Amber Fire (6 page)

When the nurse informed Amber that Chris had other visitors who would stay with him, Jareth and Amber exited to the hallway only to come face to face, once again, with Mike. Instant, sharp discomfort spiked among them. Mike's presence was like pure acid eating away at the air.

“What is
he
doing here?” Mike demanded of Amber, his chin motioning to Jareth.

“Jareth is the reason Chris is still breathing,” Amber said, snapping back sharply. “He deserves to be here. If anyone shouldn't be here, it's you, Mike. You took Chris to those woods. You took him too far from camp. And don't tell me you didn't take him hunting because I wasn't born yesterday. You had loaded weapons.”

Jareth barely contained a low growl. Damn it. They'd talked about keeping a low profile with Mike. Instead, Amber had charged right into this argument. Mike cut Jareth a hard, warning look that said he blamed him for Amber's attitude. A look that had Jareth itching to drag the bastard out to the parking lot and beat his arrogant ass.

“We need to step down the hall and talk,” Mike said directly to Amber, his eyes sharp as darts; his tone, sharper. “Now.”

“Amber,” Jareth warned, sliding his arm through hers. “Let's go get some coffee.”

“I don't think so,” she refused. “I think Mike and I need to have this conversation. We both seem to have a lot to say.”

Disgust rolled over Mike's features as he glanced at Jareth's arm linked to Amber's. “Oh, my God.” His attention snapped to Amber. “You're with him, aren't you?”

“Who else is going to be here with her?” Jareth challenged. “You left her to worry on her own.” He refocused on Amber. “Let's get that coffee.” He started walking with her in tow and thankfully she followed.

“You have no idea how much I want to hit him,” Amber mumbled under her breath.

Mike called after them, “Your father is rolling over in his grave.”

Amber stopped dead in her tracks. Jareth tightened his grip. “Don't do this, Amber.”

“Let go,” she whispered, her gaze snapping to his. “Let go, Jareth.”

But he couldn't let her go. She was in danger as long as she clashed with Mike. There was no middle road. She was with Mike or she was with the Yaguara. Her destiny had been set by her father. Short term, Chase's idea had merit. Mike suspected Jareth was Yaguara. He knew Amber and Jareth were, at a minimum, friends. Amber had to use that suspicion to her benefit, turn it around on Mike and make him believe she was on his side. If she talked to him before Jareth convinced her that this was a good idea, she was set on doing the opposite—letting Mike know he was considered the enemy.

“You are tired and emotional,” he told her. “Let this go until you have some rest.”

“That is not your choice to make.”

“I'm protecting you.”

“I can protect myself.”

“You don't even know what you are dealing with,” he said, possessiveness rising within him. They needed to have their own conversation. About his intentions toward her, about her future. “You cannot protect yourself.”

Her spine went ramrod stiff. “What do you mean
what I am dealing with
? What haven't you told me?”

He was not looking forward to having the conversation about her father with her. “Walk with me now.”

Her lips pursed stubbornly. “No.”

His tone took on a snap, part warning, part demand. “If you think that I will not throw you over my shoulder and march out of here with you,” he said, “you are wrong.”

She balked. “You wouldn't.”

“Try me,” he bit out between his teeth.

After a moment of probing his expression, she said, “Fine. Let's go.”

He didn't need any more encouragement. Jareth took off walking, all but dragging her with him. As much as he wanted to take her to that hotel next door, he didn't want to risk Mike following them, engaging them in yet another confrontation before he could talk to Amber.

He walked down one hall, and then the next, found a deserted, dark room, and shoved open the door.

The instant they were inside, Amber whirled on him and demanded, “What haven't you told me? Because I can tell there is something.”

Jareth shoved a chair under the door handle and turned to Amber. His hands slid possessively to her hips as he walked her toward the empty hospital bed. He was stricken by how soft she was where he was hard, how tiny, and how she spread warmth through him so easily after life had left him merely cold.

Once she was captive between him and the bedframe, his fingers entwined in the silky strands of her hair, his thumbs tracing a line down her cheeks. “Damn it, woman. I told you not to confront that man. I told you he is dangerous.”

Wild hunger overcame him, a sudden rush of need. He kissed her, thrust his tongue past her lips with the hunger of a starving beast. He did not want to care about Amber—a human so easily lost, a human so easily hurt by his world. Nor did he want to need her. But need burned through his limbs, fired his blood. His hand curved around her slim waist, caressed a path to the swell of her breast before filling his palm with the weight of it. His fingers tracked the stiff peak pressed beneath her T-shirt. He deepened the kiss, punishing her for making him worry, making him want. Making him need.

