by Cynthia Eden
“Yes, they did.”
She knew them?
But Amber turned away and put her face beneath the spray of water. He wanted to touch her again, but he could feel that something was wrong.
Then she stepped out of the shower. Amber reached for a towel and dried off quickly. He moved beneath the spray of water, but he kept his gaze on her.
Something is very wrong. Moments before, everything had seemed so very right. “You…you did know Hycim, didn’t you?”
She wrapped the towel around her body. “He cut off my wings.”
What? Cass’s hand flew out and he yanked off the water.
“I’m sure you realized that I once had wings. My scars are very specific, wouldn’t you say?” Her smile was sad. “Hycim was incredibly strong, and he enjoyed using the darkest of magic. That magic helped him to resist Luke. He actually wanted to kill Luke, you see. And he managed to catch Luke at a vulnerable moment.”
“Hard to imagine Luke vulnerable.”
“Because he’s not that way often.”
His hands fisted and he remembered Hycim. The guy had been six foot five and thick with muscles. The only vampire/werewolf being in existence, he’d been heavy with power.
“Hycim cut off my wings with his claws. A normal weapon never would have taken them from me.” She bit her lower lip. “But…truth be told, I agreed to give Hycim those wings. They were a trade. He was going to give me something I wanted in return for them.”
“What did you want?”
Her head tilted to the right. “What do you want, Cass? What deal did you make with Luke? You tell me your terms and I’ll tell you mine.”
I was going to trade you for another woman. For a mate I could touch. For some reason, he just couldn’t force those words out. Maybe because…because he knew they would hurt Amber, and he didn’t want her hurt.
“I traded for someone I cared about,” she said softly and he saw her shoulders sag, as if she’d given up on getting an answer from him. As if she knew wanting that answer was pointless. “He needed time to get his strength back…he just needed time, and my wings gave him that time.”
Jealousy burned through him. She’d sacrificed her wings for some dumb bastard out there?
“The wings seemed like a small price to pay but…I didn’t realize the consequences. For me. For him. For everyone.” She swallowed. “When Luke sent you after Hycim…did he ask for you to…to make him suffer?”
He had. Luke had been very specific about the pain he wanted Hycim to endure.
Her eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t…don’t say anything else, okay? I just…” She spun around and hurried from the bathroom.
Cass didn’t bother drying off. When she moved, he moved—they were still bound. Tied on a damn invisible string. Only he found that he didn’t mind that connection. He actually dreaded the moment when their bond would vanish. What would happen then?
Would she slip away from him?
Was he supposed to just let her go?
She stood at the foot of the bed. Her towel dipped below her shoulder blades, so he could see her scars. He could touch them. And he did…but not with his hands.
With his mouth.
His lips pressed to the scar on her left shoulder. “I’m sorry he took your wings.” And Cass actually wished that he could kill Hycim all over again. Because it must have hurt her, so much, the agony must have ripped right through her when the bastard had used his claws on her.
Cass had seen the carnage left when Hycim was done with his victims. That had been one of the reasons he’d taken the job from Luke.
Another reason…
The gloves. The fucking gloves.
His mouth moved to her right shoulder. Tenderly, he kissed that scar, too.
She turned in his arms. Tears swam in her eyes. For an instant, Cass could have sworn that his heart actually stopped as he stared at her.
“Take off the gloves,” she said, her voice husky.
But Cass shook his head. “I can’t.” You’ll die.
“Don’t touch me with your hands. You can do that, right? If I ask you not to touch me, I can count on you. I can trust you.”
Trust.
He’d gone still. “Are you sure you know what you’re asking?”
“I’m asking you to take off the damn gloves.” She swiped her hand across her cheek, catching the tears that had fallen. “Then I want you to get on the bed. Wrap your hands around the headboard.”
His gaze shot to the headboard. It was wooden—made of two long slats. If she wanted him to grab the headboard, then he could spread out on the bed and wrap his hands around that bottom slat.
“Hold tight to it. Don’t let go. I want to be with you again. But…I want it to just be us.”
She was walking down a very dangerous path. Amber talked about trust but… “My control is too weak with you. I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”
The Reaper…afraid.
She smiled and he was pretty sure his heart broke. “It’s because you’re afraid that you won’t. Somewhere in that dark heart of yours, you aren’t as bad as you want the world to think.” Her lips twisted. “Or as Luke might want you to think.”
“No.” She was wrong on that. “I am bad, Amber. I’ve killed more people than you can imagine—and I’ll kill more. Death is what I was made to do. I’m not human. Wouldn’t want to be. I enjoy the power.” He wouldn’t lie. “You think I didn’t go after the beings who’d killed my family, too? Because I did. Luke was the one who sent me down the path to find them. And I took them all out…for me. For my vengeance.” His voice thickened. “I enjoyed their deaths.”
If that didn’t make him bad, then…
“T-take off your gloves, okay? I don’t want to be with the Reaper. I want to be with Cass. This time…just us, all right? Just us.” Another tear.
He hated her tears.
