Initially, Claire had vowed not to eat, not to touch a morsel of food brought to her. Pathetically, her resolve had not lasted beyond breakfast. She had managed to turn up her nose at the fresh fruit and steaming oatmeal, but not the heaping mound of creamy pasta salad strewn with shrimp and sun-dried tomatoes. Claire couldn’t resist. Nor could she leave the thick wedge of chocolate cheesecake uneaten. Only further proof that the lycan instinct overpowered her will. Her stomach rumbled and Claire couldn’t help wondering when dinner would arrive.
As if in answer to her thoughts, the door opened.
Claire lurched from the bed, bare feet sinking into the plush carpet as she braced herself. She still wore Gideon’s jacket but had wrapped a chenille throw around her bottom half in an attempt at modesty.
The housekeeper stood in the door’s threshold, her sherry brown eyes glittering with malice. Not lycan eyes. That was some comfort at least. “Time to shower,” she announced gruffly. “Follow me.”
Claire followed. Willingly. Locked up since yesterday, she felt sticky and welcomed the prospect of a shower. It would feel good to be clean again. Even better if she had fresh clothes.
Thinking that it wouldn’t hurt to have an ally, Claire hurried to walk beside the stern-faced housekeeper. “What’s your name?”
The woman stared straight ahead, the slight thinning of her lips the only indication she even heard the question.
“I’m Claire,” she volunteered.
After a long moment, the housekeeper offered her name. “Helen.”
“Helen.” Claire stopped her with a hand on her arm and searched the woman’s apathetic face for some hint of emotion. Her cold, flat gaze never even blinked. “You know what he is, don’t you?”
Helen quirked her eyebrow in silence.
Claire pressed a hand to her chest. “What I am?”
“Yes,” she answered coldly.
“Then, you know I need your help.”
Stone-faced, Helen stepped around Claire and continued down the hall. “That’s what Master Darius is doing. Helping you.”
Claire scowled and fell in step beside her. “No, he’s not.”
“He’s saving you from hurting others…and from damnation.” Helen stopped and pushed open a door, gesturing inside. “You should be thanking him.”
“You’re brainwashed,” Claire accused. “You know what will happen when we’re locked together—”
“Have you taken a good look at Darius?” Helen’s eyes raked Claire coolly, critically. “You could do a lot worse.”
“Of course,” she mocked. “I should drop down and kiss his feet in gratitude.”
Loyalty burned with bright fervor in Helen’s eyes. And something else. Not just loyalty. “Watch how you speak about Master Darius.”
With a jolt, Claire realized the middle-aged woman was in love with him.
As if realizing she had revealed too much, Helen straightened and said defensively, “He saved me. Twenty-five years ago. I used to be a real looker then.” Her eyes swept over Claire scornfully. “Better than you. I begged him to turn me, but he said he would not corrupt an innocent.”
Helen’s coldness suddenly made sense. She was jealous. Of Claire.
The housekeeper went on, “One night walking home from work a lycan got it into his head to take me home with him. I was to be his dinner. But first I was his toy—” She shrugged abruptly, as if it were a simple ordeal, but Claire knew it had to have been traumatic. “Darius saved me,” Helen finished. “I owe him everything. I chose to devote my life to serving him.”
Claire studied the older woman’s face, easily detecting a former prettiness buried beneath the sagging skin and age lines. She also saw something else. Heartache. The pain of unrequited love. She released a deep sigh. No wonder Darius appointed this woman his watchdog. She was his disciple. As loyal as they come. Claire would get no help from her.
Sighing, Claire walked past Helen and entered the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Once inside the spacious cream-tiled bathroom, she turned on the shower, dropped the chenille throw, and removed Gideon’s jacket, instantly missing his familiar scent. Steam gusted out of the shower, but as she turned to step inside she caught her reflection in the mirror.
The sight startled her. Those eyes—she refused to think of them as hers—stood out starkly against her pale face, a haunting reminder of what she had become. Of what she was becoming. Her hair was a wild tangle about her shoulders and body. And her body…well, it looked different. Thinner, leaner. Amazing considering everything she had been eating lately.
She splayed a hand across her rib cage in awe. She’d never been exactly overweight, but her ribs had never jutted out from her skin before. She angled her head, inspecting herself further in the fogging mirror. It wasn’t only the weight loss, she decided. Her body seemed toned, muscles sharply defined. A certain vitality hummed from her skin. Not a bad thing, she concluded, then frowned. No, not bad. But not her. Not Claire. It had to be the lycan, readying her body as the full moon drew nearer.
Everything was different. She was different. The woman Gideon made love to wasn’t the real Claire Morgan. That conclusion soured the sweet memories as nothing else could. What would happen if the curse were broken? If she returned to her old self? A shadow everyone overlooked? A shadow Gideon would overlook? No. Her hand curled into a fist at her side. She would hang on to this new Claire…while ridding herself of the curse.
Stepping into the shower, she let the water pound against her skin. She sniffed the salon shampoo before applying it to her hair and working it into a thick lather. Time vanished as she stood beneath the water’s spray, letting the liquid warmth permeate her body.
