Page 53 of Loup Garou

“We have no quarrel with you. Give us back the female and you may go on your way.”

For the vampire to offer Exavier a deal, meant there was something big going on. My guess was that he was scared of Exavier. “You will not touch her again.”

“Leave me. Go. He’s not…hu-man,” I whispered.

“Neither am I.”

Puzzled, I simply stared at him. The vampire increased his power, doing his best to crush us with nothing more than air. The pressure was great. Exavier held me close and seemed to radiate an energy that countered the vampire’s power.

“What are you?” the vamp asked, sounding concerned.

“I am the last person you should have pissed off.”

“She is but a human with tiny powers. She is nothing to someone such as you. Stand with us and you can share in the power that will come when we bring the prince down. Killing her assures he can never have an heir and he will forever have a hole, a piece missing when his mate is dead. He will never be at full strength and he will slowly go mad. Kill her and let the process begin. We can attack then, when he grieves and is weak.”

Exavier came to a stop outside of my office door.

“If you do not have it in you to kill her, then hand her to me. She is all but dead now. Allow me to finish the task. She has already begged me to end her existence. Can you not feel her sorrow? She no longer wishes to walk among the living.”

Exavier’s eyes shifted from blue to black. I gasped as his nostrils flared. “You will not harm her,vampire. When I know she is safe, I’ll deal with you and the rest of your men. You should know that I’ve sealed the building. No one can get out. You can’t run.”

The vampire laughed. “I am not afraid of one man. I will kill the bitch myself.”

“Mymateis not a bitch. She is a gift from the gods and I intend to see she understands that.”

“No! You cannot be the—”

“Oh, I can and I am. And you just made yourself an enemy you can’t run from, can’t barter with, can’t defeat. I suggest you prepare to die—again. My mate needs my attention before I kill you.” He pushed my office door open and carried me inside. The door flew shut on its own.

The contents on my desk cleared away on their own as Exavier laid me on it. He ran his hand over my cheek and brought his face down to mine. “I’m sorry, baby. I stayed behind a few minutes longer to tell your mother to go to hell and ask your father’s permission to claim you. When I got to the parking lot, you were gone.”

“You lied to me.”

He smiled as he pulled the top of my dress down enough to see the panther bite. “That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you, Linds. You can stay mad about the littlest thing.”

I baulked. “It is not little. You let me sit there and tell you all about…umm…you. Not once did you stop me and tell me that I was right, that there was a legitimate reason why you reminded me of him…err…you.”

He smiled again as a warm sensation came over me. “Little, little, little.”

I glared at him. “Care to tell me how you conveniently forgot I was coming to visit you?”

“Simple,” he said, as heat flared through me. “I was never told you were coming. I would have never picked some camp over you. There was nothing in the world I’d have selected over you, Linds. There still isn’t.”

“Are you happy?” I didn’t add sarcasm to the question. I needed to know if he was happy in his life. That was important to me.

“That’s hard to answer.”

My mouth opened as a horrible thought occurred to me. “Ohmygod, I kissed you and you’re married!”

“Lindsay.”

“No, don’t touch me. How can you do that? You should have told me it was you. I would have stopped.” I stared at him, half expecting him to morph into a wildebeest or something. “Xavs, what happened to you?”

“Lindsay?”

I gasped. “Sex was brought up, Exavier. I would have had sex with a married man. Wonderful, I’ve reached whole new lows. Gee, I’m curious to see what’s next. Will I do a lycan train? How about a den of vampires? I can’t believe I felt bad for hitting you. I am such an idiot.”

“Lindsay, stop!” He gave me a hard look. “I’m glad to see you still have a flare for the dramatics. For one, I am not, nor have I ever been married. Kissing and making love to you would not have qualified as cheating…”

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