by Laura Kaye
Kenric took a deep breath and then cleared this throat. Tame your beast, St. James. She’s not yours, and she’s not going to be.
“Yeah, I suppose.” He rolled his shoulders. It did little to unknot the ball of tension riding him like a boulder—no, make that Mt. Everest—between his shoulder blades.
“You suppose…?” Guerin threw his words back with a laugh. “What does that mean? Is she pretty, or isn’t she?”
Kenric squirmed for a second in his seat and then abruptly left the table, not wanting to answer or deal with all the questions he knew Guerin was on the brink of firing.
“Michael, everything ready?” After a good-to-go nod from his aide, Kenric grabbed the tray off the counter and headed out. The heat of what had to be two sets of wide-eyed stares burned into his back.
“Whoa, captain. You’re not giving me any more intel on Emily than that?”
Kenric stopped.
“You’re gonna leave me hanging?” Guerin added, his tone conveying his delight in Kenric’s discomfort.
He turned around and gave Guerin his best dry and speculative stare before answering. “Looks like it.”
Kenric backed out of the kitchen and heaved a sigh of relief on the other side of the door. He didn’t want to think about how beautiful Emily was, much less chat about it with Mr. Charisma in there.
Over the years, he had known some vampires and humans who had claimed to have found their soul mates. This was supposedly more intense for vampires due to the transfer of blood and the chemical reactions that occurred with a compatible female on a cellular level. Due to a vampire’s unique physiology for utilizing and absorbing every element that comprised blood, it wasn’t too alien of a concept to believe a perfect mate could exist for a male or female vampire in every way. For a master, it was thought to be an even more profound experience due to the heightened psychic abilities of the male. A master and his mate bonded mentally and physically. The unusual reaction he’d had to Emily flickered through his mind, but Kenric shook his head. That couldn’t be what was happening here. He refused for that to be the case. The tight clench on his molars had his jaw aching. Christ, not now that Marguerite is back. As long as he kept his hands and other body parts to himself, it would not go any further than a mild attraction to a female who had served her purpose and then returned to her world. End of story.
Out of sight.
Out of mind.
On the compound’s third floor, which housed his private quarters, Kenric placed the key in the lock and gave it a quick turn. With an answering click of the pins, he opened the door with one hand while balancing the tray with the other. A blur of movement caught his eye. He ducked as his favorite crystal water goblet whizzed by his head. It struck the door frame to his left. The sharp sound of breaking glass echoed off the hardwood floor. Kenric grabbed for the orange juice carafe heading for the floor.
“What the hell?”
Chapter Seven
“You son of a bitch! I’m not your prisoner, huh? You lied to me. And to think, I thought you were delusional as hell with all the vampire nonsense but I was actually starting to believe you,” Emily said with a near-hysterical laugh. “I almost believed you when you said you weren’t planning to hurt me or keep me against my will. God, I’m such an idiot!” She flung her arms in the air.
He stood there, staring at her as if she was the one who was crazy. Oh, she’d show him crazy.
She darted for the nightstand. Emily hefted the pitcher off the table, spun, and hurled it straight at Kenric’s head.
Again, he ducked.
The pitcher crashed into the wall, spraying fragments and shards of crystal across the floor.
Damn! Missed again. God, could he be more infuriating?
She’d lost it.
Emily liked her calm exterior. It served her well, professionally and personally. But she had totally lost touch with her brain. This was pure, raw emotion. And so out of character for her. She abhorred violence, having lived through enough of it growing up and enduring too much of it in her last relationship.
Something inside her had snapped when she had come out of the shower, had found the bedroom door locked, and had realized she was trapped inside. All the painful memories she’d buried of her childhood and the years she’d spent with Jeff had exploded in her mind. Every bit of the fear and panic she’d experienced when her dad had locked her in the closet had swamped her. The heart-pounding rage when Jeff had sealed her in their bedroom as some form of idiotic punishment had flooded her veins.
