“You betrayed me, little songbird.”
The bottle of Tylenol thumped on the wood floor in Christina’s bedroom.
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t, Master.”
She began to shiver uncontrollably in the empty, dead silence that followed. Alison clamped her eyes shut when a pain lanced through her skull. Teslar’s voice sounded rich and clear in her mind. He’d never spoken to her telepathically before and she was shocked when she instinctively responded in kind. She didn’t know for certain if he’d heard her, but she had a funny feeling he had.
Something swelled in her breast and it took her a moment to recognize the feeling as pride. She could read minds, just like Christina. She was special, regardless of what Saint said.
“I suppose it’s impossible for you to have intentionally betrayed me, weak human that you are. But you allowed yourself to be swayed by my clone’s ascendancy, and I’ll have to punish you severely for that,” Teslar said, his tone irritated and slightly bored.
“What are you doing?” he snapped.
“I was…I was getting some Tylenol for Christina.”
“The woman?” Alison stiffened when she heard the greed that laced his tone. “Tell me where she and the boy are. What’s my annoying clone doing? Tell me everything, little pet.”
Several pain-filled minutes later, Alison left the coach house. She gave a sharp shriek of alarm when a large hand wrapped around her upper arm and jerked her around.
“What’s the hurry, tiny morsel?”
She gasped at the sight of Isi staring down at her from his great height. The moonlight showed his one black eyebrow raised in a mocking expression. His dark hair fell forward on his brow. Even though he technically looked only five or six years older than her, his lancing stare and rigid features made her feel like a child. The knowledge that he was really centuries older than his face revealed intimidated her.
“Let go of me, you animal,” she seethed. But, instead of releasing her, he urged her closer. Alison felt his heat penetrate the exposed skin of her belly.
“You don’t know the meaning of good sex until you’ve had a wolf,” he taunted softly.
“You don’t know the meaning of good sex until you’ve had Teslar.”
“Too bad the price of it is your life. Are you really that stupid?”
Alison laughed. “Maybe I’m that smart. Maybe not one of you paranormal superjocks knows a thing about me.”
He squinted at her in the darkness.
“I know something about you.”
Something lacing through his deep, low voice made her pause. Had he just dropped his head closer to her upturned face?
“What do you know about me? That I think you’re an asshole? Brilliant deduction.”
He continued as if she’d never spoken. “I know your scent. I know you were afraid just now in the coach house.” His voice dropped a decibel. She found herself straining up to hear his quiet words. Her bare belly brushed against the fly of his jeans. He was hard. She swayed closer, liking the tickling, burning sensation in her lower abdomen.
“I know you’re getting turned on right now,”
he added.
Her head snapped back.
“Dream on,” she replied caustically.
For a moment, he didn’t speak. Alison heard her blood pounding loudly in her ears in the tense silence. She gasped in surprise when he suddenly shook her. Hard. Her hair flung into her face and her brain rattled in her skull. Her groin batted repeatedly against his hard thighs, his cock thumping against her abdomen.
“What were you doing in the coach house for so long?” he seethed. “I saw you standing up in Christina’s room like you’d been frozen.”
“Let go of me, you spaz!”
He stopped shaking her and leaned down until their mouths were only inches apart. “If I discover you’ve been conspiring with Teslar or have betrayed Saint…if I find out that you’ve been playing the fool by sacrificing your life wantonly, I’ll make you regret it. I don’t know why the hell I should care one way or another, but I’m personally insulted by the idea,” he snarled.