He picked her up and set her on the bed, shoved her legs apart and pulled her body against his hard, throbbing cock. “Don't you see the risk you take with him?”

“I cannot turn a blind eye to all of this.” Her hand went to where his covered her breast. He molded her breast. She bit her lip and arched into the touch, but still managed to argue. “And you cannot come into my life and try to take over. You're practically a stranger.”

“Stranger,” he half growled, infuriated, slanting his mouth over hers again, kissing her deeply, passionately. Branding her with his tongue as he planned to do with his cock. Jareth shoved her shirt up and unhooked her bra. Filled his palms with her breasts, the nipples poking at his palms, her arousal stroking his nostrils and sending heat straight to his dick. He was thick and pulsing with the need to feel her sweet, tight heat clench around him. “Do I still feel like a stranger?” He pressed his hand between her legs, finding the cloth of her pants wet. She moaned. “Or does making it with a stranger turn you on? Is that what makes you this hot and wet?” He unzipped her pants, slid a finger inside and stroked her clit through the damp silk barrier.

“That's so unfair,” she whispered.

“I told you once already,” he reminded her, using the fingers of one hand to press beneath her panties to stroke the sensitive flesh. At the same time, his other hand found a plump rosy nipple and lightly plucked. “I never promised to be fair.” And judging from the way she was dripping all over his fingers, rocking against his caresses, she didn't have a problem with that. Breathlessly, she reminded him, “We're supposed to be talking.”

He slid his hand free from her panties, ready to rip them and her pants away. Framed her waist on both sides. “We'll talk after I taste you.” He lifted her hips off the bed, and in a quick move, tugged her pants over her hips and past her knees. Almost instantly, his tongue found her clit. She gasped as he suckled her, and then traced her cleft with his tongue. Expertly, he used his free hand to get rid of one of her boots. In a matter of seconds, he'd freed one of her legs and lifted it over his shoulder. His mouth settled over the V of her body.

“Jareth, I . . . oh . . .” His fingers slid inside her; her fingers slid into his hair, holding him in place.

He smiled as he lapped at the sweet cream of her arousal, long languid strokes of his tongue tracking a path along her sensitive folds, his fingers mimicking sex until she was pumping against him, riding his hand. She was holding her breasts, touching them, pinching her nipples. He was thick with arousal, watching her touch herself, her face shadowed with the blissful ache of pleasure. Soft sounds of pleasure poured from her lips, until she cried out and stiffened, clenching his fingers with her muscles, hot and tight, as she spasmed around him. He licked her through the ride, took her with his mouth, with his fingers. When she sighed and calmed, he eased to his feet, their eyes locking, holding.

She opened her mouth to speak; he kissed her into silence and turned her to face the bed. Kicked a foot-high stepping stool into position and put her on top of it, lifting her fine white ass in just the right angle. Devoured her with his eyes. His balls tightened, blood rushing through his cock as he spread her wide and inspected her swollen, wet lips. He needed one more taste. He kneeled, and licked her up and down. She gasped with the unexpected intimacy of it; her knees almost gave way. Jareth steadied her, kissing a line beneath one lush butt check before standing back up. Ready for her. So damn ready.

Anticipation charged through his body a moment before he slid his erection along her dripping wet heat. Teasing them both with several long strokes along her core.

“Jareth, please,” she begged, looking over her shoulder. “I want—”

He pressed the head of his cock past her lips and she cried out. He dipped a little deeper and pulled back, a little deeper and pulled back, resisting full penetration. Making the tension last, aware of his limits. Aware that the minute he felt her fully consume him he would be wild; he could feel it building inside him, feel the want and need. He thrust hard and deep, straight to her deep center, burying himself to the hilt. Pleasure ripped through his limbs. Jareth tilted his head back with a silent roar of ecstasy, of feeling her wrapped around him.

Then, unexpectedly, the primal cat in him roared to life—the sudden tingling of gums, a warning that his teeth were extending.
Claim her!
The words rang out in his mind, over and over, an insatiable desire. He wanted to bite her, to bond with her, to make her his mate for all of eternity. There was no logic to it. She was human. He could not mate with a human. But yet, he wanted to, needed to. Jareth had to have her.

J
areth thrust into Amber, burying the mating instinct in the hard strokes of his cock inside her. Never had a woman created this urge in him. Never had he burned to claim a mate. He pumped into Amber, trying to sate the need with the hard ride of hips against hips. Burying his face in her neck, he caressed her breasts. Filled himself with the enticement of touching her, tasting her. Silently willing himself not to bite her. Not to mark her.

