by Heather Long
“I know,” he answered. “You’re still with me.”
“Yay.” The single dry syllable enticed him to laugh all over again.
She didn’t like him.
But she also didn’t know him.
Not yet.
Chapter 4
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” - Unknown
Twelve or so hours after the male interrupted my mental building, I finally managed to get the house’s construction perfect. The bluff it would sit upon was somewhere along the California coast. It would make for spectacular sunsets in the evening over the water. The deck above would allow me to greet the sun in the mornings.
I really missed the sun. Weird to think about the things you lose. No, not because of that idiot vampire, but because I’d landed up here, consigned to the Nightmare Penitentiary for the crime of fucking up someone’s idea of what was natural.
Hybrids couldn’t possibly exist. On that note, I agreed with them. I wasn’t a vampire. I’d died—theoretically—then woken up to whatever these physiological changes were I’d undergone. The transformation left me exhausted, starving, and really, really irritated.
How had Elias described me once?
Oh, right, Psychotic Monster Syndrome.
The humming leftover buzz—what little of it remained from Dorran’s visit—had waned. The lightheadedness began with the blood pouring out of my wounded wrists. Before my latest captor decided to get all finger, wrist, and hand licking good with cleaning me up. The fact the wounds closed explained the shivers of awareness rippling through my system, and it had nothing at all to do with the intensity in his eyes as he worked to repair what his nasty little toys had done.
Nothing at all.
The torches had gone out in the corners. If this level were like my own, then night had fallen. The time for Dorran’s potential visit approached. Only there would be no visit because I wasn’t on my level—probably not even then. It hadn’t been a full twenty-four hours since his last call. He rarely came two nights in a row. In the beginning? Yes. Not anymore.
I’d been well fed.
Emphasis on the past tense.
The blood loss also explained the electric need to roll around in the lust roiling off the snarl-monkey currently sprawled on the bed like some over-sized lazy ass cat, expanding to take up all the room.
I eyed him, then the door. He’d done something to it, but I hadn’t tested it—yet. Not as long as sentinels shuffled in the hall. It had been a few hours, though. Maybe they’d moved on.
Could be they hadn’t noticed my absence. The only person I’d seen since my arrival was Dorran. Even the blood bags arrived through a slot in the door.
I sighed.
“Something wrong, Kitten?”
I didn’t bother to answer.
My name wasn’t fucking Kitten.
Back to the house…
“You know,” he said, almost idly. “I’m here to help you.”
…I wanted something hedonistic in the bathroom. A huge tub, something I could practically swim in, as well as just languish and soak. When was the last time I had a real shower much less a bath? One upside to the vamp blood, I supposed, was the lack of body hair growth. This long without a real chance to groom, and I should look like Bigfoot.
I could stand the hair on the legs, not the hair in my pits. Nope. Just made me itch thinking about it.
But the lack of even the appearance of stubble was definitely an upside.
“You are a stubborn little hellion, aren’t you?” The amusement curving through the words wasn’t remotely sexy. “Kitten.”
Definitely a big tub, jets, too. I could do bubble baths, or crank it up to something churning.
Oh. A splash guard would be—
From indolent to action, Maddox suddenly loomed over me in my corner, his eyes blazing. When hot fingers cupped my chin and yanked my gaze up to his, I curled my fingers. I did not give him permission to touch me. “You go ahead and claw at me if you need to,” he told me in a raspy voice. “You can scowl, you can even kick me in the balls—though I’d prefer not to repeat that experience—what you don’t get to do is ignore me.”
I snorted. The weight of his thumb along my jaw sent heat curling through my system. It was colder on this level than it had been on mine. Maybe it was just the fact that I’d been sitting against the stone for hours and it had leached all the heat from my body. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t in any danger of freezing to death. My eyes had adjusted fine to the near-total darkness the extinguishing torches plummeted us into. But I didn’t need the night sight to make him out.
The son of a bitch’s eyes glowed.
