Touch of Temptation

by Rhyannon Byrd

  Swiping his tongue over his upper lip, Asa leaned over him, his talons digging deep into the ground as he growled, “Turn his head to the side.”

  The order was followed, and then Asa went for the bite, his long fangs tearing into Kellan’s throat. The vampire fed with savage aggression, pulling at the wound in deep, ravenous gulps, draining him more…and more, until the fight slowly left the Lycan, his body no longer straining. No longer struggling.

  Instead, Kellan found himself filled with a sinking sensation, his arms and legs too heavy for the cold, hard ground to support. It was as if he was simply melting into the earth, leaving behind nothing but skin and bones. Eventually, the vampires released their hold on his lax body, his limbs growing numb as his blood was drained from his veins. He was on the verge of slipping away, when at the hazy edges of his consciousness, he caught the sound of a commotion at the far end of the meadow, a new voice ringing out with fury, shouting Asa’s name as it came closer…closer.

  “Damn it, Asa! Let him go! I can’t believe you came after him behind my back. We had a deal about you handling this situation fairly!”

  With a guttural snarl, the vampire tore his fangs from Kellan’s ravaged throat and surged to his feet. “He’s done, anyway,” he muttered, delivering a vicious kick to Kellan’s ribs that sent his sluggish body tumbling over the cold ground, his limbs flailing, as useless and limp now as a rag doll’s. As he struggled to draw in a gasp of air, the Lycan wondered how much blood still pumped through his veins.

  Not enough, he realized, when his body refused to follow the simple commands being relayed by his brain. And whatever was left was now more poisoned than ever. He was dying…fading away, the ground no longer quite so cold as he lay there, the surreal sense of numbness spreading, slowly eating away at the pain.

  “You broke your word,” the female accused, her voice shaking with anger as she continued to berate the vampire.

  Asa snickered. “Wasn’t the first time, little sister. And I dare say it won’t be the last.”

  Sister? Kellan tried to remember if he’d seen a female when he’d run into Asa the week before, but he couldn’t recall. Not that it mattered. If her plan had been to help him, she was too late. He was already on his way out.

  The argument continued, but he stopped listening, no longer caring what they said, his last thoughts turning to Chloe. Despair filled him at the realization that he would never see her again. He’d known it was coming, but he’d hoped that he would at least be able to destroy Gregory for her, and he hadn’t even been able to accomplish that.

  Fucking pathetic, he thought, managing to open his eyes enough that he could watch Asa turning and heading back into the thick, snow-covered forest. The rest began following after him, and Kellan gnashed his teeth, somehow finding the strength to roll to his front, no longer even feeling the chill of the snow against his flesh. He knew he was dying, his body almost completely drained of blood. Resting his cheek against the hard ground, he concentrated on pulling in each breath, one after another, while listening to their voices as they left him to die. Then the wind blew over him, the scents of the surrounding forest filling his head, and he caught it….

  Gregory!

  Choking back a guttural groan, Kellan somehow managed to lift his head, his nostrils flaring as he searched for that scent, and he found it again, his upper lip curling back over his fangs. The bastard was out there…so close he could taste it.

  Then get up off your ass and let’s get him, the wolf snarled, vibrating with rage, refusing to accept defeat.

  It was, as he’d heard Noah call them, one of those sharp moments. The kind that would be the make-or-break of his pride. He could do what was easy and lie down and die—or do what was hard and keep fighting for the woman he loved.

  And damn it, he did love her. With everything that he had. He might be as good as worm food, but he wasn’t going to give up on her until he’d finally drawn his last breath.

  Digging his claws into the snow-crusted ground, Kellan pulled his body forward, pain tearing through his system like a knife, excruciating and sharp. Tears burned at the backs of his eyes, but he gritted his teeth and managed to drag himself another foot over the ground, determined to somehow find the strength to deal with Gregory.

  “Lycan, stop.”

