Page 108

“I’ll stay with her,” Kurgan said.

“You can guard the door from out here.”

He shook his head.“I stay with my female.”

Lenny touched his arm and immediately got his attention.“I’d feel better if you guard the door for me, please, Kurgan.Can you do that for me?”

He touched her glossy auburn hair that rested against her cheek, rubbing it between his thick, rough-skinned fingers.“I can protect you, Lenny.”

“Thank you,” she said, then stood back while Kurgan stormed into the room, checked it from top to bottom, then ushered her inside.He walked out then, and after she shut the door, he turned and pressed his hand against it, as if trying to see her, to feel her through it.

“Will he stay out?”

Jagger nodded, a look of amazement.“Lenny seems to have worked out how to control him, at least for now.”He tilted his head to a door across from theirs.“We’ll be just through there, and my brothers will be watching.If anything changes, they’ll be here to stop him.”

He opened the door to the bedroom on the other side of the foyer.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, then you can rest,” he said and carried me into the bathroom.He lowered me to my feet, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he stripped off my clothes and tossed them aside.“The handmaids have clothes here.We’ll get you something clean to wear in the morning.”

“I knew you’d find me,” I said, letting the last of my armor fall away completely.“I knew my mate would find me.”

Jagger stilled, then took my face in his hands.“Always,” he choked out.

I smiled up at him as he helped me under the spray.

Jagger thoroughly cleaned me, then, making a rumbling sound in his chest, he lowered to his knees and did what Brick had, but not only licking my barely healing wounds, he sucked on the red and puckered skin over and over again, until I was warm and tingly and felt no pain.

He washed my hair after that, taking his time.His naked body was hot and slick and pressed against me.He was hard, but he didn’t seem to be in any hurry, no, he took his time making sure I was clean from top to bottom, and that every trace of Brick’s scent was gone.Then he wrapped me in a big, fluffy towel and carried me into the bedroom.

He sat on the bed, pulling me to stand between his thighs, and slowly, thoroughly, dried every inch of me.I slid my hand along his jaw, and his moss-green eyes locked with mine.There was so much behind them.“What are you thinking?”

“Mainly, how beautiful you are, and how fucking relieved I am that you’re okay,” he said.

“What else?”

The muscle in his jaw tightened.“I’m concerned about tomorrow, if we can stop Beelzebub, and I’m worried about Kurgan.”

“Despite a bumpy start, he’s been listening to Lenny.”

“He really only shifts in front of me.This…all of this will be a lot for him.This only ends in pain for him.He can’t keep her.”

I held his pain-filled gaze, that green the exact same color as the wild hound standing across the hall.“You call Kurgan son, is he?Your son?”

His throat worked.“Yes.”

I had known there had to be more.The connection between them was impossible to miss.“What happened?Where’s his mother?Did you and her?—”

“I never met his mother.Lucifer wanted to try to breed hounds from pups, instead of creating full-grown hounds like the rest of us were.He envisioned males like Brick, I guess.More evolved in a lot of ways, and it worked when Relic was created with Lothar’s seed.Relic is his success, his only success from that experiment.”

“What do you mean?”I rubbed my hands along his shoulders, trying to soothe the pain I saw in his eyes.

“Lucifer created two pups with my seed.One was Kurgan.He was born smelling wrong, something not right inside him, something broken.He was wild, uncontrollable, so much so that he had to be locked away for the safety of others.”

“And the second pup?”I asked.

“He died.”

“Jagger…I’m so sorry.”