“You know, Kitten, it’s rude to withhold your tongue. Even if all it has to say are scathing things.”
“Are you bored?” I asked abruptly, and surprise flickered through his eyes.
“No,” he answered after a beat, keeping his hand firm on my jaw.
“Neither am I. Now fuck off.”
A growl rumbled in his chest, but I flicked my gaze to the left of his and let my eyes go unfocused. The bathroom could be done in blue tones…
The grip on my jaw tightened and then released abruptly. I kept my gaze trained elsewhere, but the jerk of him scooping me off the floor yanked my attention to the present. “Are you impaired in some way?” I demanded, ignoring the hard chest he cradled me against or the fact that heat from his body licked across mine like a cheerful fire crackling in the fireplace.
His snort seemed to echo mine from earlier, but he didn’t answer as he stood and carried me back over to the bed he’d been occupying. When he settled, he didn’t lie down so much as sit with his back braced against the wall and me in his lap.
The very hard cock beneath my ass wasn’t remotely comfortable. Maybe I should have kicked him harder.
“Get some sleep, Kitten,” he rumbled. “If you can.”
“Did anyone ask you?” I flattened a hand against his chest to shove away, but it was like being bound in steel. The heat seemed to rise off of him in shimmering waves, chasing away the stone chill buried in my bones.
“No,” he murmured, almost agreeably before he nuzzled his face against my hair.
“If you start licking me again, I’m going to tie a knot in your dick so tight, you’ll be screaming when you take a piss.”
Dead silence greeted my proclamation. Then he began to shake. The soft vibration and huffs of barely suppressed laughter rocked him. Since he had me all wrapped up in the steel bands of his arms and curled against his too hot, too hard body, it rocked me, too.
“Kitten,” he said in between growling chuckles. “You’re a delight.”
Oh, just fucking kill me.
I rolled my eyes and tipped my head back, uncaring if he thought I bared my throat to him. For the record, I wasn’t, but what I debated was whether I should slam my head into his face again. I still had a headache from earlier, but it would be worth it to shut him up.
When he dragged his nose along my throat, however, I froze. Every instinct I possessed began to scream. I curled my fingers at the first deep inhale he took, and tried to ignore the way my skin pebbled and my pussy clenched when he exhaled and the warmth of his breath eddied over my flesh.
Liquid warmth spilled through my system, chasing the chill from my veins, and I squirmed to find a more comfortable place to sit than the hard cock jabbing me right in the ass. He pressed his lips right over my pulse point, but at my next wriggle, his teeth grazed the skin and I scowled.
“You bite me, and I will end you.”
His laughter huffed against my skin, even as he began to move his mouth along my throat in a half caress, half nibbling motion. His teeth added just the promise of sting, and I wasn’t clenching my ass or my pussy in anticipation of that bite.
No, I absolutely wasn’t.
“The last son of a bitch who bit me nearly drained me to death,” I said in as icy a co
ntrolled tone as I could manage given the conflicting messages of ‘no’ and ‘oh fuck yes’ my body seemed to be giving out. The musk of his desire scented the air heavily around me, a cloud of choking testosterone and something so very decadently other that I had to fight against sucking it in greedily.
Whatever he was, he smelled divine.
It, I mentally corrected. It. Not he.
A pause, then a soft kiss and the rasp of his stubble against my flesh like he was rubbing his cheek against my throat. Fuck me, that actually felt good.
“What was his name?” The question slid through me, inviting me to answer, beckoning as surely as if he’d slid his fingers into my wet pussy and crooked them until I saw stars.
Stop it.
My traitorous body needed to shitcan those thoughts right now. I was not hungry, and contrary to all the lovely rumors about my kind, I didn’t just spread my legs for every dick I met.
Not even hard, hot dicks that would probably take some effort to engulf and would likely drill me until I saw stars.
Nope, not doing it.
What was the name of the fucker who drained me to the brink of death then force-fed me his blood? Not happening.
