Belonging. Part 10

She didn't quite believe any of it.

She'd gone to talk to him.

"Are you okay?"

Shame twisted inside her belly at the sound of Grady's voice. Jerking her head up, she met the witch's calm, placid brown eyes and swallowed.

He'd heard.

A witch's hearing wasn't as good as a vamp's or a s.h.i.+fter's but it was better than a mortal's hearing and he'd heard everything. She could see it on his face.

"I'm fine."

He shook his head. "No, you're not." His eyes narrowed and he flicked a look over her shoulder. "f.u.c.k, Cori, I'm sorry. I...I should have come in but I didn't sense anything from you that made me think-" Cori flinched. Oh, man, that would have just been perfect, she thought miserably. Shaking her head, she said, "No. I'm fine."

"The h.e.l.l you are," Grady snapped. He started around her, his eyes glinting with anger.

Grabbing his arm, she stopped him. "Don't. Please don't. He didn't hurt me. You know I'm not lying. If I was hurt, you'd feel it. You would have already felt it."

His eyes softened and he reached up, cupped her cheek in his hand. "Physical pain, yeah. Emotional, though? I have to s.h.i.+eld against that but when you're just a foot away, I can't s.h.i.+eld against it." He stared into her eyes and then shook his head. "You hurt right now, and the pain is every bit as real as if he'd hit you. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Cori set her jaw. "Leave him alone. He's grieving. He's confused. It's okay." She squeezed his arm and added, "Please. Just leave him alone."

Grady shot the door another look, but slowly, he backed away. "Confused and hurt, that doesn't mean anything. He has no right to make you miserable too."

Cori didn't argue. She didn't have the energy, though she disagreed. Levi did have the right. He had every right. Giving Grady a wobbly smile, she let go of his arm. "I'm going to go lie down for a while."

He touched her again, tracing a finger down her temple and watching her with those knowing healer's eyes. "You need to feed."

She shook her head.

No. She needed to hide.

Through the door, Levi heard their voices.

A deep, smooth voice, mellow and quiet, and Cori's.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." But her voice had been shaking.

The man's voice, hot with fury. "No, you're not. f.u.c.k, Cori, I'm sorry. I...I should have come in, but I didn't sense anything from you that made me think-"

"No. I'm fine."

"The h.e.l.l you are..." Footsteps, and the man's voice sounded a bit closer.

"Don't. Please don't. He didn't hurt me. You know I'm not lying. If I was hurt, you'd feel it. You would have already felt it."

Shame packed one h.e.l.l of a punch. Because he had hurt her. Levi knew it. Just as the man out there talking to her did. "Physical pain, yeah. Emotional, though? I have to s.h.i.+eld against that but when you're just a foot away, I can't s.h.i.+eld against it. You hurt right now, and the pain is every bit as real as if he'd struck you. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Leave him alone. He's grieving. He's confused. It's okay. Please. Just leave him alone."

s.h.i.+t. Levi slammed his head back against the stone wall at his back and stared up at the ceiling. She was trying to watch out for him again. That slip of a woman who didn't even reach his chin, trying to take care of him.

"Confused and hurt, that doesn't mean anything. He has no right to make you miserable, too." No. The man was right. Whatever had happened, whatever was going on...did Levi really have the right to hurt Cori over it?

Yeah, man. You do. She left Owen, let him think she'd been murdered and look what it did to him. Still, though one part of his brain was screaming that truth, he couldn't quite buy it. Not completely.

"I'm going to go lie down for a while."

"You need to feed."

Feed? For some reason, Levi had an idea that meant something different to her than it would to him. With a frown, he looked at his arm, examined the already healing bite on his biceps. Freakish. It was already healing, though she'd just done it.

The door flew open.

Levi's mouth twisted in a smirk but he didn't look up at the man who stood there. He recognized the voice now, the guy-Grady? Whoever he was, he was the guy who had driven him away from Excelsior.

He continued to study the bite mark, though he was acutely aware of the other man's eyes on him.

