“Lucan…” Sweet tension clamped down on her muscles, holding her body prisoner as an explosive release rocked her.
“Easy.” Lucan’s arms kept her trapped against the wall when her legs would have given way.
Heart racing, she spared only a moment to catch her breath and then moved to help the rough hands that tugged at her pants, pushing them farther down her legs.
“I need to be inside you.”
Gods, she needed that too, needed him so much—
Something banged into the wall behind them.
“There you are.” Cian’s voice exploded into the night, and Lucan froze. “I hope you know where Briana disappeared to or Tristan will have your balls for brunch…”
Shit. Briana met her brother’s gaze over Lucan’s shoulder.
“Oh good. You found them.” Still half drunk, Emma stumbled outside after him. Unlike Cian, the sorceress wasn’t surprised to see them together, but when she glanced at Cian, realizing what they’d interrupted, she sobered. “The enchantress responsible for tonight’s orgy has decided to be a good girl.”
Cian’s jaw made a popping sound. “The spell was broken a few minutes ago.” Briana could almost hear the buzzer going off in Cian’s head like one of the game shows he loved as he realized who her mate was. “Well, fuck.”
Chapter Four
“Emma!” Briana prompted, tugging her pants up. If anyone could shut her brother up before he made everything worse, it was his mate.
And judging by the distant look on Lucan’s face and the way he held his body away from her, worse wasn’t that far off. He hadn’t released her, but his expression had already shut her out.
“Cian.” Emma tugged on his arm.
“Tristan… Oh, shit, Tristan.” Cian whistled. “Now I know why you didn’t say a damn thing.”
Of course her brother would choose this moment to verbalize his little epiphany.
“Go!” Briana snapped.
Moments ago she would have wished for someone to tell Lucan what she hadn’t had the courage to do for months now. One look at the granite hold he had on his expression, and she knew hearing it wouldn’t make a difference.
He’d already made up his mind to pull away.
The door clicked shut behind Emma and Cian, and somehow it sounded so much louder than being slammed open.
Without a word Lucan fixed her pants, then turned to grab his shirt. “We should go inside.”
Somehow she knew the fact that he wasn’t bolting immediately wasn’t a good sign.
“Your brothers will be worried about you,” he added.
After what just happened, he was thinking about her brothers? Second by second the euphoria that had left her breathless moments ago drifted away, and the harder she tried to hold on to it, the faster it slipped through her fingers.
She finally found her voice in the midst of the choking disappointment rising inside her. “And you wouldn’t want them to think you bailed on me.” No, he’d wait until he turned her over and then he’d retreat into the shadows. Again.
“I promised—”
“So that’s it? You want to just go back inside and act like none of this happened?”
He took a moment to meet her gaze. “The less your brothers know the better.”
“And then what? You disappear like you did in Vegas?” She couldn’t do that again, couldn’t watch him vanish knowing it could be weeks or months before she saw him again.
But there was really no stopping it, was there? The wraith’s black eyes were more welcoming than the hard expression Lucan wore now.
No. She wouldn’t watch him abandon her again, leaving her to face the dozens of questions her brothers would fire at her.
She strode past him, bypassing the door altogether.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
Lucan caught up with her, his shirt back in place but ripped at the shoulder. Probably from her claws. “We need to go inside.”
“Maybe you do, but I don’t.” The one thing she needed wanted to pass her off like he’d fulfilled his obligation and be on his way. She couldn’t face her brothers right now, couldn’t stand the thought of them feeling sorry for her because she’d chosen the one man she couldn’t have.
She couldn’t pin down the moment both woman and cat recognized Lucan as her mate. For some gargoyles it was an instant awareness while it took others time to realize how deep the connection ran, not unlike the way humans fell in love. And some denied the truth, refusing to see the bond that attraction, biology or fate—maybe all three—conspired to set in place.
But once a gargoyle chose their mate—intentionally or instinctually—the bond was unbreakable.
“Briana—”
“Don’t.” She had known where this was headed the second Cian had burst into the alley.
“Don’t what?”
She pivoted coming within an inch of colliding with him. Her throat ached from holding onto the emotions tearing her up. “Don’t act like it was all because of a spell.”
“How else do you explain it?”
The cool, indulgent tone left her shaking her head. “You know it was more than that.” She’d seen the way he’d looked at her, felt the tenderness as much as the hunger when he’d touched her.
The rain came down harder, pelting her skin. She blinked through wet lashes, willing him to say something—anything that would stop the ache in her chest from cracking her wide open.
“What do you want from me, Briana?” Impatience flared in his eyes.
Hurt and anger boiled inside her, sweeping away the longing she’d clung so hard to. She raised her chin. “The truth.”
“The truth is that I’m nothing more than the pawn of a goddess and neither one of us can ever forget that.”
“No.” She took a step toward him, sliding her hands up to frame his face. “It doesn’t have to be like that. We can find a way—”
“Don’t be stupid. There is no way and even if there was…” He let out a breath, then pulled her hands away from him. “Whatever you thought you felt, it was nothing more than a spell.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he snapped.
