Because his emotions were stronger, overwhelming. Too tempting.
She nodded, dragging her khakis on. Everything about him was more intense. More powerful than anyone she had ever met—felt. She’d gone on dates where the guy entertained sexual feelings… it never made her jump into bed with him. Quite the opposite. Those feelings had always made her feel too self-conscious.
Adele was right. She wasn’t ready for the world.
Maybe she never would be.
“Hey.” His shadowed form sat up. “I’m sorry—”
“Leave me alone.”
“You were a virgin—”
“Shut up,” she bit out, hating the reminder of what she lost. All that she surrendered to him. Not that she ever could forget it. Still, she didn’t need him saying it aloud. Scurrying to the far side of the room, away from him, she tucked her knees to her chest and tried not to notice the dull soreness between her legs. She still felt him there… the aching throb.
“Why didn’t you say something before we—”
She laughed, the sound hollow and brittle. “There wasn’t much time for talking, was there? And would it have stopped you?”
He moved, stood, a towering shadow. “No. I had to do it.” His words were flat, without apology. “There was no other way.”
She shook her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
None of it made sense. Not this, not what they had done. Not him, not her. Not the damned werewolves who locked them in here. Nor the fact that, deep down, she wasn’t sorry it happened either.
She breathed in, filling her lungs with stale air. At least the terror was gone. For now.
She opened her mouth, ready to ask him about that… about why she felt the same black tide of hunger from him as she did from those lycans, but she bit her lip, stopping herself, reluctant to remind him of the emotions that ruled him… that convinced her it was okay, necessary even, to stoke his lust. To enjoy it as her own.
He wasn’t one of them. That was enough. She was alive. Only a deep sense of satiation hung on the air. For whatever reason, he no longer emitted the terrible gnawing ache and she wouldn’t question why. She was just glad for it.
“You did want it to happen, right?” His question cracked the air. He prowled the space, his hands flexing at his sides, tension singing through his every pore. Regret. The sour taste of it coated her mouth.
She wanted to deny it, wound him. Wanted to insist that she hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t reveled at the sweet fullness of him inside her. She wanted to call him a bastard.
“It was… fine,” was all she could manage to get out.
“Why did you let me—”
“I won’t let you do it again,” she broke in, her voice hard with defiance, unwilling to answer his question . . . that his own want and desire had swept her away. The last thing she would do was confess her ability to feel his emotions even better than her own. Everyone who ever knew what she was thought she was a freak, looked at her like she was some sort of witch. Besides, telling him she was an empath wouldn’t change anything, anyway.
His voice reached her, deep and low as thunder in the distance. “I can’t promise you that.”
Her eyes flared wide at the words. Alarm knotted her shoulders. And a secret thrill. “You will. You will leave me alone. I’m telling you now I don’t want to do…” she couldn’t even say it. She settled for: “I don’t want to do that again with you. Understand?” Desperation made her voice shrill. She wouldn’t let herself get swept away by him again. “You’ll promise me that right now.”
“If I made that promise, I would only be lying.” His deep voice rolled over. Like some kind of ancient aphrodisiac, she felt herself responding to the sound of it. Her nipples hardened against the cotton of her bra. She palmed one breast and felt the wetness from his mouth still there, soaking the cotton fabric, caressing the beaded peak.
“Bastard,” she hissed, dropping her hand and curling it into a fist so tight her nails cut into her palm. Once she could excuse, forgive. Herself and him. But a second time… “I’ll hate you.”
For a long moment he said nothing. She followed his tall, wiry form as he moved to the far side of the room and sank down. He propped one arm over a bent knee before speaking, his voice cold, matter-of-fact. “I can live with that.”
“What are you?” she demanded, wild emotion sweeping her. “What kind of man would—”
“It would be best for you to stop thinking of me as you would a typical man. I’m not like any man you’ve ever known.”
She sucked in a breath, confused and wishing she could see his face in the gloomy cell, unable to believe that she had just invited this man inside her body, shared with him what she had shared with no one else. And he had as good as vowed to do it again. “You’re right. Only a monster would take a woman against her will.”
