"Mack--" Tom began in protest. He nodded aggressively at Rick’s back, willing to take the man out at his boss’ command.
"Don’t worry about it Tom. Head back to the hotel. We’ll be right behind you." Mack brushed off the front of his jacket. When Tom had done what was bid of him, Mack turned his kind, understanding smile to Rick. Rick watched him in growing confusion.
"What’s going on here?" Rick persisted coldly. "What were you doing with that--that vampire?"
"I care for Jade, too," Mack said softly, allowing his eyes to show his stress. He knew that Rick would misdirect the cause of that emotion. In a fevered pant, he hastened, "But I won’t be ruled by fear. I won’t let my emotions rule my head. And I’ll do what I must to obtain information about her--even if that means letting a vampire suck on my arm. This is not a white and black business we are in. There are messy shades of crimson haunting us in everything we do. If I must consort with the enemy to save my niece, then so be it. I would face the devil himself to have her back into the safety of my fold."
Rick watched the older man’s controlled expressions. Suspicions and doubt clouded the back of his mind, but mention of Jaden took precedence over his feelings. There would be plenty of time to figure out Mack once Jaden was avenged. His first duty was to her.
"What did you discover?" Rick questioned, his tone sharp from aggravation.
"She’s alive," Mack said woefully.
"Where?" Rick gulped. He didn’t dare to hope. His heart raced, his mind darted frantically trying to formulate a plan with no facts. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Mack turned his eyes away so the young soldier couldn’t read his expression.
"What is it? What has happened?" Rick demanded, his words sharp with worry. He crossed to Mack, forcing the older man around to face him. Desperately, he said, "You must tell me."
"It isn’t good," Mack pronounced like a minister at a funeral. His words dropped to a whisper. "She’s been--ill used."
Rick felt his stomach drop. His heart beat in awful thumps, dreading the man’s next words. He thought of Jaden’s face, the hard lines softened with laughter, a memory he carried from their first night together. He remembered her face in slumber, lying in his bed, made peaceful from the potent drugs he had dosed her with. He loved her and whatever happened to her would be his fault. He had left her helpless. Rage worked inside of him, swallowing up the sickening terror of what he was about to learn.
Mack saw the look, the raw guilt and passion the man carried for his niece. He had suspected it before, but never knew for sure. Now he had his answer shining like a dying beacon in the soldier’s eyes. Rick’s breaking heart was in that look and Mack took full advantage.
"Tyr has made use of her, Rick," Mack said gravely. "She has been tortured and abused most viciously. I can’t even begin to describe for you the liberties that undead bastard has taken with her."
"No," Rick whispered, his hard face growing pale, his steady eyes wavering. His large body quivered in fear. He forced himself to listen. It was his self-punishment that he should hear everything and his redemption would be making it right.
"God in heaven, it must be killing her to be that undead monster’s--" Mack let his words trail off with a tortured breath. Rick looked helplessly at him, urging him to finish the sentence and at the same time praying that he wouldn’t. In a low voice, Mack whispered, "--whore."
"He’s--he’s touched her then?" Rick queried. "You’re sure of it?"
Mack snorted, his only answer.
"I’ll kill him," Rick swore in a growing frenzy.
"I know Jade," Mack said, with a comforting pat. "She is a tough girl. She will get over this in time. But I know something we can do to help her recover."
"What?" Rick expressed in anguish. His words were hoarse as he promised, "I’ll do anything. Just tell me."
"We must capture Tyr," Mack said.
"Capture?" Rick asked in outrage. His eyes rounded in disbelief that Mack could even say such words to him. "Don’t you mean kill?"
"No," Mack sated coolly. "I mean capture. We let Jaden do what she will with him. Let her kill him. Let her know for sure he is dead by seeing his death, by causing it. It is the only way to help her. Otherwise, she might always be fearful and then she will be no good to us or the cause."
"I don’t give a damn about the cause," Rick cried.
"At this moment neither do I," Mack said with more control. Another wave of night-clubbers passed by in reckless abandonment, their laughter sent a chill through Rick. How naive they were of the world. Their only care was finding the directions to the next bar. Mack lowered his voice to a low murmur. "But Jaden does care about the cause. Without the fight, she could never be whole."