When I caught up to him—and I would—I planned to break his legs and then every other joint in his body, give him just enough blood to heal, then start over.
A few centuries of that, and I might get bored.
Asshole.
“You can tell me, Kitten,” Maddox invited in that sexy baritone. “I promise to share, but I’d rather end your maker before he recalls the persuasive power he might have over you.”
That made me laugh. “He can’t control me.”
The idea was so patently ridiculous, I couldn’t stop the chuckles shaking me. He lifted his head abruptly as I ran a hand over my face trying to suppress the mirth. The riveted stare suggested he’d never heard a woman laugh before.
How sad for him.
“All vampires can control their get, at least in the beginning. It’s how baby vamps are kept from going absolutely mad and slaughtering whole villages.” Then he seemed to consider it and shrugged. “Unless, of course, that’s what you want to happen. Beyond that, only the most powerful can control another vamp.”
“The prince of the city couldn’t control me, sugar, trust me. My so-called maker couldn’t either. Probably because, wait for it, I’m not a vampire.”
The gentlest stroke of his fingers eased beneath the hem of my shirt and caressed the flesh there. It was pleasant, not provocative, so I didn’t break his hand. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.” No doubt existed in me on that front at all. “Ugh, why am I talking to you? I have a bathroom to build.”
“Perhaps because I’m here,” Maddox suggested. “And you’re not shivering from the cold anymore.”
I hadn’t been shivering before.
“It could also be, I’m on your side and came to rescue you.”
“Well, you’re doing a bang-up job so far,” I remarked. “How’s that going for you?”
“Challenging,” he admitted. “Yet, you won’t hear me complaining about the time together.”
I rolled my eyes. Not charmed.
“Then what was all that growling and shackling earlier, hmmm?” Yeah, wiggle out of that one.
“The shackles, I apologized for,” he said, catching my hand and lifting it to press his lips against my wrist.
“Not that I heard.”
“No?” A tease.
“No.” I kept my tone flat.
“Hmm.” Another kiss placed right over my pulse point that had absolutely nothing to do with the tautness in my core. I wasn’t hungry.
Why was I getting all soft and cuddly?
Ugh.
I would not be one of those women.
Or even one of those succubi.
“Then please accept my apologies, Kitten,” he murmured against my skin, the vibrations sending little shocks racing up my arm. “The intention was never to harm you.”
“Huh.”
He lifted his head, and his eyes shimmered as he stared at me. Interesting. All pretense of humanity abandoned those slitted eyes.
“What are you?” I asked before I could think better of opening that door.
“Curious, Kitten?”
I jerked my wrist from his clasp and slapped his chest. “Stop. Calling. Me. That.”
“No,” he answered with too much of a smile in his voice. He cradled me closer as though he wanted to tuck my head against his shoulder. I didn’t want to get much closer than I already was. The man’s scent seemed everywhere, like a cloud that wanted to hug me.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re sharp toothed and clawed, like a kitten,” he murmured, then pressed a kiss to my forehead. When I jerked my head back, he didn’t seem remotely perturbed by the action. “You’re impulsive and headstrong. You’re doing things without an ounce of consideration for the fact that you’re alone with a much older, much stronger, and far more dangerous being than yourself.” His voice dropped an octave as he reached the end of his not-threat.
“Far more dangerous than me?” I almost purred—fuck that analogy, really, but I did it anyway—and narrowed the distance to his face myself this time. I cupped his cheek, the rasp of stubble prickling my palm. His slitted eyes constricted, but the glow behind them intensified. Shifting until his lips were a breath from mine, I met his stare unblinking. His body went taut, and the band of steel around my back tightened further as his fingers dug into my side. “I don’t know about that,” I whispered. His sharp intake of breath made me smile. “I’ll give you old and cranky,” I said after a pregnant pause. “But dangerous? Hardly.”
