Devoured Read online

  “What?” she whispered, staring back into its eyes. “Did…did you say something? And how did you say it?”

  “I’m speaking through our bond.” His jewel-like eyes blinked slowly. “The bond that all Kindred males have with their mates.”

  “You…we… what?”

  “We are bonded.” The dr’gin looked away. “For that I am sorry. I know how you must feel about it.”

  “How I must…” Tess shook her head. “I still don’t understand. What does bonded mean—besides you being able to speak inside my head, I mean?”

  “It means we are tied together…permanently.” The voice in her head didn’t sound very happy about it.

  “How…how did that happen?” Tess demanded.

  “When I took you last night…when I bred you…” The dr’gin gave her a look from the corner of its eye. No, not the dr’gin—this was Garron in his dr’gin form. The two of them were one now, Tess suddenly understood.

  “When you…bred me?” she asked.

  “You need only to look at the marks I left on your flesh to know what I’m talking about.”

  Tess looked down at herself—really looked—for the first time and sucked in her breath. There were bruises on her pale skin—mostly around her hips—but a few in other places as well. Not only that but the skin had been erased from her knees and elbows and the palms of her hands. Just looking at the raw, red flesh made the wounds she hadn’t noticed earlier sting.

  How in the world…? Then it began to come back. Dimly she remembered kneeling on the hard stone floor of the cave as Garron plowed into her from behind.

  Probably happened then. She shivered at the vivid memory—the rough pleasure of letting him take her completely—the overwhelming feeling of being utterly owned by him.

  “You have bite marks on your back as well,” Garron informed her. “I wanted to heal them but I didn’t feel I had the right without your permission. I had to keep you warm, however which is why I curled around you. Though I know how you must feel about being in close proximity to me in any form right now. I hope you understand.”

  Tess shook her head. “I don’t understand anything. Why would I not want to be in close proximity to you?”

  “How can you ask that after seeing what I did?”

  Garron shimmered and changed form. In an instant he was sitting there beside her on the hard stone floor of the cave completely naked. The change made Tess jump.

  “Oh, you’re back! You really can change back and forth now.” She wanted to throw her arms around him but something stopped her—maybe it was the dark expression on his face. Or maybe the fact that she was still completely naked. She crossed her legs and draped an arm across her bare breasts as unobtrusively as she could.

  “Yes, I’m back—thanks to you.” Garron gave her a long, searching look. “You saved me from being D’fex, Tess. Or rather, I used you to save myself from it. For that I must beg you to forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.” Tess put a hand over his lightly. “Really.”

  “That’s not true,” he said in a low voice. “There is much to forgive. Much I did to wrong you.”

  She drew her hand away uncertainly. “Is this you giving me the “it’s not you it’s me” speech again? Because I have to be honest, Garron, if that’s it, then I will never forgive you.”

  “But it is me—I’m the one who hurt you. You did nothing but come and seek me out, even when you knew it might mean your death. And look how I repaid you.”

  “How you…? Wait a minute…” Tess frowned. “Is this really about last night? Or it is about you wanting to break up with me because I’m not Nella and you’re regretting the whole ‘bonded for life’ thing?”

  “How could I regret bonding myself to you?” Garron looked at her, holding her eyes with his own. “I told you that Nella—as much as I loved her—is in the past. You are my present. And…my future. At least, I once hoped you were.”

  “I can be.” Tess looked at him uncertainly. “If…if you still want me.”

  “Of course I still want you!” Garron reached for her hand, entwining their fingers. “But I wouldn’t blame you a bit if you didn’t want me. Not after…after last night.”

  “Last night was…intense.” Her face was suddenly hot with a blush as she remembered the incredible sex they’d shared. “But I’m not upset about it. Not unless you are.”

  “I am upset—deeply disturbed at the way I behaved. At the way I treated you.” Garron looked away. “I vowed to loved and cherish you and never treat you roughly and then I…” He seemed to have difficulty getting the words out. “I treated you no better than your ex-mate. I wouldn’t blame you if you never forgave me for that.”

  He started to draw his hand away from her but Tess wouldn’t let him.

  “That’s not true,” she said fiercely, holding his hand tightly in her much smaller one. “Garron, look at me.”

  Reluctantly, he met her eyes again.

  “You’re nothing like Pierce was. Nothing. Not even after you first, uh, ate him and took on a few of his personality traits. You came after me at first but then you stopped when I asked you to. Even though you knew you had to mate or turn D’fex. Pierce would never have stopped. He took what he wanted and didn’t give a damn about me.”

  “That is not the only way I mirrored him,” Garron pointed out. “He hurt you—marked you. I did the same last night.”

  “Pierce liked to hurt me and scar me for his own sadistic amusement,” Tess said. “You marked me out of passion. Not on purpose—not because you got off on it—but because you were still in a kind of in-between state. You were channeling your dr’gin.”

  He frowned. “How do you know that?”

  “It was pretty obvious the way you kept flipping back and forth until I finally managed to keep you in one form. Also, you were probably having what Yipper called the ‘three-fold reaction’ because the emotion damper failed. Remember when all the emotions you were having at the time the damper was implanted come back three times as strong?” She frowned. “What happened to the implant anyway? Is it still in you?”

  Garron ran a hand over the back of his neck. “No, it’s gone—my body must have either expelled or engulfed it during my first transition.”

  “Like it did with Pierce’s gun.” Tess shivered. “You know, I understand the clothes and even the shoes but how in the hell did you digest a gun?”

  Garron shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling.

  “The acid in the stomach of a dr’gin is one of the strongest in the known universe. I could eat anything in that form—even rocks—and digest them.”

  “Ugh.” Tess shook her head. “Well, I guess you can never complain about my cooking then…”

  “Don’t try to make jokes and change the subject,” he said severely. “We were talking about how I wronged you.”

  “No, we were talking about why you got a little out of control. And don’t forget, I did tell you I didn’t mind when you said you couldn’t be gentle,” Tess reminded him. “Which was understandable—you were having the three-fold reaction and fighting with your dr’gin at the same time.”

  “I do remember many strong emotions—feelings of guilt and shame and a lust so strong I felt I could barely control it.” His face darkened. “Clearly, I could not control it.”

  “So?” Tess leaned forward. “You can’t make love to a tiger and expect to come away without a few scratches and scrapes. You were wild last night—literally. You couldn’t help yourself.”

  “That’s not an excuse,” Garron said stubbornly. “None of this is.”

  “I’m not trying to excuse anything,” Tess murmured. She stroked along the inside of his wrist gently with her fingertips. “I’m trying to tell you how I feel. I didn’t feel abused or attacked last night. I knew what I was getting myself into when I came after you in the first place—I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But Garron, nothing worth having comes easily. And you’re worth it. Worth the