"do what, honey?"

lexi wrapped her fingers around his wrist. her hands were small, but her fingers were graceful and strong. she tried to tug his hand away, but zach didn't budge.

"i can't let you seduce me," she said.

"why not? we're going to be good together. i'll make sure you don't regret it."

she closed her eyes and shook her head. "no."

zach leaned over her and put his mouth near her ear. "oh, yes. you and i were made for each other. the sooner you accept that, the more time i'll have to make you come. you want that, don't you?" he punctuated the question with a pulse of energy so powerful he could hear it crackle.

"oh god." she bit her bottom lip between her teeth and he could feel her heart hammering faster beneath his hand.

"stop fighting me. let me show you how good it can be for us." he slid his tongue along the curve of her ear, making her shiver. "that's right," he coaxed. "just let go."

"i . . . i have to pee."

it was an escape tactic and he knew it. he should have known she wasn't going to make any of this easy on him.

zach sighed and grudgingly backed away. lexi fled his arms, stumbling as she headed for the bathroom.

his dick ached with need, but it was going to just keep on aching.

he'd almost had her. he was sure of it. he'd felt her resolve crumbling. in fact, he was amazed that she'd been able to walk away. he sure as hell wasn't walking anywhere for a while. not until he got himself under control.

the toilet flushed, the faucet turned on and off again and yet she still didn't come out.

zach sighed. apparently, their chase was not yet over. part of him thrilled at the idea of chasing her, but the rest of him was just tired and hurting too much to want this to go on.

he rubbed his chest. the single leaf on his lifemark had withered more since yesterday. it was time for her to stop running.

he stood in front of the door and crossed his arms over his chest. there was no window in there. no way out but the one she went in.

she couldn't stay in there forever, and when she came out, he'd be waiting.

lexi pressed the wet cloth over her face, hoping it would cool her fevered skin.

what the hell had she been thinking, letting him touch her like that? was she insane?

yes. without question. she was totally certifiable.

she scrubbed viciously at her ear, trying to rub away the feel of his hot tongue gliding over her skin. just the memory of it made her knees weak enough she had to lock them to stay upright. whatever magic zach was using on her was potent stuff. she wasn't sure how she was going to be able to resist him long enough to rescue helen, but she had to find a way.

the defenders had warned her this would be hard, but until now, she'd figured they just didn't know her very well. because she was small, people saw her as weak and fragile. she was anything but.

except where zach was concerned.

lexi growled in frustration, turned on the cold water and dunked her head under the faucet. the chill drove the breath from her lungs, but at least it helped clear her head of the fog zach had filled it with.

she had to think. come up with a plan. it wasn't like she had to resist him for a year or anything-just long enough to get them to the compound. the defenders were sure it was somewhere in the midwest, so she didn't have that far to go with zach. maybe a day's drive.

just one day. she could keep his tongue off her ears-or her anywhere else-for that long.

"need someone to wash your back, honey?" came zach's deep voice through the door.

even his voice made her body soften along with her resolve. she needed to gag him, or maybe plug her ears. and she definitely needed more clothes on. the less bare skin she had for him to touch, the better.

"go away," she told him.

"not gonna happen. anything else i can get you?"

some dry panties sounded nice, but she wasn't about to tell him that. "my suitcase."

"sure thing, honey. be right back."

he wasn't gone nearly long enough before she heard his hard knuckles tapping on the door. "here you go."

"just leave it outside the door."

sultry amusement colored his voice. "afraid the big, bad wolf is going to eat you all up?"

only if she was really lucky. it had been way too long since she'd been with a man, and this thing zach did to her was reminding her just how much she'd been missing. even the insinuation of him kissing and licking her was enough to make her dizzy.

lexi grabbed the sink to steady herself against the barrage of images he'd put in her head. she was sure that if he ever did get her naked, she'd feel like the luckiest woman alive, right up to the point where he killed her.

"screw you," she said, but it came out sounding more like a feeble question than an insult.

"anything you want. just open the door and leave the rest to me."