  Kellan cursed at the sound of the soft words and kept going.

  “Damn it.” The female’s voice was closer this time, coming from his right. “Stop crawling away from me. You’re only going to weaken yourself even more, and I intend to help you.”

  “Help me?” A bitter laugh scraped against his throat. “Oh, Christ. How effing stupid do you think I am?”

  “I could care less about your intelligence,” she snapped. “I’m just trying to save your life.”

  Wondering what the hell she was up to, he stopped, and the female—Asa’s sister—knelt beside him, quickly taking something out of the pack she slipped off her shoulder. The next thing he knew, she’d pushed him to his side, ripped open his sleeve, and injected a needle-tipped syringe into his vein.

  “What are you doing?” he snarled, his arm suddenly burning with heat, the skin around the needle throbbing with pain.

  She kept her focus on his arm, her brow knitted with concentration as she said, “I’m helping you, just like I said I was going to.”

  Kellan’s thoughts spun with confusion, whatever she was injecting into his system chasing away the cold that had settled into his veins, and replacing it with a slick, scalding heat that had beads of sweat breaking out over his face. “Why?” he wheezed, trying to focus his wavering vision. “Why…help me?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just crazy.” She sounded irritated as she flung the words at him, her gaze still focused on the place where she had the needle imbedded in his vein. “Now shut up, relax and let the antidote do its thing, or you’re not going to do that woman you’re so set on protecting a damn bit of good. You get me?”

  “You’re lying,” he growled, struggling to sit up, but she plastered one hand against the center of his chest and pushed him back against the ground, his body still too weak to offer any resistance.

  “You really need to work on your trust issues,” she muttered, her gray eyes glittering with frustration as she glared down at him. “And for God’s sake, learn to have a little faith. I get that you probably piss a lot of people off and make your fair share of enemies, but not everyone in the world is out to get you. Just trust me, okay? I’m golden, I swear.”

  Kellan wanted to tell her to shut up, but the cocky little vamp was right. He had lost his faith. Or maybe he’d just given up, months ago, when he’d realized what a fuckup he’d become…and slowly allowed his guilt to hollow him out inside. Allowed it to turn him into a man who’d been willing to accept his fate, no matter how shitty, instead of fighting against it.

  It was unforgivable, when you thought about what he had to fight for. His family and friends, not to mention the woman who had laid claim to his heart and now owned his soul. Instead of focusing so much on what had happened in his past, he should have been moving mountains to sort out his future. And Christ, who gave a shit if he wasn’t good enough for Chloe? None of that crap mattered. All that mattered was that he became the kind of man she could be proud of. One who was worthy of her—who cherished her the way she deserved.

  You should have listened to me. I told you we’d find a cure, the wolf chuffed, and Kellan realized there’d be no living with the animal now. It would be gloating about this for years, holding it over his head whenever they disagreed.

  Eyeing the syringe the vampire was slowly decompressing, feeding what looked like a thick, golden liquid into his vein, he said, “So then your brother wasn’t lying when he told me there was an antidote for the poison?”

  “Asa might be a bastard, but he’s an honest one. At least sometimes,” she added dryly.

  Kellan’s heart began to pound a little faster as he realized he was actually going to have
the chance to throw himself at Chloe’s feet and beg her for a second chance, but he took a deep breath and pushed the breathtaking thought to the back of his mind, knowing he had to keep his focus on Gregory before he could go running back to her.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, cutting his gaze back to the vampire’s sharp little face.

  “Everyone calls me Gabby.”

  “I’m not trying to sound ungrateful for what you’re doing, but why didn’t you help me before? On the night that Asa poisoned me?”

  Her short brown curls brushed against the sides of her face as she depressed the plunger all the way down, emptying the contents of the syringe into his vein. “To be honest,” she murmured, slipping the needle from his arm and dropping it back into its case, “I didn’t see anything worth risking my neck to save. See, my brother and I both have special…talents, I guess you could say. While Asa can bloodtrack, mine are more intuitive.”

