“I left and lived in the world alone. I grew up without my family, watching them from a distance. When I had matured and was stronger, I went back to see my family. I needed to know if I could return.” The darkness in his tone said that they had denied him and her heart ached again, a deep throbbing that made her want to wrap her arms around him and hold him, and whisper that his family should have taken him back. He had only wanted to be with those he loved, even though they had hurt him. “I argued with my father. He blamed me for my mother’s death, accused me of ripping his heart out and destroying him. I countered him, accusing him of being the one who had torn out my heart and destroyed me, humiliated and shattered me. He struck me repeatedly, blaming me all the while, telling me I had killed my mother. I will never forget that night.”
Payne rubbed his right arm and Elissa stared down at it, at the scars that littered his skin. What had his father done to him? It was bad enough that Payne had to live with the scars on his heart and his soul, haunted by his memories, but his father had done something to place scars on his body too, so he could never forget.
“I lost my head. I fought back and shoved him. He fell near the fire, picked up one of the irons and flew at me. I tried to defend myself. He broke my arm with the iron and didn’t stop. He kept hitting me, shattering the bone, breaking through my skin. After the seventh strike, the pain overwhelmed me. I had no control over myself. I attacked and got the poker from my father. The next thing I recall is my father staring at me, blood pouring from his lips, scarcely breathing. I looked down and I saw what I had done.” Payne closed his eyes and frowned, his whole body tensing. Elissa stroked his arm, running her fingers up and down, needing to do something for him. “I had skewered my father with the poker. I had driven it under his breastbone and straight through his heart... I had gone to the house to ask my father to take me back and love me again, and I had ended up killing him. I was no better than my father had accused me of being.”
He turned his head and opened his eyes, looking straight into hers.
“I am a monster.”
She shook her head, unwilling to believe that because it wasn’t true. His father had made him feel as though he was wrong in some way, an abomination and a monster. He had driven his son to murder, wounding him so badly that his vampire instincts had seized control and forced him to defend himself, driven by a dark need to survive. It wasn’t his fault at all. All of the blame rested at his father’s feet.
“You asked why I called myself Payne. I called myself Payne so I would always remember what I had been through, a constant reminder of how easy it was to make someone suffer, and that love could kill as easily as a blade.”
Elissa felt so sorry for him. He stared at her, grey eyes edged with red but dull and full of unshed tears. Tension flowed from him in waves and lines bracketed his dusky lips. She knew that he was waiting for her to judge him and that there was some part of him that wanted her to hate him, needed it, because he felt he deserved it. He wanted her to tell him that she believed he was an abomination now, a disgusting creature that didn’t deserve her affection.
A monster.
Elissa laid her palm on his cheek. “You’re not a monster. You only wanted your father to love you. You only wanted your family again. You did nothing wrong. They were the ones in the wrong. They all turned on you because you were different and that wasn’t your fault. They should have accepted you for what you were, not rejected you because of it. They should have loved you, Payne.”
He looked away from her, causing her hand to slip from his face. “No one can love a monster.”
Elissa wasn’t sure what else she could say to make him believe her. His parents had turned on him for something that was beyond his control and not his fault. His mate had tried to force him to change and had then betrayed him by using his trust against him, trying to enslave him to her will by using his real name. Now, Elissa had made him embrace his incubus side and had brought him to the place where his grandfather lived, and gods only knew what he was going to do when he saw the man. She had the terrible feeling that he would kill him for what he had done to his family.
“Say something.” His voice was hoarse and his grey eyes both challenged and begged her at the same time.
Elissa still wasn’t sure what to say, so she craned her neck and kissed him. He was quick to respond, his lips dancing with hers, a desperate and hungry edge to his movements. He needed this more than he needed words. She would show him that he was wrong.
Payne slid his arm around her and pulled her on top of him. He held her there, his hands grasping her backside, as he kissed her. She allowed him to master her, his aggressive kisses sending a hot rush through her and making her head spin until she felt dizzy, drunk on his passion and his desire for her.
She didn’t think he was a monster.
His pained confession had only awoken dangerous feelings in her, ones that ran deeper than compassion. He had reached out and grabbed her heart, and now she wasn’t sure what to do, but there was one thing she knew.
She was falling for him, and it was already too late to save herself.
CHAPTER 12
Payne wasn’t sure how to act around Elissa. He strolled along the bare pale blue corridor, his boots heavy on the wooden floor, heading away from their room with her trailing along beside him. She hadn’t said much since he had bared all and let her see beyond the barrier, but the way she looked at him each time he chanced a glance at her reassured him that she honestly believed he wasn’t a monster. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and she smiled at him, silvery eyes warm with what might have been affection. He wanted to believe that it was. He needed to hold on to hope that Elissa might become the one great thing in his life, the reward he wanted her to be, not another person that would end up cutting him to the bone and leaving him alone in this world.