"You're a b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Levi poked at the bite, squinting. The pattern of the teeth was weird. Very weird. Actually, it looked like the only teeth that had broken the skin were about where the eyeteeth would be.

"Marc.u.m."

Slowly, Levi s.h.i.+fted his gaze from the bite on his arm to look at the other man from beneath his lashes.

"You. Are. A. b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Grady said.

"Thank. You. Get. The. f.u.c.k. Out."

Grady flashed him a smile. "Make me. And this time, pretty boy, don't think I'll play nice. You're not human anymore. The rules go out the window."

You're not human anymore.

He wanted to laugh. At the same time, he wanted to cry. Not human.

None of the others had come right out and said it so bluntly but even their subtle caution hadn't made a difference. He knew he wasn't human. He felt different, an alien in his own body. Whispers in the dark that begged him, pleaded with him to come and run, chase the wind. Wearily, he closed his eyes. He wanted silence. From anything and everything. He wanted those annoying, teasing whispers to shut up, wanted the dreams to stop and wanted to wipe all memories of the past week out of his mind.

A whisper of air was the only warning. He opened his eyes and almost came out of his skin. Grady was no longer across the room. He stood right in front of Levi, watched him with unreadable brown eyes. "You got no right, man-hurting her."

Levi curled his lip. "You got no right prying into something that doesn't concern you."

"It does concern me."

"Why? She yours or something?" Levi's smile sharpened. Narrowing his eyes, he shook his head.

"No....that's not it. She's not yours, though you might want her to be."

He dragged in a deep breath but that was a huge mistake. He could smell Cori.

Smell her on him. On Grady.

Levi didn't remember moving. "You touched her," he snarled as he leaped and took the other man to the floor. Grady must have meant what he said because he didn't stay pinned. They ended up rolling and struggling on the floor, taking punches in the ribs, grappling for control, losing it. "f.u.c.king wolf! s.h.i.+t, I ain't surprised the bite took on you. You're too hotheaded to be anything but a wolf," Grady panted, just before s.h.i.+fting in a movement just too fluid, almost inhuman.

He pulled back, left Levi on the floor. Shoving upright, Levi glared at him.

"You don't know your strength yet. Or your speed. Bad move, picking a fight before you understand your weapons." Grady leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, I touched her. Her face. She touched me. On the arm, to keep me from coming in here. And yeah, I've had a thought or two about her but she's about as interested in me as she is in a brick wall."

"Didn't I tell you to get out of here?" Levi muttered, standing up.

Grady slicked a hand back over his bald scalp and grinned. "Yeah. You did. And you didn't have much luck making me leave, either. You know, for a man who was just a total d.i.c.khead to a woman, you sure as h.e.l.l went ballistic when you realized I'd touched her. An innocent touch, at that."

Levi turned his back on the other man and went to his bed. He veered away, though, because the closer he got to the mattress, the headier the air became, warm and sweet with the scents of woman and s.e.x. He circled around the bed and, though he felt like an idiot doing it, he took up position by the bedroom door, arms crossed over his chest. Something like pain clenched in his gut as he stared at the bed.

"This is h.e.l.l on you."

Levi curled his lip. "Man, aren't you insightful?"

Grady shrugged. "Insight's got nothing to do with it. I'm a witch."

Levi blinked. Jerking his gaze away from the bed, he stared at the other man. "A witch?"

"Yeah. Just don't go looking for a pink gauze dress and a wand or black hat and cauldron."

"A witch? You're serious?" Levi searched for some hint that the man was messing with him. There wasn't one.

"As a heart attack."

"Wouldn't that make you a warlock?"

Grady snorted. "Mortals can be so f.u.c.king stupid sometimes. No. It doesn't make me a warlock. I'm a witch. Having a d.i.c.k, or not, has nothing to do with power. I've got power. I was born with it. And it makes me...vulnerable, we'll say, to emotion. I feel them. I don't need insight, trust me. Right now, you're mad as h.e.l.l, you feel guilty, you're confused. I can feel it. All of it." He plucked a speck of imaginary lint from his sleeve and added, "But no matter how confused you are, no matter how mad, how p.i.s.sed, how guilty, none of it's her fault."