As Dylan Thomas so penned, she would not go quietly into that good night. Hell, no. She would rage, and God help the man who tried to control or hurt her again.
With a low-pitched, frustrated scream, Emily sprinted toward the open bedroom door. Her foot crossed the threshold but a pair of strong arms grabbed her. They encircled her waist and lifted her feet from the floor.
“Let me go!” Emily beat the heels of her sneakers into Kenric’s shins. It didn’t have the desired effect. Like a tank with armored plating, he held her high.
Her back hit the mattress, knocking the air from her lungs. She sucked in a renewed mouthful of air as Kenric’s body covered hers. His large hands pinning her wrists to the bed.
“Emily, please…whatever I’ve done…” She didn’t want to hear his worthless excuses. He couldn’t possibly understand. She tossed her head from side to side in a useless attempt to escape his words. Her struggles only succeeded in causing him to press his chest and hips firmer into hers. “I’m sorry. For whatever pain I’ve caused you. I’m so sorry, Wildflower.” His dark and stormy voice rumbled over her like thunder mixed with lightning, quieting her. She lifted her lashes and found his full lips inches from her mouth. Their gazes locked. Was he going to kiss her? Oh shit. Did she want him to? She didn’t know what scared her more, him kissing her, or her for considering it.
God, what was happening?
She cleared her throat and went with the best haute-bitch voice she could muster. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re not going to kill me, so you’ve decided to molest me now?” She pushed at his chest. “Bastard! Get off of me.”
He lifted his hips and rolled to his side. “I was only trying to stop you, so I could explain.”
She scrambled from the bed and spun. “That wasn’t the only thing on your mind.”
“I…I’m sorry.” He groaned. “I don’t know where that came from.” He forced the fingers of one hand through his hair. “Damn. I swear my vocabulary does go beyond a litany of apologies.” Kenric dropped his face into his palms and took a deep breath. His voice sounded strained, as if he were exhausted from the effort. “This is not at all how I’d planned to approach our discussion. And no, you’re not a prisoner here.”
“Really, is that so?” She crossed her arms under her breasts. “The locked door. That was for my own good, then?”
He lifted his smoky gaze back to hers. “Yes, it was,” he said, his deep and rusty tone of voice returning. “My home has secure areas within and around the property. I cannot have visitors wandering around unescorted. I had hoped to arrive with your breakfast before you finished your shower.” His gaze left hers and then scanned the devastation that was his bedroom. “Looks like I was a little late.”
She’d taken her frustrations out on his bed and lamps.
“I don’t do well locked in anywhere.” She ran her fingers through her hair, avoiding his eyes. He didn’t need to know the details as to why, and she didn’t care to remain another second explaining. Emily started for the door. “My car, I assume, is still at the hospital’s garage?”
“We need to talk first.”
“Any more talking or discussions can take place in the car.” She threw him a glare over her shoulder. Kenric still sat on the bed. “I want to go home. Now.”
He didn’t move.
She whipped back around, her emotional roller-coaster ride about to derail. “What do you want from me?”
&nbs
p; “I need your help—and that requires you to believe what I’ve told you about myself.”
“That you’re a vampire?” She grasped her lower lip between her teeth.
“Yes. That I am a vampire.”
“Why is it so important to you that I believe this before I go home? What can I possibly do for you?”
The moment the question left her lips, she swore an almost animalistic hunger flashed in his eyes. Emily took a step back, but slammed on the brakes. No way was she going to allow him to see that he rattled her. She’d never seen a man look at her with such need. Her hand kneaded the edge of the T-shirt—his—that she was wearing. Her palm was sweaty. She looked away, trying to find a distraction. If not, she’d have to admit to herself that a small part of her wanted to escape, not because she was deathly afraid of him, but because if she stayed any longer, maybe she wouldn’t think he was so bad. He was fascinating in a crazy, psychotic kind of way. What did that say about her? That the freakier the guy was, the more interested she became?