Rick slowly nodded in agreement, his mind unable to argue with the point. Jaden’s whole life was fighting vampires. She even sacrificed personal happiness and companionship for it.
"Will you help me?" Mack asked fervently. "Can I count on you to lead the men? Can I count on you to have a clear head about this?"
"Yes," Rick answered. "Just tell me what needs to be done."
Mack smiled, knowing the man was in his pocket. Rick would be like putty to his molding fingers. If all went well, his putty would be brought in from the dark and offered a place at his side. With a careful smile, he walked back to the hotel. He nodded for Rick to follow him. The young man did, lost in torturous thought. As they moved, Mack began laying voice to his plan, "They will arrive in three night’s time...."
Chapter Eleven
Jotunheimen Mountain Range, Norway
Tyr stared at the sealed pouch of blood gripped in his hand. The contents were tepid, unappetizing on the best of nights, but necessary to live. Tonight he couldn’t find the hunger for it. His stomach tightened in anger each time he thought of drinking and his mouth twitched in protest, ferociously urging for a warmer fluid to fill his palate. Only one drink would do--only one person’s blood would satisfy him. Jaden’s.
His body wanted her, craved her, and needed her. He knew she was a liar, a deceitful wench sent by Odin to torment him. He knew that when he stood before the council and told the truth about what he had learned, she most certainly would be sentenced to death. If only she hadn’t lied to him, he could’ve protected her. If she only told him what she knew of Mack and his business, no matter how big or small. If only she trusted him, he could save her. But she didn’t trust him. He couldn’t blame her. With the life she had lived, he wouldn’t trust anyone either if he were in her position. It didn’t change the facts.
Jaden would never come to feel anything but disgust for his kind. She even abhorred herself for desiring him, had fought her lust till the bitter end. She thought he was a disease, a curse, a maggot to be squished under her mortal boot. Had she not said as much on many occasions? Her defiance was one of the things that drew him to her. She was tough and reckless. And, in his bed, she had been most passionate. There was no denying the ardor jumping back and forth between their bodies. Reviled or not, their obsession was as hot as molten metal and her body burned just as brightly as his.
How was it he could spurn and distrust someone so much, yet physically fit into her as if she were shaped to be his? It was a force they couldn’t control and he felt it building between them once more. They might have been able to temper their longing, but they would never restrain it. Already Tyr could feel the temptation cutting heavily into his blood and he knew that she would respond to it as much she resisted. The more they fought and the longer they hated, the stronger their yearning became until it exploded. Once tasted, the bitter-sweetness of it would only tempt again and again … and again.
Groaning, the thought brought Tyr up short. He could admit that he had become attached to the reckless dhampir, but he didn’t wish to discover how deeply those feelings ran. He couldn’t care for someone who lied to him to protect the guilty. He couldn’t feel for a woman who didn’t trust him, and in all probability didn’t like him. But, despite all o
f what he couldn’t do, he found himself doing just that. He wanted her, wanted to claim her and possess her. He wanted to control her and be controlled by her. He wanted this nightmare of their own making to be over.
Tyr threw the package of blood against the storage wall. He watched with satisfaction as it splattered on the gray rock, dripping down the sides of the dark stone to pool onto the floor. His body clung to anger. He spun around, navigating his way through the dark tunnels with ease. Seeing the light of his fireplace beckoning him from beneath a heavy door, he slowed. His body dissolved into mist, shirking around the edges as he passed through the barrier.
Jaden was still on the couch, her face turned towards the flames in deep contemplation. He could feel the torment in her, the rage. He wanted to erase it from her. Like the brief moment he had her in the field of his mind, lying on the soft grass, weighed down by armor. For a moment, right before he kissed her, he felt happiness, tentative and pure and new within her. She had given him a willing smile and a chuckle. His soul ached that it should be so again.
