A soft, rapid panting, like that of a small, frightened animal, coming from the other side of the big bed.
"Tavia." She was hunched on her heels in a tight ball, head drooped low. She didn't respond to his voice, just sat there breathing in a shallow, fast tempo. Her body trembled all over. Sweat dampened her limp hair and made the fabric of her black track suit cling to the curved arch of her spine. "Christ ... Tavia, are you all right?"
He reached out, placing his hand lightly on her back. She flinched away on contact, a violent lunge that put two feet between them. Her head swung around, hair drooping in a thick curtain over her face ... though not enough to hide the bright amber glow of her eyes.
Ah, fuck. The reality of what Chase was seeing made his blood chill in his veins. This couldn't be.
He could only stare as her lips curled back on a wild snarl. She drew in a ragged breath, then gave a fierce hiss through her teeth and the sharp lengths of her gleaming fangs.
Even though he had suspected she was something more than what she seemed, seeing it for a fact now took him totally aback.
Tavia Fairchild was somehow - impossibly - Breed.
Little wonder the restraints didn't hold her. They were no more effective than thread on one of his kind. Which this female clearly was.
Crouched low and seething, she held him in a glower that was at once startling and amazing in its fury. Her narrowed pupils were thinnest slits, swamped by the fiery embers of her irises. She growled at him, head cocked slightly, a deadly she-beast sizing up her prey.
It was the only warning he had before she sprang off her heels and took him down in a swift, vicious strike.
They landed hard, Chase's spine crashing onto the floor under their combined weight. His breath went out of him in a gust and a groan, Tavia's banshee cry echoing in his skull. She started fighting as soon as they hit the hardwood. Fast and strong, she clawed at him, shrieking and growling as he tried to ward off her frenzied assault.
The zippered front of her track suit hoodie was open just enough to give him a decent look at the web of dermaglyphs that spread in a flourish across her chest and up onto her throat. He had no doubt now that that's what they were: The Breed skin markings were flooded with color, variegating hues of deep purple, blood wine, and black. She was furious and pained from starvation, her glyphs told him that much on sight.
How had the genetic markings lain dormant until now?
What the hell had been done to her to keep her true nature suppressed?
Chase didn't have long to wonder about it. Tavia pulled her arm back and swung a fist toward his face. He dodged the blow, faster than her only because of experience and training. She was unschooled and out of control, a raw, natural power unleashed for what was clearly the first time. She was ferocious Breed might in a sleek, feminine form.
And goddamn if Chase had ever known anything hotter in his whole life.
She struggled against him some more, grunting as he deflected her every strike, roaring and snarling when he finally grabbed hold of her by the wrists and splayed her arms above him. Her pulse beat hard and steady in the sides of her slender neck. He could feel it banging against his fingertips where he held her strong wrists. And he could feel that solid, thumping throb along the insides of her thighs too, which gripped him like iron bands around his waist, pinning him beneath her with astonishing force.
She panted and heaved, those bright amber eyes and bared fangs telling him the fight wasn't drained out of her yet.
Not even close.
"Tavia, listen to me." Her muscles twitched with a warning that she was about to strike. Chase spat a curse, teeth gritted with the effort to keep his hold on her tense arms. "Tavia, for fuck's sake, you need to calm - "
She roared over his attempt to reason with her, but she didn't try to break free of his hold. No, she bit him.
Chase spewed a wordless shout as her fangs sank deep into the flesh and tendons of his left wrist. It wasn't the pain of the bite that shook him but the sudden, alarming realization that his blood was gushing freely into her mouth.
He tried to speak her name - warn her to stop - but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a strangled moan. The pleasure and pain of her bite speared through him, like a jolt of current shot into every fiber of his being.
Christ, it felt good.
Too good, especially when he wasn't even sure what his blood would do to her. She was somehow Breed; he understood that now. But how would her body react to his red cells pouring into her?
He had that answer not even a second later.
Tavia released him on a guttural cry. Her eyes burned brighter now, throwing off amber light as hot as smoldering coals. Her fangs dripped blood - his blood - down onto her chin and the heaving swell of her chest. Her glyphs pulsed, alive and changeable, sexy as hell against the smooth cream of her skin.
As he brought his punctured wrist to his mouth to seal the wounds, Tavia avidly watched him. She licked her lips, her dark pink tongue lapping up every drop of his spilled blood that lingered on her mouth. Tipping her head back for a moment, her hands moved absently up to her neck, then over the top of her zippered hoodie to caress the curve of her breasts. It was a sensual move, unconsciously so, an instinctual reaction to the blood that was now feeding her cells. When she looked at him again, her smoldering gaze rooted on his throat. Her breathing was still hard and frenzied, her body still vibrating with coiled aggression.
And she was hot. Chase could feel her body radiating into his where they connected, her nylon-clad hips straddling his naked abdomen. His own pants felt too confining, his erection rising where her backside rubbed too pleasantly against his groin.
God, she was magnificent. Beyond beautiful.