The man's dark eyes locked with Levi's. "You're going through h.e.l.l right now. I get that. But so is she, and she's no more responsible for this mess than you are. So stop blaming her."

Chapter Nine.

One thing she couldn't do anymore was ignore the burn in her blood. She'd wasted most of the night, first with a shower as she fought to scrub Levi's scent from her body and then over a book that hadn't held her attention. She'd ended up tossing the book aside and staring into nothingness until the nagging hunger finally drove her to leave her rooms.

As she left, she could already feel the sun's slow approach. Arms crossed over her midsection, she followed the long hallway. It was early, way too early for most of the daywalkers to be up but there were some at the school who kept a more nocturnal schedule. Duke was one of them, as was Grady. She was looking for one of them.

She was still too aggravated with Kelsey to feed from the witch, though she could already feel herself softening a little.

Kelsey had just tried to protect her. Just like everybody else here had. It wasn't as if Cori ever gave off any indication that she didn't need their protection. And if she was really honest, she might even be willing to admit that she could understand why everybody seemed so determined to protect her.

Just ahead, she could hear the low hum of the television. Each of the dorms had several levels below ground, half of the area set up into living quarters, with other rooms set aside for recreational areas, a communal kitchen for those who didn't want to eat alone and exercise areas. She breathed a sigh of relief as she scented somebody familiar.

It was Duke, sitting in a darkened room and staring at the TV. He didn't glance her way as she slipped into the room. "You keep putting off meal time, you're going to have Kelsey driving all of us insane, Cori," he said, gaze locked on the screen.

Cori followed his stare. "QVC?"

Duke grunted. "Trying to dull myself into exhaustion. Can't sleep." He lifted the remote and hit the mute b.u.t.ton. Silence fell as he rested his head against the back of the couch and looked at her. "You need to feed?"

With a jerky nod, she started toward the couch.

He s.h.i.+fted aside, making room for her. Curling up on the couch next to him, she braced one hand on his right shoulder. Duke arched his head away, leaving his neck bare. He was watching her from beneath his lashes. She could feel the weight of his gaze but she didn't look at him. She had to focus on feeding now, before she thought about it too much.

He didn't flinch when she dipped her head and sank her teeth into his neck. His breath caught in his throat and then escaped him in a low, rough sound that seemed part purr, part sigh. His hand came up, rested on her hip. Cori wasn't even aware. Her ears were roaring, and as his powerful blood hit her system, she shuddered.

s.h.i.+fter blood was unlike any other. Riper, wilder, sweeter-a potent, addictive wine.

The hand on her hip tightened. Duke's body tensed. But if he hadn't moved, she never would have noticed. She was just too hungry and that hunger blinded her to anything and everything. Except her meal was no longer sitting there. No, Duke had grabbed her, one arm banded around her waist and now they were moving. Duke took her back over the couch and had her on the floor before she could even make herself let him go.

"s.h.i.+t!"

Something crashed into the floor beside them.

Cori blinked, confused.

Levi?

s.h.i.+t, Levi.

He lunged for Duke but the other man slid away. "Cori, you're getting me in all kinds of trouble, lately,"

Duke said, scowling. "Four years, and not a lick of trouble with you and now this." She came to her feet, eyeing Levi warily.

He snarled. The tension in the air climbed up a few notches and the scent of rage was strong. d.a.m.n it, he wasn't going to Change, was he? Was it even possible for him right now?

"Levi?"

Two seconds later, she had her answer. Although nothing else had changed-yet-his eyes were swirling, s.h.i.+fting, throwing of sparks of light. Yeah. If he got mad enough, he could Change. Even as weak as he should be so soon after the attack, he had the power to Change.

"Have you always had this thing for climbing all over guys, Cori?" he asked, his voice a harsh, deep rumble. His glowing eyes narrowed as he glanced her way before looking back at Duke.

Her jaw dropped. "Climbing all over guys?" Scowling, she looked at Duke and then back at Levi. Oh.