that was the problem with the bionic arm. While his real flesh and blood arm would continue to work on muscle memory alone, right up until a moment of failure, the left arm would fail if his mind wasn’t strong. But if trained properly, could work when his body gave out. He still hadn’t tested his limits. If he failed, if he held Alice in his arms again… he shook his head, unable to dwell on it.
Tonight they would fly into another country and hunt for Daisy. Tonight, they would be the bird flying over the wall to find her in captivity. They would free his sister. What she must be going through. What shehadgone through…
The kind and caring little girl had become something unrecognizable—a heartless, cold and unfeeling thing. Until she’d sacrificed herself for Liza. Until she’d thrown out a life raft, crying out for help, and Parker hadn’t been there to see it. Failing to be there for Daisy was Parker’s biggest shame. He’d been so caught up with his battle against Alice—a battle that made little sense now—when he could have been down in that warehouse, backing up Liza and saving Daisy from making the second biggest mistake of her life. The first being that she tried to save their birth mother Gloria from the flames of a burning building.
Julius was a mad man. Parker had never doubted it. His pride had curdled Parker’s gut any time they’d been close. Julius’s pride was so bad that if Parker ever blacked out and slipped into his berserker state, Julius wouldn’t be recognizable after Parker was done with him.
But the worst part was that with The Beast now pacing continuously inside Parker’s body, he didn’t think he needed to black out to cause destruction. That berserker state lived just beneath the surface. And if that was the case, what did it say about him? What right did he have to profess superiority? To lead?
His fingers stuttered over the keys, causing the tune to break. His fist plunged through the keyboard in frustration, exploding discord into the air. Ivory keys popped and scattered. The strings inside the baby grand snapped. The Beast roared to the surface, coloring his vision red. He looked at his inner wrist tattoo. Almost black after only hours apart from touching Alice. Hours.
It seemed the same rules of biology didn’t apply to him as they did to the others, which made little sense. The research notes he’d deciphered from Gloria’s laptop said nothing about him reacting this differently. He’d always known what his genetic makeup would be… but this reaction? He was ill prepared.
“Parker?”
He swung around to find Alice standing in the doorway to his bedroom, his cell phone dangling in her hands. While she’d been planning, booking appropriate travel for his family and coordinating the Sinners, he’d tried to find protective gear for Alice but found little beyond their Deadly suits. She probably wouldn’t accept one anyway, but he would have felt safer knowing she had bullet proof protection. Saying that, she’d survived this long without it. She was that good. And this was the problem. Every time he looked at her, his pride swelled and his cock ached. The Beast, already at the surface of his control, urged him to take her, to claim her like an animal. To lose himself in her, whether she wanted it or not. To make it so no one, not even her, could doubt that she belonged with him.
“Come here,” he said, frustration lacing his tongue.
She strode over with concern etched in her eyes. She didn’t see the lion inside him, prowling and pacing, ready to pounce.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I need to touch you.” It would soothe The Beast. He hooked fingers into her yoga pants and tugged her close, then buried his face in her chest and simply soaked her up, let her infuse every pore in his body.
The moment he touched, the tattoo itched as though a thousand ants crawled in circles. His internal sin equilibrium balanced, and he felt at peace. Shibari, or rock-climbing, had been the old way to quiet his mind, but now he had Alice. Her hands landed gently on his head.
“Parker?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
She pushed him back, craning his neck to capture his gaze. “You put your fist through the piano. It’s not nothing.” She paused. “Was it what Griffin said? About your pride?”
He showed her his tattoo. “It’s balanced now.”
“But… never mind.”
“Ask.”
“I just… and maybe I’m wrong and have no clue what I’m talking about, but shouldn’t you remain balanced longer than a few hours after we separate? Isn’t that how the mating bond works?”
He stood. “And what will you do with this knowledge if I tell you? Pass it on to your sisters?”
Alice’s expression went flat. She stilled so completely, Parker knew he’d pissed her off irrevocably. Yet he refused to bend.
“I thought we were beyond snipes like that,” she said, glowering.
His jaw clenched with his shame. She was right, but he’d be damned if he admitted it.
“You claim I don’t trust you, but that, Parker, that right there is why.” Steel in her tone was colder than ice. “You bait me as though you expect me to do or be someone I’m not. You use anger and arrogance to distract me from my questions. You still keep the strongest part of you locked away from me.”
“You hide the truth, too, Alice.”