  “You’re psychic?” he asked, while she gave him a shot that she explained would help his blood supply regenerate.

  “No. I just…I see things. All kinds of things. Truths. Lies. And sometimes I can see inside a person’s heart. Kind of like…like reading an aura.” As she finished zipping up her pack, she looked down at him as she added, “You’ve changed this past week. The anger you carried inside of you has been replaced with love, and that’s something I’m willing to take a risk for.”

  He grunted in response, gritting his teeth against the blistering heat sliding through his veins, the sensation as scalding as if he’d been injected with liquid fire, the antidote literally burning the poison from his system. When the pain finally started to recede, he asked, “Why haven’t you given the antidote to your brother?”

  With a frown, she explained, “Although this antidote will work on the Reykers’ victims, I still haven’t managed to create one that can purge the poison from its carriers.”

  “How did he get infected in the first place?”

  “How else?” she muttered with a soft snort, rolling her eyes. “He and a cousin of mine made a mistake that affected every male in the family.”

  “So you’re not poisonous?” he asked, managing to sit up as she moved to her feet.

  “Nope, I’m in the clear,” she replied, slipping her nylon pack back over her shoulder. “Only the males were cursed with the poison. I’m also not condemned to the Wasteland.”

  Moving first to his knees, Kellan waited until his head had stopped spinning before taking the small hand she offered and letting her help him to his feet. She was a tiny thing, like Chloe, barely reaching his shoulder, but she had a look about her that said she was anything but delicate. More like a pint-sized Doberman dressed in jeans and a heavy, cable-knit sweater. “If you’re not exiled,” he said, “then what are you doing here?”

  “Some witch friends of mine have been helping me formulate the antidote, and we only just came up with a workable sample last week. I’d brought the news of the antidote to Asa on the day that he poisoned you.”

  Using his sleeve to wipe at his bloodied throat, he said, “That explains why the Sabins didn’t know about the antidote.”

  Gabby lifted her brows. “It’s true that we haven’t exactly spread the word around, but I’m surprised the psychic you’ve been traveling with couldn’t tell you that the antidote was real.”

  Kellan winced. “Raine’s in bad shape after her time at Westmore’s compound. Her powers are weak right now, and when she tried to get a read on Asa for me, his mind was filled with too much violence for her to see anything clearly.”

  “That sounds like my brother,” she muttered under her breath, and he could sense the pain that roughened the edges of her words.

  “You mentioned Asa and your cousin made a mistake that brought about the curse. What was it?”

  Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the strap that crossed her shoulder. “Her name was Merol, and she’s a prickly sorceress. One who likes to play with men as if they were her personal toys, but expects utter devotion in return. Needless to say, they screwed with the wrong woman when they got involved with her.”

  “Haven’t we all?” he grunted.

  “And yet, fate has granted you a gift in the witch,” she told him. “I still hope the same can happen for my brother.”

  “I’d tell you you’re wasting your time,” he rasped, reaching out to brace his hand against a nearby tree as a wave of dizziness swept through him, “but since I have a brother, I understand.”

  She responded with a slight nod, then seemed to take a moment to study his eyes. “If you just give it a minute, the dizziness should fade.”

  Clearing his throat, he said, “Listen, I know I acted like a dick at first, but I owe you for—”

  She waved away the words with her hand. “You didn’t ask for my help, therefore you owe me nothing. This was my choice.”

  “Will your brother be angry with you?” he asked, pushing his hair back from his face with a shaking hand as he fought the nausea twisting through his stomach.

  The vampire shook her head. “I can handle Asa. Just get the hell out of the Wasteland as soon as you can. And whatever you do, don’t come back.”

