by Tes Hilaire
Roland glanced over at his friend, his blood simmering at the thought of another male bonding with the woman that should have been his. It didn’t help that Calhoun’s eyes had brightened, his finger tapping like a runaway metronome against his lip. Before the urge to leap across the room and claw at the throat of his friend overtook Roland’s control, Calhoun shook his head.
“No. Right now she’s scared. She doesn’t trust me, and I don’t doubt that she hates me a little bit. She wouldn’t agree to a marking, and I would never do so without her consent.”
“They will.” I would, he added to himself.
Calhoun got up to pace the room, his strides jerky and filled with tension. Roland’s own tension burned like a ball of iron in his gut. She couldn’t go to Haven. The sense of disaster accompanying the thought was enough to convince him. The question was why did he feel this way? Was this another case of knowing? Or was this another facet of the unwanted pull she had over him?
Didn’t matter. Her going to Haven was unacceptable. Some other option would have to be worked out.
“She can stay here,” Roland found himself saying, even as his body involuntarily stiffened in the plush leather chair. What the hell was he thinking? He could barely keep his hands, let alone his fangs, off her. And here he was offering to look after her?
Calhoun looked at him carefully, his puzzlement obvious. No wonder, considering Roland had been wanting her gone since the moment she’d arrived. “You think that’s wise?”
Roland shrugged. “I sleep during the day. I doubt we’ll interact much.”
Calhoun stood and nodded. “I have to attend my father’s council and see if I can’t gather some information of my own, but I will be back by this evening.”
Roland followed Calhoun to the door. “Sounds good. We shall breathlessly await your return.”
Calhoun shot him a decidedly unamused glare.
Roland smiled, giving the command to open the door. Calhoun paused on its threshold, giving Roland one last measuring look. “You are sure about this?”
“I’m sure.”
Calhoun left, and the door gave a deceptively soft snick as it closed and locked behind him. The sound should have been something more ominous, a clang or a creak at least.
Roland turned to stare blankly at the door to his sleeping chambers, but all he could see was the remembered image of what all those mahogany curls looked like spread out over his pillow.
Yes, he was sure. He was sure as hell that none of the bastards at Haven were going to get a chance to claim her. Now he just had to dig in for the duration…and hope that he wasn’t making the biggest mistake of his—or her—life.
***
“You have got to be kidding me.” Karissa glowered down at the bright yellow walkie-talkie that held down an equally innocuous-looking note: call me if you wish anything.
Ha, as if. What she wished was to find a time machine, go back a week, and smack herself in the head for taking the path that had led her to this moment. Barring that, she’d settle for getting out of here. Somehow she didn’t think her kidnappers were going to go for that.
She looked around the room: same four walls, same bed—really starting to hate that bed—same dresser, same nightstand with its bedside lamp that spilled light onto the tease of civility and the lie. The walkie-talkie and the note—as if she weren’t a prisoner. As if the door weren’t barred and locked. Okay. Maybe not barred, but certainly locked. Bastard.
The walkie-talkie crackled to life. “You ready to talk?”
Karissa hissed in a breath through her teeth. Heck no, she didn’t want to talk to that thing. She didn’t want anything to do with it. He was a vampire. A killer.
She pointedly turned her back on the walkie-talkie, not that he’d know, but it made her feel better. Like ignoring the tingle that raced through her body at the rolling rumble of his voice made her feel better.
What was with her? She should be scared shitless. No, she was scared shitless. She distinctly remembered being scared shitless when he’d been lying on top of her grinding his erection into her butt.
For a second. A very brief second before her body had betrayed her, fear melting into a delicious tingle across her skin. God! What was wrong with her? Twenty-four years and never had she had any serious lust pangs. Yet one glance from this vampire and she was practically hyperventilating.
Huh…Maybe he really did enthrall me.
Well, she was aware now, could throw the enthrallment off as easily as she cast off clothes. She’d do her damndest to resist any further attempts too. It was only a matter of willpower, after all.
The thing crackled again. “Fine. You can listen then. But you know…you should really cut me a break. It’s not every day I agree to having a guest.”
Guest? She snorted. “Prisoner more like,” she muttered.
The walkie-talkie hummed to life again. “At least cut Logan a break. He’s only trying to help.”
Yup. Logan was helping, all right. The aiding-and-abetting kind of “helping” that the police would charge a criminal with.
The little yellow Motorola was quiet for a while. She thought perhaps her “host” had decided to give up, but then it crackled again. “Don’t suppose you want to tell me your name.”
Nope. She remained silent.
“So…I guess I’ll call you Freckles.”
Freckles? Her hand flew up to the bridge of her nose. She hated being teased about her freckles. Another point against him as far as she was concerned.
“What were you doing on Logan’s doorstep?”
Running—duh—from the likes of you. And didn’t that prove what an idiot she was. Trusting Logan had to be up there with all-time stupidest moves of the century. But she’d needed help, and she’d clung to her papa’s belief that Logan would help her, with a desperation born of need. Too bad Papa hadn’t known about the “friends” Logan Calhoun kept.