Cass took off his gloves. He dropped them onto the nightstand, then he climbed onto the bed. He stretched out, and his hands curled around the bottom wooden slat on the headboard. It was an old-fashioned bed, nothing fancy. And the board he gripped? He could crush it. Actually, Cass feared he would crush it.
But Amber had moved to stand near him. Gazing into his eyes, she let her towel fall to the floor. “You fear touching.”
He feared killing her.
“But I don’t. So I get to touch you, all over. And you get to see…that I trust you. I trust you completely, Cass, and soon, I hope you’ll trust me the same way.”
Why? Why did she trust him? He’d just told her what a damn monster he was.
“You saved me today.” She stared straight into his eyes and he had the eerie feeling that, for the first time, someone was truly seeing him.
Not the Reaper. The man.
Cass swallowed. “I knew I couldn’t die.” Or rather, that he couldn’t stay dead.
“Other than my family, no one has ever risked so much for me. I saw the wounds on you. You were battered from head to toe. And…even back at the hotel, when Gregory came crashing in to our room, you protected me then, too. You covered me with your body, and the glass went into your back.”
His gaze slid over her. “Didn’t…want you hurt.”
“I didn’t think my knight in shining armor would be Death.”
His gaze jerked back up to hers.
“I was wrong.” She slid onto the bed. Onto him. She straddled him and her legs slid along either side of his hips. “I won’t be wrong again. Not about you.”
She didn’t understand…
Amber bent and pressed a kiss to his lips. Not some chaste, soft kiss. Sexy as hell. Her tongue slid over his lips, then thrust into his mouth. She stroked him with her tongue, making his whole body shudder.
His cock was fully erect and because of the way she’d positioned herself on him, his length shoved against her sex. She was wet and soft, and he wanted to arch up and sink into her.
“Not yet,” Amber whispered against his mouth. “Because
I’m just getting started.”
Then she began to kiss a path down his neck. She stopped to lick and suck the skin right over his racing pulse.
He growled.
She nipped him.
His eyes squeezed shut. Fuck, yes.
Then she was pressing her lips to his chest.
His hands tightened on the wood and he heard a low creak.
She licked his nipple. His hips arched against her.
“Ah…trying to get my attention? I was working my way down there but…” Then she eased her body back, moving the sweet heat of her sex away from his aching cock.
“No—” Cass began.
But then her mouth was on him. She curled her luscious lips around his cock and she sucked him in. His eyes nearly rolled back in his head and the wood splintered beneath his grip.
She sucked and she licked and she drove him insane.
But he didn’t touch her.
Wouldn’t.
Cass grabbed for the second slat of wood that made up the headboard. His fingers locked around it. “Amber…no more. I need in you.”
Her head lifted. “I thought you were in my mouth.”
His teeth ground together…
“Oh,” she murmured, obviously not understanding just how dangerous it was to tease him. “You mean in me…this way?” And then she was straddling him once again. Her hand moved between them and she guided his cock to her core. He thrust up just as she arched her hips down against him.
Tight. Hot. Heaven.
He withdrew, then plunged deep. She was gasping and rocking against him. Going up and down, but it wasn’t enough—
That second slat shattered.
He shoved upward, moving fast, and he saw the alarm in her eyes.
But Cass just tumbled her back onto the bed, trapping her beneath him. His hands fisted around the bedcovers, grabbing tight, and then he was shoving deep into her, controlling the thrusts and filling her completely.
She came for him, crying out her pleasure as her sex contracted around him. He let himself go even as the pulses of her release rocked around him. He emptied into her, lodged deep in her tight, hot sex, never, fucking ever wanting to leave her.
The pleasure was just as hot as before, just as consuming. It seemed to burn right through his body, pushing away the coldness that had surrounded him for so long. A cold that had gone soul-deep.
Until he found Amber.
I won’t let her go. I can’t. His head lifted.
She was smiling at him. “See?” Amber whispered. “I was right to trust you.”
Don’t be so sure, sweets. Because he wasn’t the kind of man that anyone should trust.
***
Gregory knew when he was fucking in trouble. And when the Lord of the Dark yanked a guy from a plane…
Hello, trouble.
Luke Thorne had yanked him from that plane and taken him back down to earth. Now he was in the middle of freaking nowhere. Luke stood in front of him and he knew he had to tread damn carefully.
“Want to tell me why you were circling like a hawk?”
This was his moment. Gregory lifted his chin. “Because I’m the hunter you want, not Cass. I’m the one who can bring back your bounty. The Reaper has gone soft. You can’t count on him any longer.”
Luke’s dark brows rose. “Oh, really?” He didn’t sound convinced.
“He won’t bring her to you. The woman you’re after? Amber?” Plant the doubt. Twist it inside of him. “He’s fucking her.”
Luke’s face changed. Went absolutely dark.
So much for the stories about Luke having a mate. The guy was obviously involved with Cass’s bounty. Gregory could use that involvement. “He’s going to try and keep her. He’s—”
Luke had wrapped one claw-tipped hand around his throat. Using that grip, Luke lifted Gregory into the air. “You’re lying to me.”