But this deceitful creature before him now, spouting half-truths about honesty, was not that same woman. She was his prisoner, his obligation. And, so help him, he was going to do his duty. Honor forbade anything else. Striding into the room, he looked her up and down. Her face turned to him in horror before she jumped to her feet.
He felt her clearing her thoughts, though he hadn’t been reading into them. Seething with growing outrage, he watched her. Her eyes glanced briefly at the fireplace, but he was too angry to detect the faint smell that came from there. Her chest rose and fell with fragile breath. His fist pulled at his side, clenching and unclenching with the desire to strike out, to make her tell him the truth. He took a step forward and then another. His eyes glared out from under sunken brows.
"Tyr," she hesitated. Jaden’s heart fluttered. He looked livid. Could it be that he knew her lie? Did he come to drag her to the council now? Jaden panicked. Her hands reached absently behind her as she sought composure. Finding the reality of the wall behind her, she lifted her jaw rebelliously.
"I shouldn’t want you," he swore, dark with assuaged sincerity. "I shouldn’t want to touch you."
For all his words, they didn’t sound like a compliment to Jaden. They sounded like a curse. She trembled, not answering. Her eyes took in the raw exposure of his face, the raging lines that threatened the whites of his eyes with red.
"What are you doing to me?" he continued, with a nebulous stare. His old Nordic accent cracked over her like a striking whip. Chills ran up her spine.
"I’m doing nothing to you. I don’t even like you," she gasped, eyes wide and round. "I hate you. We are enemies!"
That caused a chuckle, mysterious and wicked, to escape Tyr’s throat. More lies, princess? Will there ever be truth in your words? Has there ever been truth in your words?
He was in front of her within a blink. Jaden gasped at the potent force of his inspection. His face came into hers, the tip of his nose touching her as he probed her eyes. Jaden saw a dark war waging within him, felt the confusion of his soul. She tried to ignore it, tried to block it. She told herself it wasn’t real. That it was all a trick to confuse her, to keep her off guard. How could a vampire’s soul be tormented when they didn’t have one?
"You don’t hate me," he whispered ardently. His hands flexed and faltered before finally reaching to stroke her arms in rough impassioned massages that ran the entire length of her limbs from shoulder to wrist. "You only tell yourself you do. Feel inside yourself. I’ve sensed it in you the first night in the alley. I can feel you, Jade, as sure as I feel myself. Never, in all my years, have I felt such strength in one mortal person. Never have I felt such turmoil as to match my own."
Jaden panted in wonder at the quiet, passionate declaration. Tears came to her eyes at the gentle fierceness of his words. Weakly, she whispered in nervousness, "You’re wrong. We’re not alike."
Jaden tried to deny him. She tried to deny herself. She didn’t want there to be truth in his words. But as she looked into his eyes, free of the coldness, swirling with passion for her, she knew he was right. She swallowed against the strangling closing of her throat. It was the final torment of her suffering. She loved a vampire--not only a vampire, a Dark Knight, a creature bred an eternity to punish and kill.
Seeing the realization crossing her face, he nodded. "You can’t run from me any longer. You can’t lie to me. You can’t escape. I won’t let you go."
Jaden was trapped against the wall. But even if she could find freedom, she wasn’t sure she would seek it. His hands stopped their reckless course over her skin. His fingers cupped her chin, turning so that her eyes were forced to meet with his. In a low murmur, he declared against her lips, "You are mine. You belong to me. And you’ll never escape me. I’ll never give you your freedom."
Jaden felt herself tremble. His lips dared her to deny his heated claim as he stole her breath with a deep kiss. She hated the beating of her heart, thudding out his name in a frantic rhythm. She could see the hunger he had for her, the longing his body didn’t try to deny. He wanted her, pure animalistic physical lust. But he said nothing of emotion, nothing of love.
Jaden’s mind screamed for order, but her body ran its own rampant, wayward route. She was like a vulnerable ship, crashed against the rocks, riding on the whim of a treacherous black ocean. She could no sooner deny him or change her course.
