“Who gives a damn?” She was spitting mad now. “I’m sick of you running out on me, Taber. I’ll be damned if I’ll be tied to you while you waltz on your merry way, avoiding me whenever you feel like it.”

He watched her in amazement. Emotion, thick and hot, colored her voice while her eyes snapped with fury and stubbornness. Her slender body vibrated with emotion, her frown darkening her brow, thinning her full, luscious lips. She was tempting him to mount her there and then.

“I have never run out on you, Roni…” Her words finally sank past his lust-crazed brain and in the next second, his eyes widened as he jumped out of the way of her next flying missile. “Son of a bitch, Roni.”

He sprinted toward her, jerking her back from the heavy candlestick that sat on the table as well. His arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her against him, restraining the violence he could feel shuddering through her body.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” He released her as he tossed her to the bed, but he didn’t attempt to follow her. He was tired of this. Tired of the fury that filled her—the distrust, the shadows that haunted her eyes. “I’m sick to damned hell of you accusing me of leaving you when it was your own decision to break off whatever relationship was beginning.”

She scrambled across the bed, landing on her feet on the other side. Better, he thought. The further she was from him, the more of his common sense he seemed able to maintain.

“Oh, come on, Taber, I never took you for a liar, too,” she yelled back, a sneer on her lips. Something else he was tired of, that sneer. Condescending, offending. “Stop playing so innocent. You don’t have to pretend with me. Not here while we’re alone. The only reason I’m here is because of this damned mark you put on my neck. Otherwise, I’d still be sitting in Sandy Hook wondering why the hell you changed your mind so quickly last year.”

He stilled, his instincts kicking in as logic began to take over. What couldn’t be understood must be examined. Studied, stalked or hunted. And he sure as hell didn’t understand this.

“Why I changed my mind?” he asked her carefully, his chest tightening at the pain that had been reflected in her voice and her expression. It came much too close to the pain he had felt when he received her letter over a year ago, mere hours after he had placed that mark on her neck. And yet, by her own furious words, she believed he had broken off the relationship, new as it had been, himself. Roni wasn’t a liar. She didn’t play games and she didn’t pass the blame on something she was responsible for herself.

His body had been a mess that day, he admitted. Arousal unlike anything he had ever known, a hard-on damned near strong enough to split his jeans, and here came Dayan with…he stopped. Dayan. Son of a bitch. He wiped his hand across his face, staring over at her, fighting a betrayal he had prayed had been over with the death of his brother.

Dayan’s determination to destroy the rest of them had nearly killed Merinus and the child she now carried. His death was too well remembered. His betrayal burned too deeply into Taber’s brain to discount his senses. Dayan had lied. And Taber had fallen for it.

“Don’t answer that.” He hated the hoarse, tired sound of his own voice as he stalked over to his dresser. He opened the middle drawer, pushing back several thick envelopes and a few mementos. In the back,

near the corner, was a small wooden box. He removed it, flipped it open and removed the folded square of paper.

I’m quitting the garage and you, Taber. I’ve realized, after that scene in the truck, how easily you’ll try to take me over. I won’t be a puppet for you any longer. You’re too blunt, too crude, too rough. I need someone who touches me softly. Someone I don’t have to be frightened of. Someone closer to my own age. You’ll be old while I’m still young, and I just don’t want to deal with it. Please afford me the courtesy of staying the hell away from me. That’s surely not too much to ask! Roni He had the letter memorized. He was barely eight years older than she was, but at times, it felt like centuries.

“Read this.” He handed her the letter, watching her confused expression closely. Taber kept his gaze locked with hers as she took the folded square, watching her closer, his soul bleeding. Instinctively, he knew she hadn’t written that letter now. Knew that the past fifteen hellish months, needing her, aching for her until he thought he would die from the need, had all been for nothing. She unfolded the letter, her gaze moving to the words. Her eyes widened. Her lips trembled. The pain that crossed her expression tore at his soul.

“I thought I was respecting your wishes, Roni,” he whispered, feeling wearier now than he had in years. Dayan had been a trusted, much loved member of the family. “I will assume you received a letter as well, since I know Dayan’s only true gift was that of forgery.”

She crumpled the note in her hand, tears shining in her eyes, spiking her lashes as her gaze returned to his.

“I didn’t write this,” she whispered bleakly, trembling. “But I received one as well.” A fine shudder rippled over her body as she stared back at him. “It was your handwriting.” She looked at the letter again, her breath hitching as she fought a sob, realizing as Taber did, just how close to her handwriting that letter was.

“And I didn’t write you one, either,” he said gently. “I was fighting desperately to give you time to think, to know what we were about to do was what you wanted. I knew what I was, Roni. I knew the danger I was putting you in. I was trying to be certain, beyond all doubt, that I could protect you if somehow my existence was revealed to the Council. As far as they knew, I was long dead. I had all intentions of returning to you.”

“When you didn’t show up, I waited.” There was so much pain, so much regret in the dark depths of her eyes that he wanted to scream out in rejection of such misery. He had fought for so long to protect her, only to have one he considered his brother deal her the final blow to her confidence. “The next morning, he brought the letter. He pushed me against the wall with his body…” She broke off painfully, swallowing tightly before continuing. “He offered to train me for you.”