Could Luke tell when a paranormal lied? The stories said maybe but…Gregory had taken precautions. He wasn’t the first vampire to go up against Luke. “I didn’t see them fucking with my own eyes, but I saw him. I saw how he looked at her. He wants her, bad, and he’s not going to give her up to you. The guy has fallen under her spell—”
Luke tossed him away. “The fool wouldn’t be the first.”
“He’s not going to bring her to you. He’s going to run.”
Luke’s wings spread behind him. “That would be a mistake.”
“I know you made a deal with him, but he’s going to betray you. That’s why you need me.” He was totally playing in the big leagues now. Gregory took a quick breath and rose to his full height. Luke had literally yanked him off that plane. Gregory didn’t even know where the damn thing was now. Crashed? Burning in a million pieces?
He was in the woods, facing off against Luke, and he knew he had to sell his story. Sell it hard. “Have you tried summoning him?” It was an obvious choice for Luke. He should have just summoned Cass and gotten his prey. Simple. But the very fact that Luke was standing in front of him—and there was no Reaper anywhere to be seen—meant that trouble was brewing. “Because my money says you have…but he’s not jumping to follow your command, is he? He’s too distracted by her.”
“Why were you circling around the crash site?”
“Because I wanted the bounty.” Gregory had found that a mix of truth and lies worked best in life. “And I knew he was going to pull some shit like this. I mean, he killed Ivan to cover his tracks.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed. “Ivan?”
“Yeah, yeah, you head back to Mississippi, and you’ll find that poor bear shifter is nothing but a pile of ash.” He’d made sure of that. “Cass killed Ivan, then he stole the plane from the guy’s hangar. Cass—because he and I go way back, he thought I’d be on his side.” Gregory gave a sad shake of his head. “But I know better than to go up against the Lord of the Dark.” Was Luke buying his story? “Cass told me he was going to wreck the plane. He wanted you to think that the girl was dead. But really…he was just planning to take her away from you.”
Luke stared straight into his eyes. And Gregory hoped like hell that the old magic he’d used would hold up.
Magic he’d gotten courtesy of other vampires. Some vampires who were still hoping to break the bond that Luke held over them.
You won’t ever see this revolt coming.
“I bet he scared her,” Gregory murmured, hoping to focus Luke’s attention on the woman. “I mean, she wouldn’t have known what he planned. Not until the plane started to go down. She would have been afraid, probably been screaming…”
Luke’s wings flapped. “Where will he go?”
“Not to you, that’s for damn sure. You can sit at your place in Key West forever, and Cass won’t show.”
“He will,” Luke fired back. “I have what he wants.”
“You sure about that?” Gregory lifted his brows. “Like I told you, I saw the way he looked at her.”
The ground trembled beneath him.
Just like Leo…the woman matters to Luke, too.
She truly would be the perfect weapon. If Gregory could just fucking find her. “He’s in Florida, we know that.” Because Cass’s plane had crashed in Florida. Gregory continued, speaking quickly, “I can get her back—”
“How do you plan to kill the unkillable?”
“We don’t need to kill him.” He had a better plan. “You…the stories say no one can get out of your prison. We just have to catch Cass, and then you can lock him up. Problem solved for both of us. He’s gone, you get your prey back and I…”
“What do you get?”
You’ll see. “I’ll be the hunter you call for business. The deals you make in the future will all be with me.”
Luke never so much as blinked. “How the fuck do you think you will find him now? The Reaper will move fast.”
“I know him.” Simple. True. “For years, he was family to me.”
“Family can screw you over,” Luke murmured.
Luke growled. Right. You’re angry, aren’t you? Because Cass is in that shady motel with the mysterious Amber.
“He’ll wait for night, and then he’ll go out.”
“And I’ll have nearly every paranormal in the state looking for him,” Luke said flatly. “I have eyes everywhere, so I don’t see why I could possibly need you.”
“Because Cass can and will kill any of those paranormals who get close to him. But he won’t kill me.” Gregory puffed out his chest. “Family, you know? I’m the only family he has left. That’s why he hasn’t killed me before and it’s why he won’t kill me now. So you put out word to all those under your power. You get them to look for the Reaper and his pretty new prize. But then…when you get a tip about him, if you’re smart, you’ll call me. You’ll let me be the one to take him down because if he gets his hands on you…maybe you’ll be the one who dies.” It was a risk, saying those words. But everyone had always wondered…
Can the Reaper kill the Lord of the Dark?
Luke’s jaw locked. “I don’t really give a fuck what becomes of the Reaper. If you can get close to him, then you can get Amber away from him, correct?”
“Yes.” Luke hadn’t given him the answer he’d sought but…
“She’s what matters to me. Get her back for me, and you and I—we will deal.”
Interesting. “And the Reaper?”
Luke’s eyes heated. “If he’s touched her, then I’ll throw him in my prison and he will never get out.”
Fair enough. Smiling, Gregory held out his hand. “Deal?”
Luke’s fingers curled around his. “Deal.”
Satisfaction curled in his gut like a heavy snake. “You know…” Gregory murmured as his hand still gripped Luke’s. “I know one witch in particular who lives in the area. Marguerite has been in Florida for years. And she can search from above for us.”
Luke jerked his hand free of Gregory’s.
