So dirty.
He was an outlaw in masquerade. Her gaze fixed on the bulge in his jeans. Was he an outlaw sexually as well?
Kitty lawyer’s antics must have been doing it for him, because as he came toe-to-toe with her, he smelled like healthy male, champagne and arousal. Aryal hated the fact that he smelled incredibly delicious.
“You are the most ungracious, obstinate creature I have ever had the misfortune to meet,” he said. She cocked her head and contemplated his hard, well-cut mouth. “Give it up, sunshine. You lost.”
Genuinely amused, she smiled. She leaned forward until she was literally in his face, and she whispered, “I know something you don’t.”
His teeth were even and white as he snapped out, “You fucking wish you did.”
“No, I really do know something, Caeravorn. What are you, a hundred and sixty, a hundred and seventy years old?”
He sliced at the air with one hand. “What difference does my age make?”
“You young Wyr are all alike,” she said. “Maybe your panther side will dictate a limit to your life span, or maybe your Elven and Dark Fae blood will prolong it, but either way, you don’t really understand what it means to be immortal. The past is nearly as limitless as the future.”
“Make your point,” he growled.
Her voice grew softer, pitched for his ears alone. “I’ll give this to you. You’ve been meticulous, you really have. You’ve covered your tracks well. But nobody in this world is perfect. That means that you have fucked up somehow, somewhere. That’s what I know. I have all the time in the world to find it, all the time, and do you know what that means? That means I’ve already got you. It just hasn’t happened yet.”
She watched the rage build in his face and body language as she spoke. She might not have gotten him yet, but she got him good enough for now, as she shoved him over the brink and his temper splintered utterly. He lunged for her throat.
“You’re not a harpy,” he snarled. “You’re a fucking pit bull with lockjaw.”
Her head fell back, and she laughed as his iron-hard hands circled her neck. Fingers tightening, he cut off her air supply. She hooked an ankle behind his leg and threw her entire body weight at him, knocking him backward.
They crashed to the floor together. People shouted and scattered, while others leaped toward them. All the ruckus seemed to happen somewhere else. Right here it was just her and Caeravorn, in intimate, struggling silence.
As he hit the ground his hands loosened from her neck. When she landed on top of his muscular length, she twisted to bring up one elbow, hard, underneath his chin. The blow connected and snapped his head back. For one pulsating moment his long, powerful body lay supplicant beneath hers, his neck bared as she straddled him.
It was glorious.
Then a freight train slammed into Aryal, knocking her several feet from Caeravorn who flipped, still snarling, onto his hands and knees. With his head lowered and teeth bared, his gaze fixed on her and he prepared to spring.
Wow, he had really lost it. She must have said something. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bayne, Constantine and Alexander pile on top of him, their combined weight knocking him flat again.
Her freight train resolved into Dragos’s new First Sentinel, Graydon. Graydon was the largest of all the current sentinels. In his human form he stood almost six-foot-five, and he carried a good thirty pounds more than the other gryphons.
All of that weight was hard-packed muscle that currently took up residence on her chest. He pinned her arms to the floor by the wrists. Normally his rough-hewn features were set in a mild, good-natured expression, but not at the moment.
Not even bothering to struggle, she looked up at Graydon with her eyebrows raised. “What?”
His dark, slate gray eyes were furious. “People have been through hell this month. We’ve all gone to war, and then we beat the shit out of each other in the Games. Everybody needs a little goddamn R and R, and you can’t leave well enough alone for a few fucking hours at a party?”
Angling her jaw out, she savored her next words for the rare treasures they were, as she said with perfect, pious honesty, “He started it.”
* * *
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Berkley Sensation Titles by Thea Harrison
Novels of the Elder Races
DRAGON BOUND
STORM’S HEART
SERPENT’S KISS
ORACLE’S MOON
LORD’S FALL
Game of Shadows
RISING DARKNESS
Rising Darkness (A GAME OF SHADOWS NOVEL) Page 29