Her fingers stroked his left palm and he didn’t stop her. He let her slide her hand into his and then shifted his, linking their fingers to heighten the connection between them. He liked doing this with her. He had held hands with women before, but not this way, with fingers locked together. He had always tried to keep a distance, even from the woman he had thought was his true mate. He could see that now that he was with Elissa. With her, he wanted to be as close as he could get, joined in ways that felt permanent and secure. He had slept with her locked tightly in his embrace, held flush against him, constantly aware of her body pressing into his, all softness and warmth, her feminine scent filling his lungs and her steady heartbeat sounding in his ears, a rhythm that had soothed him and kept the nightmares at bay.
He had never been into the poetic or romantic shit, but he kept wondering whether the needs he felt around her, the constant pressing urge to touch her in some way and be linked to her, was because she was his true mate.
His little witch.
Both sides of him purred in approval.
Payne tugged his hand behind his back, forcing her to follow her arm and press against his side. He turned into her, wrapped his free arm around her waist, and dragged her closer. He lowered his mouth and claimed her lips, stealing her moist sweet breath with his kiss. She moaned and rather than pushing him away and chastising him for slowing them down, pulled him closer and ran her hand around the nape of his neck.
The feel of her fingers ploughing through his hair sent a shiver dancing over his nerve endings and lit up his hunger, igniting his need for her. He walked with her, his mouth dominating hers, tongues tangling and teasing, and pressed her into the wall. She moaned, the sound sweet in his ears, and clawed his scalp, ripping a groan from his throat.
“Witch,” he growled into her mouth and kissed her harder, claiming more of her, unable to control himself now that she had turned wicked. A hot bolt of lust struck him right to his soul and he shoved her harder against the wall. Elissa wriggled against him. Payne grabbed her bottom and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he rolled his eyes, groaning again as they locked around his ba
ckside.
He rocked into her, already hard and aching in his jeans. She moaned breathily against his lips, the soft puff of air driving him out of control.
Payne snarled and kissed her again.
She tensed.
They weren’t alone.
Payne lifted his head and slowly turned it to face the intruder. An incubus stood in the open doorway of one of the rooms down the hall to his right, naked as the day he had been born, his hand on his cock, slowly stroking it. The sure look in his blue and gold eyes, the way he smiled right at Elissa, and the fact that she reacted, pushed Payne over the edge.
He dropped Elissa, teleported to the man, grabbed him by the throat and slammed him hard into the doorframe, knocking the breath from him.
Payne stepped into him and roared in his face, baring his fangs and tightening his grip on the man’s throat at the same time, digging his claws in to draw blood. The incubus choked and grimaced, and grappled with Payne’s arm, trying to prise it away from him. Payne snarled again, getting in the man’s face, ensuring the dark haired male knew he was treading on thin ice and that he wouldn’t get a warning next time he turned on the charm with Elissa.
“Payne,” Elissa whispered and he refused to heed her command. He couldn’t let this male think that a female ruled him and could easily bring him to heel.
Payne tightened his grip, throttling the male who had challenged him. He growled, flashing fangs again, his eyes red and sharp, his vampire side fully in control. “Mine. Understand?”
The male frantically nodded.
Payne released him and then landed a hard right hook on his jaw for good measure, sending him crashing onto the wooden floor. It took all of his willpower to force himself to step away and not level a hard kick at his stomach while he was down.
He turned to face Elissa.
She stood with her back pressed against the wall. There was a nervous edge to her beautiful face and her heartbeat, but the scent of desire continued to roll off her and her enlarged pupils said that his display of aggression, the things he had said, and his possessive behaviour had aroused her.
He growled back at the man and then stalked towards her. He was barely within a metre of her when she threw herself into his arms, hers instantly looping around his neck and dragging him down to her. She kissed him hard, dominating him this time, and he wanted to take her back to their room and forget their treasure hunt.
He dragged her against him, bending her to his will, taking control of the kiss and telling her without words that he had meant what he had said. She was his now, and he would challenge any male who tried to change that.
Sounds came from below them and his focus shifted there, his vampire hearing picking up fragments of a conversation between two males. One mentioned a visitor, his voice familiar. The man who had escorted them to the room. His grandfather’s assistant. Had his grandfather returned?
Payne drew away from Elissa and focused his senses on the world outside. It smelled faintly of sunshine, but in a lingering way that signalled it was close to sunset. Daylight had come and gone. They had failed to take advantage of the time they’d had to search the mansion for his grandfather’s rooms, too lost in each other to notice the hours slipping past.
The deep unfamiliar male voice sounded mildly surprised as he responded and then mentioned something about resting before they met. Payne pulled in a slow breath, using it to steady himself and the nerves that were beginning to grow out of control inside him. His grandfather. His heart thumped against his chest, hard and fast, the tempo increasing as he thought about how a meeting between them might play out. He would do his best to control his urge to make his grandfather pay for everything his mother had suffered, and all he had been through too, not because he didn’t want to kill the man, but because he had to keep Elissa safe. If he attacked the male who ran this den, he would cause the other incubi to retaliate. He would place Elissa in danger.