The split-second between his pupils’ constriction and sudden expansion warned me of his intention, and as soon as he darted his head forward to claim my lips, I wrenched his head sideways.
I didn’t snap his neck, but the action promised I could have, and I held his head tight, not releasing my grip even when his own turned bruising.
“Don’t presume you know me,” I whispered through clenched teeth. “I didn’t ask for your help. I didn’t ask for you to come here. You don’t own me. No one does.”
“Fuck, that’s hot,” a new voice said from behind me, startling the fuck out of me. I scrambled to disentangle myself from resting dick face. Not that I needed to bother, he’d already risen and tossed me behind him on the cot as he lunged to put himself between me and our new arrival.
Instead of an immediate fight, Maddox laughed. “You always did know how to make an entrance.”
“Been here a few minutes,” the new voice said, though I couldn’t make out more than a faint outline of negative space in the dark. “But you two were being all cuddly, I didn’t want to step on your moment. Should have known better, brute. Your lack of charm seems to have rubbed our lady the wrong way.”
The possessiveness in that last sentence irked. With a light slap, the owner of the voice sidestepped Maddox and then seemed to hover over me. Top notes of ginger, grapefruit, and cardamom teased a clean, almost playful essence, but the vetiver, cedar, and the rich loam of freshly turned earth cautioned me.
“Has Maddox been being his normal, boorish self?” Sympathy and humor weaved through his voice. “He means well, he really does.”
“Fuck off, Fin,” Maddox growled. “Kitten, this is Fin. Our ticket out. Fin, this is Kitten.”
“Kitten?” ‘Fin’ sounded almost insulted. “Maddox, the lovely lady has a name. Don’t you, darling?”
The sweetness in his voice threatened to choke me, or maybe send me to a dentist. Instead of answering, I turned my glare on where Maddox stood. “Why are there now two of you?”
“Ignore her, she’s been in here too long,” Maddox stated. “Has the breach calmed down?”
“No,” Fin said before he dropped to sit next to me on the cot. Only—there was an absolute absence of warmth. If Maddox was the sun, this guy was the cold, dar
k void. How did he have such a powerful scent and absolutely no heat?
And why couldn’t I be left alone to design my house?
“In fact, it’s worse,” Fin sounded almost cheerful about the fact. “The warden’s pacing the levels, going one by one. Did you know he’s a shadow demon?”
Maddox growled.
Fin leaned toward me. “Don’t mind him, he gets a little grouchy about demons of all kinds. Present company excepted, of course.”
“She’s not a demon,” tall, dark, and growly snarled. He said it with almost the same amount of force I’d used when I told him I wasn’t a vampire.
Weird.
“Anyway,” Fin said, with a wave of his hand. I couldn’t quite make him out, even this close. My night vision was good, even with the absence of light, but it was like he was undefined. “They’re really hot to find her. That, or they’re just having a dick measuring contest with how much security they can throw out there. The corpsesnare is wandering, Sentinals are out, there’s like three times the number of normal guards at all the exits, and I almost ran into Brina.”
He gave an indelicate shudder on the last.
“We should be fine here for a couple of days,” Maddox said, and despite the definitiveness of the statement, his tone didn’t suggest the same.
“Maybe,” Fin said. “Maybe not. I sent for Rogue.”
“Why the fuck did you do that?” Oh, that pissed him off. His anger flooded the room with so much delicious heat, I sighed and stretched. I swore his eyes glowed even brighter, enough to give more definition to the room, but not to Fin.
“He sounds really pissy, but he’s just frustrated,” Fin told me, head tilted toward me as if confiding state secrets. “Rogue’s not a people person anymore, but he’s also more than capable of creating the distraction we need to get out of here.” The last he directed at Maddox. “So just simmer down and cool the fire breathing.”
Fire breathing?
A growl resonated through the room. “Fin, Rogue won’t just cause a distraction. We haven’t summoned him in over a century.”
“So?”
“So, do you recall the last time we had to call him?”