She shook her head, the sting of tears burning behind her eyes. “I know you want to be with me.”
He let go of her hands. “Like I wanted to be with you back then?”
At the festival centuries ago…when he’d broken her heart.
Flinching, she stumbled away from him. “This is different.” It had to be.
His gaze softened and eyes that had held such heat and desire reflected only pity now. “Not for me.”
Briana retreated beyond his reach, every step threatening to break her. “Then I guess you were right.” She forced the words out, forced herself to believe them. “You’re not the knight I remember.”
“I was never the knight you remember.” He turned his back on her.
His name rose to her lips, but she pressed them together until they burned. She didn’t wait for him to reach the door before she turned away. He didn’t try to stop her when she walked away from him this time, and she didn’t expect him to.
He’d made his choice.
Go after her.
The compulsion pounded through Lucan’s brain until he wasn’t sure if it was the wraith’s need or his own.
He glanced back at the empty alley, his gut twisting hard. He shouldn’t have let her walk away like that, shouldn’t have…
Fuck! He drove his fist into the brick wall. The sound of bone cracking and the flare of teeth-grinding pain that followed didn’t compare to the weight of longing and guilt crushing his chest.
“If you need to hit something, I can go find Tristan.”
He glanced over his shoulder where Mac stood just inside the door. Lucan faced the wall again, bracing his hands on the wet brick, wishing the sight of his bloodied knuckles could make up for what he’d just done to Briana.
He cleared his throat. “How lo
ng have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.” The door shut quietly as Mac joined him in the alley.
Lucan didn’t bother asking where the wolf had left his shirt. Half the Pendragon’s crowd was probably in the same boat. His own shirt was ripped, a stark reminder of what happened between he and Briana. He closed his bleeding hand, welcoming the bite of pain.
“If it makes you feel better, whatever you’re thinking about yourself, Briana is probably being much more creative.”
He shot his friend a dark look.
“You could always go after her.”
“And say what? Sorry some bitch goddess turned me into monster that could just as soon kill you as kiss you?”
“Actually,” Mac began, sinking onto a crate and resting his head against the wall. “I was gonna suggest ‘sorry that some enchantresses fucked with everybody’s head tonight’.”
Lucan blew out a breath.
“But your story is much more interesting.” He leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees. “I wasn’t so far off the mark earlier, was I?”
“Does it matter? Like you said, an enchantress fucked with everybody’s head tonight.”
Mac nodded. “Maybe not everybody’s.”
Lucan flexed his good hand, thinking about punching the wall again. Briana had been affected by the spell, same as everyone else. He’d watched the change come over her inside the bar. Maybe for a minute there the past and present had blurred the lines beyond the enchantress’s magic, but that was all.
“Spell or not,” Mac added, as if reading his mind, “what else could you tell her? That you’d move heaven and earth to find a way to be with her?” Mac shook his head. “That would give her nothing but false hope and put her at risk.”
Lucan said nothing.
“Rhiannon would just as soon compel you to kill Briana if she thought it would hurt you.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he snapped.
Knowing that was the only thing that held him in check when she’d walked away. He didn’t deserve her. He knew that. But when he was with her, when he held her close enough she felt almost a part of him, he could almost convince himself that someday he’d earn the right to claim her as his own.
“Once the spell fully wears off…” Mac trailed off, frowning. He glanced at the door, and Lucan wasn’t sure they were still talking about him and Briana anymore. “Do you know what I loved best about Arthur?”
The change in subject had him watching Mac carefully. “That you could drink him under the table?”
Mac laughed. “That he persevered. First with his childhood and that bitch of a half-sister, proving to everyone, even himself, that he was a force to be reckoned with. Then with wielding Excalibur and uniting everyone, winning Gwen.” He gave Lucan a rueful smile. “And going to war with Mordred. It didn’t matter what it was, he always found a way.”
“Arthur’s gone.”
“For now,” Mac said quietly, “but what he taught us, what he believed in, stuck, for better or worse.”
“You just said—” Lucan cut in, knowing what Mac was getting at.
“I know what I said. I know that Briana staying far away from you is best for her. I didn’t say that it was best for you.”
Lucan couldn’t bring himself to argue the point, letting silence fall between them.
Mac let out a breath and nodded to his hand. “What’s up with that?”
Lucan stared at the cuts still oozing blood and frowned. They should have begun healing already. He touched his stomach, reminded of how long the wound from the Fae warrior had taken to heal.
He ripped off a section of his shirt to wrap around his hand.
“Where are you going?”
Not until Mac spoke did Lucan realize he’d started down the alley. “I have to make sure she gets home okay.” He couldn’t stay here and pretend that the hurt in her eyes when he’d insisted he didn’t feel the same wasn’t already haunting him.
Mac stood and walked toward the door. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
Briana clenched her fists until her claws bit into her palms. Despite the cold rain, the few tears that managed to escape scalded her cheeks. Soaked, and shivering from everything but the rain, she forced herself to keep walking, embracing the anger over the hurt—anything to keep from feeling like she was broken inside.