Surveying the room, she took in all the fine items that furnished it. “From the look of things, you’re very well off, Kenric. I’m sure your money can buy you all the help you need.”
“No, it can’t,” he sighed. “If only it were that easy. Money cannot buy trust and loyalty.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kenric get off the bed. Her eyes followed his impressive build as he straightened to full height.
“It’ll buy silence for a period, but eventually, it’ll come back as a knife between your shoulder blades.”
The distant look on his face said he spoke from personal experience. He passed by her to close the door, then turned and motioned with his hand to the leather couch. “Please, sit down.”
She could feel it, the vacuum-like pull sucking her into this man’s dilemma. Even worse, in her heart, she realized that she was going to help him. God, how she wished she could turn off her need to rescue others. Like the time she’d rescued the limping puppy from the side of the road on her way home from work. Her mind rolled back to that rainy night. The little guy had been so wet and dirty, shaking with fear. His curled, wiry hair had been all knotted with mud. Jeff, her ex, had been livid when she’d come in the door with him. But she hadn’t cared. Emily would have taken whatever abuse he’d wanted to dole out on her if it meant giving that dog another chance. To give anyone the second chance they deserved, as she’d done for Jennie, one of the nurses she’d worked with last year. Jennie had showed up for her shift, smelling of alcohol and hung over from the night before—in no condition to work. Something like that should never happen. Not when a nurse is responsible for the safety of others. Jennie was young and possessed so much potential, but a bad breakup with her boyfriend had skewed her judgment that morning. Emily had sent her home, agreed to pull her shift, and to keep the incident to herself as long as Jennie promised to pull herself together.
Whether it was a stray, a coworker, or a man who believed he was a vampire, it seemed she couldn’t fight her basic instinct to help someone in need. Emily sat down and Kenric sat beside her. He faced her with a somber expression.
“When I was in the ER, I imagine blood tests were performed on me. Am I right?”
She nodded. “Of course. You were close to death when they brought you in. You were given several units of blood right away, and then labs were drawn to type your blood for additional transfusions.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“From what I remember, they were running into some problems with matching your blood type,” she said. “The blood bank ran the specimen a few times but ended up asking us to redraw your blood.” He watched her, as if hanging on her every word, making her nervous. She rubbed her damp palms across her thighs before continuing.
“They thought it might have been contaminated, since they couldn’t isolate your type, and because there were multiple antigens present on your red blood cells.” Kenric’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t say a word. “The emergency physician thought you had some form of leukemia, due to the elevation in your white blood cell count. He ordered a consult with a specialist.”
Kenric tossed his head back against the couch cushion. “Shit!”
She jumped. “This is the problem you’ve been referring to? The fact that the hospital has your blood, and that the results were brought to more than one doctor’s attention?” What am I supposed to do about that?
“They couldn’t type my blood because I’m no longer human.” He rubbed both hands across his face and then turned to face her. “I cannot allow this information to go public. If it does, it would spell disaster for my kind.”
“You’re nuts.” She shook her head. “You really expect me to believe the reason they couldn’t type your blood is because you’re not human? That you’re some kind of…undead…creature-of-the-night? Kenric, I’m looking at a human male. I’ve…felt you. And you felt pretty human to me.” Heat flashed into her cheeks, as well as a vivid recollection of exactly how incredibly human he looked and felt.
A sexy little grin curled his lips. He reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Small electric tingles trailed wherever his skin touched hers. She closed her eyes.
“What can I do to convince you, Emily?” he whispered. “Tell me what it would take for you to believe that what I’m telling you is the truth. You’ve already experienced me feeding. What else do you need?”
She shivered. His words were like pure seduction. The memory of his teeth at her neck should freak her out, but instead her nipples stiffened into hard peaks and a tingle arrowed straight to her core.