Shutting the water off, she stepped out and wrapped herself in one of the fluffy white towels. She grabbed a second one off the rack and rubbed her hair. It took a moment to realize the jacket and chenille throw were missing. Gone. Someone had entered the bathroom while she showered and taken them.
A sexy little black number hung from a hanger on the back of the door. On the counter sat a tiny pile of black lace. With two fingers, she lifted the impossibly small panties. G-string. Briefly, she considered rebelling and not wearing the clothes left for her. But then she reconsidered. Why not look her best and use her wiles to get what she wanted from Darius? It might go a long way in convincing him to help her.
She slipped into the lingerie and black dress, towel-drying her hair before using the mousse on the counter to tame her locks. She availed herself of the cosmetics displayed on a glass tray. Stepping back, she assessed herself, pleased with the smokiness of her eyes and glossy pout to her lips.
Minutes later the door opened and Claire couldn’t help wondering if Helen had been listening for the water to stop.
Helen’s gaze flitted over her, narrowing in displeasure. Claire guessed she hadn’t been in charge of her wardrobe. “This way,” was all she muttered.
Claire followed her downstairs to a large dining room and a linen covered table set for two. Darius stood with his back to her, the profile of his coldly handsome face gazing emotionlessly out a set of French doors overlooking a garden. Claire felt a stab of relief. Here was her chance to reason with him.
He turned, his frosty gaze skimming her in approval. “Thank you, Helen,” he said softly. “That will be all.”
Helen nodded and departed.
“Do you like the dress?” Darius asked, approaching her with his pantherlike gait, his broad chest and shoulders rippling against his black shirt. “I chose it especially for you. You look beautiful.” He held out her chair for her.
She stared at where his broad hands rested on the back of her chair, noticing they were marked with several scars—clearly from his previous life. His life before he became a lycan. She moved and lowered herself into the seat. Swallowing, she opened her mouth and began. “I want you to let me go.”
He settled into his chair. “To return to your lycan hunter?” Uncorking a bottle of wine, he
reached for her glass. “He will kill you, you know.”
“He was trying to help me.”
Darius lifted a dark brow skeptically. “Is that what he was doing when I found you and saved you?”
She flushed. “He could have killed me long ago.”
“I’m certain,” he smoothly cut in, adding, “and taking you to his bed is all part of his plan to save you.”
Claire reached for her wine glass, suddenly needing to do something with her hands. “What I chose to do is none of your business.”
He chuckled softly. “But it is. We’re bonded, Claire. Linked in a way that you will soon understand.”
She sipped the dark, sweet red wine. It was good and she was thirsty. She had to stop herself from gulping the entire glass down. She needed her wits tonight if she was going to convince Darius to let her go.
He set his glass back down and covered the top of her hand with his own. “Lycan agents kill lycans. They don’t save them. They don’t bend. Has it occurred to you that he might be toying with you?”
“No.” Despite the denial, she felt doubt sink in. She slid her hand from beneath his.
Sighing, he stood and removed a gleaming silver lid from the serving platter to reveal a roasted rack of lamb.
“Let’s consider your chances,” he said as he served her, his movements elegant and smooth. “The lycan who infected you is dead.”
She stabbed a succulent-looking new potato with her fork without answering.
“Any idea who infected him? What pack he belonged to? The alpha of his pack?”
She shook her head.
“Then how is it you think this lycan hunter can save you?”
She hated his even, placating tone, as if he were trying to prove something logical to a child who failed to see reason.
“What other hope do I have?”
“Me,” he volunteered, his gaze drilling into her, his arctic gaze intense.
With his earlier avowal that they would mate ringing in her ears, she said, “No, thanks.”
“I’m offering you protection. I can keep you from killing. Your soul doesn’t have to be lost.”
Claire split an oven-warm roll in half, tendrils of steam rising from it. “Like yours is.”
He nodded. “No one ever offered me such a chance. It wasn’t even available to me when I first turned.”
“And when was that?”
“The year 790. I was a monk at Lindisfarne Abbey.”
“A monk?”
His lips curved. “I suppose that would be hard for you to believe. A servant of God now damned for eternity.” His smile slipped. “We often took in pilgrims. We asked little of them, simply provided them with food and shelter. One night we took in a group. They were lycans. They attacked us in our beds. It was a blood orgy.”
“What happened to the other monks?”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Historically, Vikings were attributed with razing the monastery to the grounds.”
“And that first full moon you fed?”
“Yes. And for countless moons after. I was lost to the curse.”
“What made you stop?”
He averted his face, staring toward the French doors and the branches dancing in the breeze. “Someone died that shouldn’t have. I extended my protection to a human, made it known within my pack that no harm was to come to her.”
“And your pack killed her anyway?”
His silver gaze cut back to her. “No. But they made certain I did.”
A chill blew through her heart at his words. “Can you guarantee I’ll never escape? That I’ll never infect someone else, even accidentally?”
“There are no such guarantees.”