“Okay. Don’t want to talk to me? Fine. Logan will be back tonight. You can tell him.”
As if she’d talk to that traitor either. She wondered how much money he’d gotten for her. Or, he and Choppers were friends. Maybe they shared. She shuddered.
“Just so you know, here is how things are going to work.”
If he thought she was going to do anything but possibly tear off his balls and shove them—
“There is only one bathroom and one bed here. And I intend to use both.”
Sticky sour fear pooled in her mouth. Her gaze flew to the locked door. A door he could unlock at any time based on his whim. In an apartment she couldn’t get out of. With a light system that he could control with a mere word.
As if on cue, the door opened. Roland stood on the other side of the threshold, his scowling face illuminated by the dim lamp beside the bed, the dark shadows from the pitch-black hall behind him caressing his figure like the creature of the night he was.
Oh, God.
“…so, you can either come out and spend your day out here while I sleep in there, or…” his scowling lips curved up, exposing sharp canines, “…you can share the bed with me.”
Chapter 4
Roland had never seen a human move so fast. She was off the bed and flat against the far wall of the room in a split second, her gaze falling longingly at the dark hall beyond his shoulder.
Guess it was no contest. The dark trumped sharing space with him. The logical part of him understood this—woman plus vampire, hello—but another part, that which had awoken unexpectedly as of last night, wanted to stomp and scream and tear up a few things…and then pin her down and force her to accept him because, God damn it, she was his mate.
He shook his head violently to the side, as if he could dislodge the urge to claim her by doing so. Don’t go there, Roland. Doesn’t matter if she could have been your bond mate. She can’t be.
Bond mate. He rolled his shoulders, the tension in them running down his back. He’d been purposefully avoiding thinking about her in those terms. Yet no
w that he had, he knew it was true, and with that came a confusing mix of anger and confusion.
Why her? Why now and not before…before he’d become a monster?
The unfairness of it caused a growl to rise in his throat. He just barely managed to cut it off. A quick glance showed her still plastered like wallpaper against the wall, her eyes watching him warily. Monster indeed.
Moving carefully so as to not totally freak her out, he crossed the room to his bed. He peeled off his T-shirt—she gasped—and stepped out of his jeans—a shocked cry. Normally he would have dropped his boxers too, but the sight of her, her body held perfectly rigid, like some damn bunny trying to avoid notice, stayed his hands.
He flopped down onto the bed instead, lacing his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. He supposed he could have pulled up the covers, hide the erection tenting out his boxers, but he’d be damned if he would hide his desire for her. She was just going to have to get used to it—and him.
Damn it, Roland. When are you going to get this through your thick head? She cannot be your woman!
And because she couldn’t, he needed to drive her away before his vampire instincts took over and he did something incredibly stupid—like open his eyes and try to enthrall her.
“Coming to bed, mon chaton?” he asked, purposefully lowering his voice into a husky drawl.
His answer was a rapid beat of her feet as she ran from the room and down the dark hall.
***
Hours later Karissa’s heart was pounding with fear, her body tingling. She shook her head, trying to dispel the image of the vampire’s evident desire. She told herself if he’d been planning on following her, dragging her back to the bed, and having his way with her, he’d have done it by now. Therefore, she was safe.
But for how long? Why hadn’t he bitten her yet? Why hadn’t he taken advantage of the enthrallment and had his wicked way with her? It was his nature to do so, yet he hadn’t. She immediately rejected the idea that it could be because he was an honorable vampire. She didn’t need to remember her papa’s teachings to know there wasn’t such a thing, not when just yesterday the proof had been shown to her in the most brutal of ways.
Nope, there must have been some reason her host hadn’t sucked her dry yet. And the weird gut-level pull he seemed to have on her must be something he was doing to keep her quiet, or more likely keep her off-kilter. She could not actually be attracted to that thing. Just like he couldn’t be good.
She stretched her legs out in front of her. They were tingly and numb from being curled to her body, just as her arms were tired and sore.
Not to mention my backside. She shifted from hip to hip. The floor was hard and her flight in the darkness hadn’t been graceful either. She’d bumped into more than one object before she’d found a corner to curl up in. Bastard hadn’t left any lights on for her. Probably found it amusing to think of her blindly stumbling around out here.
There had to be a way to get the lights on. If nothing else there was the fireplace in the study. She should be able to get that going—unless he’d cut the gas to it.
She crawled through the great room toward the study, where she encountered the corner of the sectional with her head, bumped an end table with her shoulder, then finally rubbed up against the archway. From here she knew her way a bit better, the imprint of the love seat, coffee table, and leather chair burned in her mind. She circled around them, crawling around the far side of the area rug, until her searching hands encountered the change from drywall to metal that suggested she’d found the fireplace.
The fact that there was no dim light from the pilot told her he’d at least turned it off. She found the knob and through pure guesswork twisted it until it started clicking.
Ignite, ignite, ignite.
Nothing.