Emily opened her eyes and rose from the couch. She darted to the foot of the bed. Distance. Yes, she needed distance. He was way too dangerous. Too much raw sexuality poured from him for her sanity to survive.
“Okay, I’ll play along.” She turned and faced him. “Since you’re insistent that I believe this.”
“Finally.”
“I guess for me to really comprehend all this, I’ll need you to give me a brief education on vampires. We can call it Vampire 101. Like, what does a vampire do, other than drink blood?” She wrinkled her nose at the thought. “For starters, I see you don’t sleep in a coffin.” Her hand patted and then rubbed along the carved, dark wood of the footboard.
“That’s correct—pure myth.” He raised one arm and rested it along the top of the couch. “What else do you want to know?”
“What about sunlight? Is it true you can only come out at night, or you’re toast?”
“That one is true, even more so for a younger vampire. Although if I’ve shape-shifted, I can tolerate the sun’s rays for a short duration.”
“Shape-shifted? Are you saying that myth is true, that you can turn into a bat?” She gave him a skeptical stare.
“For me, not a bat. But yes, most vampires can assume at least one other form, usually a wolf. Over the years, I’ve gained the ability to become several alternate shapes.”
“Prove it.” She lifted her eyebrows and couldn’t help the smug smile she knew curled her lips. “You wanted to know what it would take for me to truly believe you are a vampire. Show me.”
He got up from the couch. A slow and deliberate rise. Her heart stuttered as he moved closer. He leaned in, his breath a gentle caress to her ear.
“Is that really what you want to see, Wildflower?”
She nodded, her throat suddenly too dry for words.
“Think you can handle it?”
She tilted her head back and met his eyes. His gaze held a hint of a challenge. Bam! He hit her weak spot. She could never refuse a challenge.
“I said, prove it.”
Kenric stepped back a few inches and grasped the tail of his T-shirt. Up and over his head, he pulled it off before dropping it on the coffee table behind him.
“What are you doing?” Her voice sounded a little panicky, but she couldn’t help it. She hadn’t anticipated a striptease.
; “What you asked me to do. If I’m going to change shape, I need to take my clothes off. Or didn’t you think about that when you asked? We can talk about showing you proof another way, if you can’t handle me naked.”
His eyes challenged her again. Ooh, he is so irritating! She wanted to stomp her foot, but she wouldn’t dare give him the satisfaction. Instead, she cocked an eyebrow. Hell if she was backing down now.
“Oh, I can handle it,” she said, proud of the confidence ringing in her voice. “I am a nurse, remember.”
A slow grin spread across his face as he went for his zipper.
So pleased with his damn self.
There wasn’t much she hadn’t already seen in her three years as a nurse, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen most of him anyway while he had been her patient. Not to mention earlier, when he’d been wearing only a towel. So why would this be any different?
“I thought I would share my wolf with you,” he said. “It’s my favorite alternate form. But I want you to remember one thing after I’ve changed.” His playful expression suddenly grew serious. His eyes narrowed. “I would never harm you. Don’t be afraid.”
She swallowed back the lump in her throat that had grown out of nowhere. No one had ever made her feel so off balance. He made her want to run for safety, yet at the same time, he tugged on just the right strings to make her want to stay and save him.
“Emily. Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes.” She ran trembling fingers through her hair and straightened her shoulders. “I won’t.”
He seemed satisfied with her answer and proceeded to push his jeans to the floor and kick them to the side.
Oh. My. God. Her heart did that flip-flop thing in her chest. Oh yeah, this was very different. She’d thought the earlier rear view had been sweet. But Lord, the front view—it ought to be a crime. Emily tried maintaining a clinical expression while staring at close to six and a half feet of a naked and fully aroused man. Instead of a wolf’s form, he should go for a stallion. He certainly had the parts. His erection dipped, in what looked like mocking approval of her continued inspection. She licked her lips, stifled a groan, and dragged her gaze away from the incredible piece of endowment standing at attention between his legs. She needed to try to look at his face.