Hardly the truth. She expected him to challenge the lie, but he laughed. The sound, disturbing and horrible, scraped her spine. “How right you are. You would do well to remember that.”
A monster. She was closer to the truth than she realized.
But he would be a monster if needed. He could live with taking her again. And again. Whether she wanted it or not, he could do it again if he had to. If her death were the alternative, he would take that lesser evil on himself.
There’d been women. Plenty. Brief encounters where he took and gave little in return. He had little to give. He was a creature whose own mother afforded him little love. Only enough to stay her hand from slitting his throat. She taught him well just how contemptible a thing he was. Not a creature of God, but an unholy aberration. Not a man to live his life in a normal fashion. No home to speak of. No roots. No woman for him to take to bed, to heart, to live with each day… to live for. He was not a mortal man to live such an ordinary life. A lucky life.
Suddenly he remembered that lesson. Remembered why women like Ruby were not for him. He wasn’t up for falling in love with a woman he would have to eventually bury.
Yet he still craved her, wanted to cross the cell and find her wet heat again. The odor of sex permeated the small space, mingling with the tantalizing aroma that was all her.
She was a cleansing balm to his soul. He wanted her again, wanted to have her until those memories were wiped forever clean. She could do that, he realized with a jolt. She had been sweeter than anyone to come before.
If he were honest with himself, he would want her whether the moon was high or not. She was a tempting package with her smooth skin and silky dark hair and eyes that glowed fire. Long limbs, ample curves—she was built like women used to be. Before they aspired to be runway thin. And she felt like paradise around his cock, snug and tight.
Yes. He could live with her hatred. What he couldn’t live with was her death.
Even though his survival depended on killing her, he could never live with himself if that happened. He had lived over a hundred years without taking an innocent life. He wasn’t going to start now. Especially not with someone like Ruby Deveraux. An innocent, strangely untouched.
At least, she had been. A virgin. He closed his eyes in a severe blink, hating that he had been the one to take that from her. To steal her innocence away.
He was already cursed to hell for taking her like any well-used whore. Opening his eyes, he grimaced, watching her curl into herself across the room, as far from him as she could get. The distance wouldn’t matter. If he had to take her again in order to stave off the hunger, then he would.
Hardening his heart, he tore his gaze from Ruby, studying the moon’s glow filtering through the room, understanding, perhaps for the first time, the frightening power behind the call of it. His mother had known, but he had denied its influence on him, arrogantly thinking himself stronger, better than the lycan dogs out there.
The moon would begin to wane tomorrow. Maybe then the beast would be easier to control and Ruby wouldn’t be in as much danger. From him, anyway.
He snorted. Right. He dragged a hand throu
gh his short hair, his nails scraping his scalp.
He looked at the woman again. She was on her side now, her eyes closed but he knew she was still awake. Sensed it in her every breath. Her hair formed a dark puddle, shiny as water in the night. He remembered tangling his hand through it and his fingers itched, eager for the feel again.
If, by some miracle, they got out of this alive, he would do her the favor of disappearing from her life and return to what he did best. His lip curled over his teeth.
He wasn’t a lycan… but he wasn’t human either. As a dovenatu, the moon might intensify his impulses, but he could shift at will—the main reason the pack so badly wanted him for their own. They would use him if they could convert him to their side. Their mistake was in underestimating what he would do to them when he broke free.
He’d have his vengeance.
Lycans had done this to him… to her.
An angry fire burned in his chest. Hunting them would never be sweeter.
8
Yusuf entered the room, Annika trailing one step behind him. Sebastian surged to his feet. His eyes fell on the tray of food Yusuf held. Warm bread. Savory, baked with herbs and spices, drizzled with olive oil. He could even smell the coolness of the water in the glass beside it. His mouth salivated.
“Down, boy. This isn’t for you.” Annika stood between him and Ruby, revealing her weapon. He inhaled deeply. Silver bullets. A subtle aroma, but he recognized it after packing the same kind of bullets for years.