He palmed her ass a moment before he wrapped himself around her, framed her body with his, his hand resting over her stomach. He aligned his cheek to hers. “I am not a stranger,” he whispered again, turning her lips to his for a long, drugging kiss. Then he pumped hard into her. Pumped again and again. Faster, deeper, burying the urge to claim her in the sweet recesses of her body, until she clenched around him, milking his cock with the intensity of her orgasm. Her orgasm set off a volcanic eruption in him. His body exploded, shaking violently, and again the urge to mate overwhelmed him. His teeth extended, barely scraping her shoulder before he restrained the urge. He licked away the blood, kissed the sensitive skin. She moaned as if pleasured by the act, and he sunk his cock deep into her warmth with final release. He clung to her, trying to calm the beast in him. Trying to catch a breath. Forcing air in and then out.

With Herculean effort, he pulled away from her. He turned her around and lifted her to sit on the bed. She stared at him with sated, confused eyes. Beautiful green eyes. His cock reacted, thickened again. Jareth backed away, pulled his pants into place. He ran a hand over his head. “Get dressed, Amber. Get dressed now.”

He paced the room, trying to calm the cat in him, the wild primal urge to bend her back over and take her. Several seconds passed before Amber's voice shimmered down his spine and damn near undid him.

“What just happened?” she whispered.

He turned to thankfully find her standing beside the bed, her pant leg and boot back in place. Her fingers went to her shoulder, under the T-shirt. “You bit me, I think.” She swallowed hard. “And God. I think I liked it. I'm not sure it's normal that I liked it.”

Hearing she liked his nip of her shoulder was not helping him calm the hunger running rabid within him for her. He leaned against the door, next to the chair lodged there. None of this made sense. “What do you know of your mother, Amber?”

“My mother?”

“Yes, your mother. I need to know about your mother.”

“She was an archaeologist, like my father. She died in childbirth. I don't understand. You know this. What does that have to do with any of this? With whatever just happened between us?”

“I cannot mate with anyone who is not Yaguara, Amber,” he said. “Not in the biological sense. We can have sex with humans. We can have relationships. But true mating—the lifelong, eternal bond—that's not possible. But just now . . .” He balled his fists by his sides. “I almost—the bite . . .” He scrubbed the good inch of stubble that had formed on his jaw. “I shouldn't have had that urge. Not if you're truly human.”

Her eyes went wide. “If? There is no
if
. I
am
human.”

He ran a slow hand over his brow. Damn. He was shaking. “We have one mate in our lifetime,” he explained. “The male bites the female on the shoulder and the blood creates the bond. Never in my three hundred years of living have I wanted to mark anyone.” Her mother had to be Yaguara. “Your mother died in childbirth. The women in our race have a bad habit of dying during childbirth, Amber.”

Her hand went to her neck. “What are you saying? That my mother was Yaguara?” She paled further, the dark circles under her eyes more pronounced. “That's not possible. You just said you can only mate with your own race. My father was human. We know that for certain. That means he could not have mated with a Yaguara female.”

He ran his hands down his jeans, nervous energy ripping through him. “I said we cannot mate outside our kind, to join eternally, soul to soul. That does not mean some have not tried to create a bond with a human, but it was long ago forbidden as childbirth is always, without exception, fatal to the mother.”

“No,” she said, denial in her voice. “This can't be. It can't. My mother was human.
I'm
human.”

Noting the panic in her voice, he softened his. “I know this is hard to digest.” He hesitated, thought back to their prior conversations. “You mentioned you have your father's journals. Maybe we can find answers there. You didn't know what you were looking for before now.” He inhaled and prepared for the firestorm to come, but he might as well deal with it all now. “There is something else you need to know.”

“I'm somehow certain I am not going to like this.” Her hand settled on her stomach, as if she was calming the nerves jumping inside it. “Go on.”

“Your father,” he said.

Her fingers curled on her stomach, turned white. “What about him?”

Jareth ground his teeth and dropped the bomb. “He was a Hunter.”

She didn't react at first. She simply stood there, staring at him, expressionless. “No. No, that can't be right. You just said you suspect my mother was Yaguara and then you say my father was a Hunter.” She stormed toward the door. “Let me out of here. I don't know what kind of game you are playing, but I want no part of it.” He didn't move. “Let me out!” She shoved him, as if it would help.

Jareth grabbed Amber and pulled her in front of him, hugged her close.

“Damn you,” she cursed. “I am getting tired of the way you manhandle me.” She tried to shove him away.

Holding her easily, he opened his mouth to reply when his gaze caught on her wrist, then instantly went to his opposite wrist. On both their arms, a faded black line was forming—the mating circles. Jareth cursed. He'd bitten her, scraped her shoulder with his teeth. It shouldn't have been enough to claim her. It was impossible.