She leaned back in her chair, dropping her fork onto her plate with a clatter, frustration getting the better of her. “Then let me go. If Gideon can’t help me, I’ll gladly let him kill me. I won’t risk innocent lives. You should understand that.”
“It’s your heart talking, not your head.” He shook his head fiercely, black hair shaking wildly. “I won’t release you. The day will come that you will appreciate what I’m doing.”
“Stop treating me like a child who doesn’t know any better.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
“If you do this to me…” Claire paused to gain control of her wavering voice. “I’ll hate you every day that we’re together.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
There was no getting through to him. Despite the hunger still rumbling in her belly, she pushed back her chair and stood. “I’m going to my room.” She turned to leave, but his voice stopped her cold.
“You’re in love with him.”
She stiffened but didn’t turn around.
He continued, his voice cutting across the distance like a whip. “You think he can save you. That he’ll stop anything bad from happening to you. He won’t. He only used you, putting off what he always intended to do. He will—”
“Kill me?” she snapped.
“That’s right.”
“Let him,” she declared, forcing her feet to carry her out of the dining room even as she marveled at how she could say those words. Because in her heart she didn’t mean them. She didn’t want Gideon to kill her. No. She wanted him to love her.
Gideon sat in Cooper’s leather desk chair and pulled up the profile archives. A rare breeze fluttered through the curtains at the open window and ruffled his hair. He stopped and listened for a moment, the sound of a diesel engine outside increasing in volume. The drone faded, blending in with the evening’s other midtown traffic, and he relaxed.
Gideon’s fingers resumed flying over the keyboard. He would have broken in to Cooper’s house sooner—yesterday, when that bastard first took Claire, but Cooper had been home.
Only board administrators like Cooper had home access to the NODEAL database, and this was his best shot at finding Claire. Logging on with Cooper’s password had been easy. He’d seen Cooper type it in countless times.
Typing the name Darius into the search engine, he instantly accessed an extensive file—one that also linked to the files of several other lycans. Gideon’s stomach plummeted as he scanned the information, confirming what he already knew. Darius was one old son of a bitch. Circa 800 AD. Last spotted 1870, New York City. Pack: unknown. Current whereabouts: unknown.
Hell, Gideon knew more than that. At least he knew what city the bastard lived in.
Had Claire already suffered untold indignities at his hands? His throat thickened. It was his fault. With a leaden heart he shut off the computer and crawled back out the window.
Chapter Eighteen
Females are selective when it comes to choosing a mate, even when in season.
—Man’s Best Friend:
An Essential Guide to Dogs
H elen entered without knocking.
“Good afternoon,” Claire said dryly, propping herself up on the bed with her elbow, smoothing her sundress around her legs. “Come to glare again?”
“Darius wants you to walk the gardens with him.”
Claire looked out the window as if considering the idea. It was a beautiful day. Not a cloud in sight. The blue so bright it hurt her eyes. The idea of stepping outside held its appeal. She’d been cooped up for two days. But his steadfast refusal to help her still pricked her temper. “No.” Her voice came out hard, clipped, implacable.
“No?” Clearly, Helen had not expected a refusal. She shook her head, scowling. “Darius wants you to walk with him. You have to come.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” Leaning back on the bed, she folded her arms behind her head.
Helen clenched her fists at her sides and looked inclined to physically toss Claire off the bed.
Confident that she could overpower the woman, Claire lifted an eyebrow and challenged, “Think you can make me?”
With a grunt, Helen spun around and marched out of the room. The lock sounded behind her.
Seconds pa
ssed until Darius’s arrival. Claire eyed his scowl, feeling a flash of satisfaction to see she had cracked his implacable exterior.
His lips pressed into a hard, inflexible line. “Walk with me.”
“No,” she shot back. “I want to go home.”
“This is your home now.”
“No!” Tired of everything in her life being out of her hands, she pounded a fist against the mattress. “I can spend eternity in these walls, but it will never be home to me.”
He strode across the room and yanked her off the bed, reminding her just how strong he was, how dangerous.
“I’ve been patient with you thus far.”
“I can think of several choice descriptions for you—patient isn’t one of them.”
“Indeed?” His gaze crawled over her face, studying her as if she were some strange creature, a bug under a microscope that he’d never seen before. “Would you like to see me truly impatient? Make a comparison?” His voice was soft. Too soft. The hairs on her neck prickled. She wiggled to get free, alarmed at the change in him, as if something had been unleashed.
He brought her flush against him, his hands rough. “I don’t have to wait for the full moon, you know. Four days is a long time to wait for something I want…for something I can have right now.”
She struggled harder, realizing she had been foolish to provoke him. He had lulled her into thinking he was nonviolent. A packless lycan that chose not to feed, not to kill. She had pushed him too far. He was still very much a wild animal. Soulless.
Darius shoved her back on the bed, his body following her down, crushing her into the mattress. She whimpered at the heavy weight of him driving her into the bed and beat against his chest and shoulders.
“I’d rather have you human anyway,” he muttered against her throat, his lips warm, surprisingly soft. The beast within her stirred and she knew in that instant she could let him have her, take her physically, and not hate it.
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