“What is it?” Elissa whispered, her eyes enormous and fixed on him.
“He’s here.”
She tensed in his arms and stared along the hall, the wavy fall of her chestnut hair masking her face and her heartbeat sounding rapidly in his head. Her fear blasted off her in strong waves, crashing over him and drawing his vampire side to the fore again. He was hungry. Payne’s gaze dropped to the creamy curves of her breasts in her black halter-top. His heart accelerated.
She caught him staring and her frown was chastisement enough. He apologised with a wicked smile, and a touch of pink coloured her cheeks. He still loved it whenever he made her blush like an innocent. She couldn’t know what it did to him, how it tugged at not only his protective instincts but his constant hunger for her, otherwise she wouldn’t blush so easily. She would try to control it from fear of him biting her again.
Lord above, he wanted to bite her again.
His fangs lengthened and his cock hardened painfully in his jeans. Saliva pooled in his mouth and his mind dived back to the one time he had taken her blood, filling his senses with the taste of her essence. Hunger gnawed at his gut.
“We’re clearly not going to get anywhere looking for his room anyway.” She raised an eyebrow at him and pointedly dropped her gaze to his crotch and the bulge there. “You can’t take a step in his place without looking like you’re concealing a dangerous weapon in your jeans.”
If what she had said was true, and his seed was enough to have her coven out to execute her, then he wasn’t looking as though he was concealing a dangerous weapon. He was concealing one. The last thing he wanted to do was get her in trouble with her coven, or put her in the firing line, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could deny his need for her.
He shoved his fingers through the dirty blond spikes of his hair and gripped them hard, trying to figure out what to do. He needed to meet his grandfather and get his scent. Elissa could remain in the room, safe from harm, and sleep while he dealt with their dual problem. If he was lucky, the bastard would want to meet him in his quarters rather than a reception room and Payne wouldn’t have to sniff around the house to find their location.
He grabbed Elissa’s hand and headed back to their room. She entered first and he paused to watch her as she crossed the room to the fire and used her magic to start it. The flames lit her face, warming her pale skin and turning her eyes golden. She was beautiful, arresting. He had thought it the first time he had laid eyes on her and every time since. Whenever he took a moment to just look at her, it struck him anew, filling him with a sensation of need and awareness like he had never felt before. He could watch her for hours, days, years, and he would never grow tired of just looking at her. Her expression changed so rapidly, never concealing her emotions, always allowing them to show.
Did she do this with everyone or was she allowing him to see more of her than she showed to others? He could imagine that she had been like this with her sister, open and unguarded, never hiding anything.
Elissa paused halfway through placing another log onto the fire and turned her head towards him, her eyes slowly lifting to meet his. Golden light played across her skin, flickering and dancing in her soft brown hair. She looked like an angel, kneeling on the rug before him, wearing a halo of pure gold.
“Elissa,” he breathed and she rose to her feet, turning fully towards him. He wasn’t sure what he had wanted to say to her. It slipped from his grasp and he ended up staring at her in silence, drinking in the way she looked at him, not as though he was a monster, but as though he was a man.
A man who she wanted.
A man who she might grow to love.
“You should get some rest.” His voice sounded distant even to his ears. It wasn’t what he had wanted to say to her. He had meant to ask her to come to him and let him kiss her again, let him touch her and ruin her, because he needed her more than air or a heartbeat, or anything in this world.
She took a step towards the bed and then paused again. “Will you come too?”
He shook his head.
She would be too tempting and he didn’t want to ruin her, not really. She would never forgive him if he did.
He would never forgive himself.
She shifted course and approached him rather than the bed. He held his hands up and backed off a step. The house was coming alive again, the energy that constantly swirled around him increasing in strength and setting his incubus side on edge. Coupled with his intense craving to taste her blood again, he was only a danger to her right now.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered, a frown marring her beauty, turning her eyes dark.
“If you come near me... I won’t be able to stop myself. You have to understand... I’m on the edge, Elissa. Both sides of me are hungry for you... I don’t want to place you in danger.”
She hesitated and he couldn’t blame her. The gold and blue were probably swirling in his eyes by now, red and pink flushing his markings and announcing his aroused state to her as well as his deep hunger.
Elissa held his gaze and took another step towards him.
“What are you doing?” He backed off another step and she smiled, a sensual one that stole his breath and beat at his defences and control.
She didn’t stop. She kept advancing and he kept retreating, but he was shit out of luck. His back hit the closed door. He considered teleporting but he wasn’t fast enough. Before he could think of a location to leap to, she had closed the distance between them and had pressed her hot palms against his chest, searing him through his dark grey shirt and branding his very bones with her name.
His hunger spiked, the twin urges swirling together and combining, turning him dangerous. He had only ever experienced such a need once in his lifetime, and he hadn’t been able to control himself then. He had come close to killing the woman he had once loved.
He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he hurt Elissa like that.
He cared too much about her.
He caught both of her cheeks in his palms and forced her to look up at him. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance Page 37