Not lethal to him. But they didn’t know that. An advantageous difference between him and his lycan brethren. They simply thought he lived—and died—by their rules. He had thought the same, too. Before his brother’s wife, Kit, also a dovenatu, took a silver bullet and lived. Good information… and not anything he felt inclined to share with them. Let them think it would kill him.
“You’re going to feed me?” Ruby looked hesitantly from the tray to Sebastian. “Why? Why me and not him?”
Yusuf blinked and lowered a hand to her head, smoothing his palm over the dark mess of her hair. She knocked his touch away. “You don’t understand, do you? How remiss that Sebastian here failed to explain…”
“Shut up,” Sebastian growled, tensing, waiting, bracing himself. Now she would know. Now she would understand and look at him with disgust. Hatred. His stomach knotted.
Yusuf’s smile vanished like a wisp of smoke. “What’s this?” Head cocked, he breathed in and moved from Ruby. Sebastian watched, feeling a little sick as he bent and picked up Ruby’s torn and discarded panties. A sick thought came to him then. He was little better than the lycan who raped his mother. A rape that produced him and Rafe, sons she both loved and hated.
“Ah, Sebastian.” Eyes glinting, Yusuf fisted them. “You beast. You didn’t waste any time, did you?” He brought the underwear to his nose.
Sebastian watched Ruby shudder and press as tightly as possible against the wall.
“Ah, just as I thought. A virgin. Well, you used to be, at least.” His laughter raised the hairs on Sebastian’s arms and he leaned forward, ready to grab the gun from Annika and lodge a silver bullet in the bastard’s chest.
The female lycan glared darkly at him, the gun aimed at his chest. Her lips curled in a sneer. “Guess we didn’t tire you out enough if you still had appetite enough for her.”
Yusuf crouched beside Ruby. “Was it so very bad, love? Tell Yusuf about it. Was he rough with your delicate body? Humans… you tear so easily.” He dropped a hand on her shoulder and Sebastian surged forward. The barrel of Annika’s gun directly in his face stopped him.
Holding still, he forced a deep breath into his lungs. Steady. They’ll leave her be. They’d given her to him. Gunter wouldn’t tolerate Yusuf toying with her. They wanted him to feed on her, after all. He stared down the barrel, hatred filling his heart.
Ruby shoved the hand off her. Yusuf lifted it again, ready to touch her, when Annika’s voice stopped him. “Leave the bitch. Let her eat so we can go. I have other things to do.”
With a grunt, Yusuf held out the tray to her. Shooting Sebastian an almost guilty glance, Ruby snatched the small loaf and began eating, her movements savage as she ate. Sebastian tried to look away—the sight of her teeth tearing into that bread was too much—but his eyes kept coming back to her.
Yusuf handed her the glass of water after she finished off the bread. She drank, watching the lycans closely over the rim. Finished, she set the cup back down on the tray and carefully wiped her mouth. “Why so concerned that I eat?”
The lycans exchanged looks, smiling. “You don’t know anything, do you?” Annika shook her head. “This is really too delicious.”
Sebastian clenched his hands, a low growl rising from his chest. They would tell her now. He couldn’t stop them. No matter how much he wanted to.
His feet shuffled backward on the cold floor, sinking into the shadows as if distance would protect him from the coming revelation, from the look in her eyes when she learned the truth.
“We have to keep you alive and well so that our Sebastian here”—Annika’s smile deepened, her lips an obscene stretch of glossy red as she paused for dramatic effect—“can feed on you.”
Ruby blinked and stared at Sebastian for several moments, her eyes blank. She opened and closed her mouth several times as if preparing to speak. “That’s impossible. He’s not one of you. His eyes…” She motioned to his body where he lurked in the shadows. “He did not change last night. It was a full moon. He’s not a lycan. You’re wrong.” This last she uttered with absolute conviction. His disgust with himself twisted inside him, a dark, living serpent that he could not escape.