“Amber.” Her name came out raspy, possessive, pained. He did not want this—not like this. Not with her ready to run from him, certain he was deceiving her.

She stopped fighting, seemed to understand he was shaken. “What? What is it?”

Possessiveness rose in him, but he quickly forced it away. She would hate him for this, for taking her without offering her that choice. He lifted her wrist.

She stared at it. “What is that?”

He answered by releasing one of her hands and holding his own wrist out for her inspection. “Please know I did not do this intentionally.”

“Do what?!” She grabbed his shirt. “What did you do?”

He steeled himself for her reaction. “When Yaguara mate—”

Her eyes went wide. “Mate?! Are you telling me we mated?” She shoved her fingers through her hair, pressed her hands to the sides of her face. “What does that mean? How can this be?”

He didn't touch her. But he wanted to touch her. “I don't know, Amber. I scraped your skin with my teeth, but I still have the urge to bite you, which is how we mate. It cannot be a complete process. Or maybe it is. We do this once. This is new territory for me as well.”

“This can't be happening.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I
am
human. I've had blood tests. No one has ever thought I was different.”

“I can't explain any of this,” he said. “But I'm certain one of our doctors can.”

Amber backed away. “How can I trust you when you say these horrid things about my father? I've read his journals. There was no mention of Hunters.”

“I do not expect you to blindly trust me, Amber,” he said. “I cannot say that I am sorry, if we
are
mated. We mate once, and it is for life. I am three hundred years old, and never before have I had the urge to mate with anyone, Yaguara or human. I have wanted you since the moment I met you. And truth be told, I was angry that I wanted you—the daughter of a Hunter, someone I believed might be one herself. Yet I wanted you. I wanted you more than I have ever wanted a woman, Amber, and I could not explain it. But now I know why. You are not your father. You are beautiful, intelligent—a truly gentle soul. I, on the other hand, have
become
this war—it defines me. I am what we call a Sentinel, one of the warriors who lives to protect our race's secrets, to protect our people—and to fight. It is all that I am. I don't know if you can ever accept the violence that is my life, let alone learn to love me.”

She turned away from him, but not before he saw the confusion radiating from deep in the depths of her glistening eyes. She was hiding tears. He let her be, let her have a moment to compose herself.

She leaned on the bed as if she craved the support it offered. Support he would gladly lend, if he thought she would let him. He knew she would not.

He inhaled, let the air trickle past his lips. Knew he had to put aside his desire to protect her. “There is a way to confirm that what I have said is true.”

“How?” she said, whirling around to face him, swiping at the dampness clinging to her cheeks.

“It is dangerous,” he said. “And I would not approve, but I see your need for peace of mind. I see that you cannot move forward without knowing the truth.”

“Go on,” she urged, her fingers curling into her palms by her sides.

“For years we have known Mike was linked to higher powers in the Hunter operation,” he said. “You are close to him. You go home, make him believe you have read through more of your father's journals. This gives you a chance to see one of our doctors as well. Then, you call Mike. Tell him you have learned of Yaguara and of your father's role in hunting them. That I told you and you have proof it is true. Make him believe I trust you. But tell Mike there was a reason your father no longer trusted him, and you do not know what that was. Tell him you will hand over the journals, and me, for a price—a way to fund leaving the country, to be free—that you want no part of any of this. And you will deal only with the ‘Black Guard,' who is known to be their leader, though no one has ever seen him. We will set a trap to capture the Black Guard when you hand over the journals. You will have your proof of your father's involvement through your conversations with Mike. This offers Yaguara a chance to destroy the brains behind the Hunters' operation.”

“You seem so sure my father was a Hunter,” she whispered.

“I am, Amber.”

She held up her arm. “But this mating thing, and my mother—it makes no sense, Jareth. Why would he hunt Yaguara if she was one?”

“I wish I could answer that question,” he said. “But if you allow me to—I promise you—I will help you find out.” He held out his hand.

She stared at it, long seconds passing, her lashes like half moons against smudged pale skin. She needed rest. She needed
him
. He was going to prove that to her, somehow, some way. He held his breath and waited, as if waiting for the judgment that would define his very soul.

Finally, she stepped forward, slowly closing the distance between them. Her hand slipped into his, soft and tentative. Her lashes lifted. “I'm giving you my trust,” she said. “Don't make me sorry.”

He closed his hand around hers, gently drew her closer, molded her body to his. “The only thing I am going to do is protect you,” he said. And love you, he added silently. For the first time since he'd lost his family, love was a risk he was willing to take—because it was a risk that had found him and claimed him—as she had.