Had to be a valve for the gas here somewhere. But try as she might, she couldn’t find it. Five frustrating minutes later she still hadn’t gotten any flame.
“Argh!” She stood, drew her leg back, and let loose a vicious kick. The metal edging on the bottom banged and gave a fraction where her heel struck—hope I dented it—she only wished it had been his face.
With nothing to do but wait, she made her way to the leather chair and plopped down. The stuffing from the damage she’d done padded the back of her head, making her smile slightly. She may not be able to get out of here, but she could certainly make her displeasure known.
***
“Why are you sitting in the dark? Not to hide from me I hope.” Logan’s smooth voice slipped around Karissa, waking her from a half doze. She blinked, her eyes stinging against the glowing ball of light that bounced over the palm of his hand.
Cool trick. She wished she could do that. Beyond Logan’s glowing orb, the room, like the rest of the apartment, was indeed pitch-black, a fact that continued to irk her to no end and had lent to the violence of her fury during the last few hours. She’d searched every stinking inch of the place—other than the bedroom—looking for some sort of controls. Nothing. In fact, other than some basic furniture, the apartment didn’t have much of anything in it. Decidedly annoying, since it had made expressing her displeasure difficult, but she’d done her best.
She stretched her legs out in front of her—good, at least they hadn’t fallen asleep—and shifted into a more ready position perched on the edge of the leather chair.
“No. I’m sitting in the damn dark because I can’t figure out how to turn on any lights.”
And just like that the room was bathed in light.
“What did you do?” She glared at Logan.
Logan was too busy taking in the disaster to answer. The damage was minimal in here, really. If he thought a few strewn cushions and a torn up book was bad, wait until he saw the bathroom.
“How did you get the lights on?” she demanded again.
The corners of both his eyes and mouth were crinkled, as if he were fighting a smile. He quickly banked the expression, lifting and dropping his shoulder. “Nothing,” he said, twisting his hand and extinguishing the light orb. “Roland must have tweaked the command codes to allow you to turn them on and off.”
And didn’t that sting the pride. She hadn’t even bothered to try and turn them on via voice commands.
He took a step into the room. Karissa scrambled off the chair, putting it between her and him. His flint gray eyes narrowed as if trying to decide what his next move should be. She was struck again that his eyes didn’t quite match the face. The face itself had a handsome, well-defined bone structure with devil-may-care dimples that could daze even the most feministic woman’s mind, but the eyes spoke of a hardness derived from a wealth of life experience. If she’d had to judge him on his eyes alone, she’d have thought him honorable. In this case, actions—bringing her to a vampire’s den—spoke louder than words.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No?” Oh yeah, witty come back, that.
“No.” He took another tentative step.
She tensed and shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, ready to spring.
He stopped again, sighing. “I want to help you. And by God, you do seem to need help.” There was that curve of the lip again as he glanced at the massacred cushion on the floor. “Roland’s going to be pissed.”
“Then help me,” she ground through gritted teeth, “by letting me out of here.”
“Every underworld creature known to man is hunting you out there.” He cast his hand out, gesturing to the blank wall—as if the outside world was right behind it. Probably was—now if I could just get to it. “Getting out of here wouldn’t be very smart,” he continued. “And since you came to me for help, I have to assume there are some brains to go with the gorgeous face.”
Yeah, as if that were going to work. With big brown eyes, mud-splattered freckles, and what could be best described as a cherub face, she was more the she’s-so-cute, pinch-her-cheeks kind of pretty. Not gorgeous. “Don’t try to flatter me.”
&nb
sp; “I’m not. I’m simply telling you the truth. Just as I’m telling you the truth about the dangers waiting for you outside. Just as I’m telling you the truth when I say you have nothing to fear from me. I want to help you.”
Karissa tipped her head to the side, her eyes narrowed as she tried to read his sincerity. She’d always considered herself a decent judge of character, not the best, but decent. Papa had been the best—it helped to be empathic. Karissa hadn’t inherited the full extent of his talent, but occasionally she could get a read on a person’s true intentions. Especially if she were touching them and the emotions behind their intent were strong.
She couldn’t get a read on Logan right now. No contact. And he was holding himself carefully under control, his features blank. Still, she was alive and unharmed, so that had to stand for something.
And, even if it doesn’t, pretending to believe him is certainly a better way to find out what his plans for me are.
He must have seen some of her tension ease because he smiled, those dimples flashing. “Do you think we could sit down and talk about this like reasonable people?”
Her chin came up, not liking the implication that she hadn’t been reasonable thus far. Maybe true—she glanced at the destroyed cover of Redemption—but still. “Okay. Where shall we sit? Around the cozy little island in a kitchen that has no real food, or in here, chatting around the nonexistent fire? Because, you know, the owner is a vamp and doesn’t eat, and for some reason,” her gaze drifted to the curled bits of burnt paper on the floor by the fireplace, “he doesn’t trust me not to burn his apartment down around him.”
“Yeah, Roland has a thing about fire.”