"not ever, zach."

his voice dropped low so she had to strain to hear it. "it's just a matter of time now, honey. you can fight me all you like, but in the end, we both know how things will be."

yeah, he and all his buddies were going to be little pulpy bits of flesh staining the landscape.

for some reason, that plan didn't sound nearly as good as it had just last night.

chapter 7

zach watched lexi eat. seeing her mouth move over the fork was the sexiest thing ever. then again, there wasn't much about her that wasn't sexy. her sweet, compact body and killer ass drove him crazy. the glimpses he kept getting of the tattoo at the base of her spine were going to end him up in the loony bin if he didn't get to see just how far down under her jeans it went. and the contrast between that spiky- haired, bad girl persona she'd used when he first met her, and the softer, more vulnerable side of her he was seeing now was the kind of thing that fueled a man's fantasies. she was every kind of woman he'd ever wanted, all rolled into one. even that independent streak of hers turned him on.

every single theronai at dabyr was going to want her. he couldn't take the chance that she would want one of them back. he had to stake his claim before he took her home-get her to wear his luceria so all the men would know she was off limits.

he slid another pancake onto her plate in the hopes she'd let him watch her eat a little longer.

lexi wiped her mouth on a napkin and leaned back in her chair. "how long will it take us to get back to your home?" she asked.

zach considered lying to her, making her think it was farther away than it was so he'd have more time alone with her, but that wasn't how he wanted things to start out between them. honesty was important to him. if he wanted it from her, it only seemed fair to be the one to offer it first. "about nine hours, but i'm not ready to leave yet."

"why not?"

he took a sip of coffee to stall for time to think. he didn't want to mess this up. lexi already had some wrong ideas about his world, and he wasn't sure just how well she was going to like what he had to say.

finally, he came up with, "i don't want to share."

"um. okay. share what?"

"you."

lexi blinked fast a couple of times, but other than that, her face was stoic. "please tell me that means something other than what i think it means."

"the other men at dabyr-my home-are all going to want you."

her fingers twisted the paper napkin until it shredded. "for what?"

she was afraid. he'd seen the look enough times to know that, despite that straight spine and high chin, she was shaking on the inside.

"we'd never hurt you, lexi. none of the men would, no matter what you might think. we all want the same thing-to have you by our side for the long haul."

she grunted, but it sounded more relieved than disbelieving. "i hardly think so. and even if that was the case, i'm not looking for any . . . relationships right now."

"you may not be looking for one, but one found you."

"what's that supposed to mean?"

zach reached for her hand, wanting to touch her, but she jerked away before he could. she folded her hands in her lap, pretending that she hadn't just rejected him.

disappointment sliced through him, but he let her go. now wasn't the time to push. finesse would get him much farther. "i need you, lexi. i've never hidden that fact from you. even after you stabbed me."

"i figured that was temporary insanity," she said, "or that you were simply lying."

"every word i've ever said to you has been the bare, honest truth. i need you, and i'm not going to share."

she lifted her coffee mug, and zach saw the dark liquid vibrate under her shaking fingers. great. either he'd scared her more or pissed her off. he was guessing scared, since if he'd pissed her off, she probably would have dumped the hot coffee in his lap. "okay. i'm going to start from the beginning. stop me if i lose you."

lexi nodded, but she didn't look at him. definitely scared.

"i'm not sure how much you know about the theronai."

"not much. just what my mom told me, and what she wrote in her journal."

that was something, at least. "we're one of the sentinel races. have you heard of the sentinels?"

"yes. since before i could walk."

"good, then i can skip the part where we're all out to save humanity and guard the gateway onto another world. here's what you might not know. the theronai pair up into teams of one man and one woman. the man can collect energy from the environment and store it, and the woman has the ability to channel that power, but can't store any of her own. are you with me so far?"

"i think so."

he wasn't sure she meant it, but he pushed on, hoping to get through this as fast as possible. "we pair up, but when we do, it's a permanent kind of thing."

"like marriage?"

"sometimes, but not always. there have been rare cases in our past when family members paired up, but for it to work, there has to be some kind of close bond. the longer a couple is together, the stronger they get."

"that's why drake wanted helen, right? because she was one of these women?"

he nodded. "so are you."

her dark eyes narrowed and a mutinous kind of anger tightened her mouth. "no, i'm not."

so, she didn't like the idea. fantastic. that was going to make things so much more difficult, and he didn't have time for that. even with the trickle of power she'd absorbed through their contact, zach was still suffering. he had a tidal wave of pressure waiting to get out, and not long to make it happen.

he'd checked his leaf earlier and it was shriveled and brown, barely clinging to his tree.

"i can prove it," he told her.

zach wrapped his fingers around her wrist. she felt so good under his touch that he almost forgot what he was doing. a swirling sea of blues and greens churned inside the band around his finger. "see the way the color in my ring changes when i touch you?"