Rage ate at his soul and Taber knew that if Dayan wasn’t dead then he would have killed him personally for daring to touch Roni in any manner, let alone saying anything so hurtful to her. He remembered well the bright dreams, the need and emotion that sparkled in her eyes when she looked at him all those months ago. That letter, and Dayan’s attack, had nearly destroyed a part of her soul. Taber reached out, unable to keep from touching her, from needing her. God, he needed her like he

needed to breathe. Or worse. His fingers smoothed over her satiny cheek, his thumb caressing her lips. She had the softest lips he had ever known, and eyes that pierced every corner of his soul with sunlight when she was happy. Yet when she hurt, as she did now, it was like a knife plunging into his chest.

“I would have given my life to be with you that night,” he swore, knowing it was no more than the truth.

“At the same time, the Council’s mercenaries were moving in on Callan, and rather than let that rage loose where you might see it, I let it loose on them instead. I should have come to you.” He had known that then. It had taken all he had at the time not to do exactly that. “I should have fought for what I knew was mine.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “I loved you,” she whispered, breaking his heart with the aching emotion in her voice. “I still love you, but I’m not pleased with you, Taber.”

His hand dropped as she moved away from him, frowning in surprise. “I had no idea you hadn’t written that letter, Roni,” he argued.

“Oh not that,” she snapped as she tossed the wadded-up ball of paper across the room before casting him a dark look. “I’m as guilty as you are in letting that bastard trick me.” She turned back to him, the anger slowly returning. “I haven’t forgotten my original question, and don’t you think I have. Fine, we were tricked. We’ll deal with it. But we have other things to deal with as well. I’ll ask you once again. What happens to your cock when you climax? And I want to know now.”

Thankfully, blessedly, strange as that thought was, the security alarms began to blare.

“Get dressed.” He picked her up quickly, ignoring her gasp of surprise as he strode around the glass by the bathroom door and carried her to the walk-in closet.

“What the hell is that?” she yelled over the din of the sirens, catching the clothing he threw her way as he jerked his own jeans and T-shirt from their hangers.

They dressed in seconds, pulling on leather sneakers then rushing from the room. Taber worriedly eyed the revolver she insisted on carrying. To be honest, he wouldn’t blame her, or be surprised if she turned it on him. And he knew damned good and well her aim was almost fucking perfect. He had taught her how to shoot himself.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Can’t a man even come visit his goddamned daughter without being attacked? She’s my kid, I have a right to know if she’s alive or not.”

Roni flinched as her father’s booming voice echoed up to her, coarse and blustering, causing her to come to an abrupt dead stop halfway down the stairs that led to the entrance hall. Taber stopped behind her, still and silent, watching her carefully.

She was too tense, almost frightened, wary. Like a deer sensing danger but not certain which direction it was coming from.

Reginald Andrews was one of the worst fathers Taber had ever known. His only saving grace, the only reason he still lived, was the fact that he had never laid a hand on Roni. Otherwise, Taber would have

killed him years ago.

“Mr. Andrews, that doesn’t explain why you were trying to sneak into the grounds. Why not just press the call button on the gates?” Callan’s voice was as cold and crisp as a winter night. He was flat furious. Reginald was, as always, making excuses. Loudly.

Taber watched as Roni drew in a deep hard breath. He could almost feel the distaste that filled her and the reluctance that held her still and silent. But he could sense more than that. The morass of emotions that seemed to rush from her overwhelmed him, made him move closer to her, determined to protect her. He laid one hand at her waist, leaning close to her, his chin settling against her shoulder. “We could go back to the room. Ignore him. If you don’t go down there, Callan will take it as silent permission to have the bastard thrown out.”

He whispered the words so softly that only she heard him. He kept his body close enough to be certain his warmth and silent security enfolded her. He would protect her, no matter what it took. She swallowed tightly and he could literally feel her fighting for the strength to face the man raging in the hallway.

“No.” She finally shook her head as she reached back, tucking the revolver he had given her into the waistband of her jeans. “I’ll deal with him.”

But she didn’t want to. Taber was getting the distinct impression that there was something about her father that literally terrified her now. Before he could question her about it, she was moving gracefully down the stairs, her hand retaining a light grip on the balustrade, her shoulders straight and erect. As regal as a princess and so determined to be strong it brought a lump to his throat, made him want to shelter her that much more.

“Why are you here,Reginald?” She had to raise her voice to be heard over his furious tirade concerning the welfare of his beloved only child. The sound of it made Taber sick. Reginald had aged severely in the time since Taber had last seen him. His dark hair was almost fully gray and thinning. He tried to make up for that fact by growing one side longer than the other and combing it over the opposite side, giving him an off center, clownish appearance. His brown eyes were dull, his cheeks ruddy from drink and overweight. He was barely six feet tall, and not nearly as muscular as he had been even five years before. As Roni stepped into the entry hall, all eyes turned to her. The Feline Breeds filling the marbled entrance to the house were on alert, their hands on their weapons, their eyes sharp and missing not a move that the older man made.