“You didn’t think your lover boy here was some sort of prince, stuck in a dungeon with you? Is that why you let him fuck you?” Annika laughed then.
Sebastian’s fingers curled into fists, yearning to strike.
Yusuf joined in her laughter. “More like a firebreathing dragon with an appetite for damsels in distress.” He wrapped an arm around Ruby and this time she did not even flinch from the unwanted closeness. Sebastian cursed beneath his breath. Why did she not speak? Move? No matter how she felt about him, she should care that a snake held her so close. Where was her self-preservation?
“Love,” the lycan breathed near her ear. “He will feed… on you. He’s brethren… even if a mongrel cousin. A dovenatu.”
Her lips barely moved. “What’s that?”
Yusuf’s lips pulled into a cruel smile. “He’s a half-breed. He can shift at will, not just during moonrise, although the compulsion is certainly stronger then. Along with all other instincts.” Yusuf lifted his head and called out cheerfully in his direction. “That right, Sebastian?” Turning back to Ruby, he continued, “And he doesn’t have to feed, but starving as he is…” He clucked his tongue in mock sympathy. “Instinct, that part of him that’s lycan, will demand it. That’s where you’ll come in, love.”
She flinched. Those honey-brown eyes turned on Sebastian, burning into him with such horror, looking at him as if he were the same as they. A predator to be feared, reviled.
“Ruby,” he said, but the sound of her name hung, suspended, and he could think of nothing else to say. What explanation could he give? He had spent a lifetime running from the beast. Hunting and killing as though that could change what he was. But the beast was there, inside him, ready to come out when survival demanded. Like now.
“Is it true?” she demanded.
He stared, unspeaking.
She charged forward—probably not the wisest course given what she had just learned. “Damn you. Don’t stand there staring at me, feeling guilty about the fact that you’re going to kill me! Eat me like some kind of m-monster.” She choked on the last word.
He cocked his head to the side. There she went again. Reading his mind, his heart. It’s like she was his damned conscience! How did she do that? Was he so transparent? He’d never thought so before.
“You never thought I had th
e right to know? And after we—we…” She couldn’t manage the words. Her palm exploded across his face. He could have moved, could have dodged the blow, but he took it. Deserved it. For what he was. For fucking her… for what could happen if he didn’t break them out of this cell.
The two lycans watched with avid interest the little drama they had orchestrated, silver eyes glittering.
It occurred to him that he might not get a better chance than now, while they were so distracted. And God knew his wrath needed an outlet.
Blood pumping, he whipped past Ruby and launched himself at Annika. They went down hard. The pistol flew from her hand and Sebastian dove after it. He wrapped a hand around it just as Ruby’s scream shook the stale air and settled deep in the pit of his clawing gut. He glanced over his shoulder and froze.
Yusuf held Ruby before him, his pale hand stark and obscene against the flesh of her throat. Her eyes fixed on him, round and enormous. Pleading.
“Oh, Sebastian, Sebastian.” Yusuf shook his head. “Points for trying. But do you really want to see her pretty neck ripped open?”
Sebastian started toward them.
Yusuf pulled Ruby’s neck back from her shoulders in a deep arch. She whimpered, the tendons in her throat stretched tight. Sebastian stopped hard, feet sliding to a halt on the cold floor. It would take little effort for the lycan to decapitate her—Sebastian knew he was capable of such viciousness.
Chest tight, he rose slowly from his crouch. Annika stepped forward and plucked the gun from his fingers. It took all his will to stand strong. The hunger scraping the insides of his belly nearly brought him to his knees. He felt broken. Weak. Spent. Perhaps he needed to find a way to finish himself off… before he finished Ruby.
“All right now. Let her go,” he growled.
Ruby whimpered again as the lycan pulled her tighter against his front. Her breasts strained against her tank, the full mounds riding the bastard’s arm.
Yusuf smirked. “But she feels so good.” The lycan inhaled the flesh of her neck. “And she smells so sweet… even with your stink on her.” He dragged long-nailed fingers across her throat.
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