  Eager to get on with his hunt for Gregory, Kellan thanked her for her help, then turned and headed into the woods, searching the forest for that faint trace of the Casus’s scent that he’d picked up on earlier. Though his head was still spinning, he knew that the sooner he dealt with DeKreznick, the sooner he could make his way back to Chloe, throwing himself on her mercy. He was thinking about what he would say to her when he realized that Gabby was following him, and he cut her a sharp look over his shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Helping you finish it.” Wearing a determined expression, she hiked her pack higher on her shoulder and lifted her chin. “The way I see it, the sooner you’re done here, the sooner you’re gone. And I really don’t want to keep worrying about Asa coming after you again.”

  “Just be careful,” he muttered, figuring she’d earned the right to follow him wherever she wanted, considering she’d just saved his life. Some light snow flurries were beginning to fall from the slate-gray sky, screwing with his sense of smell, so he headed north, which was the direction he’d caught the Casus’s scent coming from earlier. Kellan estimated they were already at least a few miles north of the Sabin compound, and with each step he took, he could feel the antidote fighting to destroy the remnants of the poison, his healing abilities slowly returning to full strength, working hard to replenish his blood supply with the help of the shot that Gabby had given him. He was still a long way off from being at a hundred percent, but he was no longer knocking on death’s door, and his thoughts turned to the coming fight.

  “You need to mask your scent,” he told Gabby, hoping like hell there was still enough juniper on his skin to disguise his presence. “The Casus has a witch with him who can lock their opponents in place. My only chance against him is to take the witch out first.”

  “Lycan,” she murmured, her tone signifying a problem, and he caught the scents in the next instant, fear and frustration searing through his veins.

  “Goddamn it,” he snarled, running toward the source, powering his way through the moonlit forest as he dodged low-hanging limbs and jumped over fallen logs. Gabby was right on his heels as he burst into a small clearing a few minutes later, unable to believe his friggin’ eyes.

  They were all there, except for Raine. His brother and his friends and their allies. Every single bloody one of them.

  And Chloe Harcourt was standing right in the center of the group.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  OH SHIT, HE THOUGHT. This cannot be happening!

  Kellan quickly blinked his eyes, certain he must be imagining that Chloe was standing there between his brother and Morgan. But no…she was real. Jesus, had Kierland lost his bloody mind? Kellan had trusted him to take care of her, and instead, he’d brought her out into the open!

  “Get her
out of here!” he snarled, his wolf on the verge of breaking free as he advanced on his brother with long, furious strides. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  Kierland’s green eyes burned with his own fury. “I could ask you the same thing,” he shot back, getting right in Kellan’s face.

  “You stubborn bastard!” His voice cracked as he shoved hard at Kierland’s shoulders, a flare of satisfaction burning through his veins when he managed to knock the powerful Lycan back a step, his body becoming stronger by the second. “I trusted you to take care of her! Not offer her up to Gregory like a goddamn sacrifice!”

  “You didn’t leave us any choice,” Kierland argued, his words biting and sharp. “After Chloe woke up and found you gone, she came to me and we found your letter. So what exactly was I meant to do, Kell? Sit around and wait for you to get yourself killed?”

  “You were meant to trust me to handle my own life, you bloody control freak.”

  “Kellan, please calm down,” Morgan murmured. “You know Kier only wants you to be safe.”

  “I don’t wanna hear it,” he growled, cutting her a hard look of warning. He knew damn well that she’d used her bloodtracking ability to lead the group to him, which put her at the top of his shit list at the moment. The only reason he’d had Morgan make the damn bond was to ensure Chloe’s safety—not his own!

  From the corner of his eye, Kellan noticed that Aiden and the others were fanning out around him, and he couldn’t help but wonder if they planned to drag him back to the Sabin compound kicking and screaming.

  If that’s their plan, he thought, his nostrils flaring with rage, then they’d better be ready to get bloody, because I’m not going without a fight.

  “Did you honestly expect me to leave you out here on your own?” Kierland rolled his shoulder in a hard act of aggression, as if he was getting ready to throw a punch.