A weak moan escaped her tight throat. Her resistance faded. She hated herself for the vulnerability, tried her damnedest to deny him. It was no use. Her fingers wound into the silken locks of his blonde hair, pulling him fiercely close. She had her future charted, whether the vampire in her arms realized it or not. Her path was sealed. It had been since that night in the alley. He didn’t spare her life, only delayed her death. She knew that now.
One last time, she thought, one last surge of feeling before the endlessness of eternal sleep.
Jaden poured all of herself into the kiss. Knowing the end was near, she didn’t hold back. Tyr moaned against her, his body alighting with the fire of her raw, unfettered response to him. Grabbing her beneath the buttocks, he lifted her into his embrace. Her back slammed against the stone wall. Her legs wound around him, pulling his hardened erection to her heated core.
Jaden tore her lips away for breath, her hands eagerly sought to strip him of his shirt. The dark material ripped beneath her impatient fingers. Tyr growled and moaned, devoured and conquered. His lips found her neck, the sweet base of her pulse. Seizing her to him, he sped with supernatural speed to the bed, laying her softly onto the mattress as his mouth kissed viciously at her body.
Within moments, his deft fingers freed them of their clothing. Jaden shivered in the coolness of his touch. Not taking his lips from her neck, Tyr levitated her from the bed, using his will to direct the heavy silk coverlet down beneath them so she could lie on the satin sheets instead. He lowered her down. Jaden’s thighs rubbed against his muscled hips, intertwining with his legs in precarious passions. Tyr let the coverlet slide up his back, offering her warmth with the covering.
The sensual slide of silk on her skin contrasted with the hair roughened length of his calves. Her mouth tasted his mouth, his neck, his chest. Growing wildly impatient, she rolled him onto his back. She sought to devour him with her body. Her hands couldn’t feel enough. If she had one thought that lasted with her into death, she wanted it to be the memory off his flesh, the way he made her soar at this very moment.
Tyr growled in mild surprise at her complete surrender. He let her explore him, her hands taking in the fields of his body, her mouth trailing behind them. Her tongue flicked over the rigid erection of his nipples as her hand found the matching hardness between his legs. She fondled him, stroking the length, driving him mad with urgent need.
Tyr returned her enthusiasm tenfold. His large hands cupped her breasts, massaging the tips into aching peaks that taunted his mouth from the distance. He found the so
ftness of her hips, the hardness of her muscled stomach and thighs. His fingers glided over her skin, liking the practice she had of shaving the area smooth.
Tyr urged her to sit. His hands played with the rise of her breasts, the bottom curve of her swollen globes. Jaden stroked against the probing heat of his leg as it pushed up into her. Tyr could feel her hot wetness on him, burning his skin. Jaden looked into the passionate vault of his swirling eyes, the parted seam of his lips.
Leaning over him, she whispered hotly, "Let me taste you."
Tyr again hid his astonishment. Obeying her request, he drew his nail over his neck in a slow line. Jaden watched, pausing slightly to see the blood beading on his flesh. It beckoned her lips like wine. She looked at Tyr’s eyes, ice blue orbs that watched her closely. With the attention of a worshipper, she lowered her lashes and moved her tongue over the wound. Tyr gasped, throwing his head back in ecstasy as they connected.
Having licked her fill, she lifted her face to stare down at him. His blood stained her white chin, smeared over her breasts, and puckered her kiss-swollen lips to crimson perfection. His wound healed itself shut. Her eyes glowed with an inner light of their own as she lifted her wrist to his mouth. Tyr watched her, knowing she was offering herself to him, knowing that she was allowing him to taste her passion. The willingness in her was like an acceptance of him and it forced a part of his spirit to surrender to her.
Tyr grabbed her wrist, keeping his eyes steadily on her face. She watched him in eager anticipation. Adjusting her hips over his legs, she slowly embedded his member within her. Tyr paused in his bite, his teeth grazing the skin as he rose up into her. The fit of her hot center, as it took him in, was perfection.
Jaden moveed on top of him with heated abandon. Her head fell back, her hair dipping behind her slender back. Tyr dropped her wrist, leaving it unharmed. He watched her face, his body enjoying her rough ride. But something inside him pulled.
The Jaded Hunter Page 20