In the back of her mind she knew there was something else she needed to think about, something important, but it was impossible to concentrate on anything other than replaying the scene with Lucan in her head.
The rain didn’t ease until she was a few blocks away from Pendragon’s. She could have used her phone to call for a ride, but that would mean facing questions she couldn’t answer. Preferring to be alone, she stuck with trudging through the rain, fighting the cat’s instinct to return to Lucan’s side.
Gargoyles became one of the Forgotten, those forever locked in their animal form, for less than being shunned by a mate. Would that happen to her? Would her animal side eventually become so unstable that she’d ignore her humanity altogether? Would the cat gradually coax her into hiding away from the rest of the world, until she forgot everything but sheer animal instinct? Or worse, pose such a risk to others that she’d need to be put down?
A flicker of movement ahead snagged her attention, and she ground to a halt on the sidewalk. A dot of green blinked like a drunken firefly, weaving through the dark toward her.
The cat growled, having had its fill of magic for one night. A dozen feet away the dot stopped, hovering mid-air. Maybe it was harmless—
“Briana!”
Lucan? She didn’t turn at the sound of his voice. Like a missile locked on target, the dot shot toward her. The burst of green slammed into her chest, knocking her off her feet.
She braced herself, anticipating a collision with the unforgiving sidewalk—and bounced on a soft mattress instead.
Heart pounding, she rolled off the bed and dropped into a crouch, her claws raking the stone floor beneath her.
Gone was the dark rainy neighborhood she knew as well as any program code she built from the ground up. No closed store fronts, parked cars or dim street lights barely holding the night at bay.
She didn’t recognize the sparsely furnished room she crouched in, her gaze skimming over the stone walls, aged wardrobe and marble vanity tucked in one corner.
If this was in any way her brothers’ idea of a joke, one of them—possibly all three—was going to lose a few entrails. It would be poor timing on their part, and she couldn’t imagine that after hearing Lucan was her mate that they’d be up for playing games.
Wary, she stood—and immediately winced. She carefully tugged at her damp cargo pants until she exposed the brand on her hip.
What the hell?
The symbol inked into her skin in black and red mirrored the cross-like Fae glyph she’d been unable to identify. Except now she knew it wasn’t Fae in origin at all.
It was the symbol of the Gauntlet.
She shook her head, struggling to recall what bits and pieces she knew of the millennia-old competition. One hadn’t even taken place in her lifetime. She studied the glyph closely.
Emma could be wrong. The sorceress had been drinking after all. The symbol might not have anything at all to do with the Gauntlet, immortal games that always signaled the start of the next Campaign.
It made sense though. With some talking about Avalon being on the cusp of another Campaign, the next Gauntlet couldn’t be far away. The deadly competition always marked the start of a war that left only casualties and no clear victor. Campaigns simply ended when the warring gods grew bored of fighting.
Her stomach churned at the possibility, but she didn’t let herself jump to conclusions. Maybe she’d drawn the glyph wrong or maybe Emma was way off base. Whoever had brought her here—the same Fae warrior who attacked them in the underground lot?—could have simply liked the look of the glyph.
Lucan.
&n
bsp; He’d called her name, hadn’t he? On the street before she’d wound up here. Or had she imagined that?
How could she have been so wrong about him? And so supremely stupid to let herself believe maybe he felt the same way.
How many times would she open up to him only to have him throw her feelings back at her like they didn’t matter? She should have learned the first time instead of foolishly convincing herself things had changed because he was her mate.
She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
She took a deep breath, then another. If she wanted to figure out where she was and why she’d been brought here, she needed a clear head. She couldn’t afford to think about what happened or where that left her.
Instead, Briana focused on her surroundings. Her gaze slid over the furniture once more. The wooden door opposite her was the only way in or out of the room unless she counted the mirror on the vanity.
If it had been enchanted by a Fae she could use it to cross the veil into Avalon. That was assuming she wasn’t already in Avalon. The room didn’t offer any clues either way, making it impossible to rule anything out.
Across the room, the door creaked open.
Tension snapped down her spine and she instantly sifted through the new scents—dampness, earth, ash. A dragon probably. And…wet dog? Obviously a wolf had been in the area. Were they her captors? Or had others been taken?
Wary, she approached the door. Outside the same dull gray stones lined the hallway, the corridor stretching on in both directions with no visible end.
Following the dragon and wolf scents, she went right. She passed three other empty rooms, then took the stairs she only noticed when she was a moment from toppling down them. She backtracked a few steps, briefly appreciating the illusion that made the staircase appear to be part of the hallway.
The curved staircase made it impossible to see an attack coming more than a few feet in advance. She’d made few enemies compared to her brothers, but her family’s support of Rhiannon by entrusting the goddess with two Arthurian daggers they’d found had pissed off a good number of immortals.
Some immortals simply didn’t believe Rhiannon wanted to see the prophecy of Arthur’s awakening fulfilled, insisting she craved Excalibur’s power for herself. Which didn’t make sense to Briana, seeing as Rhiannon was already a goddess.
Primal Temptation Page 7
